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Do not

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Do not think that your life is not worth something unless you do something that makes you famous.

Do not think that the value of a life is measured by the number of people who adore or fear you for anything you have said or done or role you have fulfilled.

Instead, concentrate on each person you are with, by choice OR by chance. Listen to them at the level they are outright sharing with you by word, deed or attitude and respect the boundaries they communicate in these ways. Consider the sharing as a precious gift, always, for it may require their last bit of humanity or physical strength, no matter how trivial it might seem to you at the moment – even a slight smile or nod or holding open a door or a place in a line. Yet, also recognize it may indeed be trivial to them and forgotten as soon as it has been given. These are not gifts that you should judge as more worthy or less worthy of gratitude. Rather as slight but significant gifts not unlike slight but precious bits of spice that make up a tasty dish. Life is made gentler, sweeter or more interesting by your awareness of them. And, especially, I think, because they are mostly unasked for and you did nothing to earn them. Bits of grace. Generously shared with what may be a last bit of precious personal energy, or not, yet shared in spite of, because of, or simply out of politeness or habit, still, given and received.

Try not to make too much out of such small gifts or similarly, of minor slights or rudenesses. They too add a kind of spice and counterbalance to being alive. And they also are more communications from and about the person who projects them than they are about you. Also though, do not ignore or minimize them as they may inform or warn of unwanted behavior on your part. Again, respect boundaries they may, no matter how clumsily, project. Also, do not be blinded by taking too much offense or insult, seek to learn when such behaviors are a cry for understanding or help and discern if you have a role either causing it or helping, or can or should or if you are welcome at all.

We can each of us only seek to live our lives with as much generosity of spirit as we naturally have and can develop. In the end that is really how we fulfill our greatest purpose in this life. Living in such a way is like the ripples created by a pebble thrown into a pond. The more pebbles the more ripples run into each other. Each time we individually give to another from our own reservoirs of love and generosity more ripples spread throughout humanity.

It was never about one person, whether spiritual or political leader, performer, philosopher, artist, teacher, scientist or writer or any one single person down through history, famous or infamous – it’s always been about individuals in their own circle of influence doing what they can and growing and sharing their own innate gifts. Famous persons do inspire and guide, it’s true. But the real power for good lies in what each individual does. Pebbles in the ponds.

Generosity

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Generosity is very often linked in our western culture as being the giving of our money, or of our things or our talents to those less fortunate or to those we love. Sometimes we think of generosity as being ‘overly so’, implying manipulation, creating misguided intentions or implications, generating self worth or self promotion or creating an unasked for debt.

I have begun to realize however that it is generosity of spirit that is most of value. Generosity in forgiveness, generosity in compassion and in seeking empathy, generosity in discerning of another’s intentions, generosity of expectations of possibilities in self or in others – this generosity I think garners great wisdom and joy. One might argue it generates being taken advantage of. Yet isn’t even that a gift if given without conditions. And, in itself teaches wisdom.

Generosity. Learning it. Doing it. Demonstrating it. Repeating it. Making it a way of life. Creates joy deep within oneself (the only place true joy can be generated) and, therefore, is capable of sparking joy across the world. Starting in one’s own sphere.

I don’t mean to minimize pain and how it turns one’s focus inward, how difficult pain is and how distracting it is and lingering it can be, particularly emotional pain.

I also don’t mean to minimize what kind of joy I’m talking about – the joy I refer to is the kind that springs deep from the core of a person, that is integral to the fabric and lens of a persons’ being and outlook. Joy as compared to light fun or transient happiness. Joy that frames life’s action and outlook.

When deep joy takes root and grows, one of the fruits is profound generosity. And that generosity grows even deeper joy. A healthful cycle that generates more of itself within the person, and, to all those that person is in contact with.

Like all things worthwhile cultivating generosity is not easy. It is often born out of pain and deprivation and fear. Yet the experience of receiving generosity has the potential for miraculous healing. And so it often begins. And continues. And spreads.

The Thump of His Tail

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Oh constant happy greeting

oh trustworthy joy

Never waning

unmeasurable loyalty

Golden brown eyes softly gazing, ready for whatever, hoping for a Pat or scratch or invitation to play or walk or just sit together our warmth intermingling

Laying watching patiently eyebrows lifting eyes following until urges for light naps overcome, still waiting even in sleep in dreams of play and scentful exploring

Trusting completely in the best attentions from me, treats a delightful bonus no longer the motivation

Just. Love.

Marvelous!

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One memory indelibly etched in my brain is when I was 18, driving alone in my dad’s new convertible on a back road in the rolling hills of east Texas – a perfect day of blue sky and not too hot – And getting caught in the middle of a monarch butterfly migration. Uncountable numbers. A huge cloud of them I saw from way off. Stopped the car in the middle of the road and watched the cloud coming until I was in the middle of them and just stood up on my seat with my hands out and my head back and they lighted on me and everywhere. Lighted and took off again over and over and over and over…

A realistic view

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My church friend said, “you look like a teenager!”

