Cleaning house

“Your task is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Rumi

New skin for the old ceremony

Happy happy and a cup of kindness yet, whatever calendar you follow: the Gregorian or maybe even the rabbit in the moon.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot.

In the elastic measurement of time.
For auld lang syne, for auld lang syne.

And oh the piper!
Though bonds cannot be unforged, seas between us broad have roared.

Mutual hearts tide-tossed
in the highlands.

For auld lang syne, for auld lang syne.

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup !
and surely I’ll buy mine !
And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine ;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine^† ;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give us a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

[this the minimalist English translation of the Robbie Burns classic. For other versions see the Wikipedia article here ]

Shinrinyoku down by the river

I had heard that the local canoe and kayak club does a New Year's Day paddle on the Little Spokane River. I have often noticed signs for Riverside State Park which encompasses parts of the Spokane and the Little Spokane rivers. I thought to do a little reconnaissance today even though I do not have the correct equipment for a mid winter paddle. No booties, no gloves, no waterproof clothing. Just Merlin and sprayskirt. Definitely not enough for sub-zero temperatures.

What a gem I discovered! Rocks and boughs lightly dusted with snow - just like icing sugar. The river, when I first sighted it, was calm and reflective glimpsed through trees.

I stumble upon on a campground with a suspension bridge at the Bowl and Pitcher rapids. At this point the Little Spokane does a little bit of boiling and roiling. Though water at the bridge was an exquisite shade of blue, there was way too much of the white froth in it - not exactly the kind of water I want to get my Merlin into. Strange natural menhirs and groupings of boulders rose up.
Piles of rocks tumble suddenly amongst the trees. Deer have left me scribbled messages in the snow, telling me stories of their haste or leisure: here one ran and leapt, there one wandered and browsed. I have the whole place mostly to myself apart from one runner and a father and daughter walking the dog.I bathed in wintery forest. Shinrinyoku which roughly translates as forest bathing, is a recognized stress relieving activity in Japan. If only the medical profession in the unbrave new world were so enlightened. Doctor, I need a prescription for ten days of total immersion in forests. Thankyou and oh yes, charge my Washington State Park Discover Pass entry permit to my health insurance please. The National Parks Pass too, while you are about it, so I can take my healing nationwide.
I can see that the Bowl and Pitcher rapids would be a popular campground and picnic spot in summer and busy, just 6 miles from downtown Spokane. But on this day it offered blessed solitude filled with spirit and those healing essential wood oils.
In the swing bridge I meet up once more with my old friends the Civilian Conservation Corps . The bridge I walked across today was redone in 1998, on the original plans built by young (unmarried) men working for $30 a week, $25 of which was sent directly to their parents. Civilian Conservation Corps. Alleviating depression. Something to think about.

And oh yes: I never did discover the boat launch I sought. Rats! Now I have to explore this 10,000 acre park again. And, no, there isn't time to outfit myself with cold weather paddle gear before New Year's Day. Pity.

Presence and absence: enduring

Christmas day is so quiet, hardly a car in the streets. The occasional snowflake floats lightly, but mostly it is a day of low skies and cold, very cold temperatures, way below freezing.

I spend a few hours going walkabout, looking here, looking there, seeking colour, finding a muted somber palette.
The creek is lacy edged, frozen in motion in parts, with hoar frost adding an extra exquisite filigree.An ancient dog joins me for a bit but turns back after a while. I fear my pace is too much for him. It feels as though he is close to death, a fitting companion for this silent day. Death walks with me again. And again.
The living are elsewhere, having left only tracks. Cats have no secret stalkings in winter here: the snow tells tales on them. Car tracks, boots tracks, deer tracks and dogs tracks mingle and cross, all sharing the same earth. My skin feels like a sieve, letting everything in.

In an abandoned lot, I discover a tree hung with frozen apples. No golden apples of the sun these, they are the colour of dried blood.
I visit the beaver dam and find it narrowed and frosty. The moving water flows through the sieve I am become. I give it all away to the brooding landscape. To be content-less in winter.
I circle back to town to empty the library bookdrop. My footprints are the only ones up the library path since the day before.

Retuning to Halemakua's silence, I start on knitting a wild shawl, using up random left-overs of yarn from my stash basket.

Knitting, there's always knitting. Penelope the faithful, weaving and unraveling. Chanelling Mother. Who knitted always in the chair by the window.

This was a first Christmas without a phone call to Mother. I hold her absence close, through a day full of her presence.

This too shall pass.

Waiting.

