Personal Story

After the storm
The sounds of the dripping ice from the trees
The crunch of the snow being chipped away
The traffic zooming by splashing snow on the pedestrians
Not with a caring thought of who is getting slushed upon
Ah, winter the cold, the brisk, the sun, the light
The weather changing
The weather warming up
The weather warming down
It’s like a tease
Oh, Spring is here
Yet the sun and the birds are chirping
But then Oh old woman winter comes out
It is below zero again

Sometimes it is so hard to believe
There will be I time I am not going to be here on planet earth
There will be a time I’ll expire my life will come to an end
Then I will begin a new beginning in Heaven
I believe in God
The afterlife
That we do go on
Sometimes I get so distracted by today
Not really realizing I am here for a limited amount of time
Even if I live to 150
There is a time I will not be here
That takes a lot of mindfulness for me
To hold on to that
I really want to hold on to that

Coincidence, synchronicity, what really the cause of that
The power of thought
The law of attraction
My friend Bruce and Richard were over my home today as we were working
on our project
Bruce was telling the story of a big tree
He thinks you should get the proper permission to take them down
How they should not be taken down
They have their rights to be on the planet
He was making a point for the environment and nature

I started to chuckle I said

I really enjoy looking at tree bark - the whorls and swirls of bark as it moves up the trunk of the tree. It overlaps like house shingles. And it eddies around limbs and around the stumps of fallen limbs. You see the tree holes, and the flow of the bark around them.

The patterns are mesmerizing, like watching water that is stopped.

It really seems like something is written on the tree, by the tree, over and over again.

And when a vine climbs the tree, it is even more beautiful, especially in the autumn when the vine turns red.

I love working with beets – whole, leafy, bushy beets.

Everything about them leaves this deep, ruby tint. As you rinse the giant green leaves, the red stalks look like rhubarb and tint the water red. As they drip on the steel sink, the droplets look luminescent over the cool, silver blue.

If you hold a leaf up to the light, so the sun shines thru, the leaf is a gorgeous, vibrant yellow green, contrasted with the crimson stem system running thru the leaf.

The leaves taste great raw.

Hmmm a square peg going into a round hole?
Where do I fit in
Where do I fit in in life
It’s like
What’s my purpose
I don’t know
I just feel like I am
I’m not getting it
I don’t seem to be
You know just really creating what I want in my life
Or in the world
I just feel like
I am just existing
I am not doing my part
It is not about doing
It is about being
It is not what you can accomplish
It is really about how you feel
How you go about your day
How you view your self

On my walk, I met a neighbor who told me this story. He had an ulcer, and so his stomach had been hurting him. Some of his friends convinced him to go on a men’s retreat with his church.

He reluctantly went, even more reluctantly because they were serving pizza, which would not agree with his stomach. Near the end of the retreat, he was surprised because the leader said, “Let’s pray for Donald.” So everyone laid their hands on Donald and prayed for him.

Afterwards, there was no longer a burning in his stomach. He was completely cured during those few minutes that day.

The woods were filled with many sounds that day: birds singing, leaves rustling, squirrels moving around.

I was painting a picture beside a stream in the late morning. The stream flowed around many large boulders. This view of rocks and water is what attracted me to this place.

Suddenly, everything was quiet. I mean absolutely quiet. Even the water became quiet.

Everything became unexpectedly still. A great hush came over this place. You could hear a pin drop. And so it continued for about 2 minutes. It reminded me of how it is right before a storm.

Why does fire seem so alive?

That flame on a candle seems so peaceful, so meditative -- like it, itself, is putting out a presence.

A candlelit dinner. How charming.

One of the houses I pass on my walk has a gaslight lamp, that always has a flame burning.

I really like that.

I remember sparklers that we would light on the fourth of July. They’d leave a trail of light in the night air.

Perhaps these things remind us of our own sparkling light.

Did you ever go into some place that had an echo?

It’s so hard not be a kid again. Just to play with it: clap, or say “hello”, or whistle, or stomp your feet.

I am so pleasantly surprised to find places that call you back to being curious, in the moment, childlike, wonder. The New York Botanical Gardens has a fabulous tunnel connecting two buildings that’s just perfect for making echoes. Perhaps it just happened that way. I’m grateful.

You just want to play with the situation. All else stops.