Water lilies have roots firmly entrenched in the muck and mud, but their beautiful, immaculate blossoms float on the water above. They are the nymphs of the pond, known for their loveliness and grace. As the light of day fades, they close only to be opened by the next day’s sun-rays. Recognized throughout the world as having deep spiritual significance, they are symbols of rebirth and second chances. Dreams filled with water lilies are associated with one’s revitalization after a time of trial.
In ancient Egypt, the lily, symbol of Upper Egypt, was teamed with the papyrus flower, the symbol of Lower Egypt, to denote a united country. Religious iconography of this flower revolved around creation/origin stories. Also, the pillars of the temples in ancient Egypt were in the shape of lily flowers, blossoming from the soil.
According to Buddhism, enlightenment is associated with water lilies. Different colored water lilies have different powers and meanings. A red lily connotes love and passion, and is considered to be the lotus of the heart. The purple lily represents mystic power, while the white lily is mental purity. The highest deity is represented with a pink lily, and blue lilies are associated with knowledge.
The water lily belongs to the Nymphaeaceae family. According to Greek mythology, ‘nymph’ is the supernatural feminine that inhabited bodies of water. Perhaps this is why they captivate the hearts of every onlooker. In fact, I am finding the need for such warming of my own heart these days given our present political climate, so cold in its attitude toward those regarded as having lesser value. The under belly of our democracy seems a little murky. It is not the rich nutritious mud that provides nourishment for ever-growing beauty and life, but is simply crud that seems to be rooted in greed infused with racism, sexism and dominator mentality.
This past week, 61 year-old Code Pink crone, Desiree Fairooz, was found guilty of two counts of unlawful conduct on capitol grounds. She could face up to a year in jail and hundreds of dollars of fines. In January she was sitting in on the hearings to appoint Jeff Sessions as attorney general. When Republican Sen. Richard Shelby referred to Sessions’ “extensive record of treating all Americans equally under the law,†she laughed. That laughter lasted only three seconds, but she was removed from the hearing. When the police officer hauled Fairooz out of the room she shouted, “Why am I being taken out of here? This man is evil.â€
For decades protectors, protestors and hecklers have been showing up at such hearings. Their voices have been the voices of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Tea-partiers and others. Many of them have been ejected. But few, if any, are prosecuted, especially with such vengeance.
We need the wisdom and the beauty of the water lilies to enlighten our paths and blossom in our hearts! The water lily keeps its watery home clean. Moreover, it protects from predators the diverse inhabitants, the many small fishes and aquatic animals, living in her waters. In the same way, we need our government officials to be protectors, not predators, of the people and the environs in which we live.
Many years later when I was reflecting on that mantra of my eighth-grader teacher, “a circle and a straight line,†I have come to believe that her instruction was far more reaching then drawing those shapes. She was talking about philosophies, ways of thinking, cultural paradigms and life styles.
A circle and a line – toiling together rather than in opposition; it might just work! It certainly did in the “skin†of the old street cars of Fort Bragg.
Beautiful is the red crimson columbine
Wild Columbines are difficult to photograph because their stems are so thin and long that even the gentlest of breezes will set the flower in rapid motion.  Using a flash can help greatly so that you have a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the motion caused by the breeze. This way you don’t have to shoot wide open which gives you very little depth-of-field. Better to let the background go dark, due to the distance the flash is able to land on, than to have a blurry image. In fact I like a black background occasionally with a wild flower.
Receive the wisdom of the columbine: Wherever your journey takes you stay steadfast in your faith, love and friendships. Believe in things that are not yet seen. The Celtics believed in the world of dreams and visions and that columbines were the portal to this world.
After photographing these wild columbines I meet Gaia (her actual name is Mikki) on her journey from New York. She came to San Francisco in honor of the 50th anniversary of the “Summer of Love.â€Â In nature and in the eyes of others may we notice how the beauty around us abounds and helps us celebrate our various seasons of “Love.â€
Julian was the first known English-language woman author, someone who thought and wrote with a creativity that took her beyond the accepted teachings of her day. Despite that, her teachings were never disputed or retracted. Next month we will celebrate her feast day, May 8th, so she has been particularly on my mind.
I don’t think there are any flowers assigned to or associated with Julian of Norwich, but I tend to think the essence of the Calla Lily serves her well.  She taught that the fullness of joy is to behold Goddess in everything.
Mother Sophia, Sister Julian,
Maiden, Mother, Crone.
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is presenting a new view of two of the twentieth century’s most extraordinary painters: Henri Matisse (1869–1954) and Richard Diebenkorn (1922–1993).
This major exhibition explores the insightful inspiration Diebenkorn found in the work of Matisse. The show brings together 100 extraordinary paintings and drawings—40 by Matisse and 60 by Diebenkorn—that reveal the connections between the two artists in subject, style, color, and technique.
Another gorgeous San Francisco exhibit is on display in Golden Gate Park, especially around the Japanese Tea Garden — the cherry blossoms. In full bloom this past week, they draw us into the beauty of their branches, inviting us to stand beneath the blossoms and look up with awe at their colors and shapes. The twisting branches bend to show off the pink petals as the flowers bask in the rich blue skies of spring. The sweet fragrance that surrounds you hints at love and inner grace.
