Blog Archives - A Cottage by the Sea

Venus, the morning star~

1/31/2014

Random thought from the cottage.

1) Verifications from a friend that the morning star is Venus.

From the web:

“Venus passed between the Earth and sun on January 11 and then re-emerges into the morning sky. Starting around mid-January, Venus and Jupiter – the sky’s two brightest planets – are like bright bookends in the morning sky, with Venus rising as Jupiter sets.”

2) “Where has all the seaweed gone?” The beach was clear yesterday. The sea is mighty powerful even when it appears calm.

Spirit more than intention~

1/29/2014

1/29/14 Here’s today’s ponder as I sit on the deck knitting and watching the sea. I suppose I could say that I’m setting some kind of intention to experience silence, solitude and simplicity, but that’s not true, at least the intention part. I’m just letting it all flow over me. I’m not at yoga.

     At lunch the other day a friend, who has known me since high school, said that she considers me a very intentional person, that I set out to do something and I do it. She used the example of setting intention at the start of her yoga class. I understood what she was saying, but I wouldn’t use intention to describe how I go about doing what I do. To my way of thinking, intentionality implies a somewhat lock-step, mental plan for achieving specific, concrete goals; and that just isn’t the way I see my life from the inside. I’d say I operate from a spiritual flow more than an intentional time clock.

    What I accomplish is driven by my mission. Example: Each day at the cottage I hope/plan to complete a monthly chapter for the book I’m writing (today was May 2001). Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn’t. But it is the reason that I am writing the book that keeps me moving forward, chapter after chapter, even when I’d rather knit and watch the ocean. It is my mission to inspire, affirm and encourage others to find meaning in their lives that drives me. I suppose I could call that intention, but the idea of mission flows deeper into the arena of longing, which is a far cry from putting a check on to-do list.

    It’s a matter of semantics. But for sure, I wouldn’t be able to ponder this with extended periods of silence, solitude and simplicity. ‘Very grateful.”

Moonrise... beyond words~

1/28/2014

Moonrise at 4:40 this morning. I didn’t get up until it was way on it’s way, but still I had a good hour plus to sit in solitude and silence taking in the simplicity of it all.
(The light to the left is a star, to the right, lights from houses.)

Writing about writing~

1/27/2014

Writing about writing is a fascinating, eye-opening process. Here I am, consolidating what I have written during the past four years about the cottage, travel, solitude, social life, faith, my mom, being in my 70s, and more, and also journaling about that very experience and what I am currently discovering. And what is that? That we human beings are continually asking, ‘And now what?’’, which includes the doing part of life, such as the next meal, appointment, friend to see or help, book to read, trip to take, be it a vacation or to the supermarket ….

Behind this doing, however, it seems that we are really asking about the being of life. Why are we here? What is our purpose? It just isn’t enough to know that our search for meaning is ontological. We have to grasp some personal answers, a big answer as in our individual mission, and small answers, which are present in seemly random moments of deep satisfaction.

The first hour of the day~

1/25/2014

Here’s why I return to the cottage by the sea and spend my first waking hour sitting, watching, being. Very grateful.

The journey to find meaning~

1/23/2014

Yesterday was too cold for a walk. The temperature reached 20 degrees by late afternoon, but the bushes, waving about in the wind, were signaling me to stay in. And so I did.

Ah, an extra hour to work on my book. Yes, I’m culling through what I’ve written since beginning this cottage by the sea venture in 2009 and am putting it into book form. There is much to sort through amongst my almost daily journal entries, both hand-written and computer recorded; and then there is the blog. At the moment I am considering a journal format. That’s the easy part. The challenge is to glean the important threads to knit together into a meaningful, honest, coherent whole.

Currently the project is a mess of tangled up yarn: solitude, family and friends, my mom, church, my faith, prayer, travel, and more. But as I read and reread, write and rewrite, the knots are becoming disentangled. I am knitting about meaning… but isn’t that what life is all about? My search for meaning now, in my seventies, and my desire to share with others in the hope that what I feel and experience might tweak something meaningful for them. It’s the journey, always the journey, always the journey to find meaning..

Report from the beach~

1/21/2014

18 degrees

Hazy sun

Seaweed is still there

Hundreds of mergansers

Lone seagull

Lone person (me)

Walking the beach alone~

1/20/2014

After a yummy burger and gratifying conversation with my niece at the Cheese Cake Factory on my way here, the choice was obvious-- nap or walk. I chose to walk, although the idea of a nap was mighty appealing. But with cold weather coming tomorrow, I reasoned that I’d better get out while the temperature was hovering at 40 degrees instead waiting for tomorrow’s forecast of 15 to come true. And besides, there was the burger (and fries) to consider, or shall I say, to deal with.

    Every day my beach experience is different. Today, no waves, which meant no surfers. The beach was clear, except for at one end where piles of seaweed had gathered. Where had it all come from? Where will it go? Very likely on my next visit, except for a few stray pieces, the seaweed will have disappeared.

     Although there were quite a few people out on the beach, very few were alone, and so, for the umpteenth time, I got thinking about how different it is to walk by myself versus with someone else. Having just returned from a social weekend, I thought about the conversations I had. Chatter, profound and everything in between. But when I’m alone, I can choose not to talk at all, which is what I did tried to do today: “Stop that chatter and look about, be aware of the present moment. You can’t do that when you’re with someone else.”

      It is only when I am alone that I can drift into that place of longing, those holy moments when thoughts disappear and a deep satisfaction, beyond words, takes over. It began to happened this afternoon on the beach, but takes a day or two for me to settle into silence solitude and simplicity up here. I trust that those moments will come more willingly and with less difficulty. They always do.

Sounds of silence

1/18/2014

Walk # 1. Foggy; temperature in the 40s; still; not a sound; peaceful.

Walk # 2. Sunny; temperature in the 30s; noisy; waves filling the space; high energy.

Walk # 3 Snowy. Temperature in the 30s; still; quiet energy ready to explode as soon as the snow stops.

What! Internet-free days!!

1/16/2014

I try to keep it simple up here at the cottage, but a particularly slow internet access is making that a challenge. I can retrieve and send email, but this year surfing the web and posting on my blog is hit or miss, with miss winning out most of the time. I’m delighted to realize that I’m not anxious or impatient about this, which could easily be the case. Ah, maybe this practice of silence, solitude and simplicity is paying off. If it weren’t for my commitment to you, my blog readers, I would probably rejoice in some internet-free days. But, since you are out there, I’m going to head to the local library and send this off.

P. S. Internet opened up. I don’t have to get into the car. Very grateful.