Slow Life – Page 3 – THE DAILY ROUND

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Breath of Life

April 29, 2013March 25, 2020by Kitty16 Comments

Phillip, my cousin, Don, and my Aunt Mary

My beloved Aunt Mary died several weeks ago, early one Sunday morning in February. She was my mother’s younger sister, but not by much, and their close bond throughout their lives always made me long for a sister, too. It often surprised the three of us how much more I resembled my aunt in attitudes and preferences than I did my mother. And in the years since my mother died, Mary and I had become even closer, sharing e-mails and phone visits regularly.

My aunt was a remarkable person, utterly funny, charming, intelligent, and alive to the society, interests, and amusements that paraded through her days, the kind of person who had many lifelong friends, enamored children, nieces and nephews, and beholden strangers who benefited from her kindness and acts of charity. She was someone whose wit, wisdom, ready listening and encouragement were vital to making others see that a better world, or just a better day, is always possible. She had a vital spark most lack. She breathed greater life into those around her than they sustained alone.

I write this not as a eulogy, for I cannot do her gifts or influence on my life justice in such a brief forum, but by way of sharing that my grief in losing her has been gentle and so coupled with relief at her peace that it’s traveled with me these past weeks more like a soft grey cloud than a terrible storm, as my parents’ deaths engendered. I am grateful for her gifts and presence in my life and I am grateful that she is no longer yearning to be with her husband or suffering from ill health.

But I sure miss our e-mails, visits, and shared laughter.

I was thinking of her one morning when spring beckoned more than chores and I’d wandered outside to see what the world could tell me. I saw this daffodil, so earnest in its reaching for light that the dead leaf circumscribing its leaves couldn’t restrain its rising momentum.

That is how the dead can be with us, how grief can restrain joy…The next day, the leaf had fallen away, joining others that surrounded the plant, becoming food for its continued growth. In death, still the breath of life.

Grief takes its own time—and must—but what a gentle reminder that winter leads to spring, and death to life. Just the kind of message my Aunt Mary would send me.

Another gift of spring has been these darling fox kits, just emerging from their den to smell the world and take a few tentative steps into its songs and mysteries. They make every pore of my being tingle with maternal instinct, but, like everything wild, including my own nature, they also teach me over and over again to respect their boundaries and not interfere with instinctive patterns followed for centuries. So I observe from a distance and leave them to their necessary dance. I hope they will know peace, and comfort, and joy, in whatever form these may be known by foxes. I breathe a prayer and send it to their den at night.

I read about a wealthy inventor, futurist and engineer who believes people will, eventually, live forever, and who has hopes that his dietary, vitamin, and exercise regimen will allow him to remain healthy until this is possible.

I have no desire to live forever; I just want to be alive for all of the life granted me, and, if I’ve done it well, maybe I can feed the growth of others in their reaching for the light after I’ve gone, breathing still through their lives and the ways they love the world.

Like my Aunt Mary.

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Balance, Becoming, Blessing, Community, Daily Round, Earth Day, Full Moon Cottage, Gratitude, Green Living, Home, Hope, Nature, Noticing, Poetry, Stillness, Transformation, Web of Creation, Wholeness, Wisconsin

Earth Day, Every Day

April 22, 2013March 25, 2020by Kitty14 Comments

Our goal is an environment of decency, quality, and mutual respect for all other human creatures and for all living creatures. . .The battle to restore a proper relationship between man and his environment, between man and other living creatures will require a long, sustained, political, moral, ethical, and financial commitment- -far beyond any effort made before. ~ Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson , founder of Earth Day

If we don’t have certain outer experiences, we don’t have certain inner experiences or at least we don’t have them in such a profound way. We need the sun, the moon, the stars, the rivers and the mountains and the trees, the flowers, the birds, the song of the birds, the fish in the sea. All of this evokes something in our inner world, evokes a world of mystery. It evokes a world of the Sacred and gives us that sense of awe and mystery. ~ Thomas Berry

The wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity… that’s all there is. That’s the whole economy. That’s where all the economic activity and jobs come from. These biological systems are the sustaining wealth of the world. ~ Gaylord Nelson

Fiona and Riley watching the sunrise this morning

Sunrise, Ducks, Bridge, River 076 — Double-Crested Cormorant

Practices for Earth Day to feed the spirit.

Happy Earth Day, and for tomorrow: Happy Shakespeare’s Birthday!

Becoming, Daily Round, Environment, Full Moon Cottage, Gardening, Gratitude, Nature, Noticing, Photography, Poetry, River, Snow, Spring, Teacher

Spring’s Winning

April 16, 2013March 25, 2020by Kitty10 Comments

March

A blue day
a blue jay
and a good beginning.

One crow,
melting snow —
spring’s winning!

~ Elizabeth Coatsworth

When I worked as a teacher, I looked forward to spring and the enjoyment offered by the poetry units I shared with my middle school students. This poem, by Elizabeth Coatsworth, was always a favorite of my sixth graders, and the spring poems they created and illustrated in response to the many we studied were equally lovely.

Yearning for blue skies, birdsong, and sweet green earth is nothing new after a long Wisconsin winter, but this year our winter-weary hearts have been sorely tried, indeed. We received snow last Sunday and are told “a dusting” will return again Friday, accompanied by another week of rain.

After last year’s long thirst, I’m only happy for the moisture in whatever forms it arrives, but today’s sunshine and the chance to inspect the gardens and see (hooray!) that last year’s tulips and daffodils survived the drought, has been pure gift. The river is high, the birds are singing, and—even though we’re sliding towards the end of April—spring, I can tell, is finally winning.

Gentle peace to your week…

Becoming, Daily Round, Environment, Listening, Nature, Noticing, Photography, River, Slow Life, Spirit, Spring

Riversong

April 1, 2013March 25, 2020by Kitty10 Comments

Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. ~ Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

The spirit of spring, for me, certainly includes the divine discontent Grahame mentions, but perhaps it feels more like a sacred and welcome effervescing than a discontent. It is a readiness to emerge…I wonder if it’s felt by butterflies as they pierce the sheltering confines of their cocoons?

I yearn to muck about in the gardens and to co-create with the earth, to honor my winter’s rest by cleaning the house from top to bottom. This is the time I listen for the river’s spring song, familiar yet always new, as though my Creator is calling me forth into the new season’s green dance.

Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. ~ Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Phillip was home from work last week, and we decided to tackle some home improvement projects, but also planned daily adventures that took us out and away from home. Last year, temperatures in the 80’s allowed us to get all the gardens cleaned, weeded and mulched. This year, they’re still sleeping beneath the snow.

