You know how there are times in our life when everything changes? There is freshness, innocence, and delight in these shifts. Leaving home at 19, creating a home with four others then, or having each of my children, or being a Girl Scout leader. Teaching meditation is fresh each sitting, spontaneous, in-the-sparkle of the moment and the energies of the people, the devas, and the world that are gathered right then. My inner processes have been repeated times when everything seems to have changed: understandings, insights, participation with inner and outer life, emptying, emptiness, and the dance of the heart. MS has been part of that inner journey: its inconstancy, the steadfast march of acceptance/allow/give-in to the new/give away give away give away, and simply be.

Moving to Colorado has been the latest categorical change.

I love New England, and thought that I would never move from the lush green everywhere, the crisp colors of Autumn, and the particular blue sky of winter with crystalline listen-t0-it-fall snow. But, I have left and have moved to the high desert of San Luis Valley in south-central Colorado, only a few miles from the New Mexico border. (Interesting, about border towns: Spirit Fire in Massachusetts is only a few miles from the Vermont border too.)

I now live at around 7700 ft elevation. Towering mountains of 12-14,000 ft can be seen in three directions. In the last few nights, they have been blessed with the fairy dusting of snow. It is a beauty that, like the vast sparkle of the night sky, makes one’s heart sing. I love it here. I love it.

My spirit and mind feel home like they did when my dog and I would hike the 90 acres of Spirit Fire’s land by ourselves before it became the beautiful and heart-full meditation and retreat center that it has become. Now others experience what I did there. Thank you Steve and Tim and all who over the years have nursed the vision of Spirit Fire. A walker has replaced the faithful dog!

Dear Jane and Lynn, from whom I will be renting the small house still incomplete in its renovations and ADA equipping, are the latest teachers in my life. Each person along the way has been from the bevy of girls of the Girl Scout troop over its years, to my now-grown children, to colleagues and friends, and family members. Due to all of you, and now Jane and Lynn, the outer me is made thin while the inner essence is more deeply discovered and lived from. It’s a humbling, gentling process. Jane lives the Paramitas like no one I have ever encountered. Her constant generosity of time, energy, action, and genuineness is a wonder. Her self is nowhere in her picture of reality, therefore she is in a state of joy all the time! I love how our Dharma, karma, and merit put human beings together in circumstances that are always conducive to spiritual growth. It is all so perfect.

I went to a Mexican tile shop in Taos, NM (an hour away) for the new bathroom. The experience was like none other to this New England girl. Hand-made beauty everywhere and you could feel the aliveness of the clay and mud of the tiles. As I started to walk among the rows of color and design, my mind and sensations were transported back to a couple of Spanish lives I had had around 12-1300. It was giggly. Driving into Colorado two years ago from the north, Native memories were so strong, poignant, and joyful that I had to pull-over more than once. And, now in Jaroso with long stretches of vastness skirted by towering mountains, my Himalayan past, its training, and its silence make me melt sometimes. Gratitude is too small a word – both for the kindness of those from my past and from all those who have made this new adventure and chapter of my life possible.

In this newness and nowness, ribbons of memories from myriad past lives play. I feel like a plant not quite yet creating the bud that will become a blossom, but know that that flowering is inevitable. Thank you to all who have made this possible now and through all my lives. Our samaya is forever. Deep gratitude.