These are just some rambling thoughts noticed as they pass through the mind and those that stick long enough to be jotted down…..

Tomo is lying down beside me. Last week Tomo nearly died from an overdose of chocolate.  A pound of dark chocolate may kill a 75 lb black lab.  Nearly losing her has brought gratitude to us both and a renewed awareness of the preciousness of each moment – they will not and we will not come again.

The world is white outside today.  The first snow storm of the season blankets the La Plata’s.  The visual world is diminished, the house is cozy warm and silent and I have work to keep me busy and time on my hands to kill.  There is peacefulness and uneasiness for on days like this a little fear starts to creep up inside of me…a fear of growing older, a fear of losing all that I hold dear, a fear of death, of the unknown of the dissolving of this body and of this fiction “I” know as “Robert Bridges.”  The fear arises when it snows. We live at elevation, the roads are steep and since entering my grandfatherly years, driving in the snow scares the crap out of me.  It brings up  fears and worst case scenarios that my mind loves to jump on and develop into full blown movies.

When I was young – so a story goes – I loved the snow and was fearless in it.  But now, today as my body grows older – as my heart grows wiser I am no longer fearless in the snow as the cold seeps deeper and it takes more fire to warm.  And as we age, the fires inside of us, the energies that have fueled our passions, our dreams and our desires begin to diminish and we must come to terms with that and find some acceptance of the things we cannot change…..and the courage to change what we can and now for myself as I sit here listening to the snow fall…..a much needed reminder to hold myself in loving kindness and with compassion arises from the stillness within.