A Monday meander and a proclamation for Walktober

Where does the light go?

There is a long time in me between knowing and telling.

~ Grace Paley

The journey from the heart to the throat to the mouth is a long one.

~ Mirabelle D’Cunha

Where does the light go?

Beside the question “where does the light go,” I might also ask:  Where does the time go?  Perhaps it is living with the light in the plants and animals and rocks and mountains and meadows and rivers of this earth.  Perhaps it is living within us.

(“Where does the sunlight/light go?” is a question I’m pondering as part of my yoga practice and studies, one my teacher asked recently and asked us to consider.)

Into the roses.

I’ve been out walking and meandering and sauntering, thinking about my Walktober walk for this year.  I think it might be one from Elsewhere but in case that doesn’t happen, it seems a good idea to take into consideration what is close to home.  There are many good, good walks to be found here.  I don’t even need to leave home to find one.

On the fence.

I was scrolling through Instagram recently and on October 1st our county health department announced that it is Walktober.  What???  How did they know??  Well, it turns out that the governor of the state of Maryland has issued a proclamation for Walktober and that this is the second year he has done so.  I had no idea that the state had stolen my idea!  Hmph.  And not hmph.  It’s good that they are encouraging people to get out and about during one of the prettiest months of the year.

It’s official!

Walktober may be official now, but the official post for it will not go up until October 11th.  It seems to me that it will be less confusing for all that way.  Look for it next Monday, October 11, at or around 4 PM EST.

[Walktober.  Our dates this year are October 11th through the 25th.  If you want to get your walk in earlier or later, go for it.  Just let me know if it’s later since I’ll need to extend the dates.  I am aiming for October 29th as the date I do the wrap-up.  My alternative date is November 1.  I will post the “official” Walktober post, as noted above, on October 11th.  That will be the post you use for pingbacks or leaving a link.  (It is easier for me if the links and pingbacks are all in one place, but I do find them if they end up scattered elsewhere.)

Please join us.  It’s always so much fun.  If you’re not familiar with Walktober, there’s a link over in the sidebar that will take you to a post that will introduce you to it.  Or, you can click on this:  Walktober.  It’s an old post but it gives you the general idea.  Maybe someday I will sit down and write up an About Walktober page.]

Where does the light go?

Now that Walktober business is out of the way, I can meander and ramble about what I’ve been up to lately.  So much, really, and maybe not much at all.  The days are like that now.  Full and not full at all.  And yet, still full even when they’re not full.

There have been lots of new things happening.  The Yoga Sutras class.  A new personal practice along with new studies.  I’m studying goddesses, particularly those associated with fire, light, and the hearth.  This is a kind of coming full-circle for me.  I studied goddesses long ago.  I resisted the divine feminine at that time.  I thought it might be related to my Catholic upbringing and my unwillingness to consider any divinity or god.  It’s only lately, after spending some time working with my female lineage, that I realized that church was only a small part of the puzzle.  Transforming my thoughts from “I come from a long line of bitter women” to something more along the lines of feeling compassion for the struggle those women lived through has transformed my feeling towards them and towards goddesses.

I still couldn’t tell you what my beliefs are, but I can tell you that it is interesting exploring with openness and curiosity.  There is a lightness to it now that I didn’t have back in my old days of yore.

Shedding, making way for new skin.

I’ve been to see a new doctor.  As you might or might not recall, my old primary care physician (PCP), who I liked very much, quit her practice.  There was much sadness on my part because she was a wonderful woman who genuinely listened and cared about her patients.  Finding a new PCP was not easy because there are few of them here.  Finding another woman made it more difficult.  Then, getting her to accept me as a patient when she wasn’t taking new patients brought up another hurdle.  All hoops have been jumped through and after having to wait 10 months for my appointment time to arrive, I finally got to meet her on Friday.  She seems good and seems to know her stuff.  We’ll see how it goes.  My only real problem with her is that it’s almost an hour’s drive to her office.

We have to take what we can get around here.

Volunteer marigolds in the chaos garden (which has truly become chaotic with weeds as well as whatever it is we planted).

I’ve been to Assateague to enjoy a walk on The Life of the Dunes trail and on the beach.  I didn’t see many horses.  You have to go out to the OSV areas this time of year to find them.  I’m hoping to get out there sometime this week to do some hiking and to look for them.  It depends on the weather.  There is rain in the forecast almost every day this week.  We do need it, not quite desperately but getting there.  Our chances for rain are not particularly high so I might have to get out there and do my version of a rain dance to ask the rain to visit us.  “Praise the rain,” as Joy Harjo wrote in her poem of the same name.

Grasping.

We are still harvesting tomatoes from the garden.  Would you believe we have new cucumbers growing, too?  I have not seen very many Monarch butterflies so far, but I did hear a guy at the Visitor’s Center on Assateague asking about them.  He said that they saw a large group of them flying out over the ocean and the beach.  Did you know a group of Monarchs are called a kaleidoscope?  They are also called an army but I much prefer kaleidoscope.  It seems so much more appropriate.

Where does the sunlight go?

I’ve been doing a lot of painting and drawing, too.  As I’ve noted before, when I’m drawing and painting, I’m not writing.  When I’m writing, I’m not drawing and painting.  There might be a way to balance these things out, but I’m not there yet.

A garden of practice.

I reckon that’s about it for today.  Thank you so much for meandering along with me.  I hope you’ll join us for Walktober.  In the meantime, let’s meet out at the Point for sunset this evening.  Sunset is scheduled for 6:41 PM.  It’s very warm and humid here today.  You won’t need a jacket.  In fact, you might want to go for a swim.  It’s that warm.

Please be safe, be well, and take some time to look for beauty.  It’s out there, and in there.

I can see the sunlight in this leaf.

A few of the 10,000 reasons to be happy:  1,876)  Painting gardens of flowers for practice and fun.  1,877)  The Little Wookie looking at one of my drawings/paintings and saying, “That’s very nice, Momo,” in the same way a parent might say it to a child who is showing off their drawing/painting.  It makes me smile every time I think of it.  (He makes me smile every time I think of him.  As do my other grandchildren.)  1,878)  Exploring the divine feminine after jettisoning some baggage about the divine anything.  1,879)  The new personal (yoga) practice I just started to learn.  It’s a beautiful, almost-dance.  1,880)  The slow but steady hints of autumn.  Technically we might be already there (according to the calendar).  Weather-wise, it still feels like summer.

Even in the shadows, I can see the light.