So many seasons of spring have I walked this earth: to see the sun rise in its rose and blue striations; to hear the morning chatter as chickadee and finch wake; to witness green leaves rise from soil with the promise of rose tulip, purple iris, or yellow crocus. Like an infant who wakes to see Mother’s face anew in this morning, I feel joy in anticipation, expectance of renewal, amazement in life’s becoming.
“What a strange thing! to be alive beneath cherry blossoms.”
Kobayashi Issa, Poems
“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”… “It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…”
Frances Hodgson Burnett
“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”
There is one woman who bore me into this world.
There are many who helped me open to what this world holds.
There is one woman who held my hand for my first steps.
There are many who walked with me when I had to learn anew.
There is one woman who picked me up when I fell.
There are many who encouraged me to keep going when I thought I could not.
There is one woman who became a model for woman for me.
There are many who helped me reinvision what it is to be me.
There is one mother who fed me as a child.
There is one mother earth who feeds me daily in my living.
There is one woman I love for all she gave me in life to her death.
There are many I embrace with love for all they are within this one life I live.
Happy Mother's Day
to all the women in my life and beyond; for all the nurturing, compassion, teaching, visioning, and honest speech. I bow to you, today and always.
Today you wear a garment of white,
your jewels shimmer in the morning light.
Tomorrow you might show your wild
fierce nature, but today you offer peace.
The surrounding stillness invites me
to journey inward, sing the song of my heart,
rest in the cave of this winter day, release
expectations, even for the flutter of a moment.
You take life, yet who can deny your beauty
even as you cut a swath across the land, dance
a whirling dervish and lay waste to all before you.
You bring joy when you stand tall in your resilience
and draw our eyes to your oranges, greens, and reds.
Now, the birch bends, leaning toward prostration,
touching the ground in darshan with a prayer of supplication,
Help me support this heavy burden.
Prestige, finances, position, or heritage are irrelevant to you.
Your beauty and destruction are one. There is no separation.
It is in your nature to quench our thirst then suck us dry,
to gift us with your beauty then turn our heads in fear,
to be a compassionate mother, then devour your children.
We do our best to be aware, to take precaution, to bless you
in each day, and at times bow to the futility.
Mother, we are in your hands.
(Bending Birches Photo, December 15, 2022 )
“I think Nature’s imagination is so much greater than man’s, she’s never gonna let us relax!”
Richard Phillip Feynman
“My soul can find no staircase to heaven unless it be through Earth’s loveliness.”
Michelangelo
“Many call this process ‘the destruction of nature.’ But it’s not really destruction, it’s change. Nature cannot be destroyed.”
Yuval Noah Harari
The Gene Keys: Emracing Your Higher Purpose by Riuchard Rudd
Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Inform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Energy Speaks: Messages from Spirit on Living, Loving, and Awakening by Lee Harris
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create an New One by Dr. Joe Dispenza
The Women by Kristin Hannah
Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe by Brian Thomas Swimme
The Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz
Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao, by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, by Mirabai Starr
The Four Agreements: A Toltec Book of Wisdom by Don Miguel Ruiz
Mindfulness and Grief by Heather Stang
How We Live Is How We Die by Pema Chödron
The Bhagavad Gita, Translated by Eknath Easwaran
St Francis of Assisi: Brother of Creation by Mirabai Starr
Wild Wisdom Edited by Neil Douglas-Klotz
Earth Prayers From Around The World, Ed by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon
The Tao of Relationships by Ray Grigg
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue
Unconditional Love and Forgiveness by Edith R. Stauffer, Ph.D.
Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance by Joseph M. Marshall III
Art & Fear by David Bayless & Ted Orland
Quantum-Touch by Richard Gordon
The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Persons Path Through Depression by Eric Maisel, PhD
The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris
Forever Ours: Real Stories of Immortality and Living by Janis Amatuzio
Personal Power Through Awareness by Sanaya Roman
Violence & Compassion by His Holiness the Dahlai Lama
Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hanh
Devotions by Mary Oliver
To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue
Meditations From the Mat by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison
The House of Belonging: poems by David Whyte
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
Soul an Archaeology Edited by Phil Cousineau
A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield
Listening Point by Sigurd Olson
I Sit Listening to the Wind by Judith Duerk
Dancing Moons by Nancy Wood
The Soul of Rumi, Translations by Coleman Barks
Keep Going by Joseph M. Marshall III
Arriving at your own Door by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
The Hidden Secrets of Water by Paolo Consigli
Conquest of Mind by Eknath Easwaran
Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay
Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) by Brene Brown
Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chodron
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Unattended Sorrow by Stephen Levine
Joy in Loving, Mother Theresa
The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Let Your LIfe Speak by Parker Palmer
Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Essence of the Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran
Welcoming the Unwelcome by Pema Chodron
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through The Ways Of Animals by Jamie Sams and David Carson
Walk in kindness toward the Earth and every living being. Without kindness and compassion for all of Mother Nature’s creatures, there can be no true joy, no internal peace, no happiness. Happiness flows from caring for all sentient beings as if they were your own family, because in essence they are. We are all connected to each other and to the Earth.
Sylvia Dolson, Joy of Bears
One love, one heart, one destiny.
Bob Marley
This week we walk into 2022. Whereas we might have floated into the year, or danced, cheered, or slept into it, this year as the last, Covid is at the gate taking tickets. He is a wily character, and we prepare ourselves as we wait to walk through. We have our tools as we each choose: our mask, our vaccinations, our booster, we keep at a distance, we dare not let down our guard. We thought we were done with him, but he is persistent having found a way to recreate himself. He is a living force in our world.
We do not want to start a new year in fear; it does not serve us well and creates an energy around us that is suspicious, paranoid, and hypervigilant. It creates our future. While Covid may be our future for some time to come, we need to find within ourselves a sense of peace with life as it is and an awareness of the world around us that breeds joy, compassion, kindness, and respect for all.
Growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, I was educated both in the church and in school to understand human as the master of the world, dominant to all living creatures as well as nature. There was nothing we could not do, create, or envision. All the world was our playground, and we left our trash everywhere. Then our playground moved into space, and we littered the heavens with our debris. We caged animals, destroyed indigenous families, tore asunder mother earth.
In the year 2000, I created and offered a retreat on the paradigm of a creation myth envisioning and understanding that each creature tells us something about the All, God, Universal Consciousness; there is an energy or spirit that permeates everything, every rock, water, tree, wind, fire, every human, plant life, and animal; we live in an interdependent universe, the All, Spirit, God, expressing itself through creation, through us and all.
As I review this retreat today, it seems so simple and innocent back then, lovely concepts to meditate on and attempt to be aware of as we walk the earth. Now on the cusp of 2022, we understand these concepts as vital to our survival. To save the world we must remove ourselves from the place of control and power at the top to be one with, truly understanding and living interdependence with all life, with Universal Mind, energy, Spirit. The fishes and the seas and the birds and the air, and all plant and animal life will live very well without us, but we will not survive a moment without them.
The arms depicted in the image above are collective arms, not the arms of one benevolent being but the arms of every one of us bringing through and living out love, compassion, kindness, and forgiveness. There is much suffering in this vast world. There is also generosity, kindness, and giving hearts. As I sit with this image and recall everything on earth including the children, the abuser, the farmer planting the seed, the developer burning the rain forest, the warrior saving lives, and the dictator killing for greed, I acknowledge that I must accept every bit of life as one energy force being lived out through each unique personality. Personalities that have become distorted in their development, some lost in greed, fear, or addiction, and others who live gently, filled with light and love, and a wide array in between. Life on earth is a vast field of differences.
I can begin to feel overwhelmed when I stretch these thoughts out further and further. Then, I realize that as I return to the core, my breath, the seed of these vast thoughts, I remember, it is all one web of pulsing energy. Active love that is either circulated and transformed or impeded and halted. It is simply me and you being love, allowing flow in and through us, or becoming rigid in our pain, fear, or hate, and stopping the flow within and without.
