angelbirdflies

I made an interesting discovery this week: love flows IN as well as out.  Perhaps this is common knowledge for many of you but until very recently I didn't know love truly flowed in.  I have always experienced love flowing THROUGH my heart, like an open faucet but not necessarily into it from others.  I never doubted that others loved too. I just believed that all of us could only experience love on the outflow.  Life is such a wonderful playground and how appropriate that my heart should evolve its capacity to feel love and let love in at the same time as doctors prepare for a surgery to repair its faulty wiring.  Thank you David for the gift. Apropos indeed.

 Who we are and who we pretend to be is a source of great confusion for most of us.  What if who we think we are and who we pretend to be are just gossamer non-sense in the broader field of who we really are.  What if we all stop efforting and resisting and posturing and simply relax long enough to experience what remains when all effort subsides.  Who are you really?

Fall colors, a cacophony of visual splendor, skirt the front range in breathtaking beauty.  Seasons shift as nature discards her leafy summer bounty in favor of simpler adornments.  I find myself wanting to nuzzle deep into her arms, beside a surplus of collected grain (gluten-free of course) and slumber through the pending chill and icy days ahead.  Until then,  I spend my days astonished in the presence of so much beauty.  Every breath is gratitude if we but lift our eyes to meet the day.

Horizons. Wide, Open, Filled with possibility. I gravitate toward these. I am as interested in the blank page as I am in the words written on it.  Perhaps more.  There is so much possibility before the first mark is made.  I feel this way with my own life.  Hesitant to commit to a single choice, lest I mar the open range of potential inherent in the spaciousness before choice is made.  Who am I?  I ask this question again and again and wonder who I am before the first thought of Angelina begins to arise.  Where am I then, before the horizon of self is hemmed in on all sides by a story of being?

Since everything is but an apparition Perfect in being what it is     Having nothing to do         With good or bad              Acceptance or rejection, One may well burst Out In laughter . 14 century, Tibet Long Chen Pa

Here are six photos of two of my favorite people taken by one amazing photographer and person! That equals a happy mama!

 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.