Just Being...

Physically--I have walked this path many times. Spiritually--I have walked it many more. And at the end of this path is where I come into being...just being. Just being I am content--it feels so universal to everything...all of life.

As I walk down the path I can feel the promise...the promise of a deep sigh. By the time I reach mid-path the whispers of the sea oats begin and a little further on I hear the beckoning of the surf. The sound of the surf flows over my heart just as it rushes and flows over the sand. And just as the sand absorbs the sea water..so too does my heart do the same.

I pass just beyond the dunes and deeply breathe in--I breathe in the freshness and heaviness of the life flowing air. All weights are lifted off of my shoulders and released with the retreating waves. Yes, I am.

I have become so much a part of this environment that physically or spiritually I am always here- and here I am real. I can feel, I can express. I can be...and I can also be ME. I can be in the waves and the surf, I can be in the breeze and in the sea foam, I can ride the wings of terns and gulls and I can rollick with the bottlenose dolphins. I have spouted with a humpback and I have also flown with cow-nose rays...I have drifted with cannonball jellyfish and rode the sails with By-the-Wind Sailors. I have leaped with a giant sting ray. I have traveled the currents with the sea hearts and more solemnly I have waved and whispered with the sea oats. Sea turtles have taught me of faith and pelicans and have taught me of patience.

Here I am, I just am, just beyond this path....just being....

Making Amends With Winter

I am a true lover of summer...of the bright sunshine, the warmth, the glow, the long days, the color and the aroma, and all of the song...birds, insects and what have you! The droning of the annual cicadas...It is summer! The love of summer is a love that I have always had and there is little doubt that this love won't depart til I depart this earth. And then I know that I will BECOME one of summer. Guiltily, I do not share this same passion with winter - even though I was a winter baby. I am just not fond of cold, damp, windy, and blustery days...there are no colors and life seems monotonous in a huge way. There seems to be lots of void. As a nature lover I know this could be no further from the truth...I feel guilty at times for not being as passionate with the winter as I am with the summer. Winter IS a part of nature...part of that revolving circle of life. This winter has found me shivering more and grumbling more about the cold and dreariness of the season. I have been finding myself slipping further and further away from my realm of nature. I have been hiding from it--trying to burrow in warmth and by doing this I have been missing out on natures wonderful realities that are right before me.

And then one day --a very cold day I will add--a man came to my check-out counter in the store with his purchases. One of the items he laid in front of me was a book by Thoreau, whom I am very familiar with...At that moment he decided not to purchase it. Left at the counter after he left I started perusing it. As I flipped through the pages a chapter leaped out at me. It was titled A WINTER WALK. The title--it spoke to me, it tugged at me. The book went home with me that night as I decided to read that chapter to try to get back in touch with the true heart of things--regain my appreciation- make amends and find peace with winter. As I read I felt my heart warming. It was leaping and I felt distant memories re-kindling in my mind like the stirring of glowing embers returns to flames. Thoreau spoke of some of the wonders that I once knew, but somewhere in the jumble of human life they just got mis-placed. Yes--those winter starry skies--they are of the prettiest of starry skies. So clear, so crisp, and within reach--or so they seem. It has been a long time since our eyes met, however. The silence of a winter night (or morning) is so pure. Just the mere thought of that purity comforts me and helps me to feel the peace of winter. By the time I reached the end of that chapter I felt a connection akin to a realm that is only in our reach if we let ourselves be reachable...

I lost my way but was re-directed by a stranger who was directed by some other realm..was he just a passage way or did he find a path he was seeking also? Was it faith or irony?

The next day as I was driving to work I noticed the sun glistening over the snow covered fields. The trees spoke in sharp contrast to their surroundings. Suddenly my heart began to swell and the sun began to shine (if only mentally). My eyes suddenly opened to a scene of peace and pure sereneness...and I SEEN. It was a landscape at rest- you could actually see its restfulness and deep-sigh breathing--and it was breath taking. It was calming. It was soft...I grinned, I sighed, I made my peace with winter...

A Moon, A Star....and Me

A simple view...one filled with elegance also. That is what it was! The scene reaped of peace--of harmony even--and through the silence of the evening (other than the splashing of a fish in the sound or the wonderfully harsh grating of a tern passing by to go to roost) I heard the sky proclaim many things with its beauty. It was simple. And...it was elegant. So true that it is worth repeating. And there was also a moon and a star...and me.

After a full day ocean side a sound side evening of reflection comes welcomingly...The perfect way to end a perfect day. This evening seems to be enchanted though and I get these hints early on through a most glorious sunset and...a moon and a star.

