It wasn't the watching of kittens that brought happiness, it was being kittens. It was the clambering over and under warm furry siblings, to fall asleep, and wake up again in shared space, security, and sensual simplicity of life.

Fish are breaking the surface of the water, feeding on the insects that have hatched in the past few warm days. It's a tranquil sound.

The trees and grasses along the water's edge, lit by the lights of the park, are mirrored by the pond.

To the far right, there is a great dark area where no light touches. I've never seen a black like this, so deeply black an infinity of universe may stretch from within it.

I'm not naturally brave. I want to hide from the darkness in my life, let things be. But this is a dark of such beauty it seems paradoxically a source of light, an invitation beckoning.

Millions of thoughts
Battle each other to the ground.
O,
The calamity
The comedy
The horror.

The books sit on their shelves.
A librarian wheels a metal cart
past an empty chair.

The traffic was unusually light in town, but then became congested and aggressive toward the end of my drive this evening, so I pulled off into a restaurant parking lot, and waited it out a bit. I browsed through the Sibley bird guide in the car to look up questions that had come up of late about different bird species.

It was a pleasant few minutes. Life is easier when we don’t have to hurry, when we can step out of the fray.

Before I got back on the road, I took these photos through the windshield from the driver’s seat.

***

I wrote the above last night, and little did I know its theme was still winding through my evening. For the second night in a week, no internet was available when I was ready to post an entry. Like with the traffic, I didn’t fight it, but waited it out, then let it go as 1 AM approached.

Now, again tonight, I have internet blackout. I’m walking to the library, hoping to post this, and enjoy the mild night.

Left out something important!

Acorn Squash

1 acorn squash
1/2 fuji apple, chopped in half-inch pieces
2 tsps brown sugar
2 tsps olive oil
pinch of salt

Cut squash in half lengthwise. Scrape out the seeds and threads with a spoon and discard*. Place squash halves face down in greased baking pan. Bake at 400 F for 25 minutes. Turn the halves face up. Fill with mixture of the rest of the ingredients. Bake another 20 minutes.

*Or you can toast the seeds later with some seasoned salt at lower oven temperature, or save them for the birds and squirrels.

Acorn Squash

1 acorn squash
1/2 fuji apple, chopped in half-inch pieces
2 tsps brown sugar
2 tsps olive oil
pinch of salt

Cut squash in half lengthwise. Place face down in greased baking pan. Bake at 400 F for 25 minutes. Turn the halves face up. Fill with mixture of the rest of the ingredients. Bake another 20 minutes.

to love the dark
to waltz into the gentle night
and sway before the moon
to nod to every star in sight
and know each child by heart

Can you find the peacock in this photo?


Today, I got in the car behind the steering wheel. I thought I knew where I was going, but missed a turn, ended up somewhere else, standing by my car in rural Hays County, watching the full moon rise.

Monday afternoon, I took the photo above when I thought I was turning off the camera.

I thought I would have daughters in my 20s and had lovely sons in my 30s.

What if life went just as I intended? Is life of more worth if one keeps a firm hand on the steering wheel than if one just goes for the ride? It's possible it makes so little difference that we might as well not get all knotted up over the details, but relax our shoulders and open to the adventure.

gentle clouds veil and unveil
a brilliant moon
the breeze sighing sighing -
charming souls nod in tandem
oh beautiful night
beautiful night indeed

Attending a Catholic school for 12 years, we received a lot of exposure to the Bible as well as Catholic catechism and dogma.

I guess I want to write specifically about what I took with me about Jesus. I didn’t feel too close to Jesus. I understood Mary better – a mom with a baby. Jesus was a man. I knew few men and even fewer boys. They seemed a little scary, and Jesus was in the same compartment for me as US presidents, famous, but foreign.

Still, there were a number of things that I learned about him that I was able to appreciate, that stuck with me over the years.

He welcomed everybody, the poor, the rich, the blind, those with seizure disorders, the children, and even the women who were working in the kitchen (Mary and Martha).

