Beauty Everywhere and Always

Out in the wilds of the mall yesterday - kiosks, food courts and escalators, oh my! - I happened upon a question which I think I had been seeking for some time. Some photos of the Savannah River near Augusta have been tugging at my mind practically begging to be posted on the blog, but I wanted context. I wanted some reason to talk about my love of rivers. I suppose I could have just said simply, "I love rivers," but so what? Why should anyone care that one of my favorite forms of meditation when I lived in Virginia (and before I had a digital camera) was to pull off of the Colonial Parkway and nestle in among exposed roots of trees lining the bank of the James?

This was also before I had thought about trying to draw, so I would sit with a book or my journal and just BE with the river. To sit there, alone, felt like a massage for my mind and for my heart. Nature always does this for me, but a river does it best. So yesterday when I stood in a stationery shop and chanced upon the question, "How will you bring beauty to the world today?", I knew I'd found the context by which to bring a river to you.

Rivers, beautiful, beautiful rivers - beautiful beyond description - etch canyons out of massive rocks; carry mountains to the sea; roar over falls and toss up rainbows; sustain crocodiles and cranes. Long before their energy was harnessed to power anything, let alone our computers and microwaves, rivers were enshrined in myths as the guiding force in the psyche of many cultures. The power of rivers to smooth out the rough places in the psyche, to bring serenity, much as they polish branches and stones is a power to be lauded indeed.

I submit, however, that the power of the river to be celebrated as supreme is its power to be Beauty everywhere and always. Beauty and life for one and all, salmon and Siddhartha alike. Always.

[The top photo was taken from a bridge linking the Riverbanks Zoo (Columbia, S.C.) along the Saluda River with its gardens. I would give this shot the title 'A Series of Tubes'. The second photo is from a walk along the Augusta Canal.]

Wings for a New Year

The year is a mere twelve hours old and I sit here in a stream of sunshine from the french doors wondering lazily what might be ahead for me in 2009. Oh, I can read the papers, watch the news, check the internet to see what predictions there are for the world-at-large. As for myself I take things day by day, which is why I say I am only wondering lazily about the year newly born.

As a confession let me say that I worked for years to teach myself to live my life day by day, to take things in the moment. I cannot recall what motivated me to "be here now" as the saying has been written, but the longer I persisted at bringing my mind back to the business at hand the more my life began to feel rooted and fruitful.

When I pay attention to discern what the moment asks of me I notice that very often this 'Dreaming Universe' (as "Melissa" has dubbed it) showers me with all sorts of lovely surprises - dewdrops on roses, a bubble to follow down the street, stunningly sweet words from one stranger, a brilliant smile from another, lovely encounters with animals.

One breathtaking aspect in attending to the moment, for me, is the realization that every day I am called to attend to my dreams. Yes, sometimes the dreams are the kind that come to me in my sleep, but always, always, they are the dreams of my heart.

I follow them down city streets like I followed that bubble down the sidewalk (see my post "small things" dated October 25, 2008). I follow them on the highway; I follow them on the train. I follow them at the beach; I follow them in the woods. In this following I have begun to experience the wisdom of which Rainer Maria Rilke spoke: "The universe is wide, but in us it is deep." This following has brought me to the perimeter of a landscape filled with the promise of hope and healing.

In this following I have learned to let myself soar on the wings of dreams. So with apologies to William Shakespeare, whose work I adore, I will "take up arms" ("Hamlet") bearing wings and take flight to survey this land my dreaming has configured.

"When my heart finds Christmas"

When my heart registers that Christmastime is in fact approaching I feel inside such release. Ah! At last, the time to spoil the ones I love the way I want and they cannot chide me or avoid me. All the items I have hidden away for months are wrapped and beribboned and presented with a grin.

It is such a treat for me to find something that suits a friend or family member - and surprises them as a bonus! I simply want them to see that I have paid attention to them and thought about them all year, whether we were together or not. I simply want them to see that they make my days sparkle whether it is January, June or December. This year, having begun to blog, I also hold in my heart people around the world - Canada, France, Belgium - and around the country.

This feeling recognizes no borders.

It is a sweet, sweet thought to know so many hearts will focus on the light of love in the world during this season. The miracle is ours. Let's take it and spread it - every day.

Blessings of peace and joy to all of you.

To Dream

"To die, to sleep - no more - and by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep - to sleep - perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.
"Hamlet Prince of Denmark", Act III Sc. i
William Shakespeare

Must give us pause.

Pause I have done often of late as a confluence of events have brought to mind and heart memories of dear ones who have shuffled off their mortal coil. First, the celebration of Dia de los Muertes when, among other observances, I set a place for them at my table. So many meals I shared with them: delicious food and drink and wit whose taste is a loving feast for my mind and heart. Thanksgiving Day is nearly upon us and I cannot help but think of them with a bit of sorrow, but moreso with a great feeling of gratitude that they lived, that they chose to be and that we were blessed to be together. I have also been unpacking belongings in my new home, discovering anew the gifts and memories they bestowed.

Some passed on after long lives with all the attendant achievements and respect 'of so long life', yet it was still a natural shock to have them go. Many of these dear ones were taken so suddenly, so unexpectedly about ten or eleven years ago that I still reel, especially at times like these. In the early days after their passings I found it hard to 'bear the whips and scorns of time' taking them before any of us felt they should go.

