DANCING ON A WHITE FIELD

Wow. It's April 11th. The snow is falling lightly and the damp air is still cold. Hard to believe it has been 6 weeks since I wrote in my blog. Last time, I wrote about the beginnings of the signs of spring. That was the end of February. Moving toward the middle of April...the maple syrup is all in and bottled. The pussy willows are out and the goldfinches are sporting yellow. Today, I took Grace for a nice walk on the golf course during the gentle snow. There is something so inviting about a golf course dusted with snow. I don't know if it is the white field calling me to make my tracks across the greens or if writing is calling me to wake up and move across the field page of white...and express myself. I am slow to awaken. I come out of dreamland like a bear comes out of hibernation. Stephen went skiing yesterday for the last time...and upon returning home was all juiced up from seeing a large black bear lumbering across Right Stuff...one of our favorite trails. In my imagination, the trail is named Write Stuff. As he told his tale, the lumbering bear was awake and moving about Write Stuff. Some kind of sap moving in my veins started a delicious tickle in my heart. The frozen veins are melting. The bears I've been painting in my art class are speaking to me and showing up live on the ski trails and I am set to thinking as I make my way across the wide white field of the local golf course.

I had an epiphany as I walked. It came from chewing on thoughts like dogs chew on bone. I realized that all my life I have written notebooks full of the thoughts that drive me round and round. I have a closet filled with journals that go back to my early 20's. I took the time to read some of the old notes and realized that the same thoughts seem to arise at the same time of the year and with each passing year, I become more the master than the slave. That seems to be the wisdom aging offers as it's supreme gift. For the first time, it dawned on me that my life is NOT my thoughts. It seems elementary to realize this small truth...but in my case, the thought has been HUGE! WOW! I have a life that is separate from my thinkings. I can think all I want...but recording my thoughts is not the key to living my life. My life is not my thoughts. I can't tell you how freeing this one thought really is. It is not the thoughts themselves that are important to write...but the act of writing, of moving my pen across the page...the movement itself is my dance with the divine. And sometimes the music comes not from words. I reached a moment where I realized that words can be exhausting. I especially feel that when I go visit my Mom who is in a nursing home...she has a terrible time trying to communicate as she has a severe problem with word retrieval. Usually it is the last word of every sentence that she reaches into the mist trying to grab...a thread of thought that frequently escapes her. I become weary waiting for her to tell me what she is talking about and she becomes exhausted trying to tell me. Our visits have become hand holding moments of quiet reflection. After all...it is the being together that is important...not what we have to say to each other. The phrase "talk is cheap comes to mind. So...the past 6 weeks I have felt a quiet settle over my heart like a dusting of snow. Words weary. Writing doesn't excite me. Listening to the silence...that is where the new thoughts begin.

So...as spring winds up for it's first pitch, I am celebrating my new awareness. I am drawn to my water color paints and the quiet application of color to the white field. Ssshhhh. Listen. Hear how the permanent rose mingles with vermilion and bleeds into cadmium yellow.  I don't have to control it all either. The water has its own magic...the color vibrates it's truth and words don't matter so much. The best music is the music that moves us and makes us want to dance. After a long winter of beckoning white empty spaces and reruns of tired old thought-forms, playing with color stimulates something new and green deep inside my heart. I find a deep peace spreads open within me as I dabble away at being an idle rainbow in a frantic world of words. The music a slow...space making...and for this tired old body, it ignites a joy that longs to dance.

Life is a dance. My purpose is to dance with life...to leave space for the universe to lead and be willing to follow with a faith that there is a greater intelligence than my repetitive brain that thinks it knows everything. Learning to detach from my habitual thought forms awakens the intelligence of my heart and breathes fresh air into a humdrum routine. Loosening up. Breathing. Moving joy and allowing fear to have a voice but not a vote...here is the gem hidden in the my silence of 6 weeks. And a colorful one it is. Perhaps the sky is alight with dawn.