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Friend to Friend

Before bringing you up to date with my new and newsy blog, I should make a few comments: Although I am now using a blog to replace fb and mail-out emails, I still wish to maintain a personal connection with any friend who is reading this. So please, if you want to, either comment or send me an email so we don't lose track of the thread between us. I will reply to your email. However if a comment suffices, and you don't mind it being public, please leave a comment. A comment has the advantage of linking you to others whom you may know through me. If you wish to receive a notification when I've posted something, subscribe for that feature on the blog.

Since my Solstice email, Salmon Arm has been the recipient of a relatively mild and snowless winter season. My Christmas trip to North Vancouver emphasized this of course, being Vancouver. But the Fosters and I had a warm and wonderful time together.

Grandsons Will and Miles

Avril, Darcy, Will and Miles

Miles having a quiet moment

Wet snow was falling on the day I drove to Womens Hospital to greet my nephew’s newborn son who had arrived earlier that day. Such a sweet event, to spend time with Franklin and his sleep deprived and awe struck parents! The occasion and the atmosphere around a newborn is both tender and intense. It’s a privileged close encounter with the ineffable, and also for me, to poignantly welcome my late brother’s newest grandchild.

New Parents Erica-May and Hallis Blaney with Franklin

Avril and grandsons were not present to meet Franklin, having flown off to Mexico with Dad Darcy and 108 Grandparents Sandy and Wendy with some of their family.

Avril and Miles in Mexico

Will lining up a back flip

I remained in North Van, to watch house and cat before returning to Salmon Arm, so very lucky to be on location in Vancouver to share Hallis' and Erica-May’s special day. Great timing Franklin!!

Meanwhile, here we are in Salmon Arm, enjoying the beauty of the Shuswap

 

This is one of the rare winters that David and I haven’t had any responsibilities for a property, as we have for our 15 year career in Property Management. I was going to say our first job was a rustic fishing camp near Lilloett, but actually The Lodge was our first property we helped manage together. We moved on to mostly residential and resort properties after Lillooet, to Kamloops, to Vancouver, to Kelowna and area, to Panorama Village in the Kootenays, to Sicamous, to Calgary, and finally to Peachland. David has been providing landscaping services for Prestige Harbourfront Hotel in Salmon Arm whenever available, as he was last year and will be this summer. As for me, I garden at home, to which fb friends can attest.

Ostensibly, we’re not employed. Perhaps you’re having that same experience of transferring energy from working for someone else, into lives that increasingly turn inward, pay attention to the subtle stuff, to the deeper things that previously were not in such direct focus… Yes, not in strong focus because of time factors, but now key, meaningful and significant. Lots to see and put into context! This shift in priorities is humbling and satisfying. I've come to recognize that when we are young, we miss so much meaning to the lives we're so busy "living". 

Let me try to explain. My daughter Avril refers to the sleep of a young baby as "that newborn coma". This description caught my attention. In retrospect, I recognize this coma, it's not unfamiliar and it's not reserved for newborns. Maybe what begins as a functional coma lingers too long, well into adulthood. I'd say so. Let's face it, we did a lot of things while in this half awake state. Now, hopefully, Life gets a chance to live us. I delight in being an entirely different person than I was 20 years ago.

I think I'm now the person I thought I was then!

Will and Avril watching Franklin

Back to "not working" ... well that's not exactly accurate, because truthfully, our house is a busy office where there is reading, research, conferences, lively correspondence, phone calls, video chats and well, surprise and satisfaction that this is so.

Admittedly,  I have lived communally for most of my adult life. I lived with many of you reading this! And now thanks to the immediacy of communication, I’m living in community without all the dishes. David and I have many who are part of our daily lives, always in our thoughts, and often in lively, current interchanges. Still employed!

In such an environment, I find certain themes running through my thoughts. Some magically (or logically) show up on David's two blogs (The Great Cosmic Story, and Newly Dawning Day), as many pieces are discussed before, during and after they get posted! But some themes take root and stay with me. Here are a couple of them.

We live outside of Salmon Arm, up against Larch Hills, and close by we are flanked by wooded areas. Our modest house has views of trees and our own gardens, but there’s a lot of attention to the passage of the sun as it falls on various locations between the very high cedars. We follow it around our yard, calling it down, soaking it up. Gardening involves being cognizant of what grows where, depending on exposure to light. Shade plants are prized! 

So it's fitting that lately I’ve been reading about light, a fascinating topic  considered by Jacob Israel Liberman in his book, Luminous Light. It's made me delve into the implications of how plants receive instructions for their cycles and even for their placement, from the rays of the sun.

"Light is the source of the material universe and the messenger of its informational content."

Jacob Liberman, Luminous Life, p. 58

We are part of the living earth. So it follows that our physical bodies receive instructions and even for our physical placements, from the Sun's messages. Why would we limit the messages received as only applicable to our bodies? What about for our minds, our spirits, our emotions? 

I find myself seeing the sun's wisdom in new ways. Let me explain. Part of my self assignment for this winter and spring, has been to attend to my health. Some of you may know that I have worked with an assumed diagnosis of chronic Lyme. I say assumed because I have been diagnosed clinically, based on symptoms, plus by that weird bull's eye many years ago. Medical treatment carried me for some time, but now I've been drawn to the use of medicinal herbs, as have many others judging from the internet. 

I’ve been impressed by the research and recommendations of author Stephen Buhner. His earlier book's title, Plant Intelligence, says it all. Plants are living containers for sunshine, caught and held in their cells. Their healing instructions are sun inspired and encoded for us to discover. This has led to increased appreciation for the magnificent blessing of our Sun. As LIberman goes on to say, "Likewise, consciousness is the means by which all sentient beings experience the material reality and extract the wisdom contained within it (light)."

Buhner summarizes his life's work: 

"This life I have had--of working with plants as my teachers, my guides, my healing medicines, as living beings whom I have entrusted with my life--has been a rich one. Like most of us, I wandered into it one day without realizing what was going to happen to me. I became part of the long line of human beings who stretch back through time to the first person to whom a plant spoke and insisted it be used for healing. The only profession that moves me more and has meant more to me, is that of storyteller, the life of a writer. But it was the plants that allowed that part of me expression, that allowed that seed in me to sprout, a seed that has not yet finished its growing." Stephen Buhner, Healing Lyme, p. 431

This brings me full circle back to the light of our connection. Maybe many of us do not consciously connect very often. But I am increasingly aware of how connected we all are, via the river of light, our subconscious to subconscious contact. So much is conveyed by the areas of us that are sub conscious, not primarily conscious. Our very beings know of our connection, being to being, and much gets done at that invisible level. So here we are, hopefully, affirming that connection, making some of that connection conscious, friend to friend. Allowing that light to be used.

Some of us have been conscious of our shared consciousness for many years, and for that I am grateful. Just as I know many people reside in my subconscious, I feel compelled to keep that relatedness alive in my  consciousness. As I see it, we have been drawn together by a navigational system that we don't always consciously understand, but which we are urged to honour and respect.

So, take care. We are all needed as full participants in the life we have now. This is what Life has to work with—us, now.