Saturday, April 30, 2011

India Rubber Soles/Souls


Our family, like every family, has had its share of difficulty. The kids and I are very resilient as a result. So much so that I suspect we have india rubber soles, (souls?), so well do we bounce back. We've had lots of practice, on this old trampoline called life.

So Steph has accepted that little Bella is no longer suffering, and has shifted her attention to Bella's sister, little Chloe.


Chloe is a sturdy little girl.


She appears to be a hoot, as well, so she'll fit in well with our family, which is all about loud peals of laughter, at all times, especially when things get tough in the trenches.


Gord, surveying his new fur baby.


Got Milk?


Steph says she is in love again. And who could resist this little face?


Three survivors of the litter of five.


So adorable, both of them :)

Friday, April 29, 2011

Water From the Well



Kids, this has been the most amazing journey. I hopped on board Elizabeth Crawford"s Soul Card journey this month without thinking much about it. Little did I know, it was right on time. Each morning, I have awakened excited to see what card was posted for that day. Each morning, I took one look, began typing and the words came like I was taking dictation - they came from Somewhere Else. Also from deep within, where they have been lurking for a long, lonely time. Today has been a remarkable day, of signs and affirmations, and the importance of seemingly chance connections that are not chance at all, but meant. I am in awe, here, folks. And still traveling.


Not sure what mischief I'll get into in May. But April has been all about the magic!

Day 30 of the Soul Card journey
with Elizabeth Crawford of Soul's Music
Soul Cards by Deborah Koff-Chapin
of http://www.touchdrawing.com/


Traveler
walks through the woods
carrying water
from the well,
with which to
give drink and sustenance
to other wayfarers.

She has a kind smile.
She gathers everyone in.
She loves people.

Then she retreats
to her cave
for replenishment,
where solitude
and silence
are her best friends.

Traveler
needs trees and water,
in whatever
configurations,
in order to live.
She can crowd herself into
the tiniest treehouse,
the better to savor
the singing etudes
of the forest
and the larking, joyous
pernambulations
of the river's song.

Traveler
is now coming
to the end of
this journey.
Another pathway
beckons
as the morrow dawns.
She is
all filled with
wonder
at the passage
she has made.
She knows now
that she is not alone,
that Beings
are guiding
her every step
from the Great Beyond.




This image really speaks to me, kids. I have always been a Blue Sky Woman, and the white dove of peace has flown alongside me for many decades. I hope this comes through in my words, to add something positive to this old world that needs hope and peace so badly.

Back in the early seventies, I discovered I am an ocean person. I saw Jonathan Livingston Seagull and that started me on my journey of discovery, to personal freedom, and to striving towards a higher level of awareness. This image is perfect for the last one of the series, for it encompasses everything that identifies my personal journey.

Thank you to all of you who have accompanied me on this amazing Soul Card journey. I will have to think fast. May begins on Sunday!!!! 

Bella and Chloe


Well, kids, I have some sad news and some good news. Here is Steph with Baby Bella, who was the runt of the litter, and who was battling pneumonia the last week and a half. Steph had her back and forth to the vet's, and was hoping she would fight it off, but the other day, she was suffering so much, the vet said she wasn't strong enough to fight it, and they euthanized this poor little mite, to stop her suffering. She had stopped eating and was struggling for every breath. Just too little.


Already saying goodbye. Dear little face.


Wee Bella
Steph was devastated, of course and is still very sad as she loved the little pup so much.
But she also says Bella isnt suffering now, and she has accepted it.



Bella and Chloe, two sisters


Chloe and Bella
You can see the difference in size and strength.


Chloe and Bella


Chloe
So this is Bella's sister who fortunately had not yet been claimed.
Steph decided there was no way, after loving and losing her puppy so fast,
that she could go home with no puppy. And she said Chloe is the closest thing to Bella, and a part of her.
So in a couple of weeks, Chloe will go home with her to meet her big brothers, Chase and Sanchez.

