The Tools of Life | loving the things around us
I have written much about the love that surrounds my dance with cancer. It is my lifeboat. I am eternally grateful for the outpouring from my community, which is so much more expansive than I realized. But what about the things that surround me? The hammer, the pencil, the glasses, the books, files, tooth brush, forks and rakes? The car, proton beam generator, factory, CT scanner and spaceship. The list is endless in our modern culture.
Shivasana
I recently stepped up my yoga practice to aid in my healing from stage IV cancer. I’ve always been sloppy about going into Shivasana at the end of my sessions. So in my accompanying effort to deepen my spiritual growth I decided to try it. I needed a blanket and thought of my Grandmother’s afghan that she crocheted for me at least 50 years ago. It never got the attention it deserved, partly from my own laissez faire attitude about ancestors and family.
The moment I lay down and pulled it over me, I was transformed. I loved it, I felt a warm glow that did not come from me or my workout. It came from the blanket – from my grandmother, her mother, brother, sister and father. It came from all my ancestors. That cloth is imbued with love.
Their stories
All the things around us have a story. Those stories are caught in time and space. They hold our lives. Nancy collected heavy round stones on several family reunion trips to the Oregon coast in the mid 90’s. We love them for their inherent beauty. I picked one up the other day to feel its texture, its marvelous weight, its gravitas! I felt a flood of precious memory locked in that stone. My father walking the beach, the seals on the rocks, the family together. More love, locked forever in a stone.
Tools of the trade
I’m a guitarist. Every time I hold and play a guitar, I am caressing history, millennia of tradition, so much unknown to my mind, but oh so present in my ears and finger tips. I cannot express myself without it. Is it really inanimate? Are the tools that made this guitar not alive? Alive with the touch of the master luthier Aaron Green, who pours so much knowledge and love into every movement. It is his stroke, through the plane, the scraper, the saw blade, that makes this beauty. Without his blades, he’s nothing! His voice is silent.
The camera focuses my attention. The lamp focuses my balance. The plow blade made our settler’s food. The saw that banners this blog is one of two that came with our purchase of a 1789 house. Are they the blades that cut the trees that make the beautiful joints that define the inner space of our home. Those beams and posts give us delight every time we view them and we wonder at the ingenuity and hard work of Captain Barker and his family that built this place 240 years ago.
Your tools help define you. They surround you and you use so many every day. Love and care for them. They make you happy!
We greatly appreciate your generous donations to my GoFundMe project to heal from cancer!
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