angelbirdflies

2009-11-08T19:09:00.004-07:00

I woke up this morning to the busy chirping of 3 nine year old boys, talking Pokemon, talking girls, TALKING- at 6AM. I crawled out of bed and opened the door to tell them to keep the sound level down. I stumbled into the back room and my jaw dropped as I passed the window. The sunrise was extraordinary. As my eyes grew accustomed to so much beauty, I wondered how many take-your-breath-away-moments I have slept through. I savored this one alongside three oohing and awing boys and hope to wake up in time to enjoy the next one.

2009-11-07T20:05:00.005-07:00

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

- Albert Einstein

2009-11-07T19:59:00.003-07:00

This incredibly gorgeous woman is my mama and the fabulous dog trainer and founder of Dandy Dawgs Nine Lives for Canines. I just wanted to show her off, to let her know that I am so proud of her and to tell the world how glad I am glad to call her friend and mom.
I know it's a wee bit sappy, but hey anyone who knows me KNOWS that I AM a wee bit sappy.

hiking again

2009-11-07T17:15:00.005-07:00

We went for a hike up in Evergreen at Alderfer's Three Sister Park and it was LUSCIOUS. The weather was utterly dreamy and the constant visual feast of moss and snow, field and wood was satisfying in a way that only nature can be. Bodhi was dressed in his Pirate best and yelled "ON JARD (close to 'on guard')" to any passerby worth their salt. Owen looked absolutely dashing in Papa's borrowed hat and entertained himself with a constant dialogue of Pokemon sightings and adventures that drove the other members of the party to distraction, particularly those adult members straining for the nourishing sound of silence. Maya(the dog) made it all the way through the hike without serious threat of bodily harm from leash weary parents and Mama and Papa were just happy to be in nature with two happy boys on a brilliant afternoon. "Don't just do something. Stand there!"
-Buddhist saying

2009-11-02T08:44:00.004-07:00

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
-Henry Miller

brrrr

2009-10-29T14:54:00.005-06:00

HUH!!! Snow already...yep and we have been quite ill to top it off. Shane and Bodhi had a mild case last week and Owen came down with a meaner version over the weekend and I, being the family canary, had the full frontal flu, respiratory, cold, migraine combo by Monday. Of course I had to come down with it when the boys had two snow days off school..."Oh mom can you please come out and play"...a low groan of descent emerges from beneath a eucalyptus haze of chills and disbelief. I stumble about cladding children in snow gear and wool, then boot them unceremoniously out of doors where they joyously play for a half an hour before re-entering, cold, wet and hungry. Oh the only worse thing than being sick is being a sick mama. The boys mitigated the discomfort by performing an impromptu puppet show on my bed... and Owen entertained himself building an elaborate snow fort, complete with an intricate story about another world with castles, secret tunnels, various chambers, villains and heroes. Here he is pictured lying in the King's sleeping chamber. I spent several long moments looking for him, too hoarse to call out, before I was finally relieved to see a hand emerge.
Both boys are now ensconced in the rich fragrant aroma of hot cocoa and I am retiring once again to my warm bed.

2009-10-26T16:44:00.004-06:00

So here is a little Halloween preview...a Johnny Appleseed improvisation (one of Bodhi's favorite celebrities)AND one of Sendek's, Wild Thing's (costume courtesy of Mom- made while Bodhi napped and the sick patient, Owen, listened to a book on tape). As soon as he donned the monster costume he yelled, "I'll eat you up" and within five minutes he said, "I don't want to be a monster anymore for Halloween. I want to be a bat.", to which I kindly responded, "TOUGH!"

