life in the no fly zone

There have been many interesting things to observe of late, Gentle Reader. Just when things seem to begin to make sense, another vista opens up and yes, there’s more. Sense is a few steps farther away.

It may just be that after all this time my brain is able to parse what’s going on around it- after quivering like a jelly for months in recoil from what it was observing. Meditation has of course been a foundation and even though there is a fair amount of time spent in, oh wait a minute! That’s attachment or ill will or dammit how many breaths was it? there still has been some awareness dawning.

I realized at long last that given the history of this country, of western civilization in general, there’s no way around seeing the flaw at the heart of all of it. The inequity and cruelty we see all around us is not going away and until we all wake up a bit more we’re stuck in this roundelay of crap. The question is, beyond cleaning up one’s own act, as always, what is to be done?

I had three experiences back to back illustrating this, and amazingly enough I didn’t have images of myself smashing the other people’s craniums with a ball peen hammer. Progress!

I read something in an old book that said, Hostility does not need a response, and Be hard on the problem, not the person. So, in the midst of a harried day of errands I found myself in a farm supply store, talking to the salesperson about what I was looking for which they did not appear to have. In the middle of all this concerted conversation, a man (White and maskless) steps up in between the store employee and me (both masked, we’re going back into an ugly Covid tier here as we speak) and says, I need something for “x”. Proceeded to talk so no one could interject anything. Took a few minutes of time, which I was running short of. At long last he looked at me and said to the salesperson, Oh, she was here first and you were helping her, go ahead. I couldn’t help but laugh, and said, oh! you noticed! It dawned on me right there and then that this man was really completely unaware of what he was doing in the situation, how he was barging in and behaving as if nobody else had any business or concern that even mattered, and how what we had there was a text book case of White Patriarchal Privilege. It simply never occurred to him to question his assumption that HE and HIS WISHES were the only important thing. The employee was only there to serve him, and I was beneath notice. It didn’t even make me mad at long last, but it made me wonder just how this basic attitude can be addressed. You can attach any -ist or -ism to this behavior, like sexist, racist, on and on. It’s a bulwark of this society whether anyone wants to accept that or not. This person had no ill will or anything of the sort, but was operating on the set of instructions he’d been given. The sales person was tensing up a bit and I said, oh please. Go ahead, even though it really isn’t your turn. I’ll wait. He actually blushed a bit. I decided to count that as a successful interlude and thus armed went on to Number Two.

Number Two was a bit more menacing, given that it involved yet another….Man of a Certain Sort, who decided that he wanted to get gas at the pump he could, in fact, clearly see me driving into, almost completely, even though all the others were free. So he? guns his car and pulls forward quickly, almost running into me. (We might note that for both these interludes I was wearing my favorite 20th century Big Dogs t-shirt, with a St. Bernard in sunglasses bearing the words: BAD TO THE BONE. Just saying….) I stopped short of the final spot, honked my horn lightly to get him to actually make eye contact, which took a while. Pointed to myself, pointed to the gas pump, held up one finger (index, relax!) to indicate my spot in “line”, and just smiled a bit and kept looking at him. Thinking, do not ascribe motive here. Or pass judgment on this poor person’s IQ. Just pray that no one else in this crazy rodeo of a parking lot runs into you. He finally looked at me, with a rather dazed expression I couldn’t interpret, and backed up into his proper gas pump spot. Kindness is always better, even if it is mostly more difficult to maintain. Once you actually have to go outside, I mean. Feeling as though I had finally gotten past a sticking point of taking this a$$#0!ish behavior as anything other than a sort of mass, historical brainwashing and thus fortified to keep being kind while taking no shit, we got to this morning.

Hey! it’s a “holiday”/shopping opportunity today here. “Labor Day” which, when you think about it now, is kind of laughable. Especially since employers are now ranting about how people “don’t want to work anymore, unemployment is too easy.” Uhm, no. It’s that they no longer are willing to knock themselves out every day for a wage that they cannot support themselves on. But I digress. We were awoken shortly after the sun rose by gunfire, large caliber it sounded like, that went on for over an hour. Forgive me, Gentle Reader, when I say this is not OK. The fire danger right here right now is so intense that coughing wrong could cause a disaster. Hours of gunfire, random and constant, poses a real threat of conflagration. In addition, being awoken from sleep by prolonged rounds of gunfire is really not good for anybody. I found myself thinking about everyone on the planet who is being subjected to this, and so much worse.. As a result, with my newfound brave new attitude, a haze of exhaustion, and genuine curiosity I hazarded a post on the, yes, HOMEOWNER’S ASSOCIATION facebook page, asking if anyone knew what all that was.

What I got was a response that said, we live in the country, people can do what they want. And, it’s dove season. I was already a bit stressed by my bank being inaccessible due to some sort of web crash, to be honest. That didn’t stop me from considering the following: A) There’s a sign at the entry way to this travesty of a development that says NO HUNTING. PRIVATE PROPERTY. B) The person who responded that “we live in the country” has a big sign on the road in front of her house that says RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD. This is about a half mile from us. C) We pay homeowner association dues as well, so if we’re in the country, what in the hell are those for? Also, doves as you may know are small birds. This sounded like AR fire (incredibly I can differentiate now, fun in the boonies). A corollary C1 might also be that there are many people in this whateveritis neighborhood who cannot, legally, bear arms or purchase ammunition. Ankle bracelets and all.