Slowly, slowly, in bits and pieces Prince Hamlet's existential soliloquy seeped into my thoughts: 'To die, to sleep - to sleep - perchance to dream'. "They did not have to die to dream," I began to argue in my mind. "Nobody has to die - to sleep - to dream!" I don't know whether it was my inherent insistence upon using my own mind or the heartfelt encouragement of all those dear ones who have gone before me, but that argument took root in my heart and sent up its shoots. I listened.

I listen still. I follow that assertion: ""Nobody has to die - to sleep - to dream." That hidden root has blossomed into a surety that following one's dreams is the route to take To Be.

"Be yourself, it's all that you can do." (Chris Cornell)

Ancestral Spirits

When I saw the icons for Bloglandia, Dia de los Muertes, I knew I had to add my little something. As a little girl I remember climbing the stairs in my grandparents' farmhouse, against my grandmother's wishes, and just sitting in the attic among the memories . The windows were that old imperfect glass with bubbles and ripples, and I loved sitting there among the dust-bunnies, wondering about the people who came before me. Since I became a mother I would look at my sons and think about the memories their lives would make for someone someday. I am heartened, and humbled, when I think of the people who link me to the past and to the future, the ancestral spirits and the children. Slainte.

small things

I've been thinking lately of small things - not petty, mean things, but things of no great matter. These things are not burdened by, nor do they burden anyone with, a great weight. They are light and quick, soft and swift. Catch them if you can.

This contemplation of small things arose after I saw a stunning photo of an Easter lily. Personally I prefer day lilies, but this close-up shot made me wish my world could fit in the bowl of that blossom. In my own forays into photography I have experienced the quiet thrill of capturing a hummingbird perched on the stem of a hosta's bloom, and tracking a busy, pollen-laden bumblebee from bloom to bloom.

Perhaps the sweetest 'little' surprise and pleasure in my world was a moment I could only enjoy, not capture (yet) in any photograph. It will remain ephemeral. On our way to a restaurant in Madison after a busy day in Atlanta my husband spied an errant bubble floating past us down the sidewalk. A toy store on one corner of the street has a bubble-making machine mounted outside and one of those iridescent spheres became our guide for a few yards.

I watched it float and bob along on the air currents I could not feel. I held my breath when it approached some potential hazard. I wanted it to float for as long as possible. It did, and evaporated in a blink without meeting any obstacles along its path.

More and more I will look for the small things, the light things to show me the way - the whisper in the crowded room, the moonlight sparkling on the dew before dawn, the bumblebee wallowing in a blossom, the little girl wearing ruby slippers to the grocery store.

Is this what Blake meant by seeing the world in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour? Maybe so. All I know is that when I contemplate these little bits of life I feel, inside, connected to the world.

This is no small matter.

'Scuse me while I touch the sky

This isn't the usual sort of post I thought I'd want to write, but I don't think the photos would make as much sense without this. Oh, they look fine on their own, but before I move on from Augusta I want to share why my heart wanted to shoot these particular signs.

I don't talk about it much, if at all, but at the beginning and for a very long time life for me here in Augusta was not pretty. It was pretty painful. Moving is nothing new to me, but my experience here was unprecedented. Despite all the times (12) I had moved and thrived Augusta has been the place that shut itself off from me for a long while, as if it did not want me to feel at home here. Somehow, somehow, even the familiar things like Target and Lowe's and Barnes and Noble felt alien and closed to me.

I mean, come on! Those places are familiarity personified. Except they weren't.

Time after time I felt that even though I was trying my best to pay attention and watch what I was doing, I still managed to find that one imperceptible metaphorical crack in the sidewalk and trip over it to fall smack on my butt.

More than once I wondered why I should even presume to want to make a home here. The place was rather intent on reminding me I was 'alien'. Sometimes a tiny part of me would question if this was a not so subtle nudge from the universe, perhaps, to put aside those 'alien' ways.

After a number of 'trips' when I'd lie sprawling on the sidewalk, the wind knocked out of me, I finally got the idea that maybe the universe was acting like that boy in middle school who used to bean me over the head with his spelling book. My parents told me it was because he liked me, to which I said, 'Yeah, right.' I thought I might revisit this concept in light of my circumstances so I picked myself up from the sidewalk and went off to think.

If this was not a nudge from the universe to change my ways, what was it? If this was like the tactics of a middle-schooler with a slight crush, why take action in a place that felt so alien?

Here's the thing about being a stranger in a strange land: I always have myself. I came to see my time here as a license to really just dig in and get to know myself. This was my chance to really look at myself as Barbara in relationship to Barbara, no one else - not my spouse, my children, family, friends, co-workers. Barbara. Just Barbara.

So, I guess I must say that after the stumbling and the tumbling, the pain and the tears in the middle of so many nights, I made it to the heart of the matter.

It feels so good to make that 'victory leap' and touch a piece of the sky. Now, as I finish this post, I find myself thinking that maybe the universe was just letting me know it was glad it finally found someone to play with here. Maybe it was just glad to get someone's attention.