2009-10-22T10:47:00.003-06:00

We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are.
Anais Nin

One of those terrifying revelations of truth, which, when accepted, has the power to irrevocably change the way we inhabit the world.

hiking

2009-10-18T19:44:00.011-06:00

When I hike, I usually take my camera, it has become one of my greatest teachers. Before I began taking pictures with the avidity of a dog chasing a bone, I wandered through the woods without seeing. I had to remind myself to look, to listen, to be. I remember one horrible trek over Granite Mountain in Arizona, I was 22 and I was beset by the demon of self. I kept trying to see, to smell, to shut up for five minutes and experience the instant in which I stood in the shadow of pinetrees. I began crying in defeat. Eventually I just let go, I listened to my mind babble away, only occasionally looking around with present moment clarity, usually when startled out of my reveries by other hikers, scat on the trail or an unusually loud rattle. Then I was given my beloved Canon Rebel XTi. I began hiking with it's weight hanging over my breast and something changed. I felt more peace, I breathed deeper, I listened, I stood in awe more, I was quiet longer, I smiled mostly and I lingered. I stopped listening to me and began looking for beauty everywhere. I find it there, where it always is, just beneath our nose, beaming. Now I pause in front of a black widow, a powdery branch, a blaze of color, water rushing over stones and looking through my camera lens, I find it- that perfect moment and snap, then it is gone. My camera has become one of my greatest teachers, helping me to remember that although the lens of self may be small, mortal and narrow- it is still capable of witnessing enormous beauty ... if only we keep looking.

Here are some moments from today's hike:
In the fields...
At the creekside...
and in the woods...
There really is beauty every where.

sunday hike

2009-10-18T19:23:00.005-06:00

What is Angelina's favorite weekend activity? ... Yep, hiking in nature, preferably on a warm day, surrounded by life breathing and buzzing, swaying and being. Today we selected Lair o' the bear, a perrenial favorite. The guys and I walked for the first mile together, winding through dry grasses, tinged yellow and orange by the hand of Autumn.

I always love the way nature doles out one beautiful chance to open after another. This time we ran across a caterpillar. The fuzzy creeper produced a chorus of oohs and aahs. I have never seen Bodhi more gentle. Both boys watched in rapture as the little body edged it's way over extended hands and arms, eventually landing on a blade of fiery grass intent on lunch.
Owen get's so quiet and cool when he is exploring...
Bodhi becomes even more animated, if that is possible.Shane turns into a child again, eager for play and with the abandon of a Lost Boy he casts off his cares creating boats and vessels from twig, leaf and grass, excited by the possibilities ahead.After the first mile, Maya and I left the guys playing near a stream and ventured up into the hills for a 4 mile solo trek, armed with a camera and breathing in the fresh air of solitude with nourishing abandon.
(stay tuned for more pictures from the journey)

pumpkin festival

2009-10-17T19:06:00.005-06:00

Saturday was spent kicking up dust at the Annual Pumkin Festival fundraiser for the Botanical Gardens. WHEW! talk about exhausting. We arrived at 10AM and left at 3PM dragging four weary boys behind us(or was it the other way around). In the intervening hours they rode rides, ate corn on a stick, all things greasy and drank gallons of lemonade. They wandered through an intricate corn maze for a half an hour before throwing caution to the wind and taking an unauthorized short cut to the exit. The youngest member of our party ogled lamas, caressed pony manes and even talked to a real witch, moonlighting as a balloon artist. We scavenged for pumpkins and looked for the three big boys in our keep. In the end we drug our selves home and admitted defeat. There is no way to outlast a child in a battle of fun, you may stay awake longer but you are inevitably far worse for the wear.

2009-10-16T17:22:00.005-06:00

I've simply been too tired to post...what with family visiting, sick children and the constant rush of living, I find myself parched for rest.
I will post later, once I have reached the end of the alphabet with a prolonged pause on the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

first pumpkin carving of the year

2009-10-06T20:08:00.004-06:00

WOW!!! Bodhi is ecstatic with Jack-o-Lantern fever...he speaks of pumpkins with the ardor of youth. "LOOOOOK, LOOOOOK MOMMY A JACKOLLATN!!!"
After the pumpkin was thoroughly cleaned and carved we lit a candle and oohed, awed and marveled over our handiwork.In honor of our pumpkin frenzy we had a harvest supper, beginning with ratatouille served over a bed of spring greens and broiled polenta, topped with freshly roasted pumpkin seeds. For dessert we made a gluten-free chocolate pumpkin cake with maple-pumpkin frosting. AAAAAAAAAAHHH! Autumn we love you.

