We spent time this week reading, working, running (all running - well, a slow jog!), getting groceries, chasing auroras, getting our hair cuts, and hiking.
Mama Bear's mother tells the story of a time when Mama Bear was young (eight or younger, based on locale of the story) and Mama Bear was reading inside the house on a nice day. Mama Bear's mother told Mama Bear to put the book down, get out of the house, and do something outside. Reluctantly, Mama Bear put her book down and went outside. When Mama Bear's mother looked outside, she saw Mama Bear sitting on the front porch steps reading a flyer someone had thrown on the porch.
I mention this story because I am finding that now that I can read on my new phone, I am reading more often: it is with me, so when I have a moment, I read. And, because I can download a book from almost any location where I find myself, there is no waiting for a new book to be found. I can see that this could become expensive, but fortunately some books are meant to be savored and/or pondered, so that slows me down a bit.
The book I am presently reading is a savor/ponder book. It is called
Prayers for Sale and was written by Sandra Dallas. My book club is reading it - and it is a book I likely would never have picked to read so I am, again, thankful for this group of people who have me read that which I likely would not otherwise have found and enjoyed. In the book, an older woman who is living by herself in the high mining mountains of Colorado is contemplating moving to live with her daughter near the Mississippi River and is spending her summer sharing her stories with a young woman who has come to live in the community. The older woman feels it is important to share her stories so that her memories will live after she departs. In her sharing, she is teaching the young woman what the young woman needs to know to survive in this environment, as well as preserving the history - her history, the history of the time and people there. One line I have loved: "She remembered then that morality was for folks with full bellies, ... " How true, how true: with full bellies, safe places to live, health care and jobs, morality becomes much different and, perhaps, easier. Stories are important and help us to remember and to grow.
I went for my medium run on Monday and when I checked my watch to see when I should walk, I was beyond the first couple walks, so I just kept running, and have kept running for the remainder of the week. Today was a 40 minute run and it felt great.
Papa Bear is continuing to work with his scythe and is recovering the between-the-house-and-the-cove area. It is looking great and he is having fun doing it.
There were solar flares last weekend and horizon-level auroras were predicted for this area. We went seeking a place to view them near midnight both Wednesday and Thursday, but were thwarted by complete cloud cover on Wednesday and by clouds or fog on the horizon on Thursday. However, all was not lost in our late night journeys. We have found a perfect spot for viewing should future opportunities arise, have viewed pictures from auroras visible on the Island in past years (courtesy of the Internet), and were able, on Thursday, to see the overhead stars. They were, as the heavens tend to be, both amazing and awesome.
Yesterday was the Feast of the Transfiguration in the Episcopal church. A small group of people from St. John's the Divine hiked the Beech Cliff Trail. After looking forward to the hike all week, I almost did not go. This approach to new events seems to be a pattern in my life: I latch onto an idea, anticipate it with eagerness and then, just before it happens, I am filled with dread and apprehension. I know not why. Sometimes I let these feelings stop me. Other times, I push through them, and am usually glad that I did. I wonder if it is a legacy of a time when I went to play with a friend after school (again, younger than 8 years of age) and we had a huge storm and I wanted to be no where more than at home with my own family.
The Beech Cliff Trail is a lovely and gentle trail that winds its way through a birch and other trees and fungi forest and comes out on top of Beech Cliffs which offer startling lovely views. From the flat area, on a clear day, you can see out to the Duck Islands beyond the Cranberry Islands and in the other direction up Somes Sound. The pictures today are from that hike. You can also see down to the Echo Lake beach swimming area (no picture of that.)
After we hiked to the top, we found an out-of-the-way area and, armed with his permit, the clergy person led us in a worship service, reminding us of knowing what we cannot know, and then forgetting it, and of being transformed by our experiences with God. We shared the Eucharist, and then departed for home, using the same trail we used to ascend. I have been pondering tranfigurative moments in my life, recognizing that I have not had a Transfiguration event as was described in the Bible, but still, there have been times when I have been spiritually transformed, which I think counts, hence the pondering.
I am glad I participated in the hike: we carpooled from the Church and had the time to share stories of our lives in the car. Those who grew up here or or have lived here for a long time caught up on families. And while we were on the top of the mountain, one of the wise women with us, 80 years young, told us of an August 6 that happened sixty-five years ago. She was 15, summered in Southwest Harbor, and for whatever reason was finding life in Southwest a bit slow so she rowed across the water to Northeast Harbor. There was a place there where everyone - children, young people and parents - were playing and socializing on the beach. The sirens for the fire station began to sound. They had been told that when the war ended, the sirens would sound, so everyone knew that was what the noise signified. She said everyone began to cheer and hug and celebrate. Someone suggested that they all go to town to ride on the fire truck. As people began to move that way, her father, a clergy person, called (in his best clergy voice, she said) for them to stop. And they did. And they offered a prayer of thanksgiving for the end of the war, a prayer of recovery for the people of Japan (and I do not believe they knew at that time of the devastation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that had brought about the end of the war), and of a healing for the world as the conflicts ended. At the end of the prayer, the crowd made its way to town to ride the fire engine. One person, before leaving, sought out her father and thanked him for leading the prayer. She finished her story by sharing that by 10 p.m. that evening, almost everyone had made their way to churches for impromptu sharing and services. Somehow this story was most appropriate on the Feast of the Transfiguration, and the annivesary of the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. It was appropriate in every way, and I am most thankful to have heard it.
The words about these lessons are my interpretation of what was said. The actual words said and ideas presented belong to Rev. Dean Henry and the Wise Woman and were delivered in a manner that was more interesting and likely clearer than what I have shared here.
A front moved through last evening, dropping the temperature markedly, and lowering the humidity, so it feels even cooler. Today Papa Bear and Mama Bear will take the Beech Cliffs hike again, to share this special spot with each other.
We arrived home from our journey to West Quoddy Head and Campobello on Wednesday evening. Papa Bear and I went to one of our favorite Island restaurants for dinner - The Seafood Ketch in Bass Harbor. The food was fabulous. I have the feeling (a feeling, not a fact) that the recent economic times have hit restaurants and other businesses on the Island quite hard. Some are offering what they used to offer but at a reduced quality. Others are offering a smaller selection, at an increased cost. I imagine it must be difficult to be a tourist destination in a time when tourism is down, though we are told that this summer on the Island has been good. 
