Rubies & Pearls: When Seeds are Planted

Monday, May 21, 2012

When Seeds are Planted

The previous tenants planted beautiful flowers in our front and back yards that are currently in full bloom. They are just magnificent. I love flowers and those in our yard bring such beauty and joy.

I first fell in love with flowers the summer after I graduated high school. I spent 4 weeks traveling and backpacking in the four corners region with the Audubon School. Just outside Durango, Co, I saw my first wildflowers which were were breathtaking and whose very beauty touched the core of me.

Dancing in a meadow (r) outside Durango. Summer 1986.

That summer changed my life. Or rather that summer was the first time I consciously realized Divine Order's plan for my life and how I would proceed future forward. It was during that summer that I realized the creative enormity of Creator/Creation, not just with the stunning wildflowers and other natural beauty that we were blessed to be present with but with all the remarkably, wonderful, different people we encountered.

Along with back country backpacking trips that summer, where we would hear coyote howl close to our tents at night, we met Art and Esther, pinto bean farming family who served us a meal with everything made from scratch. That was a far cry from my upbringing in Jewish Suburbia where eating out and packaged foods were the norm. On our way into Zion National Park we came upon Ray the Hippie, on his way to the National Rainbow Gathering. With him was a bag of hand woven Guatemalan bracelets that he graciously shared. The intricate bright colored patterns were a beautiful reminder of the wonderful intricacies and interconnectedness of life.

Ray's Goods

That summer we also met environmentalists who taught us about sustainable farming, water conservation and more. We explored the ruins of the Anasazi people and were invited to one of the mesa of the Hopi where, on a very hot sunny day, I watched Kachina's do a rain dance. I was speechless as I witnessed clouds appear from nowhere, the sky turn black and rain falling in huge drops along with hail the size of golf balls. I was seventeen years old, from a community where things like this were unheard of. But I had long discovered the Dead and had been a vegetarian since my junior year, so I had already stepped out of the box of my upbringing, where most of my peers would strive to wear the latest fashion, wore a lot of make up and jewelery and whose goal (or one of) in life was to marry a nice Jewish husband. But that summer, those things I experienced, really opened my eyes to a bigger picture of life, of the natural world and humanity.

I also met a Texan man, Rod, who became my first teacher of sorts. He introduced me to the musical pleasures of Carlos Nakai (who a couple of years later, I got to hear and meet at a concert in Prescott, Arizona), gave me a first glimpse into (Zen) Buddhism and gave me one of the greatest books I ever read, The Kin of Ata are Waiting for You, by Dorothy Byrant. That story challenged everything I was taught in the mainstream culture and opened the possibilities of things unseen. It spoke of the soul, of healing and redemption.

All of these things impacted me on a deep primal level and helped my see more clearly the path I was about to set upon. Foundations of how I wanted to walk on this planet were laid. I think this was were my love of travel began, because it was through visiting a foreign place (to me, the Southwest was foreign; it was unknown, strange, territory) that so many doors opened up; so many reflections for healing and truth occurred. It was getting outside of my everyday environment that helped me become freer and to appreciate the many differences on this sacred planet while also realizing the oneness of it all.

Now that I have my two beloved daughters, I know that teaching my girls to appreciate the vast diverse creations in the natural and human worlds, and to realize that they are all expressions of the Divine, is one of my most important jobs as a mother.

Since that summer twenty-six years ago, I have walked a path not often trodden upon. But along the way I have met some of my soul family and had some amazing experiences. I have captured some of the many people and places through my camera lens (taking pictures is a passion) and sharing them with others or simply adorning my wall with photographs, reminds me of the magical, spontaneous moments of teaching or connection that have occurred during my time out in the natural world or amongst my brothers and sisters around the glode. I will leave this with some of my more recent sojourns.