The river was barely open at the beginning of the week, then gradually the ice retreated and at dawn, returning ducks and geese floated dreamily down the river. By Friday, most of the ice had melted, so off we went on the year’s first canoe trip.

The pictures, I think, make it look like we had a chilly ride, but it was really quite pleasant, though utterly absent of green. Still, the spring smells of thawing earth and the glorious birdsong bathed us in promises the next few weeks will keep.

We met some men fishing for walleyes and another pair using a seine, probably for carp.

Sandhill cranes and Canada geese called and flew overhead, red-wing blackbirds chimed along the bank, and we met the pair of ducks that nested in our garden last spring. This year, our fox has a new hole very near the “duck garden,” so I hope they’ll nest elsewhere.

The rest of our week together was happy: we took a day to go antiquing, and spent our Easter Sunday with family, but it’s the lovely time in our canoe that consecrated the week most profoundly for me, leisurely paddling and listening to the waking earth and river sing our spirits back to life.

By the river and with it and on it and in it…It’s my world, and I don’t want any other. What it hasn’t got is not worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth knowing… ~ Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Phillip returned to school today and I started the housecleaning after he left this morning. A crew has come to the bridge to pull up and replace the old planks and side rails. The incessant beeping of their front-end loader as it backed up, over and over, initially made the pups bark protectively until they were sufficiently reassured and accustomed to it, a good thing, since the bridge repair is scheduled to last the month.

The temperature is near freezing, but I stepped outside to shake some rugs and watch the light dance over the river. A few last pieces of ice floated by and I watched two male cardinals battle for a nesting site. I noticed a female waiting and watching. I wonder if she favors one or the other? I wanted to stay outside, but the air was cold and my indoor chores called me back.

I hope I’ll have time again this afternoon to walk down near the riverbank and listen to the river’s music, singing over and over, “Come; join the spring’s green dance!” Winter muscles need practice to get back in shape and I want to be ready to dance up a storm when spring comes to stay.

…when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea. ~ Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Authenticity, Balance, Becoming, Blessing, Centering, Daily Round, Equinox, Gardening, Gratitude, Lent, Meditation, Nature, Noticing, Slow Life, Spring

Equanimity

March 20, 2013March 25, 2020by Kitty15 Comments

Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

In my meditation times during this lovely season of soul-clearing and house-cleaning, I’ve been sitting again with the concept of balance. For years when the Lenten (spring) weeks circle round, I focus on practices of intentional breathing, reviewing breath exercises and wearing a ring that reminds me to “take time” and turn my noticing inward to monitor my breath as often during the day as I’m able. After all these years, it’s still not easy for me to maintain rhythmic breathing naturally. I hold my breath at times, or tighten my throat and jaw, or breathe less deeply than is truly nurturing.

To me, it seems that the spring equinox blesses us with the invitation to return, again, to sacred balance. I’ve written about balance many times, I know, for the simple reason that the energy of the world is stronger than our own individual energy, and humanity still does not—if it ever has–honor the balance that nurtures and sanctifies our earth, our spirits, our bodies, or our minds. We pull ourselves and each other into imbalance when we lose our own commitment to the sacred equanimity to which we—and all life—naturally cohere when we enter and honor the rhythm I believe we’re called to by Love, a kind of dance that co-creates compassion in our hearts which waters and feeds our spirits, and empties, simultaneously, in an out-pouring to the world. Love becomes the food that’s most needed, in myriad forms, and we the gardeners that feed our own and each other’s well-being.

I felt this so deeply when Phillip and I went to a “home and garden” show in Milwaukee last weekend. Instead of focusing on sustainability, or new gardening techniques and plants that conserve and honor life, it focused solely on products and excess, the conspicuous consumption we’ve become so accustomed to that we don’t even notice the grotesque imbalance we accept as “natural.” The simple and glorious beauty and sustenance a garden provides was lost in all the false glamour of “must-have” purchases few could afford and all were meant to desire. All ego-food and no true soul-food.

But it was an excellent reminder to return to my own balance and monitor my energy for the balance required to live with equanimity. In/Out. Give/Receive. Endeavor/Rest. Create/Surrender. Action/Stillness. And all sailing on the sea of Love.

Peace to your equinox, and may the blessings of spring enrich your spirit, your self-care and care for the world, your creativity and well-being.

Wakan Tanka, Great Mystery,
teach me how to trust my heart,
my mind, my intuition,
my inner knowing,
the senses of my body,
the blessings of my spirit.
Teach me to trust these things
so that I may enter my Sacred Space
and love beyond my fear,
and thus Walk in Balance
with the passing of each glorious Sun.
~ Lakota Prayer

As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth . . . the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and the wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times. ~ Gary Snyder

4-legged companions, Becoming, Daily Round, Full Moon Cottage, Nature, Noticing, Photography, Wisdom

Happy March

March 2, 2013March 25, 2020by Kitty6 Comments

Peace to your day, and to the wisdom of wild things…May you feel blessed and accompanied by all companions on your journey.

4-legged companions, Authenticity, Becoming, Creativity, Daily Round, Family, Full Moon Cottage, Home, Photography, Remodeling, Slow Life

No Place Like Home

January 21, 2013March 25, 2020by Kitty9 Comments

When Phillip and I bought Full Moon Cottage in 1997, most of our friends thought we’d been bespelled. The 4 acres were promising, but the house was hideous. It had been built in 1969 and had passed through two families without any modifications to its design or decoration, and came to us with a complete lack of landscaping. The couple who sold it to us admitted they “had no idea” where exactly to place a garden, and had avoided any remodeling because, to them, the property was just an investment.

But we had a dream about the home it could be.

Our first night in the home was spent ripping up carpeting in the living room and then setting down one of our own rugs and then our mattress, because the bedrooms were even creepier. The second day, we began taking down walls, pulling up more carpeting, and ripping off wallpaper. Within the first year, Phillip had painted the house, laid wood floors, rebuilt the kitchen, added wainscoting, and begun to replace windows, doors, ceilings, and cabinetry, opening the east side of the home to the river as much as possible.

Day 1: Tearing down a wall. . — Day 1: Tearing down a wall.

Removing hideous flaming red carpeting before removing hideous wallpaper, windows and doors.

Hideous kitchen entirely blocking view of river.

