autumn suntree

autumn suntree
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

I walked during lunch today--along the dirt road across the railroad tracks, flanked by quiet homes on one side, pasture and mountains on the other. A sublime afternoon, with the late fall sun warming the remaining tansy leaves by the roadside, steeping their spicy fragrance into the air like a fine-brewed tea. In the tall aspen grove on the north side, tree trunks shone a dignified white, bright and unmoved by the fluttering loss of leaves. The two apple trees in the smaller pasture stood bare and slightly huddled with experience; the dry grasses rasped and rustled randomly in pale gold.

This is the type of day that is autumn's kind parting gift to us as we move into the colder, darker days of the year. Time is suspended for a few hours, and if we are still, we are able to notice the thousand small beauties released by summer's dying. Snowberries wait, white and ripe, on their bushes for whatever creature seeks them; chickadees flit and forage through the smaller trees; field mice scurry occasionally beneath the bent grass; and the landscape has matured from variations on green into an entire palette of straw gold, deep mustard, rust brown, honey, forest and crimson. The sky is bluer than in spring, as if it has aged and ripened along with earth's fruits. And the drier air wanders more freely, with a clarity not earned by summer's heat.

Treasure the small things in the season, whichever one you're in. We may repeat seasons, we may take them for granted, we may assume we know what they're about and not take the time to look again. But Now is what we have, and when we give it our attention, there is no telling what new joy we may discover there.

late asters

late asters
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

A pocket of sun, a glint on cold water, the lull of September warmth and a glacial stream's clear notes. No wonder these purple asters want to hold on, are reluctant to give up to the inevitable.

I was that way myself a few weeks ago when the weather turned cold and dreary too suddenly, too soon. I was not ready for the change, wanted to hold on to sunshine, felt disoriented from my resistance to autumn. But the effects of resisting change are one of the few constants in life: it always makes it harder, no matter what.

Fortunately, the sun came back for a spell just long enough to let me align myself with the seasons' will. Sentimental and neurotic as it may sound, I actually needed closure with summer. But sentimental and neurotic were how I felt, and summer obliged.

But after all, maybe the asters weren't holding on. Often observations are tinged with projection, and I could see a hundred different stories in a single plant's life if I wanted to. The flowers are just being themselves, until it's time for them to be different. Maybe that's all there is for any of us to do. Just be ourselves.

autumn path

autumn path
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

Autumn has crept in on us with chilly tendrils and longer nights, morning cold in our nostrils and frost on the windshield. Although I've seen the occasional tenacious daisy or aster, or relentless yellow tansy, the flowers have surrendered to the greater strength in their roots for the next six months, and as the trees tuck themselves inward, they reward us with a last eye-feast of color, the inverse of spring.

However reluctantly, now we let go of our flower gardens and short sleeves, long outdoor evenings and the assumption of a sunny weekend. New gifts lie in store now, as we take stock of what to carry on into winter and what to pare away. We think toward holidays, having enough warm clothing, and playing in the snow. But our roots are important, too--the season's cycles are a way of recognizing that we have our own, although usually not so clearly defined. We are growing things, and our different seasons--of success, drudgery, elation, challenge, barely making it, and contentment--each serve their purpose toward our development, if we choose, in the greater, grander picture of our individual journeys.

two medicine lake

two medicine lake
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

Clarity, I've decided, is a condition which is always present; sometimes it's just that it's temporarily out of reach, beyond circumstances and mind clutter. When I can't get to a place like this crisp glacial lake, which I visited in Glacier Park, to restore my connection with it, I can look at the photo instead, and be reminded.

study in gold

study in gold
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

Expect the unexpected--words to live by, in a way. Only when we're in a state of readiness, when we're able to be flexible with our lives and reactions, can we really handle the curves well. No matter how many tantrums we might throw, or how much pouting we do, things will not be as we want them to be just because we want them to be. Acceptance and agility are among the most practical virtues we can acquire.

Slowing down helps. When we slow down, we're able to have more of our attention, our mental and physical energy, available in the moment, with what's happening right now, or about to. And the wonderful byproduct of slowing down is an increased awareness of the quality of life around us. Details, small beauties, messages that could be missed or opportunities lost. Or just a nice photograph, upon noticing the way a group of grasses blends a variety of shapes and textures and shades of gold.

