what sustains us

I find, still, that when I’m at points of transition or challenge, I cook a lot.  Given that adventure is often my criteria (get me OUTTA HERE!), I make a lot of stuff for the first time and the Partner winds up on extended trips to exotic locales while I work on pickles, chapattis, pasta, Asian noodles, reproducing roasted vegetable dishes from fancy places, or experimenting with cooking whatever protein our friends bring from their various enterprises.

However, of late it’s been tortillas and tacos.  And tamales.  Salsas, rajas,  multi colored rice, and the real mind blower: chile rellenos.  The interesting thing about this is I always thought that ALL this stuff from scratch was beyond my ability as a cook.   Which kind of dovetails with the realization of late that somehow I NEVER think I can do things.  (Which of course is ridiculous since I do things all the time, attempt things, and generally scramble through the air on a fiery trapeze with all the accompanying accidents and revelations.)  All the self doubt which has accompanied me from childhood turns out to be rather hard to let go of.

But I did have what might be a productive insight.  A memory came up in relation to all this flailing about, and although it was REALLY old, it had a lot of current power and pain.  I was blown away by the energy this occurrence turned out to have and how much the event had shaped my attitude about things.   And how inappropriate that attitude is, was, and always will be.  Not to mention that none of the other people involved in the situation probably have any memory of it whatsoever.  But it had a decisive impact on my sense of self and it’s been banging around with me- and all this time I could have just set it down.  Now it almost feels like a body part but really? It’s got to go.

SO.  Last night I ventured forth where I had not dared go before. Ta da, I thought.  Not, perhaps, a huge big deal Gentle Reader, but I made pita bread.  And it tasted like pita bread, split on the interior like pita bread.  Really easy and fun to make, as it turns out.  It went very well with the falafel I made, too.  The thing of it is, there’s so much you can accomplish if you just let yourself.  Give it a go, and shut up while so doing.

There’s still the whole magic question and the what am I now that I’m grown up question, of course, but I think that’s probably a matter of inadequate definitions.  The magic issue generally boils down to whether one functions to build power or express love.  Magic happens both ways but the end results are not the same.  Like non-violence, sometimes it can take a long time but haste is not always the best way.  In that vein, my next project is going to be routinely getting dinner on the table in less than an hour (thus addressing part of the grown up thing).  Balancing the long range with the productive goal of having dinner before total darkness descends.  In short, the middle way.  Still looking for it, but tacos are an immeasurable aid in the quest.

love made visible

So yes, Gentle Reader, I do wake up in more or less a state of anxiety every day.  It’s better than it used to be, for sure, and offers AMPLE OPPORTUNITY for re-reading the Dalai Lama (I even understand parts of what he’s talking about now, which amazes me) and pondering the truth of impermanence and the space in things, and how it all interacts with us so that change is possible.  We got change if you want it, in other words.  And even if you don’t, so it’s wise to pay attention.

ANYWAY.  Today, after such a morning’s brain trajectory, it was another breakfast with the Partner and the Dog.  The Dog has recently been Saved by Benadryl and is quite bouncy now that he’s over his massive allergic reaction to grass. (WE, however, are still exhausted from the stress.) Even though he is not a small individual, he is totally confident that he can sit on your lap and crawl up on your shoulders.  While this is not a completely pain free experience for the sittee/the Partner, I can tell it’s fun because of the huge smile on the sittee’s face.  This morning was extraordinary because, as I sat with my tankard of coffee and the Dog stretched up and over the Partner’s back, suddenly I saw an incredible glow and the Partner looked twenty years younger.   I mentioned it and he said he reckoned it was from all the licking he’d received a few minutes earlier- the saliva acted like super serum.  He can be very funny that way.

But what I saw was, in the Partner’s words, the Dog laying a lot of love down on him.  I actually SAW love, and boy is it beautiful. Golden, light, happy.  Really, it is about the only thing worth focusing on, because it can do anything- and we have to learn to allow such things to happen instead of, as so often happens, wondering what will happen when a winged pig flies into the house brandishing a super soaker.  Apparently having a dog is one of the basic elements in that Instruction, which seems to be: You’ll never understand it all, but you can, and should, enjoy it all more often than not.

the roller coaster of learning

I’ve been having all sorts of thoughts and realizations of late, Gentle Reader.  Naturally they flow most when I’m not able to write them down, but that is the way of it.  Sometimes, or usually, I think, that’s OK because those ideas, or whatever they are, are rolling around in the ethers of my brain.  Sooner or later there will be a report from the front.