a walk

2009-10-03T14:46:00.008-06:00

I went for a walk, one of my favorite walks, up green mountain. I progressed slowly. Without children or deadlines, I just walked. It has been a difficult week, beleaguered by a body unwilling to comply with the demands I impose on it. A body whose heart beats erratically, thyroid waxes and wanes of its own selection, whose head throbs in response and whose limbs refuse to operate without sustained rest. Weeks like these remind me that I inhabit a body, but am not the body (and certainly not this busy thing we call a mind)...I am reminded that things happen in life. I don't need to resist or personalize them. As I walked I found myself simply placing one foot in front of the other and reveling in the awe of sharing life with so much beauty: a dead bloom against a blue sky, a powdery blossom along a russet hued trail, the gentle flutter of butterflies and the crunching sound of hiking shoes on a trail. After several days gripped by the vice of a migraine, I just didn't have the energy for mind talk and because of that something beautiful happened. I just walked. Without thought of groceries, work, children, time, purpose or even God. I just walked and my heart bloomed in gratitude. It reached out to the beauty all around me and bathed in kinship, reverence and awe. Perhaps that is gratitude. Simply embracing the moment as it comes, without the babbling mental bullshit that we entertain every breathing hour. Perhaps it is enough to simply walk.

2009-10-03T11:11:00.000-06:00

When smallness believed the world was flat,
it danced in spherical splendor across a wide cosmos.
When sun spun round the earth in heavy books,
the universe staid it's course.

When I stare out with unlooking eyes
And long to shed my isolation,
God breathes through every atom, in every space
with undaunted wholeness.

day in the mountains

2009-09-26T19:44:00.006-06:00

Aaah!!!! A day spent in the mountains! Everyone needs a day beneath the protective arms of pine trees on a regular basis. I have a stomach bug and so spent the bulk of my mountain memories, lounging on a blanket atop a bed of pine needles surrounded by yellowing aspens tinkling in the wind. The boys hiked through the woods, exploring, adventuring and regaling one another with tales of imminent grandeur. We all longed for a tent to extend the experience but alas those two great spoilers of fun- time and temperature- called us home sooner than we might have hoped, but not without a few captured moments.

a day at the zoo

2009-09-23T20:19:00.002-06:00

We stole a few morning hours and wiled them away at the Denver Zoo. Owen has become an inspired photographer, racing from one spectacular animal to the next, snapping pictures and marveling over his artistic prowess.
Bodhi demonstrated his flamingo stance in front of a favorite exhibit and
the elephants gave us a dusty show while we, the willing audience, smiled and applauded in solidarity.

2009-09-13T19:57:00.002-06:00

My beautiful brother spent the weekend with us. How can I explain the deep bliss of family, the ease born of a lifelong of knowing and the gentle assurance of leaning into the love of a sibling. He moved away when I was eleven to live with our father in California and the tide of time took us in separate directions, now I am getting a chance to know the man he has grown into.And my boys are getting to know their uncle...and yet another wacky member of the evolving Lloyd family tree.

ode to ears

2009-09-05T19:44:00.013-06:00

I asked myself a question recently,
"What makes me feel beautiful?".

I have been ruminating on beauty lately, examining it in an attempt to understand our collective idolization of it and the limited way in which we selectively define it. I ran across this definition, "Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning or satisfaction." Okay, nothing new there. However this little tidbit was a bit more scintillating, "the experience of "beauty" often involves the interpretation of some entity as being in balance and harmony with nature, which may lead to feelings of attraction and emotional well-being." Aahh, I like that little distinction, particularly in regards to "being in balance and harmony with nature". Socially, we have become so utterly invested in a cultural ideal of beauty and, blinded by a microscopic lens of limited perfection, we have missed its deeper implications. We pursue beauty but only very rarely do we experience it. Coaxed by ad campaigns, we wage a full frontal war on age, cellulite, body odor, dandruff, flab, dingy teeth, shabby clothes, on ourselves, each other and ultimately on nature itself.
For me this all boils down to one simple metaphor...ears. As a child I was called Dumbo or big ears, with the giggling condemnation of a life sentence. I grew long hair. I avoided public swimming, strong breezes, intimate moments in dread that my ears would unfold in unruly abandon, shocking onlookers into finger pointing hysterics. Ridiculous perhaps... but how many of us are caged by imagined imperfections?
Perhaps it is the result of time, or motherhood or because lines and wrinkles now distract me from a single minded condemnation of auditory appendages, I don't know. What I can say is that after some deliberation on the topic of what makes me feel beautiful, I realized the simple answer is and has always been "my ears". The source of my humiliation and ruminations... an indelible reminder of my interminable individuality. They are mine, real, breezy and fine. When I embrace the flawed, unsymmetrical perfection of this body I inhabit, I experience a sense of balance and harmony with the nature that created it. And let me say loud and clear, from the rooftops- experiencing beauty is incomparably greater than pursuing it.
My ears taught me that.

