At church this morning, I copied down a congregational reading that resonated so strongly with me that it gave me an insight on one whole arc of the book (an over-arc really) being Janice’s cancer/healing/spiritual journey juxtaposed against her physical/outer space/career journey. I visualized points on the arc of that story, which are scenes I’m working on but hadn’t visualized their place in the story yet.

Harbinger of Frost,
Robert T. Weston

Autumn, we know, is life energy’s route to death.
The asters are but harbingers of frost.
The trees, flaunting their colors at the sky,
In other times will follow where the leaves have fallen,
And so shall we.
Yet other lives will come.
So may we know, accept, embrace,
The mystery of life we hold a while.
Nor mourn that it out grows each separate self.
but still rejoice that we may have our day.
Lift high our colors to the sky!
And give,
In our time, fresh glory to the earth.

The preparation for this insight was watching, “Shadowlands” last night (Debra Winger, Anthony Hopkins). Wonderful movie about a love affair for C.S. Lewis at the end of life. It was a powerful love story. She breaks through the very traditional daily rituals of his life teaching at Oxford. He says to her at one point, you are the truest person I know (unconventional). It was about real love, deep love, being deeply moved and human against intellectual skepticism, which also says something about the “magic” in Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles.

I got some advice at church this morning that reinforced embracing my uniqueness. (It’s not always easy to be different, as Janice knew well.) My friend Martha told me to go to museums more and connect more with inspiration. It’s always a little difficult for me to stay grounded in keeping the refrigerator stocked, changing the kitty litter, wearing socks that match. But I’m very comfortable in fairly abstract and esoteric intellectual realms. So I very much appreciated the permission this weekend to go play in them (and the adherent rewards).