spring – THE DAILY ROUND

Becoming, Blessing, Change, Community, Conscious Awareness, Daily Round, Full Moon Cottage, Gifts, Gratitude, Home, Hospitality, Immigration, Learning, Migration, Nature, Noticing, Relationship, River, Slow Life, Spirit, Spring, Transformation, Web of Creation, Wholeness

Fellow Travelers

April 26, 2015March 23, 2020by Kitty10 Comments

The sunrise shouted me out of bed like a réveillé call this morning, and I had high expectations of posting some photos and a few paragraphs by 8 A.M.But that’s not how it works this time of year, and I should know better. Any day may find me migrating far afield with my camera, following winged, two, or four-footed fellow-travelers. So, by 7 A.M., I’d looked through a few photos, sipped coffee, chatted with my Beloved before he headed out to a remodeling job, and then wandered outside with my camera to see if any tulips had blossomed yet. They had not, so I roamed a bit, and eventually found myself three miles east along the bike trail, resting at the Rock River bridge. Thankfully, I was not still in my pajamas, although I’m getting to the time of my life where it wouldn’t matter all that much if I were.The Crawfish River, upon which Full Moon Cottage is situated, right on the curve of a drumlin, flows into the Rock River, a 300-mile river that is a tributary of the Mississippi, joining it south of us, in Illinois.

In spring, bird migrations follow the rivers to find their way to a kind of grand gathering of the clans at Horicon Marsh, about 40 miles north of us. The migrants offer all kinds of varied bird-watching treats, if we happen to be looking in the right direction, at the right time, and on the right day, because some are here and gone very quickly.

This week, the bit of river overflow opposite Full Moon Cottage has seemed to be taken for a temporary, but welcome, wetlands hostel of sorts, as every morning has revealed different guests, who have flown to Horicon or points north by late afternoon. Blue-Winged Teal ducks stopped over, as did shorebirds like Sandpipers and Snipes. (Sorry, my photos aren’t showstoppers because I was too far away, and didn’t want to wear waders and slog down to the guests’ resting place, disturbing them for a better photo, but you get the idea.) Flocks of American White Pelicans soared above Riley, Clancy, and me, during our walks this week, also headed to Horicon, to nest until late September. Their numbers have increased since the beginning of our current century, having largely disappeared during the last. Their 9-ft. wingspans and interesting flight patterns always delight me; they shift and flow in horizontal, then vertical lines, then V-formations, gathering clusters, and then shooting off with partners. Somewhere, I imagine a pelican flight choreographer named Randall or Jonathan, clacking his bill and snapping directions at their migration rehearsals. “One-two-three-and…Oh, shit; this is hopeless! Partner up, people! More jazzwings! We’ll never be ready for opening flight!”Their black and white coloring, and long, ridged bills are stunning, and always remind me of Audrey Hepburn in the “Ascot Gavotte” scene in My Fair Lady.

The little wetlands is drying up, due to our lack of rain, but the migrations continue. This week, I’m hoping to see hummingbirds, orioles and grosbeaks; they’re usually here the first week of May. I’m always excited to see them, maybe because of the many migrations I’ve made in my own life; it seems a natural impulse to seek the home that meets one’s needs, and it seems right as well, that strangers should be welcomed for the gifts, color, and variety they offer our lives.So, I set out feeders of sugar water and slices of oranges, as I hope I set out compassion and kindness; hospitality naturally invites such beauty that I would otherwise have missed. As others have welcomed me, I want to welcome others. One of my teachers said, reducing the philosophy of servant-leadership quite tidily, “It’s all about relationship.” We’re all of us coming from our home or going to our next home, sometimes both at once, and the least we can be in passing is generous in our embrace and wise in the recognition that we’re more alike than different.

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Devouring Mysteries

April 20, 2015March 23, 2020by Kitty19 Comments

How can it be, at my advanced and advancing age, that only four seasons, circling round and round again continue to amaze me each time they take their turn and reappear? Like a church, Full Moon Cottage and the neighboring Glacial Drumlin Trail move through cycles, with attendant mysteries, rituals, sacraments, and an ever-changing choir to accompany these. And, if anything, each year’s cycle of seasons becomes more precious and startling, perhaps because I’m ever more acquainted with the energy required for the transformations they create. A rainstorm, overnight, shook off the bud casings and sang out the tender leaves on our fruit trees and along the trail. I went to sleep knowing the trees held the possibility of leaves, and woke to a realized mass of fluttering green foliage, newborn and tentative. The world is a nursery crammed with infants in spring. I devour these mysteries entirely and delightedly. Within a week or two, daffodils and tulips pierced the earth and are now ready to burst into bloom, and, if I don’t survey the gardens every day, I fear I’ll miss them. Along the trail, sweet wildflowers have been decorating our walks for the past week. Well, perhaps skunk cabbage is less sweet and flowery than a sure and comforting sign that spring is here for certain. Skunk cabbage is one of the few plants that exhibit thermogenesis, or the ability to heat up the earth enough to melt the snow and ice that may be present, and emerge early enough to attract pollinating insects before they become prey to other creatures. It sends up a purple spathe rather than flowers, and, within the spathe, a spadix emits a decidedly unlovely odor that attracts the insects that will pollinate it. I understand this, but thermogenesis in a plant, however it’s explained, rests upon deeper mystery, to me. The Marsh Marigold is an ancient native plant, having survived glaciations, enduring after the last retreat of the ice, apparently well-suited to a landscape of glacial meltwaters. Why it managed to survive is a mystery, but its cheerful gold shines up from the puddle-filled ditches every April. And the Pink Beauty and Blood Root have ants as helpmeets to spread their seeds, a process called myrmecochory. Their seeds have a fleshy organ called an elaiosome that offers a “come hither” scent to the ants, who carry the seeds back to their nests. I wonder if these are considered a kind of party treat heralding the ants’ spring? Anyway, they eat the elaiosomes, and put the seeds in their nest debris, rich in nutrients, where they are protected until they germinate. And although I can understand the science that explains these plants, their existence and their sacred interdependence with ants remains a cherished mystery. The winter choir of sifting snows and blustery winds has changed to a chorus of birdsong and amphibian arias; this past week, the red-winged blackbirds were the day-sky stars, but at night, our opened windows allowed the Spring Peepers, Leopard Frogs, and toads to serenade us with their river songs. We haven’t heard the Bullfrogs yet; I hope their solos come along soon. All these mysteries occurring under my nose, all this energy being expended all around me…it makes my daily round look rather unproductive and flat by comparison. My students and I planted potatoes this past week, and others worked with their teachers to prepare a butterfly garden. I’m not sure we’ll get out in the garden today, as it’s very windy and down about 30 degrees from last week’s surprising warmth, but we may plant some of the lettuces, peas, and other cold-weather vegetables we’ve started, and divide out tomato seedlings into their own 4” pots. The Master Gardeners have also scheduled lessons to teach the students more about Monarch Butterflies and their crises regarding habitat and migration, and plan to establish a Monarch Waystation at the school this spring.

