Road Block

Road Block

A young peasant woman set out gaily on a journey. Some in her family had told her to watch for a large boulder on the path she would travel. When she saw it, from a distance, the boulder did look large but certainly not unmanageable. Curiously, it also did not look that close to the road. However, continuing her upward and rocky journey the middle-aged peasant woman found that the boulder was indeed very large, and had completely blocked the road.  

Obviously, many had tried to move it off of the road. Old, rusty tools damaged by time, weather and animals, were strewn around it. Dents, cracks, and holes in the rock showed numerous attempts to make smaller this huge boulder barring the roadway wending it’s way through hills, valleys, forests and plains. Chunks and pieces of rock piled here and there were a testament to those that had taken up the task of moving an immovable object. Grass and vines grew all around and through it.

Sadly, the skeleton of the last man to try moving the chiseled and hammered rock lay against the smooth trunk of a willow tree. The willow tree, once young and slender was now old and wise and clothed in beautiful lacy branches, slender leaves draping to the ground. The unfortunate gentleman beneath its arched branches now wore only thread bare rags, grayed and dusty from age and weather. A worn, faded basket and a long empty wine bottle lay by his side, one boney hand draped over them.

The peasant woman looked with sadness upon the entire scene. The woman, once young and fair, had traveled far to be stopped so suddenly. Her journey had made her old, but she was still vigorous and strong. Shrugging her shoulders she walked slowly around the rock to see if her journey had come to it's end. Where the rock had once blocked this well traveled road, many traveler’s had gone ‘round the left and some ‘round the right, making two roads to follow.

Seeing new roads to travel around the boulder, she smiled and said "I do think it's time for lunch."

After a lunch of bread and cheese, cold water from a babbling brook, she took a short rest, her head against the boulder, the sun on her face. Then shouldering her pack and taking the left fork in the road, she continued her journey.  

"Determination gives you the resolve to keep going

in spite of the roadblocks that lay before you."

~ Denis Waitley

Wind and Waves ~1

Rain 

nourishes and replenishes dry, not quite parched earth

rides red-gold leaves  through eaves into gutters

drips from leaves

trails down darkened tree trunks

washes away dusty dryness.

But today......

Joy springs from the open sky.

Fliers are out in huge numbers ~

Gulls hover in currents at the Point where the wind is the highest.

Parasailor’s fly wind currents in the curve of the shore and bank

bravely miming the grace and strength of the sea birds.

Golden sun glistens, cutting through the wind.

bouncing off curling frothy waves while

flags of thin cloud stream across the broad sky over the channel.

“The winds and the waves are always

on the side of the ablest navigators.”

~ Edward Gibbon

Small Circles

Any day adrift needs to be lived in small circles.

My fingertips and toes trace the circles that are safe,

small steps in direction merely

forward and back ~

laundry, tidying,

meals that comfort, 

errands doable with little energy,

At days end,

despite such a valley day,

accomplishments and errands ticked off my list ~ 

previously lain fallow for many a day.

The ‘why’ of a low energy day?

A single cause would be lovely, but

life is full of variables throughout a day.

And so I return,

to small circles of time and space.

What can I see, touch and feel?

How do I want my life in this moment to be experienced?

What can be part of today’s small circle of self care?

Soft fluffy towels that dry my face,

cotton slippers warm from the dryer on cold feet,

crisp warmth of fresh ironed clothes.

Outside in the rain for an errand or two

my car and umbrella keeps me dry

until coffee and bagels at a coffee shop......

Seeking comfort in small circles of self care.

“Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it.”

~ Seneca

Numbers and Time

Numbers and time ~

Constructs of modernity and urbanity with

amounts, weights, sizes;

time lines, timeliness;

not enough time, too much time on our hands

shaping and informing tasks of

home

community

career 

When did their importance imprint on our psyches?

grade school,

high school

any formal school 

where time and numbers invade each

classroom

semester

exam or quiz outcome

total grade school year’s end ~

informing and shaping interaction with life outside of self.

Numbers and time live together on

clock face - old-fashioned ticking and tocking or digital LED lights

or in squares on a calendar that

define walls, floors, ceilings of each day

marked with numbers and names.

Numbers and time

meld together wrapping themselves 

in and around our lives to form and shape

how quickly or slowly we move

whether through need or want.

So numbers and time on our earthly clocks and calendars

remain limited fixed visual cues,

so humanity can measure it’s progress against history

and project timeliness for the future.

From dawning to setting sun

moon rise to moon set with

their unchanging phases and

innumerable planets and stars in the sky,

there is a universal guide for all that we

see and do

sense and feel.

The emotion of our hearts and

intuition of our souls can

ignore calendars and clocks to

match the steady turn

of the sun, moon and stars.

“Time is.. Too slow for those who Wait

Too Swift for those who Fear

Too Long for those who Grieve

Too Short for those who Rejoice

But for those who Love Time is not.”

~  Henry Van Dyke

Reposted from October 16, 2012: Debating over Territory

Territorial Debate 

(new name for this post!)

Ideas and ideals

bantering back and forth

orchestrated discussion

over territory and who is right.

Leaders of free world parties

reduced and elevated to singularities

speaking for personal, party and national beliefs

Men who aspire to

lead a nation with as many 

rules and laws,

guidelines and regulations,

statutes and mission statements as there are 

personalities

families

races

religions

cultures 

that make up the nation.

Who or what wins?

Dollars and cents or

Values and sense?

Or are they all intertwined?

“In all debates, let truth be thy aim,

not victory, or an unjust interest.”

~ William Penn

It's only a Teacup

A tiny porcelain teacup

lay buried in the yard,

lost from a lovely tea set.

This lovely yard had seen

tiny cars, a fire engine

action figures and marbles,

all unearthed from beneath weeds

around the old tree trunks, and

under hedge and bushes.

One pink high heeled slipper

probably belonging to a Barbie doll,

was found once,

but that was two years ago 

between front fence and sidewalk.

Now this little porcelain teacup,

banded in mauve, emerged

as if by magic, from loosened soil 

in an old bed of daffodil bulbs

inside the fence.

There are stories inside this little teacup ~ 

of fine ladies picnicking on the grass and 

calling to the boys playing across the lawn

while the breeze blows from the west.

“Play gives children a chance to 

practice what they are learning.”

~ Fred Rogers

Landing

I am a great white owl,

new resident of a different home 

than the home of my birth.

My birth, a labour of love and creativity, divined by a gentle human hand brought me to life from strange concoctions spread with brushes and washed in running water.

With paint and colour, 
softly feathered wings spread wide, 

curved talons, gloved in feather white, stretched for the forest floor.

Then, winging silently from a dark forest,

I was carried to this new land by a sisterly soul.

Where was I to land?

Offerings of several pleasing perches 

acceptable but never comfortable, 

these brief landings merely moved,
and then moved again,

to help me find my place.

I have finally landed, 

resting in a window bright corner 

surrounded by deep cranberry colour.

Landing ~ where I watch life

outside and in with 

clear yellow eyes.

Sheltered and free, I have found my place. 

“One’s destination is never a place but

 rather a new way of looking at things.”

~ Henry Miller