tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83533255938361947882024-12-30T18:07:13.204-05:00Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.comBlogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-20460307451234673192020-07-11T20:38:00.000-04:002020-07-11T20:38:02.922-04:00

In which pain, a floating couch, and a true adventure lead to teachings of spirit      I've been living with a lot of pain recently, as well as some pretty vivid dreams. Maybe they're connected, maybe not. It's all been a mystery, including the source of the pain, although "they" are working on that. I've been learning a lot, walking beside pain. It has taught me about

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-48703424488873371422019-12-08T07:36:00.000-05:002019-12-08T07:36:25.710-05:00

     It is so easy to live separated from spirit, or as some say from our “true self”. What does this mean, our true self? It feels like one of those code phrases that people who know what it means nod sagely about. The rest of us either nod sagely with no idea what it means but wishing we did, or dismiss it.       Here's my take on what the true

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-12002193688380661662019-11-14T13:23:00.000-05:002019-11-14T13:23:28.079-05:00

This was written during a visit to family in southern Arizona, far from my home habitat in Maine.       Morning in the Sonoran Desert brings different qualities to my senses. In the dimness preceding a November dawn, I've heard an owl hooting, coyotes yipping, but mostly silence - until the insistent questioning of a Curve-billed Thrasher begins. The air is chilly, the

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-30547306780808048222019-11-03T14:38:00.000-05:002019-11-03T14:38:02.097-05:00

     There is a phrase I've heard often enough that it is at risk of becoming an eye-roller, but actually it smacks of truth to me: "We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a physical experience." Certainly the first part of my life was about the physical: growing up, falling in love, experiencing sexuality, having babies,

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-41229066274578302292019-10-25T11:35:00.000-04:002019-10-25T11:35:35.604-04:00

This is one of a set of posts about my season of cancer. It began with "A new journey."      The other night, I attended a large function that privately I was calling "my coming out party". It was Maine Conservation Voters' "Evening for the Environment" which is always jam-packed with the people who tirelessly and with some inexplicably bottomless optimism keep trying to protect

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-82391404529615410222019-10-22T15:07:00.000-04:002019-10-22T15:07:33.010-04:00

     We had a Nor'easter last week. I awoke at 4am to the sound of wind stampeding up from the fields like loose angry bulls, sometimes wrecking through the forest behind the house, sometimes slamming the house itself. Rain spattered across our metal roof. I lay in bed, a baby pillow pulled up to relieve pressure along my incision line of 28 staples, and listened to the

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-49251784785072948442019-10-19T06:50:00.000-04:002019-10-19T06:50:44.809-04:00

     Every morning when I reach down to touch the earth and connect with her deep strength, some prayer comes spontaneously to my lips. The very act of squatting or bending over is humbling, and reminds me of kneeling in a church. Except this is not rote. There is no "should" here, no prescription - just desire for connection, desire for repeated contact, desire for a small

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-43859729343859240082019-10-17T09:56:00.000-04:002019-10-17T09:56:01.136-04:00

This is one of a set of posts about my season of cancer. It began with "A new journey".     October 15      I'm trying to imagine being a tree.      In some people's minds, I'm already there. I've been told I'm like a tree, and in all honesty, that didn't always sit well with me. Something about the solidness and immobility of the trunk of a

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-2253017591666850222019-10-12T06:00:00.000-04:002019-10-12T06:00:08.186-04:00

This is one of a set of posts about my season of cancer. It began with "A new journey."  September 28      I believe that Spirit infuses all things. ALL things.      And let's just get this out of the way: if you don't believe in Spirit - aka life-force-energy, Something Other, divine impulse, God, etc. - I respect your belief. But please know that it is a

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-5517686477030591682019-10-11T06:00:00.000-04:002019-10-11T06:00:02.737-04:00

This is one of a set of posts about my season of cancer. It began with "A new journey".  September 27      I have been waking before dawn these September mornings, something that has never been part of my make-up. Tired of sleeping, my swollen belly no longer finding comfort by rolling to the other side, I ease out of bed to let Bob sleep another hour. We have neared and

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-18023553720795250872019-10-10T06:00:00.001-04:002019-10-10T06:00:03.908-04:00

This is one of a set of posts about my season of cancer. It began with "A new journey". September 25      Three months until Christmas. Just noticing.      Today I would have been leaving for a Buddhist retreat center called Wonderwell Mountain Refuge. A five day program called Green Dharma: A Residential Retreat for EcoSattvas had caught my eye, and I signed

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-29870130924875113842019-10-09T09:00:00.000-04:002019-10-09T09:00:00.506-04:00

This is the beginning of a new set of posts. The seasons have changed since I began this blog, in most every way. My children are grown, in college or beyond. Climate change is here. And yet the wheel still turns. September 22     "Sitting here in limbo..."      Lying in bed before dawn, these are the words that gently sing in my mind, like a gull sitting on a smooth

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-86687217542791969262018-02-21T12:11:00.000-05:002018-02-21T12:11:17.368-05:00