When I’m not at school, I’ve been cleaning up the gardens and, of course, devouring mysteries, both those around me and those in book form. I like the ones I cannot solve the best. I’m re-reading the wonderful Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters/Edith Pargeter, and a friend just got me hooked on Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries, so I’m fully-booked, so to speak. But it’s the mysteries and rituals surrounding me that most deeply feed and fill my spirit. Here is one of my favorites:When they were little puppies, we noticed how Riley and Clancy loved to fall on the grass and roll joyfully, over and over, especially in spring. We could almost hear them giggling. So, we’ve always called this their “Roly-Poly Game,” and the expression quickly became a cue for them. Whenever they heard it, they would fall down and merrily roll while we laughed at them and cried out in mock disbelief. “Oh, no! Not roly-poly!” Over and over, like little children, they seemed delighted in entertaining us with their silliness. A beloved spring ritual.

This past winter, when we received their respective health diagnoses, I didn’t expect them to be here, now, and certainly not with the ability to be sung back to life, like the green leaves, and playing roly-poly. But here they are, in April, celebrating our annual ritual, diving down to meet the sweet green earth, giggling and making me laugh, joyfully devouring the mystery that brought us together years ago and that allows us to share another spring day. It is a mystery. And a gift.But this mystery has a name, written on my heart for 14 years. It is Love, and I devour it as hungrily as any communicant, and as full of gratitude.

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Rx: Spring’s Impossible Green

April 13, 2015March 23, 2020by Kitty10 Comments

A week ago, we were worried that drought would keep our spring brown and our gardens thirsty. Then, we were blessed by wonderful storms that brought thunder, a bit of hail, and spring’s annual magic.

We watched as, within a few days, the dead browns of winter were replaced by spring’s impossible greens.

(Well, most of us watched. Murphy hid under bedcovers when thunder rumbled.)

Crocus blossoms opened and spiders crisscrossed the blooms with delicate strands of filament…sometimes, I think these hold the world together.

The river rose and even spilled over the banks a bit.

This little fellow splashed happily in the ditch, using a puddle as his private spa.

I was under the weather during the tail end of the week. Try as I might, I didn’t escape the spring flu wiggling its way through my students and then through me. I’d looked forward to meeting a friend and sharing lunch before exploring the Wisconsin Film Festival, and was disappointed I had to cancel that adventure. But I did stumble out yesterday for a family gathering and belated celebration of Phillip’s birthday. The morning began with a brilliant sunrise that flashed around the bedroom, refracting in windows and surprising the heart with joy.

A tentative walk with the pups assured me I had my sea legs back under me and walked once again among the living. That green! What an amazing medicine, shooting straight through the eyes, the body, and spirit.

We met our family for lunch, and then visited the nearby home of Phillip’s niece, who raises sheep and chickens.

Surrounded by people we love, the sweetness and beauty of the new life, and the impossible green, I knew I was on the mend.

And mending renews hope: If the earth can transform from colorless death to wild green life in just a week, well, maybe there’s hope for humanity. Maybe nothing’s impossible, after all.

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A Hope of Bluebirds

March 29, 2015March 23, 2020by Kitty6 Comments

The affairs of humanity can certainly make us sad some days, can’t they? I’m trying hard to hang onto hope, a vow I made as the New Year rang in. I’ve promised myself I’ll counter negativity by choosing thoughts and actions that offer my spirit peace, which engenders my creativity more fluidly than giving in to despair or misanthropy, tempting as they may be.

When I feel overcome by the news of plane crashes, wars, crooked politicians, and the relentlessly avoided but vitally necessary triage we must offer our hemorrhaging planet, I’ve promised to look for reasons to hope and actions I can take, however infinitesimally small, to heal the world.

It can be hard to sustain much hope some days.

Trudging through a March snowstorm earlier this week, I was gifted with a sudden downrush and uplift of bluebirds…I don’t know their collective name, but I would offer “a presence,” “a beauty” or “a joy” of bluebirds. Unfortunately, my coat, sweatshirt, gloves, and camera lens were all soaked from the heavy, wet snow, so all I can offer is “a blur of bluebirds.”

But the stunning and unexpected encounter left me lightened and hopeful.

Earlier that morning, I’d come across this recent article, by Eric Holthaus, at Slate.com, which describes dramatic climate change and its effect in the state of Alaska, serving as a kind of bellwether for the rest of the planet.

It seems like every day, more data is published by scientists who are most eager for the rest of us to care enough about the earth that we stop what we’re doing and change, dramatically, the definition of what we need to be happy and how we infinitely produce, appropriate, consume, and cast off material goods on our finite planet.

It’s not as exciting a problem to the general populace, I fear, as Bruce Jenner’s transgender shift, or which team might win the NCAA Championship. Climate change presents an almost-overwhelming amount of data and difficulties, of course, but we’ve become so skilled at giving away our power to solve the challenges we face and at denying the existence of anything that requires us to curb our ravenous consumption, that we use our considerable collective energy and gifts to avoid and run away from truth, rather than facing it, rolling up our sleeves, and doing the hard work of transformation and healing that the earth and our existence require.

