honoring all of it

We're still in the energy of the Full Moon of Spring dedicated to the spirit that rises

(Josseph the Starwatcher, Taos, NM)

pale sun & music
Things feel calm, suspended in this moment between seasons as the air warms up and there are cheerful bird calls each new day. At this very moment as I write, a meadowlark calls out from a fencepost a few acres away, an owl hoots in a tree somewhere (I've never ever seen it), and red headed finches are in the seed bowl trilling melodically. Temps in the 60s yesterday, expected warmer later today. This morning the sun faced the moon ~ due east and west of each other the rise and fall simultaneous.

the hot sun
Today is the third anniversary of my dear friend Gayle's death. It is a date I will never forget ~ or the Full Moon of that night in an indigo sky and the mysterious sound of drumming that rose with it even as her soul rose. The time between seasons that year was more dramatic than now. It was a long, bitter, unrelenting winter and the earth was still frozen with snow, ice and mud into early April, but that one night the air had the scent of spring in it and a touch of something different.

car slips in icey mud
driving from her house
robin saguinely calls
from bare rose bush
       ~ foolish bird!

monstrous & volatile

On the deck at 5:31 AM. The full moon setting. PJs, flipflops and a sweater. Not as cold then as now at 5:30 PM.That old devil moon that Josseph the Starwatcher predicted would be "monstrous and volatile" lived up to its promise (how does he know this?).  I know the moon's influence is felt before and after the full moment and boy was this true for me! Monday morning was a horrendous time of conflict, misunderstanding and stress. I was about to beg my doctor for Vallium which I haven't used in years and then remembered to just breathe. By afternoon things had improved somewhat (without Vallium) and by today I'm feeling quite different. I text my son: "do you know anyone who is happy?" He answers: Y do you ask that? [good question].  I'm hard-pressed for an answer, only that so many people I talk to are having a hard time. He agrees: it's hard to happy in these times. Oh dear. And now Ron is watching a video of Bill Moyers and guests talking about the inevitable total collapse of our economy as we know it. Fraud. Greed. Deliberate destabilization. Who has the money? No one's talking. I can't dwell on this. Horses. Beautiful tranquil horses in the morning sun.

pondering

Since the last post I've received my new Kindle Fire tablet. It immediately swept me into that learning curve thing and I've spent far too much time playing with it.

It's different, of course, from the Kindle readers I've had in the past which were mostly no-brainers but served well. I'm really not sure if I like this new Kindle Fire. I think I may have ordered the wrong one - should have ordered the HD model - maybe - or held out for the expensive mini-iPad. The screen is mirror-like and definitely needs a no-glare screen protector (which I didn't buy) - it's kind of heavy and bulky. But I'm going to give it a good tryout for another week before I decide to return or keep it.

Sunday drivers
We decide this afternoon to take a drive. I've been obsessed with the Kindle and not working on what I should be working on and Ron is bored, so we take off in the car and head north. Pass over the Rio Grande Gorge bridge and notice new earthship designs under construction. They are a different, sort of tall fairytale houses...

We've often contemplated building an earthship but always somehow backed off before taking the fateful step. Are old tires and aluminum cans really safe to live within? We once asked the architect about that and he said they were studying it. That was decades ago and we haven't heard anything more - and we haven't heard of anyone dying of aluminum can poisoning. We didn't look into it this time either. Just kept on driving and marveled over how our Taos Mountains often resemble photos we've seen of the Himalayas. It's pretty amazing. And while we were marveling over the beauty of these foothills of the Rockies, we were also discussing whether we want to move away from here someday. Where to is always the big question.

Back home after an early dinner, I finish up the toe section on the first new sock using yarn I've had for years in my stash. All the while thinking about my good friend who landed in Vietnam or Cambodia today (I forgot to ask which country she was visiting first). She promises to send me field notes. I love getting bulletins from afar.

bright sun, wind, life

March winds have arrived in full force. The tricky sun is at odds with air gritty with flying dust. It's the kind of day where you have to be careful that you don't do something that will change your life. It feels a little crazy. I've heard about the mistral in France and that judges often pardoned criminals "due to the mistral". Murder by mistral? Well, it could happen here. I try to find a calm place, cup of tea, it doesn't last long. But the fields are greening.

beauty is twice beauty
My meeting yesterday morning with 98 year old Manuel (birthday tomorrow)  put a whole lot of things in perspective. This man, at his advanced age, is slim, gracious, elegant ~ and polite enough to put up with my questions for more than an hour. I brought him a bag of croissants and scones from Taos Cow but he said he'd already eaten a stack of pancakes ~ at dawn!

When I asked him if he had any tips about longevity for the rest of us, his became animated and said, "be outside, the sky, the mountains, sun". This is what he misses most at this time of life, as he is unable to walk his fields ten hours a day as he has done for most of his life. Then he added, "fresh home grown food - organic! we always ate organic food". And always home baked bread. His son is planning a community garden this spring and Manuel will be an integral part of it.

you tried going out
even with a coat
there was too much wind

too much
wind
(Alicia Suskin Ostriker, the volcano sequence, excerpt from "the next day")

Il Irrigador & more

Working like mad today so that I'm free to do an interview and conversation with Manuel Archuleta who will turn 98 years old on March 22. 

