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So fellow travelers, this past week brought waves of joy, healing, grace and some damn fine rock and roll
I am still integrating the experience and as the insights begin to take coherent form those will be shared with my favorite images of the week’s events and memories.
For now, having traveled to PDX, I am supremely content to catch up on rest, laundry and time with my kids. Greeted by the welcoming sight of Favorite Older Daughter’s guest room, these words rose from my grateful heart.
If adage is truth
And home is where the heart is
Then I have arrived
Walk gently on the path my friends and may adventure find you ready
So fellow travelers, last night, at a small music club, Switchfoot gave a special performance for the fans who have gathered for their 2019 Getaway week leading up to the Bro-Am beach festival later this week.
It was a once in a lifetime concert experience.
Honestly, every concert I have seen them play since the first time I saw them live (Sept 4, 2009 at the NY State Fair) is a profound experience; that’s why I go to as many shows within my reach as possible ( nine so far and many more to come.)
This is music with a message of hope, words which speak honestly of the healing and joy possible if we reach out to one another and choose love in the midst of the struggle, the doubts, fears and losses life brings. Make no mistake, these are not quiet church hymns. Switchfoot is a faith based group but they are a rock band through and through. The driving rhythms of the drums and bass and the electrifying guitar riffs make it impossible to stand still. These songs transcend inspiration; at times they have quite literally saved my life and every show is a baptismal healing which renews my soul.
Last nights’s performance of a set list picked by us (that’s right, they had people attending submit requests before the show) featured many songs they have not played live in a while, one of which was a song written for the Disney movie Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Jon Foreman spoke of his love for C.S. Lewis’ writing which resonates with the longing for a true home beyond the bittersweet experience of this world. Every one of us feels that longing, whether we are fully conscious of it or not, this is what drives every choice we make. Jon’s music has that same thread running through it, a thread which has become deeply woven into the fabric of my own experience.
This is Home is the one song which always guides me back when I am so lost I don’t know how to find that Light and Love which I know calls me forward. Hearing it live for the first time last night was a blessing beyond words, an experience I am infinitely grateful has become a part of me.
And the week has just begun.
Walk gently on the path my friends and may adventure find you ready.
So fellow travelers, the adventures of summer are off to a most auspicious beginning.
Yeah, I know it is hard to even tell what this is . Here look closer
That is part of a whale’s back breaking the surface of the water as it feeds in the channel near Anacapa Island off the coast of California.
It’s actually only a very small part of the whale’s back, because this whale is a blue whale, the largest known living mammal on this planet.
Our boat captain had spotted the whale’s spout about a mile away and was navigating towards it. Thing is, he told us, whales stay under for long periods of time and one can never be quite certain where they will resurface.
This one had just reappeared closer. Our captain said it was “lunge feeding,” skimming close to surface of the water.
A few minutes later the whale burst out of the waves, raising it’s massive head up out of the water just a few yards away from our boat. We could see right into it’s huge mouth, water streaming through the baleen. We could see it’s majestic, glistening eye and, much like the transcendent experience of the night sky in Joshua Tree NP last summer, it was as if that eye drew me through a portal to the existence of every living being.
It was like gazing into the eye of God.
An entire boatful of humans, young, old, captain and crew fell silent.
In an instant, this amazing creature turned and dove back down, seeming endless in length, until it’s tail appeared just barely above the surface and then disappeared back into the depths of dark water in search of more krill. The encounter lastest less than a minute.
So fellow travelers, the rain this Spring has been relentless.
I tell myself I can’t complain if I truly intend to move to the PNW, so, I take it as a kind of meteorological training program and I say things like, “At least we don’t have to shovel the driveway or brush off the car.”
Persistent optimism. It annoys people as I am frequently reminded by the eye rolling, snarkiness going around . It rolls off my consciousness like the rain sliding down my driveway, washing the abundant maple and elm seeds into the roadside ditch. Away they sail in the rushing water to who knows where, perhaps some will take root and grow into their own little forest.
To dwell on the negativity thrown about too easily thanks to the sparsity of verbal moderation (perpetuated, I believe, by the anonymity of social media) is to allow oneself to become mired in the other peoples muck.
No thank you!
My own spiritual guidance pushes me to see this negativity as coming from the storms within these people. Their feelings become so uncomfortable, they project them outwards to rid themselves of the pain and anger. I can see this compassionately without sinking into the same quagmire.
Restless storm clouds race
Dumping rain then dashing off
Leaving muck behind
Proceed mindfully
The Buddha may teach “No Mud No Lotus” but I prefer to choose what seeds bloom in my consciousness. Making mine an attitude of gratitude has over the past few years truly changed my perspective, which in turn has created changes in my life I would never have predicted. So let rain, I’ll splash in the puddles to wash the mud off my boots.
Walk gently on the path my friends and may adventure find you ready.
