I went for a walk last night, on equinox, in the meadow. After putting in a lo-o-o-n-g 1sixteen-hour Saturday writing and doing yard work, I wanted to sit in the light of the perfect half-moon in a clear sky.
I wandered out in the moon’s light to my little 12 inch tall stump in the meadow. My throne. From here I witness untold riches – I watch and listen to the bats swoop and dive, I hear the owls calm conversation back and forth across the forest, I see the deer pass me on their well-worn path.
Moon Light, Moon Bright
I looked up at the half-moon on this autumnal equinox, when day and night share, half and half, the 24 hours. In my line of vision about a foot away from me, I noticed one tall grass stalk with a large head of seed, bent over in a perfect half-moon shape. I squinted and lined it up with the moon in my vision. The seed head was the exact shape and size of the moon from my perspective, and precisely covered the moon.
I opened both eyes, there was the moon. I closed one eye, and the moon completely disappeared. Amusing. But also causing me to contemplate PERSPECTIVE.
It All Depends on Your Perspective
This stem of grass – if I let it, from that narrow perspective – was able to entirely block out the glorious light of the moon that fell freely upon every single plant, creature and element in my world.
A remarkable metaphor! Do we not sometimes do this in our lives, allow some small, dark, thing that is close to us block the glorious light that sheds freely upon us all? The moon and the stem of grass encourages us to open up both of our eyes – our physical eyes and our metaphysical/spiritual eyes to get perspective, to see clearly.
When was the last time you sat on a stump in a meadow to get clarity on your perspective? Why not go now?
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Living in the forest and watching nature on a daily basis, I’ve had the opportunity to see a lot of birds in flight. I’ve noticed that, generally speaking, when there are high winds (which are frequent when one lives at the mouth of a gorge) there is rarely a bird in the sky. But on occasion, there is.
Raven Watch
Today there were high, high winds – the tops of the fir trees danced about, while the lower branches were as still as on a bucolic spring afternoon. I saw a raven plying these heavy winds, and wondered, how will he get to where he wants to be if the wind is blowing in a different direction from his destination stronger than his wings can prevail?
He happened to be at some distance and I was able to watch his progress across the big sky.
Here is what I saw – The raven beat his wings a bit, pointing north. Then he’d glide, letting the wind, which was driving just about due west, take over. The raven’s flight would be taken west. Then he’d point north and beat his wings, and then glide with the wind taking him due west. In this stair-step fashion, he made his way across the sky. When he got to my forest, he settled in the tallest tree. Behind him I watched as several of his companions performed the same exercises of flight, until they finally had a meet-up in the big tree.
Winds of Life
Nature can be very accommodating in providing us with visual examples of the lessons we might learn. Beat your wings a bit to keep your heading, but mostly allow yourself to use the Winds of Life to provide forward motion in the direction you mean to go. Fighting the winds, one will never get to goal. Employ the winds, and you’ll soon be in your favorite tree, chatting with your companions.
I go to a dream group twice a month, and thank goodness too, because that’s where I get my centering, my balance, my clarity about what’s going on in the so-called “real world” by the insights my guru dream partners share with me.
Interestingly, I frequently have luminous, numinous experiences on my drive back home after these often late-into-the-night meetings. The first meeting in January was one such occasion. As I drove down the little road that leads to my home, the moon bright in a cold, clear sky, myself deep in thought, I was startled by a gigantic bird flying directly in front of my headlights, at headlight level.
Mystic Owl
I realized it was a gorgeous, gigantic owl, with a wingspan that reached from edge to edge of my windshield. I stopped my car, having seen him land in a leafless Alder beside the road. I peered through the windshield up into the tree. The owl sat on a low branch, inside the umbra of my headlights, as if he knew he would come to no harm from me. I looked at him, awe-struck. Owl-struck. Having never seen an owl so “nonchalant” in my entire life, I dared to slowly get out of my car and approach the tree. The owl watched me, his head moving smoothly on it ball-bearings, around, around, keeping his eyes on me.
When I stood a mere five feet from him him I said, “Well… what?”
He studied me for a few moments longer, perhaps trying to give me the answer… the “WHAT” that I wondered. The “what” that he knew.
