I watched the sun set through the trees, liquid light pouring down onto the earth, beams tangling in the branches, ribbons of gold fluttering through the leaves and onto the earth, draped artfully among the dusky shadows.
My friend M (Gypsy Guru) has blond highlights in her hair...ribbons of gold from root to tip, framing her beautiful face.
The moon is golden, reflecting the sun, the atmosphere. Clouds, diaphanous wisps, trail in front of her, ribbons of gold tracing their way across the sky.
I am radiating light, sending it outward, loving, compassionate light, weaving into ribbons of gold unfurling into the world...
Showing posts with label Connection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Connection. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Connection
Connected. Joined. In touch.
I've found a place to plug in, sit, and type, connected again to my electronic world.
While it's no bad thing to be disconnected from the Blue Nowhere on occasion, this is not one of the times I relish the distance.
I am connected to my Blue Nowhere, and I am in my annual Summer Community, connected to the land here by time, habit, history, and Song. Last night, I slept deep and well, if not over long - I'm surrounded by morning people (I wish they were connected to my need to sleep late), but I have hopes of naps during the day to sustain me...and if none, well...no worries, I can sleep next week.
The connection to this community is a good one - we all seem to fall into an easy camaraderie, as if a year had not passed between our last meeting and this one. Although the event is a different one, many of the same people are here, so the energy, the feeling, is much the same.
The community supports my connection to it, and to them ,and...and helps me reconnect with my spirit and my Song. So long out of touch, so long distant from my own spiritual source, my spiritual life, I have felt bereft - and now I am recharging. Rites of Spring was a good start, but...it was a new community, a new connection, one I could not lean on, lean into, for strength and support as I can this one. I will, I hope, come home the stronger for having been here.
Here where I sit, I am surrounded by people laughing, enjoying their morning meal, reconnecting with each other. There's a man playing a berimbau at the next table, and the moon is visible in the clear blue sky before me. Trees reach upward, the smell of coffee drifts through the air, and the camp is slowly coming awake, coming to life, connecting to itself and the day.
I've found a place to plug in, sit, and type, connected again to my electronic world.
While it's no bad thing to be disconnected from the Blue Nowhere on occasion, this is not one of the times I relish the distance.
I am connected to my Blue Nowhere, and I am in my annual Summer Community, connected to the land here by time, habit, history, and Song. Last night, I slept deep and well, if not over long - I'm surrounded by morning people (I wish they were connected to my need to sleep late), but I have hopes of naps during the day to sustain me...and if none, well...no worries, I can sleep next week.
The connection to this community is a good one - we all seem to fall into an easy camaraderie, as if a year had not passed between our last meeting and this one. Although the event is a different one, many of the same people are here, so the energy, the feeling, is much the same.
The community supports my connection to it, and to them ,and...and helps me reconnect with my spirit and my Song. So long out of touch, so long distant from my own spiritual source, my spiritual life, I have felt bereft - and now I am recharging. Rites of Spring was a good start, but...it was a new community, a new connection, one I could not lean on, lean into, for strength and support as I can this one. I will, I hope, come home the stronger for having been here.
Here where I sit, I am surrounded by people laughing, enjoying their morning meal, reconnecting with each other. There's a man playing a berimbau at the next table, and the moon is visible in the clear blue sky before me. Trees reach upward, the smell of coffee drifts through the air, and the camp is slowly coming awake, coming to life, connecting to itself and the day.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
I See
I was driving home from a spate of errand running a few days ago and was struck by the beauty of the day.
I'm often struck by the world around me, and can often be heard mumbling "Oh, my..." and "Thank you for the beauty of this day...", even when it's raining, blowing, or otherwise "rotten" out.
I wondered if anyone else was sharing the moment, the awe, or if they were just driving, just seeing the road ahead and what they had to do at their destination, the radio tuner or the CD player, their phone or iPod or other distraction.
I saw cows in a rolling pasture, black, white, brown, grazing among the anthills that studded the ground, mounds of grains of earth laboriously borne from the heart of the hill to the surface, dark red clay making a measles effect on the bright green grass. Above, the sky was London blue topaz peaking through ragged holes torn in whipped marshmallow clouds, themselves swirling into impossible peaks, whorls of white and grey making great sweeps across the horizon. I saw flower petals driven by the wind, having leaped from their trees to ride the gale before coming to rest and pinking the earth.
