The year spring was absent for far too long

What a tease we have here with Spring.  Usually she’s so very dependable; right when we’re starting to cast glances too full of longing toward photos of warm-weather locations and sighing over memories of sun-soaked afternoons spent with our feet on warm asphalt and grass tickling our bodies as we lay down in the comfortable embrace of Summer, Spring appears with a laugh and a caress.  I suppose it’s this laughing nature of her’s that should never let us forget her coquettish ways.  This year, she seems sullen.  Instead of letting her flirt with us, we are impatiently tapping our feet.  Looking at our closets still stacked with winter boots and hats and scarves, some gloves maybe mismatched as we started to put them away in anticipation of warmer days, but then hurriedly pulled them back out as we realized that winter wasn’t quite finished with us.  We sit sighing in a resigned fashion, much in the manner of one who keeps glancing at his or her watch waiting for a lover who is far too late, wondering if that lover has found some place much more worthy of his or her time forgetting all about the date planned, leaving fresh flowers and glasses of velvety wine and a worried lover waiting.

This year, there hasn’t even been any coquettish teasing.  Warm days and cool nights have been replaced this time with snow piles that have barely started melting before they get re-built with fresh drifts and new layers.  Men are keeping their beards, but have razors at the ready, hoping that winter will soon leave us so we can finally start remembering summer.

Prayer

I don’t pray.  I’m not exactly sure why.  I don’t necessarily possess an affinity for spoken words, so that may be partially to blame.   I find that my inner musings are more to my taste than anything spoken aloud.  It just seems…silly.  Prayer, even if you don’t believe in the God of our current society (and would rather pray to the Goddess, Divine Feminine, Great Mystery, A Chasm in the Earth Which Contains All Knowledge, Yourself, etc) , is supposedly helpful at reducing stress and strengthening your mind and sense of self.  I’ve often pondered what a prayer would mean to me, and how it would go.  I don’t believe we are all sinners, so I have no prayer for forgiveness of sins.  I suppose if anything, I would pray that my fellow human beings would wake up.  I would pray that eyes would open and suddenly the earth would be seen for the glorious place of provision it is, rather than something which is to be maimed beyond all recognition of its former glory.  I would pray that small moments would work themselves into the days of all people, moments of awareness and perhaps sorrow for their blindness and their sometimes purposeful, sometimes accidental, dark actions.  I would pray that these moments broaden gradually, or perhaps even all at once, until recognizable parts of each day are spent in awe and understanding and deep gratitude for awakening.  I would pray that individuals living in the city would venture far from the noise of their metropolis and find a place where they can hear the humming and singing, the twining and harmonious lyrics of the earth and that they would listen so long and so hard that they couldn’t help but notice the answering harmonics within their own bodies.

But, I don’t pray.

The most beautiful girl in the world

Why I give to homeless people

I was in San Francisco for a conference last week, and there are homeless people everywhere.  It’s enough to drain any kind-hearted person’s wallet.  I remember hearing someone comment that they knew a homeless person who made $30,000 a year begging for change.  For many people, it’s not a lifestyle or an affliction brought down on them, it’s a career.  Once when I was in Chicago I bought a ‘homeless man’ a sandwich and when I gave it to him, he just asked ‘what the hell is this?!?  I wanted money!’  I’ve been wary of beggars ever since.

But what about those who aren’t making a career of it?  I smiled at one homeless man sitting on the curb, and he told me my smile was a very welcome thing.  I met the eyes of another who was curled up in a sleeping bag in a storefront reading by streetlight and she offered a sad smile to me.  I also saw an older man in a wheelchair with a sign that simply said ‘hungry’.  I watched a flood of people walk by.  No one even looked his way.  But I did.  I had nothing to give, but I noticed him.  It may not keep him warm or fill his belly, but somewhere our souls connected for a brief moment.  One man who was holding a sign asking ‘what if you were hungry?’ gave me a brief pause.  He looked absolutely forlorn.  So I stopped.  I asked if he was really hungry, and he said yes.  So I asked what his story was.  He had been in the military and was dishonorably discharged.  Since then, it’s been all downhill and he’d been begging for four years.  I gave him some money.  I cannot help everyone, nor do I want to.  With the small amount of money I gave him, I offered him hope.  Hope that life could be better.  Hope that his reality wasn’t all there is.  Even if he never changes, if he grows old on the streets, he has my hope whether he knows it or not.  

And that is why I give to homeless people.  

 

To be alive

Think often of the connections you have with others.  The shared joy of an amazing moment, the quietness of a deep friendship.  Do not dim down the expressions of love that come raging through your body like the sudden appearance of a thunderstorm; stand in bliss in the torrential downpour that catches you unaware.  The dangerously beautiful lightning bolt that rips through the atmosphere like scissors to paper.  Get lost in the moment.  Do not hold onto your joy jealously, but live it.  Take the time to marvel at the softness of a baby’s skin, the warmth of a horse’s soft breath, notice with awe the blaze of color that a field of dandelions provides.  Take time to truly appreciate the miracles of this earth that are present all around, such as the cycle of a plant going seed-to-seed.  Spend 5 minutes watching the way steam spirals out of a cup of coffee or tea, marvel at the way heat is felt from a flame, and it seeps into your bones.  How truly amazing is life, how lucky are you to be alive to experience this?  There is always beauty and hope, even among a devastating drought, or a war, or a wildfire.  You don’t even need to look for it, it is just there, waiting to be noticed.