For grace. Admiring other people's woodpiles. These fragments I have shored up against my ruin.

Old moon/modern elves

Early on dawn of solstice eve, I open the bedroom curtains to the thin crescent of the old moon tangled in the branches of the backyard tree. Stars sparkled about too.

Clearing all my cameras for the new year this morning, one strange and atmospheric image, which I do not remember taking, turns up in my albums.

Dang! this modern generation of elves. They are so computer literate. Can't leave any electronic equipment lying around these days or they get into it. That or my recall function is showing signs of needing an upgrade.

I do, however, remember painting a moon tangled in the branches of a tree once. It was on a glass door of a rented room (R14 a month, shared bathroom) down an alley off New Street in the old G'town just up from Paulas bakery. Some thirty six years ago to the day. Christmas 1975. Lionheart would have been a newly generated, fast dividing, six week sprog floating in his still tiny amniotic bubble.

Funny how images reoccur in the spiral dance.

Making tracks: backyard treasure maps

I go for a walkabout around the snowy town. Instead of going out front onto the major routes, I duck out the alley running behind Halemakua where I find complex maps.Bird prints looking like airplanes. Like those flight trackers on long flights.
I think it must be Quail love dance. Maybe code for good food. Or: this way to the family reunion.

White Christmas, no dreaming

On the eve of my second ever white Christmas I do a town walkabout. To clear the library bookdrop and stretch my legs.
Snow is falling lightly. A bizarre Santa and elf drive by on a tractor distributing soft toys. What no reindeer? Have they all been hunted out then?Sirens and a column of black smoke alert me to a house burning down at the end of the street. Two fire engines rush past to join the ambulance, police car and multiple pick up trucks which have already gathered. Local volunteer firemen hurl themsleves into the fray, still pulling on jackets and helmets, even as they move hoses into place and begin quelling the leaping flames.

Gorgeous in the Gorge

Returning from Breitenbush Hot Springs I take the scenic route on the northern, Washington State side of the Columbia Gorge.

Swimming upstream. Not to spawn, but to go to ground for the winter.
Though I usually dread the return route, this turned out to be a beautiful journey begun as soon after breakfast as I could tear myself away, in cold clear sunshine, turning increasingly to mist then snow by Ritzville again. A long day of the wheels and engine singing, the pipes of the roof racks playing haunting flute arias.
By-passing Portland I do stop at a scenic overlook to contemplate the Wilamette Falls, Mount Hood rising snow capped and magnificent on the clear blue horizon. I feel near to my dear Portland friends even if time does not allow me to visit.

A few hours later, I stop at Beacon Rock State Park for a refreshment break, to use the toilets and take a short walk in thin sunshine and ethereal light.
Then it is back behind the wheel. By the time I get to Halemakua around 7 pm, my ears are ringing. I am light and bodiless, transformed by the road.

Taking the waters

So there I was, last weekend, on such a roll of catching up. Then the internet disappeared across a swathe of the state. It was restored by Monday evening but by then momentum was broken. I was lost to the work week swing of things. Herewith: Project Getting Up To Date, take two:
Early December it dawned on me that I had a day or two of leave to use or lose before the end of the year. After the initial mid-November snowpocalypse, we had been having weeks of very cold but snow free and exceptionally dry (for the season) weather. The forest service roads to Breitenbush Hot Springs were going to be navigable even for me in my 2 wheel drive amber golden liquid sunshine, huge-hearted Ford Ranger.

A few phone calls secured me two nights of personal retreat in a private cabin at at the magic waters. Nothing like last minute, impulse boltholes.

With five bags of sand and a box of rocks in the back, I abandoned the unpacking into Halemakua and embraced the open road. More than 1000 roundtrip miles of it. A little blown snow after Spokane, incredible filigree of hoar frost at a reststop around Ritzville. In the interests of speed I took the Oregon side of the Gorge, putting the Columbia on my right. The wheels whirred. The engine hummed. I made good time, so much so that I had to spend an hour or two killing time, wandering the outlet mall at Woodburn - amazed at all there was to buy and all that I didn't want to buy - so that I did not arrive before the permissible time of 3 pm.

New rules at BB. Don't arrive early. One is checked in by a parking lot gatekeeper with an iPad. Then handed on to the Control Freaks in the Main office. Fortunately I am a BB veteran and there for the healing waters, thus am able to let the personality problems of the few poisonous bad apples wash over me. But you know what they say about the one bad apple in the box? Will hasten the rot in all the others. Breitenbush Community take note: it matters how every one of you deal with the paying guests. We are, after all, your bread and butter.

