Mold, Mildew and Much More

Sunday, February 26, 2006

I see the sun for the first time in a very long time. It feels so good to have it shining into my study and to feel its warmth upon me.
It feels good upon my face and I feel its healing power upon the mold and mildew that have collected in my mind. When I must stay inside for a very long time because of rain and cold, I, like the trees about me, gather mold and mildew in my brain cells.
In order to entertain those brain cells bored from lack of being engaged in a physical activity, I can conjure up all manner of drama with me in the starring role of course. I make villains out of my neighbors, and victims of my friends while I, the heroine, come to the rescue and save the day.
Such nonsensical thoughts of the mind are a sickness and the sickness grows and spreads much like the mold and mildew on wood. Like the mold, the sickness does not like light or dryness of the sun, but the dark and damp of dreary winter days.
Recently, during a lull in the rain, I took a walk that ended at the pier. I gazed into the water and watched the ripples of the surface. It was very overcast but a trickle of sunlight reflected in one area that I was observing. If I just stared into the water, I could see reflections of the waves beneath the surface and then shadows of those reflections and so on. It gave the eerie illusion that I was looking into infinite depths to which there was no end or bottom. It was an “aha” moment, a moment of clarity, a moment that I had “seen” a glimpse of a world separate from the physical world and with something other than my eyes; so in the present was I.
And so I will let the sunshine into my mind and spirit and let its healing light and power chase out the silly, negative thoughts that a bored mind conjures up to entertain itself when it is not engaged in the positivism of the present moment.

Dance as though no one is watching you,
Love as though you have
never been hurt before,
Sing as though no one can hear you,
Live as though
heaven is on earth.

The Show/Play must go on

Monday, February 20, 2006

Having read a few of my entries lately, I realize I have been simply regurgitating stuff I have been reading. My writing has been the result of the act of reading, and then the physical act of writing without any intervention on the part of my inner self. It has been more of a vomiting of words without having digested them. It has been anything but “a language of the heart”. I apologize to any readers for my lack of honesty, and my insincerity. Shame on me! I feel like a sophomoric student regurgitating on an exam what the professor said in class; the stuff he/she wants to hear for whatever reason.

So I shall stop this nonsense and be me. Whether my writing is good or bad (a purely subjective thing) is not as important as whether it is honest communication from me and my observations and reflections on the subject matter. So let me tell you about a walk I took yesterday.

I took a walk in the blustering cold. It felt so very good to have the cold, cold air touch my face; so cold it made my eyes tear over.

I walked out on the pier overlooking the lake and I looked into the depths of the cold, dark, green water. It was so clear I could see the ropes that serve as guy wires to anchor the poles of the pier. I could see the moss growing on them and moving eerily back and forth with the current caused by the wave action on the surface on such a cold windy day. I could see where the poles entered the lake’s bottom several feet below. It reminded me of the times I have gone scuba diving with my son and I could imagine what it would be like to be down there in my breathing apparatus, part of a world only imagined before I learned to dive.

Then I walked about in the woods looking at all the different life forms; some evergreen and some deciduous. There was an upturned tree with its root system and sod still intact. I touched it and felt a sense of connectedness with it. I felt part of something greater than myself; similar to what I feel, on a clear night, gazing up at the stars.

I saw a single white egret fly over the lake and land in the marsh near the shoreline. It seems way too cold and too early in the year for the return of the egrets. Perhaps it is a scout to check out the food source before reporting back to the migratory flock. It stayed a short time as though it had gathered the necessary information and then soared away on widespread, beautiful, white wings; soaring above the grayness of the winter day. It was almost like a dream: its presence such a stark contrast to winter’s grayness.

Upon my return home, I felt a sense of joy having used my body as nature intended, taking lengthy strides with my long, strong legs, swinging my arms in rhythm with my strides, breathing in the cold air and then feeling its warmth upon exhaling and watching it make a misty cloud when it met with the cold.

But most of all, I enjoyed the sense of oneness with all about me. How alive I felt during my walk. Upon returning to my warm house, I could now sit at my window looking out at winter’s scenery and again relive the joy I felt when earlier I was out there a player on the set, part of the play called life.

