Wild Geese

ok...tonight was simply a devine time...my sister is in town for Mothers Day and today we made a feast that would be fit for the queen (which my mother is of course.)  We chose a fried Sage appetizer, Rosemary Potatoes, Stuffed Eggplant and a baked Swordfish...all of which we cooked together and from a cook book called the Silver Spoon...an amazing cookbook for anyone who loves to cook. My dad turned us on to it and we all spend our free time cooking from it and sharing our tastes with each other so they can cook it too...the food is amazing and really easy to prepare.  So Taylor and I chopped onions, scooped eggplant, diced tomatoes, dunked sage in egg, roasted potatoes in oil and rosemary, basted swordfish, drank white wine and generally indulged.  My mom got to relax and eat and we were all satisfied by then end to the point of utter happiness and food coma delight.  wow.

I'd like to share a poem that my mom has always shared with me that reminds us to live completely and without remorse....it is written by Mary Oliver:

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the river.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

-Mary Oliver

So often I forget that we don't have to torture ourselves...we don't have to pretend we are something or somebody else..we just need to relax into our own love and being and from that we will stand taller, love freely and give more.  I think there are those in this life who find suffering to be comforting, but we often forget that just because you are suffering doesn't mean the world and all things good have stopped...so I say, why should we have to suffer?  Why don't we stand up and walk amongst the life all around us that is simply being and doing what it does...like the trees in winter and spring, like the snow that melts, like the fires that rage and turn death into life.  We don't need to create suffering for ourselves...there is plenty to go around this earth, we don't need to add to it.  And in  the end, "the world goes on"....

Happy Mothers Day

Love and Understanding.