Over the next few years, we’d tackle each room as we were able, discussing how we wanted to modify it. Phillip was able to manage the carpentry, electrical and plumbing work, and I was the delegated painter and designer, although we tend to team well on problem-solving and innovation. I designed stained glass windows and Phillip created them. We’d get ideas from magazines, movies, memories and old photographs, and then incorporate these into our plans and dreams.

In 2005, we hired builders to “rough-in” an addition to the house for my mother, but her death and waning finances prevented us from finishing it for a few years, so we used the addition as our “summer escape,” until we’d saved enough money to convert to geo-thermal heating and cooling for the house, and Phillip tackled the huge job of finishing the addition.

By 2010, we had our home the way we’d imagined it, with just a few touch-up’s and minor remodeling jobs left. The gardens were looking good and Full Moon Cottage began to match the dreams we’d imagined all those years ago.

I was thinking about all these adventures over the weekend, when subzero temperatures set in and we gathered in the living room to read and sit by the fire. I looked around the sweet room and lingered on all the work Phillip has done to make it beautiful.

Of course, now I vacuum and cover all the furniture with clean blankets every morning, then wash and dry the blankets at night, so the 4-leggeds can relax and, at the same time, the furniture can be protected and perhaps last a few years longer. Some doors are closed to the 4-leggeds, so dander and fur are prevented from spreading, and a section of the kitchen floor is clearly a feeding zone.

So yes, the house is finished, more or less. And it’s probably loveliest to see when it’s company-ready. But it creates the loveliest memories when we’re gathered together on weekends, sitting on fleece blankets, cuddling with cats and dogs and enjoying the love that makes Full Moon Cottage a better home than we ever dreamed it would be.

Becoming, Centering, Daily Round, January and February adventures, Listening, Meditation, Music, Nature, Noticing, Relationship, Silence, Slow Life, Spirituality, Stillness, Transformation, Winter, Wisconsin

The Space Between the Notes

January 9, 2013March 25, 2020by Kitty10 Comments

“Music is the space between the notes.” ~ Claude Debussy

The long inhalation of excitement and joy that begins in September and lasts through the Christmas holidays has been exhaled over the past week or so. The decorations are almost all put away—a few are “wintry” enough to last through February, along with a few that foretell Valentine’s Day—and my energy has settled deep within.

We attended a post-holiday-holiday-party and several guests mentioned their dislike for the months of January and February.

I nodded sympathetically but remained unengaged with the conversation, because I tend to love the months for their stillness and gifts of time for sifting through recent experiences, re-gathering my spirit, noticing little regressions and evolutions, and seeing clearly where I am on my journey, before heading into the new year with renewed energy. Each new year is like a musical composition my little spirit co-creates with Spirit. Twelve measures of music, or possibly 52, or 365; each a movement of its own. I’m grateful it begins–somewhat non-traditionally, I suppose–with a long rest, so I can hear the music shape itself and its themes for the coming year.

Many of the other guests at the party were teachers, however, and I could empathize with their post-holiday weariness and return to classroom routines.

January and February can be cold and the days are still brief. Their passage can be slow and uneventful and they’re rather anticlimactic, following the long season of holidays and traditional gatherings with friends and family. The crescendo diminishes to silence.

But what an invitation to be creative and start some new traditions!

Phillip and I tend to use these slower winter months to get out of the weekend routine and go on day trips. Last weekend, we traveled to the Wisconsin River area and combined an eagle-sighting adventure with a visit to a well-established and award-winning winery.

We have a few more adventures planned between now and spring break, and I’m looking forward to them. Sometimes we’re surprised by the fun a new place or experience offers and even if it’s less than stellar, we’re together and, usually, laughing.

This week, I was surprised with a visit from my nephew and his family, a true boost to the spirit. One of the gifts of working at home is being able to say yes (or, as we say in Wisconsin, “You betcha!”) to spontaneous visits.

I’ve always thought it would be fun to schedule gatherings with close women friends during these months, to share spiritual stories, practices, books, and films, and to reinforce each other’s spirits and affirm our journeys. We become so busy when the days grow longer. It might be helpful to get together once or twice a month in January and February to transfuse each other’s spirits with renewed energy and share a very-mini-retreat, helping each other get our spirits in tune for the months ahead.

Traveling through the year’s music, its rhythms and beats, its familiar melodies and new improvisations, invites greater intentionality and sensitivity from me than I was prepared or wise enough to offer when I was younger. Letting Spirit be the conductor is easier, however, and I welcome her gift of an initial multi-measure rest, because it allows me to hear her deeper song, the one she sings in my heart and bids me to dance when the music of the year continues.

(Murphy says, “I crawl under my blanket, watch Downton Abbey, and take a two-month retreat.”)

Balance, Becoming, Blessing, Community, Daily Round, Healing, Love, Relationship, Slow Life

Blessing

December 18, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty13 Comments

May I offer joy and gentle peace today and every day. May I take time to pause before I judge, before I criticize, before I punish myself or the other with thoughts, words, and energy that is anything but calm, loving, compassionate, and forgiving.

May I remember and hold close to my heart the awareness that we’re all here together; may I help heal myself and others by remaining mindful and intentional about my presence, my needs, and others’ rights.

Everything passes; may it pass my awareness with love, and may I look for the joy, because it’s here, within and without. May I be love to my friends and to the strangers I’ll meet today.

May no one cross my path without feeling respected, worthy, seen, heard, and loved.

May I hear the invitations to transformation that call to me today, and be willing to travel the paths that will lead me to greater authenticity, deeper self-knowledge, and greater compassion.

May I be kind. May I be aware of any thought or behavior that moves me out of the state of love. May I grow in balance, wholeness, and wisdom.

May I be a force, a light, a candle in the night…

All my relations.

Authenticity, Balance, Becoming, Centering, Change, Discernment, Enchantment, Gifts, Gratitude, Light, Listening, Nature, Noticing, Photography, Ritual, Silence, Snow, Stillness, Transformation, Winter

Still, Still, Still

December 10, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty7 Comments

Our first annual snowfall graced our Sunday (Bon Iver!), and we relaxed into being with the wonder of it. Huge flakes covered the trees and earth; the river, surrounded by white hills and flowing beneath the smoky gray sky, took on a brilliant silver sparkle, like a glittering ribbon threading through the landscape.