All this left me with a choice to make. I went back to the facebook page and said, yes, we’ve been here a long time too but the fire danger this year should be everyone’s primary consideration, keeping everyone up here safe and intact. ( I did not mention that it isn’t exactly hunting to blow a small bird to smithereens with an automatic weapon.) This entry got me two likes, which bucked me up enough to realize that my New Moon resolution was to at long last, while doing no harm, in fact take no shit. We’ll see how this goes.

It has just been strange lately to experience simultaneously a LOVE for ALL, and realize that there are individuals out there who seem impervious to love. SO. I decided to put that awareness on the back burner, it is what it is, none of us really knows what anyone else is feeling or thinking, much less what WE may be feeling or thinking….. and the task still is to go forth with openness and (at least an attempt at ) kindness. I think it’s working since so far nobody has shot at me!

Blessings and thanks, and please take care! Wear your masks, too. (The nonogenarian Betty White remarked at the beginning of all this that she had no patience with people saying masks were hot or uncomfortable. Try wearing a bra in August! she said. I do love her…..)

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where we find ourselves

Well, Gentle Reader, it has been yet again a long minute. Deciding to dispense with the concept of “time” for a while, it was possible to come to terms with the way WEEKS seem to go by in a day and DAYS seem like years at times. Practice stretching the legs moves on to practicing actually talking to someone so we are, in fact, moving right along, wiggling those body parts that seemed to have been relegated to inactivity.

It’s still quite scary here in this country, and you can pick just about any topic- they’ll all give you the chills. Then again you have to realize that we’re in a life and death struggle to let what IS real be the operating dynamic, not what someone wants to tell you is real for their own personal benefit. (Or, in other words, to stop at long last pretending and re-writing history.) Not everyone will be pleased with that at the beginning, as we can see. Many will deny til the last possibility is exhausted that any of what has happened, happened. Ever. And, if you don’t mind? we’ll just completely skip any discussion of epidemiology or public health or common sense. Thank you.

On the other hand, since we are fortunate enough to live in a literal middle of nowhere, the ability to go outside and see what was a fabulous spring, even if it’s already starting to end, was a revelation. All of a sudden the whole world around us was a vibrating, resonant, spectacular GREEN. The oak trees around us leafed out almost all at once and it was like nothing either of us has ever seen before. The wild flowers were also spectacular, if fewer in number. Some never appeared at all, at least so far, like Pretty Face and Mariposa Lily. The California Poppies, on the other hand, were practically flourescent. It has been like they’ve ALL been speaking, and I found what they said to be moving, unsettling, and comforting all at once. The roses in our garden have started blooming in profusion and they also join this…hum. It sounded to me as though the flowers were saying they are protecting this earth, manifesting the energy and light and life we all share, rising to express life itself and the undying nature of a leaf, a bloom, a rose bud, a lamb or a calf, and us- if we can rise to the occasion. There’s an energy moving through things, and this past year may have been more like an unintentional hair on fire this time for SURE meditation bootcamp than we thought, but…..there is a whole different discourse going on now, throughout everything, and it’s both exhilarating and terrifying to take this journey into true Listening, which leads to actual Hearing (wow!) and then to the next skill set of Not Doing Anything Just To Do “Something”. Massive reboot, kids. The more joy we can meet this with, the better off we’ll be, of course. Blessings and thanks, as always!

At the Not-OK Corral

Dear o dear, Gentle Reader.  Things are Quite Gnarly right now and the cavalry does not appear to be anywhere in the vicinity.  I guess we are going to get to be our own cavalry this go round, and for the foreseeable future.

Naturally along with many others, I have been wondering just How we are all going to talk to each other about what IS and what to do and all the rest of it….the polarization is like being a walking pair of sunglasses at this point.  I found myself having the thought that it might not be possible at all to get through to some people, no way to talk to or reach them, and how can that be?? Not to mention how truly scary the overarching situation is, COVID-19 aside.

AS usual, Universe to the forefront.  Pondering this question ad…well, too far…I recently found myself actually dealing with it in person.  Admittedly it took me a minute to realize I was in the process of investigating something complex.  But! There I was, in the farm supply store, innocently minding my own business and getting food for the dog. (That part of it, at least, was a success. I got a different flavor this time, turkey and pumpkin and Somebody has been poncing around grinning ever since.) It took a moment to realize that not only was I the only person in a fairly full store wearing a mask, but that some of the other patrons, and employees, were standing at the cash registers, literally glaring at me.  You’re wearing a mask! someone said in a stern tone.  Yes, I said, I am. We don’t wear masks around here! I do, I said.  I was starting to be a bit not happy about this.  But I stood there with the dog food and treats, quietly.  WHY are you wearing a mask came from the glaring section.  Because, I said, it is the right thing to do.  It keeps us all from catching this virus which, despite what you might want to believe, IS real, IS around and by the way, we went from zero cases to over 100 in less than a month, in a somewhat underpopulated area to boot.  So it’s just common courtesy and common sense.  Basic hygeine and infectious disease prevention.  Just what  you’d do for your cows if they had something wrong with them.  The glarers, while having to admit the correctness of the words, stood a bit taller and glared even more.

