Hajone....the Practice of Seeing Beauty

The sun is out in full light and it is indeed a beautiful day in Colorado.

I have been taking some time to celebrate book one’s release and wishing my parents were alive to see it. A cook-out at mom’s place would be so happy for me right now….After my mom passed away, my siblings and I were going through the boxes of treasures she had collected and stored away for us to find one day. There was a rather large faded cardboard box that was tucked in a back room corner, under things and around things and behind things. When we opened the lid we laughed — all we had written as children, all the mini art projects and the Mother’s Day cards. Randomly thrown in this box that must have been through at least five or six moves…but in amazing shape and waiting for us—the joy of remembering who we were.

We divided up the bounty and started reading. There was one card I had made for her on yellow construction paper with glued green flower stems and leaves and the flower bloom was a paper-clipped dish scrubbie. You know the ones - they scour a pan in .95 seconds and last for—well past my lifetime if ever (Sorry Mother Earth!). But this yellow scrubbie flower was still perfectly attached. And inside I told mom how much I loved her and not to ever worry because I would always take care of everything. HA!

That was who I was. Wanting to take care of her…of my friends…a role in life I remember taking very seriously. Probably why I am a therapist today…

This is Hajone. To see the beauty of a time long past - to see the beauty of a gift to my mother even in the emptiness and sadness of her loss….we had this. We had this moment once upon a time.

So I can sit and see the blue Colorado sky today and feel the warmth as we shift out of winter oh so slowly and this is hajone. And I can remember my mom — long gone now —and feel the grief still, and in that grief experience the beauty. This is hajone. I can sit in long lines of traffic in a city and I can notice there is a single little dandelion on the side of the road in the rocks and discarded trash and this is hajone. In pain there is beauty. In joy there is beauty. In loss there is beauty. In connection there is beauty. Can we, in all of life’s offerings, find the beauty? This is an old concept…not mine. But it does dwell inside me.

If you are wondering why the hell I am bringing this up…check out Creation Dreamer…this is a thread of life Magpie Turnley likes to push into as well….

Back to book 2….no teasers yet - but soon. In lieu of that cook-out, I think I’ll enjoy some watermelon and remember some more of those hajone moments…