Blogging Time

I am standing at the kitchen counter waiting for the oven to preheat. You might ask why, or maybe you don't care! I am doing it because every day I say "today I will Blog" bedtime comes and I haven't Blogged. It isn't that I don't have a lot to say, because I have done quite a bit of reflecting in the last month.  I have had some great oppotunities to share with different people in different settings, but I haven't yet put it in writing. Potatoes are in the oven! I am aiming at a concerted effort to Blog regularly.

For most of my life I have dreaded the fall. I used to live in New Hampshire where thousands of people would come to see the fall foliage "leaf peepers" we called them. It always fascinated me and cynically I would say, "they spend hundreds of dollars and hours in driving time  to look at a bunch of dead leaves. At home when the leaves on their plants turn yellow they throw them out". I truly found very little fascination in fall foliage, for me it heralded the grey wet days of October and the impending snows of November before the real winter settled in. So what has changed? In the last two weeks I have been to Our Sacred Space on two occasions, once to lead a retreat and the second time to take our Residents for a Day Away, both times I enjoyed the beauty of the changing leaves, the first sight of my breath in the cold morning air, and the crackling of logs in the big stone fireplace. It seems that as I become more content with myself and accept that change is an integral part of every moment of everyday that I not only accept but enjoy the subtle changes both in the elements and in myself.

I'd like to continue this Blog but my husband just came home from a trip, and it is time to get the rest of dinner under way... unfinished business awaits!

AUTUMN

My window frames the leaves

Orange, red and gold

Swirling from the trees

They embrace death with beauty

- 2009

It has been so long since I blogged I can't believe it. We had a wonderful trip East visiting family and sights along the way. The fall colors were beautiful, in fact seemed much brighter and more varied than I ever remembered. I have never been a fan of fall color but age must be changing me because I have thoroughly enjoyed the subtle changes day by day.

The photo is from my balcony, the very spot that inspired the title of my blog. I spend as much time as possible observing and absorbing this view, it is a constant reminder of the fragility and complexities of our planet and the need to protect and nourish everything in our daily life.

Thursday I celebrated my 69th birthday, and am now officially beginning the Blog for my seventieth year. It seems important to me that I take stock of my life as I prepare to enter the next decade. I am choosing the discipline of reflection and contemplation during this year in hopes that I will live into the wisdom of my years. Too quickly they pass without mining all that is there of truth and blessing.

Fall can be a melancholy time, in fact it has never been my favorite season, but this year it has been rich and fruitful. Change is all around and I am trying to embrace it.

On the Road

The trip is going well, I could post last since the motel I was in did not have a good Internet connection. Tonight we are in Liverpool, NY. We have enjoyed taking the trip at a leisurely pace, I had forgotten that the highways heading East had speed limits of 55 or 65 miles an hour, not that everyone stays within those limits.

The weather has been kind, gray with cloud cover, and bursts of golden sunshine. Going East on 90, means traveling miles and miles within a tree lined canyon divided by a grassy median....arched every 10-20 miles by bridges.

I have had a few wildlife sitings, but not as many as I might have hoped for. A Peregrine Falcon eyeing it's breakfast, not in view long enough to know if it was successful. A flock of wild turkeys enjoying an early lunch on an embankment beside I-90 as we entered Ashtabula county, and a red tail hawk flew low over the highway in front of us. In contrast to these meager sitings we have seen at least one car from 44 States and Alberta, Ontario and New Brunswick. We are a people on the move. At 4:25 EST we had logged 1000 miles. Tomorrow we will be in Vermont, and plan to spend some time at Weston Priory, a place I have adopted as a spiritual home since 1969.