Small offering to Dolan Fire

Small offering 

Every breath,

a prayer 

for All

on our beloved ridge -

and for the cool, green forests too

from dirt-bound gophers

to daredevil hawks -

Songbirds of all stripes,

bats, butterflies, the

shimmering, patient koi

Land of sunsets 

and flying saucers —

where the gods 

Dance

with fluid abandon 

and we, 

so very, very blessed,

share in their 

Extravagant 

Joy.

Green Flash

One Sunday morning last month I woke up to Happy Birthday greetings, sung with gusto by a sweet couple I know. After their chorus, we chatted about the huge importance of genuinely loving your spouse in the time of Covid. 

Well, we laughed, it sure helps. Without that essential emotion, things would be really bad. 

A compatible life-partner that shares my sense of humor and also my grief, that is my very own personal multi-faceted diamond (either polished or in the rough, it varies) is a wonderful treasure, and I’m grateful.

 

Humor, I think, tops the list of requirements. It’s the slippery oil that greases the tracks, the non-stick spray that releases us from melting into a puddle or sizzling to a crisp. Instead, we glide (more or less) through the bumpy moments.

 

While complaining about having another adult human to hold is not good etiquette during the pandemic, when so much is turned on its head already, there are times when so much togetherness just feels…weird!

 

Here’s a list of the valuable skills (so far) that I suddenly have lots more time to practice: 

Learning to give breathing space – i.e. when to come together, when to be apart.

How to understand and express what I need, without blame or self-doubt; and 

When to laugh it all off, and dance.

 

Routines are key, as if we were on a long Buddhist retreat, so we have developed a few. Meditation, dance and yoga in the mornings, writing breaks at tea-time, preferably with elaborate snacks, the occasional game of chess. And meals.

 

Some time ago a co-worker (back when I had a job) asked me who did the cooking at my house. 

 

“Uh, well,” I stammered, “Neither of us!” 

“Huh?” she responded, and then I admitted, 

“Neither of us ever had to cook before, really. Our previous partners were gourmet chefs, so the kitchen was out of bounds.” 

“So how’s that working out for you now?” she laughed.

“Let’s just say, it’s an adventure!” 

 

And it is. Who knew there were so many meals in a day? A week, a month? 

 

Thank goodness for the garden, but I have to laugh when I look at my crop yield, remembering acres of uniform fruit and vegetables growing in Watsonville, or the produce aisle at Safeway. One zucchini, one squash, one lemon becomes quite precious in my little plot! Fog sidelined the tomatoes, again, though I’ve had luck at last with lettuce, arugula, bok choy, and chard. Another round of delightful sweet peas bloomed, with that delicate, crisp linen scent.

 

And wonder of wonders, I’ve baked a few loaves of bread, courtesy of my (worried?) sister-in-law, who sent me the world’s easiest no-knead recipe.

 

One favorite ritual is watching the sunset together, whenever our day evolves in a way that we can. Two nights ago we (I) missed the mark, distracted indoors (probably by a text, miraculous contact with the outside world!) while my husband took in the show.

 

“You missed the Green Flash.” he scolded. 

 “No way!” I cried. 

 

“Yep, you did,” he answered. Then he carried on about how special it was. How the green light shot up in a gigantic arc above the sinking sun as it nestled into the faint fog bank at the horizon, how the heavens opened wide above him and the angels sang Hallelujah, and I’d missed it all!

 

He actually had me going for about an hour, mad at myself, researching the Green Flash on Wikipedia (is it real? Yes it is) etc. Then he confessed he was teasing. Perhaps he was reciprocating for my coaxing the dog into bringing him a dead rat that morning? I wonder.

 

It may be time to take a trip off the mountain sometime soon.

This Great Love

Here's a poem I treasure, from Persian poet Hafez. These days we may not  "leave each morning" but, surely none of us does not  "lift a great pack."

This Great Love

I want both of us
to start talking about this Great Love
As if You, I, and the Sun were all married
and living in a tiny room.
Helping each other to cook,
do the wash, 
weave and sew, 
care for our beautiful 
Animals.

We all leave each morning
to labor on the Earth's field.
No one does not lift a great pack.
I want both of us to start singing like two
traveling minstrels
about this Extraordinary Existence
We share, 

As if,
You, I, and God were all married
and living in 
a Tiny
Room
                                                             -from Hafez, The Gift

Black Swan

A Black Swan event is nearly impossible to predict and has profound and universal impact, changing the world forever. Now, this rare bird, this crisis, has crash-landed into our lives, threatening millions of humans. We are told to “flatten the curve” and stay home indefinitely, while hospitals amplify their care ability and a vaccine eventually arrives.

Before, in my workplace, I shook hands with guests. I hugged, and received hugs, abundantly, from co-workers and friends, old and new. Last week I watched happy visitors touch, inhale, try on and breathe all over beautiful, seductive things in the now temporarily closed Phoenix Shop. This nasty virus apparently survives on surfaces, and well, you already know what we all came to understand. 

