Too much busyness.....

Three gathas

 A downy, flicker, cardinal, and chickadee at the feeder

Eating suet and sunflower seeds

Nourishing me with their beauty

May we continue

Souvenirs of a life well lived

May I remember the joy in loving

And the sweetness of my connections and interbeing

Little wooden Japanese shoes

A father's love

And now a reminder that

I am his continuation. 

My dear Carrie

 My dear Carrie

Today is your birthday

Your day of continuation

You continue the practicality of Carolyn

The conviction of Bodgie

Lily’s willingness to push boundaries

David’s enthusiasm for helping others

And my love of the outdoors.

Love you dearly

Wishing you a day of celebration of

All that you are

A blessing

To us all

From Mark

An old Hassidic rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell exactly when the night had ended and the day begun (daybreak is the time for certain holy prayers). 

 “Is it when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?” one student proposed. 

 “No,” answered the rabbi. 

 “Is it when you can clearly see the lines on your own palm?” another asked. 

 “Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell it it is a fig or a pear tree?” 

 “No,” answered the rabbi each time.  

“Then, what is it?” the pupils demanded. 

 “It is when you can look on the face of any man or woman and see that they are your sister or brother.  Until then it is still night.”

As told by Jack Kornfield in his book:

Bringing Home the Dharma:Awakening Right Where You Are

Transitions

 Today is a little sad. I have to clear everything off the porches and cut back plants because they are starting the siding on Tuesday. I went through the tub with the squirt guns in it. I kept thinking that maybe some kids would come here someday and reawaken the fun of our annual family reunion squirt gun adventures but that hasn’t happened so it’s probably time to give them away. And I am wondering how I will hang up things to the new siding. It’s easy to pound a nail in the wood. So today is a day of letting go of things old with memories, and on Tuesday I will need to start embracing the new.

Whitney is trying to participate and has settled on soaking her dad's hat left on the picnic table.  One of my favorite pictures. 

Sending love to my Lily

 In Denver acting out because of everything she has experienced and learned and all that is in her heart. 

winter snow storm

Steel gray clouds

blanketing this forest in snow

black and white lines, 

snow marking the trees.

In solitude

I find

quiet and peace

and god in each snowflake.

  

Love letter Whit to Carolyn

Taken at a dance when they were 
in college at the University of Missouri.

 
Jan 66

What would you say

When you hear?

We’ve been apart so long.

Duty is the strongest word.

Do you love me enough to say

“Do your duty as you see it.”

I think so.

I’m about to go again.

Into another, let it be the last.

This will be the last.

Tho’ it may seem overlong

Then I’ll be home.

Remember - when in school?

Remote as that time may be.

Reveries of time gone by. 

I remember the phrases

I look at our picture.

It reminds me of --

‘I could not love thee half so much, 

Loved I not honor more.”

Honor and love. 

These two things have made me.

The Honor of my country

The Love I hold for you.

We have not chosen the easy path - you and I.

Wealth and comfort have been cast aside.

Wonder and continuing wonder for me.

The words “I love you” seem too simple

Though what else need be said.

The “I love you” is it

This letter was written on his return from Vietnam. He left us in Missouri to finish school and moved to Virginia alone for his next assignment. We followed as soon as school was out. The quote is from a poem by Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta, Going to War

Birthday Love letter 1979 Whit to Carolyn

Carolyn and Whit Wallach 50th
 anniversary August 18, 2001

June 1, 1979

Carolyn,

Almost all the love songs have been sung telling how I feel about you.

The poems we have enjoyed have only touched on how much you mean to me.

I thought about creating a new love song/poem for this birthday.

But what I wish for you this year goes far beyond melody or rhyme.

You are strength and stability.  Your presence in our home and in our endeavors, makes it worthwhile.

Without you what we are doing wouldn’t be worth the effort. 

Honey, there’s not much I can buy you with money.

I hope you can accept this little note of love.

Many more birthdays are still before us. May we share them together.