To live in our heads, ahead of ourselves and behind ourselves, is to divorce ourselves from our senses, from being able to experience what's really happening in the moment. I know, because I am an expert at this, and have missed out on too much of my life as a result.

But I took this picture, which I like. So I must be doing something right.

Rainbow on the falls

Rainbow on the falls
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

Rainbows have been popping up all over the place lately. Over the falls, in the sky, over the mountains, in the desert, and in three states: Montana, Idaho, and Washington. It's rainbow season.

It's remarkable how fragile humans are, and how easily swayed. Events in our lives and in the world send currents through us, and we cannot be completely immune because we are feeling beings, and because, at some level, conscious or not, we understand that everything is connected. "No man is an island", "ask not for whom the bell tolls", etc.

But however we may be affected by the sad or tragic events we are witness to--earthquake and flood victims, civil strife in Africa, the plight of missing children--there are those very simple occurrences that bring us joy, as well. And rainbows are a prime example.

Everyone, with the odd exception I suppose, loves a rainbow. Something as simple, as accidental, as the way light hits water vapor brings people outside with cameras, brings them to their windows pointing, turns faces upward with smiles. We pause to enjoy it, a moment of beauty. We feel awe.

Of course, scientific fact can rarely measure up to the stock we're willing to invest in what we want something to mean. A rainbow may be light refraction, but what it really is to us is magic. Promise, ever since the Bible. A pot of gold, a bridge to heaven, a natural wonder. The human soul craves beauty and hope, to keep itself whole and innocent through the times of heartbreak. I believe a single rainbow possesses more healing power than an entire apothecary of medicines.

Find the simple moments of beauty in your life. Soak them in, fill up on them, let them move you. You're bound to walk away a happier person, and better fortified for whatever life may bring.

Broken Top mountain

Broken Top mountain
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

Peaks and valleys, with an occasional magnificent view. That's life, isn't it?

This trail was more magnificent view than anything. Starting at Todd Lake by Mt. Bachelor, in Bend, Oregon, it climbed into the Three Sisters wilderness area. Meadows, woods, and a ridgetop stroll that revealed cracked and snowpatched volcanic peaks in most directions. Butterflies, wildflowers, and scattered pumice stones of red, lavender, gray.

A place like this can really restore perspective. A walk in nature for me is like a chiropractic adjustment of the mind and soul. My head may still be racing during the first mile, and my emotions might still be fuddled up with a grudge or a confusion or an unpleasant encounter. But if I keep walking, the trees and the fragrances and the vistas and the hard-soft earth trail just seem to suck out the bad energy as my feet thud along, and then crack-click-sigh-shrug everything comes back into place and I remember that none of those little things actually matter. In fact, they'll take the life out of me if they can, if I let them. Life is too big, and Love too important, to give power to minor irritations. Let them be, forgive, extract your energy from them and keep going at a steady pace.

That's the better way. The peaks and dips are just peaks and dips. The walking, the Bigness--that's what lasts.

Lily bloom

Lily bloom
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

The particular beauty of my balcony garden exists in its variety. I find endless joy in watering and nurturing the blooms there, watching pots and baskets spill over with color and exuberant growth. It's a little wild, and certainly the most decorated porch in the apartment complex. But it's also now a sanctuary, a private space, a habitat for visitors like hummingbirds and fuzzy bees. It has vibrance and color and magic and purpose, a far cry from the skeletal blank space it was before. It has life.

But I find I have the same "problem" with my little gardens as I do in my life beyond the balcony: lack of focus. In late winter, in early spring, even as I begin potting and planting, I tell myself that I will design the garden--carefully choose the color palette and textures; provide for some calming green foliage to complement the flowers and break up busyness; grow primarily those plants that I've always had a particular love for. And then I go to the nursery, and I see flower after flower that inspires me, and I see beautiful plants that do not go well together but that I can't resist, and I am impulsively overcome with a desire for a brightly colorful and uncontrolled spill of a flower garden gone wild, and that's what I get. Which is not bad; it just means I've yet again lost both sight of my goal and patience, and just given in to whatever caught my fancy in the moment. The result is a bunch of flowers that I love, but a space that has no grounding.