Winter is the season that calls me within, to slowly and gently review the journey of the dimming year and gestate the light with which my spirit will co-create the year to come. What gifts have served me well? Which have I neglected? How will I dance out my life in the new year? What are the triggers that hook me to harmful ways of being and what are the deep desires I ask of Spirit to further challenge and delight my heart? Am I tending my time, health, and relationships, respecting the treasures they are? Am I putting anything off because I’m afraid of failing? Or succeeding? Can I begin, alter, or renew a spiritual practice? Is my energy aligned and in communion with my beliefs, and do these translate clearly through my speech and actions?

Last year, I wrote about my “hibernaculum,” the meditation room where I spend my deepening time each day. It becomes more deeply sacred to me in winter. As I wrote: The word “hibernate” is derived from the Latin word for winter (hiberno: I winter) and generates the wonderful noun “hibernaculum,” which, zoologically, is the place where an animal winters, and, botanically, is the protective bud or covering a plant uses to survive the challenges of dormancy. I love that the letters of the word “hibernate” form the anagram “breathe in,” for winter is my time for assessing, deepening, and strengthening my meditation practice and more earnestly tending my dreams.

Nothing engenders these days of gentle and vital introspection more for me than the lovely snow that muffles the noise, busyness, and demands of a world too addicted to all three. When it’s snowing, traffic slows, heartbeats slow, breathing slows, and sometimes magically, the limiting need to avoid our inner voices and knots dissolves as well.

Sitting in my meditation space and looking out towards a full moon making the snow-covered earth sparkle and glow with mystery, or witnessing the iced river and white hills afire with the deep violet, indigo and scarlet of a winter sunrise remind me that all of life is a magical gift, and that the finest way of offering my gratitude is through the inner work and discernment accomplished in stillness, that helps me be as present to all of it as I can.

I wish you a winter of gentle peace, times for deep introspection, the stillness to bring forth your renewed light to the world, and gentle snow (real or imagined) to blanket you with the shimmering beauty and mystery of spirit-tending.

4-legged companions, Aging, Balance, Becoming, Blessing, Cats, Change, Daily Round, Family, Full Moon Cottage, Gratitude, Home, Love, Noticing, Photography, Relationship, Slow Life, Transformation

Love in the Time of Climate Change

December 4, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty12 Comments

Today I’m making a hearty soup and enjoying fresh breezes kissing our rooms through open windows, a sweet delight for the cats. This is the new and unpredictable norm for December, for nothing about our climate this past year has hinted at what’s coming next.

This past weekend we found ourselves alone and together, with nothing scheduled and surprisingly caught up with other life-maintenance tasks…so we relaxed.

Honoring days of rest, like tending to self-care, were themes often discussed and put forth as goals, but rarely practiced authentically in our busy lives, up until a year and a half ago; I’m happy to say that since dedicating ourselves to our version of a “slow life,” we’ve gotten better at this.

This weekend, we watched holiday movies, went for long walks, took Riley and Clancy to their favorite dog park, grilled a wicked good meal out on the deck, enjoyed our unusually warm weather, and listened to Christmas music while we read, nestling with various four-leggeds.

My spirit felt bathed in light and peace, utterly relaxed, and utterly grateful.

At many points in my past life, this would have been a weekend neither noted nor savored as remarkable, other than for its record-setting high temperatures. Now, I treasure moments of happiness, ordinary time made extraordinary by the attention and appreciation due and accorded it. I notice all the ways Phillip deepens and refines the energies of my life, and I isolate blessings as they drift through moments and settle in my heart.

This photograph of my parents, taken the April before their wedding (Ah, April in Minnesota!) sits beside my bed. I love the sweet joy they seem to feel in each other’s company, the hope that exudes from their spirits, still.

Years later, when he was 65, my father suffered a massive stroke that caused his next 15 years to be lived confined to their home, my mother choosing to serve as his caregiver. I spent as many vacations visiting them as I could, and often lamented the sadness and “littleness” they now had to endure, rather than all the joyful adventures they’d planned following my father’s retirement. This hadn’t been foreseen and wasn’t fair. And I thought I should be closer, geographically, to help more.

I vividly recall the time my mother said, “Oh, it isn’t all bad. We have good conversations and we laugh a lot. Your father’s been able to know his grandchildren, and we’ve enjoyed working on his writing together. Good friends have blessed this time for us…and here’s the thing, Kitty: your job is to tend your own life. We never know what sadness may be in store for us, what challenges lie ahead. Enjoy each other and the blessings that come your way as deeply as you can while you’re able, and take nothing for granted.”

Phillip and I with my parents many years ago.

“Time held me green and dying,” wrote Dylan Thomas in the haunting poem, Fern Hill. I know my sweet dog companions will be 12 this year, and Finny the cat will be 11. Phillip and I are in our mid-50’s…not old, but no longer green, and, like all of life, gradually living towards our dying. These facts are not all-consuming, nor entirely depressing to one who gardens and honors life’s circles and spirals, but they certainly contribute to the poignant attentiveness brought to bear on moments when we can be here, now, all together in peace, joy, and relative health.

Murphy enjoying spring breezes in December.

At one time, I would have considered such a weekend dull and unproductive. How lovely that the gauges by which we assess our lives change, and how grateful I am for a companion with whom I can share and value simplicity and stillness, ordinary days made precious just because we’re together, grateful and aware, no matter what’s coming down the pike. Because the climate of any relationship is always changing, forecast or not, and deep reserves of joy, daily kindnesses, and simple, commonplace moments of laughter and love help us to weather the storms and shifts, expected or surprising, whenever they arrive.

4-legged companions, Becoming, Cats, Celebration, Change, Christmas, Community, Daily Round, Family, Full Moon Cottage, Gifts, Home, Love, Photography, Slow Life, Spirit Level, Story

A Story for the Season

November 28, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty9 Comments

On Sunday, after I’d put away Thanksgiving decorations, we decided to begin setting out a few Christmas pieces to ready our home for the holiday. Every day, I’ve pulled out a new box and selected a few decorations to place in a window or on a mantel, noticing the stories all around me: stories behind every decoration and every piece of furniture where they’re placed…I cannot separate myself from these stories; my own accrue and add new layers to the objects until finally, everything shines with story.

My great-grandfather made this little table, from scrap lumber and fruit crates, for my mother when she was a child. She collected the pewter dishes.

Due to our new cat, Fergus, and his continued period of adjustment to our home, and us, and the 4-leggeds, we’ve decided that maybe a Christmas tree encrusted with all of our glass ornaments wouldn’t be such a great idea this year. In past years, the cats have enjoyed playing and resting on the quilt beneath the tree; this year, I’m afraid that feline power struggles might bring it all crashing down. Better to lower the odds, I think. There are plenty of ways to make the home festive without a tree, but we’ll miss it.

