Overspray

I've been thinking about a poem I wrote a year ago entitled "Overspray" and relating it to how we are affected by energy. Recently I have been pondering energy and the many energy exchanges I encounter throughout my days. Being the sensitive spirit that I am, I shield up as I walk into the office world where I hold a job. The shield shifts as I transition from office world to walk into my calling of teaching a yoga class, the shield shifts and expands as I "hold space" for each class of students.

Yesterday, I asked my office colleagues if I could plan an extended lunch hour for today to meet up with one of my yoga students at an ecclectic little place called "Thyme of Grace." I am looking forward to a lunch of spring greens topped with beets and decorated with flower blossoms. One office colleague stated, "I don't like their food, but you probaby "go" for that sort of thing." My office manager stated that she doesn't like beets and scrunched up her face. Another office colleague chimed in and agreed that she doesn't like beets either. I found myself sitting alone on an island, a beet lover.



"Over Spray" begins with:

"The fire bushes are beginning to turn red
like over spray, the appearance of a season changing..."


My energy is affected by what others say and send like overspray on the very edges when the shields wane due to fatigue or lack of vigilance. I am not only a beet lover, beetnik, I am also a lone ENFP surrounded by ISTJ types, if you're familiar with Myers Briggs (insert a Clarissa Pinkola Estes wolf howling here if you will).

"Some maples too..."

Unlike last year, when I wrote

"...the green frog is gone now..."

this year, it was just Sunday, IUSBDEB and I saw a green frog sitting on top of a lily pad. We took a walk at Cobus Creek County Park and there was a frog near


(photo courtesy of IUSBDEB)

a waterfall in a garden where a rosebush came into my awareness because of the color, the beautiful color of the delicate and rosy pink blossoms.


(photo courtesy of IUSBDEB)

"...for two days, I've watched for him by the fountain.
Cold in the morning brought such clarity to the sky
the dog stars are there low in the east, Sirius...."

And this year's Venus as the bright morning star. IUSBDEB and I walked again on our lunch hours this week. I keep thinking about the heron that flew from near to where we sat for a while along the river's bank. I sensed and observed that self-reliance, like the heron, takes a lot of effort, especially when we are carrying a lot (alot of what, you ask? perhaps I could say here that I am referring to the weight of the effects of what we're all travelling through at this given moment on our life paths .) The heron didn't seem to get enough lift in the take off, but I watched the heron and I'm happy to tell you that the heron did make it across the "St. Joe" to land on a large branch right across from us.

And yesterday, we walked over to Potawatomi Park to draw some strength from spending time under the oaks there. We watched, catching sight of numerous flickers and unlike last week when we counted six on the ground, they were high, in the treetops yesterday.

Last year at this time I wrote:

"...the crescent moon wanes on the hunter's line
like the clothes
yesterday,
I watched a redtail

Circling effortlessly, three times above the house,
I shaded my eyes and allowed myself to be caught up

Like a glider releasing the attachment of the tow line
[On] the thermals of a mid-September afternoon...."

I take note as I weave this, I notice the difference in my journalling and observations and the way my energy is affected...feeling somewhat like the heron who dreams of shape-shifting into the hawk.