Our Sunset in the East

It's the colors that are on the tail end of daylight. The horizon turns pink, then purple, then turquoise, than a hazy sky blue. We watch the colors rise out of the east bay, over our house, and sink into the ocean, out of our sight.

Sometimes, It's extra special...

GRASS ! ! !

Vacation Tuesday #18...

Crystal and I ventured into the big city for this spectacular vacation tuesday. We found ourselves immersed in nature, nonetheless. We spent most of the day in Golden Gate Park, at the Conservatory of Flowers...













Beautiful, right? Still, none of the exotic flowers from far away lands got me quite as excited as THIS:



IT'S GRASS !!!! laying in the grass when one lives in a place where there really is no grass, is nothing short of an estatic experience.

Exceptional.

I managed to get to the beach 2 days in a row... today's vacation tuesday, so there's a good chance of making it 3. It's been exceptionally beautiful here lately.

Sunset at Ocean Beach . . . The birds in the sky are pelicans.





Muir Beach . . . It's always beautiful here, but for some reason, it was extra sparkely yesterday . . .

July (?)

Can't believe it's almost over! It was, all in all, a very productive month.

We got a love seat!


And a telescope!


And a houseboy!


Actually, the houseboy didn't really work out. long story.

Some other highlights...


I got to spend some quality time with Chris, before he flew back east.


This is my favorite part of the drive into the city. I was actually pretty happy to be stuck in traffic.


Fairfax. :)


Spent some time up in Middletown. Snuck into Harbin. got busted. glad i can now say that i snuck into a clothing optional community. and got caught. This is my view about 90% of the time that i'm up there. the view from the porch that i sit on. alot.


Mt Tamalpais






Hope everyone had a sunny july! XOXOXO

It's all good.

That's pretty much it.

As If...

I saw a bumper sticker on my way out of the city today. I've seen it a thousand times. I'm sure ya'll have too.

Work as if you don't need the money
Love as if you've never been hurt
Dance as if no one's watching

Those of you who know me probably already know where this is going. Yup, it's the second line that got me today. Imagine that.

Something has been on my mind recently, and this ties right in, I think. It does in my brain, anyway, and this is my blog, so play along...

Everyone has this amazing light within them. It's their true essence, their core. Everyone also has varying amounts of bullshit that they use as a dimmer switch, because it can be a little scary to put our true selves out there, 100% . It's much less painful to have our bullshit rejected than the very essence that makes us who we are. I feel as if I have a gift/curse to be able to see beyond the bullshit, and really see the person for who they ARE. Gift because it's a beautiful thing to see. Curse because it's frustrating to have to interact with the protective layer, when I know what's really in there.

And then there's LOVE. As far as I'm concerned, Love IS the light. Hurt and fear are what take hold of the dimmer switch and turn it counter clockwise.
But what if we really could love as if we've never been hurt? Can you imagine how bright we would be?

I can.

Stories

I learned a whole lot in school last week.

If I were to sum up the week with one golden nugget, it's that everything is a story. We create them, and have all the power to create them as we wish. We can make them heavy and dark, light and airy, or somewhere in between. We can also recognize how much of our lives have been guided by these stories, and then we can let them go, and see what's right in front of us.

On the most superficial layer, I learned an entire Healing Dance sequence. Pages and pages of pool notes hung on the wall of the lower pool at the Harbin Domes. It was amazing how many different moves they managed to cram into a week, and we as a class learned them all by wednesday. The tone of the entire week was gentle, supportive, patient, and reverent. Really beautiful. On my evaluation sheet, My teacher wrote "keep softening and letting go of the story that this is hard work. Your work is lovely." hmmmm.....

Something else that presented itself as a story is the idea that "deep" implies a heaviness, that going deep has to have a texure of darkness. I learned that Going deep doesn't necessarily need to be heavy. When an emotion or feeling or realization comes to the surface, It should actually make us lighter, because it's one less thing that's in the dark, lacking clarity.

I came to terms with some stories involving relationships, as well. It's the implied pressure story. When two people allow themselves to feel love and connection, there's this implied pressure that something needs to happen, the relationship needs to move somewhere, "forward". So the two people can choose whether or not to move "forward" or to simply acknowledge their feeings, and let the pressure go. Seems easy enough, but there's a second part to the implied pressure story, and it's the unavoidable responsibility that goes with holding someone's heart and vulnerability. It can take up all the room in your heart so there's no room for anything else, including yourself. And we've all heard that we need to love ourself before we love someone else. We also need to make sure we always reserve space in our heart for us. When we've forgotten that, it's time to create another story, one that comes from the heart. What an amazing gift...



Flowers growing through a fence at Jayne and Derek's house



A heart in the sky at Harbin