Blue Sky

It is still muddy here, the jory soil, gummy and brick red, sticks to the shoes if you walk on the non-gravel roads.  Three mountains are out, shining white. The violets are blooming even as there is frost on the grass before the sun hits it. Spring seems very close today, a tease, but I will take it as a birthday gift anyway.
I am celebrating my life today, having permission because it is the day I came into my first breath 55 years ago. I have to thank my parents for wanting me. They were 30 years old, I was their 4th kid. They were so worried that I would actually make it after Mom had 2 miscarriages. They gave me this gift, of being alive in a body to know the joy and the pain, to see the beauty and the trials.

Our breath is the one thing which connects us to the beginning and the end of life. Our practice offers us the reminder to notice that breath.  Today I notice how lucky I am to have clean, fresh air to breath.
In our travels last month I experienced the fright of having unclean water cause angry red blisters to form and spread on my skin without my understanding of what was happening for a week.
A good doctor took one look and gave my 5 days worth of penicillin. Even as I assiduously took my required 6 pills a day, and no alcohol or spicy food, I could only imagine times before the penecillon option . One might have had to sit and watch the body rot. Of course there was less bacteria in the water. The increased propagation and domestication of animals for food and otherwise has given us crazy new viruses and compromised water. Human overpopulation is the other big factor.

In short, I am so grateful for antibiotics. I can't change the world, make the water cleaner, stop overpopulation, except to attempt to live simply in the ways that present themselves. The skin on my arm is healing slowly, I watch it everyday with fear and amazement. The thoughts of others who live with compromised air and water weigh heavily for me. If I am more specifically grateful for these simple things, this should cause me to be more active in the protection of the environment.
It should...