We know the time to change is evaporating as quickly as the polar ice caps, but we put it off, anyway. Until when? There is no hero who will save us; we are all responsible for the waste, greed, and self-interest that brought us here, and each of us is vital to its solution.

I do not understand humanity. I sometimes think we’re a virus the earth needs to destroy, and increasingly soon, in order that she and her other inhabitants and systems might thrive.

That’s what led to my blue mood last Monday, when I walked through the (very) late March snowstorm. It’s tricky, living through a Wisconsin March, to know if any given day is “typical,” as the autumnal and spring equinox periods of the year frequently ride into our land like royalty surrounded by the vivid highs and lows of noisy and dramatic courtiers. One day snow; the next, a veritable summer.

But, we do know that in our part of the state, we’re already hovering between meteorological designations of “Abnormally Dry” and “Drought,” due to the extra 15 inches of snow that “normally” fall during the winter months, and this year, did not. We know temperatures have been “colder than average” these past two months.

We know that species of pollinators (honeybees, monarchs) and plants are diminishing. We know that migratory patterns are altering, to the detriment of fellow species within our earth community, if we could see them as such.

But we do nothing to change or to help. We stomp our little human feet and immaturely cry, “No!” whenever a suggestion of sacrifice or change is made. We blame others. We refuse to imagine and then create new systems that would allow us to live in greater harmony with the rest (the majority, by the way) of the earth.

Seeing the bluebirds refocused me. They reminded me that hopeful actions are far more important at this point than dwelling in a gloom of inactivity. One way I counter my creeping despair is to name things that give me hope.

My students:

My fellow creatures and their endurance:

My gardens:

One way I take responsibility for change is to focus on what I do well and share it. I write effectively. So, here is a template of a letter anyone may copy and send to someone in elected office or a leadership position (an employer, a church official, a queen, a parent, a friend, yourself) to encourage the shift that must happen if we are to cooperate in saving the planet.

Dear ___________,

Because you are in a position of leadership, you bear the responsibility for contributing to the welfare of those you serve. I’m writing to urge you to use that power by risking its loss through facing the very real threats to your constituents (employees, church members, subjects, children, etc.) and the planet, that are posed by the climate changes now occurring, and those increasingly likely to occur.

Please have the courage to examine the processes of resource procurement, and any production, and waste creation within your scope and responsibility, for ways these might be eliminated altogether, or altered, so as to nurture the health of the earth and all her species.

Please have the courage to create and enforce rules, laws, and systems that prohibit behaviors that endanger the health of the earth and all her species.

Please have the courage to question everything you manage and the choices that govern this management in the light of their impact upon the health of the earth and all her species.

Please have the courage to listen to those who have made their life’s work the study of the earth and her health, and to avail yourself of their expertise when creating and realizing change.

None of these requests come under the banners of easy or popular; none will likely allow you to pay back those who granted you the power you wield; none ensure long years of job security. All, as stated, require courage, which begins in the heart. A true leader loves those served more than the power—or wealth—that come with authority.

My requests do not come without my pledge to support you in making these changes, which I believe are more urgent and in need of discussion and implementation than anything previously faced by those who inhabit our planet.

Sincerely,

_______________

Feel free to edit the letter or write your own, but do send it on, and then use your own unique gifts to alter the course of climate change and/or our response to it. I guarantee you, it will do wonders for your hope quotient and the peace of your spirit.

“…You will find greater peace of mind

Knowing there’s a bluebird of happiness.

And when he sings to you,

Though you’re deep in blue,

You will see a ray of light creep through…”

~ Bluebird of Happiness: Lyrics by Edward Heyman and Harry Parr Davies; music by Sandor Harmati, 1934.

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Gardeners, All

March 15, 2015March 23, 2020by Kitty8 Comments

Such a splendid week we’ve had at Full Moon Cottage! We’ve been breathing gratitude, along with the sweet scent of geosmin, the organic compound released by active little actinomycetes as the earth reheats in spring. Like earth’s signature sachet, it evokes a million memories of gardens I’ve tended and loved since I was a child. The comforting reliable signposts assuring us that spring has arrived and is busily establishing her known rhythms has caused our enthusiasm and energy levels to rise like sap and respond by honoring the rituals this time of year calls forth: opening windows, cleaning and winnowing through closets, washing rugs and curtains, and going outside as often as possible to notice homecomings and welcome back old friends. The Canada Geese and Sandhill Cranes have been winging in on great southerly winds crying out, “Here we are! Here we are!” The male birds—cardinals, chickadees, flickers, jays–are establishing territories and will be seeking mates for nesting, so I’m scattering pet hair and dryer lint, and continuing to fill the feeders. Our owls make their presence known, as do the bossy crows, and this morning, Phillip heard a robin’s song. The river’s coat of ice is melting away. A lack of winter snow has caused the water level to be quite low this year, so we’re hoping for rains, but just to see the water sparkle in sunlight touches and begins to thaw every frozen particle lodged in our winter hearts. The long months of chilled confinement have ended; winter’s dark and snarled mind knots loosen and dissolve, allowing our spirits to flow. We’ve been laughing more this week. It’s too soon to get into the gardens, but at least I can see them again, and am trying to locate the very detailed list I made last autumn of all the uprooting, dividing, and replanting I had planned for this spring. Of course, first, we have to wait and see who did, and who did not, survive the bitter cold and lack of adequate snow cover we experienced until late winter. Ever hopeful.

