Phoenix Rising

Easter

Community and family gatherings 

at this time of celebration.

Celebrating rebirth of spirit and life.

Sharing the meaning of rebirth ~
always greater than religious dogma

“The phoenix must burn to emerge.”

~ Janet Fitch,  White Oleander

Backyard Birds

Backyard Birds

A store clerk, Daphne Brown filled shelves each day. One day blended into the next with customers coming and going through the store. There were customers who walked up and down the aisles rather aimlessly, pausing every now and then to pick up an item, put it back, pick it up again, put it back and finally walk away.  There were moms, with kids in tow, who just wanted to get what was on their list and get home. Some kids were so ready to be done with mom’s shopping and there were others sound asleep in mom’s tired arms. Then there was the old fellow who knew all about the store’s products and spun tales of his years gardening and how this store was the only one where he would spend his money.

At the end of her busy days, Daphne would return to her lovely home shared with her husband, Jim. She loved to sit out on the patio in the sun and read, her eyes shaded by a big floppy hat and sunglasses. She would check the bird feeders hung throughout the yard before settling with her glass of tea. In the winter time, bird feeders, for the hardy winter birds, were checked and filled even before she went into the house. On those cold snowy days, she sat in her glassed in porch, warmed by the western sun.

Gathering her ‘reading material’, her book with it’s lovely bookmark and her fresh coffee, she sat  down to read for a bit before Jim got home. Supper was out tonight, so there were no worries about any preparations. The book mark, a gift from a friend in New Zealand, made her stop and think about all the beautiful and different birds in the world. The two featured on the book mark were a Tui and a Fantail, both very interesting looking birds with fascinating names. Their stories would be interesting, and their charming names could be suited to a children’s story.  Sharing their whistles, cheets and chirps throughout New Zealand forests, gardens and parks, Tui and Fantail were both songbirds. Songbirds, species vulnerable to humankind's need to ‘fix’ the environment. Silent Spring, the book Daphne was reading, was written in 1962 and had become much more intriguing. Daphne had a renewed focus for the birds in her own back yard and, of course, the Tui birds and Fantail birds.

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities

 of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”

~ Rachel Carson

Cloudy Concepts

Missing prairie’s expansive sky ~ horizons stretching far and wide

At water’s edge mountains wear caps of snowy white
then solid granite vanished magically from sight!!

Broad horizon hints of mountains replaced ~
craggy grandeur by billowed clouds erased

Longing prairie eyes deceived by cloud!
My grateful head to misty grey is bowed.

“Clouds suit my mood just fine.”

~ Marie Lu, Champion

Hurry Up and Wait

Hurry Up and Wait

Satisfied, Cora put down her pen. There was nothing left to do but wait. Waiting was really all she had ever done. Waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for the next person in the grocery line to be checked through, waiting for the cake to bake…..Waiting! Is that all there is to life? Even as a child, all she remembered was ~ wait.  Her mom saying ‘wait a minute while I finish washing the supper dishes.’ or 'Hurry out to the bus stop and wait for the bus.’

She had written a letter to the editor about the dreadful lack of attention that was being paid to the wait lists at hospitals for surgeries and for tests. And now, Cora was in line on her own wait list - for the mail to go through, the editor to read and decide whether her letter was worthy of publishing and then whether it made any difference at all. It had made a difference to how she felt - she had at least voiced her concerns from her viewpoint. She had been, for over fifteen years, the receptionist monitoring the wait lists, cancellations, and re-bookings not to mention the just plain frustrated and often angry people wanting and deserving needed health services. When she spoke with her superiors, most of whom were younger then her, she heard the recycled line - “Help is on the way”.

Cora had learned to fill her time with gardening, reading and handcrafts. The relationships she built in her neighbourhood were fun and satisfying. She decided that waiting wasn’t always such a bad thing. Waiting was really open to opportunities that her work place couldn’t satisfy. Putting pen and paper away, Cora picked up the latest novel that she was reading. It was a mystery full of dark alleys and grisly murders, detectives and criminals that crossed too many lines. Her hot cup of tea and easy chair awaited her company.

“To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides 

of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.”

~ Robert M. Pirsig

Expect the Unexpected!

A cold does not send out invitations
Only red flags 
A sneeze here
A sneeze there - gathering in intensity

Spring time ~ no time for an unexpected cold ~
sends out all kinds of invitations,
each flagged with flowers and green leaf.

Leave winter-time and spring colds behind.
Come sit outside on a fresh spring day
with sun to shine warm on your face - and tissues at your side.

“Spring, when the earth tilts closer to the sun, 

runs a strict timetable of flowers.”

 ~ Alice Oswald

'Normal' Expectations

‘I just want to be normal ~ whatever normal is.’

A statement of fact I hear each day
Normal? ~ awake, alert and living life as it comes ~ learned only in bits and pieces.

Nothing earth shattering - unless it is awe inspiring
Nothing exciting - unless it is full of silliness and fun

Normal?
When life has been blur filled and messy.
Normal could be clear and tidied up just one day at a time.

“The rabbits thought and thought. “If we’re normal and 

Leo is normal, then normal is whatever you are!”

~ Stephen Cosgrove, Leo the Lop

Imagination's Expanse

The silence of the night sky and the stars ~

louder than any silence here on earth.

Inky blackness grants permission to a million pinpoints of light ~

pinpoints that, up close, are greater than imagination can hold.

Belief that life on this earth is the only life in this universe, that our small planet holds the only life form, may keep us safe but reality may not fit our expectations.

Our knowledge of the universe can only shine if man explores

into space, into our imaginations and into our hearts.

“Though we might like to think so, humankind is not at any special, 

unique or privileged location in the gargantuan, perhaps infinite, Universe.”

~ Eric Chaisson, Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos