The miracle of being here

Finding gold in the meadow.

It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you.  It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here.  Rilke said, ‘Being here is so much,’ and it is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed.  We are here.  We are wildly and dangerously free.  The more lonely side of being here is our separation in the world.  When you live in a body, you are separate from every other object and person.  Many of our attempts to pray, to love and to create are secret attempts at transfiguring that separation in order to build bridges outwards so that others can reach us and we can reach them.

~ John O’Donohue

On a sunny, windy Saturday.

How was your weekend?  Did you do anything exciting, or maybe not so exciting but worth a mention?

Magic seeds.

M and I had a productive, but relatively quiet weekend.  We are almost finished with our renovation of the laundry room/mud room/entrance to the house.  We rarely use the front door of the house because there is no walkway to it.  The door to the laundry room, located not far from the driveway, is the main entrance.  Because of that, it will be good to get that room finished.  It was one of the ugliest rooms in the house, and needed a complete overhaul.  I took some “before” photos a few weeks ago, and if the sun ever returns, I’ll take some “after” shots.  Once that’s done, I can show you the transformation.

Keeping watch.

On Saturday I went out to the dock to watch the sunset, and I stayed longer than usual.  It was dark when I made my way through the woods and back to the house.  I haven’t really explored the woods at night here, or the night at all, for that matter.  Before leaving the dock, I heard the otter splashing around.  I didn’t get to see him or her, but I recognized the splashes.

Sunlight sweeping.

As I slowly walked back, I could hear the birds that are wintering in our woods and marsh settling down for the evening.  A rabbit nearly scared the life out of me bounding across the path.  I imagine I nearly scared the life out of her, too.

Two in a tree.

The woods at night have a different feel to them than during the day.  I plan to explore that some more in the future.

Saturday’s sunset.

The clouds have been coming and going, coming and going.  We got very lucky on Saturday night.  The clouds cleared out, and M and I were able to watch the meteor shower.  Did you see any of it?  I counted 21 meteors before we decided we’d had enough of the cold (the temp was in the 20’s).  The meteors were quite bright and beautiful streaking across the night sky.

Almost behind the trees.

I’m not sure where I’m at with my 55-Day Challenge.  I could go back and do the math, but I’ve given up on the numbers for now.  I am still doing all the things I set out to do.  My yoga and exercise routines are going particularly well.  I slack a bit here and there on the meditation.  I really shouldn’t because it keeps me calm and grounded, and probably does as much (if not more) good as the exercise and yoga.

Beautiful reflections.

I reckon that’s it from the Wabi-Sabi Ranch for today.  Thank you for stopping by.  The cloud cover has been pretty thick today so I don’t think we’ll see much in the way of a sunset.  Let’s go out to the dock anyhow.  It’s relatively warm (in the 50’s) and you never know what might happen.  Sunset is now at 4:44 PM (it’s budged a bit, finally).  Meet you about ten or twenty minutes before that.

Orange twilight.

Be good, be kind, be loving.  Just Be.  🙂

Clouds on the water (a reflection).

Today’s joys:  Putting away the pantry items (the pantry is in the laundry room) and getting them out of the living room; a good workout early this morning; the sense of well-being that yoga practice brings; the rhythm of Bella’s paws as she paces around the house during her afternoon walk; ginger tea.