I remember my first garden, when I was about eight, and the deep joy I felt planting my bachelor buttons, moss roses, zinnias, and cosmos. Every morning, for weeks, I dashed from bed to garden, pajama-clothed and barefoot—a habit that endures—to examine the earth for signs of green life. I weeded and watered and spent most of that summer immersed in “my” garden, as I have ever since. Daddy had encouraged this, utterly, and supported my dreams of color and blossom; Mama didn’t garden, but supported everything that gave me joy. I took it for granted that everyone had parents who so lovingly tended their dreams. Until I can grab a rake and trowel and get going this spring, my garden jones is satisfied at school, where, led by our intrepid team of visiting Master Gardeners, we’ve spent a few weeks planning, and are now planting seeds for this year’s garden. The little pots will sit in long trays on counters in the school’s basement, warmed by grow lights and watered from the bottom. It gladdens my heart to see how joyfully and naturally the children connect with these activities. They cannot always name the steps or tools involved in gardening, or even evidence familiarity with the resulting food, but they so merrily dig into buckets of soil and so tenderly plant seeds in tiny, plastic earth-filled homes. I think there’s nothing so healing, creative, or natural as gardening.

The children’s spirits have been thawing, too, and warmer days have increased their energy, and the need for its release and creative expression. Their city skyline artwork turned out beautifully. I was stopped in my tracks, though, when more than one child asked where in their skyline the jail should be represented, or a child showed me his city and identified a building as “the prison.” Once again, I was reminded that the familial, reliable, and seasonal rhythms in which I have always taken comfort and joy are very different from those circumscribing the lives of many of my students. Sometimes their behavior is angry and puzzling, and then comments like these reveal the missing pieces, and my heart breaks open, creating spaces for new seeds of understanding to be planted.

Phillip and I talk, often, of our students and the ways we might touch their spirits and hearts, and give them hope, or a bit of light to companion their journeys. It’s not likely they’ll remember us, but will they remember that a teacher once told them how special, and precious, and gifted they are? When they doubt their purpose, or lose their way, or struggle to make the right choice, will they feel rooted in courage and reach for a light-filled path? Breathing in the wonders and invitations of spring, I’m reminded that we are all stewards of each other as well as of the earth, and that how we prepare, nurture, and tend one another’s spirits is our calling as humans and, certainly, as teachers. Not everyone was gifted with present and loving parents who cultivated their gifts and wonder from the beginning, and we all have dark spaces that can be filled with self-doubt and self-loathing, or planted with promise and loved into bloom. We may never see the amazing blossoms and glorious results we have helped create, never be identified as one of the gardeners, but we must, over and over, plant the seeds of possibility, expectation, and affirmation, and shower them with love. Ever hopeful; gardeners, all.

Merry new spring and joyful planting!

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Two Steps Forward

March 8, 2015March 23, 2020by Kitty10 Comments

February, as it turns out, is the cruelest month, and, here at Full Moon Cottage, we’re glad to see its back end heading down the trail.

The dance February demanded of us caused stumbling, missteps, and then a repetitive one-step-forward-two-steps-back movement that exhausted us all.

We’d been looking forward to some kitchen remodeling, beginning with new appliances. But just when our savings said, “Yes, buy the new oven,” Mulligan came down with a serious infection, and two days later, Miss Fiona needed extensive dental work. Bam; savings gone.

The past two weeks have been spent chasing these poor darlings up and down and over and under to give them their necessary medicine for healing. Fiona has always been extremely reluctant to share space, be touched, hear sounds, experience life…it takes her a long, long time to become comfortable and feel safe, so this has been an inner ring of hell for her. Locating her in the basement circumscribed a unique abyss for us as well, and created colorful bruises in mighty strange places. I swear, one morning I was half under an old blanket-covered couch—Fiona long fled—and almost elected to just lie there for the remainder of the day rather than deduce the maneuvering necessary to wiggle back out again.

But now, we’ve come one step forward yet again: Mulligan is enspirited and inimitably present in his distinctive ways, and Fiona has dared to leave the basement and is characteristically hidden beneath the dining table, safely barricaded by chairs and pedestal. We try not to glance in her direction, as that would send her to the depths once more. Anyway, she has passed the date when medication would have eased her pain, poor thing. Excessive shyness and an inability to understand the language spoken to you can cost you needless suffering, it seems. We’re happy she’s back with us, and we hope feeling better every day.

Winter has been doing the same dance, retreating and returning, but with far more dash and surprising colors than our own awkward shuffle. The sunrises and sunsets have been spectacular, as though winter is kvetching, “OK, I’m going already, but you’ll miss all this!”

Last Tuesday, we had a lovely snowfall, our last for the season, said the forecasters.

Since the air temperature also danced above and below freezing, the snow turned to mist at times and the resulting crystals were blindingly magical.

A bit more warmth caused a bit more melt, and then a night below the freezing point glazed the snow-covered earth entirely. The next morning, we walked on brilliant and brittle glass that initially, tentatively supported our weight, then yielded and crunched into sugar-cookie crumbs.

So, one step back. Oh, winter, yes: You are beautiful beyond compare and offer us delights we savor. Stay, stay forever.

Well, not that far back. And more than two forward. This week, the weather will turn, has already begun to do so…The fox is back, having burrowed out her den’s door and entered to birth new kits.

The sounds of snow and ice trickling away, and birds wooing mates and nesting, and me sighing at the mud tracking through the kitchen, and the happy dance of two pups and five healthy cats…the cacophony of life after winter’s silence fills our home and hearts.

Let the windows be opened and a new dance commence.

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Gliding Into Green Time

May 27, 2014March 23, 2020by Kitty16 Comments

We’ve come (finally!) to the time of year when all the gardens, in a brilliance of greens and tender spring blossoms, flash back only beauty and promise. No pests, no droughts nor floods, no diseases have yet appeared to divert our belief that this will be the best summer ever for a perfection of blooms and abundance.

Sweet friends have returned to Full Moon Cottage, annual visitors who bless our days and inaugurate a new season of life as the year rolls round her journey.

There is no better time to celebrate life, is there? Last week, my colleagues came to Full Moon Cottage to toast the end of another school year, and my husband’s staff will be here next week to do the same. It’s grand to have guests, and motivating as well. Nothing like scheduled company to get us out to re-design, weed, plant, thin, and clean the gardens!

