Joan Tollifson – Page 2

this moment, exactly as it is

10.16.17 ~ Nauset Beach, Orleans, Massachusetts

In October my sister and I spent a couple of nights at the Nauset Knoll Motor Lodge in Orleans on Cape Cod. The big draw was that the motel had a short path to Nauset Beach, a ten mile stretch of seashore facing the open Atlantic. We could hear the waves from our motel room. Pure joy!

Wildlife sightings: from the road we saw wild turkeys and a coyote; hopping across our path to the beach we saw a bunny; and at the beach we saw gulls of course, and a little plover running along the water’s edge, and a seal bobbing in the waves.

One afternoon we spent two hours meandering on the beach. Nothing but sand, sea and sky as far as our eyes could see. Beverly, the geologist, was collecting stones, and I was taking pictures. And contemplating the universe, the oneness of all things.

Being awake. Resting in the happening of this moment, exactly as it is. Relaxing the need to understand or to make things different than they are. Opening the heart. Just this — right here, right now.
~ Joan Tollifson
(Resting in the Happening of this Moment)

We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves — the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds — never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.
~ Pema Chödrön
(Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living)

Few places on the earth possess a nature so powerful and so unspoiled that it would remind anyone living in a concrete world that he once belonged to a pre-industrial civilization.
~ Liv Ullmann
(Changing)

It was windy and chilly and we were bundled up well. I even wore my mittens when I was not taking pictures. But eventually it was time to go back to our room and get ready for dinner. So back up the path to the motel. Our window was the one on the right in the white section of the building. There are only 12 rooms. A quiet, beautiful, windswept place to stay.

view of our room from the path leading to the beach
Nauset Knoll Motor Lodge, Orleans, Massachusetts

view from our room, a hill with a path through the brambles,
the parking lot and the beach are between the lawn and the water

I hope I will come back here again one day…

subtle joy

7.24.16.3364 — 7.24.16 ~ female mallard, Richmond, New Hampshire

In the woods, sitting still, there is subtle joy in listening to the tiniest sounds. There is delight in the textures of light.
~ Joan Tollifson
(Awake in the Heartland)

7.24.16.3381 — 7.24.16 ~ Richmond, New Hampshire

We, all of us — blue-green algae, galaxies, and bear grass, philosophers and clams — will some day dissipate into vibrating motes. In the end, all of natural creation is only sound and silence moving through space and time, like music.
~ Kathleen Dean Moore
(The Pine Island Paradox: Making Connections in a Disconnected World)

7.24.16.3421 — 7.24.16 ~ Richmond, New Hampshire

simple attention

11.16.14 ~ Sound Breeze — mourning dove ~ 11.16.14

Maybe that is the purest and most radical kind of religion – simple attention. Present-moment awareness. Instead of a belief system, awareness sees through all beliefs.
~ Joan Tollifson
(Painting the Sidewalk with Water)

appearances

4.11.15.4627 — 4.11.15 ~ Mystic River, Connecticut

There is one common flow, one common breathing, all things are in sympathy.
~ Hippocrates
(The Mystic Vision: Daily Encounters with the Divine)

Last week Tim & I spotted this great egret fishing for its lunch on the west bank of the Mystic River.

Life flows on within you and without you.
~ George Harrison
♫ (Within You Without You) ♫

The appearance is ever-changing, but the beingness is ever-present.
~ Joan Tollifson
(Painting the Sidewalk with Water)

deep sleep

Deep sleep, anesthesia, and death are temporary. So-called matter or energy continues endlessly. Consciousness always wakes up again.
~ Joan Tollifson
(Painting the Sidewalk with Water)

complex thinking

2.16.15.3486 — 2.16.15 ~ Mystic, Connecticut

People fight wars for peace and take heroin to avoid suffering. No other animal gets this confused, because no other animal is capable of such complex thinking.
~ Joan Tollifson
(Painting the Sidewalk with Water)

gull photo shoot

7.29.14.1031 — 7.29.14 ~ Eastern Point Beach

My love for gulls is no secret. Yesterday evening we went down to the beach and found the gulls pleasantly eager to pose for my camera. Incredibly, I came home with 79 pictures of these common and seemingly unremarkable shorebirds.

It was a very windy day as you can tell by the ruffled feathers in some of these shots.

It’s a good thing I took so many pictures of the other kinds of gulls last summer because we aren’t seeing many of them here this year. (But we did have oystercatchers this year, much to my surprise and delight!) These ”regular” ring-billed gulls seemed very happy to have their beach back to themselves… I envy them at times…

Some bodyminds have more stormy weather systems than other bodyminds, just as some geographical locations have more stormy weather than others, and it is neither helpful nor relevant to compare ourselves to others. It is also very liberating to realize that change always happens on its own timetable, not on the the timetable the thinking mind conjures up. Especially in our speeded-up, fast-food, modern culture, we tend to want instant results, and life just doesn’t work that way. Most changes in nature happen slowly.
~ Joan Tollifson
(Nothing to Grasp)

As I sit here wishing for another bout of figurative “stormy weather system” to pass me by, communing with the gulls reminds me that change always happens on its own timetable…