Monsoon Season in the Mountains
Beauty abounds
Beauty surrounds
Wrapping me in a blanket of serenity.
Since last week’s post I’ve been keenly aware of the abundant beauty in my life in oh so many forms. Shortly after posting I opened mail picked up late the day before to find a gift: John O’Donohue’s Beauty: The Invisible Embrace. The gift alone was beautiful but coming on the heels of posting that investing in beauty is an investment in my soul I knew I’d received an immediate return on my investment in the post. Since then I’ve been present to simply noticing the word ‘beauty’ in various media on a wide range of topics.
For me this time of year is tender with beautiful memories: summer fun at the lake; beloveds who left their bodies in summertime – my mom, my dad, my cousin, and Cool Hand Luke; personal growth that I’ve experienced in summers past. Beauty.
There’s profound beauty in the changes I witness in Zadie Byrd over the past year. Unlike last season’s monsoon thunderstorms when she panted, trembled, paced, and sought shelter in the bathtub, she now takes them in stride – a bit pensive, but easily calmed by a flower remedy or a few drops of CBD. This season I enjoy the sound of rain on the roof, watching rain fall on the earth, and being alert to the possibility of a rainbow. Beauty.
An afternoon thunderstorm followed by showers late into the night adds moisture to these thirsty woods and mountains.
Rain falls
Sun shines
Wrapping me in a blanket of serenity.
Rocks glisten
Ground softens
Wrapping me in a blanket of serenity.
Muse calls attention to my wandering mind as it wonders ‘is this rain enough to ease the extreme drought?’ or at least move the needle from extreme to severe or even simply ‘drought’? Man measures. Nature simply IS.
Birds sing
Hummers flit and feed
Wrapping me in a blanket of serenity.
Muse nudges again as mind wanders again to multiple projects that I want to move forward – continuing the landscaping; organizing and releasing books, papers, and other ‘stuff’ that once upon a time I couldn’t live without; completing my will and other legal directives …
Creek roars
Sun rises
Wrapping me in a blanket of serenity.
It is challenging to see beauty in the ravages of war, during personal hardship, in political upheaval and rights being taken away, in half-truths and outright lies, in hate speech – overt and covert. Yet, while they may be dormant and need tending, I know the seeds of beauty are in the midst of all. How might we tend, nurture these seeds? How might I?
Beauty abounds
Beauty surrounds
Wrapping me in a blanket of serenity.
I was heartened yesterday to discover that the theme this year’s local July 4th celebration is ‘interdependence’ and features a local food hero who is one of the driving forces in organizing a regional food hub that provides access to locally grown foods around Colorado. The season’s first CSA (community supported agriculture) box arrived last week, chock full of fresh, Colorado grown and produced, food – beets, cherries, salad greens, quinoa, eggs and more. Nutritious, delicious, bountiful beauty.
Perhaps it is time to change the moniker of July 4th from ‘Independence Day’ to ‘Interdependence Day’ for as surely as each cell in the body does not operate with total independence of the others, we do not operate, survive, and thrive without one another in the various communities of which we are a part. Perhaps such reimagining is an evolutionary step forward in caring for Mother Earth, Nature, and one another. How beautiful could that be?
Yesterday’s Rainbows