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.

Landscape

To the boulders, mountains, pine and fir trees, I'm sure the leaf appeared small. But when it caught my attention, suddenly it became the entire landscape.

Today is the eve of an event, a day, a symbol that holds our attention.  But tis only a representation of the intention of Love and Hope, birth and becoming that begs to be free from a single calendar day. Perhaps that is why the symbol is a newborn....Life. Each day, each moment, each heartbeat.

No matter how small, if only a blink, what we place our attention upon becomes our landscape.  May the Sweet Hands of Life guide our eyes .....  Love.

Bookmark of Intention

Three weeks ago I went to the waterfall river with one intent- to lay my body down and feel the current rush over my body. To feel, well, simply alive.


I gathered my witnesses..... and then laid my body down. The water was freezing. The rushing dirt and river rocks gathering inside my hair and clothes had not been planned. The river of my laughter flowed through the mountains, trees, rushing with the river's current...and dirt and rocks. Ok, yes, I confess, one bad word as well as the cold water almost made my heart stop.



For those moments, I changed the course of a river. The river bed where I laid was forever changed. Rocks that without my body would have arrived at one destination were diverted to another. For those moments my body, mind, spirit joined with nature in a brief creation.  My intent was to simply feel alive. It wasn't until I laid in the grass three weeks later, looking at the clouds, that I realized the effects of my intent.


Where am I trying to go with this post? Sigh, another bookmark to return to on a cloud filled day when I am wiser. For now, the thread of truth I know, is that however small, no matter if I think my intentions affect only me, when intention touches life, Life and all about you changes. Intention creates. Creation brings change. The river of intention reflects my attention. What will I do with it?

Recalculating

I am a truly simple woman.  Broken, perhaps by not so simple things and silence.  So where does one go when you have no place to go, don’t know where you are going and your heart’s GPS is stuck on “Recalculating”?  I do not know.  And so I walked.  The heron again took flight.  The morning breeze, sun and grassy whispies danced.  A tree offered her reflection in the lake.  A squirrel again stopped to chat.  A fish jumped out of the water and splashed.  And as I knelt to whisper to the whispies, there in the grass, a solid white feather surrendered herself.

So where do you go when you have no place to go, do not know where you are going?  I do not know.  If I get there, I’ll let you know.  Or perhaps, better yet, …. I’ll send a feather.

Beauty's handmaiden

I remembered I needed to cut the weed hiding the electric meter. With shears in hand I went to prune. I discovered the weed bush, growing up between the foundation and cement driveway, was in fact, filled with buds and two blooming rose-like flowers. What I intended to cast off embraced me. I did not, do not know what it is. Knowledge sometimes is but the handmaiden of beauty. 

“You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through. ....

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.” 
― John O'Donohue

Intention

I confess I am a person of symbols.  Symbols are both the spokes in the wheel of life and the stick that slows the turning so we can see.  The ‘why’ is not important, just something I needed to do.

 So what do you write on a stone, to state your intention to life, before you return it to the water of life dancing in the lake?  

I could think of only one word and wrote it on the stone.  My eyes would not focus quickly enough to watch the stone fly but I did find the ripples.  

Gathering another, I wrote my intention and gathered small stones – one for each letter. 

In the fight, the surrender, and every breath in between, to be a stone that learned to fly and swim, carrying but one message to life….  I honor you.