Friends and Blooms

Yesterday, I talked with a friend I haven't seen for a while.  She told me that she loves my blog entries.  She says she looks forward to them, musing to herself, "Gosh, I wonder if there's a new one today."

I felt humbled and delighted that something I write makes another person happy at the start of her day.

Yesterday, the crab apple tree in our yard finally burst open its buds and flowered fully.  A dramatic splash of delicate dark rose against the backdrop of green; fragrant visual delight.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to sit on the porch and have easy conversation and a glass of wine with someone I dearly love.

For friends and flowers and love, I feel thankful!

It was a good day!

Wisdom

Wisdom comes from what

we learn from others and from

experience, [growing] to a point where it can be shared.

~Mary Catherine Bateson

Spoken at the Legacy of Wisdom Conference, April 17, 2011

Most often I find my wisdom in hindsight.  I am seldom “wise” instantly; it is only in reflection that I learn and see my lessons.

What have I learned lately from others?

Make changes with optimism; what I expect is what I’ll get.

Listen before I give an opinion.

When I feel ready to give an opinion, don’t!  Listen again.

Everyone has the right to make his or her own decisions.

Do what I say I will do.

Help willingly without expectation of appreciation.

What have I learned lately from experience?

If I don’t care for my own needs, I soon become grumpy about looking after the needs of others.

There is nothing in life that is in my control, except my own self.

There is happiness to be found in sharing the joy of others.

I must seek to understand my self; cease expecting understanding from others, for they are on their own journeys.

All will be well in the end.

Gaining wisdom is often a hard slog for me.  I over-analyze ceaselessly often missing the clear and simple lessons in front of me, forgetting that some stuff “just is” and that there is no “why” for some situations.

It seems to be my path to worry and puzzle, then to rest and realize that wisdom is sitting right beside me, reading the paper, waiting for me to notice!

Apple Blossoms

This week has been extra busy with little time to write.  Today we took a car drive along back-country roads to clear our heads and refresh our hearts.

I am fascinated by the beauty of the tree lined roads.  Thanks to sparse human population, the deciduous trees hug the shoulders, in all shades and sizes of green, leaves and blooms waving in the strong breezes, as we pass.  There is play in the patterns of shadow and sunlight.

Ferns dance in the ditches and at the edges of fields, tall, willowy, extravagant green touched with brown.  Long slender grasses undulate, quivering with new life.

The tamaracks are filling out again with supple green needles, looking healthier than their prickly winter selves.  Evergreens stand proud and dark in the deep woods.

The highlights of the drive are the overgrown and abandoned orchards.  The apple blossoms are out.  Loveliness!  Pale pinks and papery whites are sprinkled with delicate gold-dotted centres.   Rosy ripe buds unfurl on gnarled grey branches and grizzled trunks.  

I see the abandoned houses and tumbling barns of former homesteads, each reclaimed by nature; overgrown with creeping mosses and clutching vines, wind tossed weeds and small shrubs.  Human signs disappear, the natural world triumphs again.  And everywhere the apple orchards follow their own will and natural way, luxuriant flower heads nodding pink, rose, white.

We stop the car and open the windows.  The breeze gifts us with the blessed full fragrance of apple blossoms.  Delicate petals float and twirl in the air around us. 

Apple blossom magic!

Be Contented With What You Possess

Be Contented With What You Possess

Be contented with what you possess in

life: be thankful for what does not

belong to you, for it is so much care the

less; but try to obtain what you need in

life, and make the best of

every moment of your life.

~Hazrat Inayat Khan

Gayan

This quote seems apt as I reflect upon my mother’s move to her new apartment, in a few days.  She has always been able to shed what she doesn’t need to carry with her, is extremely optimistic about the future and able to enjoy what is happening right now, in the present moment.

Today as I was packing her kitchen into cartons, I heard her talking to neighbours outside.  She had taken a break from packing and was sitting on her deck, feet up with a glass of wine.  A neighbour had come by to hug her and to say his “Good-bye.”  I heard her laughing, happily telling him about her move.

I thought to myself, “Now she’s a good sport, focusing on the positive…when inside her place, there lurks a huge mess of boxes and a huge mess more to pack.”

I heard her giggling and telling her neighbours about what she was doing to move; more folks had come by to wish her well.  Her great-granddaughter was also there, blowing bubbles, with a wand (small circle on a stick) and soapy liquid from a little bottle.  The conversations circled like the bubbles, iridescent round and free-floating, silvered with laughter.

