scattered moments sacred moments

Bare

10/5/2021

The solid and ethereal dead Oak Trees of Buttertub Marsh lay bare their teachings.

Buttertubs Marsh

Listen ~ 9 minutes

I'm having a slow morning. Feeling contemplative, reflective. Wondering where things are going. By that I mean everything, my life ....

I've been thinking about those Oak Trees we saw on our walk. The dead ones. They were so beautiful. And I feel like they have stories to tell, things to teach me. They were so solid. And surrounded by all of the green trees. And yet there was something Eternal about them, stripped of of all greenery. Stark. Bare .... .... There was something .... Almost, huh, ethereal about them. And I wonder how can something be both solid and ethereal? And yet....

And yet ....

Life is so interesting, of course it is, that almost sounds trite and mundane. But it’s so true. Even with those trees, we think of trees that die in the forest, when we see them and they are decomposing, creating fertile soil for new growth. These trees don’t seem to be doing that. You almost expect to look at them and see a buzzard sitting on one of the bare branches that continues to reach to the sky. They’re like ghosts. Majestic ghosts. Continuing to hold their place.

I wonder, what is the lesson in that for me today? That even in these moments of unsurety, when I myself feel a bit like a ghost, a bit not-quite-here, between two worlds....that I am here holding my place, still me. Even in those moments where I feel stripped bare, still me.

Even surrounded by greenery, still me.

But there’s something more than that, something deeper, something about rootedness. Something about solidness. Something about waiting for the moment. Maybe the thing is that we expect, or I expect, things to happen in a certain time. This happens and then the next thing will follow and then the next. And that isn’t how life works.

Nothing, or very little, about my life, has fallen into any kind of pattern that I would have considered to be a pattern when I looked forward on my life, none of the patterns that I was taught as a child.

Those oak trees have lost their capacity to spread leaves out and gather the sun. But their roots are strong. I wonder if they’re still there connected to the network below the ground? If they still hold the wisdom, the knowledge, to share with the trees around them? They still provide, I am quite certain, some kind of shelter, some kind of food for insects. And maybe birds. Maybe other creatures as well.

I look and I see a dead tree. It seems to reduce them. Yeah, simply to reduce them. They are Oak Trees. Beautiful and mighty. Hm. And maybe it is just to acknowledge that.

Maybe they aren’t there to teach ME anything. I’m probably of no consequence to them, quite honestly. But I can admire them. I can ponder. They have given me food for thought. And of that I am grateful.... on this quiet morning of contemplation in the rain.

~

Centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations, Kimiko holds Virtual Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Please join us. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop her a note by e-mail.

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Everywhere

9/12/2021

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Listen - less than 2 minutes

Poetry I have learned
is not just words. It could be
wine or food or music or
whatever helps us take the gifts
of the World and convey them
in a way that shares it, that interprets
it, that gifts it beyond ourselves ....

And I think too that Nature herself
speaks poetry. In the Flowers that grow
through the cracks in the sidewalk. In
the way the Clematis grow over the barbed wire
on the side of the golf course. The Blackberries
abundantly growing everywhere .... Hanging
its sweet fruit over the fences And in the weedy
wild lot. That too is poetry ....

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Rain

8/23/2021

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It turns out Rain was the lover I’ve been longing for
arriving with a bouquet of moisture
singing the heartbeat of Earth
the poetry of quenching

It is artists who interest me
Passionate conveyors of the beauty and pain of Love
and the necessity of risking it
who call us to the eroticism of life
lived with abandon, abundance and purpose

I was raised in the Rain Forest
Trees dripping with lifeblood
Old Man’s Beard wicking moisture from the air
to Slugs below

I want to gather around tables with food so good
it makes me cry and squeal in delight
And conversations about God and stories that elicit wonder
Or fits of laughter
Or take us on winding paths of perplexity and sudden revelation
Things that bathe and cleanse

To be honest it is the people to accompany this I most yearn for
Those who understand a glass of wine, pot of tea and a really good stew
Who see each Raindrop
and somehow sense every life-time it has flowed through
and every Being it has quenched

If this is you
or think it might be
the gate is open

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Birthday random thoughts

8/19/2021

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Trying to sort through the myriad of thoughts and emotions today, my birthday, what I land on is: It’s complicated. Very little about my life as I turn 56 is as I imagined it might be, as the world I grew up in told me it would likely be, or even as I determined it would never be.

