Limbo or Transformation?

/
Limbo or Transformation?

I love this season of the  transformation of trees.  They go through remarkable changes.  This picture of River Tree (I have named her that) reminds me of the transformation and how unpredictable is the unfolding of things.   River Tree could be described as the offshoot of a tree long gone, that has grown over the creek, and looks most days as if it is about to fall in the water.  But never does.  Some limbs are leafy.  Some bare.  The trunk has shoots growing straight up--suckers are what tree people call them.  Usually they get trimmed off.  But not with River Tree.  She is this wild mix of limbs and shoots and sprouts.  Hanging out over the water.  Yet how powerful, how spectacular the effect of the light of sunset last night on this tree (however you want to think about the Light as a metaphor in our lives...).

Read More

A Different Kind of Circus

/
A Different Kind of Circus

The first time I saw a Cirque de Soleil performance I was blown away. The beauty of it. The gymnastic skill. The use of colors. The silk ropes. A whole new world.

The second time I saw them I was in Las Vegas for work and saw a performance of Love, a spectacular enthralling experience built around music by the Beatles. It was so amazing I knew it would be worth a second trip to Las Vegas (a city I don't enjoy) just to see it again.

These circus performers were different than those in the traditional circus.  And it brought to mind the Greenhouse movement in the field of care for frail elders.  The Greenhouses look unlike a traditional nursing home. They are managed by a Shabazim, a person whose role that breaks all the traditions of the older care models--by creating a small homelike setting with a "homemaker" who provides care and connection.

Read More

Transitions and Thresholds: What Comes After Change?

/
Transitions and Thresholds: What Comes After Change?

So many of my friends are in the midst of one transition or another, and in many ways, so am I, as I muse on how to set a healthy pace for this time in my life. As I ask friends (and strangers) how they see “the third thirty years” of life, I find myself drawn to images of openings, and closings—the picture of this gate, on the nearby property of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center is a favorite such image.    

Read More

Soon You Arrive At The Edge Of All Your Plans

/
Soon You Arrive At The Edge Of All Your Plans

The last note to friends was about PQ and CQ—passion quotient and curiosity quotient.  The little furry caterpillar  accompanying that note (he was on the table at lunch and I took his picture!) seemed to suggest nature’s version of curiosity.  A living thing holding on to the edge of the table, still wiggling to see more, reaching further.  Extending himself.

Read More