I think my body doesn't know what time zone it lives in any more; I keep waking up an hour or two before my alarm clock, then can't get back to sleep. So I am typing as the sun rises over the Okanagan, and it's quite lovely to watch the hills come alive, so to speak, with light wash over the muted greens and browns of pre-Spring Summerland. This morning, just as I was waking, about five, there was a siren on the highway, just a long stone's throw from the house. I can hear the Highway 97 traffic quite a bit, when I tune into it, and this morning it seemed like someone was being rushed, an ambulance in all probability, from one place to another, and I wondered at the cycle of life and death...not for the first time. I am so keenly aware, as I get older, of my own parents' health and well-being. They are in their late seventies. Dad is pretty well but my mother is physically not strong. There's a beautiful story in my forthcoming book from elders around the world, from a woman named Jeannette Coffey, about her parents, "The Hawk and the Butterfly", and when I read it (which you can when the book comes out), I think of my own parents and their connection of spirit. They have been married now for almost 53 years and sometimes, although they are very different, I find the connection between their souls almost like a visible spiritual line of light. One of my sisters is becoming more attuned to spirit at a number of levels, and is beginning to see auras...and although I have not had this experience, sometimes I just feel like the connection between my parents is auric. Can you say that? And as a Baha'i, I believe that the distance between this world and the next one is very, very short; it's all around us, just as the womb world to the world we live in. So I can't help but reflect on how much I enjoy having my parents still in this world with us, but know that when the time comes for one or another to pass, nothing can break that stream of light that flows between them. And I wonder if it will be like that for my husband and me, as we grow older. Our jokes are already old, and our habits; but maybe these next years are the ones for our spirits to become more and more attuned, as we gradually retire to our garden and greenhouse and solarium (there, a wish list sent out to the universe!) ...and maybe the distances between all of us are simply a state of mind. Maybe? No, surely.

Something about early spring mornings makes me glad to be alive, and glad to love and be loved. Today I shall seek out spring flowers.