Clarity to See

I, who am never far, if ever, from my camera, passionately avoid all photos of self. But the email inquired as to how my failing eyes were doing and after giggling I could not resist. I know as long as they gift the sight of compassion I shall have clarity. For what is 20/20 if I cannot see the heart, pain, joy, and potential in either myself or another? And so I attached the picture with a little happy face icon and replied... Boo! I see you.

Dark's Light

Sometimes the dark, even when looking at a dream, makes us long for just a bit more light. We think more light would give clarity. What you cannot see in the image, is how once the artificial car lights were turned off, the brilliance of the sunset upon the lake and mountains exploded. In truth, I wasn't in the dark at all.

Frozen Dancer Dancing

I sat on the canyon's bank and listened to the thin river dancing below. I knew the river had to be fed, but after all this time did not know from where. Giving my thanks I stood to leave. The sun whispered and drew my eyes. There, never seen before, after all these many many walks was the source. Hidden in the shrubs and swells of earth I had never seen til now. It took the dance of sun, ice, and snow for me to see.

A frozen source, stilled in time. And yet the river danced and sang. Frozen in appearance. Choreographed by the drought hardened earth.  A dancing singer to observe and hear. I giggled. A most most perfect way to see this day, this new glorious year and life.

Heart Exchange

The image is of my little four legged fur angel, Dibley. I did not "buy" her. I had been thinking of getting a dog to replace one I had recently lost. I worked for a rescue group and we were called in to a puppy mill that was going out of business. Whatever dogs/puppies we did not take would be killed. With so few fosters and the condition of the dogs/puppies, we were to take only those that had the best chance of survival. We were not allowed to say a word or speak of the conditions we saw. And there she was...a little puppy so small my hand was bigger than her. Scruffy and shallow breathing, the director of the group shook her head “no,” there were others who had a much better chance.

Being the rebel hobbit I am, I slipped her into my coat pocket, and she is my delight and heart five years hence. Her lack of early nutrition harmed her little brain and body in some ways, but no greater heart or softer eyes have I ever known. She sits in my lap so very quiet when I meditate and knows when the gong is heard it’s time for kisses.

She is my reminder that all that comes into our lives has a chain linked to others and the earth. We do not BUY things, pets, or love... all we bring into our lives is an exchange of the heart.

Karios Magic

The plane was packed on Christmas Eve. The line of passengers and luggage stuffed in the overheads made me think of clowns in a circus stuffing themselves into a tiny car. A young woman paused to let her child sit between she and I. I smiled but no recognition was returned. Their coats were too thin for the winter. Her very presence, coughing, watery eyes and flushed face painted the image of a mother not feeling well. She all but collapsed in her seat. The little one's excitement was quickly met with a stern "Be quite!" I stared out the window as the plane rolled across the runway and then to see the earth get smaller and smaller.

Glancing at the mother I saw she had fallen asleep. The little one clutched her toy, eyes fixed forward and tears rolling down her cheek. I nudged her with my elbow and smiled. Hesitant she just stared. For the next hour we played silently with her doll and magical creatures we created with my gloves. The coffee stirrer became a magic wand. A napkin became a cape and her doll learned to fly. Only a few soft whispers were exchanged. As the plane landed the little one's eyes looked up with such wonder and awe I almost cried. The mother took her hand and wearily said "Let's go." I gathered one of her bags to hand to her and in her hand I pressed all the Christmas cash I had brought me. With a wink to the little one, I waved the magic stirrer. To this day I still hear her giggle. There a moments now, over 4 decades later, that when I open my wallet I still see her eyes.

We can think of time as chronos - linear, always rushing forward ticking away seconds we cannot get back. Or, we can think of time as karios - the pregnancy of the moment filled with opportunity, possibility, love, and being. The picture attached looks like a magical forest. Or, you could see the truck that passed by stirring dust upon my body and in my eyes. Our journeys require different eyes and different ways of measuring time. The forest IS magical. A 60 minute plane ride has spanned 4 decades. A plastic stirrer still makes my heart laugh with magic. Today, may you hear only the ticking of karios and know the magic of time filled with presence, love, an open heart, and possibility. The magic of karios.

Focused Sight

Almost unseen the winter fog so thick. Tis but the combination of air, temperature, and moisture creating that which we call frost and fog. No story attached save the gentle touch and dance. To think first of how my failing eyes see the world as a fog. Then to giggle and see again. Tis not a lack or absence, it is but the dance of nature and her ever so soft gentle touch. I can in fact see as long as I see the dance.