Then slowly, with a graceful bow of the the tree branch, he rose, lazily sweeping his gigantic, stunning wings through the crisp winter evening and into new year air, disappearing among the trees of the forest.
Dream-like, I watched him until I could not see the faintest edge of his wings ….
Oh my goodness, long time gone… so many other things happening (same with us all, yes?).
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I cat sat & dog sat for my friends while they took a day off to run up to Seattle.
Dog-Walk
The dog and I went on a delightful walk last night, watching the rushing white-water stream, all roiled up in the wake of two months of rain every day. Lovely companionship with the Mitra dog, who appears to find everything equally as enchanting as I do. She and I chatted with the naiads sitting on the big rocks while the water crashed around them.
Back up at the house, a couple of throws of the frisbee, and then a paw drying session (for Mitra. I didn’t need one, having worn shoes).
On our walk this morning, however, Mitra did not find my fascination of the giant red slug nearly as interesting as eating grass. She grazed like a little cow on the tall, wet grass while I studied the amazing grace of the slug trailing its hermaphrodite body across the winding driveway, moving on invisible ball bearings.
Quite intriguing ….
Back up at the house, a couple of frisbee throws, a drying of the paws and then, back inside to tell the cat of our adventures.
Cat & Moth
Who completely forbore listening to us, having discovered a moth to make soft muttery sounds to on the other side of the window.
It’s been a very busy time of late. But what inspires me to write now, finally! is that late yesterday evening, as the shades of dusk were pulled, I finally heard the First Swainsen’s Thrush of the season.
All through winter I wait for the return of this unassuming little brown bird with the magical call from another dimension. All previous beautiful sounds fall away as if they are nothing in the wake of this lilting, haunting call, echoing through the forest in the evening and, sometimes, in the early morning.
It makes me feel that all, perhaps, could be right with the world. Even if it’s not right now, I have faith!
My Books can be found on Amazon:
45 Ways to Excellent Life – 45 Action Meditations – something you can do every day to enrich your life and make you happy.
Save Your Life with the Power of pH Balance Have you heard people talk about the importance of pH balance, but you don’t really know what they’re talking about?
Because pH balance is so important to your health and the health of the planet, I read everything I could get my hands on and distilled it down to this one very easy to read and understand book. It truly could contribute to saving your life or the life of someone you love.
Love Is The Answer is filled with love. A perfect gift to give to anyone you love!
Last night, as I drove home, the three-quarters moon was as bright in a clear sky as if it were a full moon. As I came along the Washougal River, a mist rose from it like a pure white, mystical, fifty foot tall wall. This was the most beautiful, yet impenetrable, mist I’ve ever seen. It was lighted directly overhead by the moon, which gave it the stunning illusion of physical substance.
Not only was this such a magical sight that I nearly drove off the road, but it was uncannily serendipitous …..
In my reading yesterday of Michael Bernard Beckwith’s SPIRITUAL LIBERATION, he wrote that after the world was created, there arose a mist.
The Mist of Illusion
This mist was always explained to me as a physical parting of, in simplified terms, wet matter and dry matter, or (again, very simplistically) water and land. Which may be the case. Michael Beckwith added to my understanding. He pointed out that numerous holy books define The Mist as the mist of illusion that comes between us and “the real” in order to make this three dimensions appear to be reality.
Maya
This mist is called maya in Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism. Maya manifests and maintains the illusion, the dream of duality in what our senses perceive to be the phenomenal Universe. The goal of enlightenment is to understand maya, to see, sense, know, learn, intuit, and/or understand that a separation between the self and All That Is is a false duality.
But what a beautiful mist is maya! What a myst-ical myst! Wake up in the dream, live and love every moment of this illusion with curiosity, exploration, joy, and delight. You brought yourself here, to this dream, on purpose, don’t sleepwalk through it. Instead, discover all it has to offer. Knowing it’s an illusion opens up vast realms of beauty and enriching experience.
It’s been a rocky road of late. Though I’m always filled with gratitude and love, I’ve been having my mettle tested. Every day, as I deal with the seemingly burgeoning challenges, I tell myself I’m up to it, or they would not occur.
Enter Michael Bernard Beckwith’s SPIRITUAL LIBERATION, which I’m reading for the second time every morning in my meditation. A few days ago when everything I’ve been dealing with was coming to a full crisis, I read:
“As a spiritual warrior, my courage to face all that is required for my transformation is embodied with grace and ease.
