california adventure

Just back from a wonderful time at school and visiting family! I feel so incredibly lucky to have all of this in my life. A HUGE thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone involved!! There are so many!

Easter adventure

It is the paradox of the spiritual growth that through such bleak winter journeys we eventually come through a hidden door into a bright field of springtime that we could never have discovered otherwise. This is the heart of the mystical. It is not about building protectionist armour of prayer and religion; it is, rather, the courage for absolute divestment.
~John O'Donohue

beauty adventure

I started a good book today, How the Light Gets In, and was so surprised to run across some lines from a poem I had just read in the past couple of days by Joy Harjo:

Some say God is a murderer for letting children and saints slip through his or her hands. Some call God a father of saints or a mother of demons. Lila had seen God and could tell you God was neither male nor female and made of absolutely everything of beauty, of wordlessness.

This unnameable thing of beauty is what shapes a flock of birds who know exactly when to turn together in flight in the winds used to make words. Everyone turns together though we may not see each other stacked in the invisible dimensions.

I'd already been thinking this would be a great thing to quote here, but then it was such an amazing coincidence to see these lines again today, I knew it had to happen. Enjoy!

wonder adventure

What a week this was! We're doing a renovation at my work, which has us all a little on edge I think. Something happened that really got my ego all stirred up and on Wednesday night I was the closest I've ever been to wanting to transfer to a branch, to say "To hell with all this, you do it!" and walk away. And then in a moment of grace I saw it all for what it was - pain feeding pain. And then love and possibility came back into my heart and I remembered that if I transferred I would miss so many people and lose the opportunity to try out some exciting new ideas. I only mention this story because it was a big part of what put me in my current frame of mind, which is "Grounded Gratitude," a phrase coined by my friend, Joe Z. I keep finding myself singing that great line from Van Morrison's "Inarticulate Speech of the Heart": "I'm a soul in wonder!" I think sometimes we have to go through what I call "the Big Squeeze" to break through to this place of wonder and gratitude, to be reminded of what we really care about and how good we really have it. So if you're going through a Big Squeeze right now, take heart, and trust that the process will land you in a far better place.

The redbuds are blooming in the woods right now. I always really enjoy their subtle beauty and think we should have a special celebration like the Japanese have for the beloved Cherry Blossom. This means dogwoods can't be far behind and then the woods will get green and leafy and we'll forget the other more desolate costume they wear when Persephone returns to Hades. In the meanwhile, I'm going to soak all of this up! I am, indeed, a soul in wonder.

spring adventure

I just had to share these gorgeous blossoms and this equally gorgeous quotation from Rebecca Solnit's Faraway Nearby about her mother:

"After she was gone, I felt more strongly the presence of the dark-haired, yearning, thwarted young woman before I existed and the mother I must have clung to as a tiny child. The middle-aged woman who had so confounded me for decades became just one figure among many, and I missed the ancient, gentle, far-gone person who brought up the rear of the parade."

Love that! And here are some golf clubs someone left by the recycling bins at my Park & Ride. Their humble beauty caught my eye.