Gotta have Rain for Rainbows~

Artist Unknown

Yesterday, was one of those difficult days. The kind of day, in which one can easily forget how very beautiful this world is. Or at least that's how I was feeling, coming home on a dark and rainy afternoon, standing on a wet sidewalk, waiting to cross a slippery street.

My eyes were welling up with unstoppable tears. In that poetic moment of sadness I convinced myself that the whole world was feeling my pain and even the sky was crying. As for the cause of my tears, well, I cannot say that there was some rational cause for such an intense welling up of emotion, a good reason to suffer so to speak. All I know, is that there was a deep sadness inside me, wanting to be known, and sometimes this is reason enough.  A little self indulgence from time to time is par for the course, I think.

It was in this very moment, that I said to myself, "oh come now Nao, it's not so bad, think of one good thing about this day, just one." And, despite the fact that I knew there was something, that indeed there were lots of good and wonderful things, I couldn't actually find one to sooth the ache in my heart. That's when a man on a bicycle said to me (and a small group of others also waiting to cross the street) he said, look behind you, look at that rainbow.

And just then the street light changed, and everybody rushed off. No one turned around to look at the rainbow, except me. I turned, and I looked, and I saw two beautiful rainbows stretching across the sky, wrapped in golden light.  

I just stood there for a long time looking and looking. The more I looked, the more I remembered all the beautiful things about this world. The more I remembered, the more I laughed.  Soon I was standing all alone looking crazy as a loon, laughing and crying at the same time, the poetry of the moment getting better by the second.  For there I was, doing what the sky was doing. For that brief moment my tears and my joy were mixing like the sun and the rain. 

It has been said that alchemy happens when opposites mix.  That there is a kind of ultimate union, a wholeness of the most holy kind when fire and water can meet and transform.

And that's when it occurred to me to look all around, before I decide that there is nothing good about any of it. Sometimes there are rainbows behind us and we don't even know it.

Just then, in the middle of my poem, a man in his 60's walked by smiling in a long raincoat, and he said to me, "isn't it one of the best ones you've ever seen."

And I looked at him with a face streaming with tears and a smile as stretchy as the rainbow in the sky, and I said, "Yes, yes, it is."

Mornings Light~

There is something about the way the morning comes in through the window that I have always loved.  Something soothing and inviting about warm, honey colored light, pouring into a house after hours of darkness. Something I think cats understand.  There are so many beautiful things about waking up to a new day.

  

Look Down~

This morning, the sun came out.  I was outside, below the cherry tree, having a word with the tiny shoots of green dotting the earth. When I noticed these two beauties, giving themselves to the morning light.  Don't they just make everything okay?

Gus, was there too, quietly watching me bend down to welcome our first petaled friends into the world.  It was a good morning.

Blue Bells and Buddha's

Two days ago, Mark came home and said, "did you notice that your Buddha head in the garden has been knocked over?"   

"No, I said, how could that be? Do you think it was Gus, knocking things about with his enthusiasm for the new day?"

"No he said, it's too heavy for Gus to have knocked over. It is solid rock, it must weigh 25 pounds. It's far too sturdy an object to be affected by a dog's wild tail wagging."

And the conversation ended there, and we moved on to discuss other things, and a whole day went by before we thought about our Buddha again.  It was not until we were fertilizing the veg plot this past weekend that we decided to have a closer inspection of our lovely garden Buddha.  What we discovered  was fascinating.

Have you guessed it yet, what pushed the 25 pound stone Buddha head over?

I don't think I would have guessed in a 100 years.  So I'll show you a picture.

Yep, that's right,  the bulbs did it! Little green blue bell shoots moved the Buddha head out of their way. The spot below the plum tree had been theirs for many years, and I am sure that there was no doubt some confusion as to why the sun was not reaching them.  

And so, they simply did what any wild and instinctive being does. They did what they had to do to stay alive, to keep moving toward the light, and they did this, without any hesitation.  I am a firm believer that plants are not effected by self doubt, or hopelessness.   For these little ones it was just a matter of  moving the thing, that was blocking their growth, out of their way so they could keep growing. 

I am sure you can understand why I was so very impressed with their style. I got down on my hands and knees and had a loving chat with them in that fresh spring soil.  I congratulated them on their courage and thanked them for the fine example.  

I then turned to my man and asked if he thought they were going to be okay?  To which he replied, "Of course they are going to be okay, they just pushed a 25 pound stone out of their way to find the sun."  

"Oh yeah, I said, good point."

As for me, well I moved the Buddha head to a better location.  Then I stood in the morning sun and marvelled at the wisdom of this good earth.

Mary Oliver in the Morning~

 Claude Monet

The Ponds

~By Mary Oliver

Every year

the lilies

are so perfect

I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding

the black,

mid summer ponds.

Nobody could count all of them-

the muskrats swimming

among the pads  and the grasses

can reach out

their muscular arms and touch

only so  many, they are that 

rife and wild.

But what in this world

is perfect?

I bend closer and see

how this one is clearly lopsided-

and that one wears an orange blight-

and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away-

and that one is a slumped purse

full of its own

unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life

is to be willing

to be dazzled-

to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even 

to float a little 

above this difficult world.

I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.

I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing-

that the light is everything- that it is more than the sum

of each flawed blossom rising and fading.  And I do.

I read this one, this morning, when nothing in this world seemed right, and when I got to the last stanza of this poem, every thing was beautiful.  Mary Oliver, she reaches into my heart over and over again.  Now there is only gratitude and light.