I already loved little Bella, and am saddened by her loss. But we will love Chloe too,
and she is strong and full of beans. Puppies bring nothing but joy.

It's ALL Magic!!!!

[image from google: magicbob2000.com]

Well kids, I was smiling when I wrote the waiting for the magic to happen poem this morning. Because, as you know by now, I believe we are living in a miracle, and magic is everywhere, all around us, if we open our eyes to it.

But some days are more magical than others and this was one of them.

I went into town to do some errands, and picked up something for someone that is going to make him very very happy, a surprise. I so love giving gifts, it is just one of the very best feelings. On to the CPP office to determine that the move I am trying to make happen, into  more affordable accommodation,  is absolutely a necessity as of July when my income goes down.

Over to the video store to rent a couple of FANTASTIC looking movies. The proprietor there is a fellow humanitarian. Over the years we have come to recognize we share the same kind of hearts and worldviews, and we have the best, most meaningful conversations. We are totally on the same page when it comes to the world, peoples' hearts, helping kids, and so on.

This time, our conversation is going to change a child's life somewhere on the other side of the world. As I say, he is amazing. He so wants to help kids. I cant say more right now. Suffice it to say, there are no accidents, and the most random conversation can have ripple effects that are huge. Life-affirming and life-changing.

THEN I came home - in SUNSHINE!!!!!! - to a message on my machine from someone who is more extended family than anything, who wants to buy my trailer. I am happy. Everything dovetailing perfectly, and right on time, he wants to move in just when my income goes down and I need to be out of here. It will hurt a lot less to give it to him than some total stranger, and I can still come sit on the porch sometimes, so it wont be totally gone.

When I make a decision that is what I am meant to do, I can always tell it is the right one by how swiftly the universe rushes in to support it. Once again, I know I am doing the right thing, though there will be huge adjustments, of course. But life will ease, and that is what needs to happen.

Tonight there is live music and my sister and I are going..............a day cant get much more magical than this one did!

Waiting for the Magic

[image from google]

for the Real Toads prompt: All the World's a Stage

All the World's a Stage,
with me bumbling
about on it,
like Ms. Magoo,
tripping over my feet,
slapping myself
upside the head,
muttering to myself.

Curtains get stuck
on the draw-ropes,
opening and closing
at random moments,
dust thick
in the old theatre.

The audience
grows restless,
coughing,
shuffling their feet,
and rattling
their programs.

They are
waiting for
the magic
to begin.

Me, too!

Young Woodpecker Update

[image from google]


Young woodpecker,
you're still
bending your beak
against that
hard metal roof.
Are you going to
take as long as
I did
to stop
choosing struggle,
and find
an easier way?

You have wings.

Lift off.

Zoom over
five more feet
to that loose-barked
old cedar,
full of rich,
juicy,
succulent bugs.

Give your beak
a break.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Traveler Holds the Moon


Day 29 of the Soul Card Journey
with Elizabeth Crawford of Soul's Music
Soul Cards by Deborah Koff-Chapin
at http://www.touchdrawing.com/
 Traveler
wants to
hold life to her
like a huge
buttery yellow
moon.
She wants to
sip summer
out of a periwinkle blue cup
and listen to frogs
serenade
every evening
beside the pond
in a place
where winter
never comes.
Traveler wants
to roll downhill
with six tumbling
golden puppies,
to watch babies smile,
and old couples
hold hands.
She wants
to watch
the sun go down
beside the sea
for six thousand more
spectacular sunsets,
and wake to watch
the  sun peep
up over the hill
six thousand and one more
 hopeful mornings.

The older
she gets,
the farther she walks,
the more she wants
to hold close
all that is
swiftly
and silently
slipping and sliding
away.



The haunting voices
of the Old Ones
sometimes
call to her
from strange and
owl-filled
forests,
dripping branches
playing timpani
on the canopy,
the ancient trees
singing
to her
like a
last weary sigh.

Wild Woman Looks in the Mirror

[Maxine's creator is John Wagner
copyright Hallwark Licensing Corp.]


Wild Woman
seeks an image
to accompany
her Wild Woman
poems.

Needs something
frizzy-haired
and cartoonish,
sorta like
a dumpling
with matted yarn
for hair.

  Hmmmm........
she decides
all she really
needs to do
is point
the camera
in the mirror.

But last time
she did that
she scared herself
so badly,
she vowed
she'd never
do it
again.

Wild Woman
is so
freaking
vain.

Wild Woman Considers the Alternative



[Hallmark's Maxine creator is John Wagner.
Copyright Hallmark Licensing Corp.]

Wild Woman
wonders why
life doesn't get
easier
when one is
old and tired.

But she says,
"You gotta love it
anyway.
It sure beats
the alternative."

A Flowering of Hearts

[image from google]

Kids, between the devastating disaster in Japan, flooding through the prairies in Canada, and now the tornadoes in the southern States,  it seems like every week we are hearing about new natural disasters. Earth is trying to tell us something about global warming, while the Fat Cats try to deny it is even happening, in order to go on stuffing their pockets with the profits from our global devastation. It occurred to me to post this poem from the past, written in the time of El Nino. Same message, different day.


From El Nino to La Nina,
with floods, tornadoes,
wind and weirder weather,
Mother Earth has been
indicating to us
her grave displeasure.

Our hearts beat
in sympathy
with her,
share her dis-ease.

We seem to know that
we have lost our way,
but how do we
find the words to say,
the prayers to pray,
that will
unseat a dynasty
of such greed
and hungry power?

Shift
shift
the collective consciousness
to a more peaceful paradigm:
there is still time
to join together
all our human hearts
- the only place where
peace can truly flower.








Monsters

[image from google]

for Poets United's Thursday Think Tank prompt: Monsters

As a child,
my son dreamed
often
of monsters.
I'd hear him
calling out,
thrashing
in his bed,
terrified
of the ogres
that peopled
his dreams.

What I didn't know
was a
real, live
monster
visited
my daughter,
when she
was small.

It took
forty-one years
to learn
the true source
of her pain.

Earth Mother


Day 28 of the Soul Card Journey
with Elizabeth Crawford of Soul's Music
Soul Cards by Deborah Koff-Chapin

In her day,
Traveler was
as fertile
as Mother Earth,
giving life to
four small voyagers,
who grew like
saplings
off her
sturdy trunk.
She fed them
with laughter
and snippets of moon,
(for wonder),
and soon
they grew
beyond her,
reaching for
an infinity
of sky.

Now, Traveler
reflects and
remembers,
basking
in the glory
of their
exuberant
flowering.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Move Over, Ms. Osprey!


Well, kids, I have felt myself perched precariously many times in this old life, but I don't think it has ever been quite this precarious!!!!!! This is an osprey nest, with Ms. Osprey IN it. My son Jon took the photo and said they saw many nests perched atop telephone poles like this, as they camped their way around the Okanagan this past weekend.

I am sure this says something about loss of habitat. Speaking of which, I have two parties interested in my sweet little home, and am rather feeling around with my feet, myself, right now, wondering where firm ground is going to be.

May have to ask Ms. Osprey to move over, hee hee!

(I certainly hope her babies dont try sitting on the live wires when they're learning to fly :(
Instant toast!)

Blue Sky Woman

Day 27 of the Soul Card Journey
with Elizabeth Crawford of Soul's Music
Soul Cards by Deborah Koff-Chapin
at http://www.touchdrawing.com/


She is
Blue Sky Woman,
who has walked around
her whole life,
head back,
gazing at the sky.

Sky Traveler,
so many miles
she has wandered
under the beauty
of this
celestial blanket.

Star Dreamer,
she asks
her questions
of the stars,
and, when they're
silent,
she directs her
attention
to the moon.

A white dove of Peace
flies alongside
as she journeys,
for she wants
no disharmony
anywhere
near her person.

Her step lilts,
and she sings
as she travels,
for a hopeful heart
rides along
in her breast pocket.