“This prayer is responded to by universal law.
“Beyond reasoning, intellect, and appearance, I make room for a great transformation to unfold and express through me.
“From this moment on, everything unfolds in a magnificent way. I release myself into the great excellence.”
My Mantra
I was so moved by this passage, but especially the first sentence, that I decided to memorize it and take it into my day – or my future – as a mantra. Interestingly, this is what I heard myself repeating:
“As a spiritual warrior, my courage to face all that is required for my transformation is embodied with grace and awe.”
I said it a few times before I realized that something was different, but I wasn’t sure what. I went back to the book and saw that I had spontaneously replaced the word “ease” with “awe.”
How interesting, I mused. My own intelligence is telling me to have a sense of awe about my challenges, my courage and my transformation.
Leading me on a path of considering what this meant … which I share, very briefly, here. I came to realize it told me to feel awe in being presented with such challenges as would manifest a profound transformation. Further, to acknowledge my challenges with reverence.
And so, with awe, as well as grace and ease, I accept my tempering and expanding challenges.
How might your life change if you encountered you challenges with grace and awe?
I love this quiet time in the morning when I meditate, keeping companionship with myself, and hooking up to the energies swirling around ….
The energies of velvety night, softly fraying at the edges of the branches of the trees and the bowl of the horizon into a gentle, delicate, purple lace, the slow, soft “drip, drip” off a gutter outside my open window letting me know it rained a little in the night, my warm blankets and fluffy pillow that I have myself propped among, typing away, looking forward to this day, planning it out in my mind.
I engage in the flow of meditation, where I consciously breathe, letting thoughts float up and out until my mind is still as a placid lake. When I return from this whole/holy, connection, I once again engage my senses, and I now hear the morning birds, calling up the sun. Ah! … yes, thank you little birds, there will be another day!
Glorious Solitude
I revel in my glorious yet peaceful solitude. So much is happening! I am profoundly not alone among all these creative energies as they flow about me—the lacy trees, the refreshing rain, the companionable birds, along with the myriad of thrilling mental and physical engagements of the day. Writings to be written, walks to walked! I cannot imagine being lonely, and I wonder at people who say they are.
How can one ever be lonely if truly engaged in life? And why have life if not to fully engage in it? Your soul knew a purpose when coming to this life, and loneliness is nowhere in that contract.
Glorious solitude is central to the entire miraculous experience of life. Within solitude you discover who you are. You can make the choice to fall in love with yourself and with LIFE anew, every single day!
Almost 7:30 a.m. The light steals very, very shyly about the forest … winter light begins to reclaim its dominion earlier and earlier.
The sky edges away from a color not found on any palate … a kind of black-purple-blue, tinged with green. It fades and fades, until the predawn light rolls in, and all becomes familiar as the keys to the Kingdom of Light are handed over to the day.
The rain that has steadily fallen all night has stopped, and the remaining drops play a slow syncopation off the gutters and deck, a patient metronome.
Rushing Waters
I hear the river rushing several hundred feet distant, I see in my mind’s eye the river rocks becoming polished… incomparable coins in the river bed, each unique. They lay at the bottom of the clear, rushing water, watching the sun and moon and stars, a clock face, above.
Song birds look for their reflection in the little pools that eddy along the side of the hurrying water, while the stealthy coyotes come to the water’s edge, looking over their shoulders. Always pursuers, always pursued. One by one they lean down to drink the cold, cheerful water while a sentry keeps watch.
I’ve been going through some rough terrain of late … while affirming, always affirming, that all will turn out for the best.
Mr Goose
But I hit a new low when my one of my little goosies became very sick. Geese are pretty tough, (as well as very companionable) but I feared for this little guy’s life as he rapidly faded yesterday.
I scurried off to my local Feed store (LJC – thank you for being there) and got antibiotics to put into his water. When I got home I gave Mr. Goose a nice warm bath in the big laundry room sink. Even though distressed to be away from his “family,” he seemed to take to his bath, ducking his head into the water and trying to flap his wings (well, the sink is not that big).
Then I wrapped him up in a towel and held him and talked with him, and talked with his little goose angels, asking all for his recovery. Of course, Mr. Goose was not particularly interested in anything I had to say – he just wanted to be with his family.
