Healing for the Earth, Day 20: Finding Moments of Exquisite Beauty

Hello fellow Earthlings!

How are you doing???  Hanging in there?

I can't believe today marks 20 days straight of writing Healing for the Earth posts on this here blog. I can tell you that writing these posts have helped me immensely.

Healing for the earth (including all beings on the Earth) has become my mantra for the past 20 days and I can feel a shift.

Today's post is about finding exquisite beauty in things we might overlook or finding beauty in usual things. I'm in a drum circle and my friend River leads the circle. She always talks about finding moments of exquisite beauty and I realize they are everywhere and in every moment. The Earth is full of breathtaking moments.

Lately, with all that is going on in the world, I'm finding it even more important to show up on the planet full of gratitude and I'm also finding it more important than ever to see the beauty that is all around me. Even though the state of the world is in a flux and things are uncertain, what is certain is the fact that BEAUTY IS STILL HERE! It's in a flower, tree, our breath, the wind, the sun, the stars, the moon, the grass....wow!

What you tune into is what you will have more of. I find this to be true.

The other day I was walking down the beach and I saw a man and his dog way in the distance. He was singing and throwing a ball to his dog and they were both so blissful. I could feel their bliss and it made me happy. On that same beach, a woman was walking, flailing her arms and shouting about the state of the world to her friend on her cell phone. It was a gorgeous day out and she was walking on a beach with white puffy clouds above her and warm sun all around her and waves gently lapping at the shore. Sand dollars and seashells were scattered across the rocky beach, but she didn't notice any of it. She was not aware of where she was at all. She missed the beauty all around her.

Every moment of our lives is a tremendous gift. There is beauty here if we can just open to it. How often do you really tune into beauty? Do you see it around you? Do you feel it? We are so lucky to walk on this Earth. We are so lucky to be here. Don't take any moment of it for granted. Nothing is promised. Tomorrow is not promised.

Recently I repaired my bicycle and I've enjoyed taking it on bike rides around the mostly deserted streets of Sequim. I've had the same bicycle since college. I think I got it in 1989! It's a Cannondale mountain bike. I've thought about getting a new one, but this bike is perfectly fine and served me well all these years. I'm going to keep it for as long as I can.  I love riding it to the beach at sunset. I also love riding my bike up on the bluff above Cline Spit and seeing all the eagles and hawks. Sometimes I'll see a herd of deer munching on greenery in a nearby farm. Or I'll see a bumblebee or a butterfly or cherry blossom trees or pine trees. All of these things make me happy. All of them hold such beautiful energy.

If I'm able to hold those moments in me, I believe there will be many more of them. If I'm able to see exquisite beauty all around me, particularly in times of chaos and stress, then perhaps it's an indication that hope and love still exist. You create the reality that you see around you. What are you tuning into? Have you been aware of any moments of exquisite beauty lately?

Healing for the Earth, Day 17: Let go of Expectations

Hi there Earthlings!

Wow! Everything is changing so RAPIDLY. Can you feel it?

I just took on a new tech position at my college and my brain is on overload. So much new information and sometimes I feel like I have to be an expert in what I'm doing, but I'm not!!!! In fact, I'd call myself rather un-techie. Today we had a Zoom meeting with 21 teachers and I realized that they probably have it more together in the tech department than I do.

However, I did teach a synchronized online class for the first time last quarter and so I have experience teaching online. I think that's the only reason I got the tech job.

Part of me wants to pull out of the position and another part says Let go of your high expectations and just ride the wave. You probably know more than you think you do.

So I decided to let go of my expectations today and just ride this crazy wave we are all on.


 I'm having trouble following through with tasks and deciding which tasks are most important in any given moment. There's a part of me that is aware that I need to keep up with my job and online materials, but there's a bigger part of me that feels I need to pay attention to my body, mind and spirit in this ever-changing time.

I had a tech meeting at 11am and another meeting with 21 teachers at 4:30pm. Luckily, between those two times, I got outside and took a long walk on the beach nearby.