bloom

2009-09-03T07:19:00.004-06:00

Sometimes, when I am very quiet and still, often in the early hours of morning before the busy-ness of mind has roused itself into a full throttle assault of self assertion, I feel a subtle stirring in my heart. Beneath a rubble of human sorrow, disappointment and debasement, a sprouted seed strives toward the surface.
This mortal experience is such a peculiar thing, with so much time and energy spent justifying and defending our own relatively insignificant existence, we miss the simple experience of living. There is no amount of thinking that will simulate the act of being and yet time after time, we try. In the predawn hours, I feel the surge of life rising within me and notice. Perhaps the simple truth is that life longs for life and the human act of separation isn't going to hold it back, any more than the strong arms of cement can impede the persistence of a dandelion determined to bloom. I imagine life's longing for itself is constant and when we are still, we can feel it pressing against the fissures of self with the promised reminder of Being.

frog

2009-09-02T18:13:00.007-06:00

Owen discovered a frog on a recent family outing. Bodhi was enthralled...in love...in rapture. Surely there was a sort of cross species resonance. The frog jumping and swimming and Bodhi laughing, hopping and whooping right behind. There is such a beauty in his full throttle engagement with life...his lusty pursuit of the moment. I stand in awe as I watch him strip naked in public, laugh at the furrowed brows surrounding him, speak louder than expected and live 'bigger' than is often accepted. I smile after him. Proud. I have spent so much of my life making excuses for occupying breathing space, trying to justify my existence and unearth a purpose or value. Bodhi just announces, "I'M HERE" and it is enough. It is enough.
I am so fortunate call him son.

hawk

2009-09-02T18:00:00.007-06:00

When Owen was four years old we saw a guy at a gas station. The guy wore a white t-shirt, beat up blue jeans, a styled hair cut and drove a motor cycle. He looked pretty cool. When I got back in the car after filling my tank, Owen said, "Mom I like the way that guy looks, could I look like that?". Of course I went home gave him a pair of jeans, a white t-shirt and gelled up his hair. He looked in the mirror and nodded. With an air of satisfaction he announced, "Now I need a new name". He thought for a minute and said, "Hawk Raider...my other name is Hawk Raider". Of course my heart swelled with pride. There is nothing I admire more in a person than the willingness to look deep within the crazy disguise of being human and find that authentic sense of who s/he really is and then SHINE with abandon. This weekend Hawk ran into his brother and namesake. You can see his totem in the background. Owen borrowed my camera and slowly, with patience and gentleness, he stepped forward.He took this picture from 5 feet away. After several minutes of contemplation the hawk took flight and Hawk nodded after him, turned and walked on with that same look of satisfied self awareness.
I am so fortunate to be his mother.

hey batter, batter...

2009-08-27T18:19:00.003-06:00

SWING!!!!

bangs 2

2009-08-27T18:17:00.002-06:00

The verdict---- WHAT WAS I THINKING!

new

2009-08-27T18:13:00.004-06:00

Okay, Bodhi and I began a new school year and Bodhi is in a new classroom, mine, and we both have very turbulent feelings about it. He is having a hard time adapting to the rhythm, transitions and newly defined role of student/teacher/son/mom. I too am feeling ambivalent, uncertain if this is the best choice for my son/student. The classroom is looking beautiful and the students began arriving this week. There is a lot of NEW in our lives right now.