There are Mornings

Even now, when the plot
calls for me to turn to stone,
the sun intervenes. Some mornings
in summer I step outside
and the sky opens
and pours itself into me
as if I were a saint
about to die. But the plot
calls for me to live,
be ordinary, say nothing
to anyone. Inside the house
the mirrors burn when I pass.

--Lisel Mueller

Trends

Yesterday I tried on dresses for about an hour. I'm going to a dressy party in a couple of weeks so I thought maybe it would be good to have a dress, something I never wear because ... uh ... I don't have any dresses.

This season's styles are so unflattering to my mid-age figure that I had to laugh out loud every time I looked at myself in the changing room mirror. Does anyone look good in them? OK, probably some women do. I'm thinking the women who look good in anything would look good in the bubble dresses with the crazy patterns.

In my life I've tried "wearing" a number of personal styles that had nothing to do with clothing. Some trends were flattering, some not so much. For instance, during my 20's, I "wore" self-destructiveness. That didn't look good, not at all. Apparently, I thought it was just the thing, though I was probably too stoned to really know the difference between self destruction and happiness.

My early 30's looked pretty good on me. I was more or less stable, in psychotherapy, had good friends and lots to think about. My days as a witch as well as my short-lived lesbian "lifestyle" looked as ridiculous on me as those bubble dresses yesterday. I tried, but failed to pull off either one of those trends. Kind of embarrassing to look back on it.

Now I'm gazing into the mirror of my life at 55 and asking whether or not the current trend, the bodyworker, Reiki Master, Capitol Hillizen, still fits. Hmmm. Well. Maybe not like a glove, but it looks better than the lifestyle "outfits" I wore in decades past. Maybe my life needs some tailoring, but basically, it's working for me.

I wonder if I'll look back on this in ten years and be as horrified as when I see pics of myself during the mid 1980's. The hair! The shoulder pads! The legwarmers! Yikes. Maybe it's only possible to figure out what really worked after the fact. Is that true? Beats me.

Them

I know I'm supposed to be happy for what my friend Jane calls "the summer people." She's talking about tourists, and she's right. It's a good thing that people come here to spend their time and money. I can't blame anyone for wanting to see Washington DC. It's a beautiful, powerful city full of history and charm.

I should be happy, but. But. But ... it's difficult to share the nation's capital with the rest of the nation, especially when they arrive in huge, ugly, loud, hideous tour buses. I'm not talking about two or three buses at a time, oh no. From Memorial Day through the Fourth of July, it's not possible to take a walk next to the river, or go anywhere on the national mall, without encountering literally dozens of the ugly monsters. The drivers leave them idling for hours in front of the museums so the streets around the mall stink and are at least ten degrees hotter than elsewhere.

Sorry Jane, I should be happy, but.

Letters to the Mysterious Ones

Dear Weather Gods,

Thank you for the spectacular weekend of sunlight, dry air and nice breezes. It was splendid! It's OK by me that today you've wrapped the sky in a soft grey overcast. If you'd like to drop some rain, too, I wouldn't mind. IMO, this has been the best possible spring. Thank you.

Most sincerely,





Dear Ancestors of Chinese Medicine,

I revere you. I'm in awe of your discoveries. I'm thrilled that the systems you invented have endured all these thousands of years, passing from teacher to student all the way down to the Sufi acupuncturist. He is a genius.

Right now, while the grasses toss pollens right and left, ordinarily I would be miserable with my allergies, but because of the acupuncture and funny tea I've been drinking, I've experienced nothing more than a sniffle or a sneeze here and there. The symptoms have quickly passed. You can't imagine how grateful I am!

With great respect,





Dear Sister Fate,

I know I'm stubborn and often blind. I know it's somewhat of a challenge for you to keep me on my path. I know I forget, over and over again, that it's OK to trust my heart and intuition. Your patience with me is truly a blessing.

This weekend I shifted gears at Quiet Waters, began to relax into the space. Working there felt wonderful. It's amazing to feel welcome in a work space again. Wow. To think of how unwelcome I was at Healing Arts makes me a little sad.

I know, I know, everything happens at the right time, right? Right. Anyway, thanks.

Much love,





Dear God,

Thanks for keeping your All-Seeing Eye on me. I feel loved and cared for. Thank you!

All my heart,

What is Remembered, Lives

I salute you, all you soldiers and warriors of past and present, you who were brave, valiant and/or crazy enough to put your lives on the line for something you believed in. For some of you it was a cause, for some, it was to protect, support and defend your own people.