I love you.

Happy Birthday,

Whit

Listening to the Heart Sutra

 Many days I just have to listen to the heart sutra chanted by the brothers and sisters of Plum Village.   

May we be safe and protected.  May we be surrounded by love and kindness.  And may we live with ease.  

Link here. 

The story of stuff - a beginning

 Starting a new project.  This is the beginning.  23 and me said I might have old age Alzheimer.  So in case I forget, here it is before I do.  

There is a lot of stuff around this house.  I remember that one of my mother’s greatest frustrations as she was leaving us, was trying to tell me the stories of all her stuff.  The same thing happened with Isabella when one day she had to leave her home.  So I am telling the story of stuff here. There will still be many things that you will wonder “what the hell” about.   The stuff has no value except in its story.  The stories I am not telling are the ones you get make up if you decide to keep whatever it is.

When I was in junior high and high school, I liked to look good and that meant wearing fingernail polish and lipstick. When I was thirteen, it all began with just a bit of light lip gloss.  That is what I was permitted.  In high school, I had a spice rack on the wall with all my bottles of polish and colors of lipstick.  I found this cute little poodle to hold one bottle that it is still holding.  Price for the bottle about 25 cents.  Cathy would sneak into my room and get into my make up which drove me crazy.  I found this at grandma’s house and decided to put it in my downstairs medicine cabinet.

This is an eye glass that grandma used whenever we got something in our eye.  She would put water in the cup, hold it up to our eye and then tell us to blink.  It was torture. I was one of those kids who hated getting my hair washed in the bathtub because I did not want water in my eyes. And later I hated opening my eyes underwater when I was learning to swim.   Perhaps there was a connection. 

In the margins

 Writing found in the margins of some books 

The Selected Poems of Li Po

But you drew conclusions

it is all a dream

that each of us can appreciate

from our own perspectives

Du Fu A Life in Poetry

Waiting in a coffee shop

Mother’s Day

are our lives

colliding or coinciding

sometimes it is hard to tell

the coffee is warm and good

Du Fu awaits

perhaps I should enjoy the calm

before the storm

Thank you, Mark,

for sharing an ancient incarnation

of Mary Oliver

Climbing down from mountains and memories

Such contradictions

joy of family and children versus

living as a hermit

does this say anything about the value of women

alice walker

over-

coming

speech-

lessness

All a sad reminder of how we perpetuate through our ignorance

I learned that Alice also cried for the world in a ritual, a ceremony of healing, to show that we are connected to those we love and to the beautiful flowers, grass, stones…

“Whatever has happened to humanity, whatever is currently happening to humanity, it is happening to all of us.”

New Cathay

Contemporary Chinese Poetry

Edited by Ming Di

A dichotomy

alone in a strange city

walking the streets

to a restaurant

passing locked  cars

waiting for someone to

descend a workplace elevator or

staircase and 

emerge.

Connected because we are

the awakening yellow leaves

the flowing river

the red hat sunset

reflected on the steel gray clouds overhead.

Not connected because

I know no one

we each do not know the other

where am I.

Goldie

     Yesterday I finished building an extra fenced space for the chickens and this morning I let them out to use the space. I gave them warnings about the bees and the bees warnings about them. They were so happy to get grass. I sat with them for a while and then decided it was time to have lunch. When I finished eating I thought I would walk over and check on them again.  As soon as I opened the door,  I heard horrible shrill squawks. And then I saw the hawk who had Goldie down. I raced to the chicken yard, shouting, waving my arms to make him give up his prey, but it was too late. The hawk had done too much damage for me to save her. I held her and stoked her head while she died. And now I have six chickens. I hate losing chickens. Below is a video of my girls last Christmas. 

For Carrie

 On this day

holding you for the first time

our eyes met 

touching each other’s hearts

becoming family 

Forever and always  

I love you.