And whaddaya know? A report materialized.  My birthday was on Easter this year, so aside from the frivolity (cake!!! EXTRA wine!!! ASPARAGUS!! STEAK!!) (and, I believe we saw not one but FOUR Easter Bunnies) I found my thoughts revolving rather depressingly around 1) the past and 2) the future.

Not much can be done about the past, or about the fact that each birthday moves us closer to a time when we’ll be in something we have no truthful idea about before we get there.  While this is always true to a certain extent, of course what I mean here is: death.  On top of the unknown future itself.  Which, if  you want to be happy,. you stay out of until you arrive.  Thus always being in the NOW.

While I mulled over the dawning realization that I found the above stuff more than somewhat upsetting, the Report started to be broadcast on the cranial speakers.  You’re just afraid, it said.  There is no room in your head for that fear, and besides it’s giving you a headache.  (Certainly it wasn’t All That Cake…..) And while we’re on the subject? The fact that you have beings you love madly in your life is leading you to fear their loss.  NOT VERY EVOLVED YET ARE WE?  (My broadcaster can be less than tactful.) And then, of course, the triple whammy was revealed.

I was watching something on PBS about James Randi, a magician who “debunked” psychics, in particular a man who seemingly could bend spoons telekinetically (Uri Geller). I got to thinking about the whole idea of magic and psychic things and suddenly it hit me.  And no, it wasn’t that I could’ve had a V8.  It was that perhaps the biggest obstacle to, we might say, realizing my dreams, was me being strung on the line between truth and apparency.  What we’re told is true vs. beyond what we KNOW, ultimately, is true.  It’s very easy for people to dismiss “magic” and the psychic realm because, sadly, there are many practitioners who don’t function with integrity.  It’s another case of external authority being swallowed whole with no critical thinking, things are either black or they’re white.  People are very willing to give up their sovereignty if they think someone will give them the answer they want to hear.  Whether or not it’s true doesn’t seem to matter much.

The thing of it, for me, is this.  Everything I do is, in a sense, based more on magic than anything else, years of study and work notwithstanding.  Magic, to me,  is actually a system of interactions and flow and pattern, and the world as it is being viewed carefully and responded to.  There’s a hell of a lot more to it all than we generally know, or can ever hope to.  And, really? We don’t need to know it all. When I started getting deeply into energetic medicine, I tried very hard to not be one of those individuals in flowing robes laying down gnomic concepts, or being someone who “knew it all”.  Or knew anything, really.  It isn’t about what you KNOW.  It’s about what you are and how that interacts with everything around you- that is magic.  It’s not about manipulation or trickery.  It IS about opening a line of awareness so that whatever is happening can be seen.  Then you are in a much better position to make a decision about how to RESPOND.  I see more and more as the remedies come together for people, how elegant and focused they are, far more than they would be if I just thought about what to do from the perspective of what I’ve studied.

This also means, on some level, that the things I do aren’t replicatable on a big scale- not, let’s say, very commodifiable or prone to being monetized.  I’ve also worried in an ongoing sort of way about just how crazy people thought I was.  Very, probably.

But.  You know what?  Finally, at long last, all that is just fine.  It’s OK.  It is what it is, and the truth is we really don’t need to make choices about believing in magic or not, or worrying whether people don’t like us because they don’t understand us.  It’s enough to know that there is truth in our awareness if we are willing to do the work to develop the muscles.  Truly not about what others think.  Not even about what we think of ourselves.  But very much about what we DO as we go along.  So I’m now on a new project: no grousing around.  There’s a blueprint out there somewhere, and we’re all equally flawed and perfect- but the quest is of paramount importance.  Not a bad birthday!

 

slippery streams

There’s something about blogging that is, naturally, just like real life.  The important thing is to do it, be it, not overthink or overreact, and to be, as Einstein suggested, free of the opinions of others- all without becoming an asshat in the process.

Of course that brings up the pernicious influences and backsliding sorts of things, like wow, people like this! I’m OK! or, oh no! no one likes this and I’m not OK!  Perfectionism creeps in, elongating into procrastination and nothing doing.  Like it all is so important on the opinion level.

