Author: jjillgallery

1 Sept 2023

These times after an imposed quiet at the beginning of the decade gave many pause for reflection. For others it brought angst, anger, anomy.

Daily, behaviors and actions continue to stupefy and defy protocols of the kindness and consideration many of us understood as necessary to maneuver with some agility in a civil society. Yet, there are forces that lean to the contrary. What does one do?

Just after daybreak, in the silence of filtered morning light, I step outside to listen to the sounds of Nature awakening. The sun stretches through a mass of cloud-cover to smile its warm beams through cool morning air, heralding the beginning of September. Squirrels dart after each other on top of the wooden fence. Mourning doves coo good greetings from their perches on electrical cables. Who listens? A solitary dragonfly waits, watches, without motion.

And despite the end of the season, the struggle of the milkweed pods to reproduce keeps all those who know, watching, waiting, and hoping in protection of another fall.

26 August 2023

While it may seem that the world still maintains its frenetic pace, something since the pandemic feels decidedly different.

Many of us, maybe of a certain age, watch and assess with different eyes, driven by a heart that’s paused, maybe voluntarily, to consider events, circumstances, and reactions in a silence imposed by confusion without many answers or actions. There seem to be few solutions rising to implement with courage, especially depending on what moves the spirit to action.

As children, we tread a careful line of obedience and love, IF those were the models given – more or less imperfectly as families go. Then we become parents, or aunts, uncles, good friends and we assume the responsibilities, passing on the cycles of emotions as we have absorbed them…or not.

As we have grown we have been given a bounty of emotions, situations, lessons. If these charges do not include Truth and Love, the impact can be noticed in how we “freely” think, feel, speak, and act publicly and privately.

And if at the heart of that freedom, there is no moral compass to define and guide us, desperation, decay and confusion replace the lucidity of Love.

22 August 2023

The end of the traditional summer season of plenty begins to occupy spaces of back-to-school and business-as-usual. But, there has been a recent shift in perceptions, energies, and behaviors since the middle of the 2010s decade.

Walking this morning on the grass to the stone path around the house, I picked a few zucchini flowers and some small squash. Thoughts strayed from years of childhood, scholastic life, career choices in the US, overseas, trials, tribulations, triumphs, family, and friends who are still present and those yet to arrive, those who have faded from this life in one way or another. With a start, a flitting house wren hopped on the fence within my reach and tilted her head, as if to draw my attention back to the present where a perfect sunflower smiled to offer the joy of this day to me, to anyone aware enough to appreciate the moment.

While traditions surround us in a very material sort of way, they bring with them the “spirit” of ancestors, symbols of a past to which we all belong. And because space-time has been getting a fashionable update since the images of the Webb Telescope, it may be time to reassess how much each of us truly believes in spirit – that mystery that wakes us from slumber.

It may be difficult to perceive. The struggles that seem to have risen in the constant negativity of the news often compound our angst. Yet the more focus is absorbed by the negative, the less time we have to transform it into anything positive.

Sitting in my car, waiting for the arrival of our 15 yr old Black Lab mix from a vet check up and diagnosis, I noticed the tree next to which I was parked. It didn’t seem to be a young tree, but its leaves were billowy green in some spots, while in others, there were no leaves and even the branches were brittle, dried, and failing. Out of an undiscovered portion of sky, a fossil-gray bird landed on one of the barren branches. It eyed me and hopped into the maze of dying branches and leaves remaining. It may have been a Catbird or Mockingbird, either of which has a distinctive call in Nature.

We all wait…in this struggle. Whether it be to determine if a failing tree will fight neglect and lack of stewardship to live, if a beloved pet has difficulties in her final years, or how we will accept and be present in compassion, comfort, and strength to accompany difficult transformations. While one individual most likely cannot change an inevitable path, the role each of us plays in being present, compassionate, kind, and acting from a place of Love makes us Creation’s “instruments of peace.”

It may be difficult to perceive. The struggles that seem to have risen in the constant negativity of the news often compound our angst. Yet the more focus is absorbed by the negative, the less time we have to transform it into anything positive.

Sitting in my car, waiting for the arrival of our 15 yr old Black Lab mix from a vet check up and diagnosis, I noticed the tree next to which I was parked. It didn’t seem to be a young tree, but its leaves were billowy green in some spots, while in others, there were no leaves and even the branches were brittle, dried, and failing. Out of an undiscovered portion of sky, a fossil-gray bird landed on one of the barren branches. It eyed me and hopped into the maze of dying branches and leaves remaining. It may have been a Catbird or Mockingbird, either of which has a distinctive call in Nature.

We all wait…in this struggle. Whether it be to determine if a failing tree will fight neglect and lack of stewardship to live, if a beloved pet has difficulties in her final years, or how we will accept and be present in compassion, comfort, and strength to accompany difficult transformations. While one individual most likely cannot change an inevitable path, the role each of us plays in being present, compassionate, kind, and acting from a place of Love makes us Creation’s “instruments of peace.”