Fortunately at that moment the man who works at this place, loves the Dog and is friendly to us, came in and came to my rescue.  The glarers scattered as he briskly told me how much his wife had loved the sourdough bread we brought him (well, it was the DOG’s idea, being his favorite thing and all, and he wanted to share it with a friend), and she wanted to know how I did it and what not.  I told him she could call me anytime, and once you get a good starter going it’s mostly about the flour.  A path cleared around me as he lifted the purchases up and took them to my car.  Given that this was the next day after I’d spent three hours getting a wheel fixed on the car, and found myself retreating to a far corner of the place since it was full and nobody was wearing a mask and there was a lot of loud conversation about “these rotten protesters”  “what kind of idiot wears a mask?” and the usual I’ll do whatever I want sort of thing, it is probably not all  that surprising that once I was safe in the vehicle, the shaking began.  (The fun folks at the car place even made the woman working the front desk burst into tears after they’d all trooped out, so it isn’t just Me.)

And, yes.  That kicked off a few days of bleak thinking.  There appeared to be no hope at all, from the perspective of the hole I was in.  It seemed like dialogue and moving forward was impossible and even though I know that under anger is pain,  I found no interest in myself in toddling one of these individuals along to a clear place in the woods. Then of course the realization dawned that, no, you don’t even have to go there.  Just embody what you know to be true, which of course is coming from the heart, coming from being grounded in the reality that nature shows you every second if you look.   Maybe I am getting the hang of this by now, never having lived in a place like this before  for this length of time.  Probably a good thing since it looks like this is the place, for a while.  Do no harm, and take no shit seems like a good model in the moment.  Set aside the loneliness and put observation in that space instead.  Also I remembered in a flash something that had happened a couple of weeks before, right after the Governor said everybody had to mask up period and there was A LOT of complaint, let’s just say.  Several errands, some of which had the testiness described above, and the last one, which was like a visit from an angel.  There is a panaderia in this town that the Partner really likes and I must say, their conchas and raspberry coconut things are extraordinary.  So, I go in and the young latin woman at the counter is sporting a beautiful mask, embroidered with flowers.  Mine is a terrific silk/wool number a friend of mine created in shimmering colors.  We looked at each other, pointed at each other’s masks, and said, que belleza!  Then, out of nowhere, the song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams came on the radio and…we just danced with each other, twirling around the floor.  A moment of joy.

So THAT is how we do it.  One moment at a time, and it’s OK if the time outs in between have to be a little longer than usual.  There really is no room for  darkness in one’s soul now, and if the opening to the light must be done as gently as possible, especially given that we’re being hurtled pretty brutally toward an unknown target, that’s OK too.  The thing is to show up.  As always, blessings and thanks to all.

going outside

It has been some time since words appeared to me in any kind of sensible, translatable manner.

What with everything that’s happened (last year for example), IS happening (the terrifying plummet this country is taking into fascism and the cognitive dissonance impressario, aka bloviating pustule), and the unexpected intrusion of heartbreak from a helicopter crash , things got slowed down and ALMOST at a place of stillness. This whole time period has been mostly about seeing what is going on inside, around here anyway, and while that level of reflection is necessary in order to move forward, it’s not generally the most fun you’ve ever had. Things seem to be so stark right now, what appears to be obvious good and evil and combinations thereof, that as always about the only thing one can do is BREATHE, and focus on the beauty that exists and the good that one can do oneself.

SO. The Partner decided that it was time for the Dog to go leashless now that we have this enormous backyard, so to speak, for Long Walks. Once my brain manifested and I thought: “bring treats!”, the whole process got a LOT easier. And here, today, we see the result above. We go outside, the Dog and I, and wander around at length. It takes him a long time to get everything smelled, after all, and there is the additional pressing matter of Letting Everyone Know The Dog Is Here Now. It’s been interesting to watch him stake out ever larger territory, reinspecting previously peed on spots and applying any necessary touch ups.

As always, I get up thinking, ack, my back! or I don’t want to or I don’t have time or, or, or…..and then I realize: this is a grand opportunity of the sort that doesn’t often come. To be able to step out of my door and directly into nature and wildness with the Original Goofball, the Dog, is wonderful. It’s also quite a workout and improving for the legs. The other really spectacular thing is that while we’re out there a whole different sort of thing happens and the what if’s and to do’s and memories and everything recede and assume their proper proportions. Even though there are rattlers and every kind of biting bug and tick, and wild pigs and mountain lions out here, it feels incredibly calm. You can feel those who live on this hill, furred and feathered, watching us and often even coming out, saying, you are welcome here, don’t be afraid. Today the hummingbird came out in the morning and reminded the Partner and the Dog that it was high time for the feeder to be tended to.

I am grateful for all of this, even though it is challenging and precarious and fires and twenty acres oh my! and we keep finding out more things that the Previous Owner did not take care of, more big bills and people to deal with, not to mention the fact that now we know we’re staying, it’s time to get our space improved, too. This has largely had the effect of making me want to hide, but that has also got to do with everything that has risen to the surface of my soul. Turns out this is a thorough going renovation. I feel quite hopeful about it all, though, especially since when our neighbor across the road took it upon himself to give our number to a contractor to fix the mobile whatever it is next door, and I get a call from some totally unknown person on an unsolicited mission, I was able to (1) get that guy to laugh even though he was expecting to make some money, and (2) politely tell the neighbor that even though it was incredibly sweet of him to be thinking about something so totally out of his concern, we really are moving along on our own, thank you very much. As amazing as it is when people think they must stick their muzzles into things that are not their business, it is even more amazing when one can deal with that as what it is, a momentary error message, and have everyone move forward with minimal raised fur. Progress is being made. Now if I only had a magic wand to wave over Washington D.C.

