Tag: grateful

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Seeing the World with Sacred Eyes

Sacred Bark
Sacred Bark

“The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it.
If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity – then we will treat each other with greater respect. Thus is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective.” 

~David Suzuki

☾ ☽

I climbed up Buffalo Ridge yesterday. I nicknamed this ridge that shelters our home to the southeast Buffalo Ridge months ago –  it just has the energy of buffalo roaming free for me.  Well, yesterday I climbed to the top of Buffalo Ridge. And now, as I stare out my window at that ridge, it looks completely different to me.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been talking about climbing this ridge for 2 years and I FINALLY did it!  Yes, that’s part of the change.

But my internal shift involves more than just accomplishing something that I set out to do; Buffalo Ridge is now known to me in a completely different way. I have an intimate relationship with this ridge now; I look at Buffalo Ridge and see the rocks I scrambled over to reach the very top. And I see the circle of old pines that I sat beneath and rested. I remember startling the deer that were bedded down on its slope in the heat of  mid-day.  And I remember all the cactus just on the verge of blooming as well as the little white flowers already in full bloom.

Buffalo Ridge Flowers
Buffalo Ridge Flowers

Today I look out the window and I don’t see a ridge that I climbed. Instead I see an ally that watches over my home and neighborhood. I see a friend who shared some beautiful secrets with me. I am connected to Buffalo Ridge in a new way, and it will never again look like ‘just a hill’ to me!

Living Ground
Living Ground
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Topography

Rocky Mountain Topography
Rocky Mountain Topography

Topography

After we flew across the country we
got into bed, laid our bodies
delicately together, like maps laid
face to face, East to West, my
San Francisco against your New York, your
Fire Island against my Sonoma, my
New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho
bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas
burning against your Kansas your Kansas
burning against my Kansas, your Eastern
Standard Time pressing into my
Pacific Time, my Mountain Time
beating against your Central Time, your
sun rising swiftly from the right my
sun rising swiftly from the left your
moon rising slowly from the left my
moon rising slowly from the right until
all four bodies of the sky
burn above us, sealing us together,
all our cities twin cities,
all our states united, one
nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

by Sharon Olds

Flesh
Flesh Topography

Will you hold me the way mountains hold the sky?

✧ ✧ ✧

Twenty Little Poems that Could Save America

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Nine Fat Robins

Nine Fat Robins
Nine Fat Robins

Nine fat Robins twitter in the tree

Wait! there are five… Now three

Soon seven red breasts perch and preen 

Each one as regal as a queen.

⚚

I watch the party, aching to meet and greet

I watch and wonder, what’s the news on my street?

But soon they all fly away, every one

In a flurry of wings; their party is done.

⚚

I am left behind with just a memory and a sigh

I perch in my seat and try not to cry

But when I close my eyes, it is feathers I see

A soaring dream of flight… Robins’ gift to me.

~Nancy Lankston

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Recreation Pants

“These are my recreation pants.”
~Nacho, AKA Jack Black

We have a “recreation pant” tradition at my house.  What exactly are recreation pants, you ask? Think loungewear. Think pajama bottoms. Think baggy, comfortable and elastic!

Recreation pants go on at my house when it’s time to  leave the problems of the day behind.  We will even announce to each other that it’s time for recreation pants!  It may sound  silly  to you, and it did actually start out as a joke. But the idea of putting on my recreation pants has come to mean much more to me.

The idea of recreation pants came to us after watching Jack Black ham it up in his irreverent and hilarious movie Nacho Libre. In the the movie Nacho, AKA Jack Black, wants to impress the hot young nun (yes, I mean nun). So Nach0 puts on his tight white stretch pants (think Saturday Night Fever pants). Then he poses against a pole and flexes his glutes for the nun. Seriously! It’s a bit of Jack Black comedy genius.

At my house, recreation pants still make us smile, but it’s not remotely about looking hot or impressing people.  Just the opposite.  Around here, recreation pants are all about being relaxed and comfortable and not needing to impress anyone.  Besides, who can look hot and sexy in old, baggy pajama bottoms anyway?