I’m 70 years old. How is such a statement a compliment at my age.

I admit I was flattered. Maybe I do, I thought, from the rear view, in winter sweater, jeans and my long hair. My posture is pretty straight, thanks to the urging of my mother for most of my life.

However, from the front or side with my naturally grey-streaked with white and remaining light brown hair, the age-related relocation of my boobs, shoulders, neck jowls and facial features – well let’s just say no one would mistake me for a teenager, no one indeed. Even with my face mask. Maybe especially with my face mask.

Im ok with that, actually. There’s a measure of satisfaction in it. I earned those land scarps. Scarps. Perfect word.

I am grateful I’m very mobile and able, physically and mentally and emotionally. Oh sure arthritis hampers my strength and sometimes my artistic capabilities, but overall I am fully engaged and enjoying my life, looking for good in my future.

Very, very aware of the reality that I’m living the last 1/3 of my life, or less. Roughly 10,000 days left if I live to be 100. Which is both likely, considering my self care and family longevity and nutrition and medical care, and unlikely, considering the law of averages.

So, regardless of how I look to myself or other people, it’s up to me to see that I do as I’m able to live and feel my best. And, though realistic, I am both grateful and hopeful.

Dates

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So very many dates on my calendar these days… now that I’ve passed into my 70th year.

Birthdates of my siblings and parents and big holidays are the first dates I permanently memorized, planned for, celebrated with happy anticipation.

Then friends birthdays… selecting gifts, attending parties or sending cards when we moved away.

Then husbands and new acquired family members’ birthdays … and weddings .. and anniversaries

And the new birth dates, precious newborns growing more precious every day.. and friends precious newborns joining the precious circle of young growing littles enriching our lives in ways we could not anticipate …

Then growing realization of how very special and fleeting is our time with our parents and grandparents and great grandparents and godparents and remembering them on birthdays and anniversaries and holidays – being careful to enclose in cards a chatty letter and snapshots and keep up mailed correspondence between times … when traveling to visit greatly anticipated then went by too fast and long distance phone calls were too expensive except in emergencies or big joyful announcements or…

Death. Sad dates become a growing list, sparse at first, of anniversaries of dearly loved moving beyond our touch our hearing our sight…

And then suddenly I’ve become matriarch… oldest living cousin, oldest living descendent of my grandparents, my parents…

So very many dates now…. Tied to so many precious precious memories of dear ones… and a life so preciously full.

Can We Make a Difference?

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(Can I make a difference?)

I read the other day that not only are tiny plastic microbeads put in skin cleansers, they are also put in toothpastes. And nearly all of our clothing contains plastic fibers. These fibers and microbeads wash into wastewater systems, most which have no filtration systems fine enough to catch them. So they wash into ponds and lakes, our creeks and rivers and our oceans. Add those micro beads and fibers to the Bazillions of pieces of plastic from our garbage, our castoffs, our litter, ocean accidents and catastrophic storms. We humans ingest these microbits of plastic, as does every swimming flying crawling walking climbing burrowing running creature on our planet. Yet more and more plastic is produced and used and thrown out every second. It doesn’t breakdown like organic waste does. Plastic takes hundreds and thousands of years to break down. It. Is. Accumulating. Every. Second. We’ve known this. I studied it as a girl in elementary school, when it was first produced and lauded for all the amazing things it could, and has, brought us. Still, we knew then it had a half life like no organic substance. Yet …

And then there are the spills and flows of sewage and petroleum, and the widespread use of agri-chemicals, defoliants and insect killers. They’ve brought us mobility, convenience and production levels undreamed of prior to the industrial revolution. Some of these chemicals save lives and produce more food and prevent disease, others kill off entire ecosystems for generations, some lost forever. Forever.

The fumes from our transportation modes and our factories combined with insatiable appetites for more of everything produced or grown or gathered is polluting our air to the point where the ozone – the OZONE – is thinning. That part of the atmosphere that makes earth habitable. Yeah. That. It’s causing polar ice to melt, oceans… the OCEANS to warm, and so the global wind currents to change – and causing weather changes we are only beginning to experience.

Add light and sound pollution to this benefits vs toxicity mess we’ve made. That science is really just getting off the ground in understanding impacts of unnecessary and wasteful lighting up of our night skies and scarcity of places absent of mechanical and technical noise.

ALL of this has evolved and grown almost immeasurably since I was born in 1951. The beginnings came earlier, but the impacts and the awareness of those impacts… that’s all been since I was born.

In some ways the 1950s was the decade of the last innocence. The last generally accepted belief in the US that our government and public institutions existed under the control and for the betterment of society. The ‘promise’ of self promotion and greed has all but destroyed that faith. In 70 years. Almost gone.