I realized suddenly today, that my physical reality has come to mirror my existential understanding of myself as someone on the outside, who stands at the margins in a world that looks to the middle. Now I literally live on a border, a strange somewhat arbitrary boundary delineated by a ditch. Here I have spent the past 16 months seeking out the often unnoticed beauty of this place. And seeking connection while feeling immersed in solitude ebbing and flowing with isolation. In other words, I revelled in the aloneness until I didn’t.

Ironically as I find myself both single and my child grown I am now responsible for someone else in a way that has not been true for years, maybe ever. My child was 20 when I became a lone parent and my spouse was always the homebody. Parenting was shared but much of daily moment to moment was not mine. And while caregiving is not parenting, the moment to moment responsibility is much the same.

Looking at this feather graced by the setting sun, I am struck by the truth that a feather, while a thing unto itself, exists to be part of a bird. It is the feathers that allow a bird to fly. And without the bird, the feather cannot experience flight. This is the image I have chosen for myself to mark this birthday moment. I am a feather, an amazing work of Divine engineering and artistry. My gifts are a necessary part that creates the lift for something greater than me that in turn picks me up. Together we soar.

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Summer reading

8/5/2021

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Waking up on this cloudy summer morning, I'm enveloped in sensory memory. The grey sky and fresh morning air spiced with cedar, ocean and the faint haze of smoke transports me to camping by the lake, cousins in the next campsite over, bread toasted over an early campfire and permission to spend a day curled with a book.

This last part is the one I pause on. A day curled with a book snuggled into a sleeping bag while still present to the world. In the camper I'd climb up onto the big bed where, unlike at home, the activity of the day was still around me. Mom making coffee, people walking by on the gravel road or forest paths on their way to the bathrooms, the lake or simply walking. I could hear the conversational cadences of other nearby families and wonder, as I heard cars rumble by, where they might be going. I realize now that at home we were isolated from the world whereas here I felt in the midst of it. But this began as a memory about spending a day curled up with a book.

I was a voracious consumer of Nancy Drew, Little House on the Prairie, and comics. We read Batman, Archie, Richie Rich. I have a particular memory of a comic where the animal characters lived out stories inspired by the Canterbury Tales, the nod to which I noticed only in retrospect while studying English literature in high school. Oh, and Mad Magazine. Classic summer reading.

As I dive into this, the memory shifts from child to teen, books morphing. Titles are less immediately available to memory now as I move away from reading series over and over to more random and more complex and mature fare. King Rat, Catch 20 20. And still Mad Magazine. Mad, in fact, may have been my introduction to seeing the world through a lens that was more critical, less inclined to the easy and prevalent story.

I still read, a lot, and pretty much every day. But rarely do I have, or perhaps it's do I take, a day to spend with a book. Despite living in this place that feels like cottage country surrounded by the essence of lazy summer day. On my recent mini holiday my niece and I both opted for an afternoon of staying home. She too lives in a place surrounded by coastal trees and in sight of the ocean so all of the sensory cues were there. I sat in the rocking chair by the window while she streamed escapist tv. Like toddlers engaged in parallel play, the presence of the other was all that was necessary.

This brings me back to now and here. Sitting at the kitchen table with the park and ocean in sight, in the air, sun burning through the cloud cover. Now having to decide whether to stay in the world of words or leave the book for later.

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Bare

Listen ~ 9 minutes

Everywhere

Rain

Birthday random thoughts

Summer reading

Kimiko Karpoff

Paul's page includes photographs, stories from friends and fans, kimiko's blog posts and more.

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