There is something to be said for impulsiveness and imagination, and allowing for spontaneous creativity and passion. But I believe a signature quality of a successful life is being able to "weed out" some of those options that look appealing, but which will ultimately be short-lived. If our energy is moving out to everything we might possibly like all at once, there's precious little left to pool toward a single, more powerful direction.

This will remain my goal, on my own behalf. In the meantime, I will enjoy my flowers, and their endearingly bright chaos.

Big Fisher ridge trail

Big Fisher ridge trail
Originally uploaded by bonny lass

Paths are among my favorite images. I love seeing them, inviting the urge to explore, to discover, to find out. I love walking them, especially if they are in nature and someplace as beautiful as this. I find that walking a path helps put me back on mine--it's practice, in a way, for putting one foot in front of the other and remembering there's an adventure ahead, and choices about which way I go, and that I have some power over that. When I stop being distracted, and keep my eyes on the path I want, any number of good things can happen. I might actually get where I'd like to be.

Evening wetland at Dover, Idaho

IMG_5118
Originally uploaded by bonny lass

A perfect moment, and well suited to this blog's name.

Of all the myriad endeavors available to us, finding stillness may be the most rewarding. A moment enjoyed in stillness frees the mind from its endless searching, its continuous thinking and creating and judging and planning and opinionating and lurching forward and...you get the idea. You have a mind, too, and whether you realize it or not, it likely gets the better of you sometimes.

The magic of stillness is that it allows us a window in which we can experience ourselves in a greater context. By simply being, pausing, we are able to extend our feeling perception to include far more than we are accustomed to letting in. In that momentary vacuum, we can set aside the collecton of thoughts and attitudes that we generally identify with as who we are, and, if we are willing, realize that we are much more.

In stillness, we become aware of what's around us. The fragrance of summer grasses; the quiet lapping of water at lake's edge; a distinctive bird call somewhere nearby. The longer we are still, the more we notice. The shapes of the stones on the beach, their colors, the sound they make under a footstep. The ripple on the water that turns out to be a beaver's wake. The textures and variations of the clouds, the particular color of blue in the sky, and how it changes like a watercolor a few moments later.

And if you wait long enough in that stillness, you begin to notice things on the inside, too. You'll suddenly think of the argument you had earlier in the day, and see it in a new perspective--quite possibly seeing the other person's point of view, now that the heat of emotion has passed. You'll notice the kinds of things you think about--the thoughts you allow to inhabit your mind. You'll begin to notice what expectations you have, how much time you spend worrying, and how you really feel about yourself. You'll be able to let things go that you've been carrying around without realizing it, and feel more peaceful as a result. This is the place that matters, the place where beauty and truth merge, where honesty, upliftment, and change happen. Many people are afraid to go there.

My suggestion: do it anyway. Somehow, sooner or later, you'll find that making this little journey into stillness, into really discovering who you are and how you work, may be the most important thing you've ever done.

Namaste

Larkspur in north Idaho

IMG_5095
Originally uploaded by bonny lass

My greatest joy on this bike ride, and most other times, was the fresh array of flowers and plants. I read a short article the other day about a study that was done, in which women were given different types of gifts, and about which ones made them smile. (Apparently there's a lot of money out there for conducting studies. Note to self.)

Anyway, the only gift that made EVERY woman smile was--flowers. (Note to boyfriend.)

You just can't mess with the power and beauty of something that already has its own artistry, its own life, its own character and message. As a student of flower essence and plant spirit therapies, I already know that each plant has its own gift and message for us. Most healing practices, through eons, stem from the plant world--plants are the natural apothecary provided for our well being.

And of course, there is the more immediate, obvious gift of plants. Beauty.

Bridge at Dover Bay

IMG_5115
Originally uploaded by bonny lass

Ahh, bridges. So important, however you look at them. This one is steel and concrete, but remarkably at home in a tranquil, natural setting.

