A River of Light

This morning as I walked out to the kitchen to make my morning cup of tea I noticed how

A River of Light

through our kitchen window had created a beautiful still life. I didn’t move a thing, simply went and got my camera and made a photo of the scene I saw.

Sometimes the light astonishes me. The longer that I have been a photographer the more I realize that the same scene looks entirely different in different light. And that the light changes minute to minute throughout the day.

Thinking about the way light changes reminds me that life also changes moment to moment. Nothing stays the same. We are living in

A River of Change

What a time to be alive. Right now we are in a fast river together — every day there are changes that seemed unimaginable until they occurred.

   — adrienne maree brown

As I listen to responses to recent Supreme Court decisions I am reminded that those decisions are symptoms of much larger systemic issues in our world that stem from our lack of respect for one another and for life of all kinds. Anything that is different from our way of thinking is deemed wrong. 

In our religion, politics, personal choices, we seemingly cannot communicate or find common ground. It is as if the world that I see and experience is totally different from the world that others see and experience.

Seeing Light Through a Prism

We are all looking at life through a facet of a prism. Each facet is different and each of us sees things differently. Yet there is a single prism, a wholeness that we can experience if we broaden our view or take the time to simply look from a slightly different angle.

So I was doing electoral organizing in 2004 — 2003, 2004 — we’re gearing up. It’s post-9/11. It’s like, we’re going to war with Iraq and Afghanistan. And we’re like, we’ve got to get Bush out of office. So we’re doing all this organizing, and it clicked for me, in a way that I couldn’t — it’s one of those things. You see it, and you can’t un-see it. And I was like, oh, we are trying to just change the top layer of this very layered cake, this very layered process, this system of governance. We think that if we just win the presidency, that then we’ll be able to change the world.

And it clicked for me that it’s like, actually, it’s a fractal system. And it’s layer on top of layer on top of layer. And if none of us are practicing democracy anywhere, it’s not going to just suddenly work at the top layer. [laughs] And I got it.

And then I realized — so something about smallness, I was able to gain respect for, because I was like, every single large system or structure or network or political protocol, all of it is made up of small things: of humans either having or not having necessary conversations, and humans being willing to stand up for what is right and stand up against what is wrong. It’s all these small activities that we need to get great at if we want to actually have anything that would be a real democracy.

   — adrienne maree brown

Questions I Ask Myself…

As I experience everything that is happening and the speed of the river of life, I wonder if I am doing enough, if I should become more of a social activist, if I can make a difference in the world. And I come back to being true to myself, to choosing kindness, beauty, and truth and to sharing beauty and joy because that is what I feel called to do.

Sometimes, when I fear

the small light I bring

isn’t big enough or bright

enough, I think of that night

on the beach years ago

when every step I took

in the cool wet sand turned

a glowing, iridescent blue—and the waves themselves

were a flashing greenish hue—imagine we could do

what 7.9 billion

one-celled can plankton do—can shine when it’s dark,

can shine when agitated,

can shine with our own

inner light and trust when we all

ring the tiny light we have,

it’s enough to illumine the next step

in the long stretch of night.

— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

May you see the beauty of life even through all of the difficulties and may you shine your tiny light.

May you walk in beauty.

At the edge of the pond this morning

Later when the sun came out from under the clouds