And now, I see the egret has landed upon yet another part of shoreline and it seems to remind me of the endless cycle of nature’s play which has no “acts” or “endings” but a lovely repetition of seasons, each with its own set of characters; some the same but in different costumes, like the trees, some making renewed appearances, like the egret, and yet some making their exit from the set, like the upturned tree.

And I feel happy that I am able to be both an actor in this play but also that I have the awareness and alertness of observation of an audience. How very fortunate I am to be both a participant and a watcher of this wonderful play entitled “Life”.

Sunday Morning

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Today it is an extremely cold day for East Texas. But sitting here, drinking my coffee, still in pajamas and a nice warm flannel robe, with Maya at my feet, and a small heater blowing on us, I realize how nice it is that I do not have to get dressed and go to church on this cold, dreary Sunday Morning. Isn’t that wonderful? Think of all the people whose belief system requires them to go out in this weather.

With that thought, however, I feel afloat this morning. I have no real belief system; just a lot of unrelated sentences. But that is because I have been inside due to the cold and rain and have not been “in” my belief system. Life and Nature. Just thinking about it and finally being able to see a bit of it through an opening up of my frosted over windows make me feel better. I see a lovely female cardinal sitting alone on a branch near a feeder. And now I see a wren scurrying about the ground looking for seed.

I have no need for a belief system. I have beliefs: one in life itself and one in me, myself, and that is really all I need. Now, I feel grounded again in reality. There is no need of sentences or system. Give me a window with a view of nature and I am at peace and full of joy on this Sunday Morning.

"Wood Tag"

It is a cold, rainy, and dreary morning outside; typical for the middle of February. The birds are very active this morning. They fly from tree to tree, and just as one bird lands upon a branch of a tree, a bird on a nearby branch takes flight only to repeat the same pattern in another tree. And this goes on and on. Sometimes there are so many of them in a crisscross flight pattern at once that there must be one of them who is designated to be the "air traffic controller" or the "It" to prevent crashes.

It reminds me of a game I played as a child called wood tag. Each child playing would tag a tree and there was one child designated to be the "It". Then one child would run from her tree and touch the tree of another child and that child had to go find another tree occupied or not without being caught by the It.

And now, as an adult, my mind plays a similar game. My thought goes from one subject to another briefly touching upon it before my mind leads me off to another and then another. I can occupy myself for a very long time engaged in this childlike game of thought tag. Finally I bring myself back into the present moment and the I and the Me finally alight in the same spiritual space and I am One again in this moment. The Present Moment is my It that tags all my thoughts and brings me back to the Now where I live.

When these thoughts lead me to subjects that are problematic such as "will I have enough money should the appliances go out"; then this is nonsensical use of my mental faculties. Firstly, the appliances have not gone out and are working perfectly (at least considering their age); and secondly, should they cease working it would be at some future time in which case I have no possible way of knowing what my financial status would be. But Now, I know #1 they are working and #2 I have money.

Another example of nonsensical thought patterns that I sometimes engage in is to think about what I did yesterday and what will be the end result of that action? The results of my plans and actions once put into motion are out of my hands largely. Therefore, why waste mental and emotional energy worrying about the possible outcome. Do the right thing in the present moment and then let it go.

And so I watch the birds flutter about from tree to tree, and I am reminded of games that I play intentionally as opposed to those I play unintentionally. I, like the birds, like my flight of activity.

Casinos are not good for the mind

A Casino is not the mind’s best friend

I am in Bossier City, LA, on a gambling trip for my companions. I personally do not care for it because of several reasons: noise, lights, cigarette smoke, and too many people in too small a place.

So I am in my room while the other three are at the casino. I hear a vacuum cleaner somewhere nearby out in the hallway. I imagine a woman pushing it along picking up the droppings left by other people as they go about their busy way. I wonder what she is feeling or thinking. Is it just a job to her that she must get done on her eight hour shift so she can collect her 8 hours pay and then go home and finally at that time begin her life for this day? Or maybe she is an enlightened being who enjoys each moment regardless of what activity she might be engaged in. Maybe she relishes the whine the vacuum cleaner makes as she lets it gently glide back and forth across the beautiful design of the carpeting. Perhaps she sees the pile of the carpet renewed when relieved of its burden of dust and debris. I imagine she smells the renewed freshness and compares it to the newness of her day. Perhaps she feels the shift in her body weight with the repetitious movement of the vacuum cleaner and she feels she is in the middle of a cosmic dance moving in alignment with all that is. Maybe the vacuum cleaner is seen as her “friend” who keeps her in the present. Whenever her mind wanders to a place where she is not, its whirring sound serves to bring her back into the moment, bringing her mind back into her body and her body back into life now, where she is, who she is, a life form living now.