Every day, I see an amazing confluence of light, motion, chaos, and color. I see a cloud and know what a wonder it is, how it couldn't exist without the perfect conditions of water, particulate matter, temperature, and atmosphere. How unlikely is that cloud, and what a delight to see it and know it. How awesome is the wind, that blows and blows and is proof that you don't have to see a thing to know it is there. How like gods, is the wind, unseen, but felt nonetheless.
To see a bird in flight is to watch the end result of an eternity of constant change, constant fine-tuning to make each feather fall just so, each muscle function in the perfect way to hold the wing, to know that the song it sings is its own, and that all the other birds have ears to hear and know who calls, and why, while we who should be so much more hear so much less.
To eat an orange is more than just to consume fruit. We eat the wind that caressed it from flower to fruit. We eat the sun that warmed it, soaked into, became an integral part of its sweet-tartness. We eat the moon and stars that dappled it with silver light, fallen as dew on midnight's blue linen wrap. We eat the earth that nourished it from bud to juice-swollen perfection, and we consume the rain that cooled its sun-fevered skin, covered it with light refracting jewels, soaked into the earth, the tree, gave it life in liquid form.
Wherever I go, I see a complex, beautiful place, filled with complex, beautiful beings.
What do you see, when you remember to look?
I'm often struck by the world around me, and can often be heard mumbling "Oh, my..." and "Thank you for the beauty of this day...", even when it's raining, blowing, or otherwise "rotten" out.
I wondered if anyone else was sharing the moment, the awe, or if they were just driving, just seeing the road ahead and what they had to do at their destination, the radio tuner or the CD player, their phone or iPod or other distraction.
I saw cows in a rolling pasture, black, white, brown, grazing among the anthills that studded the ground, mounds of grains of earth laboriously borne from the heart of the hill to the surface, dark red clay making a measles effect on the bright green grass. Above, the sky was London blue topaz peaking through ragged holes torn in whipped marshmallow clouds, themselves swirling into impossible peaks, whorls of white and grey making great sweeps across the horizon. I saw flower petals driven by the wind, having leaped from their trees to ride the gale before coming to rest and pinking the earth.
Every day, I see an amazing confluence of light, motion, chaos, and color. I see a cloud and know what a wonder it is, how it couldn't exist without the perfect conditions of water, particulate matter, temperature, and atmosphere. How unlikely is that cloud, and what a delight to see it and know it. How awesome is the wind, that blows and blows and is proof that you don't have to see a thing to know it is there. How like gods, is the wind, unseen, but felt nonetheless.
To see a bird in flight is to watch the end result of an eternity of constant change, constant fine-tuning to make each feather fall just so, each muscle function in the perfect way to hold the wing, to know that the song it sings is its own, and that all the other birds have ears to hear and know who calls, and why, while we who should be so much more hear so much less.
To eat an orange is more than just to consume fruit. We eat the wind that caressed it from flower to fruit. We eat the sun that warmed it, soaked into, became an integral part of its sweet-tartness. We eat the moon and stars that dappled it with silver light, fallen as dew on midnight's blue linen wrap. We eat the earth that nourished it from bud to juice-swollen perfection, and we consume the rain that cooled its sun-fevered skin, covered it with light refracting jewels, soaked into the earth, the tree, gave it life in liquid form.
Wherever I go, I see a complex, beautiful place, filled with complex, beautiful beings.
What do you see, when you remember to look?
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
A Web
I was a point of light, a mote in the great vast void, a speck floating, suspended in darkness. Alone, lonely, I spun from myself a thread - so slender, so slight, so very fragile, my thread. As I spun, I flung it outward, silver strand reaching ever farther into the deeper reaches of the nothing wherein I dwelt.
For so long did I wait, did I wonder, did I spin myself smaller and thinner, stretching beyond imagination. For so long was I alone. I sang to myself, humming as I worked, forgetting, eventually, why I spun, why I reached beyond myself, continuing because...because...because...
Then came the day...the night...the moment when my thread found another, spun from some new, distant mote like me, hanging in its darkness, humming to itself and wondering why...why...why...
The shock of our meeting was such that we fell silent, struggling to comprehend what we had touched, what it meant. Slowly, tentatively, we explored the newness, the other light, the other song. Hesitant, we began to hum again, to spin, and our notes were a harmony, a convergence of color and sound, and from one alone we were two together.