I put the required amount of antibiotics in a pail of warm water, and, much to his dismay to be left alone, I left him in the warm laundry room for the night.
A Rough Night
Oh what a night! He cried and cried all night long. It was a sleepless night for geese, cat, and animal care giver alike. If you’ve never heard a goose cry, you’ve never heard just about the saddest sound there is. I wanted to go talk with him all night, but I knew that would only upset him more when I didn’t take him back to the other geese.
About 4:30 a.m. he finally became quite. I didn’t know if this was good or the worst, but I still forestalled going to check on him, as, if he was sleeping (which I hoped and hoped was the case) I would only awaken him.
And we all needed our sleep.
I slept a bit, and then at 6:30 I couldn’t wait any longer. I went to the laundry room, bracing myself for perhaps the worst … cautiously opening the laundry room door ….
“Good Morning!” in Goose
“Honk!” he said. “Honk, honk, honk-honk-honk!”
Even with all the stressful crying most of the night, he had, miraculously, almost completely recovered ….
Oh, Happy Day!
Yes, I still have all those other dreary concerns eating up my time and attention. But my companionable birdie is well, and life is good.
Health is a blessed commodity … and I wish it for all your creature companions, be they feathered, furred or finned!
is a month from today, and there two things I like to celebrate –
Any occasion to be happy
Any occasion to express love.
Agape Love
I’m talking about Agape Love – Unconditional Love and Metta Love – Universal Love. The love that flows through all of Creation, filled with the source, force, flow, feeling, energy, attitude, desire, gratitude and love of LOVE.
So, instead of having only a day of celebrating romantic love, why not have an entire month of celebrating all forms, feelings, and states-of-being of love? Or even better, a life time of celebrating love!
I know, it’s early – not even the Ides of January yet. But spring floated on the air, just the same. 6:45 a.m., 45 degrees F, the deck door slightly ajar. In stole the scent of spring on thin, delicate feet, tip-toeing through the forest high in the fir trees, pirouetting across the meadow, and slinking in through the narrow opening of my door.
Yes, winter could return. But the promise of the ages came into my room early this morning – the fresh, loamy aroma of LIFE waking up in the earth, of the long-dream hibernation coming to an end, of a hunger for new fruits.
This morning I tried to convince myself to get up and get to work. But the cat was purring in the crook of my arm, it was dark as pitch outside, and chilly inside. I was so comfortable in my bed.
But then there was a strange sound … some small thing had fallen somewhere in the house. The noise startled the cat. She stopped purring and moved. So I got up to investigate. I opened my bedroom door and saw the narrow window shade that hangs in the long window aside the front door lying on the floor.
Strange!
I replaced it, and went back to my room to begin my morning meditation and thus, my day.
As I sat silently, I realized that if the window shade had not fallen I would have stayed resting with the cat on this, the first Sunday morning of the year, 2010, and probably fallen back asleep. But the odd – and one might dare to contemplate miraculous – event of the window shade jumping from its spot compelled me to get in motion … and to write this!
Life is full of miracles. Some rowdy, and demanding attention – such as a window shade jumping from its station. And some quietly taken for granted – such as the purring cat in the crook of one’s arm.
A Year of Miracles
My Wish is for a Year of Miracles, both serene and boisterous – and myself in an awakened state to enjoy them.
____________
My Book, 45 Ways to Excellent Life has 45 “Action Meditations.” An action meditation is something you can do every day to make each day more sweet and meaningful. Available everywhere books are sold, as an ebook, paperback or hardbound.
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I’ve been very busy attending three conferences in six weeks, the first of which also required a considerable amount of preparation on my part. This was the Willamette Writers Conference in Portland, Oregon, where I met many remarkable writers and kind-hearted, interested agents and editors.
The hotel fairly crackled with creative energy. Everyone I met was hoping the best for everyone. It seemed to be common knowledge, common energy, that what’s good for one is good for all. I believe this is the first writer’s conference I’ve gone to (and I’ve been to plenty!) where I did not encounter jealousy, gossip, backbiting, angry tears, or any negative acting out of any sort.
Sound miraculous? It was!