To the Maccabees, to the first Joshua, to the Samurai, the Mongols, to Arthur and the knights of the round table, to American Indian warriors, my darling George Washington, all my dear dead brothers who fought in the Civil War and First World War, to those who served in Vietnam (currently rumbling through DC on Harleys), to vets of the Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq, I salute you all. And a salute to all I haven't named here.

Thanks also to the many writers who have helped people like me understand the experience of battle and the "spoils" of war. Thank you Dalton Trumbo, Sloan Wilson, Michael Ondaatje, etc. I do NOT salute the institution of war.

What is remembered, lives. Rest in peace, dear ones. At least try, OK?

Call of the Wild

It's been such a cool rainy spring that I'm shocked to realize summer solstice is just around the corner. When did that happen?

Ordinarily most of my attention is focused on the season and the weather. This spring I've been so preoccupied with changing my work situation that my love affair with nature has had to take a back seat to my professional machinations. For heaven's sake, or as my friend Sharon Austin would say, it ain't right.

Just this week I shifted into second gear at Quiet Waters. I'm feeling more at home, beginning to congeal around brand new habits and routines. So maybe now I can get back to conversing with the natural world again. I'd better! I read yesterday that someone has coined the term "Nature Deficit Disorder" to describe the ennui and depression children suffer from when they don't spend enough time outside.

Small chance, actually, that anyone on Capitol Hill in Washington DC suffers from NDD, especially in late May. Who can resist the allure of this beautiful place at this perfect time of year? I can't. I'm outta here for a nice walk before work. Oh yeah!!

Today's perfections include:

Cool air, warm sunshine, fluffy clouds, soft breezes, lush green canopy overhead, "too many" roses blooming everywhere, birdsong. Also: people in good moods walking around, lots of free, unscheduled time ... ahhhh.

Tomorrow it's back to work with a vengeance, but today? Excellent all the way around.

Soul Retrieval

By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagine it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers . . . This palpable world, which we are used to treating with the boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard places with no sacred association, is a holy place." -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, from The Divine Milieu**

What are you telling us, Pierre? That the whole world and everything in it has soul? Oh yeah. Well said.

With so much soul available, I have to wonder why we humans have such a hard time hanging on to our souls. In so many cultures, throughout time, there have been mechanisms in place by which a person could "retrieve" his/her soul. It's a big part of what all shamans do and have done for thousands of years.

Currently in the culture in which I live, soul retrieval takes many familiar forms: psychotherapy, of course, but I also think acupuncture, true therapeutic massage, a trip to the chiropractor, osteopath, homeopath, Reiki master, yoga class, meditation, listening to Sylvia Sumter deliver one of her soul retrieving sermons, even a good haircut from a really wonderful hair person can bring back lost pieces of soul.

A good conversation that clears the air with someone you care about will always bring soul back to the relationship, and so to the people involved as well. The right music, played at the right decibel level, can bring the soul back beautifully. All the arts contribute to soul retrieval, I think.

Lovemaking at the right moment with the right person can definitely call back the soul, sometimes even extra souls who arrive in bodily form nine months later. Certain kinds of sex (and I'm not judging anyone here!) fracture the soul and send parts of it packing.

I see people every day who are missing large chunks of soul. You know that blank look? Think about that famous mug shot of Charles Manson, the one with his open, staring eyes. I don't think he had much soul left at that point. It isn't always that extreme of course. Vital bits of soul escape whenever a person is grieving, after betrayals and other kinds of loss, though extreme illness, like cancer, can often bring the soul back into the body. Weird, isn't it?

Why is the soul so slippery? Couldn't it do us all a favor and hang in no matter what's going on? I guess not!

One of my favorite forms of soul retrieval involves stopping to smell the roses. I'm talking literally. Here are a few pics that might bring back the soul. Better yet, get out there right now and find some beautiful living growing thing. Give it a good sniff. Ahhh ... soulful!



**Thanks again, Rob, for the perfect quote to accompany today's thoughts.

OK, don't say cheese!

My father was a great photographer. Scattered among the collections of my sibs are stacks of fabulous black and white portraits (and candid shots) he took of us as children. As cute as the pics are, as I remember it, I didn't like having my picture taken even then. Certainly since the end of my childhood I've resisted, whenever possible, that awkward moment standing in front of a camera, "smiling at a piece of film going by," as my sister Hannah used to describe it. Now of course it's about smiling while being digitized, reduced to pixels. I don't like it.