In showing care in our day, responding with action when needed, understanding, listening, truly listening, every one of us could in this way do much in acknowledging and upholding animal life, the vegetation, those we do not like or even despise, as well as those we know and care for; we will then actively embrace the world together, in community. This is not easy work. It takes courage, conscious living, and will. There are many days when we fall short but we wake up the next day ready for another challenge.
This we can claim: we are not the master but part of; we are not dominant but interdependent; the laws of the universe are meant to be lived with, engaged with, brought into relationship to.
As we step into 2022, we walk with courage, allowing joy, peace, and love to enter our hearts and radiate out to all life. Our pleas for help are answered in varied ways and it is up to us to respond, each in our unique way. We live creation. We watch for the ways we are being lifted so that we might live our best lives. We open to the energy of the universe, dance with it, play in it, create in it.
May life’s blessings shower upon us, may all love surround us, may our hearts be filled with peace. May we all live through the core of our humanity as embodied spirit.
Happy New Year! ¡Feliz año nuevo! bonne année!
frohes neues Jahr! с новым годом! Shanah Tovah!
saehae bok mani bada! Buon anno! Szczęśliwego nowego roku!
Xīnnián hǎo! šťastný nový rok! hauʻoli makahiki hou
Where There is Despair, Hope 18 x 24 Acrylic by Janis Dehler
All Hallows Eve is upon us. The veil between the physical realm and the spirit realm is thin, as I experienced it upon my mother’s death. A sacred and holy time when we feel the presence of all that is beyond our finite sense of reality. It is the eve before the day of the saints; those who have now become the ancestors; those who we look to for their inspiration and guidance; those who we will become as we in turn decay into food for the soil in a mutual exchange from walking this earth feasting on its abundance. The children dress as goblins and ghouls as they stand up to the dread and anxiety held for this final transformation. We bring laughter to this day as we allow the child within to face her fear.
In this covid time, dying feels closer as we witness the illness, the deaths, the fires burning across the world. Where do we find hope? Where do we find peace for our tender hearts? What do we bring to the alchemy we conjure in turning fear and divisiveness into kindness and caring?
Like the seed that sprouts in the crevasse of rock, the green of will and desire rises and flows, weaving and connecting, bringing the persistence of the living to this momentous time. Let us not shy away from remembering, acknowledging, and honoring all that dies while deciding carefully what we wish to carry forward. It is choice at its finest. Not through the idle movement of habit but through conscious awareness of all that we are and wish to become. Not against something but with, not away from but towards. Knowing that each moment of life is a moment of death as everything changes, cells die off, and memories fade. Forgiveness transforms resentment, love envelopes hate, kindness covers cynicism. Growth and beauty strive forward from the depth of darkness to the brilliance of a new dawn.
Gazing up in sun salutation, With 'Canon in D' streaming Into this inner sanctuary, the Sun in its March morning salutation, through the window before me—releases— Drip, drip, drip, The rhythm of Pachelbel announcing, Beat by beat, Note by note. Yes!
Snow melt and moisture Earth opening to thaw. Soil teeming with worm and insect, Veins of connections in their hatchings. We will soon throw open windows, Invite in through the once shuttered door, And receive the breath of a new Season in her glory. Her resplendent self in The yellows, peaches, and pinks of Daffodils and Jonquils, Welcoming birth in all the furry and feathered ones.
It is all our spirits have longed for And our creative selves seek. The release of the lion and the promise Of the lamb, this month named for Mars, god of War, with our only wish being for peace. Too many have left us in this fight with Nature, her anger rising with our ignorance. Our lack of faith in the covenant to care And sustain her. The gift we were entrusted In our birth.
I know Father Sun you are just teasing me today. Flirting with my desires, but We are weary with The depths of death and decay. As they become a memory, We will do what, as humans, we must. We will rise to greet the dawn, The promise of a new day, a new season. A new moment. A new covenant.
