angelbirdflies

 Nature.  There is no place more authentically home than a wide sky overhead and firm earth underfoot. One step up my mountain and the busyness of the world begins to subside. One step at a time, I am filled with the simple wonder of life living life. And the sweet embrace that accompanies the rememberance that I am not separate from the life to which I inextricably belong. Out here I can breath easily, in and out, totally unconcerned with how I'm perceived or received, unconcerned with enlightenment or seeking or success.  Simply sustained by the proximity of life and the gentle assurance that I am, already, exactly what I am looking for.

I am back in school...grad school...and the mind has begun to whir its cogs and wheels with pompous enthusiasm.  It is interesting to observe the habit of thought.  The self aggrandizement of the brain's search for meaning and recognition.  I smile amidst the thinking and wonder softly to myself...is there another way of learning.   Is it possible that the way we were brought up to think and learn and educate is not the only way.  Is it possible that learning doesn't have to be a cramming in of information and a vomiting out of thought.  Is it possible to open naturally like a blossom and feel the light of knowledge dawn without fear drenched effort and forgetful remembrance.   Perhaps.

 A sweet morning sunrise... a pleasant break in long damp week. I slipped and slid my muddy way up the mountain and felt the weight of stress and thought tumble from my mind and heart and body.  It was a soft morning, full of beauty and stillness. Exactly what I needed.

Beauty all around. Do we need to look for it. It is everywhere. Open our eyes. It is here. Now.

If there is one thing I am certain of it is this, "I don't really know much of anything". Where once I sought knowledge like a half-crazed miner panning for gold, chasing anything shiny with undaunted determination, now I find myself sitting idly on the rivers' bank wondering what all my hub-bub is about. Each time I fill my pockets with glimmering concepts or golden hued thoughts I find myself feeling merely heavier, rather than lighter and wiser as promised.  And the more empty my pockets become the lighter I tend to feel.  In fact, I wonder what it might be like to simply drop all the concepts and judgements hitherto accepted as writ and simply be in this moment, alive.  I think it would be very much like love...like life...like being awake.  Oh yes, but that is another nugget in my pocket to be tossed back into the river until such time as the tide of life finds me empty and flows freely through carrying "me" in it's wake.

A perfect day

Feeling beautiful.

 My beloved...  Our Cedar girl...  and Mr. Sol And my god-gal Karuna with Wind and Cedar.

My beloved sister-wife-forever love-kindred spirit Wind came to town for an overnight and brought her gorgeous family with her!  A perfect summer gift of love to fill me up for the year!

 A rainy day spent at the Colorado Renaissance Festival, where Bodhi purchased a wand, a bow and arrows and a flying broom.  Of course I told him that he would need a lot of imagination in order to make the broom fly and the wand work magic but he has been diligently trying to fly the wooden stick bound with straw since he got home and swishes his wand with abandon.  Ah, childhood.

I don't have words today...just pictures and a longing to drop the me-story long enough to feel truly connected in LOVE...in LIFE.

Four leaf clovers have always meant something special to me...ever since I found my first one growing proudly through a crack in a side walk, seemingly in response to a prayer voiced a moment before.  They have always said simply, "You don't have to worry.  There is more at work in your life than your reasoning mind can comprehend". As Bodhi and I played in the creek at Lair o' the Bear, I looked up from my position in the midst of cool waters and my attention was captured by a mud-moss bank covered in clover six feet away. A perfect four leaf clover stood out.  In fact, it was the only thing I saw when I looked up...like a friend reaching out a hand in welcome.  My heart sparkled in gratitude and I walked over to say hello.  It was exactly what I needed in that moment. Bodhi has long wanted to find one too.  So I told him, "When you are looking for something beautiful you use your eyes to see but look with your heart.  Open your heart and lo...

It's amazes me how easy it is to fall into forgetting and allow this body to fill with a tension born from a busy, frenetic mind and a swirl of unresolved emotions. I forget the one thing that always helps me... more than hours on my zafu cushion, more than pages of inspirational words, or two dozen cookies or positive pandering or senseless bemoaning.  I forget that perhaps the one thing I need most is an immersion in the natural world.  A sense of belonging to something infinitely greater than the imaginary me I entertain in my dreaming. And then I find her and she  cradles me in wide arms and sings me sweet lullabies through bird songs and breezes, with bubbling streams and swaying branches.  Until my whole soul breathes an audible sigh of release.  She is my lover.  When there are no other arms to sink into and no other hands to hold...she is enough.  And in her eyes I am reminded of a beauty so wide that I can not be excluded from...