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.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Broken Top mountain
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.
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.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Lily bloom
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.
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.
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