Coral Castles

Froggy Friend

You are not as hidden as you think you are

Water is flowing again

Okay, I have a thing for purple and yellow

Waiting for the chipmunk 

This is called "Fairy Moss" 

Irish Moss, because Gertens didn't have "Czech Moss" 

It's okay, Mother, I'm gonna deadhead those chives and they won't go noxious
I promise I won't ask you to "dechive" the garden again

Endless Summer--doesn't seem to live out it's name

There is no pleasing this robin

Bunnies who don't steal from the garden

On another note. .. 

Even St. Francis can't protect the little creatures of THIS garden 

Of course you know Calvin made this with my dad

There are a few secrets here and there

Charlie could you stay on the path? 

Oh my goodness, it's fifty degrees this morning. Who pressed the Fall button?

I dreamed we were in a high rise hotel on the beach and we looked out the window and a tsunami was approaching and I starting tying my children to the furniture.

I dreamed I looked out the window and there was a tornado on the horizon and we just sat there and watched it approach.

I dreamed there were two weeks before school started and I was teaching 26 piano kids and accompanying and serving as president of SAM and the kids had marching band and ballet and piano and drums and clarinet and church stuff. . . oh wait.  That was when I woke up.

I'm freezing food. Been to Costco. There's enough meat in the freezer to make it through the great depression. We took an entire carload of stuff to Good Will yesterday. I'm almost done with my spark of joy year. I secured the Christmas clothes. There will be no running to Old Navy at midnight for black pants and a white shirt. All that is left is a big box of coffee filters and I'm set.

I told you my best read this summer was Richard Rohr's Breathing Under Water. http://www.amazon.com/Breathing-Under-Water-Spirituality-Twelve/dp/1616361573/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1440417986&sr=1-1&keywords=breathing+underwater. "Alcoholics just have their powerlessness visible for all to see. The rest of us disguise it in different ways, and overcompensate for our more hidden and subtle addictions and attachments, especially our addiction to our way of thinking." (Page xviii)

My belief is that everybody's got something:
single parents
married people who are still single parents
people have depression and mental illness
and changes in their health and lifestyle
and some are just plain addicted to wanting it all--read--wife, mother, teacher, house, garden, yoga

Guilty as charged.
Please forgive me comparing my own personal addictions of thought to those with more serious issues--I'm just being honest about my own suburban shortcomings. 

If we are powerless over these situations then instead of drowning, when the tsunami comes we must build our coral castle. (Powerlessness is just a place to start. . . the proven first step. . .)

Here's Rohr's opening poem, each time I read this I love it a little more. It's written by Carol Bieleck:

Breathing Under Water

I built my house by the sea.
Not on the sands, mind you;
not on the shifting sand.
And I built it of rock.
A strong house
by a strong sea.
And we got well acquainted, the sea and I.
Good neighbors.
Not that we spoke much.
We met in silences.
Respectful, keeping our distance,
but looking our thoughts across the fence of sand.
Always, the fence of sand our barrier,
always, the sand between. 

And then one day,
--and I still don't know how it happened--
the sea came. 
Without warning.

Without welcome, even
Not sudden and swift, but a shifting across the sand
  like wine,
less like the flow of water than the flow of blood. 
Slow, but coming.
Slow, but flowing like an open wound.
And I thought of flight and I thought of drowning
  and I thought of death.
And while I thought the sea crept higher, till it
  reached my door.
And I knew then, there was neither flight, nor death,
  nor drowning.
That when the sea comes calling you stop being
  neighbors
Well acquainted, friendly-at-a-distance, neighbors
And you give your house for a coral castle,
And you learn to breathe underwater. 

Here's to everyone in situations they cannot change.

For me? If the calendar is the sea approaching my house--I'm gonna build my coral castle amidst the iCal events and chances are very high that I will also be transplanting some ferns around the seaweed foundation and inviting the starfish in for coffee.