Self Portrait

Dreams and collage are filling much space in my sleeping and waking hours. This self-portrait created itself on Saturday. For today I shall just share the image. I'd love to know what it evokes in you. I am discovering it has multiple, ever-changing layers of meaning for me! Kind of like life I guess ☺. Happy Monday!

The Barnacles Grow

The barnacles grow on the shimmering rock. The rock is me—
shimmering golden me. The sun. The color of warmth, joy, happiness.

Still the barnacles grow, threatening to cover my sheen—but is it there beneath-- just like the diamonds that gleam in the darkness.

My truth stands firm and will not recede no matter what covers it.

The rocky path—tilting stones—no smooth way for me.
Still I proceed. Still I grow. Still I reach for the sun.

Green—the color of hope and new life—peppers my path.
Smooth stones, sharp ones, flat and tilting.
The mud and sand threaten to pull me under, but still I persevere.

Hope is all around.
Truth lies deep inside. Glimmering with each turn of the sun.

The barnacles grow. They are beautiful in their own right--enhancing the beauty like scars and wrinkles.
My body is weary. My dreams speak of darkness and light.
My essence. My ego. Embracing each.
They are connected like the barnacles to the stone.

Hope lies all around. Seeing things in black and white.
Good and bad. Truth and lie. They cannot be separated.
One cannot survive without knowledge of the other.

Slipping into the mud. I can freak out, panic, worry that I must stay there.
Or I can rejoice in the moment, find the humor and laugh with glee.
“Here we go again.” The silly ego. The beautiful essence.

The battle of my dreams and waking hours.
Black and white. Good and evil.
Still the barnacles grow on the shimmering rock.

photo by lucy 10.25.07

Doses of Delight

“Nothing like talking about good and evil while walking along the beach watching herons.” ☺ Christine Paintner

Some days you just need a big dose of delight and that is just what got served up to me yesterday. My strong “Lucy instinct” wants to kick in and say, “Na na na na na na! I got to do something you didn’t do, “ but I will attempt to remain a little more civilized (or not) and simply say I had a fabulous day.

The day started with one of my favorite things: a ferry ride. An amazing sunrise filled the sky and burst through fluffy white clouds that only the day before had been heavy and gray. I stood on the front of the boat in the chill morning air and marveled at the sea, the fog and the golden turning leaves on the distant shores. My destination was Hood Canal and the hermitage of the lovely Christine (and this is where I say inside “Na na na na na na” ☺.)

We walked along the rugged shore for two hours, crawling over logs, steering around oyster beds, stepping lightly through hundreds of sand dollars and watching Tune with her keen sense of smell search out crab shells for her morning snack. The biggest dose of delight came as a surprise (as surprises are prone to do) when Christine’s foot disappeared ankle high into the wet sand. Then her other foot vanished and just as I reached out to give her a hand both my feet were simultaneously swallowed by the beach. My balance not being as good as my friend’s, I soon was tilted backwards and plopped down in the wet sand. We both burst into huge fits of laughter and for a few moments we were literally “stuck” in time before we were able to gain our composure and inch and pull our way back to solid ground. It was a glorious moment.

The day was filled with many more delightful moments, but I will stop before I move toward all out bragging ☺. Well, speaking of bragging, I must share just one more event….Yesterday was my daughter’s last school soccer game of the season. She is a Freshman and made the varsity team at her school (brag). The team has, however, not been known as the best team around (oh, well ☹). In this final game, they played the #1 ranked team who has not been beaten in several seasons (7 maybe?). Well, the tides changed yesterday and guess who scored the winning goal (the only goal, I might add…oops there’s that bragging again)? You guessed it…my beautiful, fabulous, talented, wonderful, delightful daughter!!!! Brag brag brag brag….Needless to say I was one proud Mom as I watched her grin from ear to ear and the team embrace her when the whistle finally blew at the end of the game.

Enough already. The sun is shining here today and it feels like another serving of delight. I wish you your own joys in the coming weekend!

Blessings and cheers!!

elliott bay photo by bill

Poetry Party

Broken things lie all around. Be sure to visit Christine's Invitation to Poetry @ Beauty of Broken Things.

Here is my contribution:

dark
broken
desperate…
still
i reach for the heavens

photo from Abbey of the Arts

I Do Not Know

A friend wrote me today and asked, "How are you?" At the moment the only response I had was "Aaaaaaarrghhhhhh" in true Peanuts-style. It made me smile, however, to know someone was thinking fondly of me. I have been wrestling lately between my calling and the price I feel like I pay for "seeing well." Wondering if this is the persecution Christ talks about. My work has been filled with amazing transformative
experiences that seem to be peppered from all sides with challenges and potential setbacks. It is enough to make me question if it is all worth it, but somehow quitting seems to be just what the enemy (whatever that means) would want me to do. And so, I dig my Lucy heels in and hold my ground while praying for sunlight, rest and wisdom.

I ran across this quote last night while reading Will and Spirit by Gerald G. May, M.D. He calls this the "fundamental contemplative statement concerning good, evil, and God:"

I DO NOT KNOW. I do not know what is ultimately good or evil, nor even what is real or unreal. But I do know that there is no way I can proceed upon my own personal resources. In this as in all things, I am utterly and irrevocably dependent upon a Power that I can in no way objectify. I call this Power God, and God is beyond my understanding, beyond good and evil, beyond doubt and trust, beyond even life and death. God's love and power and Spirit exist in me, through me, and in all creatures. But God is unimaginably BEYOND all this as well. I also know that in my heart I wish to do and be what God would desire of me. Therefore, in humility and fear, I give myself. I commit my soul to God, the One Almighty Creator, the Ultimate Source of reality. Good or bad, right or wrong, these things are beyond me. I love, but I do not know. I live and act and decide between this and that as best I can, but ultimately, I do not know. And thus I say, in the burning vibrancy of Your Love and Terror, THY WILL BE DONE.

Amen

photo taken on my morning walk today