A day after swearing off embracing at work, I found myself standing a few feet from my lovely co-worker Caitlin, with whom I hug often. Suddenly I said, "Aw, forget it!" and we turned to each other for a quick, big hug. As we briefly clung together we laughed, and the world snapped back to normal again, for just a moment. 

My personal prescription for sanity (other than hugs!) is to indulge yourself with Mother Nature.

Drink in the rays of the sun each day. Whether you sit beside a window in a comfy chair or lay down in the grass and dirt outside, just absorb the amazing strength of our planet while enjoying the warmth of our star.

Feast your eyes on a flower, admire trees, listen to birds, take deep breaths of the breeze. Marvel at the miracle of your body as you walk, hike, dance, and sing in the shower.  If you can, stare at the sea, or the mountains, or watch waves on the beach. (You can listen and watch nature on screens too, though that’s a little too Soylent Green for my taste.) 

Wherever you are, you can usually gaze at the stars or the moon at night. Remember that while everything changes, some things do not. I don’t think the constellation of Orion is going to rearrange itself, or that the dog-star Sirius will go walkabout off to a different galaxy.

Take comfort in what doesn’t change, or what won’t change as much. Thick blankets, soft skin, warm pet fur, chocolate. Write letters the old fashioned way, on paper, with pretty colored pens.

Read that daunting book you’ve had on your shelf for years. For me, it's Old Path, White Clouds, by the beloved Buddhist monk Thich Naht Hanh. Relax a little - eat pasta and ice cream. After that, take a bellydance class via Zoom! Have a kissing marathon with your shelter-in-place companion. Find solace in prayer and meditation.

For those who enjoy the company of their families and their partners, there is a special kind of bliss in being together, and being safe. One hopes that our communication skills will improve, by sheer density of opportunity to practice them, combined with the powerful need to understand and help each other during this global emergency.

A friend gently explained to me that the well known saying “May you live in interesting times” (considered a curse) was popularized by President Kennedy to remind us that great challenges generate great progress. The Chinese saying was actually “Heroes come from turbulent times.” 
When we face our fears with as much grace as we can, we become heroes.

How will we progress? Perhaps we’ll learn that we really are just earthlings, all of us astronauts, and that we need to wake up to this reality more than ever before. Perhaps we will find more ways to love and care for each other, and for our magnificent, one-of-a-kind planet. Perhaps all of this will, ultimately, be healing.

The cover of our early edition of Thich Naht Hanh’s book A Guide to Walking Meditation, shows him as a young man, standing beside a country road with a big smile on his face, a tall sunflower as his walking staff.

He says, “I put my palms together, like a lotus bud, and pray that we all find peace.” May it be so.

Black Phoebe

Winter is the time of platinum light here on the coast, and this is most clear on gray, cold mornings at dawn. We had several mornings like this at the start of the new year last week. I love the turning of the year, in this case, the decade, using this time for reflection and seeking a sense of renewal and peace.

There's a sweet little bird I watch daily here, a Black Phoebe, whose plaintive call, tee-hee, tee-hoo, is punctuated by her action of flying out from her perch, then back to it. She flies out, tee-hee, then flies back, tee-hoo. Pretty goofy, really. Apparently she swoops out to catch insects, then, conserving energy, flies back. It's kind of like what we do each day: we wake up, sit down for coffee, sing out, then go out into the work world to gather necessary insects, um, resources. Then we fly back home. At any rate, I feel like this is what I do, tweet the old-fashioned way, go out into the world, tweet, return home to my perch.

Call it reverse anthropomorphism, seeing our similarities with the world's fragile and precious creatures. I just finished reading The Bees, by Laline Paull. This is some of the most imaginative writing I've read, a complex page-turner told from the point of view of  Flora 717, a most daring and inspiring worker bee. The bees' hunger for community and devotion is as great as their lust for nectar; they live in an elaborate hierarchy, but each, from the priestess to the sanitation worker, feels the unconditional love of the Holy Mother.

Winter time brings a level of quiet that is unsurpassed. Strong winds blow away the clouds and the afternoon light falls at an oblique angle on the land.  A few days ago, in the early morning, I spotted a devilishly large bobcat strolling up to the woodpile behind my house. Bobcats are the gangsters of the neighborhood, with body-builder shoulders, wide, sly faces, dramatic black fur tips on their ears, and undignified, stubby tails. We both did a double-take, and I said, "You're not my kitty..." She trotted away towards the meadow, and when I followed her I felt her watching me from the edge of the oak forest.

Now the leaves from the maples, sycamores and elms have all fallen, the shoes of the past year have all dropped, the verdict is in on 2019. As the days lengthen slightly, we make resolutions, the jonquils bloom, and it's bar closing time for the Great Horned Owls as they stop hooting and start nesting.

Sensing ineffable impermanence in the stillness of winter on the coast is a gift; it distills into daily life when we interrupt the frantic pace that can consume us.  Someday, each of us will "fall off our perch" as they say. May it be in a fulfilled state, a blissful surrender to the light.