I am so grateful for spring!
This past winter I have been working hard, and getting more things handled than I ever thought possible.
My breaks in between clients, etc, was to walk at the bay in Pinole, and pick up any garbage that I see.
Anywhere from one to 2 bags of old cans, bottles, various plastic items, big and small wash up with the tides. It has been a winter of intense storms, and more rain and wind than I have ever witnessed before in 13 years of living in Pinole. It’s usually pretty clean, but not this winter.
It’s quiet there, basically empty, and the glassy waters and beautiful stretch of vista is a welcome break from the work I do. It’s a disengaging, a place to either sing loudly, or cry, or allow my thoughts to play and create, or just be empty.
I usually ride my bike here, and bring home about a gallon container of small pebbles and sand and carry its back to my home, and down to the creek in my yard where there is a tiny “beach” in the middle of two streams that I make sure are clean and beautiful.
It makes it a sweet little beach to sit on and be in heaven!
And, every year, in the winter it will rain a lot, and the creek will be one big, loud moving brown river serpent, and wash it all away, including some of the stones that were there before!
What is funny is, that it doesn’t matter. It’s great exercise, the couple of miles each way to the bayfront park beach, that’s where my creek ends and pours into. I love gathering small stones and rocks, I love my little creek, and I am aware of the impermanence of everything, including me.
For those of you who know me, within less than a year, I have lost my mom, my sense of “home and family”, my partner of 20 years, even my beloved cat.
I have stayed in grief and let it alter me, anneal me, and made it a point to stay soft, stay loving, cry and sing through it all.
After almost 3 years, grief has grown in and through me. It never really leaves, we just grow to accommodate it. And that’s ok, it’s part of being human.
We get to experience the exquisiteness of love, loss, death, and of life, newness, and the cycle, with compassion, and, if we are lucky,
support, and a little humor thrown in. I think sometimes of the trees that have grown through fences, or into rocks, how the will to thrive can always find a way. It incorporates.
But back to the beach of the bay, and the little creek oasis. it has been raining still on this first day of spring, and is has since January. It will rain again tomorrow, I am told.
The creek is again a fast moving brown serpent who has taken all the pebbles and shells back to the source, the 2 miles to the bay, where I take my walks and clean up the beach.
It is such a sweet imitation of the cycles of life!
I don’t know how my cleaning up of 2 bags of other peoples washed up garbage will affect the earth in a big way, but I do it anyway, as a service to water, to my community.
I have done it 3 times a week for about 10 years or more.
that’s a lot of junk!
I used that time to heal myself on some level or another, even if it was some simple exercise, getting to sing or cry my heart open, cleaning up trash and seeing a clean beach, or a hello to a man fishing, or a woman walking her dogs. It's nice to see my community.
Spring has come today and will bring with it the life, beauty (and work) of the garden, and the joy that new life brings.
I think I have done my homework, and my growth, in these cold and wet winter months.
I’m sure that you have too.
Let this Equinox be a still place for you, a quiet place, where you can breathe, and notice all the small acts of kindness or of simple acts of senseless beauty that make up your world.
We already know all the hard work and the stress you have put into it, (your life, your career, your relationships, your personal growth), and it will pay off believe me.
I spent this winter studying trauma, doing shadow work, and just being with things, and my life, and my work got richer because of it.
Please think of these small things that you do everyday, just for beauty in your life, in the lives of others. Those small kindnesses, those everyday tasks of showing up for another, and for yourself.
I have been asking myself everyday, and my students and clients as well,
How are you showing up for the world?
How are you showing up for yourself?
And also,
How do you want to show up
for yourself?
for the world?
Happy Spring Equinox, in the northern hemisphere, that place of equal light and dark, of reality, and hope.
It’s the little things, done with care, and grace, and a little spirit.
This past winter I have been working hard, and getting more things handled than I ever thought possible.
My breaks in between clients, etc, was to walk at the bay in Pinole, and pick up any garbage that I see.