We were stronger, together.
We began to spin, to reach, in other directions. The other found more, and so did I, and every new thread meant new connection, new understanding, a growing song. Every touch, every joining, made us more than ourselves, brought us vision beyond our small scope, broadened us, until we could not be contained in our small darknesses but burst forth, spreading far and wide, a great net of light and being, gossamer fine, adamantine strong, blazing in our quiet way, where anyone may walk without fear, knowing they cannot fall unless they leap, and we are above, below, around, and we will catch them when they call for us.
We are a web spun of great blazing suns and tiny specks that have never met, never seen, but we have listened, we have sung, and we have touched and joined and changed and grown into a great prismatic cacophony, knowing we exist because we reflect each other, because we can hear that faint singing down the line, the ethereal combination of vision and song that is the other and ourselves.
I am a point of light, a mote in the great vast void, a speck floating, suspended in darkness, but I am only as alone as I wish to be, for I spun, stretched, reached beyond my small space, into the deeper reaches of the nothing wherein I dwelt...
...and found you.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The Community We Build
Blogs are such amazing tools. Yes, they provide a place to vent, to share, to giggle, but most importantly? They provide a place to connect. Humans, even loners and misanthropes, need connection. Blogs let us connect without having to leave home and make ourselves more vulnerable than we want to be. How grand is that? Want to talk to folks about your love of classic cars? Go for it - someone out there will read you, understand you, and make the connection. Angry about politics? Boy, have we got some blogs for you!! I know that, through e-mail, I connect with women from all over the world. I have friends (yes, friends - I love these women just as well as if we lived next door instead of never having met) in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, many of the United States, and all over Europe. We support each other through rough times, share our laughter and heartache equally, give each other the heads up on new products, laws, people, and places. We are a parenting resource for each other, and I know I've told them many times over the years that they are welcome in my house if they need a place for a day or a year. When I win the lottery, I'm buying a bus, painting it up in crazy beautiful colors, and going on a tour to finally, finally meet all these amazing, inspiring, and deeply moving woman. Heh, several of them are even blogging now so we have the double connections of e-mail and blog space.
Through blogging, I have "met" some terrifc folks, men and women both, who are as much a part of my daily life as breakfast is. And you should know from reading my posts about cooking, I don't often miss breakfast! Some of them are listed over to the right, if you're interested.
So I was reading Mommy Wants Vodka (I just can't bring myself to refer to people casually by name when we haven't met in person - how old-fashioned am I??) and she has this post up, which led me to page-hop a bit to check out and ultimately donate money to Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. Sniff. They're beautiful. This? Is building a community, making those precious connections, finding a need and meeting it. This is humanity finding a way to shine, despite how weary we are, despite how isolated we are, despite how pessimistic we have become as a race.
In a semi-related bit of news, Georgia has been considering the "No Heartbeat" Act, an act that would permit mothers of stillborn infants to receive birth certificates for their little ones. I am not surprised as much as horrified that they've been denied this simple, compassionate thing that acknowledges they carried a life, they labored, and they delivered body if not soul.
SB 381 was heard on March 28 in the Rules Committee meeting, and I don't know if it passed...but I hope, oh, I hope it did. I know it's only a bit of paper...but even if it said "Certificate of Still Birth" instead of "Certificate of Live Birth", it could help give some closure.
I know, I know, giving birth certificates to non-viable fetuses (one of the terms I've heard used for stillbirths, isn't it just awful??) could open up a can of worms for all sorts of other issues I won't discuss here, but I just can't seem to indulge in my doom-and-gloom tendencies with this. It's about compassion, about love, and about recognizing that there are women (and men) who grieve deeply and might find a bit of peace having that simple official recognition of their labor and loss. We are a world of documentation, of "official" existence, and there are those who crave that for their lost loves as well. What good comes of denying them this small solace??
I added a link to Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep over to the side, if you're interested. I've never lost a pregnancy, having just had the one, but I hurt all the way down to the bone over other women's losses. I feel them keenly, and I mourn. All the hope, fear, and love that comes with being pregnant doesn't just go away when the child is born still and silent. Imagine going through that labor, that strain, pain, indignity, only to have loss and sorrow at the end of it instead of a wriggling, squalling, amazing bit of wonder. Imagine having to tell people who ask after the baby, opening up that wound over and over again. The very least a mum should have is that stupid certificate saying that the government, that the legal community, recognizes that she went through that, and maybe a few sweet, beautiful, poignant photographs to put in the album that won't hold anything else. Is it really too much to ask??