I’m coming to the realization that the opinion level is where we get sick, get stuck, get distracted and removed from purpose.  It’s kind of like the monetization of your hopes and dreams, wherein for the most part they get crushed and you forget what time it really is.  This can be in the form of working at a job you hate, or becoming overly focused on “being successful” in whatever thing you’re doing and turning it into a carrot on stick scenario.  It can be about sticking to a paradigm or mindset, and insisting others do as well,  because you’re too afraid to step outside of what you think your safety level is.  In any event, all of this tends to separate you from your true self.  Without connection to your true self, what can you really do?

The use of one’s will is an interesting thing.  Too much focus on that and you’re stuck in an egoic quagmire, not enough and you’re without boundaries.  Religion, and actually? advertising, both attempt to define what will is and how it is to be used, but that’s just more of the imposition of external authority we’re all so used to, instead of doing the thinking for ourselves.  Life could be a whole lot easier if one were able to drop the opinions and external controls and just get in the flow of what is actually going on, respond to it, and go from there.  It changes the nature of pain completely, for one thing.  You’re not clinging to it like a burning spar in a shipwreck.  You feel the pain, for sure.  But if you’re moving in harmony with what is around you- and however inharmonious it may be you can do this- the overall field of energy can be seen for what it is, which is? LOVE.  With that awareness one is, somehow, able to continue, to go on, to proceed and succeed.

It is probably no mystery that this precise issue has been turning me into a bit of a couch potato of late. ( The weeds in the garden think they’ve won the battle, hands down. But.) There’s something to do, but it’s raining.  I have an idea, but I just forgot it.  How much energy is there to use today? What the heck was I doing before now? I almost feel like someone who’s been brought back to life as I look at the tools of my existence, realize I’m quite able to use them but don’t necessarily connect any more with the steps that got me to technical proficiency.  The big thing is ALWAYS not to run away from feeling.  Not to wallow in it either, but to simply look and experience and see it as truthfully as possible.   This process is leaving me with an interior that feels scrubbed and empty and ready for the next life to come in.  It is leaving me with the ability to focus more on what IS and not what I think I may have LOST.  The pain is still there; sometimes I feel my heart literally contract and bleed when things pass across my mind’s eye, as well as when I just look at what is happening right in front of me.  But the important thing is that our isolation from each other is an illusion.  Our thoughts do create tangible results.  The rest of it is, actually, pretty straightforward. If it is challenging in terms of implementation when we think of things like, say, Trump,  or Syria, or the gas leak in southern California, or bees or plant seeds, that is the point where we step back, take a breath, and apply ourselves to how we can cooperatively re-do our reality, shaping it in balance, not in fear.  The challenge is to find a substitute for violence and constriction, isn’t it?  That certainly seems like it might well start with observing our own, true, inner spaciousness.

Meanwhile, I was gently lured into the day by the Dog, who woke me up by first belching quietly in my ear, then beginning to hiccup into my neck.  Reminder, if one were needed, of how much I have to be grateful for, not the least of which are YOU, Gentle Readers!  I am always humbled and surprised and happy that you are out there.  Let us go forth, yes?

something, and more of it

A bit of a rocky start today, Gentle Reader.  Notwithstanding first crack out of the bag chest pain which I chalked up to…oh, reality? it was dicey.  The french press plunger decided to spray boiling hot water and coffee grounds all over a fresh loaf of bread instead of plunging down and keeping it in the pot as per usual.  The Dog went out and rolled, quite comprehensively, in Shit. This caused The Partner to blow a tiny part of a gasket and *I* did not take it as well as I might’ve.  Probably I was still reminding myself not to get a big head about just proceeding with the coffee, smarting burn and smile in place.  Sometimes hissy fits are unavoidable, sadly.

So, what is it? that keeps us from staying on an even keel.  Some days the quotidian pile up of whatever it is, be it dishes, vacuuming, armed struggle with the phone company AND the post office (come out big, right?) just gets to be like noxious fumes that remove one’s ability to concentrate on the task at hand and perhaps lapse into total stupor.  No, No! Just do it, I say to myself. Like what you do, and all that.  For the most part I do, but on days like today when it seems like the last bit of wherewithal has been drained from me, like from a car up on a  mechanic’s rack, I can’t figure it out.  Ah well.  Now, the Dog is muscling up on the keyboard, because he has something to say.  Which is, as usual from Dogs, sage advice about how enjoyable things really are if you just play a little bit, then take a nap.

