Bette

Today I said a formal good-bye to an amazing woman who lived down the road and around the bend. Bette was a tough and feisty 71-year-old lady who had such a soft and curious side. I only saw her a couple of times a year, but when I did, she and I were immediately drawn to each other, finding ourselves fully engaged in discussions about literature, computer technology or spirituality. I thought it was a unique relationship, but at the crowded and overflowing funeral today, I looked around and smiled warmly. Bette had connected with many people in the way that she had connected with me, only maybe on different topics.Wow!

In 2008, and on the day that her husband died, Bette had her final treatment for breast cancer. She fought hard and with verve booked trips, went parasailing and ziplining. She read books and lunched with ladies. She was an artist and nature lover and loved to laugh. 
Bette lived! 
Until she discovered that she had developed a rare form of leukemia and knew that it was time for her body to leave this earth.

Today, as I gazed around that hall, I noticed many young girls and women of all ages, who are utmost grateful to have known her. 
Bette, you will be missed, and I am pleased that I knew you. Thank you for making me feel that I was special.

Godspeed my friend.

~ Ellyn

Country Road Woes...

We bought my husband’s family farm sixteen years ago. I had been raised in a well-manicured city yard and began to try and maintain this very large farmyard. I remember wondering where our yard ended? The one thing that irked me more than anything else, were weeds and I didn’t mind hoeing and tilling, and so, I hoed and tilled… lots! The gravel driveway was a challenge and I began to spray the chemical Roundup on it. As long as I caught the weeds first thing in the spring, the driveway was clear all season and sometimes into the next. I found that I did not have to use the chemical every year. Until last year, when I used it three times on the driveway and was puzzled as to why it was not keeping them from coming back. Is it possible that those weeds had built up a resistance to the chemical? This year, so far, I have been hoeing the gravel. It is not easy but maybe it is the most responsible thing to do. I would love any suggestions that you might have regarding other methods that you use to keep weeds out of your driveway.

Thanks.

~ Ellyn

Note the edges of the lawn where it meets the driveway.

Growing Pains...

With the exception of one year, my daughter and her best friend have been the only two girls in their grade for nine years. They know each other well and honour each one's unique gifts as well as challenges. They are athletic and musical and orators and writers. They figure out math and science together and all other problems that come their way. They take charge and organize the fellas in their classroom, including their two male teachers.

As they prepare for high school, and just last night, they both anxiously headed to volleyball tryouts for next season's team. Eleven girls showed up and there are only ten spaces. My heart dropped. They are from a small school where they were called up to play Junior High sports when they were in grade 6 and now, they are facing a possible cut from a team. I felt my girly's angst last night but never said a word. This morning as she waited for the school bus, she said to me, that it would be better if she was the one cut, over Jacey because she said, "I have had to handle criticism through my music, and sport means much more to Jacey than it does to me."

She loves her friend and has already learned how to sacrifice something for someone you love. I am in awe. Lesson learned but this time by me...

(Update: Both girls just received notice that they both made the team! Yay! I guess they do not have to learn a "cut from the team" lesson yet.)
 

~ Ellyn

Jillian & Jacey in Junior Kindergarten

Jacey & Jillian Grade 9 Farewell

Working at Loving What Is...

I have spent a countless number of hours in our yard and it is not even near caught up. [Hmm… Caught up? Interesting choice of words.] Living rurally on a farmyard that I once was blindly devoted to, has its challenges and as I sit here at my desk with the timer on so that I only write for a wee bit, I am overwhelmed. May is an overwhelming month for me with our children’s spring and summer pursuits playing out, my desire to run and golf and this never ending yard work, not to mention the usual duties that subsist. There have been years where I have contemplated not putting a garden in and yet by July know that I would be sad not to have one. As I wonder why it is important to me to have everything looking perfect, I turn to the words of Byron Katie and am grateful for this distress. “When you realize that suffering and discomfort are the call to inquiry, you may actually begin to look forward to uncomfortable feelings.” Knowing that “happiness is a clear mind”, I am happy that I have taken time to just sit and write and with these musings, I have begun to smile warmly, breathe easier and will take my awaiting teens over to our neighbourhood greenhouse to pick out flowers for our yard, as well as book a tee time for all of us, later this afternoon. This is the perfection that I really desire.

