Gratitude

Out of the blue came the hoot of an owl.

Sometimes this happens in my back yard. Sometimes in my neighborhood. Sometimes I think it follows me.

It was a very pleasant surprise - three long, slow, low hoots. A pause, then it repeated. A pause again, then it repeated again.

It calls up in me the feeling of the deep woods. Where there are wise animals, knowing old, huge oaks, and the feel of soft, moist dirt underfoot.

The woods are alive with mystery and quiet surprise. At any moment there could appear a deer, a chipmunk, or a giant, black crow.

You’re staying home.
You’re washing hands.
You’re drinking water.

Now what?
Are you still anxious?

Do you realize the entire world is now focusing single-pointedly on well-being?
Everyone in their own way.
Vast numbers, hidden, like stars in the sky in the daylight.

The doctors and nurses and researchers in their way.
The caregivers in their way.
The people of all religions in their way.
The light-workers in their way.

Listening to my Higher Self, El, I finally heard perhaps the most important truth of all.

I pushed on in my conversation with my Higher Self, who I’m calling El, and asked, What is the gift of my aloneness?

And this time my answer came as a stream of questions.

Did the loss of your intimate relationship not force you to reclaim your projections and encounter many hidden aspects of yourself, in the process healing, by loving, all of your Being, and teaching you how to give unconditional love to others?

And did this not make you a better healer as well as a more peaceful human being?

Handicaps or disabilities can be things like poverty, a less than pleasing appearance, or a lack of freedom, support or community.

In my case, My Higher Self, El, revealed, my handicap, or disability, is the lack of several types of partnership that I have always fervently desired and am not currently enjoying in my life – the intimate kind; the sustained, soulful work/business variety; and the type that comes from a group of people working together, up close and persistently, on a cause that is dear to their hearts.

The other day (actually several years ago when I wrote the story I’m now telling you) a good friend sent me a video about an autistic boy. You know the plot: A person overcomes a handicap to accomplish something amazing, their achievement is celebrated and emotionally shared by lots of people, and the viewer sheds a lot of happy tears.

One day I went outside and saw mushrooms everywhere. Not only was the yard absolutely full of mushrooms, but they were all so different from each other. It’s like elves and fairies were celebrating there in the night before.

Some were large and off-white. Some were small and orange. Some were dark, dark brown, thin and tall. Some were white with an orange ring at their edge. Some were tiny and delicate, the size of a dime. Colony upon colony of each kind.

There was a huge 8 inch mushroom. There were colonies of bright yellow sprouts, just stems forming, of young mushrooms.

What’s that sound
The sound of my dog
Missy as she is howling and growling away
playing with her toy
Having such joy with this stuffed animal
Is the sound ferocious?
is the sound she is making an expressing
Delight
Frustration
fun
there are so many sounds we hear in life
And the meaning we put behind the sound
And the expression of the sound
I can tell she is having a lot of fun
Running around
Enjoying this toy of hers
Just having a really good time
Getting up in the day

I really enjoy looking at tree bark - the whorls and swirls of bark as it moves up the trunk of the tree. It overlaps like house shingles. And it eddies around limbs and around the stumps of fallen limbs. You see the tree holes, and the flow of the bark around them.

The patterns are mesmerizing, like watching water that is stopped.

It really seems like something is written on the tree, by the tree, over and over again.

And when a vine climbs the tree, it is even more beautiful, especially in the autumn when the vine turns red.

I love working with beets – whole, leafy, bushy beets.

Everything about them leaves this deep, ruby tint. As you rinse the giant green leaves, the red stalks look like rhubarb and tint the water red. As they drip on the steel sink, the droplets look luminescent over the cool, silver blue.

If you hold a leaf up to the light, so the sun shines thru, the leaf is a gorgeous, vibrant yellow green, contrasted with the crimson stem system running thru the leaf.

The leaves taste great raw.