Manuel in Des Montes, 2011 "Il Irrigador"

He has been a rancher, farmer, and keeper of the acequia (water/ditch) system in Taos for most of his life. I've been editing the oral history he dictated to his son a couple of years ago for a book. Manuel's mind is clear and there are many memories and facts in his words that I've been sorting through and organizing. His son and I plan to meet with him in the early morning to talk about family tragedies and triumphs that have occurred in the last two years, during which his beloved wife died and his ability to walk the fields and work the ditches has declined. I'm looking forward to it. To simply be in this man's presence is a gift and I'm privileged to have been invited to this project.

the more...
For now, knitting is not on my list of things to do. It's all about pens, cameras, keyboards, words. But I did finish the merino/cashmere socks last night watching a movie I hadn't seen in about 10 years, Desire Me with Greer Garson. Black and white, foggy and moody, the location is Brittany. The last time I watched it I was recovering from surgery (a long ago March) and happily ensconced in my bed with new red yarn and needles that I'd sent Ron to the Yarn Shop in town to pick up for me. I'll wear the new soft blue socks to keep my feet warm in my chilly workroom ~ the weather has turned cold again and I turned down the heat last week.

different soundtracks

blues in the night
or rather day, and we're not talking misery, sorrow, gloom, dejection or doldrums. Just lovely blue yarn, blue skies and the eyes of a cat named Blue....

...at my friend's home yesterday afternoon for tea and homemade lemon tart! She generously sent me home with a big piece to share with Ron, however, he isn't fond of lemon so I had to make the sacrifice and eat it myself! ~ a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

generations 
I don't Twitter, nor do my friends.  We basically do not have a burning need to know what each of us is doing moment by moment. Facebook is enough and often too much. Some of my fb friends are much younger, their lives different from mine and we meet up on other levels based on values, family, politics, shared history. I've noticed something recently. Often I will read one of their posts and have no idea of what the post is about! It also occurs when I'm reading a popular magazine or even [take a deep breath now self] the New Yorker. I know it's a generational thing. And I begin to realize that no matter how hip we of a certain age think we are (we. are. hip.) -- we're really not so in the eyes of younger generations with their own codes. We are, in their lexicon, geezers. Just as our parents/grandparents were to us. 

In Deborah Moggach's novel The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel there is a passage that describes this phenomenon well: "It was as if she were performing in a play and realized, quite suddenly, that the cast had been replaced by actors she had never seen before" -- and I would add: an edited script she hadn't read. If you haven't seen the movie or read the book, it's about older people in various states of disarray and circumstances coming together in a residential hotel in Bangalore. Good story. Both movie and book are worth your time.

yabbering
And now, hipster that I am, I'm turning to the espresso pot on the stove, the tiny blue cup, a single ginger snap. Just the sort of thing I'd be posting about if I were twittering...

cosmic order

and blue
In between other projects I'm knitting as if my life depended upon it. And, really, it's not my life so much as my sanity. By chance I'm in a blue mood again. The package arrived with hand dyed Handmaiden Casbah sock yarn in "glacier". Now I ask you, does this color resemble a glacier? To me it resembles a sky pearl (what the Pueblo people call turquoise).

I was expecting a different color based on the photo I saw. Cool, faded, icey-looking. So I showed it to my friend who loves all sorts of blues, hoping she would like it - she did - but is already going under for the third time with new yarn of her own. At home I browsed patterns. What could I make with just under 400 yards of this merino/cashmere blend in a hot color? A shawl? A lace scarf? four pairs of hand warmers? Then my brilliant brain came up with this: it's sock yarn, why not make socks with it? duh! And it turns out to be the perfect choice. Colorwise (stronger than shown) it's fun, and the feel is deliciously soft. I'm loving it and planning to keep the socks for myself for sitting meditation ~ the yarn was expensive and I haven't snagged a pair of luxury socks for myself in a long time. I forget that a rule for happiness (mine) is to treat myself to something extra special once in a while.

more blues...
Because I was so intent to try out the Casbah yarn immediately, I put aside the sock I'd already made with Opal Van Gogh "Starry Night" and one inch of the second one on the needles.  This yarn is not as soft, but if you've ever used Opal you know it gets softer with wear and lasts nearly forever. This color is also stronger than the picture (my house today is filled with bright silver gray light pouring in from all 51 windows - the cameras don't like that).

So. Because I'm rereading the book on Wabi-Sabi I'm not stressing over not-quite-perfect-for-me color, nor the two major writings I have to finish by tomorrow afternoon; blue calms and things will fall into place (she says as she reaches for St. John's Wort and the needles and yarn...).

If you're not familiar with the Wabi-Sabi concept...and if they were to be considered separately...but they're not.... It's explained this way: "when Japanese today say "wabi" they also mean "sabi" and vice versa....and...there's a lot of metaphor involved. Just saying.

wabi refers to:
~ a way of life, a spiritual path
~ the inward, the subjective
~ a philosophical construct
~ spatial events
sabi refers to:
~ material objects, art & literature
~ the outward, the objective
~ an aesthetic ideal
~ temporal events