Present Presence

Nature has never failed to delight my heart when I go and seek her sanctuary. Sometimes, though, when I just go to go without asking or needing, those are the times I notice...she has a seat waiting for me. May I always have eyes to see Life's welcome.

A Smile Alive

Have you ever felt your face smile?

I fed the birds and came inside hoping the promised light snow would come and coat the drought hardened earth that had known only the shroud of blowing dust. I don't remember walking to the window, but there I was. I saw the birds hopping and fluttering around the feeder. And suddenly I felt my face smile. I could feel every muscle move, the eyes change and the body melt. Visceral and sensual as if another had touched my body, I felt the smile. No explanation needed. And the snow began to fall.

Nature's Cake and Candles

Some birthdays and celebrations are welcomed with cakes and candles. Others are welcomed alone with a quiet stillness and gentle sparkling light. Nature's soft shroud or shawl that offers a slight but strong touch of presence.

Fear is courage waiting to be seen. Weariness is but strength waiting to curl like an ocean wave. Home is but familiarizing the unknown. And the gentle snow falling like streaking candles, the diamond sparkles glistening in the night, is the celebration and birth of Now. I have now walked 240 seasons and none more precious than the one birthed with this breath.

Rooting Soil

I awakened this morning and felt my heart race. I am alive. My heart raced to see the shadows of light, to feel the floor beneath my feet, and the strength of legs and spine that held my body upright. When graced with such powerful caress all else I face becomes rooting soil.

Open Doors

Some on this day will be alone midst a gathering of family and friends. Others will be immersed in love and joy. Others like me will be immersed with none but ourselves and love filled hearts.  A day celebrated in the U.S. for giving thanks. Hopefully, one day soon needing no reminder. May we learn to awaken each morning, open the doors and say “Thank you Life! Thank you Love! The door is always open. Come in my Friend and let us give thanks.”

To all so kind to pause here, blessings and thanks given for you. Off to nature where a corn meal blessing among the mountains, snow, and migrating geese will be offered. Be well my friends. And may you know the joy of thanks.

Uncovered Song

Yesterday, she was bowed beneath the snow. This morning unseen beneath the drifts of snow wind. Have you ever heard the difference in wind as it blows across the snow covered earth? The song is so different. I stood knee high in the drift and thought I remembered where she was. Gently the snow removed and there she was. I giggled to find her again. Together we greeted the first blue sky in days and sang with the snow wind. Her image and strength will return the favor when life's drifts cover me....and we will sing again and again.

Fullness Beyond the Lens

And what picture would or could I dare to use?

This day. 

This minute. 

This second. 

This moment. 

This breath. 

Tis all there is. 

And yet it is filled with the vast infinity of life.

Waving Back

She skipped across the street to the corner where the school bus would stop. I see her every morning. Today, she turned back to the truck where her Dad was watching. She waved so vigorously her whole body swayed. Something was different. Then I saw she had a floppy stuffed animal in her hand and was waving it back and forth towards her Dad. Her smile was so big even my failing eyes could see. As the school bus approached, one last fierce wave and then she gently placed her floppy friend in her backpack, which looked way too heavy for her body. She was off to school where she would have to sit still, memorize, and be taught all the things society has decided are important. If by grace a moment to color, it would have to be done within the lines. But inside her backpack, a soft floppy but now still little reminder that she is still a child. A child of wonder, magic, laughter, joy, and such a huge smile of life and love. She’s growing up but she has a soft reminder of what counts. As the school bus drove away my arm and hand fell down into my lap. As did my own floppy stuffed animal that had been waving back.

Bronco Wonder

A rodeo morning riding the bronco of wonder, giggles and simple awe. Have you ever watched pigeons land in a whoosh and then waddle run to a clump of seed? Or a tree shaking like a wet dog spraying leaves all over the ground? Noticed how you awake to one temperature and then as the sun wakes up the temperature drops? Or laughed at a little dog dancing by the cabinet door where the breakfast food awaits? Or watched a squirrel climb the stem of a sunflower plant, fall to the ground as the stem bent and tossed him off? Then to see him stare, ponder, leap and with a chomp grab the bloom and run off with his little mouth filled with a most wonderful and delicious giant pacifier? Or even the bubbles in the sink and the rainbow gifts they offer?  Oh how to tie all these and more images together and hear a single whisper. I cannot. So I will ride the bronco of wonder, giggles, and simple awe and wish to all eyes that read… Good morning! So glad to join you this day of life alive! Sweet mercy....ain't it grand.

Into the Day! La Chaim!

To think the first light snow is now drops of water and the sun is playing peek-a-boo in a drop of snowwater.  One of the drops has foregone the drop shape.  How can one's heart not laugh? How can I refuse nature's invitation to a whimsical magical day? Sweet Life...I'm on my way!!!

Gift Surrendered

I had an email from a friend who started with "thank god it's Friday " Made me think of how often we live our lives for the days between the "Fridays" and "Mondays." Giggle. the hobbit is a dork, if you figure a life of 80 years, that's 4,160 weeks or 29,200 days. If I only live healthy, alive, present, happy for those "Fridays" "Saturdays" and "Sundays" that only gives me 12,480 days of "life" for the bodymindsoul. I keep 42% of my gift of bodymindsoul and surrender to work, others, or whatever the other 58% of the gift. And then to think of prayers made for abundance.