     I saw my first spring migrant Monday: a Red-winged Blackbird.        I shouted across the kitchen and dining room to Willson or Bob, whoever could hear my happiness. I'm not really sure how to explain this spike in my heart, this connection, the meaning of that one individual's appearance that is itself wonderful and also signifies that

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-86799624560497528772017-12-22T00:02:00.000-05:002017-12-22T00:03:11.857-05:00

     As I write this, dawn is coloring the sky on a cold, solstice morning. The snow is shadowed with lavender, tree silhouettes are sharp before the pale orange sky. Already the birds are moving into the feeders: nuthatches, goldfinches, juncos, chickadees, titmice and a cardinal darting in and out, the only movement on the frozen landscape. It's like that moment just

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-80242588750054828772017-04-12T22:19:00.000-04:002017-04-12T22:22:55.818-04:00

     The dawn chorus has started. I love this! It's like hearing the sun approach the horizon, before the visual brilliance takes over my senses. The migrating birds will be flooding in soon, proclaiming their nesting territories with energetic song, but we are in an early moment when it's easy to pick out some distinctive voices.       Two that are

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-30253756440302818572017-03-09T16:28:00.000-05:002017-03-09T16:28:46.982-05:00

- Deep breath -      I have a confession to make. There is a part of me that is a climate change denier.      It resides somewhere in my subconscious. It doesn't affect my acknowledgement that climate change is being accelerated by human actions. But what it does affect is my response: I am frozen, I deny it.      I wonder if I am not

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-11184111623443291702016-11-29T14:50:00.000-05:002016-11-29T14:50:11.540-05:00

I wrote the following in support of an organization that strives to connect youth with wilderness. I feel even more strongly now in these days of turmoil that if we can ground our children in the strength and gifts of wild places, as wild as we can get them to, they will have a chance to discover the strength and gifts in themselves that they will need as they go forward. It's a window that opens

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-1968164112333639652016-11-09T16:09:00.000-05:002016-11-09T16:11:08.268-05:00

     My dear daughters:       I was hoping to share with you this morning the glow of making history together. Yesterday, I really felt our connection as women for the first time. Your initiatory Presidential election vote offered perhaps the starkest differential between candidates this nation has ever seen. I truly believe our responsibility is to

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-79803373175131620902016-11-03T10:34:00.000-04:002016-11-03T10:34:17.500-04:00

I have this cool thing called an energy ball. It's my favorite prop.  Innocent looking ping pong ball  Picture this*: a group of people is sitting together in a large comfortable room, mostly strangers, uncertain about what's going to happen. An instinct drew each person to this place: an awareness that something is missing, a hollowness perhaps, a curiosity maybe, almost always a

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-5693589129812429452016-10-21T23:36:00.000-04:002016-10-21T23:36:39.811-04:00

I've got some things to say. The first is I'm not going to wait until I've written them "perfectly" to say them. The second is I've decided to live my life out loud. Not that I'm a particularly noisy person, but I'm consciously working to be done with those 1960s voices that told my young self not to put myself forward in public, and those college professor voices that said only perfect

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-40927996431850487022016-08-12T10:31:00.000-04:002016-08-12T10:31:38.571-04:00

For anyone in the area, we have a couple of spaces open. This is going to be a refreshing day: consider yourself invited!

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-12254211076405413812016-06-20T16:34:00.000-04:002016-06-20T16:34:35.813-04:00

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }     When Nina was little, we had a special name for her. It was more like her true name, not a nickname or label that she was known by. She was a determined little girl, focused, intent. She'd set up her game in the living room with the small table, a book to read to the doll and the dog, her stuffed animals ready to listen, and if the dog didn't

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-10250342473357881772016-04-22T22:42:00.000-04:002016-04-22T22:42:03.516-04:00

     Ospreys, White-throated Sparrows, the first Yellow-rumped Warbler, a Hermit Thrush, and soon the Monarch butterflies -- these small beings have traveled heroic journeys to return to this land we share, and I have been waiting for them. They have stories to tell, and I wish so much that I could understand them.       I love stories. Telling stories is

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-77738891634918485202016-03-22T22:06:00.000-04:002016-03-22T22:06:15.102-04:00

     This is week two in which sorrow walks into our house, takes off its shoes, sits on the couch, eats dinner and goes to bed with us. Its darkness has substance, sometimes like a second skin, sometimes like a separate being, sometimes like an opaqueness that colors the river we swim in each day. Time is changing it, for me. I can look at it with less fear now. It is

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8353325593836194788.post-33666548926883211152016-02-26T22:11:00.000-05:002016-02-26T22:16:17.211-05:00

     Anna's text came in yesterday afternoon: "I saw a turkey vulture!" My heart leaped.      By now, if you've been following this blog, you know my  great joy when the first Turkey Vulture is spied. It means spring migration has started. I've been checking my birthday calendar where I keep track of signs of the season, marking a sighting (or

Libby Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200456889396831025noreply@blogger.com0