In July, family and friends will come to help us celebrate our wedding anniversary, so we’re looking at projects indoors and out, that may or may not come to fruition, given the time and money necessary to accomplish them. I’m an inveterate list-maker and recovering perfectionist. I’ve noticed age has helped me better—and sooner—identify the borders between desire and reality. How good it can feel to welcome the loosening, letting go, and blessed release of expectations to allow what will happen to happen. I don’t always manage this with grace, but I can say I’m better than I used to be. I can even manage a “whatever,” once in a while, and mean it. At least some of the time, I’m able to suspend my definition of perfection and see what’s already perfectly perfect.

More importantly, we’re excited to be taking time to gather with people we love. When you reflect on parties and festivities you’ve attended, what do you recall in their afterglow? Not the hours of work and attention to detail that went into planning and organizing them, but the time spent sharing, listening, laughing, relaxing, affirming love and being affirmed as a valuable and integral part of other lives.

It’s such a lovely time of year to recognize, toast, and encourage creation and recreation. Two years ago, we suffered through a devastating drought, and its effects continue to unfold. Our maples let loose an impossible number of seeds last autumn, in part a response to the prior year’s drought. A flurry of rebellious possibility rained down to establish life before drought could again assail the right to regenerate that is claimed by every living thing.

The behaviors and choices of humans and their leaders so often deny Nature this right. In spring, her resounding Yes-always-yes-to-life, and the reminder she will likely outlast our stupidity and short-sightedness is both illuminating and humbling.

And worth celebrating, as we glide into another summer and its green possibilities for creativity, for gathering, for affirming life, for knowing when to allow what will happen to happen, and for the gift of entering it with gratitude, knowing too, that the impulse to regenerate never dies.

May you be blessed with long, happy days of recreation and the company of loved ones to share them.

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Entertaining Angels

May 6, 2014March 23, 2020by Kitty10 Comments

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. ~ Hebrews 13:2; KJV

Winter lingered. Just when we thought it had taken its last breath, it gasped and continued to test our hospitality.

But for well over a week now, despite chilly nights, the days have been warmer, or rainy, and coaxed out the greens this late spring offers up as gift to eyes surprised by anything other than black, white, and gray.

Spring’s winged and 4-legged angels, arriving with all their usual and new messages regarding reasons to hope and deepen our love for the earth and each other, have been sailing, trotting, hopping, or crawling up and down the river bank. Choirs of blackbirds and spring peepers, with guest soloists—grosbeaks, robins, sand pipers, woodpeckers, ducks, geese, pelicans, warblers, finches, and cardinals—alert us to miracles daily and hourly. Today, my first sightings of a Baltimore Oriole and Rose-breasted Grosbeak set my heart dancing. The silence and solitude of winter are definitely over; whatever dreams and seeds were planted in the dark have been called forth most dramatically this spring. It took a while for the stone to be rolled away, but the light is now shining like a drama queen. “Grow!” it seems to command.

We emerged, tentatively and cautiously, peeking out from under winter’s blanket like the proverbial groundhog, and then began to meet, socialize, fill in the calendar, haul out the garden tools and dig into life with the vigor only pasty-white winter people can summon when spring returns in the fullness of her resurrection power.

Our pups, Riley and Clancy, who will celebrate 13 years of being next week, had a dicey winter. Age-related health encounters gave us some sad and frightening moments, which time and our saintly veterinarian helped us through, gently. We’ve all made adjustments and adapted. We feared their loss (knowing it will come, but please, not yet, not now) and are therefore utterly grateful they’re still here and again able to amble down the trail with us. Their kennels have moved upstairs; our walks are shorter; their schedule is a bit more closely monitored; at night we protect each other; and—if possible—we celebrate our funky family even more than ever. I guess my years tending dying parents and elderly patients have readied me for this, as well. If so, Full Moon Cottage will be the best damn nursing home for elderly 4-leggeds we can imagine.

One evening we had company visiting and the night became so merry and so filled with heady conversation and children and music that our five-year-old guest crawled into his mother’s arms and softly cried. His mother held him and asked about his tears. “I feel so happy,” he said. So much joy, some needed to spill out a bit, I suppose, to re-balance his mighty little spirit.

I know exactly how he felt.

On Earth Day, my students and I cleaned up the school grounds, washed bits of the refuse we collected and then made art…their sweet hearts and lively spirits feed me, daily. I’ve come to a time in my life where most teachers arrive, if they’re lucky and as blessed as I’ve been: we know that teacher and student are the same thing.

As are life and death.

I’m trying to gauge my wealth differently than financial advisers might counsel: How engaged with life, how open to its invitations have I been this day? To what degree have I given and received as I’ve circled through the daily round? How often did I pause and connect with all the angels and their messages streaming towards and through me? How freely did I share those messages with others?

In my life, angels, or messengers who remind me, “This is it! Now! It’s all holy!” have never been pretty men with wings, though some of my angels have been men, and many of my guides have had wings…Only look and listen, they’re everywhere: winged, legged, fluttering, croaking, singing, blooming, dying, laughing or weeping. See! These unique and sacred collections of particles gathering and forming, dissolving and reforming: Be moved to dance, to hobble, to wheeze, to weep with joy by all the ways Love calls you out, every moment, into resurrection and new creation.

Clancy questions whether he must entertain his sibling cats as angels, especially if they appropriate his kennel.

Change, Daily Round, Discernment, Environment, Full Moon Cottage, Home, Noticing, Photography, Spring, Web of Creation

Sacred Ground

May 6, 2013March 25, 2020by Kitty15 Comments

My husband and I have begun the long discernment regarding where we’d most like to retire. We have several years of regular employment ahead of us, but think it best we start the conversation now, in case other opportunities present themselves, or health issues arise that would require a more sudden shift. So, what shall it be? “Up North” on a lake? A condo in the city? A different state? In the U.S.? Another country? We know that, at some point, the maintenance of Full Moon and its four acres will become more physically demanding than we can manage, but what are the signs that will tell us the time has come?