The days when I have no certitude about what I doing, or  want to do, are the days when I don’t want to play, exactly, OR take a nap OR cook anything because why? Too anxious.  And that means I am not in the now, which pretty much always leads to problems.  Thank goodness this Highly Intelligent Dog came to live with us and point such things out.  I just wish it could happen less frequently right after Shit has been Rolled In.  Then again, when better?  I’m now going to go and thank him properly, which will no doubt involve his favorite treat.  And since they’re all favorites, see how easy?  All better.

 

 

clouds of color

The wild plum and cherry trees are blooming now, and they look like clouds that have come down to earth to talk.  The redbuds came out all at once, from Monday to Wednesday, and the juxtaposition of mauve and ivory against the brilliant green of the pastures and the varying foam green and pink hazes of the trees beginning to leaf out against a brilliant blue sky is astonishing, to say the least.  Dot in a few cream colored cows and dark sheep and it looks like paradise, interrupting as it does what seems like one long season here: BURNT, which is divided into HOT and FROZEN.  A bit of gold and wine fall color to mitigate the dried grass colors as we pass from Hot to Frozen, then dark, dark brown and if we’re lucky, MUDDY and cold, with hints of green if you really look.  Spring is even more fleeting than fall but so completely ensorcelling you almost forget that it hardly happens, and its succession of wild flowers goes by in a flash.

In the meantime, the Partner is building some actual steps going into the garden from the deck and soon there will be absolutely no excuse for me not to go out and start pulling weeds.  How we’ll keep the dog from destroying everything this summer is haunting my dreams, but I fully expect him to understand once we’ve explained it to him a few times.

It came to my attention that he really isn’t like other dogs, the Dog.  He, after all, did not really have the benefit of mom and fellow pups to teach him doggy sorts of things since he was all on his own by the tender age of two months.  Being the avatar of love that he is, he just simply assumes that everyone wants to kiss him as much as he wants to kiss them and there is simply no time to waste.  He can jump really high, too, did I mention that?  We were at a pet store looking for a training leash thing to attempt to put an end to Pulling, and they tried to sell us a puppy training package.  He was jumping and smiling and dragging me hither and yon and for a minute it seemed reasonable. Fortunately the Partner’s rationality took over, and he reminded me that the Dog is really a WILD dog, not a tame store purchased dog or even a grown rescue individual.  It’s kind of like expecting a Martian to immediately enjoy a cotillion.  He’s more like the two of us in terms of his responses to things, given his initial orphan status and strength of purpose- I mean, he’s a goof dog but at the same time has an iron paw in a furry glove. He really IS smart and insulting his intelligence isn’t going to work very well, as I have learned. He has an excellent Stern, if Droll, look for moments when I’m making an idiot of myself.  It was a good lesson in not attempting to push a situation into a shape it didn’t want to be in, in any event.

It seems at this point that thinking about consequences is a huge part of life now.  Instead of compulsively doing what one has always done, it seems impossible to not stop and review what’s actually happening, and do it differently this time.  Some days that feels good.  Other days it feels like being completely lost with a map that’s disintegrating before your very eyes.  Those are the days it’s helpful to remember something Gandhi said, which was that whatever you have to do may be very insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.  Whether we believe we’re Ascending or Descending, it’s for sure all changing and fast.  If we can keep our attention open to that, we might have a chance.  I’m now going to go practice my dog speak and perfect my taco preparation.  More on tacos, and galaxies, soon.

back, forth, back again

In and among all the dizzying occurrences of late, some actual exciting news happened:  We now have internet in the yurt, Gentle Reader.  Yes.  No longer do I have to trek to coffee and tire repair shops, nor engage in armed struggle with my landlady’s cat while freezing in the dark.   Never mind that the wi-fi doesn’t extend to my tablet, upon which I have the perhaps fantastic notion of posting pictures of the things I make (tonics, tinctures, potions and the occasional tamale) on Instagram.  Since it requires a wireless phone connection I still get to go to town for those truly modern communiques, but.  Running my little non-profit on line as I do just got a bit easier.  And blogging.  Who’d a thunk? Six years at the mast and at long, long last I don’t have to go anywhere else to write.   Thinking of it, i.e. content, all remains elusive, as per usual.

Interestingly it is just as hard to get anything done at home as it was anywhere else.  There must be something about having your laptop lid flipped up while your fingers clatter across the keyboard.  It must make people think: Why, I should TALK to/at this person! They’re obviously not doing anything!  The Dog also feels entitled to put paw to keyboard for some Dog of Mysterious Origin Musings.  Still, it’s to learn from.  Scheduling, GR, that’s what it’s about.  Maybe.