And so I imagine my friend, who uses the vacuum cleaner that I hear, to be a very fortunate woman for she is aware of her being alive while pushing the machine. And now I hear her close by and for a brief moment in time our lives touch. However, her only awareness of me is because of a sign I have hung on the outside of my doorknob which reads “privacy please”. Her dance into my room will have to wait until “checkout” time. And so I miss an opportunity to be one with another human in the present moment.

But now the sound of the vacuum cleaner has receded and a once in a lifetime moment has passed and now I find myself alone in my “privacy please.” How often do I miss an opportunity to join in a cosmic dance with another person because I choose to put my wall up and I choose to be alone with myself? I’ll never know for now the sound of the vacuum cleaner is only a memory, unreal, a memory of missed opportunity, and unrealized possibility.

But I made the choice to be alone and so now I am happy to be aware of a conscious being though unmet and in my fantasy only. I was aware. I was alive.

Or was my fantasy a form of entertainment for a bored mind occupying a room alone? Maybe the woman with the cleaning machine saw me thusly as she danced past my room, shaking her head at the “privacy please” sign and thinking to herself “the poor unenlightened woman in there so alone and so bored she fantasizes rather than come out of her room and live”.

But she could have knocked and disturbed my privacy and she chose not to. But then she, like I, would be living in a world of imagination, a world of thought and fancy.

Happy February 14th

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

It’s the middle of February. I am not depressed. Quite the contrary. Usually in January or February and in July or August, I am hit with an extreme dark and black depression. I could feel myself spiraling down into its depths but there was nothing I could do about it. But here at Stepping Stones, I have experienced neither my usual late summer nor my late winter gloom.

I think the reason why is my contact with nature. For me, having been raised in the country, I get my spiritual renewal from nature. The awe and wonder I feel being outside surrounded by living things is a constant reminder to me of my part in the scheme of things. And that part I am to play is to be me. The real and true me, not the one who role plays in my life circumstances such as daughter, wife, mother; but the real me which bubbles up much like an underground spring. With few exceptions, and those were attitudinal problems I made for myself by either living in the future which is the more common one or living in the past, I have experienced more happiness, exuberance, joy at being alive and then at times a calm, serene, peace than at any other time in my life. I am whole.

Needless to say, I love Stepping Stones. I am so fortunate to have found a home amidst nature where I can receive the spiritual nourishment I require, which is as necessary to me as the air that I breathe in order to be healthy. I sit here in my chair by the window with the warm sun upon my face and I am joyful. It is good to be alive on this lovely, cold, February morning.

And the Beat Goes On!

Friday, February 10, 2006

It is a cold, rainy, dreary looking day outside on this beautiful morning. I remember as a young girl, winter in Texas was always like this. Though not actually raining, it always “oozed” moisture from the sky, and if I stayed out in it long enough, I would get wet, without ever actually being aware of raindrops falling on or about me. Well, this is such a morning, for now anyway. Rain is to come hard later in the day.

I was noticing yesterday the number of trees that have fallen, due to the drought, with their root ball still intact, though up in the air still surrounded by dirt. I wonder at what point a tree considers itself dead. Presumably, it is still receiving nutrients and moisture to support life through its upturned root system, though its trunk and branches are lying on the ground.

There is a tree in my yard I call “Chief” because it’s trunk and seemingly dead parts have the profile of a proud Indian chief. The branches on its back side are still alive producing large, lively leaves in the appropriate season. I would not call nor do I think Chief calls itself dead. And even on its’ dead protrusions, life is supported. There is a plant growing which is a silvery, light green that I think is called lichen. There is moss growing and there is a fern-looking plant. I imagine there is more life supported by Chief that I am unaware of. Chief has several deep holes within its trunk which I hope provides shelter to many animal life forms.

