Here’s a question from the weekly powerful question:

“How can I demonstrate my gratitude for a part of my body that I have judged as unattractive?”

Now before you even answer it, read this too:

“You may choose, of course, to work with the Question as you see fit. However, you might want to consider reflecting upon the Question without seeking a specific answer too quickly. If an answer is arrived at too soon, the answer is more likely to be based upon what you already know rather than what you might be able to discover over time.

Often times a Question itself can prepare you for something that is larger than you can now imagine or do. It can draw you more deeply into possibilities and the unknown rather than to an answer, particularly if the question is approached from the perspective of “what if” rather than “how.” You might, for example, ask yourself the Question at times when you are feeling emotions, such as fear, joy or sadness, and simply notice what you feel in your body or in your heart when you ask the Question. Then simply move on without attempting to come to an answer.

If you allow a question to maintain its creative tension, you might be surprised at what you discover!”

I love that on two levels, the powerful question and the asking to suspend a propensity to get in there and do something about it, adopt an easy fix, instead to be open to something beyond that first impulse.

If you watched the film What the Bleep Do We Know?!, you saw the main character write love notes on her body in the pivotal bathroom scene.  She wrote on the parts of her she previously saw as revolting.  Then she lay in the tub to soak these messages in.  I did that, too.  My kids, when they were younger, would exclaim to any body who’d listen: Mommy writes on her body. :)

There are parts of my body I’ve looked at and said yuk.  I’ve joked and said in my next life, I’ll come back with no cellulite.  But you know what — in this life all joking aside, I’m done with looking at myself physically, emotionally or otherwise and naming any part of me as bad, wrong, inadequate or not good enough.

These days, I walk a singular path and that’s the path of the heart.  This path only knows how to say yes.  Yes to life, yes to me, yes to love.  It doesn’t matter what word I write on my body or the sky for that matter, what matters most is a kiss of yes on my lips.  Yes to this precious physical vessel I have the privilege of inhabiting.  Yes to all of me.

A single put-down is a tiny insult to the framework of who we are.  Are you done with insults big and small to yourself?  I sure am.  I’m ready to embrace the many ways I now say yes to myself.

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

~Leonard Cohen~

What makes this particular park special to me is that there is a paved walk way flanked by several different types of trees, many of which have name tags.  I always love it when someone takes the time to label what it is I am admiring.  Another thing that is unique about this park, it is home to two species of deciduous conifers.  To my knowledge there are only three types in this whole world — the Dawn Redwood, European Larch and Bald Cypress.  Coulon Park houses both the Bald Cypress and European Larch.  This means those evergreen needles drop off every late fall and every spring they are replaced with new evergreen growth.  Very unusual!

You may click on any image for a close up view.  So grab a cup of tea or coffee, whatever is your pleasure and sit back and enjoy the photo collage journey with me through Coulon Park.

Japanese roses
with noses

lady bug, lady bug
God’s pure delight

Part of a Quaking Aspen grove, what a find here!  These usually grow in areas with cold winters and cool summers and much, much higher elevations.  All we qualify for is relatively cool summers.  In Colorado, in the fall there are traffic jams up in the mountains just to catch the sight of this one tree turn two colors.  They are found in groves as they all have a common root system.

Ah, here we begin with the European Larch.

European Larch Lane

new European Larch baby green cones and notice the new needle growth in tufts

European Larch with mature cones, notice their small size and how they hang uniformly off the limb

And right across from the European Larch is the Bald Cypress

Bald Cypress just coming into her spring finery

Closer view of Bald Cypress new green growth.  In the fall the foilage will turn a dark rust color and then drop off completely and the tree will appear to be “bald”.

*many thanks to my friend Marie, whose willingness to share her knowledge of trees has truly enhanced my enjoyment and love affair with trees.

by the river Wilia, 1999

Convictions, beliefs, opinions,
certainties, principles,
rules and habits have abandoned me.

I woke up naked at the edge of a civilization
which seemed to me comic and incomprehensible.

The vaulted halls of the post-Jesuit academy
where I had taken my classes
would not have been pleased with me.

Though I preserved a few sentences in Latin.

The river flows through a forest of oak and pine.

I stand in grass up to my waist,
Breathing in the wild scent of yellow flowers.

Above, white clouds. As is usual in my district,
an abundance of white clouds.

~Czeslaw Milosz~
New and Collected Poems 1931-2001