We are alive, and meant to experience the profound mystery of life.  We have the innate ability to appreciate beauty, create it, be it.

To anyone I have ever met for even a small moment of connection: I am happy to know you, to have had a passing word with you, perhaps a shared moment.  And I thank you for what gifts you have given me.  Be aware that you pass through my thoughts.  Maybe not as much as another, maybe more.  I pray you are well, and always seeking more, seeking growth.  Take a moment today to notice something beautiful, that brings you joy.  Whatever that might be.

In my mind I am not where reality sets me.  My daydreams consist of wandering a lonely, but intriguing path.  The woods, the desert, the meadow.  A deer bounds by and I flee with her; her newborn leaping with the joy that all know at one time.  As life sweeps you up and takes you along on a ride, your perspectives change and slowly your unbounded joy recedes into the wisdom of age.  Then comes the truth that death holds.  That silvery shadow that comes with no warning, touching on the edge of your mind.  And then perspective changes once more and a new direction is chosen.  The ever swirling winds of the universe coax your soul into the frenzy.  The capricious nature of the universe surrounding you as yet again your being, once solid, evanesces and fades into the black.  It once held you in the palm of its hand, and then in a game of trusting to new discoveries it slowly lets you go so that you may learn and grow from the experience of fear.

Rise up my darling, and come with me

Take me to a place where we may run free

The wind is my shadow

the sun is your crown

What a wonderful place to be.

Take me to a place

Where I can see your face

made up of the light of the moon.

Now upward we bound, off and away

The essence of our beings hold sway

over our minds

over our bodies

and full of life in the light of the day.

And nothing is real

except what you feel

And that is all right with me.

Come let us twirl, let us leap in the air

For the morn is cloudless and fair

All around us is life

and your breath takes you in

Our destination is everywhere.

Let your desires

be what transpire

As we roam throughout the day.

Take everything in, you are light as a feather

I promise to love you forever

I’ll give you my hand

To hold near your heart

It’s us among the world together

I will always be beside you

And the earth always provides you

All you need to be fully alive.

Coming Home

Coming home wraps me in good feelings.  A little sad, a little wistful, but full of wonder and overall good.  I like coming home at night.  The city lights of my small town wink at me, as if to say they’d been waiting for me and put on a show to guide me in.  When I pull into not-quite-home, the North side of town, my heart pounds a little.  If I had a tail, it would be wagging like a dog whose person just opened the garage door.  Not-quite-home, but nearly.  It’s when I come upon the lights of the harbor that my heart swells and I breathe ‘home’.  Different seasons all bring me to the same conclusion- a sea of love for the town that helped raise me.  In the summer time, I might stop for a frozen custard at my favorite custard place.  Windows rolled down, I breathe the air wrought with smells of the lake.  In winter, I might pause to walk around on the crunchy snow, gazing at the holiday lights.  

Sometimes I curve away from the lake side to cruise through our tiny downtown area, allowing memory and emotion to carve little spots of happy in my heart.  The lights of town laugh and wink at me, sometimes pointing out new things in place of the old- A new business, a new walkway.  Downtown sports these new accessories happily, showing them off as I pass by.  Sometimes I feel sorrow- a small business has closed down and a corporate one took its place.  But mostly, I laugh along.

Memories always flood my head, vying for attention.  I will take the time to savor them: walking on my favorite trail, 20 minutes outside town with the best dog this earth created, now passed on.  Running through the woods on horseback, reckless with no helmet and reveling with the wind.  Sitting on the breakwall at midnight while a storm raged, lightning crashing on the water and sending a jolt of energy through me.  

It doesn’t really matter how much this place changes.  It is home, and I will love it always.  

a horse’s wisdom

I was supposed to go to a social with a visiting scientist.  I instead found myself lingering with my horse just watching him graze on the last of summer’s grass.  I learned more from sitting with him in this time than any distinguished scientist could teach me in a day.  Contentment ran deep as I marveled the way his nose crinkles as his lips grasp those tiny green blades, his warm brown eyes and softly relaxed ears radiating satisfaction.  He never wanders far from me, always coming back to check in with a quick hello as he sniffs my arm or my face or my hand.  Then he would step off, hoof stamping gently onto the earth toe-first.  And I would sit still by his side, gazing up at his soft belly, just enjoying being.

What did I learn today?  I learned how to just be.  He told me the secret of being prepared for anything to happen, but not to anticipate.  If you anticipate, in many ways it has already happened.  Don’t do, just be.