vancouver island

I have been in Canada for quite a while, enjoying the beauty of my sweet sister, China, and the landscape she inhabits. Here is a window into our time:

Trips to the beach with our two wildly wonderful children, Bodhi and Mina.

Walks to the beach without our two wildly wonderful children.

Days spent reveling in beauty more abundant than I had cause to dream.

Walks alone on moody mornings, breathing in the salty spray from a thousand miles of distant ocean.

Long treks and short rambles through the forests in Metchosin

Falling deeply and passionately in love with arbutus trees.

Deer so close you could touch them if you were patient enough, we weren't (well more specifically Bodhi and Mina weren't).

Waterfalls

Lakes

Fires on the beach...

Happiness picking veggies in the greenhouse to be humbly transformed into culinary masterpieces in the kitchen by sisters joyously working side by side.

Views so astounding that breathing is nearly forgotten.

Cousins and sisters sharing time...

Unbirthday parties, teepees and the best damn chocolate quinoa cake in the world!

Teaching China to make the Lloyd bird call...

Enjoying a raucous, crazy walk parade during "Spirit time" on campus, where everyone else is quietly meditating.

Holding a sweet song bird in my hand while it's spirit left its body...

And then, the time came for us to leave. How does one leave a sister...a kindred spirit. One doesn't. Only time and space can make a mockery of truth. Love can not depart. It can not. The mind grieves and my hand aches to hold hers again but the heart knows, she is there, always, love without measure, living life.

Comments

china cat said…

Holy almighty I miss you fine beautiful people! The weather is warm and the beach is calling to us...appear you illusory bodies and we will dance and play in the sun and water together. We need you here!

August 3, 2012 at 9:23 AM

Coraggio

When everything looks bleak and the darkness cramps against the cold, it takes courage to simply look out from imagined isolation toward the wide horizon of beauty available in every moment. It takes courage to lean into the sea of life and trust the tide. When weary limbs no longer support us, it takes courage to trust our inner buoyancy and float. It takes courage, in the face of darkness, to remember the light and sit in all our apparent blindness and listen, silently, to the still, small whisper within. It takes courage, in that dark hour, when nothing else remains. Eyes closed. Eyes opened. A glimpse, a memory, a fleeting vision of a light so bright it blurs the borders of things seen and things perceived into a comprehensive wholeness of being. It takes courage.

tree digging

Yes, I know it doesn't look like much. It was only about 5 inches in diameter and 8 feet tall. The root ball was no more than 3 feet deep. But it was a sweet red-bud tree that we planted the year Bodhi was born, his placenta was buried in it's roots and like many of the trees in our neighborhood, it died (see this post to understand why) . I can't say that I mourned its death in a tangible way, rather it produced in me a sort of unnameable melancholy. I am a woman who loves the spring. I nearly live for it. When the first signs of life emerge like a haze of hope, I drink in green with the passion of a desert crawling woman sipping at an oasis. I gorge. This year has been hard. Our neighborhood isn't leafing out in native splendor, instead the tired trees seem to begrudge the effort, only offering a tender shoot or bud occasionally. The north side of many trees appear to have given up all together, too tired after a long winter...

grief

Grief is defined as a deep or intense sorrow. I have been thinking a lot about grief, about it's wide and sticky reach, about the watery quality of it's absorption and the agonizing effort of swimming to shore. Intense sorrow happens. It is a part of life. Yet we press against it. We try to eradicate it. How? We encapsulate our grief in a story, thus effectively removing us from the immediacy of the pain. The mind promises salvation and begins to tell a story, over and over and over. We listen to the inner ramblings, the constant diatribe, the neurotic attempt to avoid the experience. When someone is hurting we listen to their story, we talk about it, we recount our own story, but we certainly don't jump in the waters of sadness, instead we sit on the bank of our familiar longing. Once, when I was floundering in deep grief, my youngest brother knelt next to me and held me for over an hour. He didn't speak. He didn't commiserate. He just jumped in the ...

angelbirdflies

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