A Pact

Years ago our friend Frank made a pact. He promised that at every Solstice and Equinox, he'd show up at the Bodega Headlands (cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean), to express gratitude to everything that Life gives us ... including the challenges that make us look at our lives in different ways.

The Autumnal Equinox was on the 22nd this year at 8:09 pm and was enhanced by a full moon rising just as the sun set (only happens maybe every twenty years or so I've been told). Ted and I bundled up and drove through vineyards and farmland to join Frank and others to honor this spectacular event.

Ted and I spend a lot of time indoors in our little 10'x10' office, glued back-to-back in front of our computers until our eyeballs bleed. So I was thinking the other day that all I wanted to do was run outside and get SLAPPED in the face by Nature. She didn't let me down.

We arrived at the Headlands just at sunset. In the west, the sun looked like a giant egg yolk dipping into the sea. At the same time, the full moon floated up and they seemed to nod at each other as they switched places in the evening sky. A cool, sharp wind SLAPPED me in the face and I laughed out loud.

(Moon rising photo courtesy of Rogelio Herrera)

As we all stood at the Headlands, holding hands in a circle, honoring the four directions, being blessed by a full Harvest Moon, giving thanks to Life for our lives, we were blown open by the Mystery of it all, forgetting the small details of our day-to-day existence and just fully experiencing the magnitude of being human.

Thank you Life ... and thank you FRANK!, for making a pact, and sharing it, and reminding us of what it really feels like to be wondrously, miraculously ALIVE.