After a few days of warmer temperatures that saw a gradual melting of the snow around me, I awoke to a gentle mixture of snowy rain coming down. Not sure what form it was to take, it came down in a mixture of the two. Nature has been reflecting my moods so accurately. I have been in a flat place, standing still, no idea of who I am as there is no firmament under my feet. This week, as the sun shone with warmth, I walked with bare feet through patches of snow to land on earth, that gave as the thaw worked its wonders. All is in flux. Am I snow or am I rain? Am I sunshine or a mist gently hugging the ground? I shapeshift with the weather.
Mud season makes driving a new experience on dirt roads. Slipping and sliding!
I observe my life with an appreciative eye and grateful heart, yet it is with dispassion. Removed by layers as life continues its flow around me, like a rock standing in a stream as the spring melt rushes past. In the stream, yet apart. I reach for sugar, toast, comfort in baking cookies and sitting by the fire, staying up late to read books that carry me away in their stories. Some part of me waiting, sensing the magic to come, other parts too tired, too worn to touch into the feelings of future. The past has come in blips of intense feeling where some situation where I felt shame or censor arises full force like a shock to my body, only to recede as quickly as it appeared. Strange aches and pains arise for a moment or a day, only to recede from whence they came. Our bodies, throwing off lifetimes of suffering in these twitches, moving from denseness to seek the light of love.
The present most fully felt as I rock my sleeping grandbaby, breathing in her sweetness as our hearts twine in love with the starry realms that she retreats to. No thought, no needs, simply my foot pushing against the floor to keep us in that hypnotic state of surrender. Neither here nor there, a space of peace and calm.
Then there is the opposite expression as my five year old grandson invites me into his fort, assigns me my role in his never ending imagination, playing Peter Rabbit or Thumper Two or anyone of his menagerie of stuffed animals. He runs off to drive his tractor or dump truck into the fray, I set the blocks and he calls out commands. There is wrestling and jumping and movement aplenty. Ready, set, action!
We are to move in a few weeks as our rental house is being sold. It has been a gracious landing place as we moved from California to this Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. A year to get a feel for a rural life, a deeper connection to the land through the sharper lens of distinct seasons. The new place, the homestead is loosely tethered through a piece of paper with signatures. Older owners down South, the place full of three decades of life that they must come to dismantle as grandchildren call them to a new area and life. Our departure date looming, yet their leave taking timetable in their hands, not ours. This is the now….resting in this lovely farmhouse that has held us close, feeling the push to the next spot, seeing it shimmering ahead, yet the bridge from here to there is not built.
Moments of panic, what is the plan B if this should not come to pass? A houseful of stuff and four bodies to house, no easy rentals or spaces to find in this rural environment. Living in the deep surrender and trust that all will flow. Deep breaths as I recall that there is only now to live. Letting the questions and concerns come and letting them go. The hows, the whens, the desire to build the bridge to our future yet knowing I can only build it in my heart and trust it will find its form in the physical in divine timing.
Highland cattle with its shaggy coat that is well suited to this clime.
The family is all here, nine hearts connected to a dream, a template of beauty and love that is ours to anchor. I know the dream so well as I am the dreamer, the vision keeper. Ahead, in the realm of day to day, there is the moving from this place to that….fifteen minutes down the hill and up a steeper one. Boxes, trucks, lifting….we moved in big trucks across the country, a household reduced and rearranged here. Now a smaller old farmhouse in need of renovation and expansion to hold us. The hows of it all, I cannot feel. How does it all come into form? How is it transformed into a light filled space of grace and beauty that we can live in? Wells and septic systems….new elements to contend with. The land itself invites me with its woods and creek and park like meadow set in a bowl of earth. A fairy like setting that is expansive and restful. A container that calls for an expansive dream to play out. The love pod with its cottages and gardens, with its laughter and music, fire pit and hammocks, gatherings of joy. All awaiting physical form.
Onion seedlings on their way….awaiting the warming of the earth to be planted.
A decade ago, I told my son that we would not need moving boxes and trucks to shift from our apartment in San Francisco as I thought that it would all happen with a blink of my eye. He laughed and arranged for our move in the old way… “just in case, mom”. Of course, it was needed then and perhaps it will be again in this now. I feel it so solidly, the abilities to create with our hearts, with a thought, with a sweep of my hand or a tone from my voice, to make desires take form, to create and uncreate through intention and attention. I know that I am to live this. May it be soon!
Spring looms with sparkles and light…..as the snow flurries thicken and drift down with a weight to their form now. I sit with the fire inside, letting its warmth soothe me. All is well, all is weaving a tapestry of love to hold us. May it be for all of us, a spring of renewal and magic. A spring to remember in days to come as the new beginning.