Anywhere from one to 2 bags of old cans, bottles, various plastic items, big and small wash up with the tides. It has been a winter of intense storms, and more rain and wind than I have ever witnessed before in 13 years of living in Pinole. It’s usually pretty clean, but not this winter.
It’s quiet there, basically empty, and the glassy waters and beautiful stretch of vista is a welcome break from the work I do. It’s a disengaging, a place to either sing loudly, or cry, or allow my thoughts to play and create, or just be empty.
I usually ride my bike here, and bring home about a gallon container of small pebbles and sand and carry its back to my home, and down to the creek in my yard where there is a tiny “beach” in the middle of two streams that I make sure are clean and beautiful.
It makes it a sweet little beach to sit on and be in heaven!
And, every year, in the winter it will rain a lot, and the creek will be one big, loud moving brown river serpent, and wash it all away, including some of the stones that were there before!
What is funny is, that it doesn’t matter. It’s great exercise, the couple of miles each way to the bayfront park beach, that’s where my creek ends and pours into. I love gathering small stones and rocks, I love my little creek, and I am aware of the impermanence of everything, including me.
For those of you who know me, within less than a year, I have lost my mom, my sense of “home and family”, my partner of 20 years, even my beloved cat.
I have stayed in grief and let it alter me, anneal me, and made it a point to stay soft, stay loving, cry and sing through it all.
After almost 3 years, grief has grown in and through me. It never really leaves, we just grow to accommodate it. And that’s ok, it’s part of being human.
We get to experience the exquisiteness of love, loss, death, and of life, newness, and the cycle, with compassion, and, if we are lucky,
support, and a little humor thrown in. I think sometimes of the trees that have grown through fences, or into rocks, how the will to thrive can always find a way. It incorporates.
But back to the beach of the bay, and the little creek oasis. it has been raining still on this first day of spring, and is has since January. It will rain again tomorrow, I am told.
The creek is again a fast moving brown serpent who has taken all the pebbles and shells back to the source, the 2 miles to the bay, where I take my walks and clean up the beach.
It is such a sweet imitation of the cycles of life!
I don’t know how my cleaning up of 2 bags of other peoples washed up garbage will affect the earth in a big way, but I do it anyway, as a service to water, to my community.
I have done it 3 times a week for about 10 years or more.
that’s a lot of junk!
I used that time to heal myself on some level or another, even if it was some simple exercise, getting to sing or cry my heart open, cleaning up trash and seeing a clean beach, or a hello to a man fishing, or a woman walking her dogs. It's nice to see my community.
Spring has come today and will bring with it the life, beauty (and work) of the garden, and the joy that new life brings.
I think I have done my homework, and my growth, in these cold and wet winter months.
I’m sure that you have too.
Let this Equinox be a still place for you, a quiet place, where you can breathe, and notice all the small acts of kindness or of simple acts of senseless beauty that make up your world.
We already know all the hard work and the stress you have put into it, (your life, your career, your relationships, your personal growth), and it will pay off believe me.
I spent this winter studying trauma, doing shadow work, and just being with things, and my life, and my work got richer because of it.
Please think of these small things that you do everyday, just for beauty in your life, in the lives of others. Those small kindnesses, those everyday tasks of showing up for another, and for yourself.
I have been asking myself everyday, and my students and clients as well,
How are you showing up for the world?
How are you showing up for yourself?
And also,
How do you want to show up
for yourself?
for the world?
Happy Spring Equinox, in the northern hemisphere, that place of equal light and dark, of reality, and hope.
It’s the little things, done with care, and grace, and a little spirit.
Here's the Pinole creek in my yard, that I caretake, as I do the stretch of a little beach at the bay in my town.
I know the earth appreciates it, or the Fairies and elementals of the water. They leave me the sweetest gifts!
I know the earth appreciates it, or the Fairies and elementals of the water. They leave me the sweetest gifts!
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