How's this for synchronicity? As I was writing this, I got another bit of semi-related news - my preemie nephew is now up to two pounds, twelve ounces!!! His mum has finally been able to hold him!! He is breathing on his own, and they've decided not to transfer him to another hospital because by the time he met that hospital's criteria for transfer...he could just go home!!!! Keep up the good work, little guy...I'm banking on you being a six foot, three inch tall pain in the ass for your parents one day!
Welcome to blogopolis, the community we're constantly evolving.
Through blogging, I have "met" some terrifc folks, men and women both, who are as much a part of my daily life as breakfast is. And you should know from reading my posts about cooking, I don't often miss breakfast! Some of them are listed over to the right, if you're interested.
So I was reading Mommy Wants Vodka (I just can't bring myself to refer to people casually by name when we haven't met in person - how old-fashioned am I??) and she has this post up, which led me to page-hop a bit to check out and ultimately donate money to Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. Sniff. They're beautiful. This? Is building a community, making those precious connections, finding a need and meeting it. This is humanity finding a way to shine, despite how weary we are, despite how isolated we are, despite how pessimistic we have become as a race.
In a semi-related bit of news, Georgia has been considering the "No Heartbeat" Act, an act that would permit mothers of stillborn infants to receive birth certificates for their little ones. I am not surprised as much as horrified that they've been denied this simple, compassionate thing that acknowledges they carried a life, they labored, and they delivered body if not soul.
SB 381 was heard on March 28 in the Rules Committee meeting, and I don't know if it passed...but I hope, oh, I hope it did. I know it's only a bit of paper...but even if it said "Certificate of Still Birth" instead of "Certificate of Live Birth", it could help give some closure.
I know, I know, giving birth certificates to non-viable fetuses (one of the terms I've heard used for stillbirths, isn't it just awful??) could open up a can of worms for all sorts of other issues I won't discuss here, but I just can't seem to indulge in my doom-and-gloom tendencies with this. It's about compassion, about love, and about recognizing that there are women (and men) who grieve deeply and might find a bit of peace having that simple official recognition of their labor and loss. We are a world of documentation, of "official" existence, and there are those who crave that for their lost loves as well. What good comes of denying them this small solace??
I added a link to Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep over to the side, if you're interested. I've never lost a pregnancy, having just had the one, but I hurt all the way down to the bone over other women's losses. I feel them keenly, and I mourn. All the hope, fear, and love that comes with being pregnant doesn't just go away when the child is born still and silent. Imagine going through that labor, that strain, pain, indignity, only to have loss and sorrow at the end of it instead of a wriggling, squalling, amazing bit of wonder. Imagine having to tell people who ask after the baby, opening up that wound over and over again. The very least a mum should have is that stupid certificate saying that the government, that the legal community, recognizes that she went through that, and maybe a few sweet, beautiful, poignant photographs to put in the album that won't hold anything else. Is it really too much to ask??
How's this for synchronicity? As I was writing this, I got another bit of semi-related news - my preemie nephew is now up to two pounds, twelve ounces!!! His mum has finally been able to hold him!! He is breathing on his own, and they've decided not to transfer him to another hospital because by the time he met that hospital's criteria for transfer...he could just go home!!!! Keep up the good work, little guy...I'm banking on you being a six foot, three inch tall pain in the ass for your parents one day!
Welcome to blogopolis, the community we're constantly evolving.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
A Zen Thing.
I was driving to my friend Sam's house, thinking about Julian - his life, his death, and his mum. You know, nice light fare for a jaunt to a chum's.
I don't really feel too sad for Julian...he was sick, weak, in pain. How is death a bad thing, when you have all that to juggle? I've been with cancer patients from start to finish...and the finish is always a relief for the ones experiencing it most intimately. I'm sorry the little guy won't know some of the joys of growing into an adult. No first kiss, no prom, no fumbling a bra off a girl for the first time...all the things that help shape a lad into a man.
More, though, I feel for his mum. Could I share with y'all, if my beloved were sick, dying, gone? I have no idea. I doubt I'd be coherent enough to use a Kleenex properly, let alone write a beautiful post for everyone who'd been following along with our journey. Although grief fades, until she dies there will be a sore, empty place where Julian's life should be...dances, dates, loves, triumphs, graduations, wins, losses, sorrows, fiancees, wedding, children...a whole long life's worth of empty.