I’m guilty. I consume and buy waaaay too much. I have enough clothing jewelry linens dishes books souvenirs decorations furnishings tools electronics containers and toys to equip a small village. And the wherewithal for food, medicine, paper and other such to supply that village.

I recycle plastics, glass and paper. I am using re-useable mesh bags when I shop for produce and reusable bags for other shopping. I give away/donate unused clothing and household items. I limit use of agri- and household chemicals. I watch out for and refuse to buy anything with styrofoam. I use unconsumed water from the dogs dish and my water bottle to water plants and we feed our chickens any food waste. We avoid landscaping and garden chemicals and grow many of our own vegetables and fruits. We incorporate many errands in one car trip. I support Audubon and Nature Conservancy. My next car will be electric. I’m trying to figure out how to change out my wardrobe over time to be plastic free.

Does any of what I personally do really make a difference? Most of us living in the US are so self indulgent and have such a sense of entitlement compared to many other countries. I will keep trying to do my bit, and hope that more and more others will too – in the hope and prayer that collectively individuals can make a difference.

Yet, I can’t shake the belief, the dread and fear, that only corporations and governments can make any real difference.

That gasp of quiet and clean air the earth took when all its countries shut down simultaneously (and too briefly) at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic – proof that we can indeed work together and have great impact!! The smog lifted from Shanghai! A single footfall could be heard in Times Square! People sang songs together out their windows above the streets of Milan! There were no planes buzzing overhead! The factory noise eight miles away from my rural home fell silent and the train whistles and ships horns did not sound. What if the whole world shut down like that for just three days a month? Every month. What if?

What. Will. It. Be. Like. When our precious granddaughters and grandsons are grandparents???

Dawn

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When the sky sings Alleluia!

The sky… it’s quickening from deep dark black blue to the coloring of dark waters to lightness in streaks

With pinkish peaches strands

And impossibly bright gold

Limning the striated clouds just for the drama of it

Lifting my heaviness up up!

Oh my breath gulps in ragged awe in razored waking my God how is it you give this fleeting beauty that grabs and goes so fast

Only to be remembered

to cherish and forget with the quick steps of routine and distractions ….

A Great Balance

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This year. So many BIG things coming at us. Many of us have gone from disbelief to depression to anger to acceptance to frustration and repeat.

It will be over a year by the time most of us get to hug and be hugged by our most beloveds. So many of us will ever only be able to cherish memories of such hugs. Yet during this time, when the periods of paralyzing depression have lifted, I have also experienced moments of wonderful peace and creativity and thoughtful clarity.

Perhaps a ‘Great Balance’ is being born out of this communal time of forced isolation and cessation of activities.

I know so many who have sorted and purged and remodeled rooms and closets and garages and pruned gardens along with reassessing their lives and priorities. In itself quite a good thing. Potentially quite positive and quite necessary. For me, anyway. That, and learning to cut myself some slack for all the plans I have procrastinated on.

This year has delivered more time for focussed thought and time to return to those thoughts, again and again. Time for sorting and balancing priorities, of developing heightened awarenesses. And, trying to just be quiet and listen.

Taking time to delve deeper into what faith is.

The darkest and the brightest times in our lives are the moments when we are most likely to become aware that God is there too.

Shadows outline and light brings forth detail, without light there is no color, without shadow there is no form.

Indeed, it is in the moments after and before darkness that we see the most brilliant skies of dawn and sunset!

Variations of light and dark inspire human creativity and artful expression – from paintings to poetry to dance to architecture.

In music, high sweet notes and rich low notes meld into crescendos of joy and of sorrow, evoking simple memories and deep emotion.

This year has provided so many sources of contrast. And time to consider the value of contrasts.

As I felt the pain of not spending time with my kids and grandchildren, I also felt the deep joy of watching our youngest grandson grow strong with his newly transplanted heart, and our eldest granddaughter as she finishes her senior year of high school a person of kindness, integrity and intelligence. And all the growth and the mature attitudes of each of their young cousins – such enthusiasm and resilience in this upside down year inspires me.

In the painful longing to be with my socially distanced loved ones this year, my heart is warmed by the love that endures ever strong regardless.

Gods sustenance is ever present in myriad ways.

Thoughtful teachers of art and spirituality in my life make study and instruction and inspiration creatively and safely available.

Drive-through food donations and on-line worship. Nature trails. Virtual concerts. Zoom. Shared humor. Kindness. Thoughtfulness. Prayer.

The helpless loss of in-person contact with my family and friends, and the bonus alone time with my husband and our sweet shaggy dog has increased my awareness and gratitude for the most tender and valued relationships in my life.

So, for me, this year has been one of great fear and grief and frustration counteracted by greater joy, faith and gratitude. And, unexpectedly, recognition that contrasts are valuable to appreciate context, to grow…

and to Hope.

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