When I woke the first morning in the mountains this past week, it was raining. It had started in the middle of the night and woke me with its sudden unexpected drumming upon my tin roof. It continued through the night and well into the morning, a steady, medium rain in a thoroughly gray sky. …
I brought myself to the mountains this past week, along with a great deal else, but, most importantly, my Self. As I have said, I have been hearing the call to a new way of being in the world, a new way of being supported by the world. I went to the mountains because the …
Yesterday, the chickens were out running about and I was supervising. Every time a crow cawed, they would run for cover under a car or in their pen, and I would chide them gently. “Sillies,” I would say. “The crows won’t hurt you. It’s the hawk that circles around these parts you need to worry …
The most important stories are often the hardest to weave. How do you know where to begin? An orb weaving spider begins in the center, doesn’t she? No. At a corner, and then allows a breeze to carry her from one anchor point to another, trailing silk behind her. That’s it. One corner is connected …
The year is 1995. I am a senior in college. I have powered through my first three years, taking everything I could handle each semester, starting with advanced classes because I had tested out of the 101 courses. By now, I have fulfilled all the requirements for graduation and nearly all the requirements for my …
Unlike chickens, who can be somewhat consistent in laying their eggs in straw-lined nest boxes, coturnix quail tend to lay their eggs just wherever the hell they happen to be at the time they feel the urge. Considering that they also prefer their habitat to provide a lot of cover (read: weeds and shrubs), this …
One of the things that is hardest about this confinement, for me personally, is that I am physically separated from my land, while I shelter in place with my family in town. I am grateful that my backyard is large, the trees plentiful, my garden begun, and the weather warming. It is a balm. When …
A few months ago, I began to see and hear a lot of woodpeckers. One time, while I was sitting at the top of my sacred mountain, a woodpecker flew over my head so close that I could hear its wings whistle when it flapped. When a particular animal or insect starts to show up …
I went to the mountains today, to close up my treehouse and bring home supplies that are more needed here at this time. I arrived in grief. I knew that I would and I allowed it. I brought with me not only my own grief, but all the grief. I asked you yesterday what you …
So, here’s a tale of terror. I’m all right, y’all, but WHEW. So I was walking in the woods yesterday, and on my way down from the mountain, I took a route I hadn’t taken before. The path I followed became a dead end, and the route down the mountain became a slide down a …