Imagine.

I was just on Facebook tonight, and an old friend from Sonoma County who I used to kayak with posted a video that I watched. I want to share this with you. It was of one of these X competitions on tv, where young unknowns get up and sing to a panel of four expert judges and a big audience. This particular night, a young dark skinned man got up, and the blonde Aussie host asked him, so lad, how old are you? 'well, I don't really know. I was found by nuns in a shoebox in Iraq, and taken to an orphanage. I was born without a birth certificate.' That pretty well silenced the room. He then went on to tell them about how he and his brother had been found in a shoebox in a park, in the midst of war in Iraq. They had lived in the orphanage, both obviously mangled from the trauma of war, without lower arms and bearing weight on compromised legs. The screen showed pictures of two lovely little boys growing up with disfigurations, happily playing together. "my mom is an angel, I knew it when she walked in through the orphanage door."
He went on to sing "Imagine" by John Lennon. His family was there, Mom, Aunt, Brother, Sister, and Brother from family of origin. His presence up there, his boldness with his challenges and how much life had given him in gifts, and his clarity, was so beautiful and awesome.
I feel awestruck, at his courage, his luck, both bad and good, and circumstance.
And while his story gave me hope, a part of me wants to curl up into a ball in the dark, wondering what kind of a world we are raising our child in?
"We are so far from this."
The kind of material worth that is placed higher than human worth... the mighty dollar and how much we have sacrificed as a humanity... the brightness of his eyes, his knowing, and wonder he holds, is inspiration at its finest... even the bridges to the other side of this life- how can we hold these qualities and magic of life here, when it feels that we are on a suicide mission as a people?

Don't know where exactly I am going with this, except to say that a lot of our little quibbles seem pale right now. I don't want to bail out of this lifeboat we are in together here in this star-spangled country, quite yet, but I am not sure it's watertight either. And I wonder where in the world, is the shangri-la we were sold? Why does our leader seem hell-bent on bending his agenda to meet in the middle? He has really got me scratching my head, passing NRA regulations like no other, putting so many more drones in the air than our last guy, going after medical marijuana outlets in CA, and severing arteries in the EPA programs to protect clean water by educating the public. I just don't get it.

If there IS ShangriLa, I do believe it exists right here and now. Eckart Tolle has written for years about choosing the world you live in, as perception creates reality. Funny trick, it's getting harder to imagine that better world. Here again, it's a case of us Needing to Imagine in full, Vivid color- that ShangriLa. Not just look at what is in front of us. That doesn't serve us any more. We don't need to know how to get there, we only need to hold that image. We need to paint it in technicolor, sniff it in, whiff it up, whirl it into a frenzy, know its scent, its vibe, how it feels inside. Put up our Bubble. Talk about it, Dream about it, Allow the Universe to Conspire to Make it Ours.

And the World Will be One.

Namaste.

Time

If Time is kept by the blue-speckled lizards, hiding out beneath the rocks in the dry river bed... then what of us? What is time but our perception of this place and space. When the seers say they can bend time, is that so different from my dreaming of being a bluespeckledlizard?
I find my time is fleeting, always, awake. In the nonwaking hours, my time STRETCHES into the ages, and I live many lives in those dark hours. Wars are averted, issues resolved, promises made.
The trick is to keep them all from evaporating in dawn's earliest breath.
May we all have the courage to hold onto those promises of the bluespeckled ones, and bring them back from the darkness with us when we emerge.

Grief.

Grief.
The slipping away of a baby spirit, before his parents ever got the chance to comfort him in their arms.
Unknowing, uncertainty.
How can I know what the karma was for that little soul? How can I presume to understand the complexity of life and all its mystery, its magic, its secrets?
Faith.
The realization that those of us who are here and now, can bear witness for each other. That grief does not need to cut us off from the rest of the living, breathing, beating world and all its beauty and joy.
Hope.
Life springs anew, even in hearts who hold sorrow and darkness. Life begets life, and the cycle continues. Blessed are we who bear witness and hold, and can be held, for the golden net of love stretches around our planet and back again, holding our backs and holding space.
Humility.
May my arms never be assuming, my ears never fill in the blanks of silence. May my heart always be open to listening to, and wishing to understand, what is in the heart of another. May common passion be what it is we know, even if it is all we know.

And what an odd feeling, knowing there are many within our ranks who are being let go, cut adrift, today... I sit working at my desk, after a lunchtime relaxed visit to the cafe, almost falsely. False because in the back of my mind is the reality that when I return to our offices, some of my coworkers may be gone already. False because while I smile and it is a beautiful day out, it is a hard week and all of the faces I see here are stretched taut with worry, or just saddened by heavy stress.
So similar it is to the experience of being pregnant and having the doctor tell us, 'I know you want a homebirth, but if you do it now, you will bleed to death.' Despite my dream of this, I allowed that to be a possibility- and held the dream, too. We made arrangements, holding the light, holding space and living in allowance for any outcome, and still did our positive visulizations... regardless. *And, had his okay two weeks ahead had a home birth, And I lost a lot of blood... but our dreams manifest themselves and we allowed it to unfold. What a strange thing, to be holding both worlds, at the same time, knowing ultimately, only one can exist.
So I am here, typing tonight, thinking about detection limits and new projects and data from creeks... thinking about my family and our future, and trying to not be attached to the outcome, but instead, really interested in seeing how the measured unfolding of the universe works itself out. This concept of trusting in the Universal Law of Karma- the idea that there IS a big picture of the greatest common good, and the acceptance that I MAY NOT know what all of that looks like right now.
I work to Just be present with what Is.
Right now.
Courage to hold loving kindness, or at least, kindness as love, or lovingness in kind with at least what Is.
Compassion for all beings, and enough space in my heart to hold space for this whole world, knowing that somehow, all is right and perfect, in all its imperfections, in this moment.