Sigh.
I was also thinking a sort of Zenish thought about yesterday. I figured it out...around the time Julian was passing through the veil, I was catching snowflakes in front of my house. My head was tilted back and I was letting them fall into my mouth, onto my tongue, brush cold feathery kisses across my cheeks and eyes. I was delighted, brought right back to my own childhood and the taste and feel of fat wet flakes. I was grinning (a sight to behold I'm sure, since I know I don't do it often) a big silly grin, and my hair, face, and torso were covered in the melting miracles. The snow tasted clean, the flakes were magnificent and massive...I caught them on my palm and ate them, tipped my head back and caught them, blinked them out of my eyes and giggled when a few went down the back of my shirt. All while Julian lay dying.
I didn't know he was failing...I've been keeping passively up with his regression from life, and only knew he was still hanging on through Xmas. So I was uncomplicatedly happy for a little while. In the same moments he and his family were uncomplicatedly sorrowful. We were in the moments together, experiencing different parts of the same whole, hearts beating together, breathing together, being in our moments together even as were were as far apart as strangers can be...in so many ways, so very far apart...but we were still sharing those moments. Some of Julian's dying was mine, and some of his mother's grief and relief were mine, and some of my simple snowy joy was theirs.
Right now, in this moment, as I type, Mimi (Julian's mother, although I have no right to be so familiar with her name) and I are sharing existence - she with her heart full of her experience, and I with mine. Along with us, there's you, dear reader...you and everyone you know and the even greater number of people you don't know. We are all in our moments together. There is no different time for one or another...we share it all, together...it's only our experience makes us different in these moments.
If that doesn't make you feel connected to it all, I don't know what will.
Or maybe it's just me...or a Zen thing.
I don't really feel too sad for Julian...he was sick, weak, in pain. How is death a bad thing, when you have all that to juggle? I've been with cancer patients from start to finish...and the finish is always a relief for the ones experiencing it most intimately. I'm sorry the little guy won't know some of the joys of growing into an adult. No first kiss, no prom, no fumbling a bra off a girl for the first time...all the things that help shape a lad into a man.
More, though, I feel for his mum. Could I share with y'all, if my beloved were sick, dying, gone? I have no idea. I doubt I'd be coherent enough to use a Kleenex properly, let alone write a beautiful post for everyone who'd been following along with our journey. Although grief fades, until she dies there will be a sore, empty place where Julian's life should be...dances, dates, loves, triumphs, graduations, wins, losses, sorrows, fiancees, wedding, children...a whole long life's worth of empty.
Sigh.
I was also thinking a sort of Zenish thought about yesterday. I figured it out...around the time Julian was passing through the veil, I was catching snowflakes in front of my house. My head was tilted back and I was letting them fall into my mouth, onto my tongue, brush cold feathery kisses across my cheeks and eyes. I was delighted, brought right back to my own childhood and the taste and feel of fat wet flakes. I was grinning (a sight to behold I'm sure, since I know I don't do it often) a big silly grin, and my hair, face, and torso were covered in the melting miracles. The snow tasted clean, the flakes were magnificent and massive...I caught them on my palm and ate them, tipped my head back and caught them, blinked them out of my eyes and giggled when a few went down the back of my shirt. All while Julian lay dying.
I didn't know he was failing...I've been keeping passively up with his regression from life, and only knew he was still hanging on through Xmas. So I was uncomplicatedly happy for a little while. In the same moments he and his family were uncomplicatedly sorrowful. We were in the moments together, experiencing different parts of the same whole, hearts beating together, breathing together, being in our moments together even as were were as far apart as strangers can be...in so many ways, so very far apart...but we were still sharing those moments. Some of Julian's dying was mine, and some of his mother's grief and relief were mine, and some of my simple snowy joy was theirs.
Right now, in this moment, as I type, Mimi (Julian's mother, although I have no right to be so familiar with her name) and I are sharing existence - she with her heart full of her experience, and I with mine. Along with us, there's you, dear reader...you and everyone you know and the even greater number of people you don't know. We are all in our moments together. There is no different time for one or another...we share it all, together...it's only our experience makes us different in these moments.
If that doesn't make you feel connected to it all, I don't know what will.
Or maybe it's just me...or a Zen thing.
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