A few weeks ago, in my muggle world job, someone mentioned seeing my book, Cosmic Whales: Mystical Stories from the Sea, in a local bookstore. She said she had no idea I was a writer and photographer. Sometimes I forget, too.
When I got home I picked up a copy of the book and began to read it. I remember being in Mexico cave diving when I was doing the final edits to it. I would return from being in the magical realm of the highly decorated underwater caves and would start work on reading the copy again. I read it outside, on the beach, where hundreds of tiny sea turtle tracks criss-crossed the beach from their hatch the night before. It was the perfect place to put the finishing touches on this book….one of my favorite creative journeys.
As I read through the book, I could scarcely believe I wrote the poetic prose that goes so deep into the beauty of the sea and whales, dolphins, manatee, sea lions, sea turtles…all birthed from personal experience with these amazing creatures. This book is a glimpse into the heart of the sea, into my heart.
I’m reminded of the creative mystic that resides within my soul that needs to stir the cauldron and pull out inspiration. My task then is to create space for her to dance words and sentences into being, to journey with her into the forests of these ancient mountains with my photography gear and let images come to life.
In the pale light of dawn, I slipped on my pack and stepped into darkness of the forest. The creek sang sweetly with enhanced volume from recent rain. Little juncos fluttered to life from the grayscale hues of the rocky trail. Sorry to disturb you, I whispered, as I walked past.
Elemental forces seemed to hang in the humid air, awaiting acknowledgement. Water seeped and trickled from crevices and spongy, moss-covered ground. Air was enriched with sweet, forest fragrances. Fire of my muscles ignited my body as I began to climb. Earth anchored me to Her with gravitational hugs. Oneness…everything interwoven. In the dim light, I sang and chanted to pay respect…and let bears know I was passing through their home.
In that gloomy light, the log bridge–spanning the creek and leading to the dark passage underground–reminded me of crossing the River Styx to enter the Underworld where, in Greek mythology, Charon leads souls of the dead. The hike up Mt. Le Conte can certainly feel like a death. Or a series of little deaths as it presents its many challenges to ascending.
Being present with the physical challenges led me to listen to my body on a deep level. My awareness moved back and forth from the beauty all around me to the depths of my body… heart, lungs, muscles, knees, feet…and how to coordinate the physical self as it works to ascend.
Before long, I was under the Alum Cave overhang. Drops of water showered me as they fell from the cliff face. After nearly two miles of uphill hiking, it felt wonderfully refreshing. Only one other person was there in the dust of the ‘cave,’ so the solitude and quiet of this special place was absolute. The magnitude of power held within the formation was easily felt as I sat on a rock and ate a snack. It’s good to feel small sometimes.
After my brief repast, I felt ready to begin the truly challenging part of the ascent. Refueled to replace calories and hydrated to replace the sweat rolling down my body, I begin the hard part of the climb.
With sheer cliff faces, ledges, roots…all slick with recent rain…the only focus was the moment. Not what was happening in the chaotic world or with anyone else, only what was happening in the small space around me as I hiked up…up…up. Perhaps that’s why I love hiking so much, especially challenging hikes—I must be present. Completely. Totally. And how wonderful it is to be so grounded in the Now.
Even though clouds threatened to hide the views, the Cliff Tops offered a gorgeous perspective for life. Clouds drifted by revealing distant views, closer ridges, and a sea of green. I stood on the rocky cliff, taking it all in, breathing with the clouds. Wanting to expand to take the splendor into every cell of my body.
This then is the way of ascension: go into the darkness, cross the void, climb harder than you’ve ever climbed, be open to receive. And…don’t be afraid to go alone. For truly, we are never alone.
In my muggle life, I coordinate a grant for 45 nursing homes. As part of the duties, I order ‘prizes’ for residents participating in the program. The number one requested item is some form of stuffed animals. Residents love to cuddle them, take care of them. It enriches their lives.
This kinda breaks my heart because I know how much dogs mean to me and millions of people. I know elders, in the care of nursing homes, miss their animal companions. A stuffed animal is a small comfort. But it is a comfort.
