Category: Change & Transform

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Daughter of the Mother

Mom and Me
Mom and Me

My mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2006. She made her final transition last week, after years of inhabiting both this world and the world beyond. This poem is for you Mom:

Daughter of the Mother
 

I am the daughter of the mother who sees beneath

Raven’s eye shows me the way through

To the other side where down is up

And time can stand still

Until the time is right.

 

I am the daughter of the mother who sings in my bones

Drum song carries me out of now

To a place where fiery dragons roam,

Mother Moon dances with her Sun

And Spirit Bear guides me home.

~Nancy Lankston

☾ ☽

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Lessons of the Flood

Flooded Highway 36 in Lyons, CO
Flooded Highway 36 in Lyons, CO
September 12, 2013

I was one of the lucky ones; our house was on high ground and didn’t get damaged by the flooding in Lyons, Colorado.  But my family still had to evacuate and spend a month moving between various hotels in Longmont, CO. The entire town of Lyons lost sewer, water and gas service. And it still hasn’t been restored.

A few lessons I learned from the flood:

1. Mother Nature is in charge. We humans can fool ourselves for awhile, but when push comes to shove, nature rules.

2. People are amazingly kind-hearted. I saw so much compassion and caring in Lyons in the days and weeks after the flood. My heart continues to overflow with gratitude and joy for all the acts of kindness, both big and small that I witnessed.

3. Not having a place to go home to sucks.  Just this tiny taste of homelessness gave me huge compassion for people who spend months or years living in their cars or on the streets. Not having a home is truly nerve wracking.

4. I love Lyons, Colorado!  The town is still a complete mess, but I want to be part of this community.

5. Stress can literally kill you. Our 3 1/2 year old male cat Raja didn’t make it through a month of being away from home. Even though he was staying with an amazing friend, Raja got so stressed that he stopped eating.  Good bye, buddy! I hope you’re now hunting and sunning in cat heaven.

6. Flowing water can transform the landscape in a matter of minutes. The St Vrain river valley that I have loved and walked and photographed is now a different place.

After the Flood
After the Flood

Water does NOT submit to human control. We can dam it up, and try to stop it, but we should NEVER forget that water is born to flow. And it will continue to flow whether we humans like it or not!  Water will NOT be controlled.

7. Flow never stops; Each drop of water on planet earth is on a flowing journey that never ends. This visual of the ocean’s currents, gives us a hint of just how amazing water’s flowing journey truly is:

And my own journey continues; My husband and I spent days searching for a new place to roost without any results. Then, due to the kindness of my favorite realtor, Mark Webber, we rented a great house on the edge of Lyons. This one has a septic system and well (!)  AND a kick ass view:

Blue Mountain
Blue Mountain

Was this experience good? or bad?  Like the old Buddhist story goes, it’s still too soon to tell…

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Be Still

Stillness
Coot Lake by Nancy L

Keeping Quiet

by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth,
let’s not speak any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.

What I want shouldn’t be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.

If we weren’t unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,

if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I’ll go.

 

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Stillness

Still Pool
 

A huge thunderstorm brews just over the horizon as I take a wonder walk at Wonderland Lake.  Thunder rumbles on the ridge, yet the lake is still, perfectly still. Reflections of the foothills play on the surface of the water. The air is charged with magic potential.  My mind stills. I remember a passage from one of my favorite books: 

The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega.
It is God’s brooding over the face of the waters;
it is the blended note of the ten thousand things, the whine of wings.”

~Annie Dillard, Teaching A Stone To Talk

☯

In the stillness before the storm, this space is alive with joy. Mother Nature shares her wisdom, whenever I remember to pause and listen.

Be Still.  
Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity.  

~Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

☯

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Seek Wildness

The Path into the Woods
The Path into the Woods

“To learn to see, to learn to hear, you must…
Go into the wilderness alone.
For it is not I who teach you the ways of the Gods.
Such things are learned only in solitude.”

~Matsuwa, Huichol Shaman

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It’s the Little Things

It's the Little Things

Last month, I took part in a class called “Getting Naked” that Julia Fehrenbacher offered online. Every day for 40 days, Julia gave us food for thought and creative writing assignments.  It was amazing how much I learned about myself just from getting naked every day for 40 days. I highly recommend the class if Julia runs it again.

One of the first Getting Naked assignments that Julia gave us was to log 25 things we were grateful for each and every day.  When I first received this assignment, my reaction was, “Ugh – that’s crazy! I don’t have the time or energy to do that!”  I come from a family of pessimists; my parents were impressionable little kids during the Depression and never completely got over living on the edge of survival. Eighty years later, gratitude is still not something that flows naturally in my family. But I have been slowly working at getting more optimistic and more grateful. So, on second thought, I decided to try this gratitude log for a few days and see what happened.

Noticing and recording my gratitudes went smoothly for the first few days. It didn’t take very long and I actually enjoyed coming up with a list of things I was grateful for.  But then, on about day 5, I hit a wall. I became completely and totally resistant to writing down ANYTHING else that I was grateful for, much less 25 items a day.  So, I stopped.  I stopped completely. And after a few days, I noticed how crappy my mood was. And how crappy it stayed.  I was a complete whiny bitch!

About day 9, after days of no gratitude log and much complaining, a quiet little voice inside me began poking at me insistently. My little voice  gently suggested that I focus on gratitude again.  But I’m stubborn – very stubborn sometimes.  It took my inner knowing 4-5 days to convince me to start logging gratitudes again.  But I finally did. And I felt better! I actually felt a lot better every time I sat down and logged 25.  So much better that some days I would log 30 or 40 or 50 items in my gratitude log.

And  now, even though my Getting Naked class ended a few weeks ago, I continue to log gratitudes for at least a few minutes every day.  So what happened? Why would I take the time to do this gratitude log every day?  Here’s what I’ve discovered about gratitude; it can completely change how your life goes.  Oprah was right.  🙂

I know it sounds trite and silly. And I don’t want you to think that I’m becoming a Pollyanna or anything (Pollyanna’s are definitely not allowed in my family). But focusing on what I’m grateful for softens me up in ways I can’t even put into words.  For one thing, this gratitude log gets my mind out of the perpetual worry and whine track that I am so prone to fall into. It also opens my heart to what I love about the world. This one little thing helps my day just plain flow better.

Now when I wake up cranky, I find myself actively looking for something to be grateful for right away; I have learned that if I can “reset” my awareness to gratitude setting, my entire day will shift for the better. What I focus on truly does increase.

Here are a few little things that I’m grateful for today:

Brigit’s hurt paw is healing – no more limp!
a wonderful vet in Lyons
walking by the river with Brigit again
talking with my friend JW yesterday
time to write
something to write about
hummingbirds at the feeder
Buffalo ridge outside my window
hubby and daughter coming home tonight
my spiritual ‘sister’, JP
friendly checker at the market in Lyons
finding gorgeous organic kale at the market
thunder rumbling – a cool rain is approaching
seeing the stars last night
the lavender bushes in my yard
smell of pine in the air every evening
it’s still green here in July
writing of Celtic mystic Tom Cowan
watching my kids grow into adults
cycles and rhythms of the seasons
my husband David’s voice on the phone
my daughter Izze’s laugh
my son Henry texting me and telling me what’s up with him
granite rocks – I love granite!
hot chai in a mug
little surprise cottonwood tree that rooted in the garden
a sudden mountain rainstorm this afternoon
Getting Naked with you

Ahhh, I feel better.  It truly is the little things that make the most difference in my life.

☾ ☽

How about you?  What are you grateful for today?