Blessings and thanks to you all, as always!

vast expanses

I have, really, been thinking about writing almost every day for…..weeks. Words don’t seem to appear as they used to, nor subjects, in the current brain condition but as always there have been features of interest.

The wherearewegoingtolive saga seems to be moving toward a satisfactory close, after five months of living, absolute hell. Against all odds, we worked out an agreement with the people who ACTUALLY own the property, established communication with the County Tax people, and it even looks like we’ll be able to do this with our current resources. While the whole thing was one of the worst experiences ever, for both of us (and there is a fair amount of competition for that Worst Ever spot), it also showed quite clearly, if continuingly mysteriously, that there is an order in the universe and having a sense of that order and how one can move with it instead of against it is imperative. When you move WITH the energy, things happen far more productively than otherwise, which would seem to be obvious. However, as we know, NOT SO MUCH. While a lot of this situation worked itself out as though by miracle, we find ourselves these days slogging through what is left when the energy is not properly worked with, in the sense of cleaning up the gargantuan mess left by the Former Inhabitant here. Not just garbage and piles of Stuff everywhere, but jerry-rigged gates with ruined hardware, piles of golf clubs with no ends on them, miles of electric tape fencing with the accompanying metal poles stabbed into the ground, and broken glass on dead ground everywhere. (A small moment of triumph happened in the hardware store- I went in and asked the Guys if there was a tool to remove those metal posts. They nodded. Tell me, I said, that it isn’t called a shovel? at which they both started laughing so hard they couldn’t talk for a while). It does seem to be coming out of it however, this land. Having been unloved and uncared for, for at least the past 16 years, it’s as though one can see it stretch and flex when things are cleared from it and no further depredations are committed. This gives me some, perhaps unrealistic, hope for our earth- if THIS can be redeemed with proper care and attention, so can other places. I say, let us all begin this work now and in earnest. For my part, I think finding an appropriate native plant to grow in all the dead spaces in the old corrals will be a good start.

After all of this even the Dog is fatigued and happy to sleep in now. It’s like being at the end of a huge battle. You’re glad it’s over but so exhausted from the exertion and all the stress that you can’t, immediately, be as glad as you might expect. Then, of course, here? We get the additional fun of having the power get shut off by the “provider” because There Might Be A Fire And Since We Cause Most of Them We’re Turning Everything Off, so Take That… and dealing with THAT. The big windstorm that caused us to have no power for days also took out a good bit of our garden-covering structure- let’s just say there is no danger of the to-do list disappearing. But there is also no danger of the magic disappearing, either. Just yesterday I picked a handful of raspberries, and they were delicious. What’s really important, after all? We finally, the three of us, have a stable place. The Dog is taking his Management and Supervision of It All quite seriously and has now taken to watching the sunset every night while keeping tabs on the far reaches of the driveways. He went for a walk with the Partner yesterday and came back glowing and exhausted, flopping down and snoring, after having had to mark his turf in a whole new area. That was great! Almost great enough to distract one from the…shall we call it? NEWS. But even that one must view in the light of the Bigger Picture, which is one where we don’t really know how it goes. I’m sticking with the Dog for now.

Blessings and thanks, always.

bending spoons

Once, some time ago, we were vending at a fair in Humboldt County, and someone handed me a brownie. Which, not thinking about it much except for CHOCOLATE! and HUNGRY!, I ate. All of. And of course it was a “funny” brownie and I had quite an amazing and neverbefore experienced couple of hours, during which I somehow managed to make sales without talking and saw, right before me, the central axis of the world, extending up and down as far as vision could perceive, turning slowly, and all of us revolving with it. I found it comforting to finally see something I’d heard about in all my winding roads, to know, I guess, that something described as a Mystery was also a Reality. Along with, of course, millions of other things/realities/whoknowswhats.

For some reason, watching Dortmund and Barcelona spend a scoreless 90 some minutes today at the end of what has been, arguably, the Worst Summer Ever, I found myself remembering that world axis and the timeless spin of it. Which again was comforting because it IS good to know that the eternal verities are just that. Especially now since it seems as though that axis is playing a game of high speed twister with us all and Murphy’s Law is paramount

I could, of course, list ALL the things that have gone sideways, like the new cel phone that actually worked long enough to lull me into a sense of false security whereupon it decided to “become defective”, and the tomato plants that just said: ick, too hot, sorry but Dark Galaxy is not in your future this year. Then again, there have been the successes.

I’ll start with the grape sorbet because it was truly mind boggling. We have a native California grape plant and the grapes are prolific, delicious, and full of seeds and tough as boots skin. Cooking them a bit, putting them through a food mill, adding a bit of sugar and corn syrup (organic), then freezing according to some set of instructions I no longer remember produced something from right out there on the axis of the world. Well worth trying yourself if you have wine grapes, concord grapes, or native grapes.

