Replenishing my soul

It has been a pretty wild year and the last two weeks were the most intense. I came home from yoga one evening to find my husband at the door with his bags packed... not what you might be thinking....
He said the doctor called and told him to get to the hospital...NOW.
His sodium levels were too low and I had yet another learning experienc... oh, these learning experiences... the dangers of this being he could stroke or pass out.. and it also explained his being kind of "loopy". I thought it was the medication he was coming off.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about medication. I do not take asprin and will take a drug only if I desperately need it... like when I had poison ivy all over my face!
They wreak havoc on the body... we all need to eat better. Fresh, wholesome eating. Green, leafy things :-)
While my hubby was in the hospital, his mom passed away. Dear sweet Alice. She died peacefully at home. She wanted to leave. She was 94, deeply loved by family and friends, but the death of her daughter broke her heart.. that's my feeling about it, and she lived almost a year afterwards. Alice died on her daughter's birthday.
So, today as I took a walk with my camera, photographing flowers, I came upon this tulip. How cool, I thought, it looks like an angel inside.
I continued my journey, taking more photos, on to my mother's house. One needs to appreciate their mother while they are here... spend time with her.
I went and spent some time outside with her drinking in the beauty of eveything in blossom. Just as we were about to go in, she said,"look at the lilacs"... and a butterfly brought us pleasure watching it fliting about, drinking in nectar... a message of transformation.
Everything changes.. nothing really disappears, it just changes form.
Thank you Alice for all the wonderful moments :-)

Resurrection

Being that it is that time again.. Spring... A time of renewal... I felt a bit of a resurrection in myself as well....coming back to the mandala book and even creating a more balanced mandala, rather than a free form one.

There has been so much going on. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels, flying off in various directions.. and this is part of life. Dealing with it all. It comes and it goes. Life speeds up, life slows down.

What really matters is our response to it. Are we responsible in the way we handle situations or do we run from them. There have been times in my past that I would have rather put my head in the sand, and did so, but age, wisdom, experience and maybe a development of more faith and trust in the Universe help me to look at it all square in the face and know that it will pass. The question is "how gracefully?"

Maybe it is lack of resistance, for we know what we resist will persist. Maybe I'm too tired to fight it.. it takes more energy to move against the current. Better to flow with it and see where it will lead.

So, here is one coping mechanism.. art, mandalas used for centering and quieting the mind.
It is a gathering place for me. It is an internal space where I can go to. Where I can find some quiet solace and just be. No more doing... just being.

The ressurrection of the internal Self coming up to the surface to breathe.

A long deep and full breath... rather than a sigh.