While acknowledging the laws about adultery, he refused to partake in the serious punishment that some of the community participated in (stoning the woman) and actually turned one such incident around. He was not afraid of sensuality, permitting his friend Mary (was it Magdalene?) to rub scented oil on his feet with her hair.

He studied the Jewish laws of his upbringing, and taught that the overall intention of those laws was more important than the letter of the law. When a lamb or calf fell into a ditch on the Sabbath, though the law said to do no work on the holy day, he made it clear that the rescue of a helpless animal honored God and the laws better than ignoring the animal.

He truly followed his own dictate to turn the other cheek. When a disciple cut off the ear of a soldier who was a part of the party arresting Jesus, Jesus replaced the ear and gently chastised his follower.

He was very patient. There are only two places in the New Testament where he is depicted as angry. One was with his mother, the other when he came upon the merchants wheeling and dealing in the temple.

A lot of attention is given to his gruesome death nailed to a wooden cross, but we were taught that what was more important was that somehow he returned to his friends and followers after his death (known as the Resurrection).

The Old Testament depicted a God who could be angry and punishing and even capricious at times. The main offering of the New Testament, what made it so new, is Jesus’s emphasis over and over that God is love, and love is the presence of God in each of us.

Some barriers to our progress are illusions; they don't even exist. Some barriers seem more formidable than they really are.

If you want something, go for it. You're moving forward.

Last night I was shooting hoops.
It got colder, and darker, and a little more beautiful out,
and at some point,
reaching high up to the half moon before releasing the ball toward the goal,
it became more than basketball.

We pay bills, and we go to church or choir or meditate.
There is flow between the mundane and the spiritual,
back and forth, back and forth.
Over time, it becomes seamless.
The mundane and the spiritual are one and the same.

15-Bean and Greens Soup

It’s cold, and my cupboard is almost bare. But last night in the back of the shelf, I found a bag of a mix of 15 kinds of beans for soup (1 lb 4 ozs). I rinsed them in a colander, and soaked them overnight in a large pot, maybe an inch and a half of water above the level of the beans. I had some collard greens that had been in the fridge a couple weeks at least. They looked wilted, but most of them were still clean, no mold or anything. A large yellow onion. Some salt. So, I made soup today.

After the beans soaked overnight, I added more water, enough to make an inch above the beans. I chopped 2/3 of the onion and threw that in. Added a teaspoon and a half of sea salt. Maybe half of a teaspoon of dried red pepper, like you put on pizza. I put the soup on medium heat, and while it was slowly coming to a boil, I carefully washed each collard leaf, removed the tough stem, and tore the rest into small pieces, approximately two inches by one inch. I added them to the soup, and put it on simmer, stirring occasionally. I added a half cup of water a couple of times. About two and a half hours later, I had soup.

I was out of crackers, but there was a box of Heart-Smart Bisquick. It’s easy to make drop biscuits. Just pour a little skim milk into some of the mix. Stir it into a dough a little moister than Play-doh. Put a heaping tablespoon for each biscuit onto an ungreased baking pan. Bake at 450 F until brown.

The first spoonful of the soup was heavenly. I was surprised something quite so nutritious could be so delicious.

In Shintaido, when confused, off-balance, overwhelmed, return to practice, return to form.

That can be applied whatever your practice is: crocheting, yoga, tinkering with car engines.

Some in Shintaido might also say, when confused, off-balance, overwhelmed - get more confused, off-balance, overwhelmed! Live on the edge of your limitations. Don't retreat, push past. Go farther than you're able to go. See farther than you're able to see. Do the impossible.

(This was my bulletin board, 2005. At least five of the people or subjects highlighted on it came up today, which prompted me to look for the photo.)

I don't want to get mushy
about the slender moon tonight,
against the pastel winter sky,
cradling a disk of earthfire,
but all I could think
was chalice of light
chalice of light

Row,row,row your boat
gently down the stream
merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
life is but a dream -

flow forward into the icy night
tap tap tap this way that
leading and following
and up up down
up up up down
up up up up and out
flowing in the wake of the teachers

link to short video of starlings in flight