All that said, I'll admit that I'm completely entranced by photo portraits of other people. One of my favorite rainy day activities is spending time with a book of Edward Curtis portraits. He took the most incredible photos of American Indians right around the turn of the last century. They're so real. You can look right into their souls.

Annie Leibowitz is also one of my heroes. Though she goes way over the top when she's working for Vanity Fair, she's still able to capture something of the person she's photographing. Her portraits of Susan Sontag before and during Susan's bout with cancer are wrenchingly beautiful and real.

Maybe because of my own resistance, I have a terrible time capturing humans on camera. Whenever I happen to get a human portrait that's even mildly interesting, it's always by accident and I'm always surprised, as I was yesterday when I caught this shot of suits at DC Coast. The restaurant is on K Street. These aren't just suits, they're power suits, hunkered down over their power lunches, thinking hard, strategizing. Look at their backs - wow. Says it all. These guys are way too important to turn around or even to notice the odd woman taking their pic. Oh yeah!

The Allure of Green

Green is the new black. All of a sudden, everything and everyone is green. Thanks Al Gore - I think he's the guy who finally opened the eyes of all us clueless Americans. Following the tremendous popularity of An Inconvenient Truth, I can imagine marketing departments all over the U.S. immediately jumping into overdrive with one thought in mind: How can we make our company appear to be GREEN?

Some of the new brands and labels are kind of silly. One theme that's pervasive in label text and TV commercials is the idea that living "in harmony with nature" leads to a balanced life. For heaven's sake. Nature is anything but balanced. Besides events like earthquakes, tornadoes, the extremes of seasons and weather, there's the natural disposition of plants, animals and bugs who are as "imbalanced" as we are. Just read somewhere that ants have very complicated political structures in their colonies. There's plenty of back biting and behind-the-scenes maneuvering for position in the ant world.

We need to get green, we do. We really have to stop using every natural resource on the planet in order to scratch our itch for comfort and safety. But the idea that calming down our consumerism will bring balance and harmony to our culture is really funny, at least to me. Any species, given the chance, will overpopulate and overmanipulate the landscape. We humans - as extreme and bizarre as we are and always have been - are already living "in harmony with nature." We ARE nature.

So idealistic, though, to pursue balance as we do. I do, don't you? It's a great marketing strategy for suckers like me. Gotta get out there now and BUY GREEN. Oh yeah!

Inertia

I've always been a rolling stone, a ramblin' man (sic). There are very few landscapes, work spaces, communities or relationships I've stuck with over long periods of time. I'm not accustomed to gathering moss.

What a surprise to discover that during my six and a half years at Healing Arts, I gathered buckets of moss. Bushels. Acres. A lot!

I'm flabbergasted to realize how entrenched I became with that location and all the habits I formed around my work life there. I didn't really see that until now. Wow!

Part of the adjustment to Quiet Waters and all the new routines it presents, is a continual scraping away of the mossy layers of habit, routine and attachment I had to my ex-work space. My goodness. No wonder I've done a lot of moving around in my life. Apparently any time I stop long enough to take root, I congeal like Superglue, like quick drying cement, like plaster cast in an ungreased mold. Ouch!

Good information for me, understanding my tendencies a little bit better. Gotta go now, exfoliate yet another layer of Healing Arts residue. Onwards and upwards. I mean it!

Focus

I'm trying, really I am!!

Divine Conversations

How many languages does God speak? Well, all of them, of course! I'm sure God even eakspay igpay atinlay. But what are the core languages of God? Sanskrit, Hewbrew, Arabic, and Latin come to mind because I'm a person of white European descent, exposed to the divine tongues of my culture. I bet there are core American Indian, African, Australian and Asian languages that could be put in the same category.

Then of course there's the language of music - God loves speaking that language, doesn't He? And math, too. I'm not just talking about numbers but also geometry, etc.

I'm sure God also speaks American English, though if he does, it's a dialect I have a hard time understanding. Not that He doesn't try - I feel there are divine messages being whispered into my ears and heart on a regular basis. Part of my problem is that I'm "hard of listening" as my friend Yarrow would say. But another obstacle to understanding is that God really speaks Big Picture, a language that's often difficult for my small, tense, human mind to grasp. I get hints and glimpses of the Big Pic, but then they vanish like dust in the wind.



