Shades

Today our interreligious group met.  We took turns answering the question, "How does your tradition/path benefit your life?" 

It was fun to listen to everyone share what it is about their religion that gives them comfort/feeds their soul/resonates as truth/supports them in life.  Basically, I felt that I was hearing the same beautiful story over and over, but it was told in diverse ways, using varying languages and descriptors. I started to wonder..  Do we all really see the same thing but through different colored lenses?

For brief moments, I was able to view various spiritual paths through the lenses of those whose lives are enriched by them.

After our group, I drove to the eye doctor to pick up my spiffy new glasses.  They come with sunglasses that attach by magnets.  We have lots of sun here, and I sure don't do well out in it unless I have on sunglasses.  You may as well just give me a white cane and lead me where I need to go, because I can't always keep my eyes open when I'm out in the bright sunshine. 

Anyway, my new sunglasses make the world look a completely different color than the ones that I have worn for years.  These are more yellow than green - close to the look that the land takes when a tornado is brewing.  And even though I saw the same sights on the way home from the eye doctor as I did on the way to her office, the different colored lenses changed the look of my world.

I'm thinking that there's potential here in this realization.  There needs to be a mixing up of our lenses - especially those of people who seem to hate those whose lenses aren't the same color as their own. 

I just can't figure out how to make this happen...

Hey! Who Turned Out the Lights?

For some unknown reason, I have begun (again) to read the book, "A Peace Carol (2008 - 2011)".  It is a book of the posts of this blog which Mr. CFP had printed into a nice, hardcover book.  This photo of the late, great Buddha dog is on the front cover.

Sigh...

I am actually enjoying my moments of reading my first (and last) published book.  That surprises me. I have journaled off and on for much of my life, and I usually get slobber-on-myself bored when I go back and read my own writing.  Not so this time.

So I start to wonder who turned off the lights?  There has been so little creative light illuminating this place.  Over the past few months, I have felt like a dried up ballpoint pen.  All of the wonderings and philosophizings and editorializings that were fodder for my earlier blog posts are gone. 

Something died. 

Or it's sleeping. 

If you're in there, WAKE UP, creative juices!

***

Today, while standing at our Women in Black vigil, a young man walked up to each of us, one at a time, to say something.  I couldn't hear exactly what he was saying until he got to me.  Here is what he said:  "Excuse me, could I borrow a smile?"  I couldn't help but to burst out in a BIG smile, because I had kind of thought that this was what he was saying:  "Excuse me could I borrow a cigarette?"  I was all prepared to indicate that I had none, so the "smile" word caught me completely off guard, and the young man got his request.  Only I didn't LEND it to him.  I gave it away freely.


***

There must be a dog that wants a new home somewhere in the Denver area, because there is a magnetic pull which is drawing Mr. CFP and I toward the local animal shelters.  I think that tomorrow, we will go see if we can find the source of the pull.  Trying not to get too excited, because we are holding high expectations for a pretty darn perfect dog after our experience with Buddha.  Can any living creature meet such expectations?  I am thinking that the addition of an unconditional love type of animal into this home might just help get the lights turned back on.  I hope so...

If Mr. Right doesn't find us tomorrow, he will have to wait until next month, because I will soon be going away to get rejuiced at one of my favorite hermit-supporting destinations.

Hubba Hubba!

I know that I have bragged about our garden carrots before.  Usually, I have fun showing off their crazy shapes.  Today, I'm impressing myself with the big, fat juiciness of the two carrots I pulled today.  These big boys are going to become a part of a huge cabbage salad:

This is where they lived before I uprooted them.  Our raised bed gardens are built out of cinder blocks, and we have carrots and beets planted in every hole.  The carrots above were brothers in this now-bare-naked hole.  I almost got a hernia trying to pull them out - I think they liked their home. Sorry, guys...

Carrots in the outer holes, chard in the flatlands.

Happy Dance!

POTH #8

Had to blow the dust off my camera tonight in order to take some photos while sitting on the front deck.  The POTH (Photos Of The Happy) hasn't been occurring as regularly as I had thought it would.  These photos could actually be titled POTHIT (Photos Of The Hanging In There), because sometimes that's about all that's happening around here.  I haven't felt too great physically or psychologically lately, but I'm on the mend. 

Looking up from my perch on the front deck.

The Purple Coneflowers are on their way out, while the Black-Eyed Susans are, like me, hanging in there.

 

Begonias.  

I found out that the Grateful Dead did a song called Scarlett Begonias.  I considered adding a YouTube of the song, but I just couldn't do it.  I don't think that I "get" the Grateful Dead. 

Right now, the sun has set, and the crickets are in the seventh verse of their nightly chorus. The daylight is getting obviously shorter each day.  I love the summer, but I do have to say that this one has been intense.  The unrelenting heat was wearing.  The drought keeps trying to drain the life out of the plants.  Add to all of that my *ah-hem* advancing age, and you get a woman who is feeling happy to see the first gentle signs of fall arriving. 

A Silent Summer Walk

A summer Thursday morning, 6:00 a.m.
Walking with my friend, Arnie, on my left,
the South Platte River and Denver skyline to my right.
Everything is right here.  
Everything.
I sometimes think I hear
the sound of a train or the song of a bird, but it is really
One Alive Sound of
TrainSquealingGrindingHighwayTrafficDinningRed-WingedBlackbirdTrillingWaterFallingArnie’sFootstepsRhythming.

We pass dogs leading people with leashes.  
Bikers announce, “On yer left.”
The newborn sun silhouettes runner on bridge.

Arnie and I don’t talk, and neither do most of the people passing us.
It’s a no-talk kind of morning.

