"NEW EYES"

Landscape on a distant planet?

 Marcel Proust said it well: "The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

I was drawn to the drops of morning dew on the aloe leaf, but on closer inspection realized how much it looked like some interplanetary landscape. This got me thinking about seeing...how we see, what we see, how we interpret what we see, etc.

I love the mysterious and the small things that can be re-seen in other ways. Friends like Suzette and Nadine are of the same ilk I believe and I love the photos that they take as they travel around towns. 

New eyes can marvel at the simplest of things and see the magic in them.

NOW POINTS

Cleaning find

As we enter what is for many the busiest, most hectic time of year, I find myself pondering this old art piece found while cleaning.

Time is not a line, but a series of now points.__Taimen Deshimaru

"Now points" brings me into the moment more with clarity. Can we try for this, rather than stringing ourselves out ahead with all there might be to do? Can we just be?

Now points...the warm sunrise in cool morning air on my face.

Now points...the lap of the sea on the shore--gentle, steady, calm.

Now points...two ducks scouting on the low water as they drift along near shore in clam beds.

Now points...focused watching as a blue booby goes through his grooming ritual

Now points...the cracked caw of a crow sounding nearby.

Now points...shadows and diamonds that glisten on a wave, shaped by the slant of the sun.

Now points...the rising sun chases the waning moon across the morning sky.

Now points...what are some of yours?

GATHERING...

High mountain wilderness

Like nature herself, creativity is something continually reborn. In nature it seems there is much gathering of precious moments to cherish. Often, creativity is the same.

I'd like to share a time when, high in the mountains, I went a-gathering.

The lavish onslaught begins in the early dawn inside a sleeping bag covered with icy rime.A chorus of unfamiliar birdsong echoes around to waken me in the chill morning air. I want to remember the sounds. I listen hard, gathering.

On through the day I am the willing receptacle of sight and sound, taste, texture, and smell: hot coffee as I bring it to my lips fills my nostrils with familiar aroma; the crunch of pumpkin seeds and tart dried cranberries in  my mouth on the trail; the rhythm of footsteps marches along to the clang of metal on my pack; the distinctive sweet, pungent smell of sage...These and so many more sense-filling moments are gathered here in the heights.

At the end of the day, with the the dwindling fire's smoke in my hair, I am again tucked into the same sleeping bag for the night. The wind plays a song through the trees, a bat swoops, the final call of a raven is accompanied by the rush and shore lap of the nearby river. I look one last time up at the night sky where myriad stars cast their light on the darkness. I close my eyes, then pop them open one last time to record all this magnificence. Gathering, even as I drift off.

Months, even these years later, I can still pull up these glorious mountain memories. They remind me again and again of the value of simply being--of listening and seeing and hearing and tasting and touching without doing another thing. The gathering nourishes long after the moments themselves.