Doubting Not

Oh, doubt not her fullness. Nor your own.

Gifted Softness

No greater tip could be left for one who carried out the banquet for nature's small ones to eat. A soft reminder the feather is on the ground but the winged bird is still in flight. A gentle touch from nature to nature, a small blanket offering warmth to the snow and earth. May my touch upon the earth be so simple, be so gentle.

Tags Released

The sweet joy of sitting in meditation before dawn. The stillness of love gifted within and without. All was broken by the scratching of my shirt’s tag against my neck. I started to reach and move the tag but stopped when I noticed how tense my body had become. I was not silent. I had become angry at the tag. In its silent scratching it had deafened my heart and stiffened my body. My mind had raced to fear that this was not a good omen for the day. It was just a tag. It was just a tag. And somehow it had transformed into something more than cloth and threads ever dared to think they would be. I sat with the tag, befriending what it simply was. A laughter meditation, but ever so humbling. A lesson best gently learned from a little tag, than with others, beliefs, and life. And when the unstilled stilled sitting was done, to leave a soft feather of trust and gratitude to this tag…releasing all others not made with cloth.

The Eyes Have It

A function of the camera's eye. How long the eye is allowed to remain open. How much light is allowed in. How close or distant one chooses to see. This is not where I began my view of autumn's full moon. The second picture is what caught my eye. But when I drew the camera's eye back this is what I saw. It is the same moon. Perhaps a whispered reminder of light and the choices I and eyes have.

Changing Strokes

A true morning giggle and opened eyes. Is the image a duck or a rabbit? If I see one and then the other, has the image changed? Each stroke the same, not a one moves yet change is what I see. Perhaps Wittgenstein was drawing neither. And if my brain's perception can be so fooled by simple strokes, how does it see others, events, actions, even my body in a mirror, and the cornucopia of Life itself? 

*image retrieved from http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/glue/longman/2/duck.gif

Hands of Curiosity

If only there had not been exams and grades. The dreaded red pencil upon the papers turned in. For some reason I have wondered just what the world looks like through a microscope. To imagine the galaxies and worlds that exists right now that I cannot see. The opportunity was lost in school as the dreaded red pen of judgment transformed curiosity, openness and seeing into an object lesson of trying to please. 

I have no microscope so the worlds remain unseen. But before me now a cricket hops and suddenly looks like a moth as it flies from here to there. Three evergreen sentinels stand firm and still while an elm tree is dancing softly like a lace curtain behind an open window. A few yellow leaves are the scouts of fall. A roofer’s hammer mimics a woodpecker. I wonder if he hums while he works. A single leaf looks like two. And beneath all I see are the galaxies and universes streaming that I cannot see but this morning to feel. No dreaded red pen today! There is no right or wrong way to look and see! The only question on today’s test and journal is “Look little one! Look! Tell me, do you see the wonder, the awe the absolute abundance about you!” Curiosity is the hands that opens the gifts.

Unveiled Gifts

I sit to savor my coffee, the glorious ahhhh morning and the incredible pre-fall breeze. But I am hot. The breeze is not blowing in the right direction to enter the windows. I chuckle at myself. Because the breeze does not suit me, nature is mis-queued. I notice the piece of paper next to me looks to be breathing with its gentle rise and fall. My chuckle becomes a bellowed laugh. Nature is trying to gift her delicious touch. The curtain has drooped and caught the breeze flowing towards me.

Today, sweet Life, may I with gentle hands, move all curtains within and without that would block the breeze.  

Life Startled Alive

As the sun rose the clouds were definitely fall schooners. With sun rise summer returned. Then to see the first flock of migrating geese as the earth got warmer and fall crisp yielded to heat. May your day startle you such that you dance with Life folded, entwined and alive.

“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”

~Emily Dickinson~ 

Uncapped

I opened a journal that has amazing photos of the sky for pages. Entries would be like writing in the sky. I open the journal and giggle. What would possess me to buy a journal when even to sign my name to papers or a check is an effort for eyes that cannot see and hands that tremor and stutter? To ponder a mystical path is to imagine a path of magic, images never seen, trees never touched, grasses and earth beckoning the souls of my feet, and plants reaching for the touch of my fingers. A mystical path that transforms illusion into reality. To step on the path is to leave the world of illusion - labels, fears, restrictions, judgment - and enter the reality of infinite possibilities from which one can choose.It is the path of choice. It is the path of sight. The pages whisper trust. The pen whispers embrace. My hands whisper dance, walk. My eyes whisper visible. I take off the cap and write but one word. Stroke the page. Close the journal. As I place the journal back on the shelf, my heart whispers "yes you are" and giggles. And so beginning week two I shall take with me the practical baby step of one word.....worthy.