The other success….is still in a formative, gaseous state for the most part. Readers of this blog will remember the Interesting Times we’ve had with our landlady. It has been a rather harrowing experience, let’s just say. This summer she was diagnosed with cancer, and moved on into another dimension about three months afterward. Family of course descended to see if anything was available for them…and learned, along with us, that not only was nothing available, it was a total clusterfuck. No property taxes paid, nor mortgage. Garbage stuffed in a back shed for years. And of course, hoarding. It was a hard fact to grasp, apparently, that when you don’t pay off principal you don’t have equity OR own the secured item you are paying for. They were Not Happy when the actual owners of the property said, we are going to foreclose now unless you can come up with a better idea. Naturally none of their ideas involved putting up money, and after a thrilling first conversation with said owners, who I had been assured knew all about us living on the land and turned out to have absolutely no idea, it was clear that an Idea had to be come up with, by me since nobody else was going to do it, so that We could have a more permanent dog house. We are working on that at this writing. There were also animals: horses. I got up at the crack of dawn to feed them and the other denizens, make sure they had water and deal with the flies. This last bit made me feel awful after I accidentally spilt a drop of the undiluted, produced by Bayer, fly spray on my forearm and got bleeding ulcers in a day. Anyway this went on for weeks and finally the word came down that at last they might really need to be re-homed. It took a few more weeks but I finally found a stellar place for them. They posed for pictures when the horse lady came to meet them and smiled and twinkled. Knowing they are safe and happy is, really, the other success of the summer.

So. It’s been gruesome, Gentle Reader. But as usual, the eternal verity is what gets a bear through. The Divine permeates everything, and it is more a question of what one is prepared to do with that reality than anything else. Blessings and thanks!!!!

moving right along

Spring sprang around here for sure. The only wild flower that hasn’t appeared thus far is St. John’s Wort, and I’m still holding out for it. I’ve managed to get some gargantuan tasks accomplished, things that went undone during the weeks of my…er….impairment, let’s say. The Dog seems to be turning into Einstein, what with things like not sneezing in your face any more, being able to stay out of the foxtails on walks, and general Presence. He IS quite a jumper, loving to fly, so I guess it wasn’t all that much of a surprise when he jumped right up onto the counter in the Farm Supply where we get his food, and he is a Favorite Dog. There was the usual moment of stunned silence, then everyone started laughing, including the Dog. Not quite as much as he laughed the day he rolled in hay and I had to come out, get him, and clean him off…that was a sidesplitting experience for HIM, anyway.

The thing that continues to astound me is the garden. I mean, we had three feet of snow. It froze. It flooded. And? the roses and jasmine and figs and even: PEACHES, not to mention raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries are all going completely off the hook. I got the bare root trees planted and had an over 50% survival rate, which pleased me. The vegetable seeds I planted last week are already sprouting, the cucumbers and corn and beans (I think, since I did my usual draughtspersonlike diagram of where everything is…) and I found myself dancing around the smart pot they’re all in.

But really? I think what is the most astonishing part of this, and what I kind of hold in my hands like a shimmering bubble afraid it will burst, is the fact that for the first time, certainly in recent memory, and maybe ever…I feel filled with JOY. I mean, seriously Gentle Reader. Don’t ask me how but it is like the big pile of YEUGH burying me just got…taken away. The light hurts a bit and one is uncertain on the paws at times but all in all, it is a quantum difference. Yes, the Daily Situation is a nightmare and I still don’t watch “news” not wanting to break the TV or anything…but there is a hope present now, a huge kind of radiance. So. Either I’ve finally gone nuts, or progress has been made.

Partly it is probably recognition of the fact that just because there is enormous pain and suffering all around- it doesn’t help at all to be ticked off about it. It helps to do your best where you are. However insignificant it may seem, as Gandhi said. The blows that fall on us as human beings are quite often heavy and almost unbearable…but a new day does come, and the big thing may just be laying down all your thoughts about how you feel about all of it. Feel it, yes. Then change the subject.

Blessings and thanks and love!

embodying Newtonian mechanics

And that would be me doing that, Gentle Reader. Adding to my joy is WordPress’s new theoretically improved format experience. Somehow I can’t see how making you indicate you want a paragraph in a separate step each time you want one…..but. Ahem.

It’s been a long float in the Sargasso Sea, essentially. When you hear the adage about, unless you’re as motivated as a man with his hair on fire to find water, don’t start the process of whatever we might call it, but is essentially contacting the “one who knows”. It really DOES burn you entire and I suppose the only really strange thing is how long that can take. Especially when you think you’re actually doing just fine.

Of course, that doing fine is the constant running from your devils to which you have become accustomed. When that stops at long last, be prepared for some prolonged down time. So, as I continue to be a body at rest staying at rest, the following can be reported.