This morning the guy who tends the garden at Sylvia Sumter's Unity Church told me that a crow had flown down from out of the nowhere and pecked him on the shoulder three times! He was pretty freaked out about this - and who could blame him? Being pecked by, for instance, a mockingbird is unsettling enough. Crows are very large birds who tend to keep to themselves (though they seem to enjoy cawing at us from time to time.)

The Unity Church gardener told me after the third time he was pecked, he finally sat down to talk to God, to pray about it. He said, God. I know you're trying to tell me something, but please don't gimme no parables!

I've been thinking about this ever since. Oh yeah, God talks in parables a LOT. No wonder our communication is so sporadic. As a literalist, the unfolding of 'real life' parables leaves me completely confused. I'm sure from God's point of view, they're beautiful crystals of great wisdom from which I could continue to learn and grow long after uncovering the first layers of meaning.

I should try to also keep in mind that sometimes a crow is just a crow - in a bad mood, maybe, or nervous because her nest is a little too close for comfort. It's good to try to listen when God has something to convey, though, don't you think?

A heart-shaped drop of sunshine (along with some sunlight yods, too) appeared out of the nowhere on this puddle of rainwater and street splooge just as Jake and I walked past. Made me gasp - with surprise as well as appreciation. Cool isn't it?

You can't plan for sights like this one. Thanks all you mysterious forces of nature, for putting this lovely montage together, then placing me right in front of it just as the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. Excellent! Superb! Divine!

Oh yeah!

Seven Year Ouch

Seven years ago today I moved into the house on Tennessee Avenue. According to the people who make it their business to understand these things, every cell in my body has replaced itself at least once since May 15, 2001. Wow.

The street feels much the same as it did the day I moved in, warm and beautiful, festooned in greenery and flowers. The trees are a bit taller, some of the houses have been repainted, but other than that, this block of Tennessee remains unchanged.

As for myself, a lot has changed. After seven years, the two worlds - of me and of the street - no longer exactly sync up. Earth time is a lot slower than human time, after all, which explains why the street has stayed so youthful.

Maybe instead of feeling old and out of sync, I should get out into this perfectly gorgeous green day of sunlight and soft air, bird song and roses. It's such a beautiful day, virtually the same day as seven years ago. What am I waiting for?

Bye bye, Bob.

Beauty is now underfoot wherever we take the trouble to look.

John Cage said that. He was talking about Robert Rauschenberg's work, the way Bob's cheerful, collaborative, irreverent, inclusive and original aesthetic helped many of us look at the mundane world in a brand new way.

I won't try writing an obit - I'm sure there will be many wonderful tributes written about him, but I had to say goodbye to one of my nearests and dearests in a public way.

It was Bob (primarily), but also Jasper and John and Merce, who inspired me to look carefully at what's supposed to be ordinary. I know they were following the lead of other giants, like Marcel and Man, also inspirational to me, but not as personally as the Bride and the Bachelors. Thanks Calvin for writing that book, and thanks to my friend Nate Fors for lending it to me so many many years ago.

Bob? Have fun in heaven. I'm sure you will! Hail and farewell.

Stop 'n Stew

Where's the line between stillness and stuckness? Do you know? One of my clients, a young, pro-active do-gooder in the world of people and politics complains about someone in his life he perceives to be "stuck." From his description, this person sounds depressed to me, but who knows what's really going on? "She needs to learn to move through difficulty constructively," he told me adamantly.

OK. I get what he means. Depression is an inwards spiraling energy that tends to act as a magnet for "negative" experience. Gloom begets gloom. Being a depressive myself, I understand why he wants this person to snap out of it.

But.

Inwards spiraling energy doesn't have to be depression. Sometimes it takes the form of thoughtfulness, reflection. Would lovely Letty of Lettuce Eating have named me the "Queen of Reflection" if I were a person of outwards spiraling energy? Those always on the move don't have time to reflect, to stop and smell the roses. Movers and shakers make terrible philosophers. On the plus side for the outward spiralers, they don't take the time to get depressed either, lucky for them, isn't it?

Sometimes things have to stop for awhile. Otherwise there would be no yogurt, no sourdough bread. There would be no wine or beer, no well water, stalactites and mites. There would be no such thing as meditation. Or wisdom, a phenomena I believe accumulates slowly overtime.

Sometimes a dark night of the soul is the only path to a breakthrough, to the end of old, worn out patterns. Depression often leads to art, sometimes great art. Sometimes not (I think of my own poetry ...)