Of all this; I think of Great spirit (JOY) bending to kiss Great mystery (BEAUTY): I think of the magic of this embrace, and the magic of new souls being born on this earth as a result...
The nuzzling of a mare and her baby foal, velvet lips touching new fur.
The unfurling of tender green fern fronds deep in the forest.
The way steam rises lazily from the river in early light, lingering sensuously, dangerously close to where from it came.
The pattern of a dragonfly as it dodges in and out, tracking the surface of reflections.
Water droplets hanging in the orb of life, enlivened by the glint of setting sun through the trees. Ladybugs doing a frenetic hokeypokey in a writhing red mass on the trunk of the old grandmother madrone below purdon crossing. every year.
The color of deep violet sky as the first stars begin to show.
Support enough for all.
Kisses to friends that have left the planet.
Promises for the future in all this chaos that is life here, as we know it.

reflections on my first half marathon
dappled sunlight, oxygen high, oxygen deprivation...sensory overload, bay leaves, trickling creeks, steep downhill, log down, whoops! slippery mud on angled singletrack, rocks, newts, oxygen- so much I feel heavy here, grounded, tangibly connected to everything around and under me. within me. nothing of material construct is important here, and i am light. too.
from light/dark dapples, and serpentine cliffs sticking out of sticky mud, i scramble for toehold, fleetingly wonder about muddy soles sticking to rock, then fly, dip and rise through small ravines back into the -redwood glory- up to a fireroad, as soft and dark and full of duff as trails were- luxury for my knees... high as a kite when my fuel kicks in, oof another uphill? now i remember, this is how i trained, back in the day. those days. long rain runs, swims in the lake, vistas through the fog, good friends who are not here now but will be in my heart always, forever trails in the oaken hills...coyotes, bucks, hawk.
now i am up rocks, up freshly cleared trail, cut logs and orange flags- guiding me like a beacon... ah green trees. soaproot blooming in early spring sun on the ridgetops... and in between, ferns, little ones, big ones, fresh fiddlenecks waiting to open until the thunderous feet stop passing this morning. Tender. Fresh. limbs curled up tight to body, new fuzz still damp with morning dew, reminding me of that night not so long ago when the wee one slipped his way into this world. i smell mother cat licking afterbirth from newborn kittens who made surprise appearance during the night outside our backdoor. the smell of instinct, of closeness, of animal, of new fur and cozy. yes. we are connected, we are the wild instinct that is all of creation.
i remember that if i can get back into my body, and out of my mind, i am animal and can embody this. I don't need to put on 3D glasses to be Part of the Forest, to find cooperation, to feel the ground breathe through me, to sigh with All that Is and feel her rise up to meet my feet, cushioning me and lightning my load. i remember this is what drew me in the first place, this place of euphoric connectedness, of recognition, of remembering the magic that this place under my feet is. and that if i can simply create this space, to be in this place at this time within, i can create my life as it desires to be, despite the physical and mundane. my physical reality has not changed, I have... and my world will change as it rises to meet me. i am grateful to the universe for this glimpse of the Dream.

Miracles.

"Who makes much of a miracle?

As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles...

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,

Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,

Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same;

Every spear of glass -

the frames, limbs, organs of men and women and all that concerns them,

All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles."

- Walt Whitman (and thanks to Ken Lauher for posting)

I'd like to think I could add on to this concept, but rather... my desire is to honor this, to hold on, to embrace it and let it run through me again and again, that its essence may fill me with gratitude and the childlike innocence that works to keep every day aware of the magic.

The Wild

3.8.10 - A five day. Humility.
I sit here in my warm morning bed, sleep in my eyes and body tired from upping my miles so dramatically over the weekend and arising early with a hungry baby. The morning glow enlivens snowy hills across the valley, and like a bluebird day, puts a smile on my face that goes all the way through me. Inspiration. Pink shadows play in the spaces between the dark spaces I know to be trees and bare rock faces, inviting my heart to play there as well. I watch this dance for some time on certain mornings, others, I only get a glimpse as I dash from morning task to morning task.
The hoot owl outside fills my heart as well, like a playmate from another time. As I arise before the dawn, I have come to love his call, echoing softly through the neighborhood. Lazily I wonder if he was the one, this winged creature of the shadow side, to take our smallest cat away. Somehow that is far less violent for me to imagine than a car being her transport vehicle to the other side. I realize that since I can remember, I have held a notion deep within that I would far rather die by the hand of natural order than by concrete and metal on wheels. And maybe that is what has drawn me to the mountains of quetzal, the trails of mountain lion and bear, and to high country of snow leopard and yeti, mostly solo and (save a few moments) mostly unafraid.
Some small, but irrepressible part of me embraces that wild, even if I do not visit it daily or even weekly, at this time of my life, though I have lived in it for weeks, months. That part of me that believes in the Wild, believes too in Natural Order -and my place in it, however low on the food chain I might be. That it is there, that I can vanish into it, is enough for right now.

I hold this belief tight to me this day, feeling closeness with my own Wild and the natural rhythms and order within -and without, and I am grateful.