It’s kind of the classic conundrum.  When I was elsewhere, I had specific blocks of time in which to get things done.  It didn’t lend itself to thoroughness, or backing up the hard drive, but the distinct boundaries helped.  At home, there’s always something that needs to be done and jeesh, woman! You’re just SITTING there STARING at that screen.  A revisit to the ongoing challenges of being a woman, trying to do anything that, being largely personal, has no importance to anyone else.  What interests me about this is how the issues morph and come along with you as you morph and go along yourself.  It’s largely about keeping up with the cleaning and honesty, so that when these questionable patches come up there’s no internal static about what is what.  And having clarity which one can express without pettiness, irritation, victimization or aggrandizement of any sort.  Which means on some level that you yourself value what you are doing, just for itself.

This seems to be rather key for all sorts of stuff.  I had some interesting conversations about motivation in healing work lately.  It kind of boils down to you do it because it’s what you ARE and there’s really nothing else to do.  Even if it doesn’t lend itself to monetization.  Doing it because you THINK you should do it, or you want something out of it, or for any kind of power or influence, really doesn’t work. Moreover, it still has to be balanced out with the necessity of making a living, and it seems to me that people often take a rather superior attitude of you-shouldn’t-charge-for-This, or else charge really rather a lot of money because This is So Special.  Perhaps our world is not set up for right livelihood but it still seems to be something worth striving for.  We all need help at times and it shouldn’t be all about the money or the idea that You are Important because You Do X, Y or Z.

Maybe it boils down to our old friend Doubt.  Many teach what they need to know themselves-which may or may not be what you need.  Others are unsure of their own worth and thus tentative about what they offer.  In both cases doubt exists, and the fundamental doubt is about whether there is anything other than oneself to accomplish things with, to be helped and supported by, to provide guidance and acknowledgement.  And, there is, of course, but it takes some time to really be able to rest in that awareness.  Then you have to forget all about it, and just BE.   So much of everything is about just that: BEING.  Funny that it’s so hard to do. Like listening.

Anyway mysteries abound, especially here.  Lettuces are coming up in the garden, and my fennel has become a perennial, even in all this climatic weirdness.  There’s a sign, (which has been up since we came here)  on the road coming home that always catches my eye.  A crudely hand lettered sign on wood, exactly like the many other crudely hand lettered wood signs all over the place here, it says this:

CALLMENOW

IAM

HOME

So.  Is, or is not, the truth out there?  This sign’s a perfect example, to my mind, of the many levels to every single thing.  Or perhaps just a small monument to the lack of awareness thereof.  It leaves a mark, this stuff.

 

 

 

what the heck is time, anyway?

It’s starting to seem like either a huge load of unset jello being poured over me constantly or else? Something that contains everything in it and must be sorted through moment to moment for relevant clues.

Which is to say I haven’t been getting too much accomplished.  Storms, mud, power outages, dog walking and making pasta have been about the apex of late.  It’s all fueled by a massive pressure system of indecision which sooner or later will…burst? Probably.  We just hope for some clarity, as always.

There has always been an equal push pull for me between staying in and going out.  This may mean I am by nature a hermit, or it may mean that I’m just a scaredy cat about showing myself at all, anywhere, any time.   Balancing the demands of world/self, “career”/home- this is challenging stuff, Gentle Reader.  I used to handle it before by functioning at top speed all the time, go go go, do do do, perform perform perform.  Moving so fast I was perhaps just a blip on people’s screens.  This of course resulted in a blown out nervous system and necessary adjustments in the daily trajectory.  As my teacher said, we are human beings, not human doings.  That was one memo I certainly didn’t get in a timely manner, thinking as I did that doing equaled being accepted.

Now that we’re, clearly, living in a manner we might call off the grid remote, I’m finding that the whole prospect of “going outside” is even more challenging that it was before.  I mean, going out for long walks is one thing even if it now is completely tick laden and thus somewhat anxiety provoking.  But what about going out into the WORLD? I *think* I want my writing to be read, my work to be useful to many- but that may mean recognizing myself as something I never saw before, in a good way for once. Not telling people what to expect before they even get to that point. Just…putting it out there.  Quite the endeavor, GR, even if undertaken a bit late in the day.

Meanwhile, Mt. Shasta looks astounding with the top above the clouds, everything sparkling and luminous.  Wild flowers are breaking through the wet earth with their shoots, and the wild pigs are back en masse, eating all the chanterelles before we can get to them.  The stream has only flooded once so far in all these storms, our road here hasn’t collapsed, and the power did indeed come back on, after I found the candles.  It’s all good, in a strange way, especially since I now have the Dog to bounce things off- he’s remarkably perceptive and I now understand “best friend” in a whole new way.  Perhaps progress IS being made, after all.