On a grassy hill, five or six people lie motionless,
bedded down in red and khaki sleeping bags
despite the noisy yawns and complaints of a city waking up.
I am an uninvited guest in their bedroom,
witnessing them in their most vulnerable state
as their Earth Mother cradles them.
So very intimate.

A summer Thursday morning, 6:00 a.m.
It is all happening, like a choreographed dance.
And everything is right here.
Everything.

The Computer Ate My Homework

After washing and cutting ginger, a beet and its greens, apples, celery, broccoli and carrots for our morning juice, I felt so happy.  The colors and textures on my cutting board were a work of art.  Finally, I had a photo idea for the Photo Of The Happy - a project that has been sorely neglected.

I moved the cutting board to a more photogenic location and took two photos, hoping one would come out well.  But, in the downloading of the photo onto my computer, wham!

Somewhere out in space, in a place never visited my humankind, there are now two photos of multi-colored objects that humans consider food.

Fortunately, the happiness that arose at the sight of all of those fresh veggies still exists here on Earth.

There would be more Photos Of The Happy to post, but I have yet to figure out how to photograph my heart.

Summer POTH #7

I can't make any more excuses.  Photos Of The Happy will come as they come.  Photos are not being taken daily.  It would seem that it would be an easy task to take one photo each day - a picture of something that gives me happiness.  There are certainly plenty of opportunities to acknowledge happy-inducing phenomena.  But still...

Here are some happy photos that were taken on a few recent days while I was in California visiting my precious daughter:

Two women and two dogs, conquering the wilderness

Don't we humans think that we are so funny when we spit in the face of laws?  And we're willing to mess up our own nests in order to do so.

This was along the road as we left the wilderness.

Me and my grandpuppies

I needed to dump out some water, so my daughter suggested that I pour it into one of the doggie water bowls.  When I went to pour the water into a dog bowl in the television room, a small face was looking up at me.  I certainly wasn't expecting that!  How a little frog got in some door and made his way through multiple rooms to get to the bowl will forever remain a mystery.

Summer POTH #6

Judy Collins singing, Who Knows Where the Time Goes?, comes to mind.  I've missed another three days.  I'm a slacker.  What can I say?  Slacking brings me happiness.  :-)

I love this assignment which invites me to think of the things that inspire happiness in my life.  Thanks, G.G.!

6-29-12 I love love LOVE getting mail - of the personal variety.

The first two beets we pulled from our garden this year.  After a bath, they went straight into our juicer with carrots, celery, broccoli, ginger, and apple.  

YUM!

POTH #5

Oh, I am SO flunking this assignment!  No HAPPY photos for a few days. 

Can't even say the dog ate my homework.

In my defense, I DID take photos at our big Celebration of Life party on Friday, but they were taken with a disposable camera which we had out on the table for the purpose of capturing awesome celebratory moments.  Those photos are still hiding inside their plastic housing, waiting for the time when someone will take them to the store to be freed and put onto a disk. 

Other than that, nothin', nada.  No photos taken all weekend.  But here's today's Photo of the Happy:

6-25-12:  At the party, I put out a couple of big pieces of poster paper where people could write something.  This one was for "Happiness Inducers". I love hearing what inspires happiness in people.

Our Celebration of Life party was a huge success.  Amazing people and stuff-yourself-till-you-can't-stand-it food.  Oh, my god... the food...  We had one of our favorite restaurants cater the party.  Ali Baba's has THE BEST hummus in, well, in the U.S., at least.  I haven't been to the Middle East to see how it compares.


Everything was perfect, and I'm still smiling at the fact that our home and yard were filled with some of the nicest people in, well, in the U.S., at least.  I haven't been to many other countries to see how they compare.

The two days after the party were spent napping and going through a lot of emotions that have been stirred up by a healer we're working with.  Intense...

And yesterday... now, this would have been a perfect moment for a POTH opportunity, but did I bring my camera?  Nooooooooo!  Yesterday, I got to meet with two women who I haven't seen for FORTY years!   That was food for my soul.  Oh, the sweetness of it all.  I don't have photos, but I have memories of the sight of their smiles, the feel of their hugs, and the love in their words.  That's enough.

Looking at the things that inspire happiness in some of our friends, I see that they are all very simple, and most don't cost a thing.  Isn't that the way of things?

Summer POTH #4

My Photo of the Happys for the last four days:

6-18-12:  The evening light shining through the trees and on the bushes.  Most evenings, we eat dinner on our back porch and watch the light show.  I love it!

6-19-12:  My hands (both hands, even though we can only see one here due to the fact that the other one was busy with a camera). When I was still practicing massage therapy, while working on a client's hands, I would often be taken back to when that person was a small child.  I would see their hands as those of  the baby they once were, and then I would see many of the things that those hands had done throughout the years.  The stories their hands would tell!

6-20-12: Finches nesting under our eaves.  This is the fourth finch family to be incubated and raised at our home this year.  Pardon the poop - Ms. Finch is not a good housekeeper.  We're thinking that this batch is being raised by Momma as a single parent as there haven't been any sightings of Dad for a while.
Update:  Tonight while we were eating dinner out on the porch, Dad flew up and landed on the curve of the drainpipe (which you can't see here, but it's close to the nest).  He sat there for about a minute, looking at Mom.  Then Mom flew out of the nest to some unknown location where moms go for respite.  As soon as Mom flew out of the nest, Dad flew into it.  It was so beautiful to watch!

About half a minute later, Dad flew away, too.  Here Mom was thinking that the kids were safe with Dad, but nooooooooo.
He and I have got to have a talk.

6-21-12:  Me.
Happy Birthday to me!