Posts Tagged ‘afternoon tea’

Plane Shadow

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

plane shadowIn the fall my husband Jon and I flew our Cessna 182 from Tucson to Taos to visit friends who have a wonderful mountain cabin. On the way, we saw fall leaves coming to their peak, almost as quickly as time lapse photography on the Discovery Channel. By the end of the long weekend when we returned, spots of gold like this one had spread, and whole swatches of forest were brilliant gold and orange. Superimposed on it all, I would see a moving shadow of our little plane, projected onto the screen of nature.

Plato saw reality in a way similar to this, as I recall–shadows projected on the back of a cave, like a camera obscura. Is everything we are so attached to a moving set of illusions?

Part of the Flying Lessons process I teach is the notion of seeing that we can move our vantage point around, seeing ourselves and our lives from above when that is helpful, defying the gravity of events on the ground level.

Another flying lesson is about opening our hearts to the beauty and wonder of nature, and to the beauty and wonder of our inner words as well. After all, we are part of the creation, and when we see that we are full of gratitude and a sense of connection to the whole web of life. The stories that fill the “middle world” which we usually inhabit are like this shadow of a small vehicle moving across the canvass of nature.

The key here is that we can observe all this. We are the first species that is conscious of ourselves. We have choices no part of creation has had before. What will we do with this awareness?  Where will we travel on our journeys? What will our relationship be to the planet? What will our exclamations be as we observe our interaction with the planet; will they be utterances of wonder or cynicism? Small views or large? How curious are we to see what the extent is of our powers? How will we use them?

Or is the plane shadow just a “plain shadow,” just an illusion, just a passing image that no one saw anyhow?

What do you think? If, like me, you are a “philoser,” as I used to call myself when I was a child, and you too are sipping from a pot of tea, drop in and share your observations.

Tea with Henry and Ella

Sunday, February 7th, 2010

Henry and EllaWhenever I go to visit my grandchildren in South Pasadena, CA, I stay at a sweet B&B called the Artists’ Inn, where every room is decorated to honor a different artist. I’m especially fond of the Georgia O’Keefe room, but really the best part of my stay is afternoon tea. Ella and Henry, the eldest of the grandchildren, come and have tea with me. They each choose a china cup, and every day a different treat has been freshly baked. I flavor the tea (you can guess that sugar is a major ingredient) and set us up in the dining room. Their mom gets a little break, and I have the pleasure of giving them a ritual they only do with me. I also have the pleasure of giving myself a ritual I only do with them.

Ella and Henry look like little European children to me in their black hats, seated in front of lace curtains. And, there’s something about them having tea that suggests another country. We don’t pause for tea in America; in fact it’s hard to pause at all. Maybe that’s why Starbucks has become such a phenomenon.

I wonder what would happen if I treated the child inside me to a sweet pause in the middle of every afternoon.  A china cup with sweetened tea, a conversation with a friend or a poem to read and consider. I might be healthier and stronger for it, and perhaps more peaceful.

Our pace of living today is frightening. And my only choices seem to be to 1. complain about what the world’s coming to or 2. take control of my own pace and regulate it.

How do you regulate your pace? Do you pause every day? Do you give yourself something sweet–sweet tastes or sweet music or sweet musings? I invite you to share your thoughts–they might help preserve life seen through an artist’s lens–or through a child’s.