reason

right now my hands are indiscernable from the canyon walls that loom by my house: they are colored in tumeric, paprika, and dark roasted red chile powder from my day of cooking indian food at work. it seems fitting that my hands should melt into this landscape--i'm beginning to feel more and more at one with it all.

two nights ago, derrick jensen, the author of A Language Older Than Words, came to speak in Durango. he spoke as eloquently, powerfully, and insanely as he writes, and the audience was both engaged and inspired...as was i. like i did when i read his book, i found myself thinking thoughts I had never thought before, and found myself both appreciating him immensely and disagreeing with him, too. what i discovered at the end of the evening was a deep remembering, and a deeper clarity about why i am here.

of all the places i've visited in the world, i have been most in love with this land. this place is the junction of mountains and desert, relentless rivers and stubborn stone, high elevation and turbulent sky. the rocks tell stories, the sands hold buried treasure, and the peaks share vision...one cannot live here and ignore these relationships. and they are what we need now more than anything. in little time, our conversations with trees and rivers, our recognition and respect for wild plants and animals and the reintegration of our innate sense of an interspecies community within the places we live will provide for us much more certainly than any capitalist trade and distribution system will.

this place called me home so that i can take care of it, and it can take care of me. it's not just geography. it's life-sustaining integration.

mercury in pisces

meadow monster

the certainty of possibility

love
creative and expansive
rooted in spirit and boundless in expression
particle-wave-particle-wave
dynamic and beyond exchange
unity

spring fields

digging in

i've been finding it hard to communicate these past few days, in words anyway. i think it's because words have been about all i've been able to communicate with here so far. other forms that typically work for me--touch, long eye contact, an energetic comfort that accompanies being with a person you know well--all these things are absent these days. it takes a bit of time to come to that level of communication with other people. but i'm getting tired of words. i want a hug. i want a kiss. i want someone to hold my hand and gaze at me with kind, compassionate eyes. i want to feel warmth coming from another being. maybe that's why i've enjoyed the company of dogs so much lately.

i'm tired of talking, and i'm tired of hearing myself say the same things over and over again. i'm tired of trying to explain how i feel. i just want to experience all of it in a dynamic form that exceeds words. i want to share all this without speaking so much. i want to talk like bees.

i'm too eager. i have no patience. a community of bees hibernates in the winter. so, with the threat of more snow tonight, i find myself wanting to crawl into a cave and wait until spring comes in and shakes my shoulders and begs me to come out and play....and by spring i mean life. i want it to want me to be here.

the thing is, somehow, i chose to be here, alive on earth, in durango. it shouldn't matter if it wants me to be here or not.

except it does. because i don't know how to make decisions by myself. i don't know how i exist if not in the context of something else. i can't stand the thought of actually being alone.

so, regardless of how tired i am of talking, i talk--to my co-workers, to my housemates, to the animals, to the trees, on the phone, in a letter, via email, or even through this blog, so i don't have to hear myself think. because i might find out that i think i am, indeed, very, very alone.

witnessing

melting the ceiling

so, the sky split open, two and a half feet of snow poured down, then the sun came out and melted everything. there's water everywhere, and everyone i know is doing his or her best to keep a head above the coursing of emotions. but sometimes, keeping your head up only happens when you just let yourself go with it all.

i'm feeling everything right now.

the other day i went out in the snow for hours. i came home with frozen fingers. i couldn't manage removing my jacket as my hands were so immobile. i took my mittens off with my teeth. my hands were purple and gray and corpse-like. i put them in front of the fire and watched as my hands went from dead to red. the color change was accompanied by a shift in feeling... first came an itch, then a bit of a burn, and then a nearly intolerable pain. but after the agony of this experience, i ran my fingers through the soft, white, silky fur of anaya (resident dog/love). Life is pain. and life is bliss.

i look outside and think about the earth, and how she goes through this every year--receding from the surface, freezing up, painfully thawing out, and then bursting forth with life and productivity.

i'm ready to transform this pain into creativity. bring on the spring.

good friends and snow

I spent a good bit of time outside today, amongst my tree friends in the San Juan National Forest, which is half a mile from my new house. Along with Montana and Cyan (human and dog, respectively), I traversed logs over a sparkly creek and meandered along its bed to the base of the la plata mountains, where i stood in reverence at the flake-filled sky. The ground beneath us had gathered over 10 inches of snowfall, and the sky promised more. Given that fire season was declared in mid February here, every tree, shrub, wild animal and forest home gave thanks to the heavens for the ceaseless precipitation. In fact, most of town slowed down in gratitude, in seemed, despite the joy many of us had expressed at the early spring last weekend (where i went home sunburned after hiking sleeveless through the mountains).

i don't know how much i've expressed this, but living out here in the mountains, living here in the desert, living creekside and in constant awareness of the elements, one develops a deeper awareness of how meek we are as human beings, how, regardless of our thoughts or desires or power to control events, we are at the mercy of the elements. There is always something bigger going on, and all you have to do here to notice this is look up. even in san francisco, where every evening the cold ocean currents and the bay catalyze a dramatic interplay between heat and moisture resulting in cascading fog, it's easy to get lost in the billboards, the traffic, the good ethiopian food, or the cute mission street boutique. here, if you're not outside facing the elements, you're inside, facing your internal elements. there's no disguising that the weather reflects the emotions within.

this winter has been fear-producing. no rain has produced the threat of drought. the lack of moisture in the earth mixed with relentless wind has stirred dust to epic proportions of confusion and lack of clarity. we've all been wandering, lost and thirsty, vision impeded, for months now. does it sound familiar to you, when you reach deep inside?

well, snow brings with it faith. Not only does it lay a blanket down, quieting the restless nature of the mind, but it also calls forth possibility and intention. because snow doesn't result in immediate fertility. we actually get to choose, you see, we get to choose what we want to plant, and the promise of snow is moist soil that will transform possibility and intention into action.

show me a sidewalk that makes the same promise, and i'll show you joy in every soul.

Reliable source of Love

My last morning on the mesa

So, this is no longer my view...but what a stunning going away present! I awoke to this view after packing my truck rather tearfully the night before. Now i live at the base of these mountains, much closer to town, and next to a beautiful little creek. I'm enjoying my new space immensely.

I also have wireless at my house, ha ha! so i intend to post a little more frequently, what with all the transfer and issues of moving now basically completed. i'm sorry i've been a month gone. but i'm back now. look out.