Oops! I forgot to include my favorite photo in my earlier response to this prompt. I just have to give it its own post now. I love how cats always seem to set up poses…this one a group one.
Click on Photos to Enlarge.
Click on Photos to enlarge. What do you see in these beach finds?
To the Island
If I sent you to an island, it would be for your own good.
It wouldn’t be unwillingly, with chains and ropes and hood.
I’d lure you off to be with me, surrounded by the sea.
You wouldn’t have to talk or walk or be in love with me.
The objects that I’d give you are a camera, notepad, pen
and a computer with no wifi to connect to where you’ve been.
You’d live in the present with the details of your life,
examining where you have been without the daily strife.
With no Internet distraction, no ringing of the phone,
sometimes you find a part of you that you have never known.
There’s something that is lacking in what’s crowded in one’s brain.
It’s hard to find ourselves when we must live the whole world’s pain.
In the morning, you would walk the beach, move inward with the tide,
examining what treasures the waves conceal inside.
A stone shaped like a check mark or a continent or heart–
it’s hard to suspend looking, once you’ve made a start.
You may take photos of them or collect them in your pocket—
something to make art from, or a picture for your locket.
Another way to get inside is what you write about them.
If you have secrets, it’s inevitable that you’ll out them.
The sea’s part of something larger and each treasure is a clue
connecting the whole universe to something within you.
This is why each object plucked up from the sand
is part of you that you’ve reclaimed—there within your hand.
What you see in what you find is what you have inside.
Perhaps it’s something you don’t know or that you know and hide.
The very fact that it is here revealed for you to see
may mean that you are ready to finally set it free.
The sea with all its treasures and its recurring tide
is also found within you—safely tucked inside.
So look into a mirror—a metaphor, more or less;
if you are wondering if you’ve changed, you won’t have to guess.
You’ll look for things within yourself as closely as the sea
and find out more of who you are and who you want to be.
You’ll see the changes on your face that say you’ve become wise.
Deep worry lines around your mouth and laugh lines by your eyes.
And once that you have found yourself, you’ll find yourself again;
for you are always changing—refining what you’ve been.
Tucked off on an island like a wallflower on a shelf,
perhaps you’ll find the whole wide world there within yourself.
And when you see the world within, you’ll want to live in it,
for it’s a world that you have power to change as you see fit.
For MVB the prompt is Island
And to go with this new image, more rocks, and an old story:
After my husband Bob died and I moved to Mexico, I started finding hearts everywhere on the long walks I took every morning. The first one was on the side of a cow, the other on the forehead of a calf. I found plastic hearts and the imprints of hearts on shoe bottom impressions pressed in the sand. Then I began to find heart-shaped rocks. It was uncanny. Messages, perhaps, or perhaps just my increased consciousness of anything that could be a sign. This continued for some time, but as my initial crushing grief lifted, so did my insistence that these were messages.
Then, at least a year after his death, on a driving trip enroute to the states, I returned to one of our favorite places—Bahia de Los Angeles in Baja California. As I stood tossing rocks into the ocean, I suddenly felt my wedding ring slip off and go flying into the water. Stupid, stupid! I berated myself, and knowing it was futile, I nonetheless went wading into the surf that was spreading out on the sand, then deeper into the water to where I imagined the ring had disappeared.
What were the chances? I searched for five minutes, then ten, and I was about to give up when a retreating wave wiped the ripples out of the surface of the water and there below I saw my heavy gold ring set in diamonds and lapis lazuli. As I scooped it up, a rock that lay buried in the sand beneath it came up in my hand as well, and after slipping the ring onto my finger again, I was about to toss the rock back into the water, when I happened to glance down at it and saw that it was in the perfect shape of a heart!
I saw this 8-inch-wide stone sitting up on the bench under the arbor in the lot I’m developing into a little park. This afternoon when Pasiano and Jose were planting the truckload of plants and trees and cacti that were delivered yesterday, I went down to trim a century plant and pick up a few months’ trash that they’ve left strewn around the site, and Pasiano pointed the stone out to me, saying he had found it on my lot. Jose was teasing him about it and Pasiano was making a joke of it, too, calling it “his art” but he was really pleased when I was enthusiastic about it and he gave it to me. I was curious about whether it was a piece of petrified wood or an unusual geological specimen, but when I decided to look closer tonight, I realized that the rings are all on the surface of the rock. I wish I had looked closer at the place where it is (sadly) broken in two before I glued it back together, as that would give the best view of a cross-section, but the rings do come to the edge in a couple of places and they don’t seem to go any farther into the rock than the surface, so I’m pretty sure it is a rock painting.
Now I feel like I need to ask him if he wants to keep it. Hope he sincerely says no! I think it is beautiful, and will give it a place of honor somewhere, and perhaps try to find out more about it. If anyone has any insight into what it may me, I’d appreciate your comments. Even guesses are welcome!
Click on any photo to enlarge all.
Locks, rocks, docks, clocks (tic tocks) and socks!!!
(Here are a couple of other “ock” posts. Just pretend they are in black and white: )
For: cees-black-white-photo-challenge-words-that-end-in-ock/
When I arrived back in Mexico two nights ago,
as I was leaving the airport in the backseat of a taxi, two events happened.
One was the eruption of Colima Volcano, 50 miles away from my house.
The other was a waterspout that took water from the lake and dumped it on the mountains above my house. That event, added to massive rain on that night and this morning, led to the culverts becoming swift-running streams and the cobblestone streets next to my house being littered by stones brought down the arroyos, which all happen to empty into streets which become part of the drainage system.
After the rain finally ended today and the skies cleared, I decided to venture out to see what condition the world around me was in. I could hear the rushing sound that told me that water was still rushing down from the mountain. 
Although the street that ran to the side of my house was littered with stones, the gardener across the street had gathered up all the stones on the street that ran horizontally across the hill, and put them in small piles, so it was passable. Luckily, no boulders had been brought down this time, for in the past boulders as large as small cars had rolled down, completely tearing up the roads.
At the end of my street, the culvert had turned into a small stream, and as usually happens after a series of big rains, children and their parents were treating the culverts like spas––wading and sometimes immersing their entire bodies.
At every street corner they could be seen cavorting like seals and having a wonderful time, as were this grandmother, daughter and baby boy at the end of my street.
I couldn’t resist going to talk to them. The baby was just objecting to the cold water when I arrived, and the mother had set him up on a rock and was gathering stones for him to hold.
He hoarded them in each hand.
“Does he know how to throw rocks?” I asked, and when the mother shook her head no, I set about teaching him how.
After an initial reluctance to let go of the rocks,
He was a fast learner!
And soon we had trouble keeping him supplied with enough pebbles.
Meanwhile, the little stream rushed on, tumbling some of the small stones down the hill towards the Raquet club 
to round the corner
and rush on down to the village and into the lake.
Those trees out in the lake were once on dry land and the chains of water hyacinths I could make out even at this distance gave testimony to the fact that in addition to the rainfall, extra water was being let out of the spillways of dams further upstream on the Lerma river. I decided it was time to drive down to the lake to take Frida for a walk to investigate further.
To Be Continued
If you are interested in seeing what happens when a tromba (super-saturated cloud or waterspout) empties out over the mountain above me after days of very hard rain, look HERE. You won’t believe this many rocks could come down in a 15 minute period! It took a year to repair the damage.
Today’s prompt is “breakthrough,” and if these aren”t two examples of types of breakthroughs, I don’t know what is! I guess I anticipated the prompt.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 