Spring really is beautiful. I’d never been up close enough to deciduous trees to see that it all begins with PINK. The tips of the branches have leaf rosettes that are the most amazing shade of pink, and the distance on the hills shimmers with it. With all the rain, the grasses have grown and are practically fluorescent, so the sight of pink pigs sailing through and baby goats toinking up from them is pretty spectacular. The Dog takes me (drags, actually) on lengthy expotitions to find poop spots….preferably with views. This has given me an amazing chance to see the wildflowers as they sprang up and finally! FINALLY! to identify which were shooting stars and which were saxifrage before the blossoms revealed their identities. I’m finding that this smaller world, which really is much larger than the “regular” one in truth, is just fine and I leave it less often and with more dismay. Still, one must provision one’s family and there is the monthly trip to the Dog Fan Club for dog food (last visit, the owner asked the guy waiting on us, as if he were giving an instruction, did you give him a treat? and the guy rolled his eyes and said: THREE. Charm, you know.) which is usually very enjoyable. The grocery store even becomes manageable when it is visited with less frequency. It’s all in how you look at it, of course, because in so many ways reality is fluid and in your eyes only from moment to moment. This is why, I suppose, the instruction on the search for the one who you know what’s is: keep your attention focused on the highest good, most light filled and loving paradigm you can.

Getting better at that, yes, but there ARE exceptions. Now that I have my “federally restricted” driver’s license, it’s even more fun than usual to perform routine tasks at the bank and elsewhere because people look at and say things like, are you a felon? and stuff like that. The level of distrust and paranoia among the citizenry of this country is astonishing, and fortunately I was able to laugh (a little. Cry a little too.) at my most recent interface with same. The bank I expect to be weird because banks are, at their heart, rather evil institutions- I mean, they have YOUR money, which THEY use, and you have to practically whistle a tune from an extraordinary orifice to get them to give it to you. No, the Post Office is where this week’s donnybrook was.

I have been sending my remedies out into the world for about twenty years now. One thing this means is I do know how to pack things, so they don’t break for the most part- in fact only twice in this whole time. The other day I went to mail two remedies to people and dogs, and ignored the bell that went off when I saw the words “delivery may be delayed in case of emergency”. No emergency here, thought I. WRONG. One package got diverted to the deep south when it was going to the east coast because it had been scanned…..and…..looked SUSPICIOUS. Marked fragile and all, too. When, in desperation, I went to the post office to enquire a Very Officious Post Mistress told me that most likely my MIA package had broken and contaminated other packages. After being scanned. Naturally there was a long line behind me so everybody in town heard this, more or less. I said, drawing myself up to my full tiny height, contaminated? I HARDLY THINK A BOTTLE OF HUMMINGBIRD ESSENCE IS GOING TO CONTAMINATE ANYTHING. AND IF IT BROKE IT’S CAUSE YOU GUYS BROKE IT WHEN YOU OPENED THE PACKAGE EXPECTING TO FIND AMMUNITION. Because this is an issue flower essence people contend with: the dropper bottles we use seem to remind postal scanners of bullets. And of course, only one bullet at a time gets mailed, right? Totally logical! I received a package from a fellow practitioner in Spain that took two extra weeks to arrive and was in total tatters when it did, because….it looked like…….and of course it had to be ripped open…and then…..and so on. There were intakes of breath, murmured whaaaaat’s, stunned silence from OPM, and of course me starting to laugh. A lot like the time in NAPA when I was on quest for fixative for rear view mirrors and the guy said, it’s called fixative for rear view mirrors. The Post Mistress naturally did not like my tone. Fair enough, I didn’t much care for hers either. She said, well you ADMITTED you mailed a BOTTLE. Luckily, standing by the list of proscribed mailing items, I said, gee. That’s not on here and how come nobody has ever mentioned this before? Also, although they both start with “b”, I did say bottle and not..well, you know. This is my teeny business, I said, and you are causing me distress and costing me money. Do, please, do what you can to expedite this process. I left feeling out of sorts but managed to remember that the last several months of walking through emotional/thought form ballistic gel has given me the ability to say, UH? we don’t need no stinking attitudes! so I assumed all would be well. Eventually. Saw pigs, goats, hawks and an incredible jasmine plant on the way home. All good.

And of course, whaddaya know? The package was delivered this afternoon. I am trying to hold this episode in my mind now when I feel all the ….ick….that comes from the current state of this country. If the post office can do it, it can be done. We’re not going to stay in this murk forever. The same is true for all of us in our individual experiences. It takes some doing but you can expand your horizons to include all the light you can, and cannot, see. One step at a time. Eventually I will have to start springing into action (the garden is literally tapping its foot out there, for example) but for now, basking in the light will do.

Blessings and thanks as always.

Jose Andres was here

Oh Gentle Reader.  So much has happened and of course the more things change……

We will start with Part Two…… We were not too far away from another horrible, horrible fire.  Thousands of people displaced and many killed.  An entire town (Paradise) burnt to the ground.  Of note is the fact that of the 1000 or so missing people, and the 80+ deaths, a large percentage were over 65.  Let the fact sink in that these woods are full of elders living hand to mouth with absolutely no safety net of any kind.  There are many wonderful things about this area, but it is also full to the brim of poverty and homelessness.  And people who have no other place to go than their current roof over head situation.  And of course, it’s winter, and it’s the “holidays”.  The local community got together with the wonderful and intrepid and humane chef Jose Andres, who I have always loved and firmly believe has wings stuffed into HIS shirt too, and with the Sierra Nevada brewery, and fed hundreds of evacuees Thanksgiving dinner.  First responders, still fighting the fire and away from their families, served the meal.