I guess the trick is to stew just long enough, not too long. But how to know when enough is enough? You tell me, I've never been that great with timing.

Right now I recognize that I've stewed over this topic long enough. The day is sparkling and the dog is eager for a walk. Enough already!

Pennies from Heaven

Ordinarily I'm not a big fan of many days of rain, but I'm enjoying this big storm. Hard rain falling all day is so cinematic. It's a great backdrop for massage, something I'm doing a lot of this weekend, and too it's nice because last spring was so dry.

Also I'll admit it makes a difference that I don't have to walk 25 minutes to work this morning, but rather just kitty corner across the street to Quiet Waters. Hard rain is fun when there's a choice about whether to get out into it or stay nice and dry inside.

Who was it who said you can walk in the rain, or you can just get wet? Can't remember. All I know for certain is that the House Tour is over, I'm adjusting to my new workspace, and I am loving all this rain. Onwards & upwards indeed. Yeah!

Home Tour

This is not meant to be a comprehensive look at every room in the house on Tennessee Avenue. In fact I took lots of other pics that were

a) boring
b) blurry
c) did not convey the sense of the room involved.

"Regular" pics are not my forte - but here's a glimpse into the aesthetics of my dah-ling roommates. Enjoy!

Blurr

This is one crazy weekend. Good photo ops, though, after all the rain.

I'll post pics of the house tour, maybe tomorrow.

Storm und Drang

It was not a peaceful night in the house on Tennessee Avenue last night. Oh no. Nature and man worked together to create noise and mayhem throughout the night.

The Capitol Hill House Tour is this weekend. Our house is on the tour. That means that my roommates have been going crazy with tasks they believe are necessary to get the house up to snuff. Every room has been repainted, including the ceilings. The grout has been replaced in the kitchen, the deck has been scrubbed clean and repainted. John has been working late into the night in the shop, constructing who-knows-what, repairing pieces of furniture and so forth.

After John finally stopped working late last night, the skies opened up and let us have it in a big way - rain, thunder, lightning. It was a spectacular storm that unfortunately woke up the dogs. They whined and panted and shivered. The sound of footsteps up and down the stairs went on for quite awhile, probably Manuel trying to console his dog who is especially terrified of thunder.

Finally the storm settled itself down and it seemed that peace had returned to our corner of Tennessee Avenue. But, no. The saws and other loud shop machinery started up again first thing this morning. Last minute projects. Oh yeah. But it's all for the greater good. And - it'll all be over soon. So. be. it.

After at least a thousand people walk through the house this weekend, well, maybe then things really will settle down. Do you think? I can hope, can't I? Well, can't I?

Clean

Looks like an owl face to me.

Tuesday I spent three hours cleaning my room. Last week was so overfull of transformation, activities and fun, I abandoned my usual habits which meant that my usually neat and clean room went to the dogs (no offense, Jake).

Yesterday my body got into the spirit, cleaned itself out completely. Some people call this experience "stomach flu" - and though I understand that a virus may have been involved, according to my world view, a bodily purge was a necessary (though unpleasant) part of the feng shui of this moment in my history. Out with the old, in with the new, macro and microcosmically. So be it.

I don't love being sick, but I always benefit from the changes in my perspective, the altered consciousness, weird dreams, etc. And, too, when you have good friends who are willing to bring ginger ale and bananas to aid in recovery, a day on the couch can actually be a very good thing.

Sometimes I berate myself for being so, uh ... what's the word? Extreme. Recently I've decided it's not compassionate for me to insult myself with labels like "drama queen." There's nothing wrong with being a strongly emotional person. It's who I am.

That said I'm glad to be on the rebound from last week's festivities and activities. Glad to be so damn clean, inside and out. Extremely clean, in fact. Oh yeah.


If you look very closely, you'll see Letty in this pic. Jake, too. They are well hidden in secret places of their own, but they are there.

Attention all Aquarians

Borrowing Rob Breszny's horoscope for this week.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): When the spell is broken, Aquarius, you will be able to tap into resources that you've been cut off from. When the spell is broken, you will finally notice three big, beautiful secrets that have been staring you in the face. When the spell is broken, you will slip down off a clean, lofty perch where it has been hard to relax and arrive at a low, funky spot where you'll be free to feel things you haven't felt in a long time. When the spell is broken, it will be because you have decided to break it.

Thanks, Rob. I broke the spell last weekend. Onwards & upwards. Yeah!