Site of Sight

Often considered the windows of the soul, perhaps the eyes are not so much windows through which we see but mirrors reflecting what we feel and believe.  Through the eyes we scribe labels, see challenges, cannots, objects to fear and treasure, walls and doors all framed and colored by the iris of our mind.

To take these eyes of mine, growing more blurred and teasing shadows of floaters, to walk the mountain and lake's path, a broken bottle whispered to my heart that my eyes did not see. Using the camera to see, the image of tiny twigs reflected in the glass mirrored my sight.  Sitting I pondered the image, blurred yet somehow distinct.

As the calming warmed my heart, I realized the whisper was not a voice but the eyes of the heart.  Unconditioned by language, beliefs, labels or perceptions, knowing only unconditional Love, tis only the eyes of the Heart that truly see.  The timeless, perfect eyes of the Heart were the whisper.  And as I left the image of glass, earth and reflection, I pondered the thread of abiding in the Heart and the Eyes of Clarity, Vision and Infinity. To abide in the Site of Sight. SOS. Not a call of distress.  A Being. A call of de-stress. The Site of Sight. Abiding in the Heart to see through the Eyes of Love.

"Her eyes are homes of silent prayers" ~ Alfred Tennyson

Unseen's Dance

My right hand for 57 of my 58 years has grasped and carried things, written stories, poetry, and even my name. The last year a tremor has made those treasures all but impossible and it remains hidden in my pocket to keep others from staring. As my little heart unfolds, my spirit rises and dispels what the mind sees, I look at my hand and see not the tremor but her precious heart. And so a little paint set, sitting on a path against a tree, I whispered softly, "Dance."  And a little hand and wings soared from the mountain top to the clouds. A giggle spirit danced atop the lake below. 

Celebrate the glorious perfection that IS.

"Lookey"

Some mornings I look at the sky, only to calculate the chance of rain. There are mornings I do not look. Most mornings I see the textures, colors and shapes, the sea horses, pig heads, Snoopy, hearts and dragons.

Like a child that comes running, little hand clutching the paper flying behind their excited body, eyes filled with wonder, squealing "Look!" as they hand you their artwork, Natures squeals her whisper "Look!" And, like the child, the sweet Hands and Artist of Life, hope the artwork offered is worthy of the refrigerator in your eyes and heart.

Humble offering

I know my thoughts are ever so odd, the things that I see and the whispered scriches.  Loose threads and ramblings.

And so, I simply leave this image here, a humble pause for you to hear your own whispered scrich and what you need to see.

Namaste.

Unchanced grace

It caught my eye and bid me stay. I knelt and allowed my body to become quiet.  Venturing on, time to get back to the house, up the path I saw a woman approach.  I giggled. Her skin so white in such bright sun, shorts and a tank top, only her face was protected by her big floppy hat.  As we approached she bellowed “Hello!” I giggled out loud and bellowed back “Hello.”  

She was older than I first thought, at least my age or perhaps a bit older.  She asked if I would mind taking a picture of her “so she could see” and immediately struck a camera pose.  I giggled again, and asked if she would move to the right just a bit.  I wanted the full strength of the mountain behind her.  She moved and again struck a camera pose.  Yet another giggle, I bellowed to her “Now say ‘It is a glorious day!’” She returned my giggle, her shoulders dropped and relaxed as her hands lifted to heaven, lifting her face and big floppy hat. “It is a glorious day!”  The camera clicked.  Looking in the viewer, she said not a word, only a sigh.  My hands, for some reason, went to my heart and I bowed, “It is a glorious day. Enjoy.”  She looked at me, and with a sigh, her hands went to her own heart, and she bowed her head, “Yes, it is a glorious day.”  And we parted.

As I walked down the path I thought of the flower that bid me linger. Not really a flower, it was still a bud waiting to unfold.  If I had not paused, perhaps the lady and I would not have met.  I would have been off the path we traveled together.  I paused again and bowed to the earth and her rhythm.  Nature’s order. The gentle walk of the seasons.  To trust the pauses and then to walk… it is a glorious day…I bellowed. I may just have to buy me a big floppy hat.