4.1.17 April snows

Out in the newly fallen April snow

4.1.17 A new day arrives

warmth fostered fog sweeping across the conservation fields

as the sun crests the range.

 

4.1.17 Consider this.

     The days begin to warm the soil, loosening and softening.March rains arrive, our drought impacted lands readily swallowing the waters.
     The worms who have been wintering beneath now feel the vibration of rain upon the surface of the soil, and come up for fresh nutrients, finally, after a long winter of none.
     The newly arrived Robins catch sight of the worms surfacing and nourishing themselves, and the Robins feet on some of them, nourishing themselves also.
     The Robins spend spring and summer and part of the fall feeding upon berries and insects, and then go about spreading seed of plants far and wide. This is how it's done.
     Now, if you're old enough, like me, you will remember all the different Love Canals. You will remember the poisoned rivers.
     You will know of so many schools and low income housing constructed on toxic dumps.
     You will remember the various species going extinct.
     You'll remember the lasting harm to all of us here, and others across the globe, and the planet.
     Whether you are old enough to remember all of the dire reasons we put in place environmental protections or not, for the welfare of your children and your children's children, or simply your sincere concern for earth itself, consider reading all sorts of information, from all sorts of origins.
     Consider finding out which scientists have been studying observations and carefully gathering the most reliable information from which areas of the globe.
Consider evaluating for yourself, with your own good judgment, whether what they say actually, factually, makes sense.
     And if it makes sense to you, the references and the reviews and the information cited, well then, support those in office who are actually interested in this accuracy. These facts. These undeniable carefully valid findings and opinions. Because otherwise, this earth, and this way of life for your children's children, or even simply everyone, is becoming seriously at risk.
     No matter what jobs we can save, no matter what jobs can be afforded in the short term, there is the validity of grave concern for the future. For all.

 

4.1.17 Why not?

     Today I was sitting cross legged in bed, sorting through a huge pile. Of old magazines about health and research and medical herbalism and naturopathy. On complex lyrical gardening. Papers from when I was training practitioners, and from my practice. Papers I loved and wanted to study and write articles about and teach. So many things. 
     I finished up by reading poems by an old client of mine, who I was very fond of, an older British person ,who had a complicated life, and was an intuitive.
     I helped her before and after strikes and rehab places and inadequate back-home-alone situations. And so much more, til I got sick myself , and had to retire from being the protector.
     I smiled at things and then tossed them in the recycling pile, deciding to cut most up into scrap papers, and leave out those most tender. Why see them again and again.
     At the end, I was feeling so much loss and felt my brain chemicals begin to shift from the experience.
     Til I realized this is now, and quick off, let's sit mindfully with all this. I mean, why waste time and energy and mood, when you can honor these precious things that are part of us, and honor, too, the great sense of loss?
     So I closed my eyes and let them come, thought after emotion, saying to myself
"Ah, there, that's a thought." Or ""Yes. That. A feeling." As they streamed through me with great intensity, and then streamed on down the road.
     Leaving me here, with the tender achey vestiges.
     Truly, if we have a chance to include all we've lived and seen and been, without being caught in desperation or remorse, why not?
     Why not digest these things as they come up, so we don't need to divide ourselves against ourselves in order to manage. But rather be present, right here and right now, for what is to come.

 

4.1.17 The Remarkable Legacy of Nell Dorr

     I was describing photographer Nell Dorr to someone today. "At our girl's boarding school, we met her during fall picnics at her house.      She was an older woman then... 70's? Grey hair to her waist, she wore long dresses and beautiful capes and magnificently colored scarves around her head and neck. 

     She lived in an octagonal house, had two Irish Wolfhounds, and many doves that lived in cages built into her tall, deep living room windows . 

    Her home had been a golf course, so you would peer down past house and gardens ,to an enormous lawn, and a pond , with a row boat patiently waiting for someone. 

     When I met her, I was so transformed by her life and her photographs hanging in her home , that I wrote her a note, thanking her. Because somehow I knew she had shared this new, authentic way of being, and being honest and creative . Which turned out to be true. 

I ingested and inhaled the life I saw before me. 

     She wrote me back, sending me one of her books, beautifully inscribed. The book has traveled far and wide with me, and it is her photographs, with quotes, that meant much to her. Words and Pictures .

     I know she supported so many lives that followed in her wake, simply by being herself. 

     Who ever knows how we will be forever impacted by meeting another, or, unbeknownst to us ,impact others, as we quietly live our lives .

Photo: Nell Dorr

4.1.17 RRRRRR rrrrrrr

Out this morning, in the stinging sleet, so exciting, he could manage the race-around, but not the pee. Oh, to be a big young dog.

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