So fellow travelers, you know that expression about a bird in hand being worth two in the bush? Well, how many birds would one from the heart equate to?
Once a year, since 2006 on the third Saturday of May, I set out on a special birding adventure called Birdathon. Essentially, it’s a 24hr birding challenge and fundraiser for our local Audubon Society. I’ve written about it a few times and it is one of my favorite adventures of the year. It’s exhausting, exhilarating, frustrating and fascinating all at once. After all it’s no easy task to locate and identify as many different species within a set region in just one day. It’s even harder without my fellow “loonatic.” Missing Favorite Youngest Daughter’s trained ear for pitch and cadence I am often at a loss trying to identify a distant call, even with the aid of my arsenal of birding apps. Since our last run as Team Loonatics in 2016 I’ve been flying solo as it were and even when the weekend holds other commitments I feel the pull to head out because this event holds meaning much deeper than tally marks on a check list.
At every location there are threads which wove a bond between the spirit of this willful, fiercely independent child and my stubborn mother’s heart. The day is not about the numbers. It has evolved into a ritual of reconnection, so even when I’m standing by myself on a trail, listening intently, I am not alone. As my brain is pulling up the memory of things my daughter taught me about pitch and cadence, my heart feels the joy of precious moments shared.
.
Distant songs echo
Love transcends time and distance
A mother’s heart heals
One day Team Loonatics will venture out again, perhaps for the Global Big Day at locations we’ve never charted before. Until then, I keep listening and living the lessons learned on the path of Motherhood .
Walk gently on the path my friends and may adventure find you ready.
So fellow travelers, those reluctant lilacs I wrote about several weeks ago have finally come out of hibernation.
Given the constant rain and chilly temperatures I surely do not blame them for holding out as long as they could. For goodness sake, it was 45° this morning! Refilling the suet feeders my hands were so cold I almost dashed back inside to grab some gloves!
I snapped this quick shot with a bit of poetry in mind. With overcast skies it’s not the best of lighting, but sometimes we just make do with what we have in the moment.
Blossoms bursting free Flooding my senses with joy Grateful once again
With the school year coming to a close, I too feel ready to burst out of hibernation. The promise of summer adventures is as heady a rush as the perfume of my late blooming lilacs. All in good time, they tell me, all in good time.
Walk gently on the path my friends and may adventure find you ready.
So fellow travelers, last week the weather app on my phone pinged to alert me to a “continued precipitation and flood watch” forecast.
Relentless rainfall has washed away all my short and long term hiking plans for several weeks now. No fire tower challenges undertaken, no walks along park paths to look for spring visitors on the lake, even navigating my backyard requires rubber boots, which make for very poor footing when walking Delilah close to home.
Cold, wet, windy conditions meant scouting for migration hotspots was most unpleasant and unproductive. With the annual Birdathon this weekend (post pending)I’ve been in a deep funk about being so housebound. Checking my pond obe morning I noticed even the lilacs are holding back.
Buds wait holding tight
Wary of cold winds and rain
Needing sunlight’s hug
Like the lilacs I’ve felt pretty tightly bound. Good news is the forecast turned around just in time for the annual Birdathon, bringing me a much needed hug from the sun while out on the trails counting and tracking down my feathered Stay tuned for the final tally!
Walk gently on the path my friends and may adventure find you ready.
So fellow travelers, this has been quite the week of mixed messages.
A few decades ago, in my more pugnacious days I would have exerted tremendous effort in sorting the squabbles out. Presently, being in a transitional phase as work wanes towards retirement, I’m leaning towards an unusually benign state of letting the babble die down.
After all, when even the weather is befuddled, one might as well pour a cup of tea and wait for clarity to resurface.
Snow kissed blossoms fall
Fragile crystals glow then fade
April ends confused
Yes, those are tiny snow crystals with maple blossoms landing on my car .
Walk gently on the path my friends and may adventure find you ready.
So fellow travelers, it seems this morning’s little haiku has opened a gateway to a lot more words and an awareness of what was missing.
As more experiences in my daily life connect to my inner journey, it has become impossible to filter Spirit out of my writing. Close friends and fellow creatives tell me my writing has always been infused with spiritual perspectives yet I have often been hesitant to write about my direct relationship with Spirit, lest it be mistaken for religious sermonizing. Reflecting on my recent drought of creativity I’m aware this essential aspect of my experience has to be expressed if I am to write from my heart. Going forward I will tread carefully as if navigating a path through newly sprouted wildflowers. Light and Love are gentle, patient energies found in quiet spaces and I wish to be respectful of the beliefs others hold close.
~~~~~
I have a muddled relationship with religious observations.