We can’t know what’s ahead, of course, but I’ve known people who have reached their retirement without ever truly having considered their needs, desires, and possibilities regarding the next (and, let’s face it, the last) stage of their lives. The following years proved more challenging for them than a dedicated time of planning may have created.

Even beginning these conversations has proven interesting, as we each consider leaving Full Moon Cottage, sit with our feelings, come back to reconsider possibilities and then go out to work in the yard, take a canoe trip, walk on the path, or sail down the trail on a long, meditative bike ride.

Full Moon has been a lovely and deepening home, generous in its gifting, and we’ve traveled through a good bit of our lives here. Every season has offered so much beauty and so many lessons. This past week, the orioles, red-breasted grosbeaks, purple finches, goldfinches, and hummingbirds returned to the feeders with their great appetites and vivid presence.

The shy and solitary green heron who lives beside us in the woods has returned; like the owls, he struggles to find peace among the raucous crows, and I’m grateful he does, for his annual reappearance and heartbreaking calls each spring anchor the new season for me as surely as the oriole’s song.

The tulips have begun blooming, at last, and we’ve been working to edge and mulch the gardens, just ahead of the weeds, especially the vigorous garlic mustard, which suffered no setback from the drought.

A mourning dove couple has chosen to build their nest above my pullout clothesline. I guess I’ll be using my dryer for a few more weeks. We’ve never seen mourning dove newborns, so this is a rare treat for us.

There are nests all around our home; every day more are apparent. We noticed a sandhill crane nesting in a marshy area, “hidden in plain view.”

It looks like we’ll have a very brief spring; temperatures could be in the 90’s next week, and summer will open wide. I can’t help but wonder how many more springs we’ll be here to welcome fox kits, to set out seed and oranges for returning birds and their newborns, or to tend the gardens’ rebirth. I wonder how many more autumns we’ll bid them each farewell and settle in for another winter.

But Full Moon has taught me that wherever we are, there is possible beauty and the rhythm of cycles that elicit love and call forth our gifts to co-create. We’ll be sad when we finally have to leave, of course, but I hope we’ll be looking forward to new adventures on other sacred ground, and quiet places to bow down to the beauty before us.

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

Daily Round, Farmers' Markets, Gardening, Home, Organic Food, Spirit, Spring, Winter, Wisconsin

To Market, To Market

March 15, 2013March 15, 2013by Kitty21 Comments

I can tell it’s almost spring, though continuing snowfalls are no indication that this is so. But these days, the birdsong is all about spring, the sandhill cranes and red-tailed hawks are returning, and the inner time-keeper that heralds earth’s green abundance is causing me to shift from soup-making to craving salads and fruits and icy teas.

This is the time of year I countdown the days to the opening of farmers’ markets, in our local communities and in Madison, where the largest outdoor producer-only farmers’ market in the U.S. will open on April 20th. My own garden’s vegetables and fruits, local CSA’s’ offerings, and all these glorious farmers’ markets…such lovely, healthy bounty, and it’s almost here, near enough to smell!

The first 20 years of my adulthood were spent in Milwaukee, which is not a huge city, but at a population of 600,000 or so, the largest in the state. And since it’s the home to several universities and colleges as well as (still) many ethnic communities, shopping for produce, spices, and groceries was always a possible adventure. In the early 70’s, the first “health food” stores brought the additional availability of whole wheat and other grains still absent from grocery store shelves. We could prepare and eat healthy meals, and fairly cheaply.

Then I married Phillip and moved to the “country.” I couldn’t adjust to the scarcity of fresh produce and lack of ethnic foods and spices. I drove 40 minutes to Madison to find healthy ingredients. I remember an older teacher sitting beside me in the staff lunchroom and commenting on the “funny-food” I brought for my lunches (probably something with garlic and spinach). It all brought home to me that a move of 50 miles had brought me back to the wretched dietary habits of the 1950’s and 60’s: better eating through chemicals, processing, excessive sugars and fats, and meat, meat and more meat. It really made the newness of the community and our marriage all the more challenging not to be able to cook, bake, and eat foods that fed our spirits as well as our bodies.

The Farmers’ Market in Madison, and growing and preserving as much food as we could, helped a lot every summer. And, as the years have passed, an increasing awareness of the health benefits derived from fresh, organic foods and ingredients, as well as a shift towards greater variety and sophistication in tastes, has altered the local food landscape for the better. Several community farmers’ markets are close and affordable, and also provide wonderful opportunities to connect with friends and hear updates on everyone’s stories.

And when the cold winds do blow and shut down access to fresh garden produce, local groceries now stock organic choices. A few years ago, a woman opened a wonderful bulk goods store in our area, working with local and Midwest Amish and Mennonite suppliers. A short, beautiful ride in the country and I can stock up on inexpensive organic grains and spices that keep our meals varied and healthy all winter. I’d never tried some of these before (spelt; kamut; rye berries) and have enjoyed experimenting with new recipes.

This week I met with a friend at the indoor Milwaukee Public Market, a place I’ve enjoyed visiting since it opened in 2005. While not the most affordable place to shop, it’s a wonderful resource for specialty “treats,” people-watching, and to pay homage to the history of Milwaukee’s Third Ward. Years ago, when I worked downtown, I’d walk to the Third Ward over lunch break just to watch men unload crates and crates of fresh produce and fruits. It’s always good for my spirit to be back in Milwaukee and to share a meal with a friend, but now it’s also good to come back and cook up a healthy meal from ingredients I can buy here, at home.

My friend Bob, and I, at The Milwaukee Public Market

Time to bake some whole-grain organic soda bread for our St. Patrick’s celebrations…Joy to your first day of spring! May it bring a season of fresh and blessed health to your mind, body, and spirit, and may there be enough green in your pocket, on your plate and outside your window to make your life rich and your spirit merry!

Becoming, Daily Round, Full Moon Cottage, Gardening, Gratitude, Loss, Photography, Transformation

All’s Right With the World

May 11, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty10 Comments

The year’s at the spring

And day’s at the morn;

Morning’s at seven;

The hillside’s dew-pearled;

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn;

God’s in His heaven—

All’s right with the world.

