Resiliance

This tulip, the one and only that bloomed, has been out for a couple of weeks! It has weathered five inches of snow and turned herself, battered and a little torn, toward the sun. She is still so beautiful! I wish I had her strength. She has been beaten down, literally to the ground, and manages to turn her "face" from south/east to the west to get the sun. Amazing little thing. This little flower has been a great gift. I will treasure her memory long after she is finally gone. I will also look for her next year!

The Gift of a Day!

It is a sunny Sunday and I have the entire day to myself. The week was very busy and flew by! This day is the best gift I could have. I know I will never get "the list" completed, but I plan on doing some things and savoring each moment. I realize how much I am craving time alone here at home to just putter, clean the yard up after a severe winter; clean the sheep pen; clean the house! Then there are the projects; the painting started but not worked on in ages; dolls; music - I keep telling myself I will practice the harp and piano but haven't even tuned the harp in months. Then there is the writing! Retirement is really quite an insidious myth. Not that I would "retire" but I would so love to have days in a row where I could feel complete and creative here, at home. Do the straightening, the playing, the writing... Instead (while I am deeply grateful for the job) I run and rush...my attempts to simplify have paid off yet there are "miles to go before I sleep."
Despite my time "warp" I woke counting my blessings and the list was long. Grateful for so much this morning and savoring each movement in this beautiful day.

Gratitude

I have been working in the course "Awakening Joy" on a regular basis. Really loving it. Finding more and more in my life to be deeply grateful for. Something those old fears enter in...I acknowledge them and move them on. I am truly blessed and focus on that fact. As I prepare to go out to my "Buddah" garden and meditate I feel peace. The morning is warm, high fifties and the birds are singing. It is peaceful...no wonder I can feel it.

The first, and in truth only, tulp has bloomed. It is quite lovely. Caught Max, rather like Ferdinand, planting her nose right in the center of it and smelling yesterday. Missed the photo op but is was adorable!

The critters fed and happy...I still think I should place them in good homes, or freezers, and move on. I really want goats...yet I am attached. This little barnyard brings me such pleasure. It is truly one of the places I feel centered. Time and spirit will tell I am sure.

Heading out to meditation. A thought from morning reading (Simple Abundance) before I go:

Let your mind be quiet, realizing the beauty of the world, and
the immense, the boundless treasures that it holds in store.

All that you have within you, all that your heart desires, all that
your nature so specially fits you for - that or the counterpart of
it waits embedded in the great Whole, for you. It will surely come
to you.

Yet equally surely not one moment before its appointed time will
it come. All your crying and fever and reaching out of hands will make no difference.

Therefore do not begin that game at all.
by Edward Carpenter

So, this fits totally where I am. Believe and Trust...and find neutral.

Time for home and hearth...and yard!

I have been feeling a real need to be home...to settle in and enjoy home...to finish projects, start new ones, meditate, work in the yard, just BE. A part of yesterday, a part of today and the entire tomorrow will be for that!
I have been deeply pondering the Fifth Agreement by Ruiz. He speaks a lot about symbols and truth...about how language forms symbols and most everything outside of ourselves form our truths. Very relavent just now for me. "Once you have the awareness that almost everything you learned through symbols is not the truth, the only thing left is just to enjoy life..."

The first tulip of the year is blooming in my yard...actually, it is the only tulip but quite lovely. The little crab apple tree, the one I rescued, is also beginning to blossom. She is in her fifth season now!

Feeling very calm, introspective and grateful. Life is so good. These are weeks around a rock under the shade shelter I built last year. I remember Jay O'Callahan talking about weeds and how subjective it all is. They blossom, they are beautiful and we call them weeds? I love my little, tiny pink flowers.

Sun, wind and time to myself

The wind has been really strong at 50 to 60 mph of late. Lots of roof rattling and pieces of the pro pannel from the sheep shed have flown off. This morning, while pleasantly in the sixties, the wind picked up again. I went up on the roof with planks, rocks and trepidation. While I have retrieved the missing "pieces" more are threatening to fly away! It is way to windy to fix the roof...but temporary measures are called for! Thankfully, all went well.

I read meditations frequently from Carrie Hart...they are truly wonderful. Today's was expecially poignent for me.

She talks about making our choices from the center of our truth...cutting through emotions (anxiety, fear, joy, excitement, anticipation, etc.) and being in touch with our center of truth and integrity; making our choices from a place of deep knowingness and a connection to all that is.

Thank you Carrie for all of your insights and sharing with us. Today, the meditation truly connected (as it does so often) and I am using it as I go gently through the day.

Could that be more snow?

Again, snow. I was rather shocked at 5am when I looked out and saw a white blanket, once again, in the yard. Oh yeah, more snow. The herb garden that was beginning to green up is white again.

Will spring ever arrive this year?

"Green slipped in from under the white -

Splashed in early other colors,

and gave up lambs, who

Bleated tirelessly on the subject..."

Mark R. Slaughter

I read those words this morning and while I have no lambs this year, it brought back sweet memories!