In an effort to enrich the monthly newsletter we send facility leaders, I was looking at August’s notable month markers: Honey Bee Awareness Day, World Photography Day, National Peace Month, National Dog Month. My supervisor started including fun month celebrations in the last newsletter to our facilities. When I looked and saw National Dog Month for August, I knew we could do something special.
On social media, I put out a request for photos of people’s dog’s faces we could include in a graphic that would go to nursing homes we work with as a way to bring joy and love and comfort to residents and staff. The response was overwhelming.
Photos started showing up in the comments, friends and family texted photos….Project Dog Love was launched for the elders of North Carolina.
At the end of a very busy day of grant work, I started my yoga practice and allowed the energy of asking, receiving, and creating this project to move through me and tears welled up. In a world so full of division and hate, somehow I found myself infused with love and care for animals and elders. I felt the love of every person that sent a photo of their beloved dog with the wish of joy and love for elders missing their companions and longing for connection. I felt the love of the dogs. It helped me see how easy it is to bring people together when the common goal is unconditional love–the essence of what dogs mean to us.
I’m grateful for a project director that allows me to be creative and who adds her creativity to our project. I’m grateful for the family of dog lovers who want to be a part of showing love and appreciation to our elders. And for my own canines who shower me with unconditional love and appreciation…deep gratitude.
I sent an email to all the facility leaders this morning sharing how this came to be and that people from California, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Colorado, Alabama…and many other states…wanted to send love to the residents by sharing their dog companions. I asked them to share the image and let their residents know that people all over are thinking of them and sharing dog love with them. Within minutes, I received this response: “What a great idea! The residents will love this. Thanks for sending.”
My wish is that we could have a poster printed and sent to each facility. Another wish is to print out a photo of each dog and let that dog be a guardian of love, a mascot, for each facility along with a story of who the dog is and how it came to their human companion. There are lots of rescue stories that are amazing…but the grant doesn’t cover those costs. Perhaps the momentum of this project will keep building and we can find a way to share more dog love.
Thank you dogs for reminding us of a common thread that weaves us together…LOVE.
My feet were wet with dew and covered in dirt. I got out early, before the heat, to pick blueberries. The tufted titmouse fussed at me, but I promised to leave plenty for her family.
As I contorted myself under the graceful, loaded branches, I whispered words of gratitude. Not just for the delicious berries, but for the hour spent among their branches, feet grounded, present with abundance and nutrition and beauty. I am in awe of how the bushes have ripened their berries in stages, providing non-stop giving for weeks now.
After picking berries, I went inside. The kitchen counter held my hands as tears rolled down my face. How can this be our country? How can we be at risk of losing our freedoms….to love who we love, to have public lands for all life to en-joy, to have clean water and air, to have true freedom of religion/spirituality, to receive the money we paid into our government retirement accounts all our lives when we come of age, to make decisions about our own lives and bodies. I felt the weight of all of this and much more and felt a moment of panic. I thought: What if we, as a country, go down the dark road that is being offered?
I pondered the turning point at which we find ourselves as tears flowed. There is nothing to be gained from arguing or standing off against our neighbors who think differently than us. That only strengthens those who wish to divide us, as a means to receive votes, to gain more power, more money. The only way through this insanity is to lay down our weapons of hate, aggression, judgment, and cultivate love in our own hearts. Not forcing anyone else to do so, but traveling so deeply into our own hearts that we root out the very things we see in others and are against yet reside buried within ourselves.
And, of course, vote and support those who align most with our values.
I want to explore my own heart and breathe into it to cleanse it, heal it of the negativity that I erect as a wall to protect against those that I think of as my enemy. It’s not easy when I feel threatened. When I feel fear. It’s what I can do in this moment, to support my personal journey through the collective experiences happening.
We have an opportunity for massive healing in our country by turning our attention to the wounds within that keep us stuck in fear: hate, anger, aggression, judgment. Not from pointing fingers at anyone who disagrees with us, but by journeying into our heart and cultivating love.
A flower growing amidst the blueberry bushes also brings such joy
My choice is to turn the light on my heart, to heal and support myself. It will keep me from staying in panic mode or endlessly spiraling from a feeling of powerlessness. I have the power to heal my heart, to love and work very hard to let nothing and nobody cause me to create or cultivate hate or violence–of words, thoughts, actions.