For Lily

Happy Birthday to my dear Lily.  A quarter of a century.  I am so proud of you - your passion and willingness to stand up for what you know is right, the kindness you show when you help promote the dreams of others, and the love you share so genuinely and freely. I am thankful everyday that I am your mother.  I love you dearly.

 

Introductions

 

 

Introductions
In retirement
living life slowly
on a family farm
I fight honeysuckle
talk to my chickens and bees 
stand in wonder under the majesty of trees
appreciate that my gardens can nourish
and am warmed by the sun 

living alone

sewing, reading, reflecting, and writing

grateful to be joining this community

may we be surrounded by love and kindness

and find a way to live in peace

Muses

 Muses

From Joan Walsh Anglund

In A Slice of Snow

On

    the thin line

                      between dawn

                                             and darkness,

Sunrise

           writes

                      her

                            poem. 

***********************************************

Me looking out my window in the morning…..

Cedar tree,

               dancing in the wind,

                                             what song do you hear?

Mu from the Zen tradition

 Mu, no, nothingness….

A monk asked Master Chao-chou, "Has a dog the Buddha Nature or not?" Chao-chou said, "Mu!"

From The Heart Sutra:

Avalokiteshvara while practicing deeply with

the insight that Bring Us to the Other Shore,

suddenly discovered that

all of the five Skandhas are equally empty,

and with that realization

she overcame all ill-being. 

It is in the binary.  Has a dog buddha nature or not.  No to the not and no to the has.  All is empty.  All is full.  Interbeing.  I am the dog and the dog is me. We inter-are.  Both empty and both full.  The same is true of the Buddha.   I am the Buddha and the Buddha is me.  The dog is the Buddha and the Buddha is the dog.  Both empty and both full.  Empty of self and full of being.

Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!

Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!

Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!

Reading

 read using all your intelligences  

Don't just follow words on a page 

but instead  

use your entire being 

to ascertain truth and story

in the beauty 

that surrounds you

 

Sunday Morning Mental Meanderings while giving feedback to a friend's article

 A lot of thoughts are floating around in my head. I often think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Brene Brown when confronted with the difficulties of today.  So here are some ideas in general, perhaps not always specific to this portion of writing that are rolling around in my brain. 

I will start with Brene.  The definition of empathy  "  Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position."  I emboldened a part that I feel is the most important.  When I hear the word empathy, I think of the wonderful Brene Brown video on the subject.  I am saying all of this because I think that these are important points to make and come back to over and over again.  (Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them.)   You talk about listening and we know active listening from our rules to live by.  But others do not have that perspective.  Some might say they have listened, but have never truly heard.  I would offer that a principal who says s/he has listened to teachers and then does PD on something totally different has not listened. Then, when the explanation about why this is the right PD is given, that is also not going to be heard because these actions are reciprocal. I think it would be good to write about empathetic listening - active listening.   Today every generation has a cell phone or a computer screen that interferes with listening in the present moment.  Thoughts about the future and ruminations about the past control many minds. For people to be empathetically present for each other is not a common practice. 

Maslow.  Empathy is the cornerstone for each of the stages if you are a person trying to facilitate others in their trajectory upward on the hierarchy because deep listening to others is vital. Security and safety are needed for vulnerability (Brene).  One has to be able to take risks and that can only happen in an environment where others have your back.  I would talk about Maslow at the beginning.  It is something educators know and accept.  It applies to all of us who want to continue to learn and grow.  Risk taking and questioning are important and are evident in schools with an empathetic leader who wants everyone to learn and grow to reach self actualization.  Again, I would suggest that empathy is the foundation for each of the stages in the hierarchy, if one is creating an environment where all reach the top.  One more thing...  if the principal is going to become self-actualized, s/he must also be supported, so creating an empathetic community of learners to support the leader on her journey is vital.  

And just now the idea of "why?" being the most important question/idea just popped into my head.  I remember that from a Marilyn Burns workshop.  It somehow seemed to belong in this note.

This is probably more than you wanted.  Sunday morning mental meanderings!