The summary:

Well, first you want to check out the photos, here.

Kazha's first experience traveling with us was fun. The first morning there, she encountered her first deer, who then, promptly, decided to encounter her. Yep, the deer followed her through the backyard of my parents' house, as Dave and I watched, very carefully. Kazha then wandered through a gap in the fence to the alley. Wanting to make sure she didn't get too far, I skirted around the observing deer one way, Dave another, and we cornered the dog. As she tried to escape us by dashing back into the yard, she startled the deer, who then bounded backwards and back over the fence. It was rather surprising and funny! We then observed that there were three deer hanging out in the yard. Perhaps the same three that were fawns last year?

Anyway, we wandered around town the first day, just enjoying the view and the relaxation. I got a lot of knitting done that day, and Dave started a new Tony Hillerman book. Mom and Dad read and relaxed, too. We had a nice gazpacho for lunch that my mom made. Yummy! Then we went to Nanda Ghan's, a great local restaurant I'd recommend to anyone, for dinner. After that, we took a great long walk, which is where all the sunset photos came from. This is one of my favorites--the East Spanish Peak with the last rays of pink light on it, and the moon shining above...



The next day, on the 4th, Dave and I went for a hike at Blue and Bear Lakes... a little too crowded for our taste, but storm clouds threatened, so we really couldn't go anywhere farther. Still, I got some nice photos of flowers and Kazha on the trail.





And that gave us enough time to get back into town and go to Art in the Park for the afternoon. That's after my mom and dad went to the Cuchara parade. So we wandered, and we found this artist, R. Wade Brown. He had a wonderful piece we couldn't resist... stark white background with a petroglyph looking bison hunt image on it. Beautiful enough that we couldn't resist it. We're working on paying him in installments over the summer to purchase the piece. Hooray for layaway! Another artist there was Barbara Kowalik, who makes shields. She says the symbols are common ones, but she learns the common meanings and then interprets them herself in her works. Take a look at the bottom right of this page to see one, which is one of Dave's favorites. We'd each like to have one that represents each of us, someday. Carla Romero is another painter with works we would love to have someday... when we have a lot of room and more money. :) But admire her work, because it's very striking.

So then, on Saturday night we had barbecued ribs with my dad's homemade sauce (yum!) and baked potatoes and corn. And then everyone was exhausted, so Mom and Pop went to bed early and Dave and I stayed up to read, knit, and chat in a hush. Kazha was not thrilled with the fireworks, but she did okay, considering we didn't have her rescue remedy with us.

Sunday was a nice egg breakfast and then another long walk, this time up through the golf course. That's where I got the lovely bright daylight photos of the Spanish Peaks--Wahatoya. Seeing the clouds roiling over the peaks brought to mind the concept that local NDN tribes had that all weather for the whole world originated with the peaks. The lifeblood of the plains in the area comes from the clouds that have their start over those mountains. It's awestriking. Heh.



We bought our artwork on Sunday before having a last serving of gazpacho and a sandwich and heading back to Denver. A little bit north of Walsenburg, we ran into one of the worst storms I've encountered--and the worst one I've ever had to drive through. We had to pull over while the nearly golf-ball size hail pounded our car while lightning flashed around. The hail was strong enough that we couldn't hear thunder. We saw a few motorcyclists huddling in the high grass as we were able to start off again. We later learned that many bikers found shelter in the cars of other generous people. We'd have done the same if they'd been anywhere near us when we stopped. That hail had to hurt...

When we finally got going again, we encountered a serious accident, with one car that had flipped over, with the top crushed. Everyone else seemed okay, but we know people were trapped in that car. We saw one person's foot near a window, moving. Our prayers went and go out to those people in hopes that they are alright. Many had stopped to help, and we didn't want to be excessive help that would likely hinder, so we kept on. One of those who stopped was a truck driver, so we feel certain he probably radioed the accident in, while several others were directing traffic and trying to comfort those who were trapped. Still, I wish I could find news of the accident to know if the people are okay. I can't find any word...

We traveled on, going through two more storms that seemed much less intimidating, and finally got home to safety with a slightly spooked dog, arriving to find a cat desperate for attention. And, well, that's pretty much it. Nice break. Not long enough, but certainly nice.

Blessings to all our loved ones and anyone else who stumbles here--hope your weekend was as nice, whether or not you had a holiday to celebrate.

Peace

Just a taste of what's coming...



Peace

It's great to wake up to good news on a Monday morning...

Awoooooooooooooo!

Peace

No matter the old adage... the grass IS always greener on the other side of the sealed office window.

*sigh*

Peace?

Well, maybe not so much yet, but I’ve realized just how right Judith and Gail were after my last posting…

I’m in withdrawal mode and intend to stay that way a bit longer. That’s what this time of year is for, and that’s what I intend to use it for. I’m coiling the spring, so to speak, and getting ready to let the turning of the Winter Solstice put me through my paces.

We still have Sa’rits, and it’s still very hard. But we’re finding more avenues through which to work, and have a potentially interested family. There’s a bit of a red flag, but we’ll give them an application and see how it works out. The good part is, they live in our neighborhood, so we’d be able to keep track of how things go.

