Streams

I am not sure how to do it. How does one capture the fluidity of deep contentment? That place where you are aware of being completely in the moment but having that moment enriched and connected by the flow, and reflection of, and upon, conversations just passed, of music simply heard, of laughter deeply felt and of beauty.

Last weekend I travelled to Rougemont Abbey and Abbaye de Saint-Benoît-du-Lac. My friend and I listened to a choir being rehearsed to the point we felt sorry for the choir members. Then when they performed in the Saint Benoit Du Lac Abbey their voices were one in Gregorian Chant . It was stunning. The monks clapped! We listened to the evening vespers of the thirty nine monks living in the abbey and my awareness was awakened to a different way of being in Peace.

My friend and I spoke of Abelard and Heloise, of Hildegard and Buddhism. 

Sunday Sunday morning I drove from Ottawa to meet with geophysicists working in a local cemetery, came home, prepared a meal of tomato pie, buffalo chicken slivers, Greek salad, and fresh fruit salad with whipped cream. The conversation with the geophysicists was of sediment patterns with glacial recession, sand to slate to clay, of “fracking”, of mid-terms, Queens cyclists’ victory and of cats. 

When I rose this morning to a cloud free sun it was time for Alanagh Molly and me to go to the sandstones and to be with the tall grasses, to see the last blooming Queen Anne’s Lace and the aspens dotted with unknown warblers. To feel the fluidity of deep contentment in our moments together.

St. Benoit du Lac

Pine Siskins

Female American Goldfinch

American Tree Sparrow

Some kind of feather grass ? and goldenrod to the left

The last of the Lace

Hartsgravel road sandstones