Robin Red-breasts flitted about on the branches as Tetley and I walked along the wooded stretch this morning and although we are still in a deep-freeze, it feels like we’ve turned a corner. The light lingers longer each day and I turn my face up in grateful ecstasy towards the heat of the sun. Yes, mountains of filthy snow will likely linger for months, but there are swathes of ground visible — packed, frozen earth I can imagine soon turning to mud. Oh, I know it will be close to 2 months before spring really arrives, but these small harbingers and a week without snow have lifted my spirits – believing now, that there are lighter, warmer days not far ahead ahead.<\/p>\n
I aspire to live in the present, to remain alert to the moment with all my senses, my heart and mind. \u00a0Buddhists, my sculpture teacher – Mike Skop and common sense have all steered me towards this as a core spiritual and creative practice.\u00a0But what about when life really sucks? I think of my friend simultaneously battling cancer and a broken heart and all I want to do is fast forward her out of her shitty present to brighter days I feel sure are ahead for her. I don’t want her to have to ‘be here now’ – but she is and there’s nothing any of us can do about it. The pain of our loved ones is awful to watch. \u00a0As always, I turn to books and remember that during some of my darkest days When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron <\/a>, (find a beautiful excerpt by clicking here) was like my survival manual. \u00a0Reading this piece again, I am reminded to embrace the moment, as dark and cold as it may be — but I still welcome the Robins back to the neighborhood and wish for spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Robin Red-breasts flitted about on the branches as Tetley and I walked along the wooded stretch this morning and although we are still in a deep-freeze, it feels like we’ve turned a corner. The light lingers longer each day and I turn my face up in grateful ecstasy towards the heat of the sun. Yes, … Continue reading Return of the Robins<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[14,13,20,12],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seasonal-musings","category-uncategorized","tag-books","tag-cancer","tag-grief","tag-nature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPzTS-ai","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":644,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions\/644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}