I just went outside to empty the ash bucket from the wood stove. It’s early evening and a light mist clings to the air as a storm approaches from the east. Without knowing why, I found myself transfixed for several minutes staring at nothing in particular. My eyes looked blankly at swaths of rust and honey covering the hills. The wind growled through the trees and golden leaves trickled down like snow. They didn’t come straight down, but lingered weightless…
The desert is sparkling with bouquets of wildflowers in shades of salmon and sunshine, striking violet, soft white, and rich velvety red. Each day I notice a different kind of flower stretching toward the vast open sky, flourishing in the warmth of the sun with a flash of ephemeral beauty. It’s miraculous to witness these blooms springing out of the dusty, dry soil. I’ve been in southern UT for the past week, camping in and near Capitol Reef National Park. …
Watching birds in the ocean yesterday, I was struck by the connectedness of all things – the ocean, the sand, microbes, plankton, fish, people, all of it. I became aware of the universal consciousness, the divine thread that binds us all together. I watched the shore birds fluttering in the waves searching for fish and I thought, “Their life is my life, their suffering is my suffering, their pain is my pain, and their death is my death.” We are…
Last night while I was sleeping, I woke up very suddenly feeling exhausted and depleted. I felt strangely filled with an innate sense of knowledge and I thought to myself, “This is how the earth must feel.” I was so surprised by the clarity of this sensation even though there was some part of my logic-seeking brain that thought, “Don’t be ridiculous. The earth can’t FEEL anything.” In actuality, I think that is just the part of my brain that…
I have to admit that I’m not too sad to see February go. But, I’m not overly excited either. The truth is, I’ve noticed my relationship to winter changing over the last couple of years. What changed exactly? Well, for one thing, I pretty much lost interest in complaining about it. What’s the point of that? At the same time, I ran out of energy from trying to see the positive side of everything. As Doris Day said, “Que sera…
This morning as I was making breakfast, I thought the words, “I am in a universe of pain.” As someone who deals with chronic pain, I have previously thought, “I am in a world of pain” on days when it has been really bad. But today was different. For even though I was experiencing the most pain I’ve had in recent memory, I wasn’t using those words to mark or measure it. Instead, there was an immense spaciousness around it,…
I had two flocks of turkeys pass through my yard today. I stopped to watch them, and in those moments, there was nothing else happening in the world. The sky rumbled, grey and pouty, as it began to spit like a child having a temper tantrum. I stood at my window, watching the golden maple leaves sway carelessly to the ground, feeling aware of the comfort of my home. Memories of my lifetime of autumns passed in an instant, as…
I woke up this morning feeling depleted and bereft after pushing too hard against my natural rhythm all week. The burning question in my mind was, “What’s the point?” I honestly couldn’t say. I went out into the garden, knowing that connecting with living, growing things is usually balm for my soul. I picked raspberries, gently plucking the sweet thimble-like fruit into a well worn paper pint container – a simple and kindly reassuring task. I harvested beans and tomatoes,…
The other day I saw a puddle on the pavement that was mixed with gasoline leaked from a car. It looked like a big, swirly iridescent rainbow. I remember seeing these kinds of puddles when I was a kid, and feeling a great sense of delight as I exclaimed, “Look, Mom! A rainbow!” And so, we go from childhood to adulthood. The simple things that delighted us become weighted by knowledge and reality. A pretty puddle that once made me…