That’s not to say there were none of those emotions expressed at the WW Conference but if there were, I didn’t encounter them, and I didn’t hear of them. I only heard mostly happy stories. Agents wanting to see people’s work, editors making positive comments about pitches, writer’s helping writers hone their fiction, their non-fiction, their screen plays. It was an Elysian Fields, Nirvana, dream come true.
Electric Air
The heart of this conference, along with truly informative and interesting presentations and workshops, is the option of giving pitches to top agents, editors and film people, if one chooses, for a nominal fee (in addition to the conference fee). Real live one-on-ones or small groups, where real live agents, editors and film producers listen to your pitch, and if it sounds like it might fit their current needs, they ask you to send partials, proposals, or entire manuscripts of the work.
Trust me when I say the air was electric!
Additionally, there were aspects of the event that I loved, not related to writing. I loved it that the attendees ranged from their teens into, I believe, their eighties. I loved it that there was good quality food, and plenty of it, for everyone including vegetarians and vegans. I very much loved it that the entire conference was on one level, and people didn’t have to run up and down stairs or wait for elevators.
It was wisely held a stone’s throw from the Portland International Airport so all the agents, editors and film people from New York and L.A., and attendees from far and wide, did not have to spend precious time commuting to and from the airport.
The hotel staff did a stellar job of seamlessly setting up and breaking down all the virtually incessant setting up and breaking down this conference required. Everything was always clean, the staff was infallibly available, smiling, helpful and professional.
And Cookies!
There was a constant supply of various coffees (which I don’t drink) and endless TAZO tea, which I love. And there were many dozens of several kinds of wonderful, freshly baked cookies… yum!
I guess the only downside is that it doesn’t happen twice a year! (I hear a collective groan from the still-recovering staff….)
I read a meditation recently that was sent to me via email, I don’t recall the source, but in it the person wrote that all of God’s creature were divine and had an obvious propose … except the mosquito.
Equally Divine
I thought; oh, no, the mosquito is just as divine as any other aspect of creation. I believe the place of the mosquito (along with the other nature-related values it has) is PATIENCE. We can either be calm when mosquitoes are hovering, or freak out – become angry, frustrated, feel disempowered.
Patience teaches us to calmly move through life, to attract what is desired, and not what is not desired. The things, events, people, and creatures that we have a neutral relationship with sail by us, and the things, events, people, and creatures that cause us distress get caught up in the eddies of distress in the river of the self, and we often seem to be dealing with them again and again, when, all the while, the goal is to attract that which we desire.
Keep Your Heart Focused on Your Intentions
So let all the mosquitoes in you life hover and buzz – keep you heart and mind focused on your intentions and your desires … and let the insects tend to theirs.
Today I replaced the fill valve on a toilet. I’m reticent to confess how long this project has waited for me to accomplish it, but the important thing is, I did it.
The toilet is squeezed into a tiny cubby hole that only allowed me to get one arm into the project, and that by lying on the floor, looking up at the apparatus, hoping nothing fell in my face (tools, water, whatever).
How a Project Starts
I don’t know if it’s like this for anyone else, but when I start a project and the very first step goes haywire and is much more challenging than I’d anticipated, it tends to lead me to think: “oh no, I didn’t expect to start out with trouble, so now I suppose I’ll be at this project for days, instead of the two hours I’ve set aside for it.”
That’s where I was, physically and mentally, when cranking away at the plastic nut of the original broken assembly on the outside bottom of the tank, which only produced remarkably loud groaning, whining, squawking sounds from the nut, like a Halloween dungeon, augmented by echoes from the empty porcelain toilet tank. I was certain I was turning it in the correct direction … it can get very confusing when lying on the floor looking up. Righty-tighty, lefty-Lucy (or is that loosey?). A mega-sized, red-handled, pipe wrench and I were dogged in our conviction that left was right. That is, correct. Widdershins. But no-go.
I slinked out of the sliver of floor space and called the 800 number on the box of the replacement fill-valve, which took me on an endless loop of dial this, dial that and someone will help you… and back around again. I left the phone on speaker, and let it loop itself. I figured if someone live answered, that’d be great, but in the meantime, I’d shuffle along.
Liquid Wrench™ to the Rescue
I got the idea of spraying Liquid Wrench™ on the nut, even though I’d never used it on plastic fittings. After doing so, I crawled back under the toilet (and, BTW – ick), got the pipe wrench on the nut, and presto! it instantly came off with no whining or groaning. At that moment a human being came on the phone.