~ Robert Browning, Pippa Passes

We are being gifted with glorious weather this week and it looks like it will continue for still another week as well. The rains were too heavy last weekend, but now we’ve had just enough to keep everyone happy, and plenty of warmth to beckon buds into bloom and songbirds to sing. The rose-breasted grosbeaks have returned, the hummingbirds have completed their extraordinary journey and are replenishing their energy at the feeders. I’ve heard orioles and seen them along the trial, but they haven’t yet come to the feeding station and I’m hoping to set out a few oranges this afternoon to draw them in and make them welcome.

Morning’s begin around five for us these days; birds vie for their chance at the worms, insects, and seeds, and the night creatures withdraw to the shadows edging the woods. The sun rises between 5 and 6 A.M. and the eastern view towards the river explodes with light. The acreage at Full Moon Cottage is hemmed in by curtains of willow leaves, ash trees, and pines, and all are illuminated at dawn, back-lit by gold and it is too much; I’m called to wordless stillness, staring at the beauty.

I’ve always loved this stanza of Browning’s. Though I don’t agree with his theological pronouns or geography, we’re all entitled to our perceptions of Holy Source and to orientations regarding its presence that give us peace…and the rest of the stanza is glorious. “Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language,” wrote Henry James, but a spring morning is equally captivating.

Just be, says the world; it is enough.

I sense a greater energy in myself, my partner and our 4-legged companions as the bright days lengthen; we all want to be out in it: the budding and blossoming, the light and shadow, the colors and connections.

The first poppy “popped” today as the tulips and trilliums are fading and dropping leaves. We’re well into the garden symphony’s first movement, the whirl of birth and life and death that happens and draws us in and reminds us we’re specifically flowing in the whirl ourselves: The duck eggs will hatch soon; the starling mother drowned in the rainstorm; her six eggs were therefore exposed to the cold and the life within perished…

Our mothers will be feted and honored less than they are due, but happily, this weekend; those of us who dreamed of children and were not blessed with them will mourn unrealized dreams…

It all mixes together and passes too quickly, all of it. Children grow up; gardens rise, bloom, and return to the earth; chances are taken and missed. I cannot remember all the words to the song the child within is singing, but I am certain it is a hymn to the dearness of what is–just this once, and fleeting–and a reminder that joy and pain, regret and rebirth, life and death mix and resurrect into new life. Again.

So I will sit in the garden outside my window and the garden of my life, and see the light and colors of what is here, and of what has come from what has come to pass.

And here is the oriole, orange and brilliant.

© 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.

Change, Community, Dying, Gratitude, Photography, Spring, Transformation

In Gratitude

March 30, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty10 Comments

Here and there along the trail, apple trees have taken root, and their early white blossoms are decorating the trail’s edges like lace trim peeking out from the startling and tender yellow-green leaves of trees. The blossoms liberally scent the trail long before they’re approached, and as we pass, the perfume circles around us and lingers. We’re walking in an apple blossom cloud. It becomes a vivid part of the memory of our spring walks. I often wonder how Clancy and Riley perceive this heady fragrance, given that their sense of smell is 100,000 times better than mine: they can smell electricity, underground gas, drugs, and the bio-chemical and electrical changes that signify epilepsy and cancer. I am, by comparison, an olfactory dunce, lost in the scent of apple blossoms…and quite content to be so.

The pups and I headed out late yesterday afternoon and enjoyed the bright clear colors fading into the deeper shadows. Touring the yard when we returned, we saw the first tulip blooming and others just on the cusp of opening to the world.

We narrowly escaped frost a few nights ago, and temperatures in the 80’s are forecast for this weekend. Today is chillier, and it has been raining since the early hours of this new day.

Yesterday’s warmth and sunshine; todays mysterious darkness and silver rainfall, punctuated by the haunting and melancholy cry of our resident green heron…I can’t predict how all of this shifting variability will affect the gardens, so I’m using the surprises of the season as reminders to be present and to locate the “gratitude handles” each day is offering.

March has been perplexing and worrying, but equally beautiful and glorious. I’m trying to enjoy the ride. This is not so simple, I know, for the local apple growers who could lose a year’s crop and considerable income if the early budding produces fruit that may yet be killed by frost, so I hold the outcomes of this season close to my heart and hope those who could suffer because of it will not.

I watched an old movie last weekend. A hackneyed storyline, but well-cast and funny, anyway: City folk moved to the country and bought a dump, turned it into a charming home and small farm, and entered into the rural community life, overcoming the native suspicion of most, but not all of their neighbors. Then (the night of the annual countywide dance) the inevitable fire blew through and destroyed the city people’s barn and outbuildings. The next morning, surveying their loss, they expressed defeat and considered leaving, when who should appear but all their neighbors—the friendly and aloof, Republican and Democrat, rich and poor—in trucks and jalopies, with money, seeds, animals and goods to share, and their pledged assistance in rebuilding the now-accepted-newcomers’ farm…

We’re entering a time of year when people of the Christian faith most intimately consider suffering, compassion, death, and rebirth, but such themes are found intertwined in all of the world’s religions and mythologies, throughout history. The overwhelming beauty and intense sensual experience of spring seem to invite us to reflect upon life/death metaphors; we inherently know the rhythms of this circle: life leads to death, and back to new life.

Something must die for the loveliness of spring to exist; the counterbalance and contrast of death is necessary, and grief’s tears nourish the greening of what may come…we can hope suffering won’t happen in our lives and the lives of others, but of course it does, all the time.

While I’m enjoying the sights and smells of spring, even celebrating them with gratitude, others are dreading the loss of their livelihood. And I’m reminded, again, how I must train my heart to be sensitive and notice others’ suffering and loss the way my dogs can smell fingerprints, illness, and the presence of those who have passed along the trail before us. Connectedness and community can’t be maintained, let alone thrive, without such sensitivity and its necessary partnership with compassionate action in response.