The moon was a day over full, fresh from that magical total eclipse and hanging huge in the night skies as I soaked. The geothermally heated water was as healing as always. Hoar frost lay thick on the vegetation in the meadows, unmelting all day. My cabin at the end of the row was just the private and restorative cave I needed. It was a good break in spite of the giggly, noisy pack of sorority sisters with their coy bikini bottoms and talk of gigabytes and apps in the pools putting the contemplative Shakti Yoga goddesses to route every time.

The back pages

Rotten coconut really gives life a bad taste.

Note to self: avoid coconuts for a while. No more illusions. Yeah, right.

Blooming marvellous

Midwinter's long dark Solstice night I dreamed of rampant bloomings of deep magenta Cosmos, the garden flower of the Asteraceae family, native to Mexico and southern USA, but which grows wild in many parts of the old country. Especially I remember it flowering alongside the roads in die ou Vrystaat.

The flowers in my dream: somehow I had been responsible for the collection and selection of the seed from whence they were sprung, though another, younger, had done the sowing.

And so the promise of a new season dawns.

Fair weather friends: going downhill at Sherman's Pass

The sun was shining on a recent Sunday. I felt the need to be outside.

I mistakenly thought it would be easy to find a snowshoe route in the 5575 ft high Sherman Pass area. Unfortunately a little walk in the snowy peaks wasn't to be: the Forestry department parking lot I had planned on pulling into was closed for the season. Assertively so behind a 6 foot high snow berm.

Story of my life these days: Closed for the Season. Forest Service is turning out to be a fair weather friend. White Mountain Fire overlook was also closed. Ditto the Sherman Pass Overlook.
Oh well, I still got to see what is over the other side, to look west a little, into the Okonagon.

I also discovered three wolves at the top of the pass. I have never noticed them there before. Metal wolves, now there is something.

Bargain basement: my own southern continent

Halemakua has a basement the entire footprint of the house. This raises the living area up so one is living on a pocket of air. Musty, fusty mysterious air, but bouyant air all the same. I feel it through my feet, like doing yoga on a cloud.

Besides the fire breathing dragon of a gas furnace, the washing machines are housed downunder. A washer and drier came with the property. My little twin tub, so useful for dyeing, now sits alongside a laundry sink too.A small amount of natural light is let in by little windows on four sides, just above ground level.

For the rest the basement is a musty smelling twilight filled with cobwebs, sparsely supplied with bare lightbulbs, crisscrossed with mysterious pipes, beams and ducts. A dangerous place for absent minded tall people who have a tendency to bump their heads, I can just stand up into my barefoot 5 ft 10 some inches in most places.

I see great potential for textile printing studio down here where I don't need to worry too much about ink spills on rented carpets. Spiders be warned: I have invasion plans for your territory. Perhaps a peaceful cohabitation can be negotiated.

Lighting the long dark

Snow season sunrises are some of the most atmospheric. Fleeting, though. One has to glance up at the exact moment, seize them as they flare and fly.

My brilliant ascension

We are still in November. (Today is my day to really catch up with the accounting of my life). Still digging out from under mounds of snow.
Unpacking into the new house, interiors begin to glow warm and bright as the windows, framed at the top by icicles, show me scenes of snow snow snow, snow and ice.I go walkabout, seeing deer tracks outside the ambulance department, the creek lacy edge with ice, old leaves and seed heads, peeking out from under white mantles.

I discover that there is nothing bluer than a sunshine sky above snow. Blinding, where-are-my-sunglasses brightness.

A continuation of snow

Lizard dreaming: the murmur of maternal lamentation playing with iguanas

My mother speaks to me in lizards.

While in the old country recently, attending to my mother's death, I kept encountering lizards.
They were basking on rocks and benches amongst the spring blossoms and herbs in both the wild gardens of Rose and Jennifer.Mosaic lizards crawled around the mirrors in the bathroom at Buccaneers Backpackers where the yoga palace was also alive with the camera-shy, reptilian dreamtime beasties.
A few weeks after my return from the ancestral motherland journey, a parcel arrives in the mail. Inside, a small container of pieces of jewelry my mother had put together for me a month or so before she crossed the line. Some marquisette leaf earrings and two broaches. One of them them a marquisette lizard.
I am stopped still, full of wonder. She reached backward into my life, from her death, putting me into dreamtime, detached and intuitive. Thank you, Mother, for taking me down down down where the iguanas play.

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you