Spring Flowers Gracing Our Hills Early

                                                                  The sugar bowl!

                                                                                                  Lance-leaved chiming bells

A hike I didn't start out to complete yesterday became engrossing because of the variety of wildflowers that dotted the hillsides and meadows.  Later there will be more flowers, but few additional varieties and the pasque flowers and sugar bowls will have completed their blossoming.  I went to the Goshawk Ridge Trail near Eldorado Springs, CO, about 8 miles south of Boulder thinking that the sugar bowls might possibly be out.  Their blooming season is shorter than most of the wildflowers in this area, and I didn't want to miss them.

Approaching the first bend in the road, I wondered at the burst of yellow.  As I neared there were wild iris too--and the yellow was a hillside of golden banner.  Farther into the hike I would find meadows and fields filled with golden banner, a wildflower I think of as belonging in the higher mountains.  I'll still appreciate its setting there, but enjoyed the splashes of yellow in the fields yesterday.  The lance-leafed chiming bells were profuse and their blue bright against the hills and grasses.  Chokecherry bushes provided blossoms and perfumed the nearby air.  And as I looked at iris in a hilly meadow, I spied--yes.  Sugar Bowls.  They were smaller than I remembered, but they were there.  I climbed a hillside that seemed steeper than it feels coming down, the usual approach to that part of the trail.  I was doing it backward, intending to reach the blossoms and then to turn around and go back.

I was startled by a loud chugging noise.  Where was it coming from?  It sounded like a train, but there was nowhere for train tracks was there?  Then I looked up at the mountainside high above and what appeared to my eyes to be a toy-sized train was snaking through the trees.  My camera doesn't have a long zoom and the photo below doesn't show the perspective from which I looked but I wanted to show the top of the mountain.  You get a bit of the idea, right?!

                                                        Golden banner on the hillside.

The train.

A first paintbrush (orange) delighted me.  I found a wonderful rock near bright blue-purple larkspur and stopped for a snack, deciding whether to go on.  I was near the top of that hill climb, but had not yet reached the stream and hillside where I was accustomed to finding pasque flowers and sugar bowls.  Would they be bigger, more of them, than those I had found?  After a short rest, I resumed my hike.  Yes, it was farther to that stream and hillside, down a steep hill and up another, and I was rewarded with more and yes, bigger sugar bowls and pasque flowers (these are taller than in the mountains) than those I had seen earlier.  By that time I was much closer to the beginning of the trail through the woods and down the road than going back the way I came.  My reward was to find those fields of golden banner and penstemon along the roadside.  I posted photos of many of the flowers on Facebook, and will put only a few here.  It was a rewarding couple of hours with few people to interrupt my reverie.  (And now I will have no excuse to keep me from my new book proposal in the morning.)

NOTE:  This is a new blog format, and I'm just discovering how it works.  The photo settings are completely different.
                                                Chokecherry bushes behind the rocks

Blossoming--trees, flowers, and creativity

It's April, and you might think you were in Tennessee with all the blossoms--even some trees beginning to drop the blooms for leaves. And more leaves are coming out each day.

The World Affairs Conference, CU's traditional (64th year) blend of talks and panels from scholars, scientists, artists, political commentators, and activists of all stripes is this week--five days filled with more than my brain could take in. Yesterday the creativity panel (in arts and science) reminded that a regular practice is needed for skill building--and for the blossoming of creativity in all endeavors. I've been neglecting my writing this winter so it was a good reminder. No, I won't practice on this forum daily, but will be more intentional about an early morning writing practice. Hopefully, I can also set aside one day when I do little but write.

The next speaker I heard, after a CASA board meeting, was a political writer and speaker. Though saying much that appealed to Boulder's liberal audience, he was willing to poke on both sides of the political aisle. He commented that in the fall, we would have a choice of presidental candidates--between the Tin Man and the Wizard, hidden behind the curtain, noting that what we needed was a leader with courage.

After that was the brain series, and I hope for another opportunity to hear two of those panelists for what they spoke of was changing our brain patterns in positive ways that aren't difficult. The woman shared her work in Haiti--how she asked children what imagine came to mind (a scary one) about the earthquake. Then she asked them to visualize a memory that made them feel happy and secure. She taught them to go to that memory whenever they felt anxious. Later an elementary school student of hers came back to tell her that she had taught her class this exercise. Talk about changing the world one person at a time, what an inspiration.

PS: And last night (Tuesday), the annual WAC jazz concert was amazing and delightful. However, it didn't have much to do with traditional jazz.

This morning's time is up, and I must get ready to go help Sam's substitute teacher as her literacy volunteer. Tonight is the WAC jazz concert, sure to be delightful and fun.

Patterns

In yesterday's post, Sam wanted to be sure you knew all about our "adventure walk." And he chose the photos to be included.

Today on the cusp of what is the beginning of spring in nature, though more cold and wet (we hope) will surely come, I'm thinking about patterns in nature and in our lives.