I look up to see the clearest evening skies that I have ever seen. Nothing mars the striking glowing colors or the clarity...no wisps or puffs of clouds- Not a thing. And yet suspended up on their own accord in that wonderous way in which we all at one time or another wondered how they stayed up there was a single and brilliant star and a brilliant sliver of moon. So close together in the ether they were that they seemed to form a couple. They were a pair. Silently they spoke myriads to me--they spoke of beauty & amazement, of love & life, of wonders of the world, they also spoke of the simplicity but yet mysterious elements of the earth that surround us..the ones we are meant to feel but never truly understand. They are the elements that guide us and befriend our souls. It is a faith. They also spoke of inspiration. Inspiration sometimes seems to come with a price that is lonely. And sometimes inspiration stumbles and falls...until moments like this ~ They are matters of the heart. And sometimes the bittersweetness is felt.

The dusk gives into darkness and the couple still resides high overhead becoming even more brilliant as they arrive in their time. Its a sign that all is right and as it should be. It will become a constant in my life now... among the many memories of this bittersweet trip. It will be one of these constants that you know you can depend on ~ one you can rely on. Although suspended there for all the world to see, I feel like it was just for me...and as I stood there on the balcony...it was a moon, a star....and me.

Finding Muchness in the Clouds

As a child I was a cloud gazer...just what you would expect from a child. I looked up to the clouds and viewed them as friends. I looked up wide-eyed, full of wonder and with an open heart. I was a child with high hopes and even some dreams...this is what makes a cloud gazer. There was no limit to what one could see in the clouds. Who we are help us to shape the clouds in our lives and what we see. I am not sure when I stopped being a cloud gazer...that seems to be lost somewhere in time. But, at 43 years old I have once again become a cloud gazer. It brings back to my life a sense of "muchness"...something that at this point in my life really counts. Muchness--a borrowed term but one that is so fitting that I had to keep it and make it mine. Once I heard the term I realized that just perhaps that my own muchness had gotten lost along the way. As I am searching for my lost muchness I look to the clouds. Seeing their shapes, their sizes, I realize how short lived they are. There one moment and the next, they are gone...gone forever...taking on another form, another personality. Never one to ever be duplicated again...just like a day in life but more fleeting. I often spend time wondering where the clouds above me have come from--how far did they travel to meet my eyes and how many different shapes must they have taken on? I can compare myself to a cloud in that there are many faces and many moods...The bright blue sky is but a back drop to the scene but not always seen, but yet it is a constant. Clouds and shadows lend to color and depth. Some days light hearted and serene, some days melancholy and gray, and yet other days filled with fury. They show their moods--their human-ness. But a cloud is a cloud and all have a personality no less. Free floating and free changing forms with no worry or even a concept of time. Drifters they be as they seemingly drifty by unconsciously. To be a cloud for a day--drifting, floating, no worries, a form of many shapes--to be a wisp--a wisp of a cloud. The feelings of pleasantry that I get from just the mere thought of it makes me giddy..as giddy as a 43 year old cloud gazer can be...I see a glimpse of my muchness...

~ Only a Shell ~

Seashells...I have for so long admired their beauty, the feel of them, and the mystery of them. Some of their mystery is their beauty. And...they are comforting to the inner me. I have many times held them in the palm of my hand and have been exceedingly fascinated by them. I have been awed by their shapes, their patterns, their intricacies. It sends my mind spiraling like the whorl of a shell itself. I have been beguiled by their subtle and simple colors and hues and have been mesmerized by many. All are beautiful, each one with a history that we know not...for it is simply a shell. The part taht we admire, the part that we know the best, is merely a shell...So what do we really know? More than once I have wondered about the true and former occupant--the mollusc--that once lived inside. I am truly curious when it comes to the "heart of the matter".

Recently I was gazing at a small crystal that is hanging in my window. It spins and spirals and life breaks free...A friend of mine gave it to me and as the light reflected through it I was awed at her favorite color...roygbiv..All the colors of the rainbow. And for some reason, the reason unknown to most but made to be known at the time that it must...came through to me reflecting in the reflection. It was then that I realized how much like a mollusc that I really am.

There are very few people who really know ME...and a lot who think they do. What they are seeing, however, is my shell. And as it is that the mollusc inside the shell forges its own shell through the processes of nature, I , too, have forged my own shell. Mine however has been forged spiritually...forever seeking...I am a wandering spirit and a drifter at times. My spirit, my feelings, my thoughts run too deep, perhaps, for those around me who choose not to travel with me. Lonely at times this realm can be...but you cannot beg or teach someone to know you or get one to truly feel the unseen that you do. Its a wealth that remains in the deep recesses of my heart, and my heart alone. At times a curse, but yet a good curse.

We see the empty shell...we admire it. What happened to the mollusc inside who created the shell? Chances are...we'll never know. And chances are that the many around me will never know either. I am a restless and wandering spirit, and a flowing soul, but I am also a mollusc and this is my shell....

