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Cosmic Color Palette

30 September 2023

As the rains and floods in the metro NY and Long Island areas came to a three-day close, the Heavens spoke silently to those who raised their eyes and hearts to feel, perceive and see.

Believe in Truth, and you shall still rise. Practice Love, and you shall still rise.

Trust in The Word, and you shall still rise. Become the Power of Goodness, and you shall still rise.

Then, The Unseen Hand began to swirl tones of French and English lavender, pinks and coneflowers onto the azure canvas that stretched from the sole horizon from East to West and from South to North into Eternity …and October began in brilliant sunshine.

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Under the Leaves

26 September 2023

An urging restlessness returned my thoughts to the usual mental debate for this autumn Tuesday. “I know no one there. No one knows me. Should I go?” Then I began thinking of New York City in the 1920s and 1930s.

Images of my father’s Brooklyn neighborhood popped in my mind. Some of these faded photographs I managed to find and tuck in a few envelopes before I left what I had called home. Now they flipped through my thoughts. I had heard and answered the appeal for tombstone contributions from an Italian-American community. Now, I felt a connection to this unknown someone who chose the moral grace of “doing the right thing” — Here is the story of Pietro Pete Panto. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/nyregion/pete-panto-docks-mob.html

Here was Pietro, buried unmarked, unrecognized, not far from where I now quietly live. Pete — standing, saying no to corruption, even in the face of violence, and upholding his own moral compass in favor of workers’ struggles. At another historical time, almost 100 years ago, when honesty seemed scarce, Panto remained steadfast to model workers’ collective conscience of honest travail and its rewards. How much yet how little things change! I spoke to people in attendance – open, focused, welcoming – waiting with umbrellas prepared for the threats of a downpour.

Before I left the house, I debated whether to buy flowers. A quick visual survey of the backyard revealed one perfect red rosebud, and several purple wildflowers, palm-like fronds, and plenty of greenery. I gathered the flowers and whispered a prayer for the guidance to do the right thing, and to brave the conviction to follow those whispers.

And when ready to leave, I returned to the car, shuffling through brown, decaying leaves over rows of graves. By chance, I brushed some brown leaves off one of the foot-stones and looking up, read and received the message to recognize the synchronicity and serendipity of this afternoon.

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Healing Rain

24 Sept 2023

Before Ophelia brought three days of beneficial rain to a yearly regeneration of this backyard dotted with deep, destructive grasses and newly-seeded patches of microclover, I managed to remove some withered spots of crabgrass and weakening roots–a yearly chore that has continued over summers.

As the brilliant sunset of this International Day of Peace 2023 promises, we are part of cycles, tides, breezes, just as the Earth lives. And yes, it is difficult to remove the clinging damage of crabgrass that has been free to seed and spread. But, the brilliant green of microclover delights and extends by stolons–horizontal connections between organisms. They expand and reduce weeds, pests..with awareness, labor, and time…bringing beauty and healing.

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Genuine Labor

4 September 2023

Sometimes allowing silent actions to prompt observation, thought and experience succeed more than engaging in conversation.

Ripened grape tomatoes on the vine, small but particularly sweet this year made a smooth sauce for lunch on a cauliflower pizza crust. Tiny green zucchini, sliced thin and pan-roasted made the circular design. Finally, fresh mozzarella, leftover from yesterday’s weekly stop at the local Italian deli dotted the decorative, enhanced Margherita with a touch of basil.

All remains quiet as people recede from today’s heat & humidity. The earth and grass are parched in places, despite watering every other day. Many messages rise up for those who seek them, with accompanying thoughts.

Labor Day 2023 recipe: crushed garlic, evoo, blended garden tomatoes however small, drop in a few fresh basil leaves shredded and simmer your pizza sauce – dotting with fresh (leftover) mozzarella, garden baby zucchini slices on cauliflower crust. Bake at 400 for 10-12 minutes.

Incomparable, unprocessed taste gives simplicity, authenticity and work together — to make a pure, healthy point, understood through experience on Labor Day 2023.

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Another Fall Feeling

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.

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It’s All About…

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.

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Shift to a Sunflower Moment

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.

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Ebb, Flow, Struggle, Grow

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.”

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Blog

Ebb, Flow, Struggle, Grow

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.”

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Blog

A Moment of Perspective

7/4/2023

The heat and humidity didn’t make the day any better. Although some plants thrive, others struggle–much like the fauna in our world, as well.

During the day, the crack of fireworks popping breaks the stillness, and reminds me of what truly matters and how rabbit-holes engulf the unsuspecting.

As long as there is still light to illuminate, choosing to find and follow that light is an imperative in one’s own well-being. Noise and flash produce those momentary drives intent on derailing whoever follows for the gain of others–merely another shell game. Until…my spray of refreshing water before nightfall on the portulaca blossoms offer me the curiosity and wisdom in this new mantis’ greeting. Be still. Listen to Everything, especially your soul.