You'll notice my horizon is slightly crooked. It usually is. Personally, I think that's because I usually can only keep one foot on the ground.

I took this photo, and some of the others, during an evening bike ride at the end of May. The Canada geese were using this wetland as a nursery, swimming or resting in family groups.

World Peace and the Lost Art of Turn Signaling

As children, we learn some basic rules of behavior. Be nice to your classmates. Raise your hand if you have something to say. Don’t pull other people’s hair. Eat your vegetables; go to bed early; play fair.

Some of us accepted these rules, some of us tested them, some of us flat out rebelled in the face of perceived tyranny—and probably spent a lot more time in our rooms as a result. But the rules themselves were not out to get us. Most of them were designed to help us learn how to be good humans: take care of yourself, respect others. Pretty simple stuff.

But then we grew up. And all hell broke loose.

For instance: I was driving to a doctor appointment the other day. Because the driver across the intersection from me made his left turn rather than yield to my right turn (all on green), I was stuck in a lane that runs out after the next light. No problem, that’s why there are two lanes.

I stopped at the next intersection’s red light. When the light changed, traffic started moving, and I saw a fair amount of space to my left. I turned on my signal, began to merge—and the driver behind me stepped on the gas, roared up beside me, and pushed me back into the lane that had now run out.

Hmm. Now that’s not very nice.

I was not after his firstborn, or his retirement fund, or the last slice of pie. I didn’t try to “cut in”, or fail to use my signal. I don’t even have a smelly car.

The truth is, we all have our moments. We’re preoccupied. Running late. No coffee. Have to beat the traffic. We’re chatting on our cell phones and don’t actually notice what’s going on around us. Or we’re just fed up with everyone else and stop caring. Ouch.

We may begin stumbling out the door in the morning thinking we’re the only ones out there that have anyplace to go, or any reason to go there. And that’s a convenient illusion that lets us off the hook.

But think about this. There’s a whole world of trouble out there. There’s war—more than one. There are family members in harm’s way, and families who know nothing but fear. There are AIDS epidemics and countries without clean drinking water. I don’t have to make a bigger list; it’s all plain to see as soon as we read the news.

My point is this: there are ways in which small lapses in caring can add up to big problems. The large problems have to be dealt with on a large scale. The small ones—well, maybe we can head those off. It all starts in the same place—a willingness to care, to cooperate, to be a little bit less selfish. To be courteous (do you use your turn signal?), however grudgingly at first. We might start to like it. That one ounce of goodwill we can pry from our overworked, caffeine-starved hearts could be the start of something good. It might even lower our blood pressure.

Consider it. Those rules we learned as children are not so bad. Because everything starts, and everything changes, by what we choose to do right here, right now, every day.

A Reason to Be

I saw a great blue heron this evening. Poised, absolutely still, keen eyes targeting the inlet's slow undercurrent. A model of patience, serenity and predation, all at once. And quietly magnificent.

May is my favorite month, and nature is why. At no other time is life's passion and magic so evident. Honeybees buzz among freshly opened blooms; trees have opened themselves into canopies of green, sculpting intimate cathedral walls from winter's bare branches; the air skips with fragrances of sweet lilacs, fresh greenery, piquant cottonwood pollen. Blackbirds strut and screech, protecting the nests of their females. The first mallard ducklings appear, balls of down darting around their mothers as they swim.

And people bloom. I see a new radiance in laughing smiles, elevated spirits, sun-blushing skin. The cyclical current and natural urge of life animates everything, in its time. And the fact is, we are neither separate from nor immune to that current. We are, in essence, another expression of the wild, moving force of life, directing that force by our will and choices. Religion, political power, ethnicity--all are simply different faces we can put on top of our nature, that element of being that is common to us all.

Perhaps the reason for our being here is not to achieve small measures of success, whatever we have chosen that word to mean for us. Rather, perhaps we are here to discover the magic of expressing perfectly our own measure of bright nature. To use our wills, our choices, to form our springs, summers, falls and winters harmoniously and with great joy, in ourselves and with each other. Perhaps the marvelous opportunity we've been missing is simply to learn how to Be.