Murphy and Mulligan napping beneath the tree.

Fergus and the dogs are doing fine with their introductions; the other four cats (oh, God, I’ve become the Crazy Cat Lady) are struggling a bit more with the refinement of pecking order and ego assuagement. We have every reason to believe all will be well, but these relationships, these stories, will need to progress according to their own timing, and I think we owe our 4-leggeds all the time they need. Fergus is as placid as Buddha sitting in his kennel, despite the sniffs, spits, and indifference form his new siblings. He forbears.

When he’s alone with me in my office, he loves to sit beneath the computer screen and watch the birds through the picture window. He runs to the door when he hears the other cats; he yearns for community, it seems. He loves fearlessly.

Today, his siblings entered his private room and began to sniff and acquaint themselves with Eau de Fergus. Murphy and Mulligan were especially intrigued, meticulously conducting their version of a CSI, and covering every square inch of the room before accepting a treat.

Tonight, we’ll supervise a first face-to-face visit and see how it goes. We’re hopeful that by the time the New Year rolls around, we’ll have a larger, peaceful, and happy family. Fergus appears to be a force of love; he audaciously chose me on the trail one very cold, wet day and followed me home, and has never stopped exuding that charming trust and desire to connect. All creation, it seems, can reveal the Love of our Source. We often overlook, I think, the myriad ways those with whom we share the planet can teach us about love and loving.

I read that Pope Benedict XVI (“Buzz-Kill Ratzinger”) has written a new book in which he states there were no animals or angels present at the birth of Jesus, nor was that birth date calculated correctly. While I understand his point is to de-mythologize Jesus and place his life within a more historically exact context by removing the inaccurate embellishments that surround our handed-down version of Jesus’ birth, I also believe that for many people, the animals, shepherds, and angels are intrinsic to the story, especially for the young and young-at-heart. For Christians, this was a life like no other, a life that serves as a template, worthy of celebration, as all lives are, but one that was recognized as such from the start.

So rarely do we see the ways Love in-breaks and enters our world, causing unnoticed eruptions of hope and joy all around us. But once, more than two thousand years ago, some of us were actually paying attention. The story that celebrates the birth of one of us who got it right needs no updating or fact-checking; it was never about the angels or animals, but they pin it down in our imaginations and allow us to vicariously enter the birth and so the life, and so the dance of pure goodness modeled for us, however clumsily we misstep.

And when I do falter in my dance, I have always found animals whose love can lead me back to the path quicker than any sermon. Humans like Jesus are rare indeed; animals who love as selflessly as Jesus are not.

I believe we should be very cautious about re-writing well-known and beloved stories, and even Pope Benedict, a Vatican correspondent said, agrees that the traditions surrounding Christmas play a role in nurturing our grasp of the deeper truths the story reveals.

Our own stories, the ones we write with our lives, reveal their deeper truths, too, if we listen. This Christmas, we won’t have a tree, lit and splendid; instead, we’ll celebrate two stories: the birth of Jesus (which is the story of Love’s possibilities being born every day, always, in our hearts), and our story, too, about a tiny abandoned cat named Fergus, who loved everyone he met, and his new family, who had to learn more about loving so fearlessly.

It’s going to be a good story, I can tell: the echoes of other stories and the spirits of those we’ve loved will shine all around it…There will be many animals as featured characters in this new story, and I’m quite certain that on Christmas Eve, when we gather together for treats where the tree would have been, we’ll hear angels singing.

Becoming, Blessing, Celebration, Daily Round, Family, Friendship, Full Moon Cottage, Gratitude, Home, Love, Nature, Photography, Ritual, Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving!

November 13, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty16 Comments

Now is the lovely time for naming and celebrating the residents of our grateful hearts. The anticipation of a holiday gathering is as sacred as the day itself. By its happy nature, our time spent making lists and making ready confers blessing upon those whose coming is eagerly awaited.

We review the natures, distinct and beloved, of our family members and friends (although, as we age, all become family, it seems), and carefully seek means and considered pleasures to suit each one’s taste and desires for comfort. We hold their travels in thought and therefore prayer. We decorate and clean our homes, bake favorite foods, and honor traditions and expectations that make the day our own, known and spirit-soothing in its annual familiarity, while holding generous space open for unexpected rituals, late arrivals, and new participants.

We mourn the loss of those who have changed worlds. We welcome their spirits and share their stories, and realize they, too, are present in our preparations and celebration. Sweet shadows and echoes surround us; we move in patterns created and danced by generations, our hearts reach and touch their light, our love gathers all to the table.

A Blessed Thanksgiving and Holy Communion to all…

Bless our guests, those we hold in holy anticipation…

The merry,

the meek,

the picky,

the grand,

the peevish,

the extroverts,

the loners,

the funny,

the sad,

the early birds,

the latecomers…

May all feel welcomed and essential.

Bless us all in our gathering and gratitude.

And bless all in their sweet departure:

May they be fortified

and fueled by love.

4-legged companions, Becoming, Blessing, Cats, Change, Full Moon Cottage, Gifts, Gratitude, Home, Listening, Nature, Noticing, Photography, Relationship, Slow Life, Transformation

Departures, Heralds, & Wonders

November 7, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty10 Comments

Deep autumn has come to Full Moon Cottage and its neighbors. The fields of feed corn have been harvested and cut back to the earth. Ridges of golden stubble stand in rows that stripe the hills.

The landscape and its population are transformed. Shorn of the dense stalks, our view is lengthened and widened to coming winter’s stark openness. Whatever—and whomever—the cornstalks obscured now risks exposure. Deer wander the furrows and debris, seeking sustenance, and providing defensive exercises for Riley and Clancy as they patrol the eastern windows.

Every morning, between 7 and 9 A.M., I receive faithful, raucous, reports delivered every-5-minutes in yips and barks and meant to alert me to deer, turkey, squirrel, rabbit and low-flying hawk movements on the lawn or in the bordering woods. Or in the far distance, just in case territorial invasion might be imminent. (By 9 A.M., the daylight counsels the wild ones to conceal themselves again, and the dogs are ready for a well-earned nap. Mom is ready for a Bloody Mary, but settles for tea and quiet.)

Other surprises have come out from the cornstalks as well. This little fellow emerged from the farmer’s field beside the trail and followed me home a couple of days ago.