Sacred altar in Luzerne Vally CA
Bear in mind I am that little girl in Sunday School who wanted to know why; for example, if Jesus had risen from death, why was he still dead on the cross in church. Fortunately Lutherans do not ex-communicate, but I did obey the directive to stop asking questions. One can say the most important lesson I learned in Sunday school was to keep my spiritual inquisitiveness in check at least until I was old enough to seek answers in my own. Meanwhile the Lutheran church has graciously adopted the Cross of Resurrection as its focal point in their churches.
Even as a very young child, the Christianity I was taught made no sense to me. How on earth could one put faith in a Father who would sacrifice his “only son” to save people who seemed bound and determined to keep acting in ways which required such an extreme measure in the first place. There was also quite a bit of conflict between what I was taught and what the Voice I heard in church told me. Yes, you read that right- in moments when focused on the beautiful music, mesmerized by the colors of the stained glass windows** there would sometimes be a Voice which spoke in my head.
Before we call for a psych eval know that this Voice did not “speak” in words so much as impressions or thoughts and always spoke of the importance of love and kindness. It was a Voice which, even at a very young age, I knew did not originate from my own mind. It is the Voice which, when I choose to listen, guides me to live from my heart, to choose compassion over judgment and continues to lead me to profound, if fleeting, experiences of the Presence of Light and permanence of Spirit.
Yeah, I know
Pretty wHeird.
And trust me, as an adult, for many years, I did everything I could to disprove the existence of this Voice. Except the more I did, the more the things this Voice told me proved to be true. Things like~
~ forgiveness releases you from the prison of holding others guilty
~ hatred is toxic and accomplishes nothing; it can and will kill you
~ most anger is self directed; letting it go brings healing
~ gratitude increases joy
~ peace is possible, see all of the above
So, in this season where tradition would have us reflect on the meaning of sacrifice and the concept of resurrection, I came back to those unanswered questions from my Sunday school days. The celebration of Easter itself has a complicated history, interlaced with pagan traditions of decorated eggs and an 18th century mystical egg laying “Osterhaus.” Much like the secular garb of Christmas, these are glittering distractions which we must go beyond to find deeper meaning.
In the spring season we grapple with resurrection and rebirth, two significantly different concepts. Rebirth is a new form of life, generated from something other than itself. Resurrection on the other hand is raising what was once dead to live again as itself. Easter, which always occurs after the Spring Equinox, is a time to be mindful of what we might resurrect in the annual cycle of rebirth. Awakening lost memories, buried wounds or guilt entombed long ago can create shock waves which unnerve our resolution to move forward. Yet, much like the contemporary “Easter eggs” of digital media and video games, these hidden elements can reveal new levels of awareness which help us live more fully in the present. To live our dreams, we must emerge from the shadows of the past and embrace the person we have become. In essence, while the past has shaped us it need not continue to define us. We can resurrect lost dreams infused with the energy of who we have become.
So fellow travelers, whatever beliefs you hold as truth, I wish blessings of this holy day to you . May the Easter eggs you find on the path bring gifts of joy as sweet as jelly beans .
Favorite Younger Daughter circa 2005
Walk gently on the path my friends and may adventure find you ready
**Photo Note: WordPress new block format randomly refuses to place some of my photo captions where I want them, so here is the caption for the window photo: The beautiful stained glass windows at Rupert United Methodist church. Several times a year I have the blessing of visiting this wonderful faith community where my friend Tom is minister. You can find his blog Two Tiny Churches at this link.
So fellow travelers, today is Easter Sunday and it dawned appropriately shrouded in mist.
Being in a bit of a fog myself lately, this mood of ponderous mystery felt somewhat comforting, as if the gods and goddesses of earth and air had gently acknowledged my dispassionate sentiments. Unable to voice the emotions eddying within and around me, my writing has trickled into silence. So, Delilah and I have spent as much time on the trails as seasonal rains permitted. We’ve been blessed with relatively warm weather which has cleared most of the snow from our favorite trails. Although spring migration is in its earliest stage, we’ve had some excellent waterbird sightings and yesterday evening a small gathering of white throated sparrows singing close by our yard spoke of the promise of more warbling visitors soon to come.
Those dots are various water birds like mergansers and scaups visiting Onondaga Lake
When I cannot write, I seek solace in the wild. Often my experiences on the trails open up the block and words begin to resonate, but even my usually reliable haiku companions seem to have gone on hiatus. I have a dozen or so incongruous attempts and several narrative blog pieces which read flat and worse still, miss the mark of my intended reflection.
This morning I sat in deep meditation by my pond; finally, overnight temps are consistently above freezing so we can safely run the waterfall filter. As far back as I can remember, that sound of gently flowing water has always created joy in my heart. A handful of juncos and chickadees trilled their thank you’s for the fresh seed just placed in the feeders. One perched on the branches of a quince bush full of newly emerged pinkish buds. Among them, at last, were words which sang true.
Peace waits silently
Seeking but an open heart
Joy ready to bloom
Walk gently on the path my friends and may adventure find you ready.