Those who extoll the path of gratitude entreat us to give thanks for everything. It can make me feel that I’m defective. My first response to suffering is sorrow; were I more evolved spiritually, I’d experience this inherent feeling of gratitude for everything that came down the pike, so to speak.

But of course we’re not expected to be thankful for experiences of suffering, but for the opportunities to support each other through such times, and to help midwife whatever new life may come. Grateful for community and connection. Grateful for the chance to show up with provisions and commitment and grateful, too, when such reinforcements show up in trucks and jalopies, whatever form these take, for us.

During the Easter season, I like to watch the short (and mostly silent) film, The Red Balloon, created by the French film director, Albert Lamorisse. It’s about a small boy’s discovery of, and adventures with, a huge red balloon. It’s also about love, cruelty, suffering, death, and new life. Have you ever seen it? Lamorisse even named the little boy’s character Pascal (“Easter Child,” played by the director’s own son, also named Pascal).

Every year, while nature is blossoming and wrapping us in the resurrected scents of hope, and life is rising from the death to which it will again return, I watch The Red Balloon and remind myself that once we commit to love and support those relationships that matter—and they all do—there is no suffering that can impede deeper love, eternal renewal, and gratitude for the journey.

No posts next week: I’m going away with my beloved and setting down all electronics to play freely inside and outside together. We’re grateful for our house-sitters and the care they always give the 4-leggeds…

Joy to you, and to the rituals with which you welcome new life and honor what has passed to bring it forth.

Balance, Daily Round, Photography, Spring

Restless Hearts and Spring’s Curriculum

March 27, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty4 Comments

“It might seem to you that living in the woods on a riverbank would remove you from the modern world. But not if the river is navigable, as ours is. On pretty weekends in the summer, this riverbank is the very verge of the modern world. It is a seat in the front row, you might say. On those weekends, the river is disquieted from morning to night by people resting from their work.

This resting involves traveling at great speed, first on the road and then on the river. The people are in an emergency to relax. They long for the peace and quiet of the great outdoors. Their eyes are hungry for the scenes of nature. They go very fast in their boats. They stir the river like a spoon in a cup of coffee. They play their radios loud enough to hear above the noise of their motors. They look neither left nor right. They don’t slow down for – or maybe even see – an old man in a rowboat raising his lines…”
~ Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow

Two teachers living together are bound to consider the curriculum offered by life and its seasons. The word curriculum comes from the Latin currere, to course or flow, as a river does. This year’s lessons, though, have seemed a bit jangly and disorienting: it’s felt like one moment we were canoeing the placid waters and the next we were frenetically whitewater rafting, hanging on, tightly…

The wind has been blustery and for days has sailed in from the south, knocking the normally peaceful wind chimes silly. Their crazed tintinnabulation has sounded through our waking hours and dreams this past week, blurring the lines between real and reverie, and contributing a sense of the fantastical to our perceptions. We’ve noticed our own restlessness more vividly this spring and have been exploring together what the winds and bells and our dreams are calling forth in our hearts. Initially, we felt the need to “get away,” which I think was more a response to this spring’s rush of sudden and powerful energy than a literal need to leave our home (although we’re both grateful the wind is turning).

Restlessness is a natural response to spring. I think if we can note it, be present to it, and allow it to flow through our being, it will give birth in its own time to the green possibilities our spirits crave. The tendencies to fix, name, flee, or rush to answers are more culturally stimulated than of our essence, it seems to me; they can be brushed away gently, clearing an inner space to wait and listen in readiness, but it is challenging.

Hildegard of Bingen, a 12^th century woman of talent, intelligence, and spiritual energy, often used the term “viriditas” to describe this greening force that moves through us and leads to deeper awareness of the Sacred. Viriditas seems an uprising of our authentic urges to create and flourish. I think of it as our spiritual sap, and, for me, it’s certainly most perceptible in spring.

But up-rushing energy, especially at this year’s velocity, can be unsettling. The usual and gentle shift from winter to spring eluded us; we’ve been jolted awake by light, and heat, and wind, and bells. The viriditas rose from zero to 1000, like someone bludgeoning the high striker at a state fair: BANG, the puck flew up and hit the bell in one stroke.

We’ve noticed this in ourselves and in the early and high volume of those traveling the bike trail and river these past few weekends. I sit on the deck and observe from my “seat in the front row,” as the character Jayber Crow states. Certainly, some bikers and boaters seem to be “in synch” with an authentic flow, and their energy appears and feels peaceful as they travel along, but I also see a lot of those Crow describes as being “in an emergency to relax.” They rush along, not seeing, peddling and paddling furiously, “resting from their work.”

I feel the need to send a blessing their way: May they slow down, all the way down, and hear their own song, and may it bring them peace…They remind me to pay attention to my own level of energy and the ways this “suddenness of spring” excites and invites not just joy, but anxiety, fatigue, and confusion, unless I take time to shake it off and return to my center. I’m trying to minimize the caffeine and sugar, take short naps, allow for mini-meditation breaks, lessen the need to “clear the day’s list,” and just sit and watch the willows dance.

As another wise woman, Julian of Norwich, told us:

All shall be well, And all shall be well, And all manner of thing shall be well…

Learning is compounded, or can be, as the journey flows onward and the circle spirals, in and out. The trick, perhaps, is not to hang on tightly, but to let go and trust that peace is at the center and the impulse of every living system is equilibrium; all shall be well.

Daily Round, Photography, Spring

Spring Is Icumen In…

February 29, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty10 Comments

Although my friends and family to the north received snow this week, we did not. Rain and the unseasonable warmth we’ve experienced all winter continues, and lead the spirit’s need for color and blooms and scents and birdsong to dreams of spring…every so often I find myself turning to images that remind me of what’s coming, and it seems a good day for sharing a few of these images in hopes they brighten your spirits, too. May the sweet rains wash away gloom and loosen ties to anything that doesn’t serve our healing and wholeness…