Season of Red Rose Hips

According to Liza Dalby, author of East Wind Melts the Ice, summer softened into autumn around August 5th, and the new season will reach its zenith at the time of the equinox, on September 22. Walking at Glendalough last week, I noticed that the rose hips had ripened, and was reminded of the autumn seven years ago when I gathered a potful of them to make jam. It was just before my hip replacement revision surgery (get it--hips?).

It's been so long since my magical weekend in Ottawa, visiting my lovely eldest daughter, Rose, and her terrific partner, Ze'ev! They were wonderful hosts, and highlights of the visit for me include going on a Haunted Walking Tour and visiting the old Ottawa jail, exploring the town of Wakefield, nearby in Quebec, and our picnic by the Rideau Canal. Yes, I took photos, and yes, you can go and see them now--don't be shy, there are only five little photos to view!

I spent my August recuperating after my car crash, catching up on appointments to my doctor, dentist, fingernail tech, hairdresser, and so on. I spent a day at the Edmonton Folkfest, and re-connected with several friends there. Ken and I enjoyed a lovely dinner with our wonderful friends, Starla and Pat, just last night. We attended his brother's wedding in Regina, as well as a Saskatchewan Roughriders football game! I re-connected with my past by finishing the Great Slide Scanning Project, converting my father's collection of twenty-three hundred slides to digital files, so that I can send them to my sister in North Carolina. After for sitting for two or three hours at the scanner, when I stood up I found I needed to give myself a little shake to come back to the present--I am no longer a young mother with cute kids in tow, but that time of my life remains very real and present for me.

I re-connected with three of my grown children when they treated me to a pot-luck supper at my place, at a baby shower for my Laura, and through some very special visits with my Kaliana. Kaliana loves to play with water, wade at Paul Kane park, smell flowers, hug trees, twirl with her Baba, be tickled by Ken, help cook at the kitchen counter, open doors and slam them shut, and smell the bars of scented soap in her Baba's underwear drawer. Laura is potty-training Kaliana at the moment, so I forgave her when she suggested that my clay masterpieces (shown in my July 27 post) might be representations of poop! Please click to view my clay buddha and sphinx sculptures.

I enjoyed two special visits--one, with my original mother-in-law, at her house, admiring photos of her lifetime, put together in honor of her eightieth birthday, and the other, with my original father-in-law and his wife, at the hospital, where he was recovering from surgery.

It has been a bittersweet August for me, gathering special moments to remember through the coming weeks (okay, months) on my own in New Hampshire, and not wanting to say good-bye. At first I was quite worried about my hearing, which was damaged in my mishap of August 1st--a concussion to the auditory nerves, which will take some time to heal. I feel much better about my hearing now, after talking to my dentist and audiologist. Now I just wear my hearing aids when my brain needs a rest from straining to hear, and I take them out when my ears need a rest from hearing so much.

I have never packed for a sixteen-week trip before, and yes, it is a challenge--of course, I want to take more than I have room for. I fly away early on Friday, August 29. I'm home for two short weeks at Christmastime, December 20 to January 3. Then comes the longest stretch of all, away from home from January to mid-May.

Words to contemplate:

I feel strange power, bearing fruit
And gaining strength to give myself to me.
I sense the seed maturing
And expectation, light-filled, weaving
Wthin me on my selfhood's power.

Autumn blessings of strength to you.

Blessings and Opportunities

Ten thousand years ago, while planning this current lifetime, I made an entry into my karmic daybook for August 1, 2008: 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time--meet a tree. Following the suggestions of my Evolving Consciousness instructor, I am now offering my heartfelt thanks to:

• the beautiful, loving and forgiving young woman who loaned me her car
• the 1994 Toyota Corolla, with its standard transmission
• my own series of, let's call them 'lapses,' leading to my inability to apply the brake in a timely manner
• the tree to whom I so abruptly introduced myself
• the overly-enthusiastic airbag that caught me by surprise (what an understatement!)
• the crash and my injuries, that opened up the opportunity to fulfill my karma and receive a series of wonderful life blessings!

I don't know who reads this blog, but no one need worry--I am fine. Glad to be home in Edmonton, resting and healing, but fine. I still feel overwhelmed when I remember the love, kindness, and magical healing ministrations of 'strangers' who dropped their plans to spend time with me immediately following my collision. I was held and nurtured by these very skillful angels, who simply took the pain away. I am especially grateful to Karen, her husband Ken, and their little boy Coco, as well as the young man who Reiki'ed my feet. In the hospital, later that day, the doctor informed me that the following day I would feel as though I had been 'trampled by a bull,' but there was very little pain, and no need to fill the prescription for Percocet that I had been given.

What in the Cosmos was going on, on August first? When I arrived at the house where I would be staying for two nights, there was a note on the table from the landlady, saying that she had been in a car accident that day, and had gone to the emergency room! Thousands of miles away, my son-in-law also bumped a tree with his vehicle! And yesterday evening my dear husband Ken--the best driver in the world--rear-ended another vehicle while driving his truck home from work!

The day after I arrived home, two of my daughters had startling news to share, and I realized that every one of my four children is in the midst of a major life transition just now. My entire immediate family is being shaken up in the Divine Cosmic Dice Tumbler. My oldest daughter, Rose, has terrific news that I feel I can report here: she has accepted her First Real Career Job, as co-facilitator of a group program for twenty-five abusive men (you couldn't pay me a million dollars to do it, but she's thrilled)!

What has Steiner got to say about all of this?

Can I expand my soul
That it unites itself
With cosmic Word received as seed?
I sense that I must find the strength
to fashion worthily my soul
as fitting raiment for the spirit.

May we indeed be strong enough and worthy enough to meet these events and carry them forward in our lives as blessings and opportunities.