16th: This lawn that seems so spacious just outside my window really is tiny from the perspective of Google Earth. Because the property is overhung with the canopy of the adjacent forest, the aerial view offered by the satellite reduces the image of the yard substantially. This is just another small reminder of the speck we each are. How minute is one life in the six billion we are as humans! The trillions of other living species (flora and fauna) just add to the microscopic feeling I have this morning. Our lives are meaningful in their interconnections, as we join together in the web that holds us all.
18th: It’s strange how bright it is given that there is total cloud cover this morning. We are smack in the middle of summer and yet last night’s dinner conversation revolved around how it is “too cold, too wet, too dark” to be summer. The bounty of spring – the wonders and delights of birds’ nests, worm-gathering, opening leaves and petals – has quieted into a dark, green reverie of “this is forever-ness”. The leaves don’t seem to be doing anything other than just Being – allowing the breeze to blow them, offering their beauty to me. I have much to be grateful for.
19th: Something has been smoldering and is turning into a small, steady fire within me. I can feel the heat of it, hear the crackling, as I go about my days. Something within has finally lighted and it wants to be stoked and enjoyed. I feel the fire of passion for writing, even (or especially) without the structure of form. When I haven not written for a few days, the fire loses its life; the glow of the coals wanes and I fear the gray ash will be all that is left, every good bit of fodder burned up, unbeknownst to me (in the darkness of my sleep, perhaps).
21st: Despite the rain’s persistence this week, I lifted my chin to the sky and let the heavy mist wash my face as I traversed the parking lot of the grocery store. Most people around me were rushing to get to dry places; I was in a hurry to be alone. I correctly figured that the beach would be empty of humans, despite the low tide, so I drove to coveted solitude at the nearby state park. In addition to the great benefit of being alone in the quiet, I was offered beautiful gifts by the wildlife on the shore: two bald eagles perched in a tree overhanging the rocky beach; the immature eagle dipped down in low circles above my head and then dashed to the tidewater’s edge to poke at one of two baby river otters; three otters, altogether, swam out into the quiet surf to avoid the attentions of the eagle and my curious dog. I reveled in the beauty during a slow two-hour stroll and only realized that the sun had begun to shine down when I noticed the sumptuous green of the wet tide grasses resting in the spotlight on the low sand. One perfect sand dollar waited amidst the crunched remains of hundreds of dead, broken creatures. A red jellyfish the size of a large serving platter was spread into a perfectly round disk in the middle of our path and my dog’s nose glazed the surface as she jauntily walked the flats. I sat with the gloriousness of privacy and kinship with these creatures all through my dinner. Later while driving home from an evening event, I turned onto my street to see a wild and fresh coyote running fast across the road. I paused long enough to find him in the nearby clearing and we stared at one another sharing some long, full minutes.
All blog photographs taken by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