I’ve realized that part of my downtime is my SAD hitting hard, and with the stress at the same time, that’s just deadly. I went back to the herbalist and got a refill of my tincture, and some pink rosebuds to put in my balance tea, and as long as I start remembering to bring it all to work with me, I’ll hit that regimen again to get myself back to some semblance of non-depression.

In the meantime, Dave and I are working on a few things together—his job, an idea, music, helping this dog, and getting our house clean so we can have company for the holidays. We have a dinner club now, meeting once a month, and we’re hosting the December gathering, at which Dave will cook. So we have to get everything cleaned up and presentable. Not to mention I would like to have a clean kitchen for making our turkey this year. And I’d love to have decorations out and looking pretty without all the clutter.

But of course I have to motivate myself for that. And motivation is hard to come by. I’m working on it, and hopefully the treatments I have now will help.

As another hope, I want to focus more on the idea of Advent this year, as I tried to focus on Lent earlier—even if for me it’s the Advent of Winter Solstice. I want to work through the process of recognizing the hole that needs to be filled, and finding the meaning that fills it. Recognize in the darkness the light that will return and the preparation needed to welcome it.

I’ve been empty for almost a full year now. Time to drink in and nourish and balance.

Peace

I've read a lot about established religion/spiritual structure, but have never been so deeply committed to someone else's idea of my spirituality to fully follow through on any indoctrination.

 Of course, here, we have the discussions about feeling our own way. About how truly living the Irish means not four elements, but three. The Chinese, five. Some Native American beliefs recognize six or eight directions (depending, with other variations I'm sure), not four. Everything varies, and no two cultures really see things the same way.

Along similar lines, I've read and learned a lot about the chakras, but have only nominally worked with them. They don't really mean much to me except in that I have understood them through the eyes of others. Then, at one point long ago, I found a book that some of you have heard me talk about that discusses Russian sorcery/paganism. That book discusses all the chakras (which seems misplaced, but I digress), but focuses on one: the sacral. In that chakra, according to this particular Russian pagan, lives the dzizn--the life force (basically pronounced "jeez'n"--I prefer calling that region by this name instead of the sacral chakra). The gut is the home to the largest life thrust we own.

Having done yoga twice this week, I was surprised to notice three regions open up during my meditations at the end of practice. The dzizn was one of them. On Tuesday, it glowed a pale blue in my mind. The heart and crown were the other two, pink and white, respectively. Today, again the dzizn was pale blue and heart was pink. Crown shifted to pale yellow. After going a little deeper (and applying more thought than is probably technically feasible in meditation) I realized that dzizn was a living, glowing green, heart was a vibrant crimson red, and crown had become the blue, but deep and throbbing--the three primary colors of the spectrum. 


But the key point I'm meandering around, here, is that--while I know I'm a "throat chakra person," and I can define all the chakras as compared to Maslow's hierarchy of human spiritual/mental development, and identify the colors ascribed to the chakras by traditional Hindu and not so traditional New Age practice, etcetera, etcetera--the three areas that showed up to me in my meditation connected with me, really resonated, more than any discussion of the chakras ever has. I've always seen human existence as containing, in general terms, four elements. No, not water, air, fire, and earth... but body, mind, heart, and spirit. In both meditations, Tuesday and today, these three primary colors of the spectrum came together as the white glow that I often see filling the body when I do healing work--and white has always been spirit for me. So, ultimately, green is the body and the life force at its core. Red, of course, is heart--emotion and passion. The blue is mind, thought, process. And these three primaries came together to become white light, as is true in the actual light spectrum, representing the spirit that courses through all of it. What Is, from microcosm to macrocosm, from universal reality to physical representation. I love it.

Even more, without even relating it to the original meditations and what I got from them... and bear with me, here, as this may seem to be based on a very shallow premise... ahem--in basic stream of consciousness format: later in the morning, I was putting on my makeup, of all things. I'm wearing mineral makeup lately, because it's healthier for my skin, doesn't spoil or harbor bacteria, and looks more natural, all while covering my red spots (the shallow part, I know). I thought to myself about how I am clothing my skin in the earth. And I thought that was a rather cool idea. Then I thought, well, really, we're always clothing ourselves in the earth. What else can we clothe ourselves in, since everything we wear, eat, touch, make, comes from what we have available to us here on earth, which comes from the earth itself? We ourselves are of the earth, really. This progressed to, well, there's the energy of the sun involved, of course, and stellar light, cosmic radiation, which reaches us, too... we are of the sun and of the stars. And, of course, the thought cycle came full circle as the meditations had. We and the stars and everything in the universe all came from the same place, the same singularity. Mitakuye oyasin--we are all related.

The realization, through both such mundane and spiritual means, that we are "star stuff" (one of my favorite ever metaphors), that we are the universe, never fails to bring me that same shiver of mystical joy that used to come when I was young and dreamed of unicorns and feckies and Yahweh, or later, gods of all descriptions.

Someone said to me a few weeks ago (and said that Brian Greene alludes to this in The Elegant Universe, which I haven't finished reading) that our universe seems to have just happened to form in such a way that allowed it to develop the means to understand itself. That's a pretty impressive thought, whether or not there was a "purpose" behind it.

How magical!

Peace