Nobody can take away my ability or capacity to love.
Amidst the insanity of fighting, finger-pointing, violence in our country, my time with the blueberry bushes continues to be a time of healing, of receiving. A time of cultivating love.
We just finished lunch in Silers Bald, a bald on the Appalachian Trail so small two of us couldn’t sit there as we rested from our 5 ½ mile hike from Clingmans Dome parking area. We were donning our packs to head back and heard thunder rumbling in the distance. As we got to an opening in the trees, we could see the storm in all of its purple-black cloud intensity. Nothing to do but keeping walking back toward Clingmans and the vehicle.
There is a backstory to my respect of lightning. As a kid, I had a phobia of it and remember freaking out as a three or four year old because it was lightning. My dad told me I was safe because we were inside, but I reasoned there was a metal zipper on my pants and that made me a target. I was no dummy. Hello! Metal-Lightning! He talked me through it and helped me calm down.
Later in life, I had several very unpleasant encounters with lightning. Once I ignored my grandfather’s advice to wait to launch the boat because of an approaching storm and got caught in a thunderstorm from hell with pink zig-zags popping everywhere and the shelter I had, when I pulled off the river and ran for shore, was as dangerous as the boat since the long leaf pine tree was towering high in the sky. I ended up running across a swampy area to a home under construction to shelter there. I tried to out-scream the storm. It didn’t work. My grandfather knew I’d stop at his sister’s locked-up cabin and came to rescue me.
I was driving to my grandparent’s home as a teenager and lightning hit a tree beside the road that exploded. I was angry that day, but cannot remember why. What teenager isn’t angry about something? That tree exploding helped calm my anger.
Once I was on a phone call (it was a land line) with a realtor at my grandparent’s home. I knew the home wasn’t for me but kept trying to push the deal through. Lightning hit and tingled my hand and knocked the receiver out of my hand. It melted my grandparent’s neighbor’s phone to her bedside table.
There was the time on a dive boat when the captain decided to head to the dive site through a storm. Another pink lighting experience in an open air, pontoon boat this time. My two dive students were terrified. I looked back and told them, “If it hits us, we’ll never even know it.” I was trying to be funny, to ease their tension. It didn’t comfort them. And it did clear up and we had an amazing dive.
So, lightning and I have a past.
Whenever I’m caught in a storm, I reflect on my intense yet close relationship with lightning. I’m not overly fond of calling lightning a close friend, but it seems to want to be an ally. I’m a little stand-offish though.
Yesterday, as we were hiking back up the trail, the storm grew closer. You cannot hurry up a trail like this with an elevation gain of over 2000 feet, most of it on the way out. We were hiking up the ridge. As the storm intensified and rain began pouring, we came to several open areas where the highest objects were turk’s cap lilies and briars….and then us. Not ideal.
We reviewed safety protocol: if we started to feel the static or electric tingle, throw our hiking poles away and crouch into a ball; we spaced ourselves out while crossing the open areas to create smaller objects; and yes, I admit I crouched down, lowering myself below the overgrowth on the trail. What else can you do?
Heavy rain made small rivers of the trail
There was thunder directly overhead. Thunder means lightning…I get that. All too well. We’d stop under cover of forest which we figured was a bit safer than the open areas. Before we put on the rain gear, we were completely soaked…which cooled us down and kept us from overheating, but we were soggy with water filling our boots as it cascaded down our legs.
At one point, we were catching our breath on a steep slope. I stopped and turned to my friend and said, “Let me tell you my story related to lightning.” I shared my phobia of lightning as a child and said I wanted to honor my inner child’s strength for over-coming her fear and healing from it. It was a powerful moment to share my truth and have a friend witness it. And hear me.
I was anxious hiking out in the storm, but I also felt a deep sense of calm. We had to work hard, slogging through rivers of water flowing down the trail. But both of us are deeply reverent of Nature and the power of it. We openly acknowledged our smallness as we hiked through the storm and the Oneness of all life.
By the time we reached the summit of Clingmans, the storm had passed and masses of people were walking up the paved trail to the starship dome. They were dry and looked fresh while we were completely soaked, perhaps reflecting a bit of the journey we experienced through the storm.
