Spring finally arrived and it has been so dang frenetic and my still winter-paced body has been in overwhelm. The season was a good three weeks later than last year, as evidenced by my camera roll, with cool mornings and cold rains and lots of mud lingering well past the “April Showers” phase. The greens, as if suddenly alert to the change, are verdant, vivacious, vivid, and a full thesaurus of vibrant adjectives. Then there are the blossoms, the birds and all the wildness of this burgeoning season in full glory. It is so alive. And it isn’t that I don’t appreciate walking in the sunrise light and not having headlight-glare driving in the early evening hours. But, as I noted recently to a friend, as this season of flowing is upon us, I have felt more like ebbing. Finding stillness in the eruption of Spring energy can be challenging. Perhaps I should contact my Aussie friends and go to the Southern Hemisphere for a few months. A recent unseasonable heatwave has compounded the urgency in the air as if proclaiming “Summer is already here!” I haven’t even come on board with Spring. Sigh.
Lessons From My Mentor, Grief: Crossing Thresholds, Honoring the Pause
I rise these days with the sun. The alarm has been set aside. I walk instead of swim. I’ve become reacquainted with my neighborhood. The pulse of spring rife with birdsong flows around me like the water of the pool used to. Daffodils are leaving the main stage and tulips have made their entrance. Two weeks ago, an apple tree with furled cocoon-like leaves and tight, cream colored buds is now a riotous white and green harbinger of late summer delight. Last week I walked to the highest point in our neighborhood to see the pink moon grazing tree tops. No sense of hurry—the moon or I.
Grief: On Keening, Honesty, Healing, and even a bit of Whimsy
The rain has settled in for the day as I settle into the beige velvet chair of my hotel room—laptop open, journals in piles, scattered papers, and iPhone camera roll close at hand. I have returned to my favorite retreat during the winter months—the Oregon Coast. Cannon Beach. I have come to write. Take time to focus on what is becoming a persistent poke at my heart. Actually, it is more akin to having several toddlers gathered around my ankles all vying for my attention. “Write me!” “No, work on me!” Poems. Non-fiction prose. Blog posts. That book about my spiritual sojourn and weaving it into the journey through my mother’s Alzheimer’s. How grief became my mentor through that journey. That area where from my training and experience I am an expert, so I have something to offer, right? They are all clamoring for my attention.
Winter's Lessons on Grief, Expansiveness, and Transformation
The wind has dropped a limb outside my apartment building, blocking a path. Steady rain has floated decaying leaves downstream, clogging drains and creating mini-ponds in parking lots and along roadsides. I have cloistered myself inside most of the day watching the sky move from chalky gray to a black that bounces the remaining ambient lights of Christmas back down on the neighborhood. We are in deep winter in the Pacific Northwest where a week of water-laden clouds may greet us each morning and stay well into the night. For some, it becomes wearisome. Though I tire of the chill in my bones, I welcome the dampening like a trumpeter that mutes the music to soften crisp tones. It is easier to be still this time of year.
Gestation, Grief, and Gratitude
The air has been crisp as a tree-fresh apple this week. My cheeks slipping into redness as my hands dive into my pockets and the morning moon lingers high in the west. The waning moon holding onto night even as the sun rises low in the late autumn sky. I want to hold onto night, too. Want to snuggle under covers and discard the list of “shoulds” that I composed. Want to wane into the new moon of me and hide in the shadow of winter dark. To take a small candle and explore my interior landscape one, small step at a time. Take midday naps. Engage with my dreams. Listen deep for what is next. Hit pause on my commitments. Does this resonate with you? This desire to go inward as days shorten.
