Category Archives: Inspiration

May You Come Back Safe and Happy (52)

Posted on by
Reply

There’s some kind of enchantment going on in the courtyard. The white crowned sparrows are hopping all about. Yesterday I cleaned out the rest of the dandelion and mustard bushes. (I’ve been harvesting the dandelion for my split pea soup for months now, but it became huge and sprawling, and I let it go to seed.) The sparrows flit back and forth across the freshly revealed patch of dirt and nyger seed casings, crossing it again and again, all surprised delight, this new present unwrapped just for them. Their white crowns seem whiter today. Is it my imagination, or does that happen before they migrate? I’ve been treasuring them more than ever, knowing they’ll be leaving soon. (I remember how quiet it seemed last year after they left—I’d sit outside and count the few of us remaining. Seven mourning doves, three house finch, eleven with me.) Without deciding to, I find myself saying metta for them. May you have a fun, safe journey north. May you always have plenty of food and good water and good company. May you enjoy your summer home and find your way back here again before winter. I say these blessing wishes for a long time, until I am loving them so much I cry. “I’ll miss you,” I whisper. May you come back safe and happy.

Lots of Little Lights (50)

Posted on by
Reply

I get overwhelmed. It isn’t just all the failing but all the learning that goes with it. I’ve always had a kind of keen reflective eye, am often swift to see what I’m doing “wrong,” how I might do it better. My first year of teaching was a nightmare. I would walk out of each class with a mental list of 18 things I could have done differently. Today, too, I keep watching myself fail, dizzy with discernment. I guess, really, I am shining lots of little lights everywhere I look. After talking about this with my friend Richard and realizing I need to be able to accept what I’m doing in order for my awareness to effect change, I understand how this is in play for me always. Not only is my acceptance not deep enough, not broad enough, but each time I see a truth about my actions, about my reality, I expect myself to be able to change it. So in that first year of teaching, in every patch of my life when learning is accelerated, I put crazy pressure on myself to be able to fix things as soon as I recognize them. No wonder it’s overwhelming. Exhausting, stressful, even discouraging. This is where I need to develop that kind and curious mind we’re always talking about in mindfulness work, yes? This is where I want to be able to say to myself, “Ah. Look at that.” This is where I want to be able to pay attention without putting pressure on myself to change. Just, “Hmmm, how interesting.” Open palmed, my dear. Open palmed.

Shining a Light (49)

Posted on by
Reply

I am on the phone with my friend Richard. He is talking about rereading a mindfulness book, about the idea that all we need to do is shine a light on a problem. We don’t need to do anything, only shine the light. I am grumpy with him, get an icky tone in my voice. I’m annoyed—angry, really—because I have been shining a light for years on all kinds of problems, and it hasn’t done any good. (Well, not any good, of course, but the problems persist.) After we hang up, I think about this for days. I try to understand why it makes me angry, why I am so bent out of shape by this claim, so twisted up inside. Then it comes to me. This only works if you accept whatever it is you are shining the light on. This doesn’t work unless we accept ourselves or the situation. There is a letting go in it, an opened palm. I know I am not there yet. But maybe I am inching my way toward it?

The Singer and the Song (43)

Posted on by
2

For weeks I hear lovely snatches of bird song I don’t recognize, a long high note and then a rush of lower notes, almost a chatter. I think about writing to my birding teacher at the community college. I have an imaginary conversation with him where I describe the notes and he tells me who it might be and I go online to listen to the audio to see if that’s the one. But I don’t write to him. I only dream about it. Today when I’m sweeping the kitchen floor I hear the song again, and it sounds like it’s quite close. I walk to the living room window. I don’t expect to be able to see him or identify him, but I look out anyway. The bird is perched six feet away on my neighbor’s redwood fence. He is singing with all of himself, his chest and belly, his tail, tilting his beak up and opening it again and again. It is the song I’ve treasured, and here is the singer. He is singing with his back to me, but he turns his head, and I see it’s a Bewick’s wren. He sings while I watch and try not to be too intent in my regard. So much big song from such a little bird. When he flies off to the east, I go back to my morning chores. The gift of him and the mystery unfolding are sweet within me while I sweep.

Poised (42)

Posted on by
Reply

I wake at 4am to the sound of soft rain falling. I get up and go outside to put the lid on my trash can filled with tecoma branches and bougainvillea trimmings. I am naked from sleeping. I stand in the dark courtyard for a long moment and feel the gentle raindrops on my bare skin. A kind of childlike awe fills me that borders on the edge of glee, only more quiet. In the morning the rain has stopped. After I fill the bird feeders and put clean water in their terra cotta saucers, I stand again in the courtyard (clothed now). I marvel at the delicious beauty of my little garden. The colors and the freshness of it, the fuchsia blossoms on the bougainvillea, the pale orange of the sprawling apricot mallow, the bright yellow of a small sunflower, all washed clean by the gentle rain. And poised now, ready for the promise of the birds.

Spirit Balm (40)

Posted on by
Reply

I put my big weird orange tube scarf over my head and fluff it up around my neck, tie Joe’s old sweater around my waist. It is not yet dusk when I walk out my wooden gate, the big clouds in the sky lit up by the last of the setting sun that went behind our mountains almost two hours ago. It’s my first walk for sheer pleasure in a long time. I go along the golf course path. I watch a hawk glide-land in the dead branches of the tree beside the tennis courts. When I reach the tree I stop to talk to him. “Are you a Cooper’s hawk?” I ask. And then, “Are you my Cooper’s hawk?” He doesn’t answer in a way I know how to recognize, but he doesn’t leave, either. Beyond the tree I see bunnies nibbling on the grass. It’s dusk now, and I can feel the magic of it descend on us. A Costa’s hummingbird lands three feet away, his violet mantle glistening in the remaining light. The cottontails don’t scatter today when I walk by. I am careful not to stop and not to stare. I grab quick greedy glimpses of them while I walk, drinking in their exquisite furry forms, the depth in their dark eyes, the busy concentration of their chewing. When I walk back again the rabbits are still eating, but the hawk is gone. I scan the golf course for coyotes in the late dusk. I can hear the traffic about a block away, loud on a Friday evening. I think of people going home from work, buying groceries, heading out to dinner. I soak up the respite of this path, this quiet other world settling into night, the presence of the San Jacintos. I remember why I want to return to this–balm for my spirit.

Hummingbird or Collarbone Hollow (36)

Posted on by
Reply

I dream I am in a small walled patio. Large swaths of sheer fabric in green and black billow from a concrete slab overhang. There’s a young woman in her thirties with me. She has dark hair and lots of bangles on her wrist. I watch as a hummingbird flies to her and cuddles on her shoulder in the crook of her neck. I am in awe. Then another one comes to me and settles in. I hold very still. I can tell the little bird is poking around the way they do, comfortable, preening, setting things to right. After, in the dream, I’m trying to describe it to people, and I keep starting over. As I try to tell the story, I keep rubbing the indentation between my collarbone and shoulder where he nestled. Half awake later, I check in the mirror to see if the indentation is there, but it doesn’t look or feel as large as the hollow in my dream. But, oh! To have a hummingbird nestle in like that. Such sweetness. Standing in front of the mirror, I can still feel his soft weight against my skin.