~ Ellyn

Zigging & Zagging...

It is said that “the shortest path between two points is a straight line but what happens if that path gets blocked? When sediment impedes the flow of a river, it redirects, zigging and zagging instead of following a straight course. But like to the crow, like meandering is to the water’s most efficient route, source to outlet, nature finds a detour.” Jake Bohm

Writer, Tim Kring’s new show, Touch, is having a resounding effect within me. For many years now, I have found it painfully dull to sit in front of the television, only watching a couple of shows with my children, but when my dad told me about this captivating programme, I decided to give it a go. The story is about a widower and single father trying to connect with his emotionally challenged son, blending math, science and spirituality. I have not seen the pilot or the first episode and am filling in a few gaps as I catch up with what it is all about. What is evident is that it is rich in its creation.

I love when I notice spirituality in science and remember the first time that I was aware of Creation’s touch in mathematics. I had been teaching for many years and was taking a levelled testing class. I was never a fan of the practise of formally testing children, and yet knew that if I was going to be required to do so, I wanted as much background and information as possible in order to perform it as honourably as possible. I was dreading the statistics course, when the professor opened the first class with the statement that the beat of a butterfly’s wings in Beijing, affect the weather in Shanghai. I knew immediately that this was going to be the best statistics class my nonmathematical mind would ever take.

It was around this time that I began to observe that people’s lives intersected at certain points for a reason. I could sense why someone was in my life and began to honour it, not seeing it as bad or good but that it just was… is.

When my first husband left me, I felt devastated, betrayed and broken. That was twenty-three years ago and through the supportive words of many, including recently, a twitter friend, @DrGarcia who convinced me that those situations are rarely devastating, and with a warm smile am happy to know that I really did not break and although I will always love him, believe that he and I were only supposed to be together for that time. I am grateful for this understanding and know that if someone steps off of a shared path with me, it is okay because “if two points are destined to Touch, the Universe will always make it happen.”

~ Ellyn

Good Morning Spring

Today is what matters...

Although I marvel at the sun that causes me to wake a little earlier each day, as it pours in over my warm bed covers, it is the moon that brings about a gentle softness to my face and presents me with utmost peace.

Sometimes life winds up before it winds down. I always seem to feel this way in the spring, just before summer holidays approach. This being May 1^st, I turn to the new page that resides on our family web calendar as well as the synchronized paper one, on our refrigerator, and it is blatantly evident how full May already seems. I then remind myself that I have more than enough time to do all that I want or need to do today, because after all, it is only today that matters. Ahh… so easily stated. I love the wisdom of the wise.

My to-do list today looks much like other days with slight variations and like most to-do lists, does not have everything on it just the things that I want to make certain I attend to.

-       exercise

-       meditate

-       write

-       Centennial “Stuff”

-       email youth re: Friday’s meeting

-       marinate pork

-       pick up Jillian @ 5:30

-       make appointments for Jillian’s hair

-       call to confirm dinner invitation for Max’s friend

-       get mail ready to go to town

-       mow lawn

It does not matter if I get everything on my list done but it is important to me that I have a focal point from which to work from. For years, I would have put exercise, meditate and write at the bottom, or more often than not, omit them entirely. I have learned that these undertakings are of utmost importance to all else that I do. These acts combined, are the substance of my life that offer me release, peace and purpose for today is what matters most to me and is all that really exists. I have memories of past todays and thoughts about future todays but in reality, only now. “Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of light, power and reality of the eternal present.” Eckhart Tolle 
~ Ellyn