Tag Archives: joy

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outdoors

For mindlovesmisery’s Sunday writing prompt: gift.

My sister and I were blessed by the gift of connection to outdoors. To forest, lake, field, desert, prairie. I sleep better in a tent on the warm earth than any house, ever. When the world is too much with me, or the news is too awful, or a patient dies of ovarian cancer and is younger than me….

…..I walk on the beach, in the forest, in my neighborhood. I sing back to the birds. I speak chickadee well enough that they perch on a branch close by and sing back. Or argue, perhaps. Swinging on a branch.

Outdoors is my church, my solace, my love, my connection with the earth, with nature, with the Beloved. Air, water, fire, earth, wood…. home is outdoors.

 

 

 

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Chime in!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: chime!

Chime in! Raise your voice! Vote! If you are not a US citizen, ask a friend who is a US citizen: have you voted? Do you need a ride? Do you need encouragement? Please chime in! Vote!

Raise your voice!

One person, one vote.

Let there be peace.

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sing

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: dead.

I took this in church two weeks ago. What does this have to do with death? I am thinking of one of the rounds we learned to sing when I was small:

all things shall perish from under the sky
music alone shall live
music alone shall live
music alone shall live
never to die

We sing for birth and death and loss and joy and work and to comfort each other and for harmony. May all the world dissolve in music.

 

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all sounds become music

I am in RainShadow Chorale. My father was one of the people who started it in 1997.ย  I moved to Port Townsend in 2000, because my mother had cancer. She died in May of 2000. My father died in 2013. I had the joy of singing with him in this group for 13 years.

Our concert is weekend after next and I really love this one. We are doing a wild mix of pieces and moods with the theme from a Walt Whitman poem. In this time of so many people being afraid and angry and stirred up, going to chorus is healing. All of these people, unpaid, coming together to create these two concerts of beauty and unity and joy. A gift to each other and a gift to the community.

Ticket information on the website.

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flag

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: flag.

I am flagging today. I had just a touch of cold symptoms Sunday and then got worse and worse in clinic yesterday. I wore a mask to try to keep from giving my cold to my patients. Home to bed as soon as I finished the last one, but today I am up early, in spite of ten hours sleep , and worse. I have learned the hard way that if I try to “work through it” I will cough for weeks or get pneumonia, so I will cancel clinic today.

I like the elements in this photograph, the triangle of the adult, the kayak and the gull. I also like the child “perched” on the gull’s back. It reminds me of an old children’s book: At the Back of the North Wind, by George McDonald, first published as a serial in 1868. It’s an odd and magical story.ย  The whole text is available on project Gutenberg here. I like to read children’s books when I have a cold and am trying to rest. They are very comforting.

And here is an illustration on line as well.

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deep

today goes deep

I let it

when someone says “You are too emotional.”

it means “I am not comfortable with your emotions.”

it is them not me
I could care less
what they think
what they feel
whether they are comfortable with my emotions
they will be on my shit list
until they learn

I am comfortable with my emotions

today goes deep

I let all the darkness rise
grief
anger
disillusionment
humiliation

and my small child

is wild
with joy

this day is yours
small child

I am with you today
all day
you I the Beloved

no shoulds today
no list
nothing that you do not want to do

food
music
warmth
church
beach walk

I will not clean
I will not pay bills
I will not sit with fools
who say I am too emotional

we can laugh
or cry
or rage

would you like to smash a plate?

no
says small child

food
warmth
outdoors
birds
deer
music of the spheres

here
dear one

we go deep