 January 28, 2021 we gathered for the 100th Virtual Healing Circle since the pandemic isolation. Join us each Monday morning at 9 a.m. and Thursday evening at 7 p.m. pacific. Email for connection info, check out the Healing page or find us at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience page on facebook.
A Moment 100 is a round number, a coming together. The zeroes following that simple 1 make it significant. Mathematically 100 is 10 tens .... that tell us that each step comes together and creates something more .... Collectively every drop fills an ocean or a river. Every moment creates a life .... Every person creates the circle .... 100 means that you started 99 ago and kept going. It marks a journey, it doesn’t end a journey, but marks one .... .... .... 100 is like the hummingbird that persevered through a flight that seemed impossible on every level. And then hovers over the flower — another impossibility -- and drinks sweet nectar. 100 is a celebration .... .... And so we celebrate the coming together, the circle .... .... .... .... .... We are the celebration .... Each moment marks 100 something .... 100 breaths since the last 100 100 steps since the last 100 .... 100 beings gathered .... 100 moments of prayer and love .... .... Today we mark 100 .... Blessed be ....
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 Winter sunset from the park. Of all my years living on the West Coast, which is most of my life essentially, I never really noticed how much where the Sun set moves through the seasons. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that actually. Particularly since my condo has a view of the West and I often watch the sunset or notice the setting Sun. But it wasn't until I moved here during pandemic that I really noticed. And it was because of the beach. At the beach watching the Sun as it makes its late day journey down, I would often go to capture the beauty of that light, the beauty of that moment and also just to be there in that time of quietude. It’s often when in peak summer the geese are there. It's when people start to pack up and go home, not that there was ever lots of people at the beach. And now that the parameters of both pandemic and my own physical limitation with a broken foot have even more narrowed my ability to go very far, where the Sun sets now is still accessible to me in a way that it would not have been in the middle of the summer with the same condition, the same constraint. In the summertime often where the Sun really started to slide behind the visible horizon was quite a bit more North, often behind that curve of the bay where White Rock is. And then later just past that point looking off towards Point Roberts area, still North but a little bit more West.  Late spring looking North as the sun sets over White Rock. And now, standing on the edge of the park overlooking the water it is really straight ahead, straight out to the open ocean. Of course not open, in the distance there are always islands. But whether we can see them Is always a question. But there is a broad expanse of water at that point before we hit land again. And the Sun seems to hover just above the water .... In the late afternoon, really in the hour before the Sun is really considered to be setting, the Sun is still slightly to the South .... sometimes looking like it's going to come down just over Blaine, Washington Marina. But then it doesn't quite, in this moment. I’m noticing that I can tell that the days have lengthened just a little bit again. Instead of setting at shortly after 4, the Sun is starting to hang around until closer to 5 again. Peak summer it set at often beyond 9:30 in the evening which is of course why it was that much more North by the time it was that low in the sky.  Summer sunset with geese. Once again this time has been a bit of a gift, giving me this opportunity to notice .... And my constriction, too, has given me an opportunity to still find places that I can access to receive those moments of beauty. To find them in the hour even before we would traditionally think we would find them. To see the light in this way .... The Sun in so many ways that we don't consider, keeps us alive ....Providing heat for the Earth. Creating the conditions for photosynthesis. Nourishing the plants that we eat. And becoming the fuel for the oxygen that the plants offer back to us. And how little I paid attention .... I know more now why people looked to the Sun as a representation of the Divine, the Life Giving. And observing the sunset with the sure knowledge that in the morning it would rise again continuing to gift us with its Life Giving. Blessed be ....
Join my Virtual Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail.  This morning I spent an hour and a 1/2 walking with Bill step-by-step through the tasks required to get fully undressed and into a shower while I washed his clothing. This once probably mindless kind of task, the thing that we would do every single morning without any thought at all, was literally a step-by-step process. Take off your watch. Yes put it there. If we both know where you put it then we'll know where to find it later. Take off your belt. Yes your belt holds your pants up but we need to take your pants off to put them in the laundry. Step-by-step. I realize, too, that my own broken foot gives me a little bit more of an understanding of how challenging something that is seemingly simple can be. (Laugh) When, when we were done and I had made Bill a sandwich and a fresh cup of coffee and he came into the kitchen he said, “Phew! Well that was something!” (More laughter) And I kind of understood. Because sometimes when I do a task right now, that in another moment would have taken very little time and little effort or thought, I do have to think it through step-by-step, and figure out how to accomplish it. And it is more actual work .... So this Sunday morning when often I would take time in the morning and sit in a more quiet meditation by myself, was spent in a different kind of what really did feel like a spiritual practice that reminded me ....that connection is personal. That it's not enough to just simply say “take a shower,” but to accompany him to do that. And it felt gracious and even holy to be part of that this morning. And humbling. So humbling .... All of us will reach a time in our lives, even if it's only a moment, when everything shifts. For me it shifted when I came here to support Bill and it shifted again when I broke my foot .... .... But I am even grateful for this reminder this morning, that presence isn't simply about presence in this house, but presence to the needs of the other in the moment. We are called to presence. And while yes, presence with my personal spiritual practice is important, presence with Bill was more important this morning .... .... #dementia #presence
 And so we come to a new beginning, one as mundane or significant as we choose to notice. One of many daily, moment by moment new beginnings .... I wonder where this road goes. If we kept following it straight, even across borders and through waters, those artificial and very real delineators of spaces and countries, what would happen if we could just walk through. Where would we end up if no one was saying to us this is the end, this is the border, this is mine and that's yours. Don't cross without permission .... I'm watching the birds fly back-and-forth giving entirely no regard to these artificial boundaries. Maybe as a new beginning I will look at my own artificial boundaries and, like a bird, just fly through them. |
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