Hate is a poison
Love is a remedy
Singing out like the sweetest of melodies
Hope is a ghost in the deepest of memories
Stronger than ten of me
Fear is the enemy
In the dark and it creeps like a shark
In the coldest sea
In the deepest part but
Hope is the beat in the oldest heart
A hand in a hand and a brand new start
~from Passenger’s Coins in a Fountain
Here we be on the day that was supposed to bring the closing of my house sale, Alas, the buyer’s mortgage company fell down on the job and did not get an appraiser here on time. So, listlessly, we await some form of progress from that mortgage company. They have not been responding with much energy to the realtor’s communications.
Thus a good deal is on hold while waiting for this mysterious appraiser, who is said to be backed up and not answering phone calls or emails.
Which all revives haunting memories from two years ago when I thought I’d sold my home, only to have the expectation shoved over the cliffs of life when that buyer’s mortgage was denied just a few days before the scheduled closing.
A non-functional appraiser, however, bears little resemblance to a mortgage denied, so hope is strong even if impatience threatens to wreak its malignant effects on my life, if I let it.
Reading Roland Merullo’s good books: Breakfast with Buddha, Lunch with Buddha and … you got it … Dinner with Buddha has helped keep my grasshopper mind on track.
So… The breakfast (sans Buddha) of champions, New Mexico style, starts off another day of gradual sorting, sifting and disposal of years of accumulated belongings. Stuff stuffed into dresser drawers, garage shelves, the nethermost reaches of linen closets and kitchen cupboards. The stuffed stuff, most of it long since forgotten and rarely greeted by me with joy, goes into boxes for donations, to be sold on Craigslist or plunked into the trash cart — which is also greatly stuffed these days.
For breaks the dogs calmly allow themselves to be hooked up to their new two-pooch walking system, and we make our way to the back yard.
Sitting in the shade of the big apple tree, my meditative mind finds a desert shore awash with the shadows of leaves on the brown earth before me. Gazing through the moving shadows I feel as though I’ve been lifted up and away to a mysterious seashore in another dimension. The soughing of wind through the leaves adds sounds to the senses of moving waves of this desert ocean.
Here’s a brief video of that desert sea, in my back yard:
It is the struggle of decision, of the choice, whatever it may be. And yet it is indispensable to know how to choose, or we will remain motionless on the shores of the sea of life. By far the greatest help in the choices that life requires is to have chosen our supreme Object of love. ~The Four Valleys
Brilliant sun above makes stained glass windows out of fresh green mulberry leaves above.
Nearby the flash of brilliant red desert poppies brightens roadsides and parking lots, reminding me that the bright spots of life appear unexpectedly where I don’t expect them a bit, and that beautiful things will show up in the most peculiar places and moments.
Nearby, on the back fence, two of those most companionable of wild birds — collared doves — keep the dogs and me company. They preen their long feathers for an hour or more before fluttering off to check on the children they’ve got tucked into a messy nest above my garage door’s light.
Generally these recent days have a feeling not unlike drifting gently on a quiet lake in a rowboat. Not really going anywhere, not in my normal habitat, awaiting a bit of wave action to set me moving towards the next goal.
This quiet time has conveyed the energy for a resolution: Time to give up my pack rat habits with all this stuff hiding in my house. Down with those old consumerist habits of mine!
Joy in the doves and the good dogs, the wildflowers, the dear friends life brings to me…
Rising Over the Smoke 