A New Point of View

Sometimes a waning moon brings a lot of change and transformation - even though in my opinion waning moons should be quiet times of introspection minus all the external action. But - do you think the moon listens to me? Uh - never!

As proof that my ideas about an orderly progression of lunar phases are nothing more than my fantasies, this last moon (just turned today) unfolded herself not so much as a wise old crone, but more like a hulkin' dude of transformation, change, connections, and celebrations. The last quarter of the last moon was the Shiva Nataraj of moons. Whew!

So much happened last week, I still feel turned inside out by it all - though in a good way. Sometimes it's A Very Good Thing to have the rug pulled out from under foot. Still, adjusting to a new state of being, a new state of mind, can be a bit harrowing.

According to Chinese medicine, change is so intrinsic to life that when things don't change, dis-ease is inevitable. Amazing idea, isn't it? Certainly after the end of the moon just past, I don't have to worry about disease, do I? No way! No way. Yeah.

Close Encounters

What constitutes family? You tell me. As far as I can figure, whenever people come into contact with other folks on a common ground, we automatically adopt each other. By common ground I mean when people share DNA, a workplace, neighborhood, hobbies, philosophies, or talents like writing, photography, music ... anything, really.

As in all families, there are easy connections and those that are fraught with challenges. That always happens in families. The bottom note energy in groups sharing common ground over time is a feeling of relatedness that seems (at least to me) to transcend whatever it is we share.

Yesterday a bunch of people came together from a variety of cities to quaff, talk, listen to music, feast, and dance the maypole. It was a fabulous gathering in which we developed, over the afternoon, a lovely connection in spite of the fact that we're all very different from each other. There was great good will among us, and too it was a perfect May afternoon out on the deck, overlooking the green lawn, under the tall trees. On a day like yesterday, it's fairly easy to avoid the possibility of contention.

The maypole ribbons fluttered and danced in the breeze long before we took hold of them, as if to encourage us that the dance of spring is ongoing. All we had to do was grab a ribbon and move. At least that's what I thought the ribbons were saying.

The dance was a bit clumsy at first, as it should be, probably. But we figured out how to weave the pole within two minutes. The rest of the dance was a goofy, gorgeous ballet. There's just no way to dance a maypole without laughing. It's so silly! I love it!! Afterwards we stood back and admired our work. A fully woven maypole is always beautiful.

Honestly we humans are SO adorable. I bow low to my cohorts from yesterday, and salute all the rest of us. BRAVO!! And happy May, ya'll.

Today is the First Day of the Rest of My Life...

They're HERE!! Roses! This is yet another one of my favorite seasonal moments, the time when roses come into bloom. These early season roses are tender and fragile looking, so fresh, fragrant and wild. I love roses.

Also arriving for the weekend are bloggers from far-flung locales. My blog kin aren't nearly so tender and fragile as the roses, though every bit as gorgeous, fragrant and WILD, oh yeah! Bloggers are also every bit as welcome as the roses. I love bloggers.

I walked out the door of Healing Arts for the last time yesterday, without a look back or a second thought, relieved and happy that saga is over. Now on to the weekend. It's supposed to be very nice, warm but not too warm, not too rainy.

My first weekend free from Healing Arts, attended by soft air, roses and bloggers? It feels like roses are blooming inside my heart, it really does. What's not to love??

Helicoptor Seeds

Astonishing to realize how many trees could dig in and start growing each spring, if the city wasn't so paved over. Because there's no ground for the seeds to root into, they stick to windshields, clog the gutters, gather in between the bricks on the pavements.

Soft rains and breezes during the last few days have set loose at least a zillion helicoptor tree seeds. When they fall, it's always a bunch of them all at once. They fall in a flurry, as if someone in the tree had released a huge fistful of confetti. Who doesn't love watching them descend, each seed spinning around and around? The descent of the helicoptor seeds is as dazzling as the fluttering cherry blossoms, though not nearly as delicate.

Can you imagine how many times I've tried to capture this magical phenomenon with the vid camera? My timing is always off, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Yesterday I decided that it's silly to try. Better to stand still, open my eyes and enjoy the moment instead.

I wonder what is the botanical name of these seeds? Are they elm, maple? Could they be oak seeds? Wait, oaks release acorns, so it couldn't be the oaks. Though I'm not sure which tree produces the clouds of helicoptor blades, I do connect deeply with the energy of this phenomenon. L'chaim, ya'all. Oh yeah!