Apparently, his first year of hard-knock life has sharpened his abilities to identify me as an easy mark. He is now housed and fed and has received a fine once-over from our wonderful veterinarian. It will take a few weeks before “Fergus” is ready to socialize with the rest of the clan; hopefully, his integration with the other 4-leggeds will be peaceful. (Insert laughs.)

Our summer companions have begun to ready themselves for hibernation, flown to warmer habitats, or surrendered their brief lives to the circle’s rhythm. This beautiful Clouded Sulphur butterfly succumbed to the cold that blew down the trail last night. I offered it a blessing and gentle burial beneath leaves at the side of the trail.

The red-winged blackbirds are flocking up, rehearsing songs, and preparing for their migration. Huge numbers gather on the new islands the drought formed in the river. The air is warming again and expected to reach temperatures of 65°F (18°C) by the weekend before dipping back down again to a more seasonal 40°F (4°C) on Sunday. The blackbird choir will be missed, but their departure signals that the welcome and deep silence of winter is near.

Departures may also serve to herald the new.

Frost, the art designer that accompanies our colder temperatures, nightly paints the gardens and grasses with glittering beauty, creating visions of stunning glory even in death, a fine way to translate one’s energy during times of transition, I think.

Conversely, bringing the houseplants back indoors last month generated unexpected and early blooms in the cactus, violets, and even the jade plants, making the house more colorful and cheerful than the grays and browns that begin to dominate outside.

Our daily walks are a bit more brisk and bundled, and we’re happy to withdraw indoors, rest with books and tea (and 4-leggeds’ treats), and slow our rhythms down to congruence with the rest of nature, grateful for the sweet blessings of Fergus and cactus blooms, heralds of hope and affirmations that the circle’s turning continues and continues to offer surprising gifts, if we open our eyes and hearts.

Balance, Community, Daily Round, Family, Friendship, Noticing, Photography, Slow Life

Humans Being

October 8, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty12 Comments

The chilly gray days gave way to sunshine yesterday, so we headed into town with many of our neighbors to celebrate autumn on the town square. Booths were set up for selling handcrafted soaps, jewelry, woodcrafts, needlecrafts, and homegrown vegetables and honeys, along with decorations for fall.

A band played lively Irish music,

that caught this fellow’s attention,

and inspired his spirit (and body) to dance. What joyful abandon!

A group of older boys were more entertained by a pile of leaves. Some things, thankfully, aren’t changed by technology.

We met a man from Ecuador who now lives in Madison, but travels to his homeland to gather lovely woolen goods, and jewelry made from native seeds and nuts. His friendliness and the time he happily shared telling us about his homeland burnished the encounter and made it memorable.

A woman who made wonderfully-scented, thick bars of soap was also happy to share her stories as she wrapped our purchases.

There is an elderly man who always comes to these events and sells a sweet-salty popcorn called “kettle corn,” a traditional indulgence when something’s happening on the square. And, of course, many dogs enjoyed the day with their humans. This one sat placidly despite the merry fiddling a few feet away.

A horse-drawn wagon gave families a different view of their village and we could hear the children’s voices every time it circled the park.

People stopped to visit with friends and there was a marked absence of the anxious warp speed with which life is attacked and hurled through on other days.

A simple sweet day, in a very small town, in an often misdirected world spinning away its life in our universe. It wasn’t really about shopping; for once the gathering wasn’t driven by the disease of consumption. If money was spent, it was very little compared to the value of experienced community and the shared and ancient celebration of changing seasons and life’s rhythms flowing through generations.

We can be energized by our differences, fed by our angers, made sleepless by our worries. We project and detail, judge and exaggerate, loudly publicize and vehemently argue about how, every day, someone else gets it wrong.

A day like today reminds us that sometimes we–all of us, together–can get this gift of being human perfectly right.

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace.

Aging, Autumnal Equinox, Becoming, Blessing, Daily Round, Gardening, Intuition, Listening, Medicine Wheel, Nature, Slow Life, Spirituality

The Autumn Garden

September 22, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty8 Comments

Today marks the beginning of Autumn, the fall equinox. It’s made a dramatic entrance, complete with thunder, lightning, high winds, and hail. Tonight, the gardens may endure a hard freeze, so we’ll be blanketing our mums to preserve their blooms.

Summer is definitely over.

We’ve enjoyed the last month’s blooms, having had to cut the buds from our midsummer plants to spare their energy during our 2-month drought. It broke my heart to miss all the lovely flowers, but the plants survived. Meteorologists and climate scientists predict more such summers, but for now, we’re enjoying the end-of-summer show and will try to prolong it as long as we can. Technically, the drought hasn’t ended, but the gardens still live, and some plants are thriving.

Yesterday, I shared a presentation on Spirituality and Aging, specifically addressing invitations life makes to our spirits in the “second half” of life, our own seasons of autumn and winter. Like the autumn garden, we may bloom in ways more richly colorful and distinctive than during our earlier seasons, and also consciously work to acquire habits that protect us against a hard freeze that would inhibit blooms we have yet to offer. While not denying or running from our deaths, wisdom counsels us to honor our mind-body-spirit integrity and its healing and wholeness in ways we may have ignored or not perceived when younger.

In her workbook for “sacred alignment,” The Spirit of Place, Loren Cruden outlines distinctive practices and ceremonies for traveling with the earth’s seasons and creating corresponding awareness, healing, and integration in our mind-body-spirit. I’ve been using the book as a resource and guide this year, and especially recommend it because of Cruden’s deep intelligence, eloquence, and educated understanding of both Eastern and Native American spiritualties. Her method of teaching and integrating these understandings with beliefs we may already hold dear and practices we may annually anticipate and repeat on our journey round the circle, is both inviting and respectful. Her work has deepened my passage through the year and enriched the path considerably.

Using the Native American medicine wheel as a spiritual model, Cruden guides us through the year from East to South, to West and, finally, North. The journey circumscribes our days, months, years, and lifetime, and seen this way, enhances each.

The East/Spring is seen as a time and place for spiritual awakening, for perceiving the vision quest with clarity and perspective.

The South/Summer invites us to engage with this purpose, test ourselves and enhance our creativity, while expanding our experiences and relationships.

When we turn to the West/Autumn quadrant of the circle, our energy best aligns with the harvest, the setting sun. We are invited to step into Mystery, integrate through introspection, reflection, welcome “non-ordinary” states of mind and deep acceptance of who we are. Cruden states that the “…West is a place of sorting and letting go and of conscious participation in acts of power. The vision perceived in the East and engaged with in the South now becomes multidimensional, and its broader and more subtle implications are made apparent.”