When I die, I too want to be like Chief. No embalming my body, no coffin or crypt in which it lays to last and last, these things I do not want when dead. I want to give back to Mother Earth as soon as possible in the form of renewal and rebirth new life. Like Chief, as I lose part of my “branches”, in my case, hearing or sight, or the once agile use of my limbs, I will still be alive. But when I die, whatever that entails, like Chief, I want to go on supporting Life through my own decay. My decay becomes renewal and life in other forms: my immortality. And thusly, I am an immortal Being that is just sort of “recycled”. I am part of that all encompassing, interconnected, essence of Being. My personality, my life situation all that is unessential to me dies with me, but the energy, the ability to support other life forms will live on.

Well, isn’t that an appropriate subject for such a rainy (now it is pouring) morning when Mother Earth is receiving her recycled nutrition in the form of rain. Renewal from decay. Life from death. And the beat goes on!

Reflections on Sunrises and Such

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Once again I am witness to a beautiful sunrise over the tops of the woods near my East Texas home. Yesterday, I saw the sunrise reflected off buildings from downtown Dallas.

I was amazed, while back in the city, at all the concrete, manicured grass, landscaped yards. Then I also visited the “burbs”. I had much the same observations but I was also struck by roof tops so close together. It gave the illusion that I could easily jump from one house to another.

The overall impression of city life is that of organization and control: people living neatly tucked away in their boxes. Due to so many people living so close together, fences are erected for privacy, giving a sense of aloneness. A patch of grass and a tree here and there is the occupant’s sole commune with nature. I once lived in that city and in those circumstances. My life was void of the messiness of nature, and therefore of the opportunity to commune with nature. The world of nature that I had any contact with was planted, fertilized, cut and pruned, then watered, fertilized, cut and pruned again over and over with the seasons. A city is the congregation of people (part of nature), but just like the nature in the city (e.g. parks), organized and manicured.

I have often in the past during my transition from city life to country life, which I am still undergoing, complained of my little E. Texas home’s lack of decent roads, of my driveways made of iron ore, of my yard composed of sand, leaves, fallen juniper berries, and weeds of all sorts, along with ants, moles, ticks, and gophers. But oh how happy I was yesterday to return to my disorganized, unmanicured, and more natural setting with a little wilderness.

But I guess the main difference that I notice in city life vs country life, for me, is my contact with people. In the city, I knew, on a very superficial level my neighbors. I had one that I entrusted to pickup my mail and newspaper while out of town so no one would know I was gone and maybe would not steal “my stuff”. When I moved to the country, in typical city style, I erected a fence around my property to keep out a very nice woman who told me upon meeting her, “I am actively seeking a friend”, hugged me, and was totally unapologetic and unembarrassed for the tears in her eyes at her admission. I was unaccustomed to such unorganized interactions with people. To simply pop over for a visit and be so open with one’s feelings, without a phone call or email, was unheard of in the city unless someone in my household , or myself, had gone off the deep end and I needed immediate help. In the city, people, like their streets, houses and yards, are organized in neat grids with stop, yield, and caution signs controlling both their intersections and their interactions.

However, in my home in the country, I have met more people on a raw, unrehearsed, personal level than ever before. It is somewhat frightening to be so open, vulnerable, and unguarded; so “one of” the people. But in this transplantation, I am learning a lot about nature, people, and myself. Much of this learning experience I find a little difficult to accept just now; like animals killing their prey, a perfectly natural thing and obviously my problem not theirs, or trees being toppled by disease, and people, including myself at times, exhibiting openly their wide range of emotions.

I now more often feel a part of nature, rather than in control of my artificial tract of it I had in the city. In exchange for my secure, anonymous, and somewhat superficial life, I have gained my humanity; like nature sometimes unpredictable, uncontrollable but real. Do I like it? Most of the time! Other times, I cry much like any other form of nature whose safety and security is threatened. But then such is life. I am learning the paradox in my transplantation: isolation and anonymity among the population of the city, and togetherness and openness in the vastness of nature with only a few inhabitants.

Maybe now, I will learn to like my fellow humans, rather than as before in my perhaps self imposed isolation from them, fear them for invading my privacy and my isolation within my “box”.

