For all of the peoples and the nations of the earth, may not even the names disease, famine, war, and suffering, be heard, but rather, may their moral conduct, merit, wealth, and prosperity increase and supreme good fortune and well being always arise for them.

Let humanity sing this mantra. Let it wake up to the truth of our connectedness.  Let LOVE touch hearts and minds and let us be kind to each other and to this earth that is our home.

In kindness and in Love.

Heralding of Spring

What is it about the hearts stirring -
The temperature of the soul 
That takes on such import 
as spring takes hold of the Earth?

Don't I feel these things all other times?

Aren't the events that stir me now similar to those that stir me year-round? 

Why does now feel different?

I chalk it up to the singularity of the resonance of spring. 

Spring paints all a vibrant hue of rebirth,

And the colors of the emotional palette - 

Of hope, and new life, and warming, and blooming.

This seasonal space in time 

Has a resonance of hope and possibility 

That is singularly unique and traditional -

A herald to beginnings and endings, 

A trumpet call to change.

2020 Fall Colors

 Took a drive today and went for a walk. The fall colors are lovely.

The Red Dust of Kenya

The Red Dust of Kenya

Stark contrasts:
Smokey, sense filled,
Teaming humanity.
Overflowing refuse laden
Transitions and poor translations
Of evolving complexity.

Morality seems a luxury
The desperate can ill afford.
Where expansive vistas of umbrella trees
Cast shadows
Where gazelles and dik-dik
Welcome each day.

God's hand moves across this land.
Men who incessantly
Polish and clean life's passing
From shoes dulled once again
By the red dust of Kenya.
Shadows and sunlight.

Violence and mercy
Walk hand-in-hand.
Faith and abject despair
Are bedfellows.
And always the dust,
Binding it all.

CONTEMPLATING SNOWFALL

I sit and watch
Big, paper-white puffs of lace
Falling, falling, falling,
Carried on a wind
That weaves them
Like strangers finding their way
On a busy street.
If they had eyes
Would they see each other?

Each snowflake
So unique,
So fragile.
Temperature rises?
Gone.
Rain in the mix?
Changed.
Our world is fragile.
Change is the only constant.

I watch the snow fall,
Hurried by the wind,
Drifting when not driven,
Flakes bumping into each other,
Dancing, bobbing,
Diving for the ground.
A blanket of white,
As the green beneath sleeps,
Dreaming of raindrops and sunshine.

Cold blanket
Falling from the sky.
No threads to weave,
But a pointillist's delight,
Freckling the landscape,
Slowly blending
Earth and Grass,
Tree and shrub,
Into a white expanse of softness.

Stark are the few objects
That refuse to succumb
To the White mantle of oneness.
In their starkness,
Beauty.
In their resistance,
A reminder.
Lovely garden ornaments
Now symbols of independence.

Winter has come.
The Rose stands banked with snow.
Cold, wilted leaves flutter in the wind.
The feather-light bombardment
Drives the life force deep,
Hunkered down beneath the weight of winter,
Harbored in the roots, the earth, the ground.
Winter has come.
Life takes pause,
And waits on the promise of change.

What lessons lie in this blanket of white?
What insight can this season provide?
Are we like snowflakes?
What forces do we drive underground?
What elements live in dark places,
Waiting on the promise of seasonal change?
What patterns of ebb and flow are we the cause of?
Am I a snowflake?
Am I a garden ornament?

BRIDGES AND CONNECTING

This week I took some time to photograph bridges. It's a concept that I find fascinated, both it its literal application as well as in its figurative sense.

Bridges create interesting pattern changes. The business of life travels over instead of through other elements of life and nature. Bridges can leave places fairly undisturbed, and yet allow a glimpse, for those passing by, of a world that exists different from the bridge.

Bridges integrate the flow of humanity with the earth's topography. For all that we do try to shape and change the world to our use and our liking, there are times where we have to, or choose to compromise; where, for ease of access of speed of travel we bridge things.

What are we missing, I wonder, choosing the shorter, easier, more direct route? How is the world changed or impacted by our traveling on the bridge? The lily pads in the still water remain motionless and undisturbed as the busy world of man passes over.

How much quiet stillness goes unseen and inexperienced as man rushes across bridges towards purpose? There is oftentimes such a contrast in beingness between what is happening on the bridge and what is happening beneath the bridge.

BALANCE AND HAPPINESS: KEY COMPONENTS OF THE SWEET SPOT

I've been doing a lot of writing for work these days. Lately that's included some work around balance and "rightness". In the writing I've been doing I speak of a "sweet spot" where everything in your life comes together.

The sweet spot in life is an interesting place, in that it's not A place. There's not one sweet spot where, when the stars are aligned everyone congregates. If you were able to map people's sweet spots and tell them to go stand in their sweet spot so that we can get a lay of the land, you'd see people all over the place.

Sure there'd be enclaves of collectives, but probably not as many as we might expect, and they'd have to be moving all the time in order to stay in their sweet spot. The pattern we'd gaze out over would be almost unrecognizable and nothing repeatable.

That's the way happiness is. It's unique and changing and doesn't always make a lot of sense to others. Yet happiness is something that we pursue with a passion. There's a line from a Sarah Teasdale poem that comes to mind when I think of happiness and the sweet spot and that is:

For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

Why then do so many people "save" their sweet spot time for after work, or for weekends, or for "when I retire?" Why is it that so many people have come to feel that the sweet spot has to be earned, or is a privilege, or that you can have too much of it, or that too much isn't good? We are on this earth for such a short while. It would seem to me that as brief as our time is, wouldn't it be great to be happy?

Coming full circle I come back to balance and rightness and the very personal nature of how that plays out. I realize that I have patterns of balance in my life that invite happiness in and allow it to take hold and be a real part of my day to day life. As I investigate the nature of my personal sweet spot, I see balance as an important component.

Wishing you balance and happiness in the pursuit of your very personal sweet spot.

Hugs,

Betsy