From The Heart Fall 2019

Dear Reader

For much of this past year my world was saturated with words too heavy to write or speak. During that year, loved ones have died and my husband Bill still bears the scars of his encounters with respiratory failure, diabetic crisis and double pneumonia. Though it was spring, I felt muffled in a winter world. I moved through each day in a strange inner silence, capable only of coping with visits to the ICU and weeks of entire days spent in three different hospitals. Bill returned home in such a frail and weakened condition I moved in a vaporous world of uncertainty. Would today be my last with him? Would I be alone tomorrow? Thanks, however, to the effort of a blessed crew of doctors, nurses, and therapists and courageous efforts of his own, he is growing stronger. Buoyed by hope and filled with gratitude, I can now reach for words with which to reconnect with you, to let you know that though I was silent, you were never far from my mind.

Conscious of the rapid passage of time and my approaching 80^th birthday, I wake each morning with a renewed sense of wonder at the gift of life. Bill is still with me and gratitude floods the entire day. I feel an added sense of responsibility to use this time well.

“We must trust in the small light we are given and to value the light we can shed into the lives of those around us . . . We live in a world alive with holy moments. We need only take the time to bring these moments into the light,” writes Kent Wilburn in his lovely little book Small Graces. I first encountered his writings in 1998 when we moved to Lake Superior’s North Shore. In an environment live with miracles, his quiet reflective words mirrored my desire to live a spiritual life and that is how I’ve tried to live most of my life. To remain open to the light present in every moment. To welcome each day as the miracle it is.

Assisi Heights MN

Our small book club is thriving. Together we delight in discovering the creative world within us. It has renewed my love of writing. While I have still not finished with The Glass Chrysalis, I’ve been working on bringing The Scent of God, which had gone out of print, back to life. I’d hoped to announce the publication of the new edition in this newsletter but life intervened and its rebirth has been delayed. It includes a wonderful new cover, beautiful interior design, the addition of an Introduction and an updated afterword. It should be ready early this fall. I shall keep you informed.

Meanwhile, may you be strong, may you be happy, may you be healthy. May you live your life with gladness. (Prayer of Loving Kindness)

When Seeking the great, don't miss the small things

Beryl's Fall 2014 Newsletter

October 16, 2014

Cramer Road Maple

From mid to late September, Highway 61 from Duluth to Grand Portage churns with vehicles bearing fall color groupies rushing to catch the fall color before it peaks. This year, road repair interrupted their race northward, releasing long lines of vehicles in batches from enforced delays. They speed off like headstrong students only to encounter another enforced delay several miles up the road.

Unable to race to anything-- hampered not by traffic, but by a fractured pelvis – I was forced to get my fall color fix in smaller doses: the aspen shimmering gold through the living room window, the wild honeysuckle in its ocher and red march across our hillside, the hoard of hungry cedar waxwings devouring the lush berries on our mountain ash trees. On September 21, Bill drove me up the Cramer Road known for its flaming maple arch where I could peer into and under the forest canopy. It feels as if I am standing within a stained glass cathedral. In the past, we've tried to capture the full sweep of mountains on fire with color, but the sights we remember most clearly are views of those mountains as seen through an iridescent film of translucent leaves or the vision of a single orange maple flirting between dark green spruces. Not everyone is satisfied with such miniatures, however. On September 23, Bill encountered a photographer marching grimly along the Oberg Loop. “Isn't it glorious?” Bill enthused. “Hell, no,” the photographer grouched. “It’s past peak. A waste of my time.” Bill wondered how he could have missed the color through which he was walking.

Emily Dickinson captures, in few words, what I've been trying to say in two paragraphs and what we witnessed this morning.

I'll tell you how the sun rose -- / a ribbon at a time.

I've begun rereading Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life by Phillip Simmons, a brilliant young author who died at the age of 35 from ALS. Simmons brings warmth and even humor to these essays written as the disease drains what is left of his life. When I grouch about the things a fractured pelvis makes downright difficult if not impossible, Simmons reminds me that there is beauty to be experienced now, perhaps in this very inconvenience. I keep going back to this book, learning how Simmons came to terms with his disabilities and finding within its pages insights into how to deal with my own. In one of his final chapters, Simmons writes, “Now I find myself in late August, with the nights cool and the crickets thick in the fields. Already the first blighted leaves glow scarlet on the red maples. It’s a season of fullness and sweet longings made sweeter now by the fact that I can’t be sure I’ll see this time of the year again....”

Updates on the Sequel to the Scent of God
The Glass Calyx: a Mother’s Journey to Forgiveness is now with a trusted final reader and then off to an editor. Of course, as I wait, I’m stricken with all sorts of insecurities. Have I really told this story? Can I really tell this story? Will the reader want to read this story?

Enjoy what's left of fall and may winter prove a kinder relative this year.

Seven seconds of gratitude.

In 1846, Canadian painter Paul Kane, traveled through the Canadian North West, creating one of the most extensive pictorial renderings of the country and its its aboriginal tribes. When Kane encountered  Kakabeka Falls, near Thunder Bay Ontario he named it the "Niagara of the North." Even more beautiful, he claimed, because of its breathtakingly wild surroundings.

When Bill and I visited the falls earlier this week, it was impossible not to compare it with Niagara. Heavy spring rains had turned the falls into a thundering force of such power that we felt the ground shake as we stood overlooking the plunge it took to the churning river below. The spray from the falls whipped our faces and even soaked the boardwalk skirting its depths. The falls mesmerized us and we stood there, almost unable to pull ourselves away from the view

Bill and I visit the falls every few years but have never seen it churning with color like it was on Tuesday. Reds, browns, mother of pearl, gold, platinum.It resembled molasses taffy, I thought. If any of you have ever made molasses taffy at home, you'll know the wonderful luminous bands of color that steak the confection as it's being pulled and molded.

I recently heard a talk in which the speaker recommended spending at least seven seconds of gratitude when experiencing blessing. There's no better cure for depression, he noted, than living with gratitude. Even in times of darkness, blessings large and small surround us. We only have to keep the eyes of our mind open to discover them. Kakabeka Falls needed no prompting to inspire us to gratitude.Just remembering the sight fills me with wonder.