Mum has been shedding belongings for weeks in preparation for her move to a smaller home.  She knows it is very freeing to take only what she needs on any journey; the less, the better.

She has always been wise enough to know how to be thankful “for what does not belong to you, for it is so much care the less.”

For information on Hazrat Inayat Khan, click on this link.

The Healing Time

The Healing Time
                                                Finally on my way to yes
                                                I bump into
                                                all the places
                                                where I said no
                                                to my life
                                                all the untended wounds
                                                the red and purple scars
                                                those hieroglyphs of pain
                                                carved into my skin, my bones,
                                                those coded messages
                                                that send me down
                                                the wrong street
                                                again and again
                                                where I find them
                                                the old wounds
                                                the old misdirections
                                                and I lift them
                                                one by one
                                                close to my heart
                                                and I say    holy
                                                          holy.
                                                               © Pesha Joyce Gertler

Placed first in a national contest in New York Schools, 2001; set to music by composer, Elizabeth Alexander in Ithaca, and performed by numerous choral groups in New York, New England states and Oregon; published in Cross Currents; "Claiming the Spirit Within,:" (Beacon Press Anthology); Pontoon Anthology; appears in "Healing and Empowering the Feminine," by Sylvia Senensky, Jungian analyst, Canada; included in many healing and grieving groups.

To learn more about Pesha Joyce Gertler, click on this link.

Surprises in Bloom

            Today, our yard is full of surprises.  Almost unnoticed under a spreading maple tree, a wild purple violet peeks.

At the base of a mock orange shrub, a swath of white and blue forget-me-nots sways in the breeze.

At the edge of an unweeded front pathway, slender stalks of white violets grow in random patches.

Hanging onto grout that needs repair, half-way up the chimney, a tenacious dandelion blooms.  I wonder what colourful extravagance will appear in our yard tomorrow.

These four photos are mine.

Ruby Throated Hummingbird

Bang!  A loud thud at the window, then a blur…

We looked and saw lying, unmoving on the deck outside, a ruby throated hummingbird. He had smacked hard into the window pane, bounced back and landed on the deck.  He lay on his back, cradled in one of the spaces between grey deck boards, feet in the air, unmoving.  Was he dead?

He was so frail and lovely.  His bib was iridescent red feather petals, overlaid like scales, sides were dark brown and iridescent green, still, still, shimmering in the light.

We fussed about what to do.  Gradually, his dark wings quivered and fanned out slowly to each side, then folded back in, fanned out slowly and folded in…

His chest began to move, tiny heart beats throbbing and quick breathes.  What could we do?  What should we do?  The wind was picking up again, rocking him as he lay in the crack.  Would he blow off the deck in his fragile state?

Little by little, he started to move his head, his thin black bill weaving, like a downed wrestler, gingerly shaking his head trying to regain consciousness.

K walked out on the deck, thinking he would sit beside the hummingbird and shelter the poor shaking body from the gusts of wind.  The injured bird could feel the vibrations in the deck boards as K walked.  With great effort, the hummingbird lurched out of the crack and rolled, ending up…beak and chest down in another crack between boards.  Now, he seemed truly stuck and even more vulnerable.

K gently grasped the tiny bird with his thumb and forefinger, carefully placing him on a solid board and sheltering him from the wind, with his hand.  The little hummingbird was no larger than K’s thumb and not as thick.

The shimmering, shivering bird turned and looked at K with deep dark eyes.  Sensing K meant no harm, the hummingbird rested on the deck, allowing himself time to recover.

Surprising us, the tiny bird rose with helicopter wings in slow motion, flew to the nearest evergreen and landed unsteadily on the lowest branch.

His tiny feet clutched the swaying branch; he flipped 360 degrees before he righted himself, his brown and green blending into the brown and green of the tree.

We watched this small round shape sitting, still, compact, hanging tight to the wind buffeted branch.  We watched.  The wind blew.  We sat and he sat, nearly 30 minutes.

Abruptly, he flew off the branch, up and over the porch, darting, wings a blur, an iridescent streak over our heads.  Relief!

Just as quickly, he was back, hovering in front of the window, red and green feathers flashing, drawing close and pulling away, over and over and over.

What was he doing?  Trying to figure out what had just happened to him?

In the end, he simply flew away, and we returned to watching the wind-tossed waves on the river’s dark surface, pleased that the ruby throated hummingbird had survived.