 The tide was waaaaaayyyy out and I felt like I was walking on the moon. I walked out on a sand bar and part of me wanted to just keep walking to the end of time or the end of this time to when this virus is gone from our lives and we are all onto a new chapter in our Earthly lives, one that is more in-tune and loving. One where we take care of the Earth, fellow Earthlings and all other beings in our web.

But we have a long road ahead I feel and Rome wasn't built in a day. In fact, Rome is kind of falling apart again.

I'm letting go of expectations. When I give myself permission to realize that I don't and WE don't have it all figured out, I feel so much more at ease.

When I tune into very simple, small things, like sunshine and flowers and birds along my trail, I'm reminded that all we ever really have is this moment. Tomorrow is not promised to us. All of nature is pointing me to be aware of this. It's asking me to pay attention to what is right under my nose.

For weeks, I haven't seen the deer. It has made me sad. They use to come and sleep outside my window every single night. It's been about a month or more since I've seen a deer in front of the house. Today, as I let go and as I was typing this, one came right up to the deck and stared. I didn't expect that AT ALL. It touched my heart so deeply. It was a message that when I let go, everything I need is right here. In fact, when I hold too tightly to an agenda or plan, I sometimes miss nature's promptings.

 I feel, in my job, that people are ready to just jump back on the bandwagon, but things are shifting fast. We are all going through a shift both internally and externally. Our bodies and minds need time for this reboot to happen. I'm only running on 20-30% in the outer world right now because my inside is downloading so much new info. It usually happens when I sleep. I can feel it.


What happens to one of us happens to all of us. Give yourself a HUGE BREAK! Let go of being ultra productive or having it all together. This is a time when things are falling apart or unraveling. Sometimes going with the flow is all we can do. I don't always get things checked off my list. Heck, I'm having trouble finding the list.

Each day is a brand new day and offers new things. If we have this hefty agenda of expectations of what NEEDS to happen, we are missing the little things that want to enter into the picture.

There are some days when all I can do is breath, or walk, or take a bath. Other days,  I have to shut the computer off and read a book for pleasure or write in my journal. When that happens, all my original plans get thrown out the window, just like they did when this virus took over. And that is OKAY! That's life!

When we have a virus on our computers, we have to install malware, but sometimes that doesn't work. We may end up having to throw out the old computer and get a new one. We may have to let go of files, and documents and pictures. We may lose some things that we once cherished.

We may have to start again.

There are two questions I've been asking myself lately that you may also want to play with:

1. If this were my last day on Earth, how would I want to spend it?
2. In the new world we are entering, how do I want to show up? What would I like to let go of and what would I like to keep?

Good questions to ponder right now. In the meantime, I'm going to flow like the river. I'm going to let go. I'm going to remain flexible and agile and be willing to change as the world changes. I'm going to give myself a break if I don't meet all the expectations I need to meet. How about you?

Going Deep at Dawn

Hello fellow Earthlings,

It's 2020. Doesn't that sound like science fiction? Given that I came to the Earth in this present body in 1969 in Earth years, the year Neil Armstrong walked on the moon (THE MOON!), 2020 sounds even more OUT THERE.  And what can I say? Have we gotten more Sci Fi? Have we destroyed this planet yet?

Not yet, friends, not yet. I could never have imagined that I'd be typing my thoughts into a computer for others to read. And these strange things called Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. We live our lives with our head in devices. Devices. gadgets that are meant to make our lives easier. I will admit, my iPhone has become part of my right hand. I'm not going to toss it in the ocean. It would take millions of year for it to decompose.

I woke up at dawn. My boyfriend was snoring away on his futon he brought out here. We were on different cycles last night. He came in late from Seattle after working a full day and all he wanted to do was grab a beer and lock himself away with Netflix. I had very different plans for the New Year. I wanted to go into it with eyes wide open. No alcohol or glass clinking for me last night. You could say it was a pretty silent night and it was very intentional.

