9.23.14 Being Loved

Being loved. Being devoted to. Having people devoted to you, Knowing you. Knowing who you are. So deeply.And loving and caring and wanting to know and wanting to give to you and care for you .Even when you no longer are able to do the same for them.
Is almost as painful as beauty is , from all that is good and lovely and remarkable, in the world.
It causes you to bump into all that never happened. All the times there was none of this. None of this love. 

You slowly learn to open your heart ,and accept it; without giving back the same or more. 

In the past, knowing you've made a good deposit and are safe, for now. it seems that's what the feeling is- of mistaking security for giving more than you receive. Or trying to. Or feeling like you are. Mistakenly seeing things from that odd, not so , perspective. 

How challenging, to old assumptions and acrid learned ways ,from so long ago. 

Things change, and we can't always do what we once did. If we are blessed to live long enough , this becomes an inevitability. If we become ill unexpectedly, it happens sooner

And it still remains satisfying and meaningful and lovely for people to know you. 

To care for you.To care about you.To think of you.To give to you. Over and over and over. Here is the astonishing complexity. The astounding reality. And at the very same time, so it is so very painful.
Because here we are. Being loved. Accepted. Delighted in. Despite not being able to give back the way we would like.

It's a stark contradiction. A stark contradiction to everything some of us were taught growing up , about who we were. What we were and were not worth. And how and why. A marked contradiction.
And in order to accept this. With grace and gratitude. Necessitates acknowledging, bit by bit, the times of no love. The times of cruelty. 

To hold them in our arms, those sad times, And love them and care for them, so that as we comfort them, and bear witness , they compost. Each and every time. 

They fall into little pieces, and then our arms empty. 

We unfold our arms away from us , and one more sad tragic cold moment fades into the universe, into God's love, into All That Is.

It composts. And becomes something new. It transforms, it does. By our very awareness. Our beloved consciousness. Into a rich new fertilizer. A nourishing healing fertilizer. For All That Is.

9.23.14 Here we are, nearing the very end of September

Here we are, nearing the very end of September, days 70°; nights 45. Tumbling along, into real fall.

Seems slow to approach-am I wrong? 

And yes, all of the wild underbrush of the forests are turning remarkable shades of so many colors. 

Late bloomers of the wild variety burst forth in a sudden flame of fruition; and then quickly diminish and fall away, disappearing until next year at this time.

We stroll down the Kestral Lane, as this part of the world seriously nears sunset.

In one minute, the sun is turning the vast pale crowds a bright pink. Next second, as we turn the corner and reach the fields, Dante re-leashed, in case of wild things, all the pink has disappeared. And pale blue clouds , as pale as a baby soft blanket, scatter across the sky.

The wind picks up intermittently, and every leaf surrounding me flutters in a beautiful dance, tracking the breeze traveling from right , slowly across me and the lane and all the living things - toward left, past the old fence, and beyond, the shorn field… 

The strangely beautiful lone Alpaca guarding the sheep, yearling horses kicking up their heels and playing, before heading back to the shelter for the evening. 

And the goats of white and butterscotch being tended, in their barn.

 

Luckily, Dante knows of none of this. And I hope this remains so. 

We turn away from the winds in the trees ; the leaves moving in unison with the breeze, 

We turn away from the baby blue clouds over the flat green field , that must bring such delicious delight to deer and other creatures, in fall, and winter.

We turn and head back up the dark lane, Dante bringing me sticks of every size; me tossing them back behind us or forward, as he enjoys being off leash once again.

 

 

I study the left side of the path, looking for the unusual blue wildflower I saw the other day. And finally, come upon it. Past it's ripening, the buds I suppose never open, it's not its way. Lovely formation.

I attached the dog to leash once more, and we approach the road, carefully popping him in the car. 

And there, spread out in front of me, still are pink clouds, racing across the horizon.

The sunshine a distant memory. The darkness a comforting softening upon us all.

9.22.14 Sitting With What Is Uncomfortable. And After That?

 Radical acceptance  does not necessarily mean feeling better, but rather,  simply sitting with what is  uncomfortable. And after some time with that?

Changing our focus of the moment. Turning ourselves toward something else . A new focus.