Beauty of Now

At first, to think an autumn leaf, without its tether, clinging to the tree from which it had been released. Then, a quiet approach yielded the sight of a butterfly camouflaged as a leaf. Camouflaged only with its wings raised. What you cannot see are the brilliant orange and red colors, fiery and dazzling in their splendor when opened. On the tree it is a leaf. Nestled among leaves it is a flower. Nature's reminder that simply being in that moment, this moment now shields from all predators and limitations that would define and diminish.

Leaving the Remote Control

Norman Fischer notes the Zen slogan of "Observe everything, no matter the cost" as applying to spiritual practice but more importantly, to daily life. Poets, writers, dancers, singers, the theater, and artists plead, beckon and try to shake us awake and shatter our complacency. Rumi said "don't go back to sleep." Nature with the bright sun, the glistening moon and stars, wind, floods, tornadoes, gentle breezes, ocean waves, and fall colors, like a mother tries to teach us to see, observe, to walk and explore, to leave the floor of crawling and to grow to our potential. To leave our cubes, safe rooms, beliefs, and put down the remote control. "Live your life with your eyes and heart wide-open. No matter what" ~ Norman Fischer.

Beneath the Surface

To always see beneath the surface. To see the light. To see the strength. To see the Rock upon which I sit. Now. This moment sight seen.

Re-Calendar'd Christmas

Surely must be a Christmas morning, I opened the gift of my eyes and beheld the Tree of Life. 

Labor Day Blessing

May the pause of your labors, give reflection of pride for all you do -do not forget to praise yourself.

May the pause of your labors allow your feet to move towards your dream, upon the soles of ‘what if.’

May the pause of your labors issue forth a blessing within your heart for the millions who have no work, food, shelter, water and exist upon the sustenance of dust.

May the pause of your labors celebrate the changing seasons and give cause to notice nature’s symphony and painted canvas beckoning you to come and play.

May the pause of your labors be not the pause of your laughter.

May the pause of your labors remind you to breathe, and enjoy the breath.

May the pause of your labors so delight your eyes, come tomorrow, you eagerly seek to see yet again.

And may today, you know only the effortless labor of love.

Blessings.

Centered Pendulum

To realize how totally immersed I can become in depression, fear, anxiety and even excited anticipation such that no other thought or sensation fills my thoughts and body. Then, with the heart's gentle hand, to still the pendulum's swings and return to center. To exit the two lanes of someday I will and one day I did.  To dive deeply into this moment, this breath, the sounds, sensations and know all is well. To see life alive now. Indeed, tis the only reality.

Dance

image from Diane Sinclair & Ken Spaulding

I call out for clarity. "Let me see!" I sit and ask that I might know, the door to open, the clouds to clear, the answer revealed.

And then the whisper comes "to move." Like the chaos of creativity from which the painting of music emerges in dance.... clarity comes with movement. To see one must move. Movement begets clarity.

Unopposing Thumb

To touch your thumbs to each finger. They say the opposable thumb is a defining trait of being human. With it we can grasp, play the piano, and do such things no other form of life can. Its existence literally reshaped our brains. But then I ponder, without a plane I cannot fly. I cannot run with the speed of a cheetah. I cannot sing like a bird which cannot not sing. I cannot play in the ocean like a dolphin or see with an eagle's eye. And unlike so much of nature, I struggle to love and trust unconditionally. 

Am I less because of my thumb? Giggle...no, no no. But it does mean I am responsible, I have a choice to honor my essence, my heart and life. I can choose to sing or remain silent. I can play and gift the piano's music to myself and others who cannot, or clench the amazing gift silently in my lap. All of life with their wondrous gifts look in awe and paraphrase Mary Oliver as they ask What will you do with your amazing opposable thumb..your life?

Why I Sit

               I walk. I walk a lot. Walking, especially within nature, is my sanctuary. I also sit. Sitting, unlike my walking, is simply that, I sit.

               I often think of life as the metaphor of a river effortlessly flowing. Fact is, I have seen not so beautiful and effortless rivers. I have seen muddy rivers, polluted and dying rivers. I have seen rivers overflowing their banks drenching and rotting crops. I have seen the power of rivers racing towards a mountain’s edge with the roar of an ocean hurricane. Yet, each one is a river at a different time, a different place and still a river.

               I sit because the metaphor of a river reminds me that life is not always a verb. Life is also a noun. Rivers, like a noun, can take on so many different adjectives and become verbs, but they remain a noun, a state of being. A state of being that is in time, space, colors, power, seen and unseen. Sitting is a noun. Sitting is my OAR with which I can navigate the rivers. The O is for openness. Sitting is simply a noun- a state of an open heart and Love. Nowhere to go, no verb to become, simply sitting open and loved. The A is for alignment. My body finds the posture that breathes and sits grounded upon the earth as an extension. The R is resilience. My body, 237 seasons old, learned too early to bend, slouch, and become small and unseen. The resilience of sitting reminds me of my essence which is long, extended, seen, and weighted with presence and life alive. I have withstood and now it sits forsaking the smallness.

               I sit because the rivers and the day do not. They move. They flow. I cannot sit all day. I must be about tending to life, love, light and being. I sit because I have to rise and leave the earth, floor or mat. I sit because the noun must become a verb and yet the root of the verb remains forever a noun. I sit because I must stand and walk. And when I arise, when I stand, I do so holding my OAR as my walking stick. I sit so that no matter the river and its verb, I stand open, aligned and resilient. I sit to hear the whispers of the oars of Love gliding through the rivers.

               May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings everywhere be free. May all beings sit. And may all beings rise and stand holding their oar.