Goals and change

I set a goal on Tuesday that I will follow a day schedule starting with meditation in the morning. I meditate from 20 to 30 minutes. It is a spiritual meditation which opens with a centering prayer suggested by Thomas Keating, a Benedictine, who wrote about Centering Prayer.

Breakfast follows with coffee and slice of bagel smothered with peanut butter. I read our local morning paper.

The following hour or two I read the books collected on my bedside table. Then I go to the internet for the eCourses I currently taking.

Tuesday night Mrs.Abstract attended a Valentine’s Day party in my Rotary Club.

Yesterday morning Mrs. Abstract and I went to church for the Ash Wednesday service and received the ashes on our forehead. It is a sign of change, repentance and preparation for Lent and symbol of life impermanence. In the evening I attended the meeting of our Napa Valley Writers. We had an open mike and bilingual poetry reading. Three students from our local high school read some of their poems. Napa Valley’s poet laureate read of his poems. I listened and didn’t read any poem. It was a lively and wonderful evening.

Today I just returned my walk to the river. It was sunny and 69.

In two hours I’ll be going to the library to attend a presentation by one of our local writer/photographer who will present and narrate with photos the story of the wildfire in October, 2017 that devastated Napa and especially Sonoma County with 245,00 acres of burned area, burned down 8,900 buildings & houses and 44 deaths.

It escapes me

I’m looking at the white heron
stepping daintily on the muddy riverbank at low tide
I’m thinking what I want to write today
The thought escapes and now a fugitive
To search between coherence and acceptance,
silence is not easy, formlessness can’t remain.
The pendulum will swing back
carrying some words stitched together
one half haphazardly, the other half arranged like a quilt.

I’m between thoughts
being ahead or being behind has no meaning when one is not hurrying,
still, we want to reach the finish line.

Finding you and continue our dialogue
can be exhausting though you are buoyant
I want to share your optimism.

It occurs to me

It took me a long time to return
You might think I’m incomprehensible and foolish
When the night deepens
you will see fireflies and stars
I will be the one to live near the marsh
with frogs, fish, and mosquitoes.
I will wake up near a white heron, magnificent
and regal and the train will be long gone.

Reflection

Walk to the river

 

My walk to the river yesterday lasted for one hour,less than 10,000 steps. The river was at low tide. The social group of fishermen enjoyed their banter, coffee, and fishing. The white heron walked on the riverbank unafraid of the surrounding.

The day was warm at 78 degrees. The leaves fell and arranged themselves on the path.

 

 

 

what are your distractions

The easy part is the walking
with doves giving their silent
blessings, and you succumb

to distractions without complaints
islands of red and green bushes,

California poppies, yellow and orange
daisies dancing with the breeze.
You reach the river

greet a sitting fisherman watching
his line, from the corner of your eye
sees a white heron that suddenly flies
skimming the water, quickly you reach
for your cell phone to capture its flight.
Returning home a palm tree

 

fans the sidewalk, your shadow
playing with its leaves.

awareness

 

A white heron on the riverbank
Looks nonchalant about distance
One step forward, flies away.