In striking contrast to bloviating pustule who blew through here, couldn’t remember the name of the town that burned (calling it “Pleasure, and what a name!”), and suggested that if Californians raked their forests all this could be avoided.  The news footage of bp, Governor Brown, and a Cal Fire official was unbelievable: Cal Fire guy’s eyes were literally bugged out of his head, the Governor was looking at the middle distance as if wondering how much longer he could stand there before he decked somebody….I could say more.  But I will limit myself to two things: (A) pustule and your poisonous cohort and chain illegal immigrant family? YOU’RE FIRED.  (B) Another swell move by pustule was to authorize OUR military service people, sent to the border,  to use lethal force on people attempting to cross the border and seek asylum.  The Partner believes that for the most part, our service people would refuse to do that, and that no  authority exists for this action.  I certainly hope so.  I saw a meme today that also relates to this whole nasty mess:  If you believe that a fertilized egg is a human being, and refugee kids are not?  Then you’d better stop saying you are motivated by religion.

I find this all so….staggering and dismaying…that no sense can be made of the fact that all of this continues to go on, and expand.  What is wrong with everyone that they don’t stand up and say THIS MUST STOP.  I have periodic cry breaks, let’s just say.  Then I blow my nose, or what’ s left of it, and carry on.

And now on to Part One. Carrying on was already a bit of a challenge, and then? The day Paradise burned up, my mother died.  The for far too long unrecognized bane of my existence left this plane.  On my end, it was pretty awful and the Dog got worried.  But then I saw an excerpt from a book, Inner World of Trauma, and the kaleidoscope shifted.  Everything I experienced, went through, suffered? had, over the course of my life, become an externalized Thing which kept me in fear, anguish, doubt, and a constant quest for replacement baggage when the original matched emotional set fell apart.  So, in a way, all this torment was…not real.  It was a complex constellation of things that came together in my baby brain and just stayed.  And grew.  Not anyone’s fault, no blame, just kind of a massive Oh. My. God. Suddenly and at long last? I put it all down.  It’s a bit strange having all this space in my mind now.  But I am here to tell you it can be done.  So whatever your burden is? It can be transformed and so can you.  It takes work, of course, and a willingness to feel what you’re feeling and a shift in focus from My Very Important Story to the grandeur of life and the world as it is every minute and of which you are an integral part.  Perennial wisdom, as it is called in the many forms it takes, is an invaluable help.  Buddha is not the only one to say, the fear and attachment and attitudes that you have are not really yours.  The hike to understanding just what this really means is not easy, you have to do it yourself, and the weather on the way can be horrible.  But it is probably the most important walk you’ll ever take.  The love and support of one’s friends cannot be overlooked either.

During this festive period another really fun thing happened.   A spider decided to bite me on the cheekbone…and boy howdy!!!!!!! I went from normal to sci-fi experiment gone horribly wrong in less than an hour.  Swelling, pain, acid-like suppurations from the eye, and a very special red bull’s eye all around the affected area.  I very briefly considered going to the doctor, and thought again after the last visit where I had to wait an hour for a scheduled appointment because someone else was late for theirs and filled the entire office with yelling about how they were on psychiatric medications and we’d all better look out.  I even more briefly considered going to the oxymoronically named Emergency Room, but remembering how close they came to killing me the last time I went, thought better of it.  Here is what I did, with sensible input from the Partner.  (1) Sprayed affected area with Vetericyn.  Nobody should be without this stuff, which comes in both veterinary and human packaging.  Exactly the same, but if you’re human it costs twice as much. It can be sprayed in the eyes, in open wounds, burns, kills pathogens including fungus and MRSA.  The Dog views it favorably as well.  (2) Did Jin Shin Jyutsu on self.  Nobody should be without THIS stuff either. (3) In between sprays and JSJ, I came up with a new cocktail, which I call the Linus Pauling. ( He was a famous scientist of yore, who once said that if you had a shot of vodka and vitamin C every day, you’d probably be fine.)  I knew vitamin C would help and as miserable as I was, and since I always used powdered, I thought, heck.  WHY NOT.  So.  Powered vitamin C, vodka, and orange juice.  I actually look…uh….normal…now.  So it turns out venom can be dealt with, too.

Onward, in any event.  Blessings and thanks as always!

 

forty days, thirty nine nights

And of course it FEELS like all eternity has passed, but when I heard that the Carr fire had started 39 days ago, on the 40th day, I thought, well.  JEESH.  I looked up the significance of the number 40, and found that it was, in the past, considered to be equivalent to Umpteen.  So there you are.

The wind shifted so we are once again enveloped in smoke.  Yesterday we saw blue sky, clouds, the mountains for crying out loud, and stars.  It was like a dream.  Today we are back to what has become typical:  oppressively hot, airless and turgid daily reality.  It is quite fatiguing, probably because of the low oxygen presence, but this has not kept us from the Quotidian Beast Slaying and, of course, cooking.