An interesting and ironic anecdote to this simplistic portrayal of the difference of my life in the city vs. life in the country is the fact that I take a more active role as a body politic (politic from the Greek word means “citizen”). In the city I was somewhat immune in my cocoon from those in power. I could hide “my head in the sand”. But here, though there is plenty of sand to hide in J, my cocoon is not so protective. Living in a more open community, I see in my microcosm of the world, the power plays and greed of the governing more easily and therefore feel more compelled to do something about it.
So paradoxically, my move to the country to escape the human community, and become one with nature, has had just the opposite result. I am a citizen, a fellow human, of my community struggling to be a “good” neighbor and a “good” citizen. But more importantly, I am trying to join the human race, which I have had such disdain for in the past out of fear, lack of acceptance, and a self-imposed isolation which the city easily provided me.

This of course in no way implies that city dwellers are like me, nor those living in the country. These are just my observations about my reactions and actions to my ongoing transplantation from one to the other.

And so tomorrow, hopefully, will find me once more anxiously awaiting the sunrise; but, also hopefully, I will be a kinder, gentler human, who is less judgmental and more accepting of all nature and not just nature apart from the human species. A person once told me “be the change you want to see in others.” How wise but how difficult; but I am trying, even at 63.

"Now is the time to Awaken"

Monday, February 06, 2006

This morning I was up and ready for the sunrise; the first I have witnessed in quite some time for I’ve been sleeping in.

The sunrise is there each morning whether I choose to be present for it or not. How much more my life rings true when I am Present. For when I am in a sleeplike trance, so much of my life is spent living in a dreamlike state; a false state in which I live in the world of thought patterns of future and past events that are not real.

Buddha purportedly said: “There is only one time when it is essential to awaken: that time is Now.”

May I stay present for the sunrises in my life and be aware and awake to the Light within. Surrender and accept the present moment; for therein lies my true self.

A Path in the Woods

Friday, February 3, 2006

Across the lake from my home, there is a path that leads off into the woods. It is possibly accessible to me from the damn to which I have access. I only noticed this path this winter, when the foliage of the trees in the woods had fallen, and have extended my view. The path holds a certain mystery for me. What made it? Where does it lead? How far does it go?

Some time ago, I called the owner of those woods and received permission from the owner of the land across the lake to hike there. Yet, I have not done so. Why? Is it fear of the unknown? Snakes, I am told, are abundant here; but, they would be in hibernation at this time of year. There are lynx (I’m not quite sure what these are except that they belong to the feline family) and bobcats, deer (totally harmless), alligators (these if they do indeed exist would be in or near the water and not in the woods), coyotes, and I’m sure other wildlife.

I’m a nature lover. Yet, I have not taken my hike that I so coveted the right to do. Was it the knowing I could if I chose to that I really wanted? Or is it fear? Am I getting “old” in my old age?

When I first walked across the damn, I was told by my neighbors not to do so for an alligator had been spotted sunning itself upon the damn. This didn’t stop me, however. I took my dog and a stray with me on leashes and I could have “fed” them to this mysterious Enchanted Lake Monster before it came for me. This speaks well of the pet’s owner’s affection, right?

So if I’m not afraid, what is it that keeps me from taking my hike? Maybe I simply wanted the right to do so. Or maybe I fear I’ll open a “can of worms”; if I’m seen hiking these beautiful woods, then any and everyone might do likewise, and they won’t be “mine”. But at 63, could I be that childish? Yes!

Could it be laziness? No, because I walk and/or paddle boat for one to two hours daily, weather permitting.

Actually, I think it’s a desire to have something mysterious and unknown in my life; a challenge that beckons me. Like the pathway leading off to a place I don’t know about, the woods provide me with a childlike, storybook place where amazing creatures live and mysterious things happen.

Some day I may exercise the permission granted me to hike those woods; but for now, I am happy to imagine what it will be like. Many times in life the anticipation of an event enhances the actual happening.

I realize it is a child’s game I play; but then that’s why at the age of 63, I am still that little girl inside who looks at the world with wonder and awe. I hope I always, no matter how old chronologically I get, am able to see a reality of my own making (imagination?) and can be happy and excited with anticipation about what’s “around the corner” of my path in this marvelous journey we call life.