That blue sky
has carried her
a long ways,
first thing she sees
in the morning,
last thing she sees
at night:
so much
beauty, mystery,
and wonder
to be found
in  decoding
the transubstantiation
of the clouds.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Song of the Eagle


Day 26 of the Soul Card Journey
with Elizabeth Crawford of Soul's Music
Soul Cards by Deborah Koff-Chapin
at http://www.touchdrawing.com/


Song of the western sea,
sursurration of the waves
breaking, breaking,
smell of salt,
seaspray in her face,
Traveler
follows
the pierced cry
of the eagle,
its shadow
falling across
the long empty
beach
which stretches
before her
to Forever.

He rides
the air currents,
wind-surfing the skies,
eyes alert
and penetrating,
seeing vastness
as wide
as the ocean,
and minutiae
small as
the smallest mouse,
skittering
across the sand
and under a log.

Betimes,
he swoops down
to the water,
rising
with a salmon
in his talons.

He is a symbol
of freedom,
of flight,
of Rising Above,
transcending,
reaching for
heights.

He is lord
of all he
surveys,
intimidated
by nothing.
Where he lands,
broad-chested
and fierce of eye,
smaller birds
and creatures
back away.

He appears
where  there
is pain,
to remind
us that
suffering
is finite.

He appears
where there
is Death,
to remind us
the soul
travels on,
when it slips free
of its body.

He appears
to give the
Traveler
hope,
and inspiration
for the journey.

To rest,
he alights
on a scrag's
topmost branch,
and surveys
the morning.

His eyes meet
Traveler's,
below.
Slowly,
he raises
a wing,
and drops
one lone
feather
down
to her,
a gift
to let her know
that she is
worthy.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Song of the Sea


Day 25 of the Soul Card Journey
with Elizabeth Crawford of Soul's Music
Soul Cards by Deborah Koff-Chapin
at http://www.touchdrawing.com/

Perched on a cliff
above the sea,
Traveler communes
with the
midnight moon.
Bioluminescence
outlines
both sea
and shore
with a magical
radiance
she has never seen
before.

Traveler basks there
for a time,
feeling an
inner glow,
sea spray
welcome
on her face
as breakers
crash and churn
against the
blackened
rocks below.

Though she
must turn away
and leave
the sea she loves
behind,
 she carries
its song
within,
its waves
advancing
and retreating
forever
in her mind.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

A Gift From the Sun


[Day 24 of the Soul Card Journey
with Elizabeth Crawford of Soul's Music
Soul Cards by Deborah Koff-Chapin
at http://www.touchdrawing.com/]
for Jeff

He came to
Traveler,
like a gift
from the sun,
sunny laughing baby
with gentle heart
and innocent eyes.

Schizophrenia
struck him down
at seventeen,
and for two decades
his soul struggled to
survive, to adapt to
his altered and fractured 
reality.

Traveler
walked beside him
down
many midnight streets
streaked with raindrop tears,
the endless darkness ahead
unknowable and,
thankfully,
unseen.

She hung onto
the other end of the phone
during hundreds,
no thousands,
of conversations,
as he struggled
to decide
whether
he could make it
through one more
stormy, lonely,
desperate 
night.

She became
still and strong,
like an oak tree,
to give him
shelter,
like an anchor,
to tether him
to the earth
when he would
blow away
like a scudding cloud
across the
tortured universe
of his mind.

On the other side
of this battle,
he emerged,
deciding to stay,
and thanked her
for always
holding on
to that sunny child,
that gentle heart,
inside him,
for never
letting go,
for never
turning away,
for seeing him, still,
the boy that he was,
inside the large suffering body
of the man.

In the end,
they decided
the illness,
the suffering,
had brought
them gifts:
it taught them
unconditional love,
acceptance,
Being There,
speaking from
the heart,
Being Real.

It taught them
that What Is
is What Is,
and is okay.

It was their
souls' path,
his and hers,
their journey
to make,
to walk
this portion
of the highway
together.