On the Beast Slaying? Honestly.  Part the first was getting our trash removed.  We have to take it to the dump ourselves, of course, and after a certain amount of time it’s a toss up as to whether it is nobler to go to the dump every month or just get a container once a year.  We don’t actually have that much trash, which I comfort myself with in times of demoralization.  Anyway, getting the trash picked up turned out to be like a whole season of Jerry Springer.  It strikes me as odd that the harder it is to find a job and make money? The more reluctant the people are who do have jobs to do them.  The first person I called to do this said, well, MY time is REALLY VALUABLE.  So I’d like you to come along with me to help.  And pay $30 an hour for the privilege of same.  We did not take that option.  Finally I found a delightful young man who, although apparently incapable of following directions, did finally arrive on scene and perform the requested work.  SUCCESS.  I still don’t know what part of: it’s the next driveway after the one with the address on a horse pen, is mysterious, but it doesn’t seem to be something anyone can figure out so once again we found ourselves running down the driveway with flailing arms.  Still, it got done.  Beast the second was even more formidable and took yet another week to resolve.

It turns out that having a post office box is tantamount to having DANGEROUS NE’ER DO WELL tattooed on your forehead.  A company, who shall remain nameless, who I use in connection with my website sales, decided that it had to have Proof of my Physical Address.  They froze my account pending establishing a location for me where? who knows, men in black will race up and kick the door down any time now.  Since I cannot get mail here, I do not use this address for anything, so I don’t have anything with it appearing, like utility bills (which I don’t have since we’re off the grid, another concept that is seemingly unfathomable) or, even funnier, brokerage accounts, which were what this company asked for.  We went back and forth, I sending things, them rejecting them, until finally I sent a copy of my State issued Resale License, since it does have this address.  I’d asked if this would be acceptable and what non responsive item on the drop down menu should be used to describe said page.  So you may be able to imagine my state of mind when I once again called the company, got someone in an archipelago somewhere, which someone said, Oh, No.  WE CAN’T ACCEPT THIS ONE BECAUSE IT ISN’T AN EIGHT AND A HALF BY ELEVEN PAGE.  I came completely unglued.  There was loss of temper.  There was even a  bit of what might be called yelling, and the Dog retreated to his bed as he does when kafuffle rears its ugly head.  Somehow after I once again demanded, and finally got, a “supervisor”, public records were checked and whaddaya know, they “granted my case”.  Since everyone I told this story to said, oh, that company doesn’t do that, that never happens to ME, and so on, I was reasonably proud of myself for not succumbing to total paranoia and thinking this was Personal.  No sirree bob.  Just business.  It also made me think about how the fact of it is that I tend to hide in general and be very private in areas where I feel things are nobody’s business.  Like, where I live I guess.  And  no, you don’t get my phone number if I sign your petition, either.  So things like this are to be expected, even if they are beyond the beyond over the top ridiculous. One person said to me in the course of all this that they “required these informations” because of, wait for it! The Patriot Act.  It’s the government, they said.

So there was plenty to think about as I made grape juice in the food mill, fig jam, fig pizza, many OTHER pizzas, pesto, basil puree, and the continuing zillion zucchini things, along with every imaginable kind of cucumber salad and salads made out of melon balls and wontons stuffed with herbs and vegetables.  Every year something goes bonkers in the garden, and this year in spite of the ghastly conditions we have had cucumbers coming out our ears (41 in the kitchen right this minute).  The fig tree has been prolific and the basil has been mind boggling.  The melons are coming in now too. We expect tomatoes late again since it is just now not 115 every day so maybe flowers can set and….who knows.  Anyway it really is true that once you grow your own, nothing else is as good so all of us take heart from the garden.  The other day I even saw several swiss chard seedlings around the pot where we’d had the Perennial Chard Installation for the past three years.  Happy!

So as I pondered the ever more dismal happenings in the world overall (and by the way? the LPV or loser of the popular vote will now be herein referred to as BP, or, bloviating pustule) and wondered what the world would be like without Aretha, I was able to keep in the forefront of things the fact that yes, it does get grotesque periodically.  But there is still Real Life, and the beauty and grace and grandeur of that is what one must attend to if one wishes to stay upright and civil.  Given that such attendance includes everything from cleaning the toilet to watching the Dog reduce customers in the farm store to giggling joyful individuals moving blindly forward for a kiss from his Divine Doggy Snout, there’s no need to panic unnecessarily about where to place one’s attention- unless of course you’re navigating a moving vehicle.  It’s just all present, and my concern often is that so many are not partaking of the feast right in front of them.  Listening and observing seem to be overlooked skills more often than not.  Words, for heaven’s sake, don’t mean what you think they do, and whole concepts, like saeculum, are no longer to be found.  (Saeculum is an old measurement of time referring to the time period between and event and the death of the last person who experienced it.  Food for thought there.) And. Yes indeed, it is often through one’s tears that this partaking occurs, but the disengagement from things like conversation, cooking one’s own food, paying attention to what’s in that food, paying attention to the beings around you, watching where you’re going sort of thing, seems to be increasing exponentially.  I firmly believe that if everyone smoked weed and had a dog? It’d be a lot nicer world.  The same goes for making pizza dough.  There is a LOT of bang for your buck with pizza dough after all: pizza, calzone, and focaccia, just for starters.  Also, just simply being Present makes things smoother, oddly (or not).  It’s not necessary to fill the world up with stuff, and it turns out to be a lot more fun to just pay attention and see what happens.  Even when what happens is Not What You Wanted At All, things are always moving and nothing lasts forever in one condition.  Not to mention the always available opportunity to learn from your mistakes.  Back to it, for now, with renewed praying for..er…Self Control When Things Get Dicey.

Blessings and thanks!!!!!!