And so I go on

I didn't know what to journal about today. I'm in a place of vibrating stasis. Like a bee hive early in the spring when the sun warms it to life and then the moon cools it to sleep. Simultaneously coming and going.

Listened to an interesting podcast about fear by Gil Fronsdal, a Zen priest in California. What an amazingly timely gift of teaching! He asks this question: instead of looking at what you are afraid of, perhaps it's wiser to ask what it is about you that is being threatened. What are you afraid of losing? In the Buddhist practice, he says that when we experience fear there is something either in the world or inside ourselves that needs looking at. Is there a bus screeching towards you as you cross the street? Get out of the way. Survive. Is there a concept about yourself, a belief about who you are, that is being threatened? Maybe that needs to be looked at. For example, do you see yourself as easy-going and calm, but cramp up in bowel-wrenching agony when you have to step on a stage and give a speech? Maybe that concept of always being calm and collected needs to be looked at more closely?

So, I'm looking, but it isn't easy. It's kind of like I've been flown blind-folded to the other side of the world and left there to find my way home. On the surface nothing is recognizable.

What follows are some interior photos of last week's house. I've never been there before, yet it feels like home. And when I was there, I was afraid.


Kitchen and cellar door, May 2009


Old couch, stairs, closet, May 2009


Room with a box, May 2009


The box, mysterious contents released, May 2009

Significantly (I just had a shiver down my spine), Waltham was a maker of watches from 1850 to 1957. Perhaps this empty box is a message about the passage of time?

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Had a visit with Inez this week. Her husband, Gunnar passed away recently after a short battle with ALS. We were chatting in her kitchen. I asked her about the giant, flowering tree that I could see through the window over her empty sink. I think it's an ornamental apple. Delicate pink blossoms, too numerous to even estimate a number. Food for a million bees. She told me about the time many years ago Gunnar brought it home; not much more than a stick with a few leaves on it. He used to travel with his job and to keep busy at night, he would ride his bicycle around whatever town he was in. One night he stopped to admire a tree, just like the one that would grow in his back yard. The owner was in her garden and told him to take a branch home and plant it. It would grow, she said. So he did and it did.

Just now, as I was writing this post, I was interrupted by a neighbor from up the street. She had a pot full of iris bulbs that she just split from a massive iris in her yard. She asked me if I could use them.

I accepted the gift of those irises with gratitude and I bow deeply in thanks for all the gifts that the universe throws in my path on a daily basis.

Below is another gift from Jill Bolte Taylor via TED talks via Rev. Mugo at Jade Mountains. She is a neuro-scientist who had the gift of having (and surviving) a stroke. Her message is uplifting and left me feeling joy. All of this, the timing, the message, is significant.