Already Here

Posted on September 3, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 11

Mohegan’s Bluff, Block Island: Photo by Noelle

Allow yourself to think today as if your life is already what you want it to be. Watch what happens when you do not succumb to your own stories of limitation.

Namaste and Happy Thursday, Noelle

Pirate Booty

Posted on August 18, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 20

State Beach, Block Island, Rhode Island: Photos by Noelle

A seagull attempted to land on it as a perch, but the top was too thin so the tough scavenger flew off. It appeared to be a marker, maybe to someone’s pirate booty, or a child’s war ship against the tide the day before. Now it stood lone and bare in the morning light. Treasure Island and Billy Bones floated through my mind, as I came upon it. As a child I loved the N.C. Wyeth paintings from the story and would look at them for hours making up my own pirate adventures.

N.C. Wyeth illustrations from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Like my fantasies of childhood I found the beach full of little mysteries as dawn came upon it. Crabs battling in tide pools, shell paintings and this monstrous sand castle still erect and undisturbed by the night’s tide. A stalwart stronghold made with little more than hands and buckets. Having recently started dabbling with sculpting SopI marvel at this structure. Created in an afternoon, with little more impetus than a laugh and no more concern for it’s perfection or durability than the time it takes to be distracted onto a boogie board. Yet in my own creative process I can ponder and obsess over the next steps in plaster as if I were working with TNT or finding the cure for cancer. I dig my feet into the sand and commit myself to remember the care-free force of a child.

Sand castle, State Beach; Photo by Noelle

Small pathways discovered through the shrub-covered embankments, now dotted in pink flowers, enticed me into small sand dells and new routes home. I picked one of the morning blooms and placed it in my hair embracing all the beach bum I could pull into my lungs.

State Beach, Block Island, Rhode Island: Photos by Noelle

I sit daily in meditation, but few things calm and bring me into full alignment with my best self so completely, as a walk on a deserted beach. So to you my dear friends I offer this call to adventure and discovery that it not die upon my own lips.

“Avast, me hearties! There be treasure here.”

State Beach, Block Island: Photo by Noelle

Remembering Summer

Posted on October 13, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 6

Cold and blustery, with dark clouds drifting down the Colorado hog backs in misty waterfalls is my day. With little resistance, my mind turns back to summer and the warm ocean breezes of July. Seashells and plastic pales full of crabs and snails and minnows whipping my ankles. Makeshift moats around lopsided sand castles built for love, not defense. I remember that hours of heat had left us all lazy, but for the surf and boogie boards with the kids. My father was not here, as he passed last year, but I am certain he would’ve liked to see us all together. Surely summer, more than any other season, moves with the speed of seagulls dashing for french fries on the wharf. I’d give anything to push my toes into that sand, rather than wrap this blanket about my shoulders. I suspect soon I will long for fall leaves as I put on my snow boots, scarf and hat. Ah, se la vie. Contentment, I guess, is as fickle as summer kites.

Gate

Posted on August 5, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 6

Gate on the Payne Farm Trail: Photo by Noelle

There it was in the middle of the thicket. White and chained shut. Very little to say where it lead, as there appeared to be no road into the briar. It seemed a gate in the middle of nowhere and that is how the first spark flew burning my regular life. What is it to live, if you never climb unknown fences and see where they lead?

Bench to Nowhere

Posted on August 2, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 6

Greenway trail at Nathan Mott Park, Block Island: Photo by Noelle

I was hiking a trail at the Nathan Mott Park while vacationing on Block Island; a small island off the coast of Rhode Island. The trail was well maintained, but heavily wooded. No clear cutting or control burns have ever happened there. Thus, the bramble was thick and dense. Suddenly, I stumbled upon a bench, sitting in the middle of the trail, about half way in. It faced the bramble, with no apparent other view.

I stopped and looked around. It seemed an odd place to have a seat. I thought to continue my journey, but something about how the sun rested upon the seat called to me. I sat down. I was correct there was no other view, but the dense thicket. I decided to give it some time.

Wildlife knows when hikers have hit a trail. Alert calls go out to any who can hear to beware, a human is afoot. If you are lacking a quiet presence when you step into nature, you aren’t likely to have many unusual encounters with wildlife. Sit for a time though, and wood life begins to forget you are there and marches onward.

Deer flies lost interest and continued down the path. Bees returned to the wild rose and thistle. The alarming squawking that had followed me from crow to jay, had subsided and now the wood was filled with bird’s singing their daily stories of berries and dragonflies. Rather than the stir of my own progress I now heard the steady movement of the wind through the trees. The sun came and went as it winked between the branches above. The moment was peaceful without the least bit of silence.

When I was younger I did not understand the power of stillness or the value of doing nothing or going nowhere. That stillness is full and rich, rather than dull and silent, as my youthful mind considered. I don’t know who thought to put the bench in the middle of the trail, but I suspect they were someone like me. Someone who had come to appreciate that sitting in the middle of nowhere, looking at nothing in particular, is likely the best seat there is.