     For survivors, physically moving ourselves from one spot to another…in to outside. One room or place to another. Because once we couldn’t. And now we can.

     Sometimes the bright early morning may feel so weighted and blunted. And so we pick ourselves up, embrace ourselves with a smile we find somewhere or other, and turn ourselves toward something new; something fresh, something away from the stuckness of the thick and the blunt and the uncomfortable.

     Something that reflects so many other vantage points that we actually can access, if we simply take ourselves to the left a bit, or turn ourselves toward the sunrise, or change our morning routine, or sing a bright song on the way to work, with vigor J , annoying the heck out of ourselves, as we pull ourselves from the muck, and back on track.

  

9.21.14 Seems Our Lives Are Recipes Too

It's very difficult to have the courage to figure out how to have a nourishing life, 
in a way that fits our health and our habits of energy and our schedules.

 But it's really possible. It's simpler than it seems. And it really truly buffers us from health problems of many kinds.

It's a lot like a recipe for bread. You don't want it to be some loaf that crumbles so you can't slice it. Or so tough and dry and hard that you can slice it but you can hardly bite into it. Something in between. 

So you often have to work at it, messing around with the recipe,
to figure out how to make the bread that works best for you.
Seems our lives are recipes too.

9/21/14 Mist Is Shrouding The Long Expanse Of Mountain Range, Still, At Noon

Mist is shrouding the long expanse of the mountain range, still, at noon; 

as a long line of cars patiently moves behind a farmer's tractor, 

pulling haying equipment, 

so that all of us can eat. 


Farmstands bustle with a colorful rich harvest, 





while the once grid-locked Fleamarket slowly 
dwindles to its close .

Come dark, out amongst the stars, you catch the sounds of the outside parties, 
with bands, down the hill and around the curving road, 
at Mitch's Marina, 

all the RV folk living there and the boaters , too,
 enjoying the last few flings of fun and easy warm times 
and outdoor lights and dance. 

All before the nascent Fall, and then deep Winter, 
slowly pulls us tight into their cold dark arms.

9.21.14 The Muse- A Grand Thing, and Agile

It's no wonder it's so often been
called Muse, seen as ‘Other’;

Summoned fervently in prayer 

That we hope it will stick around

the creative dynamic
settling itself, turning twice as a

contented cat in a

favorite  plush chair

making itself at home, and remain to
wake close by our side in

morning’s indistinguishable light

then fall quiet, cleaving

up close to us through the night 

How amazed we become when we

slowly grow up with the

 daily awareness  that

something or someone

resides inside of us that

unfurls at the mere hint of l

oss or delight

or longing or misgiving; it

Hinges upon all our experience ; it
breathes as we breathe- and when
silence marks our minds

for the smallest moment as we

wake or as we pause in a

dilemma or possibly
meander down some

deep rich soil and

wetted wooded path it's

Hard stuff to contemplate being

without this part of us which has

always been there, I mean,

singing and speaking and

making up stories and

creating scripts and when you

sit down to draw, why

out grows some quiet new limb

So it’s difficult to imagine if we shall

ever be without this , which has

always been there while we

painfully grew ourselves up and

fell in love and

parented and worked and finally

began to age; we do know

many have lost this, for a few years, or

for ever more.

For it’s a grand thing, and agile , and
ferocious and proclaiming,
alerting us with secreted messages in
drawings, dreams and verse and we
know that we’re  grateful, that despite
all that's been unspeakable ,still
here is this garden that has
grown itself within us, blossoming and

Growing unimaginable

stolid long vines that reach
way to our core and then
out into the entire world, we find we
simply wish to express, with grace

our deepest and most tender
thanks

9.20.14 Warm Day, The Trees Just Beginning to Turn

Warm day, the trees just beginning to turn. 

The wind tossing the branches and gusting as it passes on through the land. 

Raptors far in the sky, wings motionless, 

riding the wind streams . 

And out we are, me the carpenter's assistant, 

as he replaces a wall in the tenants cottage. 

And talking. Laughing. 

Then his luscious Minestrone soup , 

while listening to each other's choices of music.

Evening settling over all, as the dream-like sylph clouds

slide across the horizon.