Buried Treasure

Buried Treasure

My little yellow plastic shovel

broke when I tried to dig deep

~ they told me it was only sand. I scraped away the sand

looking for dirt that would

let my big strong orange plastic shovel go deeper but it too broke when I tried to dig deep so I scraped away that layer to only find rock that made me cry ~ not the rock in the rocking chair where I felt held and warm but hard rock ~ not hard rock candy that tastes sweet and breaks your teeth but real hard earth rock that I had to break on my own 

to find the jewels that were my dreams ~

the jewels I pressed down and away

under the loose sand, soft dirt, and rocks

until they became diamonds, rubies and emeralds.

I cried my tears of frustration until a great *Gift of Desperation flooded my heart ~ desperation that stood me up and sent me to my dad’s tool kit for a hammer and chisel so that rock was rocked with the wisdom of my ancestors until bright edges of glitter and reds and greens glinted and grew bright before my eyes. My dreams may have been buried but they had been safely buried under life's sand and dirt and rock til I was strong enough to let them breathe the air of my spirit and my soul.

“Every adventure requires a compass, curiosity, a journey, 

a creative mind and someone willing to play.”

~ Shannon L. Alder

*Gift of Desperation - quotation from Anne Lamott, author

Growing Late

Harbouring few doubts

about the beauty of late summer

I turned my face to the sun.

“Ô, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth.”

~ Roman Payne

One Summer Afternoon

Treading the boards

of a summer stage in the park

musicians played to the birds in the trees

“Parks and playgrounds are the soul of a city.”

~ Marty Rubin

Storm Warnings

Weathering the storm might be easy when distant early warning signals and reporters tell us a storm is imminent. A storm 

that will take down power lines and phone lines and any lines of communication frightening us in an attempt to warn us. 

But if we listen and do what the birds do, we will hunker down and find safety before listening to weather reports

with their amazing virtual cloud maps of raindrops and wind sketches, snow flakes and jagged slashes of lightening. 

Whether we choose to pay attention and gather up protection in time can make weathering a storm difficult - or easy - well relatively easy. If the storm is only a big  - but short - blow hard 

with slashing rain or sleety icy snow we can curl up in a big - and dry - comfy chair with a good book or a warm blanket to crochet 

and just have a cup of tea while the angry storm rages 

outside. If the storm catches us on a highway, 

driving directly into it, we will just have to white knuckle the steering wheel that wants to spin out of control and keep our foot on the gas. 

Weathering a storm that sneaks up and smacks us down 

before we can cover our heads, get our gear for all weathering 

or dive into the house is survival at it’s most critical. 

We may not know what gear we need, where shelter is to protect us 

from weather that seems super human ~ ready to fight all comers.

With weather like that I become a tiny human being fighting 

a blown up Hulk all green and puffed up with muscles that frighten me! Can you imagine how small a child feels when the thunder rolls and the lightening splashes and slashes across the sky. I can - sort of - because my dad showed me thunder clouds, and lightning and told me how far away a storm was by the lightening strikes. He taught weather and storm so it wasn’t big and scary but amazing and beautiful. But weathering any storm is possible even in David and Goliath situations if we choose the right spot, roll out of the way like a ninja or just go to ground and pretend we are dead hoping to fool the monstrous storm so it rages off and picks on something it’s own size - like a mountain or the middle of an ocean. 

Weathering a storm does not depend on 

academic degrees or financial portfolios 

but depends on a degree of common sense and 

knowing the value of nickels and dimes to use 

when a storm shows up - announced or unannounced. 

Weathering a storm you may be by yourself but 

if in a community of any size at all then holding hands and sharing hope, shelter, water and food will show that together we can all survive unless of course in sadness because some will succumb - and then we share their grief. And if we pay attention we will learn that weathering any storm has planted many seeds - watered them ferociously while stirring the earth and our hearts and when the storm passes we have already grown new spaces in our hearts.

“A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.”

~ Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way

Space Dreams

Orbiting the earth in the Starship Enterprise, I imagine I’m sitting proudly in Captain Jean Luc’s captain’s chair seeing on the screen stars shooting and flying past.

The brightest star on my screen is my home planet of earth that glows with fire and water.

My earthly orbit has been within health care systems that welcome people in, with bandaids and phone numbers and send them out to the street 

or to their homes with their families

and in this orbit I find health care has become ‘hurry up and get better’ care ~ “Leave your bed quickly so it is still warm for the next person” care. A system with sliding glass doors that only open on the command of the system, not as easy swinging doors but guarded by sentries of coordinators, clerical workers, nurses and doctors who must take time away from the sick to enter data, handwrite progress notes ~ highly paid secretaries all but enough about the system. 

What about the nurses? 

The people holding on to the front-line

called  angels of mercy 

when the mercy we can dole out

is only by an eye dropper or one tick of the clock 

when we don’t have time provided

to complete our earthly orbits

from sickbed to sickbed 

assessing temperatures and skin conditions,

changing dressings and fluffing pillows

gone flat with the heavy head of sickness. 

In our earthly orbits our feet must keep moving, 

our minds registering the now and the next 

until we push the now into the past and the next becomes now. 

It feels so much better to be orbiting the earth alone

in my captain’s chair ~ the quiet bridge I am sitting on is the stage 

from which I can set a new play on a new day 

outside of the circuitous and busy orbits 

that health care systems have dictated 

to grow into my own health care

with eager wellness in the orbit of community life 

to measure the pace with my pace 

and stay focused on the passions I will still carry 

to bring that orbit into slow while I write them all down

in story or poem or just musing along about my beliefs.

“I will forever be colliding with a billion unnamed

 undiscovered stars, each of us on our own orbital paths.”

~ Sanober Khan, Turquoise Silence

From the Beginning

Rhythm and dance evolves slowly when a sapling breaks the earth ~ sprouting and growing, leafing out and fruiting until the fall when gilded leaves fall from trees dancing a last tango to the earth, trees large and small ready to rest only disturbed by winds, rains and snows that desperately try to awaken them from their frozen sleep.

Rhythm and dance begins in the plant world ~

without brass instruments or black notes on a page 

but stately or gnarled trees ~ instruments that stand quietly 

while the wind fingers whistling notes through awkward branches

no lyrics but the haunting and haunted whistles

that sound intense or forlorn and always the lovely soft brushing sounds of spring and summer trees that like brushes caressing a snare drum ~  are the rhythms and dance of our world.

“I enjoy many types of music, but to my ears, 

there’s none more soothing or calming than the music 

a tree makes as wind passes through its leaves.”

~ Laurie Buchanan, PhD

Vision

    Gearing up for

direction change uses

experience and dreams.

“Study the past if you would define the future.”

~ Confucius