Ocean Tides

  The ocean seeks capture.

Living, breathing, pulsing. 
Catch me, if you can.

Wash away time.

Wash away sorrow.

Wash away, with me.

I seek the capture:
to hold time,
standstill.

To dance yet, as ocean tides set. 

  And as the ocean embraces the chasm, so too I.
Let's span the horizons of the world;
Dark to light, and back again.

From fathoms deep,

to open sky,

my soul is safe in oceans wide. 

Capture me, God of the ocean and God of the shore:

I arrive in order to see, and with eyes for seeing.

Birthdays are for Joy

   Happy Birthday, Sweetheart. Twelve is a celebration, a triathlon, and an overcoming.

   Last year at this time you were being told you had severe, acute, and chronic colitis, for life, from Doernbecher. Oh, the story. It is thousands of words long, but only one word counts: God! He is good, and He is able. 

  He writes your story, not men or women; don't ever forget that. He led us north to Seattle Children's Hospital, and they said a very different thing: mild to moderate colitis and healing possible. "Yes, very likely an infection, not genetics, and we have patients who make a full healing." Full healing.  

   There is hope in front of you lovely girl. His grace reigns supreme. This past year He was, still is, our hope. We have hoped upon Him, and He met the need. He is able, and He is good. 

    And you have run your race with grace.

 You persevered. You gave all.
Yesterday's triathlon? A herald of healing.

 We are privileged to run beside you. 
We cheer for you with joy.

     Morrocan, for the girl who dreams words and worlds.

 May this next year be blessed and looked upon with anticipation.

   What does a twelve year old girl want for her birthday? That would be: pretty soaps, pretty papers, a pretty nightie, (on sale) and of course, outdoor gear. A Patagonia Sling Bag (Using the REI dividend and a 20% off coupon :-), an outdoor emergency sleeping bag, and Rite in the Rain paper, then there's a digital watch, books, and more books.

Exploring Summer

Do not fear to put thy feet

Naked in the river sweet;

Think not leech, or newt, or toad

Will bite thy foot when thou hast trod;

Nor let the water, rising high,

As thou wadest, make thee cry,

And sob; but ever live with me,

And not a wave shall trouble thee.

by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

Building a Life, Bit by Bit

   Am I running behind? I don't know, maybe so. Some days it feels that way, but I'm letting go of my expectations about what summer days should be; summer days have rhythms of their own. Summer is a season in time for exploring, giving within community, and building our lives with a bit more freedom from school year routines. It's a time to sing, dance, read, or yes, even cry and whine. We've had a few of those days; hormones raging. Alas, this too shall pass.

   Summer is a time to help heal another, even if it's not what we expected of these sunny days. It's a time to help mend neighbors fences and get them hot wired, even if yours are not yet running.

   Because we build our lives bit by bit, brick by brick, and moment by moment.

 Trusting what we hold in the end will radiate beauty. 

   Then there's me, squirrelling away with the sheep in order to write, in order to create. Silence is a precious commodity around here because building a life is a noisy endeavor.

   I remind myself silence is over rated. I can survive without silence. I can, and will. It will be good for me. I can create in a loud space. I simply need be still.

   Pictures are from the Terry Lee Wells Discovery Museum in Reno, Nevada. Visiting a dear aunt and uncle recently, we beat the heat by building. I was quite surprised that the Smithsonian Spark!Lab was not the hit of the day, but rather The Shop. It's rare to see kids with real hand tools these days.  Let's change that this summer, shall we? Google Maker Camp is a good place to begin. It's a blast!

Summer

Then followed that beautiful season...Summer....

Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light;

and the landscape

Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Happy Fourth of July!

 

We headed south for Knights Baseball last night. 

We got way more than expected!

Presence vs. technology? 

   On her dad's phone, her face spoke, speaks, volumes to me. She was pondering the Google supply list for Maker Camp. While Maker Camp will be awesome, her face reminds me that technology often causes us to miss the relationships sitting right in front of us, and almost never makes us happier. 

 The game got under way to a sell out crowd,

and then it went on, and on, and on....

We got a tad goofy by inning 12.

The lady in front of us thanked us for our entertainment!

 Inning 16 grins and weariness. 

The clock strikes 12:30 a.m.! 

Thank heavens this young man wrapped things up!

America's favorite past time, went PAST TIME.

 We waited a long time for these,

 and rang in the arrival of the 4th with a boom!

 The moon was out in full force. 

Happy Fourth, y'all. 

May it be a good and blessed.

And There was Light by Jacques Lusseyran

   There is no real inner life for a man or a child unless his relation to real things inside and outside himself is a true one. 

   The gym was much more than exercise, it was my marriage with space. 

   I began to look more closely, not at things but at a world  closer to myself, looking from an inner place to one further within, instead of clinging to the movement of sight toward the world outside. Immediately, the substance of the universe drew together.

...radiance was there, or, to put it more precisely, light.

   I could feel light rising, spreading, resting on objects, giving them form, then leaving them. Withdrawing or diminishing is what I mean, for the opposite of light was never present. 

   I saw the whole world in light, existing through it and because of it. 

   How could I have lived all that time without realizing that everything in the world has a voice and speaks? 

   The waves were arranged in steps, and together they made one music, though what they said was different in each voice.

    A sound we don't listen to is a blow to body and spirit, because sound is not something outside us, but a real presence passing through us and lingering unless we have heard it fully.

    ...there are no differences between us except those which come from heart and spirit. 

  I have never had to go more than halfway, and the universe became the accomplice of all my wishes.

   Words from: And There Was Light, the Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistence in World War II by Jacques Lusseyran. I have a feeling this will be my favorite book of 2015, but we shall see.