~ Letting Go ~

From early on hopes & dreams are hoped and dreamed for us. As we get older and our surroundings shape us we form hopes & dreams of our own. Some are easily achieved & realized & yet others are never attainable. These un-attainable dreams are often hung onto for years. We often hang on to them because a big part of life is the dream--it is what drives us and motivates us. Its the dare. But at some point in life we get lost and so do our dreams. And yet other dreams don't get lost---we just let them go. I have often wondered at what point in our lives should we give up on our dreams...do we get to old to have them? Why do some of us set our dreams so high and big that they are un-achievable--un-reachable?

With our September trip to the coast I found & reached a couple of my small dreams. With these achievements also came the realization that some of my other dreams would always be just out of my reach...they did not have to be but these dreams were mine & mine alone...there would be nobody to achieve them with and me being me realized that after all these years I have never been "just me" and never would be.

The trip was bittersweet for me...being in a place I loved dearly...being in an environment that enthralled me and touches me in the most deepest recesses of my heart and won't let go. Its un-explainable. Its the best and worst kind of love affair you can have. It was on this trip that I "let go" of some of my dreams realizing that I am not one to have my own but share in those of others. I did have my way in the way I let go though.

Infatuation or love? Am I infatuated with the Gulf Stream or am I in love with it? I had never seen it, nor been in it...but now I can say that I have seen it at a far distance...I have seen traces of it come in and dance with and tease traces of the Labrador current. Never mixing, never combining, never becoming one. So much like me. This is in thanks to a man who has been "infatuated" with the Gulf Stream all of his life, but unlike me, has experienced it fully and freely and lives his dream. From above I seen these two confluences interact with each other--intertwining and twisting...with all the colors of a soul if you could imagine a soul having color. The colors weighed heavy on my heart, heavy on my soul. The view yanked all speech from me. And the tears streamed down my face. It was understood by me, by God, and one other person who knew the "infatuation". And as I seen those two currents of ever-flowing life that did not mix, that flowed together but did not become one it was then that I realized that most of my hopes & dreams were big--too big--and like the currents would not mix with my ordinary life.

Is it the mystery, the beauty, or intrigue of it all that I am so fascinated with all of the life of the ocean? An almost of all this life remains un-reachable for me as I am land-bound. A single sea turtle though can bring all of this intrigue to shore for us, but yet build the mystery, build the beauty and then take it back out to sea leaving us longing for more. Being a mere viewer into the tiny lives of several loggerhead sea turtle babies brought all of this awareness about for me. So tiny, so big a world, so much weight to carry on its back...Was it fair of me to add to its burden by casting a dream or two upon the backs of these babies? And yet I did...I needed them---they do not need me. They are free...direction, but yet no direction. Just as life should be. And the tears streamed down my cheeks.

And so, with the currents and with the baby sea turtles I sent my biggest hopes and dreams...with them they can forever drift in the oceans, being free, and not be wasted with me in-land, withering, with no chance of ever being realized.

And so at what point should a person let go? At the point when you can still pass it along to someone who has already realized "your" dream or when you can pass it along to "infinity"...never losing it...not living it, but letting it live...That was my point....

~ Saying Good-Bye ~

Several weeks ago I heard the first indication of the turning of a season. It brought on feelings of melancholy--a tinge of sadness. When I hear the first katydids strum up and placing blame of who did it I know in my heart that the shift has begun and that the summer is starting to forwarn us--to let us know gently in its own way--that it will hang on for as long as it can but that its time is coming. Its tired...its the dying of a season. And for the next few weeks it seems hard to believe its true, but I realize that these dog days of summer are just summers way of venting its fury to having to let go and its way of preparing us for being ready to let it go.

This morning when I stepped outside at 4 am I felt the tiredness and weakness of summer and its voice was thin and frail. The moon was full and bright, there were thin, wispy, and back lit clouds and soul searching stars. I felt the stars, the ether air and the moon glow as I slipped into a light overshirt. Summers song has been replaced with a hint of fall song--crickets--who had the stage all on their own. They are gently pushing out summer and gently ushering in fall. Life being what it is I know we have to accept it, learn our good-byes in a way that we can still look forward to whats in the next season without any feelings being hurt.

All the signs are here--butterfly bushes loaded down with a profound number of different butterflies and skippers on waning blooms, all ports full on the hummer feeders, and nighthawks moving over in numbers. The air is turning thin and crisp. The night skies appear different. And there is only an occasional flicker now and then from a lightning bug that cannot yet let go.

At 7:12 am the full morning moon was still vibrant and clear with an airy-ness of mystery shrouding it in the forms of cloud fingers in front of it. There was a grimness associated with this picture as there is with death, but yet there was a feeling of calm and sereneness that came over me with the view...there was a promise of rest and re-newal, for both body and soul and also for nature in all its forms...