Monday, February 28, 2011

Standing in the Sky

Maxfield Parrish was out painting the sky this morning. The softest hues of blues and pinks and oranges emerged, bigger than life overhead - surreal and so inviting. The heavens glowing like I’ve never seen before…ever. We’d had a muscle-bound-gale blow thru last night followed by crushing rain… and the sky this morning was bunched with clouds of every shape -and the color! Slate grey infused with chalk powder pastels infused with scattered glitter.

I found myself wanting to stand on the very edge of one of those sturdy billowing vapors, my arms outstretched; the celestial breezes lifting my hair from my face and sashaying the cotton of my dress against my legs, ribbons tied at my waist, fluttering about. I could feel that space… and I longed for my feet to stand upon the soft edge of that cloud’s rim.

I had the pleasure of Maxfield Parrish’s “Ecstasy” hanging above the piano in one of my homes so many years ago. It was the first image that greeted me, coming down the hall each morning. And like all great photos of women, I imagine that I am she. All these years, I am the woman in the painting. And today I entered that great and beautiful print of his, like it had always been drawn for me…and I took my place in it.

While the sky was Parrish’s, the ground undeniably belonged to Norman Rockwell… carts and trailers and tractors parked and hunkered in driveways and down orchard roads. The orchards themselves bloomed while I was away at the coast this weekend, and I was smitten by acres upon acres of lightly adorned trees in white and luminous pink…like so many debutantes dressing for The Ball. Across the road another orchard, its petals chalked in maroon…looking more like a trillion snowflakes dipped in Merlot…

A little further on, I watched a boy about twelve, get out of a car and walk toward his waiting school bus; as he climbed the steps, he turned and waved to the woman behind the wheel of the car… and my heart skipped a beat as I watched my own boy heading down the walkway each morning, turning to wave, ‘I love you infinity pi and beyond,’ he would sing out, and I returned his wave with my own heart, loving the sound of his voice; amazed that this boy was mine.

I am forever surprised when I get pulled thru time like this, without warning, no moments to prepare, just there…coming at me…through me…time disappears, and I enter into what-has-years-now-passed... while remaining inside what is... and sometimes? standing squarely within what’s yet to come.

I slipped my hand into the hand of my favorite three-year-old last weekend and I didn’t want to let go. We were looking at the day through his eyes. His beautiful golden-brown-green eyes…and sometimes brown with a hint of blue. I cannot get enough of his face. His intellect is reminiscent of my trips to table-top-mountain… vast, innocent, stunning... he is springtime in full bloom, colorful, perfect…everything new. Each insight he shared with me, pure; and his response to my questions, rarely what I thought he might say. His eye is clear, his perception honest. I will follow him anywhere. He is my Forrest…part angel, part boy, son and brother. I know he chose to come, and he comes with purpose. As we all do.

I was pulled back to Parrish’s artwork above me and wondered if that talented man dreamed his paintings when he was a child, so beautiful, clear and unencumbered they are… and if Forrest took brush to canvas, I thought their styles could be similar. …but for now, he circles his ‘F’ and tells me “it’s an F to me.” …farther on, we saw a sign in a window and he stopped short and said with quiet confidence, “that’s a ‘B’ to you." ...for I am his grandma B.

We climbed a mountain together to throw our rocks out as far as we could -an incline that he clamored up with hands and feet; and having emptied our pockets of the collected stones and thrown them with whoops, hollars and great gusto, he leaped fearlessly from the edge of his mountain, tumbled about, and regaining his feet dashed off to see the horses we’d been approaching… I leaped too, because I haven’t leaped in a long, long while. I wondered what it would be like to leap from the edge of that cloud’s rim…I was sure in my momentary revelry that if he and I were holding hands, Forrie would leap right along with me…eyes sparkling, his beautiful smile set on ‘come on grandma B, let’s go!’

There is not an element in nature that doesn’t touch me, speak to me, move through me…like we are sisters, mothers, friends, lovers…and when I am willing to be open to it, I feel that element in people I meet, and in those I know well.

Every person I've met who seems to have this connection, this 'vibration' with others tells me stories of their dramatic connection with nature. A friend of mine told me that as a child he roamed the woods, forests, meadows and open land. He told me he once lay in a field and became so still that he could hear the pine cones opening. This endeared him to me on the spot.

...and so I find it relevant that recently I’ve read and seem to hear from unexpected encounters and surprising sources, that sound came first. Before anything else. The Universe’s first sigh. And I realized that I’ve never thought about what might have come first; I think my best guess was that it was quiet first...but because this information continues to present itself to me, I listen. Consequently, sound is becoming so clear to me, the vibration of it joining my own.

I say music speaks to me, sometimes more than I can bear...and the wind and breezes and blustery days? They. set. me. free! Tibetan bowls wrap me in their loving hymns; and the voices of children and loved ones bring me to higher awarenesses, where I feel I might burst wide open. I find I cannot live without them. Any of them.

So I know without hesitation, that standing on the brilliant rim of the clouds above me will fill me with the sounds of the sky! whose melodies... so perfect, rich and complete, will breathe ...in-rhythm, in-time, in-sync... with my own remarkable breaths… and I will want to stay, standing in the sky, for a long-long time.

Love-love,
your Wildflower