“Just a sec,” I called, snaking my way out from under the toilet, reporting the progress of my contortions to the patient man on the phone. Then I told him I’d just accomplished the main reason I’d called, by spraying Liquid Wrench™ on the plastic nut. He replied that I could also have lathered it up with dishwashing liquid. Okay. Good to know.
“But,” I said, “as long as I have you on the line, the directions have a list of tools I’ll need to complete the project, which includes a hammer. What do I need a hammer for?” having, but a short time previous begun to imagine it would come in handy to demolish the entire tank in situ.
“You don’t need a hammer,” he replied.
Why is it on the List?
All righty. I forebore asking, then … why is it on the list? “Okay. Anything else you might mention?”
He gave me a couple of pointers, and was clear to let me know that I was very lucky to get him, as he was the only person to answer the phone and it was now 5:02.
I thanked him and told him he had done his good deed for the day.
I hung up and subsequently had the entire assembly in place in under 15 minutes. So a project I’d allowed two hours to do was completed in under an hour.
I had some observations about this experience:
One: Things in life are sometimes more difficult than we expect them to be. We may walk away from something that simply wants a bit of oil on its cogs. If you’re stuck, move away from the situation a little ways and think about what might be the Liquid Wrench™, the WD-40™, the dishwashing liquid you can squirt on it. This contemplation works just as well with emotional, inter-personal situations, as with creative, inventive endeavors, as with the physical world.
Secondly, as I stepped back, proud of my handiwork and pleased with how easily, ultimately, it all came together, I thought about the many times I’d done this project in my mind. I already know that every time one thinks about doing something, the mind does it. I had to ask myself, what I might have accomplished in all those times I did this job – in my mind. Reminder to self: if something needs doing, do it!
The Alchemist
And a third observation I had was motivated by my having just read The Alchemistby Paolo Coelho, wherein it’s noted that one often experiences beginner’s luck, because the Universe conspires to inspire and assist the beginner.
But I’ve often had the opposite experience in which the first step is very difficult… finding the door is arcane. But once through the door, things click into place like tumblers in a lock. I believe both types of experience occur. It may be helpful to know which sort of energy you generally have, so that your intentions are not waylaid. That is to say, if it starts out easy and gets hard, keep going.
If, on the other hand, if it starts out hard and gets easy, well then, keep going. Beware of moving away from things that are clicking. When tumblers fall into place, keep at it. They may never be inclined to line up as readily again if you move away from the current energy.
Back to Scene: So I turned on the water, put the tank lid in place, happy to see it all as it was meant to be. I put away my tools and went back to work. Then… two, three, four times I heard the new fill valve make a whooshing sound. At which point – you guessed it – I discovered I also have to replace the flapper.
I inexplicably awake a few minutes before three a.m., and step outside. It’s as still as a stage during the night between performances. Entangled among the fir trees, the moon—near full in a clear sky—shines, an alabaster globe, casting a light among the branches that falls upon the ground in great sheets of lace.
Bathed in Alabaster Light
I stand, small and quiet, bathed in the alabaster light, until I, too, become an alabaster being. A tableau of beauty apart from the ordinary, the clever moon possesses the night. She is a lesser god, creating silhouette vignettes from borrowed light, as if the very echo of “let there be light” is captured by her, so she too might create a world, in bas relief and black and white.
Rapt in a silken night, I listen to a tiny screech owl in a nearby tree, and another, several trees distant, replying.
Then I hear another sound, like a soft and gentle dog’s bark—as if a dog were dreaming this exact same pristine scene. But the sound comes from overhead. The intermittent bird call moves off to the north, then comes another. Then a third and a fourth, the quiet calls emerge from just below the tree line. They—whatever sort of bird they are—are spaced about a hundred feet apart, gently barking to one another in the deep well of night, companionably together, even with the distance between them. They sail the night sky, bathed in moonlight, nocturnally trekking. I imagine them settling, finally, to sleep in trees or upon a lake before the sunrise.
Take Me with You
“Take me with you,” my heart calls out. Instead, the glorious night falls into complete and utter silence. I turn and go back to my own bed, not so far distant, and curl up with the cat.