Recreation pants signify that I can let my hair down and just enjoy hanging out with people I love. Doesn’t everybody needs peeps that they can wear their recreation pants in front of without losing face?  I wonder if the problem with most politicians and public figures is that they NEVER think it’s safe to put on their recreation pants. Who among us can stay “on”  24 x 7?  It is impossible. At some point we all need to stop worrying about looking the way we’re supposed to look and saying the things we’re supposed to say. Sooner or later, we all need to don our recreation pants.

My true home is a place filled with people that enjoy my company – even when I’m wearing my recreation pants.  🙂

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Use What You’re Given

Soup’s On

“Every situation, no matter how challenging, is conspiring
to bring you home to you.” ~Panache Desai

A nasty February blizzard is cooking outside – the wind is blowing so hard that the snow is not falling to the ground so much as blowing south horizontally.  I watch it blow like stink and Thank God for indoor plumbing… Can you imagine having to wade out to an outhouse in this??!

So, what goes best with a blizzard? It’s definitely den time with the family.  And I find myself craving soup. Yes, soup sounds yummy. But I hadn’t really planned on making soup this weekend. I didn’t buy soup fixin’s… what to do? what to do?  Hmmm, maybe I can use what I’ve been given and rustle up some soup anyway. I love a challenge.   🙂

After rummaging through the refrigerator, here’s what went into the soup this morning:

1/2 onion, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 cup fresh spinach leaves     I live on greens – my nickname around here is Popeye, so I always have spinach or kale or something green in the fridge

1/2 roast chicken, bones removed, skin tossed in to make broth     This is leftover roast chicken from 5 nights ago. I bought it when I didn’t feel like cooking
1/2 lime, juiced     I’ve never put this in soup before, so it’s purely experimental
1 Clove garlic     Required – my hubby LOVES pretty much anything with garlic in it
Salt and Pepper

In an hour I’ll pull out the chicken skin, add water and toss in 1 cup rice, 1 tsp. dried lemongrass and let it simmer a few minutes longer. The smell is already filling the house and making my mouth water!

 Use what you’re given is an idea from a little book, Instructions to the Cook, written by Glassman & Fields. These two Zen practitioners ran charities that provided food and housing for the homeless on a shoestring budget for years. So they know all about creating something special from whatever you’re given. And their little book has inspired me on many occasions to stop, take a deep breath and figure out how to happily use whatever life is giving me in this moment.

“Life always gives us 
exactly the teacher we need 
at every moment. 
This includes every mosquito, 
every misfortune, 
every red light, 
every traffic jam, 
every obnoxious supervisor (or employee), 
every illness, every loss, 
every moment of joy or depression, 
every addiction, 
every piece of garbage, 
every breath. 

Every moment is the guru.”

 ~Charlotte Joko Beck
 
✧
 
Use what you’re given.
Every moment can be bliss or shit – you choose.
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Magic Morning

Flatirons in Snow

“Let me bring you songs from the woods…”
~Jethro Tull

A bit of serendipity…

This morning I ended up taking a hike in Chautauqua Park. I had an appointment, but the Universe had other plans for me!  I was already in Boulder when I found out that my morning appointment was cancelled. What to do with 2 hours? What to do?  So many possibilities!

Flagstaff Mountain called out to me, and I found myself driving to Chautauqua.  It was a beautiful morning to be outside, sunny and cool with a few inches of day old snow blanketing the mountain. As I began hiking straight uphill in snow, I questioned the wisdom of my decision. But legs and lungs soon adjusted to the climb and the view of the Flatirons was enough to keep me going.

Along the way, I relished the silence – what is it about snow on the ground that makes the woods so still?  I felt like I was walking in sacred silence. Step by step, I picked my way carefully up and down the snowy slopes. Walking in snow became my morning meditation practice. With each step, my mind cleared and my heart opened wider.

Mama Pine

Down in a hollow where I have never hiked before, I met this old Mama pine tree.  I stood and listened to her view of the world for awhile.

I leaned against Mama pine’s trunk, listening and looking up into her branches, After 5 minutes in her space, I felt like I had been at a meditation retreat for days!  And my heart opened even wider. Such is the calming, cleansing power of old trees.

Tree Web

Thank you Mama pine for sharing some of your essence with me.

You helped me make it a magic morning.

☾ ☽

“…a Sign that the Universal Mind
has written you into the Passion Play”

~Jethro Tull, Skating Away…