Sunny Sunday...

I had to go to Durango today, but what a lovely, truly spring day. I was quite amazed however at the amount of snow remaining as I got up by Montoya Hill and all the way into Dgo.

Quiet day...some grocery shopping, dog food, cat food, mummy food...good to get chores done and have a day to myself. Just sat in the yard for a while with Max and Roo...Max stood still, almost for a picture. This little Tree has been trying to grow for several years now. It is hanging in there. Heading out to move some hay before dark.

Buddah is going to watch, he is finally out of the snow bank.

Beautiful day!

The birds woke me this morning; they were riotous! Gertrude the goose squaking and all the wild ones joining in. There was a huge Raven sitting on the fence post. I am sure I am feeding not only my chickens and goose but the entire population of Ravens and Magpies.

The ducks on the pond were also quacking this morning. Such sweet sounds...music to my ears. Vivaldi plays in the background and they sing along.

Sunny at last!

This is one of my very favorite images. It is a notecard reprinted by ALA and the artist is David Small from a children's book by Sarah Stewart...

an affectionate portrait of a woman, Elizabeth Brown, whose life centers on reading, an obsession beginning in childhood. "She didn't like to play with dolls, / She didn't like to skate./ She learned to read quite early,/ and at an incredible rate."

This book always makes me smile. Sometimes I feel like Elizabeth!

Today begins a sunny and beautiful one, but still cold. The sheep are luxuriating in the sun. They seem glad that it has finally come out.

I am in the third mothn of a ten month course, Awakening Joy. It has been very interesting so far. The focus this month is gratitude. I realize as I write this how very much I have to be grateful for. Sometimes it is just important to have a reminder!

Reading Don Miguel Ruiz book The Fifth Agreement. He talks about story...and the idea that our mind is always dreaming, awake or asleep. "Who is dreaming the story of your life? You are. If you do't like your life, if you don't like what you believe about yourself, you are the only one who can change it. It's your world; it's your dream. If you're enjoying your dream, that's wonderful; then continue to enjoy each and every moment. If your dream is a nightmare, if there's drama and suffering and you're not enjoying your creating, then you can change it."

Food for thought. Basically it boils down to what you believe you are. Not matter how you look at it, no matter who I may be reading, that is the message. Why is it so difficult for humans (me!) to get that sometimes!

Could that be more snow?

Here we are on the morning of April 6th, after about twenty eight hours of gale winds, and there is snow on the ground...again! What a strange place these Rocky Mountains are. Spring teases and then runs away or is carried away, like gossamer, on the wind! Still, it is a beautiful place. Whether the mountains are dressed in green or white...beautiful, and I love it so.

Last night I thought I was living in a page from The Worst of Times...in a dust storm. The world was colored sepia and the mountains had disappeared.

A time of Renewal

Easter Sunday, I have always thought it a time of renewal, new beginnings and joy. The long hard winter is nearly over and we are watching buds, sprouts and thinking of planting. My gardens still need much work to clean them up after a long winter. Today women friends and I spoke of seeds; heritage seeds that we will plant; some harvested from last year and some new this year. As we lunched over home made, home baked and home grown food we talked of newness. It was a feast fit for queens, and we were for a few hours. It felt like a day of complete renewal for me. It was rich. I am deeply grateful for my life, health, family, critters, friends and many blessings.

Simple pleasures

Last evening I sat by the fire with Max reading and savoring the moment. It was pure bliss; fire crackling and throwing warmth, Max and Roo nearby. Delight. I was accutely aware at just how delightful simple pleasures are and how many I have in my life to be thankful for.

April 2, 2010

Still need a winter coat! The morning is crisp, cold and frosted. The sun looked like it might pop out, but not yet. Peaceful and not quite spring. Reminds me of Emily Dickinson's poem:

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune - without the words,

And never stops at all.

And sweetest in the gentle gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm

I've hear it in the chillist land,

And on the Strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb from me.

Emily Dickinson

Mother Nature's April Fool

It did indeed snow today, about two inches this morning...all melted. About two inches tonight, still here. Max, the Wonder Dog, was disappointed that the ground was covered again, she couldn't eat as many rocks.

The Facts

Women produce one half the world's food but own just one percent of it's farmland. Of the 867 million illiterate adults in the world two thirds are women. On average women represent only ten percent of all elected legislators worldwide. Eighty percent of the world's refugees and displaced people are women and girls. An increase in one year in the average education of a nation's women corresponds with a five to ten percent decrease in that country's child mortality rate. World, wide at least one in three women have been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in some way, most often by someone she knows. Between 100 and 140 MILLION girls and women have been subject to female genital mutilation. Yes, they still do that! About one in seven girls in the developing world are married before their fifteenth birthday.

Many of these facts come from Phil Borges book, Women Empowered...It is a most inspiring work.

Interesting Facts About Women

From a previous post in November, 2007

April Fool's Day 2010

First Day of April and we have snow!