 

and then?

I must say, Gentle Reader, it FEELS like a different year but then again.  It could just be the way a person feels when they’re on leave from a combat position.

However, one thing is definitely true: I am now an even firmer believer in Pneuma,  the Tao, miracles, the energies of the universe- all of those phrases used to connote something bigger than our minds can initially comprehend but in which we swim, always.  Not the top down authority of “religion” but the actual real deal that, while often obscured by smoke and mirrors, still exists and moves our lives.

To wit: The Dog almost died. Yes, really.  We gave him some fresh trout (which, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I went fishing, was perfectly OK), not realizing that it would make him deathly ill, parasites and bacteria and the whole megilla.  Which it did.  The symptoms started the day before Christmas Eve (ataxia, diarrhea, no eating, no smiling), and our vet was closed for the four days of Christmas holiday commencing with Christmas Eve, as well as for New Year’s.  Thinking he might’ve eaten something strange outside, we thought we’d give it a couple of days to go away.  It didn’t. We had a three day window of Veterinary opportunity, in short, between festivities.  He couldn’t eat, couldn’t, after I crawled around in pre-dawn darkness scraping up a diarrhea sample to take to the vet on the Monday after Christmas, take his medicine without throwing up.  The smell, let’s just say, was not festive. He lost, we think, about 12 pounds.  We got different meds for him post poop sample, which had all things been equal at the time, he could chew like a treat.

Given that things were NOT equal at the time, we found ourselves on New Year’s Eve confronting the dismal prospect of him wasting away, immediately and painfully, since we didn’t have the money to take him to the Animal Hospital for IV treatment, and there was no such thing as eating ANYTHING much less opening the capacious jaw for pill installation.

So.  It was pretty gloomy for a minute.  The most awful thoughts were on parade and the mere thought of Him Not Being Around, Underfoot With Squeak Toy, was more painful than I could’ve imagined. Then somehow, a light went off in my head, and I thought, well, heck.  Given that what I *do*, for the most part, is based on energy it made sense to at least clean up my own energetic output in the moment and stop dwelling on the rottenness of it all.  Suddenly a calm trust happened, out of nowhere.  Really.  The Partner said that we, at least, needed to eat.  We decided on scrambled eggs with mushrooms, ham and cheese (all organic and uncured, thank you very much).   We sat down and all of a sudden the Partner got up, took his plate over to The Dog, who raised his bleary red eyes to it, lifted his head up in interest, and ate everything.  Every last speck.  We gave it half an hour, and after no vomit ensued, gave him his first dose of antibiotics. (The Partner celebrated with a nut butter and jam sandwich.)  By the end of New Year’s Day,The Dog was back on his feet and eating more scrambled eggs in between trottings around outside maintaining order.  Today? He’s back to full force, doing his two foot in the air bunny hops, squeaking his toys, and eating his dog food and treats ravenously.  As well as taking his pills as though they were treats.

Personally? I think this is a miracle.  I also think these things, miracles, actually do happen all the time, and something of what it takes to experience them is simple.  You let go of thinking that “you” can “do” or “control” anything.  You sit with what is, what’s in front of you, and give your best attention to it.  It isn’t about power, or manipulation, or wish fulfillment, or any religious or other figures stepping in.  It is, actually, about love.  Like everything turns out to be, in the end.

fight the power

AS in the old Isley Brothers song, Gentle Reader.  I won’t bore you with tales of unscrupulous, if church going, wood sellers or psycho white supremacist phone repair guys.  Suffice it to say that I have retained my composure in the stress spots, there is more right sized wood than before and the phone IS working, even if the level in the vodka bottle has gone down, along with my supply of patience.

But.  The good news continues to be the natural world.  Every morning now the Siskiyous and Mt. Shasta are PINK.  PINK!!!! ( I’d take a picture but it currently takes both hands to keep The Dog in line.)  Covered with snow for the first time in a long time, the sunrise bathes them in a truly otherworldly peach glow.  It’s like being on the inside of a song.  Two days ago there were lemniscate clouds over the Siskiyous: mountains diamond white in the sunrise, clouds pink, then back to normal in a fleeting moment.  That’s where the focus goes these days, really.  On the Pink.