Leaves on the willows quickly followed the corn-like buds and their flowery openings. Shrubs flower while their branches lie dormant. On my walk this afternoon, I was surprised at the trees already in full leave--and others beginning their budding process.

Our life's patterns are formed, often without our conscious knowledge by events of early childhood. Were it possible to see those patterns in early adult live and re-evaluate them we would all no doubt hit delete and add, perhaps many times.

Recently my meditation practice allowed me to feel/see back into very early childhood and realize how I had decided that because of Mother's catatonic states (where she didn't respond to voice or touch) that I couldn't count on anyone. Sharing this with a centering prayer friend, I commented that my daughter thought I should have a bunionectomy and that my friends should assist with the after care. I told her that my friends were too busy, especially since the initial care consisted of staying off my feet completely and having the ice pack machine refilled regularly. My (new) centering prayer friend immediately listed all the friends she thought would help and offered to spend a night or two with me.

I'm not planning foot surgery in the near future and think that some would have understandable reasons for not helping, but it was an insightful exchange. Living alone for years, I still expect no help and I've trained my family not to think I'll need it--at least from them.

I have had amazing support from friends during major difficult times over the years, and I've lived in Boulder as long as I lived in Chattanooga, and much longer than either of my residences in Alabama. So I've been thinking about the pattern that has again emerged.

Seeing old patterns is a way to let them come up for air and for healing and also to let them go.

Since many of my day time hours are spent with my daughter, assisting in her work and Sam care, I'm wondering if I have merged thinking about her availability with that of Mother's?

Perhaps this insight has come to allow me to be more specific about my needs as we work together and to limit our work time to that which is really needed. It could be that I'm hiding behind the "I must take care of my daughter" voice that mirrors the childhood "I must take care of my mother" voice--that I'm letting that keep me from my writing and leaving time for whatever God's next call for me is. It's worth discerning.

Spring Break Adventures

Sam, standing near the creek, watching the ducks swimming away
after he had climbed down to see them up close (after lunch).

SAM said the library is in back of him.

I see that I didn't complete my last post so it was early February and definitely winter weather when I last posted. Now, in late March, spring has arrived prematurely in Colorado. A dangerous wild fire is raging not far from Denver, making our skies hazy, and we expect another day in the mid to high 70s--about 20 degrees above average.

Yesterday grandson Sam, who turned 8 earlier this month, and I picnicked and walked the rustic side of the Boulder Creek path up from the library and came back through the park. Sam slid and crawled down embankments and along side the creek. He made friends with ducks and jumped from boulder to boulder (longer jumps had he not been wearing new sneakers which I insisted stay dry) and enjoyed himself thoroughly. Sam wanted you to know that we found flowers, paintings on the concrete wall by an overpass, ducks and all sorts of creatures like crows and other flying birds.

Sam is not an outdoor kid and tried hard to get me to say that our promised picnic could be in his back yard where he could eat quickly and go back inside. I was surprised and delighted when he decided that we would have an "adventure walk," noticing things and showing them to each other.

Oh yes--we did picnic. I had imagined my treat to be getting a burger and fries from the better fast food place. That was not what Sam had in mind. He requested that we go to Alfalfa's (a new version of the original organic, upscale market). He knew what he wanted: an expensive (and healthy he assured me) fruit drink, a California roll (freshly made), and a seaweed snack pack. He agreed to share the California roll, and I bought some almonds. The bill: $14.02. The boy has his mother's tastes!

We went to the library's art exhibit. All the paintings were made by school children from Boulder County. Sam found his friend's art work. It was a bee made of paper mache.

We ended our afternoon by visiting the children's book section and checking out a Harry Potter movie as well as books. By the time we arrived back at his home, I was willing and ready to sit on the sofa and watch Harry Potter! It was a lovely day!

Posted by Sam and his Nana

Winter Beauty!

The sun shining on icy Mills Lake, RMNP, on Thursday before the
snowfall that left snow bouquets, below right, in front of my condo.

Who would have thought that we would have a sunny snowshoe on Thursday--and a windless lunch at Mills Lake, unusual on any winter day.

Snow and ice--not my favorite weather--but beauty abounds when they are present. It is again with gratitude that I can trudge up the

trail, through the snow, with a dear friend, and lunch in nature's splendor. And it's with gratitude that I have a warm, pleasant place to

spend this snowy day. It is a beautiful time, and

I am blessed.

Holidays -- 2011

A coolish wet day in middle Tennessee -- green in the backyard of son Mike's home, weeping willow trees pretending it is spring -- so different from the frozen landscape I left in Colorado.

After rousing Christmas celebrations and a quiet movie day after, the adults have returned to work and the grandsons (older but not really adults) were sleeping. The older one was company earlier, but returned to his cave for a rest after cooking pork tenderloin in preparation for a stir fry later in the day.

