It’s Imbolic , The Day of Ewes Milk!
Lambs wiggle as they nurse.
And we find ourselves on this day
wiggling
between a Solstice
and an Equinox.
It’s the first day of winter’s turning.
And if I stand very still
as if listening for a far off mountain stream,
my mind lets go of it’s endless thinking.
This is a practice
This always listening for that which is far away-
corrals the mind
and lets me experience being here…..
delicious
Mothers milk.
“I’m just waiting to see if my coffee
chooses to use it’s power
for good or for evil”
Honoring the range of possibilities
I tip tow on the catwalk…
threes cups in
strung like a net over
the frothing sea of emotions.
Caffeine accentuates the moment to moment
precipice of every minute
to be conscious
and not just strike out with a claw.
I read in yesterday’s Daily Good
about an artist and a mother,
named Rachel Callander,
who worked with hospitals
to change their wording
on their medical forms
from just what was broken in her child
to add, what they loved about this child,
what they enjoyed….
so that these beautiful things
would be part of their medical record.
And then I heard from a friend of mine
who’d also read this article
and contacted me about it.
My friend whose son had died.
And as I wrote back to her I realized that
I’d never had a chance to
say his name to her and to me at the same time
To allow the wonder of him to be with us.
Loving the children we don’t get to keep.
I spoke his beloved name
and such aliveness was with us.
January is stock show season in Denver
Bulls with blackened hooves
ready to tap dance….
their curly hair blown back by a hair dryer,
Such care.
The bull is the beloved!
An oiled Nundi!
The warm smell of animals has a settling effect.
Can I just stay here until spring?
It’s not an easy time of year.
I have to be careful not to slip on the ice
and then there is so much to feel.
In my childhood friend’s Christmas letter
along with the photos of her family
she told me of her intense health struggle
and I am brought to my knees.
In the Tibetan book of the dead
It says that, when we have passed through
the different forms of light and then dark
with it’s fullness( tricky going here)
“We get to a place where we know
that our willingness to include it all
with arms open, heart let go-
matters more then we can imagine
and at that same moment…
We know
that all the suffering was Bliss.”
We were always in Nirvana, in Bliss.
( with Nundi)
2022 222200002222000 2022
Two represents duality and Zero is non dual
Zero is you and me
before and after and in between.
But we do want for guidance here
with our demanding human life…
maybe if I can get lower down
in my own sweet body
into my belly
out of the head ( out of the story)
I can learn to read the belly’s signals
and trust them.
(noticing too the confirming synchronicities
that validate my experience.
” Synchronicity as an active way of life
a path of steady observation
and a response to the little messages
that come from the environment every day:
sensations in the body,
encounters
and events that happen,
the way things line up in linear time
and all the little miracles.”
The spider’s web holds it’s shape
even in the strongest wind!
“From her belly she spins something from nothing
everything from the empty space within.
In the same way that a spider’s web
is infinitely sensitive to vibration
and the smallest movement is felt reverberating
over the entire web
so are all the actions and reactions
felt by everyone
contained in the web of life.
There is nothing that happens anywhere
on the planet
or galaxy, for that matter
that does not affect each one of us
and that we do not feel on some level.
Nothing we do is without consequences
Each life matters
at the same time,
each of us is no more then a tiny speck of light
Let’s be vow to be animal enough
to acknowledge the movements of the web,
made both safe and challenged by it’s sway.
The spiders web holds it’s shape
rocking us not gently but with a firm hand
on this New Years Day!
\
Are the young cottonwood volunteers
(perfect beaver food)
that have grown up here after the flood.
We also planted a number of trees
and now we have a beaver
who thinks nothing of taking down
a major tree……
which is exactly what happened.
It’s interesting to receive a heavy blow
from a creature I have reverence for
Like God , a beaver can deliver your next dose of woe
without bating an eyelash
I stand in Awe tinged by Anger
It had been John’s job to wrap the tree
He’d promised.
So my first impulse when I saw it down
was to get mad at him.
And as it often is in relationship
the coming together in a shared grief
is at first fractured by guilt or it’s equivalent…
“We should of been better prepared”
“We’re too old to manage this place”
So on this cold winter afternoon
John went out to wrap trees.
Attending to the effort of living
our softness returns….
dancing under the moonlight
(to the Moody Blues)
Two beavers- or one beaver and God
or two parts of a mutual God
Who can say?
and we are not separate.
The electromagnetic field that is my body
interweaves with yours
waves on the ocean.
Tomorrow is my sister, Jan’s, 80th birthday.
She is already with the beyond ( but still here in form)
The family is freaking out- of course
But what I feel is her readiness,
to just be the magnetic field…
tiny beads of light
invisible to the eye.
She is done for,
as they say in the West.
I had a dream Christmas night
That Anne pulled up to the curb
with Jan in the sidecar of the roadster,
ready to be off, on the adventure ahead.
The two of them side by side
tucked in low seats the engine purring
So on this eve of Jan’s birthday
Anne is in the roadster
ready to give her a lift
as soon as she steps over the threshold
off they will go, joy riding.
The horizon is not a line.
Two sister’s are circled up
as the unit they have always been.
And when I asked
Hey Anne ” do you know how to drive that?
in that quirky way of hers she said,
“I guess”
So get out of their way
Beep Beep – off they go!
In this season of the descent
Where Innana gets hung up on a meat hook
in the underworld
(in an attempt to aid her sister)
whittled down to nothing
no arms or legs or head- just a trunk
And isn’t that just it….
Our besties do this whittling
although we truly wish they wouldn’t
sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, friends, spouses
taking away what isn’t me.
So much baggage,
so much dross.
that I have been fairly aggressive of late
demanding a way out….
shouting, stomping, pouting, wailing,
interesting to track
because something gave way
under the weight of my desire for liberation.
I was given this question
“Whose eyes are you looking out of”
and in this moment,
I saw my soul.
And it’s more like fire or wind or star.
Not human, truly other.
And living with this visitation has changed me,
something heavy has been lifted.
There are habits of emotion,
the sway of the heart.
but I’m not sure what I am gathering here.
I ( as fire) don’t appear to need anything.
Make Love Not War
Granny says- “Make Love not War
with Beaver and Redtail Blessings”
This year’s image for my annual print
(brought through in a mediation)
captures my inner masculine supporting me…
No small thing- this.. taken a lifetime!
How do men pull it off?
We have a four point buck in runt here,
in season, blind to anything
but the scent in the air
that has him trotting with purpose
and almost running us down.
That’s me.
I am running a bit hot, it all so new
and poor John
but I ‘m loving the sense of instinct and drive….
Wild old woman
integrating the societal need
for the men to get behind…
And isn’t this the underlying principle of Feminism?
Scary is a woman’s fangs (but her sharp teeth mean well)
I know the fight is an internal alignment
I own that
But come on guys
Have our backs, will ya?
Even though you might get bitten.
