The desert has started to bloom. Lying in secret underneath parched red sand, miracles are taking place, without anyone even knowing. In this arid desert one expects to see Cactus, Yucca, Sage Brush, Goats Head, and dessert grasses, but delicate and fragrant flowers are unexpected. These are the miracles. The ones that remind us to never take for granted the wonder of life.
It is hot, but as they say, it’s a “dry heat”. But I think 98 degrees is hot… whether it is dry, or wet. And the no see-ums are blood sucking vampires. Last count I have 36 bites. I think they are one of the plagues let loose by Pandora. There aren’t many things I swat at; mosquitoes, fleas, and big biting flies. Now no see-ums have made my bad list!
The spiders are out in force as are these smaller bugs that look a lot like scorpions without a curly tail. I catch them all and put them outside. Sometimes Kali Cat catches them and sometimes Yoda catches them before I have a chance to rescue them.
Last night there was fire in the Sky. Up over the ridge, even though the skies were clear, there was a long sheet of lightening that never moved but kept pulsating over and over for several hours. No rain…No clouds… No thunder… Just lightning. It looked a bit like a giant fire fly.
Two lizards scale the house everyday and stare at me through the window. I finally got their message. Let go of that which is not serving you; like the tail that releases when caught by a predator. Detach, let go, adapt, dream on, master the art of perception. These are the gifts and the messages of lizard energy. Move into the next chapter of your life without the encumbrances of the old. This is a clear message. I see it. But, at times, it is easier to see the path than to walk it.
This morning I woke up to the smell of smoke. When I looked out the window there was a forest fire burning on the other side of the Pedneral. Smoke from a fire a couple of hours away, billowing in the canyon.
On a you tube video I saw a bird covered in oil, dying…I heard greedy men unwilling to take responsibility.
The things we say, the things we do, and the things we think, have long reaching arms like smoke on the wind or oil in the water. We may not think they do because for us they are a snapshot in time. But the vibrations that carry them along the waves of forever can alter life as we know it in a heartbeat. We must take care. We must move through the world with careful intention. We must understand that an action of ours may have an undesirable consequence for an innocent. And if it does, we must be willing to take the responsibility of that action. Whether it is a devastating oil spill in the Gulf, a fire started by a cigarette, a littered bottle broken on the side of the road where a child walks, pesticides and herbicides used arbitrarily, without reading labels, that damage people’s lives, kill birds, animals, beneficial insects, and contaminate ground water, an unspayed pet giving birth to unwanted animals that will starve and be wounded, a hateful word that devastates a fragile soul, an unthinking action that breaks a faithful heart.
There are many ways to die and they don’t all end in the completion of life.
This is a soap box for me. Often perception of one is not the perception of another and so truth is difficult to determine. Someone can believe one thing and some else can believe the opposite, and for them the truth is what they believe. But there is a difference between belief and knowledge, and I know what I know. I know that people who do damage are somehow damaged on the inside, themselves. I know that people, who believe they can poison their own little piece of the planet without damaging the whole, are deceiving themselves. I know that ultimately, we will not progress or evolve until we understand radical forgiveness even for those who do the most damage. I struggle with this forgiveness, and so I struggle with evolution.
It is true, we do not inherit the world from our parents, we are safeguarding it for our children and their children. So one day they have the opportunity to walk through the desert and witness the miracle of a wild flower straining, against all odds, out of parched earth, towards the sun, victorious, if only for a day. For many, that is a lifetime.