During our North/Winter season of the day, or year, or our lifetime, our vision becomes manifested and embodied. It is the time for wisdom to inhabit our being and to be shared with the community.

Cruden goes into much greater depth in her analysis of the wheel’s journey and offerings, offering weekly practices as travel companions and teachers, and I have come to deeply value her lessons on my journey.

Today, the equinox tells me that I have circled to the West/Autumn of the year, and of my life, and so I look forward to its inward, intuitive lessons and the release of what is finished and past. Now the work of the heart, deepening consciousness, and self-acceptance is engaged, and like the rest of nature, I “store energy” for the days and spiritual tasks to come. Like the autumn garden, I’ll finish engagement with the energy of blooming and retreat into the quiet time of sorting, letting go, and listening as my day, year, and lifetime grow more deeply into Mystery.

Equinox Blessings to All:

In our harvesting of the year’s gifts, in beginning the journey inward, in honoring the dying back and down, in recounting our losses and leave-takings, in creating our poetry of gratitude…in being with stillness and silence–May the gifts of the Spirit be rich in our hearts and wisely offered to the world.

Gentle peace.

4-legged companions, Art, Authenticity, Community, Creativity, Nature, Photography, Sheep and Wool, Stock Dog Trials

A Vote For Ewe

September 9, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty12 Comments

After two weeks of political conventions revealing the stark divisions in our national politics to be just short of staggering, it was time to turn the television off and get outside for most of the glorious weekend. Cool breezes returned for a few days, and we met with members of our family at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival, held near our home.

Staged at the County Fairgrounds, the festival fills barn after barn with crafts, wool, natural dyes, machines for carding and spinning, cutting, and knitting, crocheting, or creating woolen “rag rugs.” There are felting goods and materials, demonstrations and lessons in every step of every craft one can imagine that could be related to sheep and wool, cheeses, soaps, and, of course, many breeds of sheep. (I still haven’t figured out why one booth was selling raw honey, but it looked delicious!)

Experts and artisans manned hundreds of booths, and those who are passionate about the ancient practices and crafts of carding, spinning, and naturally dyeing wool, as well as the husbandry of raising and shearing sheep (and other fur-bearing animals whose hair can be converted to clothing and goods), roamed the barns utterly content, it seemed, to be with their community.

Although I enjoy the visual stimulus, crafts, and learning offered indoors, my favorite event is the stock dog trials held in an outdoor field. Here, the shepherd and his/her herding dog (Border Collies in the local trials I’ve attended) work together to gather and herd a group of sheep through a competitive course involving great distances, gates, and then into a pen, among other tasks.

The shepherd remains at the starting point, near the pen, and through common herd commands (Come by; away to me; lie down; that’ll do, etc.) and unique whistles, sends the dog in a wide arc along the field’s perimeter and back in to where the waiting sheep have been placed. The dog listens for the shepherd’s commands and guides the sheep back down the field, through the gates, (in a specific order) and etc. the rules and courses become more complicated according to the division competing. (If you’ve ever seen the movie, Babe, you might be familiar with sheepdog/stock dog trials.)

It’s a lot of fun to watch, and it’s wonderful to witness the herding dogs’ speed, intelligence, and desire to please their shepherds. After a course is completed, there’s always a big pool for the dogs to jump in to cool down and rehydrate.

It was a wonderful day among a community of people who love sheep and herding dogs, and the entire world of activities and beauty these passions create. It was vastly healing and hopeful for my spirit: not once did I hear a reference to politics, the coming election, or anyone’s voting preference. We were there to honor and celebrate far more authentic connections, ancient rhythms, and joyful reasons to congregate. And it was good.

Ewe should have been there.

Community, Daily Round, Nature, Noticing, Photography, Slow Life

Stillness at the Center: The Rhythm of Wild Things

August 24, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty12 Comments

I’ll soon be closing The Daily Round’s first journey around the year’s circle. The thing about closing a circle is that you arrive at the place you began, and though life seems more a spiraling helix than a circle, there are the rhythms of the wild things, my signposts and psalms calling me to stillness and reflection as I spin once again around the sun and notice the angles of light that tell me autumn is nearing.

Last October, I wrote about my friend, Jane, the writing spider. I’ve been keeping my eyes open for her progeny as I wander through the gardens that are nearest the place I set her egg sac to rest last year. We were surprised to find one of her daughters had chosen an exterior window of Phillip’s workshop for her home. She graciously allowed me to photograph her, and the elegantly inscribed web she’d woven.

In return, I shared stories about her mother and our friendship, which seemed to create a bond between us. Last evening, she was gone, but her own extravagantly secured egg sac remains as a sign that another cycle is beginning.

Sometimes it seems ironic to seek stillness on a planet spinning about its axis while orbiting a whirling star in a pin-wheeling galaxy, but I seek it nonetheless, and am still learning how to better meet its geography at my center, whether I’m wheeling through local space on my bicycle, walking the trail, or taking the morning’s turn through the gardens. Ancora imparo, wrote Michelangelo in the margins of a late-life sketch: “I am still learning.”

I am learning stillness. I am still.

The Canada geese, blue and green herons and sandhill cranes, faithful signposts, have been teaching me about stillness in the circle journey, as they stand serene, gently planted in flowing rivers and tall grass. Soon they’ll be joining thousands of their species in staging areas located in our marshes and wetlands, before flying south for the winter.

The hickory nuts have matured and fallen, and the squirrels are storing them in my gardens and pausing, it seems, to make merry while the sun shines.

The insects are mating, planting new life on leaves and sticks, under logs and grasses, so that revolutions of metamorphosis will enable their emergence as adults in the next circle’s turn. Last weekend, the soldier beetles and common grass yellow butterflies were mating, while the diligent bumblebee and skipper went about their feeding undisturbed, drinking nectar and distributing the pollen that ensures another circle for the gardens as well.

My camera often seems to be the eye and my walks the anchor of my stillness, in every season. They allow me to focus on one thing at a time and decelerate my energy to the calming waves of “now” and “just this.” Solvitur ambulando: It is solved by walking; although, in this lovely circling labyrinth we call life, I don’t know that solving questions is nearly as important as asking them and living within their possibilities, turning them through the year, and noticing where they lead.