I did a vision board for the New Year. I do one every new year, but this year my vision seemed particularly important. I'm getting a HUGE sign to let go of things that do not serve me any longer. Maybe it's because I'm now 50, I don't know? A girlfriend who turned 50 five years ago or so said, "It was like I was walking through a doorway and could only bring a few things, the rest I'd have to let go of." That's how I feel.

So what am I bringing into the New Year that serves me? Love for myself and my direction and goals, love for the earth, love for my partner, family and friends, good health, abundance, travel, a house of my own, book writing and book completion, creation of my own website with online classes, retreats and readings. First and foremost is being here NOW in Sequim, Washington and finishing my book. Well, and blogging...

At dawn I pulled on my jeans from the day before, a puffy long, powder blue jacket, scarf, hat, gloves and red rain boots and headed out into the darkness. It was as if the sound of the waves out on Dungeness Spit was drawing me to it like a magnet. Before leaving, I asked my boyfriend, "Do you want to come with me down to The Spit?" He mumbled something that was clearly an indication that he wanted to sleep more, so off I went.

I drove down Woodcock Road and turned right on Dungeness Spit Drive heading past red barns and cattle and green fields with the Olympic Mountains as a backdrop. The sun was starting show signs of itself and I was in a hurry to get to the sea. I was the first car in the parking lot. I have an annual pass to The Spit. It's the longest spit of sand in the U.S. and if you walk the entire thing down to the light house and back, it would be a total of 10 miles. I have yet to do that, but I will.

I decided to take the primitive trail through the woods down to the sea. I could hear the waves crashing on the shore in the distance and I had one thing in mind. I wanted to be down by the waves. I wanted them to pound through me and shake me wide open. I wanted the undertow to take with it all of the unwanted in me and the world. Take my anger, take my fights with my boyfriend about finances, take toxic people's comments, take all the disbeliefs, take hatred, take avoidance, take addictions, take pollution and human consumption, take all the ill of the world out into the swells and break them down, smooth them out and return to the shore the light, the kindness and the highest good.

A bit idealistic, isn't it Kathy? I thought out loud. My thoughts were forming their own swells in my mind as I walked at rapid speed over the damp, moist earth through a thicket of pine trees. I walked so fast I nearly trampled over a doe and her fawn. They stared at me through those big eyes. They were as still as stones and I became still too. My stillness made them comfortable and they stayed cleaning each other and munching on vegetation in the woods. They were so close I could touch them.

I carried on and eventually the primative trail spit me out at the ocean. Not a soul was in sight and the waves were so huge they devoured the entire walking area of the beach. I thought about turning around, but they called me to them. They called me out on The Spit where I had to walk very close to the roped off area that separated the beach from the bird sanctuary. Ocean spray covered my jacket and moved like lava up over logs and over my red boots. Salt from the water was in my hair and eyes and mouth. I wanted, in a weird way, to be consumed my those waves. Maybe I secretly wanted them to TAKE ME out into their swells and churn me through their underbellies smoothing me out like a stone with perfect rings around it that a fellow hiker might pick up and skip out into the quiet sea making new wishes for the new year.

A rainbow appeared in a cloud across from The Spit, illuminating the land on the other side. Snow mountains sat like majestic watchers of the land off to my left. The sun rose on the bird sanctuary side of The Spit slowly illuminating it from the lighthouse to where I stood. Majestic. All of it.

No, we weren't in danger of destroying the Earth. We were in danger of destroying ourselves and all the earth wants us to do is listen. I heard the squawking of an eagle overhead and looked straight up to catch a glimpse of it as it disappeared through the trees. I was alone on this thin stretch of sand with waves thundering against the earth.

In those moments, I felt cleansed and alive. I knew I would move forward no matter what. There was nothing stopping these waves. They were unforgiving and relentless in their will. They moved with force and purpose. And standing there, I knew I would do the same.