Periwinkles

Listening to Chopin while waiting for ice cubes to freeze in the freezer and for the surgeon to call. It is 100 degrees outside at 1:57 pm -- Nocturne in C Sharp Minor. How is waiting done when you don't die of boredom or go nuts from the replaying of thoughts heard only in your mind? -- Piano Sonata No. 3: Largo. I have a friend who invented the solution of "graphite therapy." Pick up a pencil and draw something. Look in front of you and draw it. So, I did. A pot of blue Periwinkles. And, do I feel better? Why, yes I do . . . I do indeed. So this is my blog entry today and now it is 101 and the ice cubes are slush and no one has called. I wait and draw something, anything and it is 4:12 pm -- Prelude in D Flat Major.

A Frozen Lake

Depression is a frozen lake where
feelings forget soft and warm and
skip upon the ice like pebbles tossed
in the sadness of joy lost.

Coming out of depression
thoughts of clarity missed before
float to the top beneath icy mirror
reflecting a wisdom of essential core.

Swimming up towards coming out
I hold my breath in anticipation and
touch the edge of light with intention
reaching from the endless cold.

Underneath ice shows sunlit streaks
of yellow, a bit of orange and
lilac splotches with blue while
white light lies within all colors new.

Return to joy as frozen fissures release
and someone dances up the wall
having traded stuck for the
roving rhythm of rhyme.

 

Front yard flower

I am emerging from stuck
between the cracks of groundlessness
upon which I walk. Totally boxed in
my head could not swivel
not look to the right or left.
Legs ached body hurt stuck
totally there. Always, ALWAYS
when this happens I know that it
too, like joy, is impermanent.
I seek refuge in the same
substance that traps me--
all is temporary.

So, I would assume that this // and here the record stops. There has been a shift in the ground, in the thoughts that entrap mind. The air clears. My head can look up, now--can see crystal blue, can hear morning sounds of dove, finch and cardinal. Once free from stuck there is only the push forward. And just look what I found in my own front garden!

May he rest in peace

We buried Jack's ashes in the marigold garden and used the glass flower from Eureka Springs as his marker. I burned a tea-light candle  on the flower and the space was sacred to me because of memory -- Jack.  We share this, this living and dying. The term "share" is becoming the word of the decade where everything you experience has the option to "share" with others. We are all in the universal mix of something bigger then ourselves and it is here that we live and move and have our being. We may try for solitude but cannot hide from community. We are rarely just me. It took loosing Jack to show me the connection of all more closely.

My Mother's Day present was a real surprise -- a huge stone Buddha -- now sitting by the tiny pergola pond. It is quite fabulous -- adding the remembrance of peace to our lives. Jack and Buddha share our backyard place -- both communicating with a part of us beyond the 5 senses. This place beyond wafts in the light of Jack's candle. This place immediate is the image of meditation that sits in our hearts -- a depth of understanding we cannot put into words, cannot say --

Holiday Traditions

In 1986, it became a tradition for me to view traditional holidays with a wide lens.  Single folks move away from families, parents die, divorces happen. Stir the pot and you get a new mixture of tradition--possibly every holiday. How to deal? Don’t plan, do. The Thanksgiving of 1986 was my first holiday following divorce and the first time my three children packed suitcases as part of a new tradition: Thanksgiving with Dad and Christmas with Mom. Bummer. But. . .my bachelor brother had a new job in the same state as my new job. We found a halfway point between our two cities and booked reservations for two at a place called “Hays House” in Council Grove, Kansas. As it turned out we had a wonderful time within the new tradition: don’t plan, do. The route from Manhattan, Kansas to Council Grove weaves through the heart of the Flint Hills which, in my mind, is silent with poetry and sacred beauty. And, the Hays House is fantastic. The feast is just like “home” really and truly (even the vegetarian, me, had plenty of delicious salads, side dishes, veges, etc.) and lemon meringue pie is now the Thanksgiving desert! The tradition my brother and I founded has continued low these many years. The people who show up change every year and have included in-laws and out-laws, uncles and aunts, best friends, sons and daughters and 3 year old grandsons. This year the group was back to two. Chuck, my most wonderful husband, spent the traditional Thanksgiving holiday with me. I’m just plain lucky that way.

The night of remembered living happened in its own time. Since the accident, we have been sleeping in the downstairs guest room. I've had much fear about going up and down the stairs. Ten weeks ago I fell down those stairs and into a kind of hell. Last night I walked up to our bedroom and slept well until morning. The walk downstairs was a bit uneasy but the sunlight filtering down with me showered light rather than dark. The boundary between sick and well happened without question or prodding. Chuck simply asked, "Do you want to sleep upstairs tonight?" I said, "Yes." I left the cocoon of my healing because I am now of good health. 

First Color

Like a stream I fell into a low place

FIRST COLOR I fell down a flight of stairs and knocked myself pretty crazy. I lost both words and art. This is the first of the art combined with a few words that seem to go with the chapter of the Tao I am studying while I wait for what I call sanity to return.

When a country obtains great
power,it becomes like the sea:

all streams run downward onto it.
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