This morning I discovered a second daughter of Jane’s, in medias res, resting at her story’s center, or beginning its telling there, in stillness. I thanked her for her presence and grace, and shared again that I knew her mother…

Our lives revolve, connect and circle round, but spiral outward as well, through the relationships we form and the stories they create. The rhythm of wild things sings the truth of this, round and round.

Hush. Be still. The signposts are everywhere.

Notice.

4-legged companions, Becoming, Daily Round, Nature, Photography, Slow Life, Transformation

Dog Days

August 4, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty19 Comments

On our morning walks, Clancy, Riley, and I have smelled a change in the air over the past week. The angle of light has shifted, falling lower across the trail. Mornings are bathed in a honeyed-glow and the geese are flocking up along the river.

The dog days of summer have arrived.

Along the trail we travel every day, the spring’s trilliums, wild geraniums, and columbines have long faded, the wild rose petals have fallen and the rose hips are shrinking from the heat. Bellflowers, thistle, Queen Anne’s Lace, goldenrod and yellow coneflowers now decorate the edges of the path.

In the constellation Canis Major (which means Big Dog, as it represents the larger hunting dog of Orion), Sirius (“scorching”) is the brightest star, so the ancient Romans called it the Dog Star. In their day, Sirius rose and set with the sun at this time of year, and they believed its fierce light added to the season’s heat, and that the dog days brought lethargy and disease to man and madness to dogs.

But the East Indians had another “dog story” related to Sirius, which is also known in India as Svana, the dog of Prince Yudhistira. The young prince, his brothers and dog set off in search of heaven’s gates. The brothers complained, resisted, and gradually abandoned the journey, but the dog, Svana, faithfully traveled through adventures and perils with his companion, all the way to the gates of heaven. The gatekeeper said the prince could enter, but not Svana, to which the prince replied there could be no heaven for him without his dog. This pleased Lord Indra, who then welcomed them both within.

Clancy and Riley like this story very much.

One morning we stopped on the bridge for our usual break and “treat party.” A resonant clicking and thrumming sounded near us and we jumped up to discover the source. There beside us was a beautiful male Tibicen cicada. This genus is the annual variety of cicada, unlike those which appear at 13 or 17-year intervals.

But to call our friend an annual visitor belies the fact he’s already spent three years or more underground as a nymph, eating tree roots and progressing through 5 instars (developmental stages) before emerging and undergoing his final molting above ground, when he shed his last larval shell and gained wings, becoming the fine fellow we met, singing for a mate by rapidly compressing and releasing his tymbal muscles.

He’s called a “Dog-Days Cicada” because this is the time of year he joins us at the topsoil level.

Cicadas have a prominent place in human mythology. Often in these stories, because their final molting leaves behind a shell of their former shape, cicadas are associated with reincarnation, resurrection, transformation, and the shedding of self-illusions one must surrender to attain enlightenment.

In some places on our endlessly amusing globe, cicadas have been, and remain, an epicurean delight. We assured our friend he would not be eaten by us, but warned him about the birds and squirrels who would find him very tasty indeed.

He replied that one who symbolizes rebirth long ago welcomed death as a necessary and harmonious traveling companion. Riley and Clancy nodded, agreeing that life is best lived now, because now is all there is.

Our friend flew away, but we remained in silence together on the bridge for a time, Riley and Clancy content to enjoy all the delights the morning brought to their senses, while I, the weaker spirit, sought–like my ancestors–to make myth and meaning of the world around me and to understand my origins, my purpose, and what may come. Clancy laid his paw on my right hand and Riley licked the left, calling me back to the present.

I settled back to watch the geese and smell the breeze, enjoying the dog day before me. Eventually, I thought that now must be heaven, for like the Indian prince, I believe there is no heaven without my 4-legged companions.

*****

(“Every day is Cat Day,” says Murphy!)

Art, Creativity, Healing, Hope, Photography, Relationship, Slow Life

Healing Arts

July 22, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty6 Comments

My life’s partner and I have a passion for handmade art–and for musicians, for painters, for photographers, and for people who shape their energy and the earth’s into pottery or glass, blankets or baskets, jewelry or carvings, or ornaments of beauty. The central joys of life, for me, have always been to listen for the generative song of creativity and to seek the company of those who hear, welcome, dance, and improvise to its music. And to midwife the arts of our own and others’ spirits.

How else do we love and heal and become, fully, ourselves?

I was three years removed from city life when we moved once more to Full Moon Cottage. Still weaning from close proximity to theaters, orchestras and art museums, I wondered if moving again, to even more remote country acres, was overdoing it. Happily, I soon learned that wherever there are people, there is art.

We can drive to Madison in 30 minutes, to Milwaukee in under an hour, or to downtown Chicago in about 2.5 hours. So when the Big Art Jones needs a fix, it can be readily satisfied. And then we can return home to sleep beneath a sky scattered with stars and the music of owls, crickets, and the entire Full Moon Orchestra.

Works for us.

But a lovelier benefit of living here is that many of our neighbors are working artists who live in this area because this is where they can afford a home and the space that feeds their spirits and art, and yet be near metropolitan centers where their creativity can be shared with wider audiences.

The town we now call home is built around a beautiful, clean lake. There’s a square at the center of the “business district” that forms a park where the local farmers’ market and festivals are held. In winter, an ice rink is formed at the park and “skating music” is played through speakers, something I look forward to every year. It’s wonderful, especially during a snowfall, to hear the music and children’s voices as I walk between the library and grocery store, or meet a friend for lunch.

Art and community are what I need when my hope for humanity ebbs, as it does when one among us turns to violence and communicates his fear, anger, and alienation with a gun rather than a paintbrush, poem, or guitar. And so, yesterday, we attended the annual Art Fair on the town’s square. A good friend joined us, and we shared a peaceful day meeting artists, enjoying their creativity, listening to an all-women band playing classic “big band” music, watching children’s delight with face-painting, and catching up on our own stories. “It’s all about relationship,” a professor once told me. Yes, it is.

I strolled and sat and people-watched and thought how good it is when we gather to share our inherent creativity: not to judge, but just to celebrate that–given the choice between hate-fueled destruction or love-infused creativity—most people, over and over, choose to make art and make merry.

And so we love, and heal, and delight each other back to continued creativity and hope.

Our favorite house-sitter will be with the 4-leggeds this week so we can go up to Lake Superior, the Big Pond at the north end of our state. Peace to your week, and joy in your creativity!

Tag: Slow Life