Floating

I have begun to write every day in case you haven't noticed...yes...this writing thing is a challenge to say the least but something that I must keep doing as an excercise for my life and for my word.  Sometimes I think that maybe i shouldn't be doing this in the open with people watching, but then i go back to the main idea of this blog, which is the creative journey unfolding and it seems very fitting...it also holds me to it, like a watch dog...like the nosy neighbor that peeks out the window to report on the doings of all her other neighbors she sees bustling around with life as she observes and frequently tattles, corrects and disapproves of their doings.  yeah...sort of like that.  I find it so interesting in this day and age that in so many ways, we forget that we have neighbors or that we don't interact more with them.  

When growing up in Santa Monica, its seemed that all of my neighbors knew each other, had kids that played together, or at least said hi on their morning walk.  These days it seems like a rare occurrence...more out of fear and doubt than anything i suppose.  I think in a big city like L.A., the innocence of pure unmotivated interaction is lost a bit and people tend to distrust the motives of others actions, but i think if you search it out and make the effort, you will always be surprised at the outcome.  

In Boulder, I have found that there is a bit more openess towards interaction with one another and you needn't search to far for that connection...maybe because the stakes are lower here...and by that i mean survival stakes.  Maybe the guards have been let down a bit...i don't really know...It is not to say that there are still those who seem ill equipped to deal with social situations, but I am constantly given the kindness of strangers and the interactions of other human beings.  I like that.  

The weather here has turned into gorgeous summer days, with bright green leaves shining and flapping in the wind, and deep bloody purple irisis that seem to be everywhere.  Each day there seems to be a moment when you think it may rain a bit as the clouds menacingly gather over the Front range mountains, and then an hour later, they are gone, or they have moved south or east...It sometimes feels like a protected vortex here at the base of the mountains and i find myself feeling very safe and content.  The stream by my house is flowing again with a renewed power from the snow run off and with that new movement, i often find myself standing by the stream and contently listening to it flow by...usually feeling quite calm and inwardly open to the day.

There are so many teachings and writings about the stream or the river and it is obvious that those teachers spent many a day on the banks of some local stream or river watching the same flow that I am now observing this small one...the way a root gets caught in the flow and is  washed constantly by the same pattern of water as it struggles to hold on to the earth, or the way the height and speed vary in the morning and night, sometimes growing coffee brown with the intensity of the flow, or calmly clearing as it slides a bit slower by and eases up in the graceful arc of her intentions.  I find the stream more calming to me than the ocean for some reason...it may be that the ocean is, for me, to immense to feel calm, and too powerful to be safe...or that the stream is an offshoot of the powers of the mountains all around and simply a vein in the blood of the earth.  I don't know...but I do know that having the water near, and feeling its simple flow, is a constant reminder of life....just that, the simple flow...

Peter Gabriel has a song about it....

river show me how to float

i feel like i'm sinking down

thought that i could get along

but here in this water, my feet won't touch the ground

i need something 

to turn myself around.

I always loved that song as it brings me back to the reality and simplicity of life...the stream that flows in a tireless, simple, purposeful, sometimes fierce, sometimes calm, babbling kind of way...i think the practice of letting that flow take us through the day is the challenge...the gift the place to be.  

Life is kind of like a stick race on the river...you know, the kind when you drop a few sticks in and then run to the other side and see which one flows by first, not really knowing how or why, but just enjoying the moment that it happens, and then they are gone, down the stream, river or out to sea...i think those sticks are like our moments, our experiences, our loves, our lives, our hopes our dreams...if we let them float freely, the right ones will come out first.....and then we openly let the other ones float away, maybe forever, maybe for a moment.  

Love and Understanding.