Tag Archives: transition

The Inch Worm

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Downsizing of Dreams

My life moves ahead in Fits and Starts 

I am the Inch Worm

  Folding in half for each step ahead

    Vulnerable, easily squished

      But I am not the Inch Worm

        Because I have Skin

          A backbone that aches

            Pain lets me know

              That I am alive

                I taste Joy in this

                  Velvet Morning

                    Pink Skies give Way

                      To a Brand New Day

                        To Inch Ahead.

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Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

Vaclav Havel-Czech Playwright and President

A Season for Everything

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IMG_3452Ancient words revisited, There is a time and a season for everything under heaven.
There had been times long enough to wear the sad coat, which hung permanently in the closet, but now was the season of spring, lighter clothing, and spring skiing is the best with plentiful snow, warm air, bright sun. She challenged herself to try the new run, but even as the chair lifted her high, very high it seemed, she sensed a dizzied panic rise in her throat. Her IMG_3437arms couldn’t reach her pocketed camera to take this shot, immobilized by the height. She briefly wondered what would happen if she failed to raise the bar, and unload. Perhaps she could just get “lifted” back to the base, and either loop up again, or feign injury and drop off.
But no, dutifully she hoisted and followed the “prepare to unload” rules to a tee, and nervous knees brought her to the edge … as she watched red agile jackets and boards surge over the brink and disappear. Who’s idea was this?
IMG_3686Breathe deep, and look around; mountain tops returned her gaze-this was no bunny hill, no green runs from here. And other less ancient words came to mind, from her ski instructor friend a life-time ago …. The mountain will unfold. Get to the edge, and the way will be revealed, go slow, gain confidence, and the mountain will unfold. Some trails you avoid. IMG_3688A smile of remembrance, a turn of the ski, and side to side she went, she paused at the first bend to glance back and photograph the run she had just come from. The trail unfolded in delightful ways, and at the bottom, she decided to give it another run.
The mountain did unfold in many ways, it had before and it would again. This was the time and season.

IMG_3493 Continue reading

Not another Bloom Where You are Planted?

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After the flood devastation of 2013, the landscape of Southern Alberta has changed forever. (Till the next “Hundred Year Flood.”) Boulders have been moved by the flood waters.  Tonnes of rocks have been lifted and moved. Trees uprooted, relocated.

Majestic and special spots have been altered forever …. “Danger, the bank has been undercut” read the sign on my favorite bench, before it was removed for safety reasons.

IMG_3439Undercut Bank along the Bow River

These are small issues compared to the loss of homes and property. A week after the waters had poured over its banks…. roses bloomed where flood waters had raged.

Some of the land I’d stood on a week prior, was now laying on the receded river bank fifteen feet below me. The vegetation had moved down as well.

In Banff National Park, wildflowers bloomed this past summer; but I wondered where blossoms would be showcased next year.

Bloom Where You Are Planted, takes on new meaning.

What about Bloom Where You Have Been Washed To, or Where The Wind Has Blown You, or Where You’ve Been Shoved  or Bloom Where You Have Fallen?

Grief like a tsunami ravaged my life in 2005 …  and now I, along with many others,  have been given a new twist to that bloomin’ challenge. I have not been tenderly replanted, I have been washed up on a different shore. Can I still bloom?

There is much beauty to be found every where, even in this new territory of loss. How do you meet the Bloom Where you Have Been Planted challenge?

The post-flood roses were more beautiful than ever.IMG_3445

Transitions

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A Sadness …  A Heaviness

Sitting by the Water

Reflections from the sun, reflections of the soul

It’s been a busy sumer, a rich season.

Perhaps this sadness is because I had looked forward to this time for so long, and now it is almost history.  Perhaps it is because my still-on-the-planet daughter will be heading overseas soon, along with her ever changing family, decreasing the chances of face to face contact. Perhaps a remembrance of ‘back to school suppers’ I did with my own children at the end of summer, forcing poetry or stories from everyone.  (Wonder what happened to my “There was an old young woman who lived in a shoe, she had so many teen-agers”….)  Perhaps the reality of the missing, the longing of departed dreams.  Perhaps the recognition of the toll the years of grief have taken.  Perhaps the knowing that I am in a transition phase again.  And even more so the knowing that all of life is a transition, there are no long lay overs in any station. Life keeps moving, changing.  

Perhaps I can transition sadness to expectancy?

In her book Transitions, Julia Cameron quotes Norman Mailer: “Every moment of one’s existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.”

I will choose to live a little more!

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In the universe, stars reflect the vastness of God, on the ground I think He uses flowers.