Japan sent cherry trees to the U.S. to represent friendship and goodwill. In 1915, we reciprocated by sending flowering dogwood trees to Japan. Dogwood trees represent the kind of friendship that is long lasting, even in the midst of turbulent times, much like the relationship between the creative energies of the artists featured at MOMA. In our own turbulent times, we might find some peace and direction in exchanging trees with those with whom we feel at odds, nurturing friendship and reaching out for mutual understanding. But perhaps meditating on peeling paint and rust, Diebenkorn and Matisse, and cherry blossoms will also do the job!
While growing up in Schenectady, New York, I experienced dramatic changes as the seasons moved from winter to spring. Winter was a time when the landscape was blanketed in white frigid snow leaving dormant almost everything underneath. Every year the snow would melt and give way to budding trees, and the crocuses would break through the still-frozen ground like Lazarus leaping from the tomb. Yet, as a child, I remember believing every spring was a miracle.
Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, the move from winter to spring is a little more subtle. Especially if our winter rains, like this year, are quite plentiful, the hills rendered brown by the summer begin to amass greens and yellows already in January. In our area, a California poppy or two can be found throughout the year, but, when spring comes, the colorful signs of rebirth and regeneration are explosive.
As I look for fresh angles from which to capture the beauty and essence of the poppy, I am inspired to search for new tools for making the personal shift from domination to partnership and its implications for the greater society and the common good. One tool that blessed me this year was the online course I took from Riane Eisler and the Center for Partnership Studies. The course helped me reconnect with the truth that all life is best lived when we express love, compassion, and understanding through everything we do. When we live out that truth, every spring is a miracle – in the world of nature and in our own inner being.!
Migration has always been a part of our global seasons and systems – the movement of birds, butterflies and animals for breading grounds, filarial worms migrating within the human body, the nomadic tribes following water sources for their cattle and goats, refugees moving from death zones to safety, and migrant workers following the farmers’ harvests. By executive order and proposed federal policy changes, migrations of all types are being thwarted.
In the San Francisco Arboretum I noticed for the first time signs of a very different kind of migration. The weathered stones in the limestone wall that frames the garden outside the botanical library were once part of the Cistercian Monastery in Santa Maria de Ovila in Spain.  The monastery, 90 miles north of Madrid, was founded in 1188 and thrived for over six centuries. But, in 1835, over 900 monasteries were closed by the Spanish government, and, thereafter privately owned, Santa Maria de Ovila Monastery fell into disarray.
Stella’s works are often called “pinstripe paintings,†but the implied regularity is inaccurate. When working, the artist doesn’t measure out lines, as many critics have presumed, but works freehand — faintly deviating from perfect straight lines. His use of materials is just as revolutionary; in his work, he uses house and car paint, cast aluminum, fiberglass, and the latest 3D-printing techniques.
These days we need to strengthen our spirituality so we can be the “change-makers†necessary for the well-being of this world and its people. For me, spirituality is a life-path filled with practices that build up, enhance and release our innate human capacities for love and beauty, peace and harmony, justice and joy, awe and mystery. In this way we are connected to the great “sacred spirit” of the universes.
The Soul is Breath
Hildegard used the curative powers of natural things for healing and wrote treatises about natural history and the medicinal uses of plants, animals, trees and stones. She is the first composer whose biography is known, and she founded a vibrant convent where her musical plays were performed.
Hildegard’s visions and her music continue to be performed and reinterpreted in many new artistic venues. Her story is one of a resilient spirit and vivacious intellect overcoming social, cultural, and gender barriers to achieve timeless transcendence. May these images invite you to the greening of a creation/cosmic spirituality we so desperately need.
Low guttural sounds, mid-tone chants and high pitched yipping greeted my ears, and there were roaring sounds in the background. No, I was not at the Super Bowl. Nor was I re-living my experience at the Women’s March in SF last month at which similar sounds raised heartfelt laments and pleas to the cosmos resulting from actions of our new national leadership. These particular cries were offered by the annual gathering of hundreds of elephant seals.
The males that are still on the beaches produce deep sounds as they raise their heads before moving toward an approaching male or chasing a female in the hope of mating with her (even if she has just birthed a pup). From mid-December to mid-February hundreds of elephant seal pups are born on this beach. After a birth the mother imprints her mid-toned chanting voice on the newborn so it may find her among the hundreds of other mothers and pups around them. The little snail-shaped furry pup immediately begins yipping back.
The Piedras Blancas elephant seal rookery spreads over 6 miles of beach on the central coast of California. The viewing areas are located 90 miles south of Monterey, 5 miles north of Hearst Castle State Historical Monument in San Simeon. Because the long narrow beaches are separated from highway 1 by sharp-rock inclines neither the seals nor the humans cross into each other’s territories.  The viewing areas are open every day of the year, are wheelchair accessible, free of charge, and get you close to these magnificent creatures. No reservations are required, and there are docents every day of the year.
Our lives are intertwined with every aspect of the earth; and our human species is dependent on the life-supporting gifts of the natural world. I believe that sometimes we forget that all human beings are still the same species, even though we can be very different in our approach to policy making, nation building and attitudes about human rights. Unfortunately we are the only species that all too often violently turns on each other in great numbers and builds walls of metal and ideals to separate us rather than gather us into nurturing communities.
We are connected to every part of the planet. Although on that Piedras Blancas beach a few of the elephant seals charged one another and trampled over another’s pup, for the most part they honor and depend on each other and the ocean and the air and the rest of the web-of-life. Too often we humans see others in our own species as enemies, dangerous, unwelcome, scapegoats, and evil rather than as partners. Most of our systems are products of practices and policies of power over, control and domination enforced by the use of violence, rape, and abuse.