the Altar. Every Thing there. Down to each twig of salt cedar. Becoming aware how memories feel….well tactile. In the cloth world we might say…components. physical somehow. part of the body. a new sense of what i am "made of" that i want to learn more about.
just the other day. really. just the other day, i thought about the WonderBird. Thought to look at it. Robe hangs on a hook in that Back Room. All the time.. Has never been on the Evac list. ? I guess because it's Linsey-Woolsey and Evac days are in the 90's? or so? i re-think. As i look today, WonderBird is faded by time.
so Liz found it. She should be designated World Librarian, being that brilliant… .she FOUND it….the beginning of the Intention of every day to be March 3, 2013 i never could have found it. I would have imagined it to be earlier than even this, but…this….11 years. Eleven years. And as i read, i thought…..WHO wrote all that?, All those words? Who HAD all those words? i smiled….ear to ear…my heart…..i smiled at the Sincerity of them, the Earnestness. At the person who wrote them Who is so familiar She lives in New Mexico, the land of Horizons, a Beauty FULL place in the desert. I know her.
She wrote "I am thinking it's a very good thing to have given a commitment to one year. every day for one year. and at the end of that time if I can come to no good conclusion, I will just STOP and be done with it"
But she didn't stop. she went on. and goes on. and she is me. and here i am. I am where i WAS and i am where i am.
so, we wonder. Nancy…Pomegranate Trail. blogspot.com and probably all of us. Blogging is kinda old fashioned, right? i think so. and i wondered again today…When Was It?, that i decided to post every day? and what was my reasoning at that time?
so i went to the Archives to try to find an answer and pretty quickly couldn't…got to 2/2013 and no answer yet and it takes a LOT of battery for that kind of thing and i saw so much of the Other Life i had that quickly pulled me in to a deep nostalgia which wasn't where i was intending to go
i think i remember it as…..There's SomeThing. Some Thing. every day. that is Beauty Full or just noteworthy,
and to honor that…to "say" it, every day. ???? Something like that?
and i think….today….is this not still true?
this little acorn…interrupted….right outside the door ….. had it continued as it "should",, would be 3 times as big but it didn't, it fell for some reason but, just outside the door and i saw it first thing this morning
in it's Perfection
the smallest lizard i have ever seen. Tiny. just in front of Jack's water tub, so NEAR me….approaching me and then, skittering away'
so
tiny
there's something about fray that i love. so i leave it. but now…this season coming, maybe now. I'll sit with it a while.
the gate. i drop Jack's feed over and he eats while i lean into the gate. the pallet is just ahead, maybe 3ft away. against the trunk of the Old Pine. on either side of the old tree there's branches and twigs, plants and beyond, that's Jack's tent house, his rain shelter. It's a tarp. The back fence is maybe 40 ft away.
The vague shades of blue are spaces where, aside from the trunk of the Tree they will appear. So i go there, every morning. Drop the grass hay and call out….Hello Friends Are you here? Sometimes they're waiting for me. During late spring and early summer, often on the pallet. But when they're not, i call and wait, scanning all the blue places for any small movement. and i mean small. the turn of a head. small. It's one of the incredibly beauty full lessons they've taught me…to see the slightest hint of motion ….and Wait. Then they come close. To the trunk of the tree, to the pallet. To the branch that curves down. They show me other things. The difference between Leaping and Jumping, playing, disappearing and reappearing and most important, how to WAIT. How things Take Time. And how this happens, i'm not ready to try to give words to it. With them, there is no language…just uhhh, a Full Space of Being that includes us within it. I thought this morning, maybe a little like that FeltSense. ? sorta, but also not . Because it doesn't belong to me, but is someThing that comes into existence between Us. New each time.
maybe 20 minutes, all this…sometimes more. and then i say I love you. Thank you. May we be Safe. Gentle Day. And i go off ….to practice what i've learned in other ways.
i've been in Chicago every night this week. Amidst so many people experiencing the concept of JOY, maybe for the first time in a while. Have loved watching, listening, then reading about what i watched and listened to….the little details, for one….this is for Nancy…how music was selected for each speaker, tailored to their specifics, my favorite being as Tim Walz leaves the stage after his speech, one of "his favorite songs."…..Neil Young Rockin in the Free World…..whod've guessed, right? As much as who was speaking, i loved the faces in the crowd it's been an alternate universe
and here, to begin each of these days….this drawing, just a few marks at a time but wanting to acknowledge What It IS. They have come back every day after some days of a month gone with the intense heat…the two Friends. small lizards, Uno and Dos. I'll talk about it more later. It's almost done Enough.
A little over a year ago i spoke outloud about wishing for a Therapy Group to help me come to terms with "not having become a writer or an artist". Out of the Blue, Wendy, Wendy Golden Levitt, signaled her willingness to facilitate. And so…the twice a month ZOOM Gatherings at the Well began. My wish came true and so much beyond that. We speak and listen, listen and speak, exploring our lives, our hearts, our joys and sorrows, all the as yet unknowns. Each of us brings our own unique stories and we have found that there is so much Common Ground. Working with Wendy is an opportunity of a lifetime. She is brilliant, deeply caring and very REAL. She helps us find our truth and our still point as we enter and move through the Elder years of our lives. A Jungian Therapist who brings all the wisdom of a lifetime of work with womens' groups around the planet, with severely traumatized children, with love and humor and Care.
She has asked that we let others know that as of September there will be two openings to bring our number to 12, enhancing our group and creating even more loving energy. Nancy has also put this invitation out on Pomegranate Trail. If you are interested…have questions….email me or Nancy Erisman and we can put you in touch with her.
Love and Love,
now back i go to the DNC
it was difficult to find this. And then, it was difficult to try to understand WHY i so much needed to find it. See it. What would it help me understand? It's taking time to "listen" for the answers to those questions. I posted it last night so it would be waiting for me when i woke this morning….but it was gone. And then, this Day had a mind of its own. So tonight i begin again. With just the image. words tomorrow.
so much converges here.
The lama from Tibet…Gelek Rinpoche, Jewel Heart Temple, the early 80s, Ann Arbor Michigan. "Everything has a front and a back. The bigger the front, the bigger the back".
Those two lizards down at Jack Flash's Gate. Uno and Dos. Who for 2 years now, i have met each morning, except in months like these last 2 when they go elsewhere because of the heat. How we have over time come to KNOW eachother. How they have taught me about my mind. How i have learned to free my "consciousness" from my Self. How i have learned that it is possible to meet Out There. The sense of it is that what i am used to, is …….this is hard to say……being INSIDE my self. As if my awareness is just behind my face. But when i meet with them, it is OUT there beyond me, in the space that is free to everything and for everything, where the exchange between us can happen. Where we ARE.
i needed to find this photograph because i remember understanding something about this so many years ago when i was all lost in Falconing….the relationship between free bird and human. Wanting to learn that, not to hunt, but to fly one, to be in relationship with a peregrine. What i saw in this photograph….the deep Willingness of the bird to connect.
Everything has a front and a back. conversely, the back has a Front. These days of excessive heat. Days on end of near 105 degrees. Finding self so much just squatting, breathing. Looking long, long. with no reason at anything and everything. gravel of the road up, dried broken leaves, forms of dry earth. and with the Evacuation, the death of the Garden, now no longer reprieve from it all. just looking. and coming OUT from behind my face. into relationship with two specific trees that had just before been just trees. the front of the Back.
i love this photograph, this bird. its tender stark Beauty of what it IS. the exquisite result of Evolution, born to be what it IS and being that so absolutely perfectly. Their stoop in flight….200 mph. Think of it. 200 mph.
