Meditation (6)

Sitting this evening
at sangha
busy mind.
I am weeding my driveway
trying to figure out my first smart phone
planning the November writing retreat.
In between
I am fully in the room
part of our sweet circle.
Then an imaginary conversation
with a friend and writing companion
certain I hurt her feelings in the afternoon
not able to let it go.
But later
walking home from the bus
the clouds part
for the new moon, big thin bright sickle
and the huge dark orb of her, too.
I stop in the middle of the road
to watch her disappear behind the mountain.
Good night, moon
good journey.
No more busy mind.

Night Sky Delight (44)

The eastern sky is washed in dark pink, our version of a sunset here, so near the San Jacintos. The clouds stretch north, too, as far as I can see on tiptoe. I am weeding the driveway, but I stop to look. There are two of the huge round kind I have only seen in these skies, big puffy smooshed almost-spirals that look like spaceships. The pink pales, and I go back to pulling weeds until the twilight plays tricks on my eyes. Later I remember I have left my shears sitting in the gravel. When I go back out to get them, I see the new crescent moon beside Venus in the west, a hands breadth above the mountains. I stand still, the dangling shears a weight pulling on my arm, my lips parted. They are surprising and bright above the darkening ridge. Back inside, I grab my laptop to do more work. I am carrying it to the living room when I have the impulse to look for them again. I bend my knees to peer out through the 4-inch slit of open window in my front door. They are still there, shining now through the silhouettes of the Palo Verde branches. I am like a little kid, scrunched down, nose pressed up against the screen. I stand there in the narrow hallway, giddy, computer clutched against my chest, watching the two of them for a long time, magic beings in the night sky.

Let the Good Times Roll (31)

This is quite a week we are in. I’d done my own marveling over it, staring at the wall calendar Auntie Gardi gave me for Christmas. Then one of my favorite astrologers pointed it out, too. Valentine’s Day, Margi Gras (Fat Tuesday), Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent), the Chinese New Year (The Year of the Goat) and the new moon, all within just six days. How can it be anything but auspicious to have all these happenings coinciding like this? It makes me glad I am almost through my crazy hectic stretch of work. I may be too tired to appreciate these alignments with the proper fervor, but I can feel the forward movement in them, the hope and the promise of them. Harbingers, I believe, of good things coming.