Why Autumn?

Why mist upon my upturned daybreak face?

Why endless rainy afternoons or bright forever skies?

Why bashful sun?

Why fearless wind

Knocking down fences and moaning through the rafters?

Why frosty walks and wood smoke wafting by?

Why chilly nights huddled beside you?

Why Autumn?

Why…yes!

Around the middle of June, I decided to try doing sit-ups. My daughter (and yoga partner) was already gone for the summer, and I new I needed to do something, something physical, to keep from losing everything she had taught me over the previous nine months.I hadn’t done sit-ups in years, didn’t especially like them, and frankly thought I would fail. But I couldn’t think of what else to do.

I asked my husband if he would partner with me in this new endeavor, and he agreed. I’m sure he was thinking, "Anything to get you moving…", but he simply said, "Sure."

We started with 20 sit-ups each, alternating turns of 10 sit-up sets. To my amazement, I was able to do them with little trouble.

"It must be the yoga," I declared afterward. "I never could do these before my yoga sessions."

I felt so good afterward, not just physically good, but like I was really doing something to take charge of myself. We kept going. Most important for me, we made exercise part of our morning routine. Every morning, after feeding Ari and spending a little time as a trio–even before we eat breakfast–we stretch out on the livingroomm carpet and get busy. Every morning, day after day after day.

And, what do you know, the number of sit-ups has gone up and up–30, 50, 90, and today I reached 100.

i’m not sure where I’ll go from here. Frankly, I never expected to get this far. My weekly yoga sessions have resumed, and combined with my morning exercise I am feeling better than ever.

And I must let you know what Ari thinks of all this.

While he tried his best to get in the very middle of things when we started–taking his position right where he could block our movements–he has resigned himself to our routine. Once we take our places, Ari now settles down on his doggie lounge, and simply waits.

The moral of the story is that you can indeed teach a dog new tricks. I’m proof of that!

*smiling face*
.

Words flutter between us

Friendly and fanciful

Frolic in the moment

Frisky and free

Only to fall

Feet fumble and hands hover

Moving is all they know

The heart stands at the threshold

Bows when silence returns

Gets down on all fours

Searching for every last feather

Every lost letter of meaning

a telephone is not an eara camera is not understanding

feet walking in the forest
seek a straight path

the heart meanders

the heart listens and hears
the heart looks inward

and waits for understanding

On one foot

…brief updates about me and those I care about

*Autumn is moving into my neighborhood. Our 12-foot sunflower has succumbed to the rains and we will be trying to harvest this giant’s sunflower seeds along with those of its smaller brothers.

*I just finished reading a fascinating book about American literary giants in 19th century Concord Massachusetts: America Blooming. So now I will need to read more about Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and Louisa May alcott.

*And to keep the giant theme going, I am less of one thanks to my continued yoga practice and the addition of morning sit-ups. I’m up to 90 a day, hoping to make it to 100 by the end of the year.

**What’s new with you, my darling readers?

How sweet

To see a thing plainly

To glimpse its nature

And its possibilities

You say

There’s something white on the lawn

Some tiny scrap of paper

And bending to pick it up

You see

Wings open to the air

The white creature flutters near

Then away to the garden

Two days later

Clothed in white

From kippah and prayer shawl

Down to my shoeless feet

I stand in the sanctuaryI

Bend the knee and bow

Lower my body and my being

Before the One

All the way down

Touch my heart to the floor

Feel the earth

its rhythm

Press my thoughts and forehead into timelessness

And rising

Feel my wings opening

To the light

To the sweetness of seeing myself

Plainly

To the possibility

Of drawing near

I remember July mornings

Stepping among pools of shade

And leafy bird song

To find your purple door

A portal

Your kitchen garden

A haven to deer

And other shades of beauty

My words can’t express.

Night is waiting

Unknowing is openness

Potential undiscovered

Masked goodness

Still I tremble

Strain to see

What remains hidden in shadow

Strain to touch

What is beyond grasping

The sun is my playmate

Bids me to explore the world

The moon is a mirror

Beckoning me inward

To explore unmapped worlds

To claim the light of my soul

The sea moving between shores makes sense.

The sea , which transforms itself from a quiet glass of rippling reflections

into a rocketing mountain of foam

And fury, wild with watering eyes.

And I have been taught from every side

Life is a sea carrying me between two shores.

(Humans seem to like parentheses)

Beginnings and endings are tidy,

Tell us Where we have been and where we’re headed.

But just maybe, life has no parentheses.

Maybe Life is one infinite line with a few points that leap and dance.

Maybe an infinite circle, a place of silent

Knowing and bliss and love.

And we all–squid and algae, salmon, starfish and rubber boots–

Flail about frantically, suspended in darkness.

As we frolic and fight and spawn

like fish in the sea,

The sea of silent knowing, bliss and love.

Because we are the ever-shifting sea foam

Floating in the vast blue eternity of God.

Everything has a voice

Even little things

A drop of rain has stories to tell

Its travels to distant places

The people it has kissed and soothed

And the fields it has nourished

We are too busy to hear

And its language is beyond our knowing

Everything has a voice

Even destructive things

An earthquake has tales to tell

Its dance gone wild with longing

Its arrogant surge upward into the spotlight

For all to measure and marvel

We are too busy to hear

And its stories are to familiar