The celebrations here seem remote from the Christian Christmas story, although there was a lovely creche at the home of the friend who turned 50 on Christmas Day and religious icons and a brief rote prayer at the table at the combined Means-Sanders-Cox Christmas dinner.

The holidays here are about family and friends and that seems to be where transformation and the spiritual journey hits the road and has meaning. A calm peaceful presence seems to be the best gift I can bring to this household where the boys aren't measuring up and taking responsibility for their lives and where their parents are a mixture of angry and sad and disappointed and worried and glad to have them well and okay today.

As we all look back on wasted years of our lives, we want those who follow to realize how important these days are and to use them well. It's not a lesson the young are likely to get until they have wasted more days and had more hard knocks, but we wish for them to find solid dreams and pursue them with verve and zest--energies that are harder to reach down and pull up in later years.

A walk along the Cumberland River with dear friend, Tiffy, pictured above, was relaxing and pleasant--lovely to find such a trail (paved even) near the heart of Nashville, wonderful to have time with her.

Lunch with Karen, one of my "girls," gave pause and thanks for faith and the work she has done in getting her life on track--hard work and hard won peace.

Visits with friends who aren't so fortunate, a younger one dealing with heart therapy, a result of the chemo she was taking for breast cancer; an older one who has survived a stroke (13 years) long enough to have more days when she feels sorry for herself that was ever her style, reminded me of my good fortune. I try never to take my good health for granted. It can change in a minute.

I left Nashville to return to Colorado grateful for my family--son, daughter-in-law, and grandsons and for extended family and for friends of many years--for the time spent with them. I left with optimism, even though there are trials of cancer, addiction, money, and distraction in the lives of those I love. I left feeling loved and loving--blessings that are the most valuable of all.

Eyes to See

No one warned me that when the patch was taken off on the morning after cataract surgery on my right (close vision) eye, I might have foggy sight. Only after the procedure two weeks later, designed to give me sharper vision in my left eye by eliminating scar tissue around my 15-year-old lense implant, did I learn that the lense would be "floating" in its sac for up to a week or ten days before settling down in a new "nest". So as the right eye was clearing, the left was distorted, and without a distance contact lense for the right near-vision eye, I was a more handicapped night driver than before any of the surgeries.

Seeing has been important to the point of an obsession with me. The handsome young anesthesiologist who had done his internship and residency at Vanderbilt had barely stopped shaking my hand when I said I didn't want him to administer propofol (a very popular short-term anesthetic these days). I wanted to be awake and know what was happening, even if I couldn't actually see the surgery. He complied and provided something to take the pain edge away but that left me awake. (What I heard were complaints about dealing with an eye that had had RK cuts in it to improve sight prior to the advent of Lasex, which the surgeon had known prior to the operation.)

When I got glasses for my nearsightedness as a nine-year-old, I was amazed that I could see individual leaves on the trees while standing underneath them. When I got contact lenses for graduation as a teenager, I stood at the front of a local drug store, amazed that I could read signs near the back of the store. When I tried out a new distance contact over my now great near-vision eye and read most of the 20-20 line on the doctor's chart, I was amazed and gratified. I could not remember when I had been able to see so well!

But what about that inner-seeing? What about the journey to know ourselves? How many times do our lenses get clouded? NY Times op ed writer, David Brooks, recently wrote about seeing only what we wish to see, whether that meant ignoring what we saw (as in the Penn State scandal), or making what we see into what we wish was there. This is so easily true when we look at ourselves. Who wants to see the mote in one's own eye? Isn't it easier to see the one in the other person's?

In my spiritual journey, I often asked, "God, did I really need to see that today?" when shown some gnarly part of my personality. At this time during Advent, I'm reminded that I find it easier to see the needs of others, rather than to see and tend to my own. Yesterday I was reminded that my little job helping my daughter consists of what she sees is best for her at the time, correctly of course. I got to see that mote in my eye, the one that says "but I go out of my way to help her...." "That's what Mothers do," I'm likely to say if someone else points this out. But how far should I carry it?????

I don't need to feel as if I'm living her life--or to be disappointed when an opportunity to help with something that's fun for me (this time--shopping for accessories) suddenly disappears. Really-----shopping for things, pretty, but useless things to go into a 6-bedroom house occupied by one person--is that what should be occupying my time?

And what about that centering prayer work--the group with too many newcomers, the introduction dropped in my lap with no support from those whose schedule dictated the time the introduction would be held, the facilitators workshop held on a snowy day so it needs to be repeated at another time. Those in the group like it, the introduction went well, and the two who joined me Saturday morning enjoyed our time together. But where was I in this work--exhausted most of the time--and feeling unsupported. There's something wrong with this picture, and the blur isn't clearing on this cold snowy day.

What is my journey now? I seem to have that foggy sight in another way. It's been easier to be busy than to quietly wait for the Holy Spirit to point the direction.