The dogs and I scamper (well, I only kind of scamper – I mostly walk fast, throw a stick for Omi, and keep tabs on Taka. ) through a jabbering rain forest creaking and groaning against the wind. I suddenly realize the trees are demanding my attention. They’re taunting me for being totally immersed in thought, jangling me awake. I am not present with the forest, the smells, the trail below my feet, the briars and the few rotting blueberries that remain on spindly branches. ooooooops. I’m not present herenow but miles away in brainscape.
Where is my own alarm clock?
Turned off next to the computer – both the computer on my desk and the one in my brain.
How funny is this after my proclamation yesterday of wanting to be an alarm clock for my culture?
But, as I walk and ruminate, I experience a minor epiphany. A version of polyphony is filling my head with multiple trains of thought. I see how posting regularly creates a living being. Ten days ago I promised to tell you the story of what happened after I swore I would not give birth like THAT again. But salmon swished past my knees and I felt the need to take you to the Spirit Bear Territory first. There is a connection to the birthing story I know, there must be, but I don’t remember the relationship now. I could thread back and find it but I don’t want to take the time.
The bears and wolves and salmon oh my, move me into my rap about the web of life, reconnecting to the wisdom of being humble and recognizing how disconnected we are to all things not us, not the dominant culture in our country. . .
Except you and I both know we humans really do love the animals and would be bereft without them. We use their names for the things most important to us …our cars, sporting teams, micro brews and addresses. Haven’t you seen roads named Elk Meadows, Rabbit Run, Fox Farm Lane, Apache Avenue, Tecumsah Street, Lenape Hills? As we gobble up the habitat of the others who used to live there, both non-human animals and humans, we use their names as a kind of memoriam. I used to live on Grizzly Mountain Road, named for the Momma grizzly and her cub who were living there when the neighborhood was carved out of her living room. Really. The only grizzly remaining there now is the name of the road.
This subject of usurping land bears much deeper scrutiny and I am surprised that it surfaced here now in this “cavalier” way. I am passionate about addressing these issues with care and compassion, but this post is not the time.
But I digress.
And that’s precisely my point.
Keeping a blog relates to living life. And life keeps unfolding, leading me to new ideas, additional experiences, and new relationships among subjects. Nothing stands still and writing about it makes that more obvious. Everything leads to everything. . . multiple threads, a variety of paths to explore. I know many of them spiral around the same center or will weave back onto themselves.
As the dogs scamper ahead of me and I trot to keep up with them, I actually think maybe I should have three blogs. Maybe that would keep the stories more untangled…But no, that would just multiply the confusing possibilities. Sometimes setting limits and curtailing options lead to more creative decisions and richer outcomes.
We’ll see.
The Wisdom of Not Knowing Everything 
geeeeez, I love & miss you, woman!
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I miss you I miss you I miss you…And I miss our hikes and our creeks and cliffs and lakes and mountains and valleys and plains and wild things and weather – Much as I’m loving my new life and the new people in it, nothing will ever touch the depth of my soul’s connection to the Montana land. Odd isn’t it?
Thanks for checking out my blog, hope you’ll subscribe to it – just click – and keep commenting. I love your new website!!! And I hope to visit soon.
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And not only does this happen within one mind, but others join in, in their own polyphony. Like minds can even connect across a cyberscape:-)
Lovely post.
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Re’ 3 blogs…
OH my dear heart friend… no… (laughing here because the reason I am saying to you… “YOU DON’T NEED ANOTHER BLOG” is that I currently HAVE three or four is it??? blogs…and I can barely keep up with any of them…
It is four… (Hospice art and stories, personal blog with photos of my world, Spiritual blog that is more like a journal, and one here on the Word Press)
so…
I LOVE READING this…this morning it makes me feel like we are having tea together… (I sit with snowy rain outside my windows… having just tried to get all my storm windows shut…. and a cup of fresh hot Green Tea with lemon at my side.) I am going now to my meditation place and I send you a cyber hug.
much love
PJ
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Hey what’s your wordpress blog? Have I ever seen it? I’m devoted and see how the discipline of writing regularly, and thinking about writing every day, are focusing me, strengthening me. Love it and maybe because I changed the title, hits doubled for both of the last two days. wow…
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Yes, Yes, Kate.
Hey I put your blog into my blogroll. Let me know if that’s OK…Of course would love it if you added mine to yours.
I really appreciate your perspective, insights and style – brightens my day.
And I’ve spent time standing in front of the the Hereford Anima Mundi map. Those old maps reveal so much about the cultural mindset of that time. And what amazes me is that they could make any kind of map really when they didn’t have planes to survey nor satellites to view nor GPS’s…really we are a remarkable species.
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Done:-) We are a race of mapmakers…one way to make sense of the world..
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Blog reply
Magic scares me. You know those times when you paint a picture and the next evening in/or after a sweat lodge someone describes the same painting to you. Those are the awe-inspiring events and events of wonder. There is another kind of magic that I want to believe but if I really experienced those moments, I would change my mind, that would change my life as I know it. Here is an example –
I attended a Joanne Macy workshop with a friend. I bought a CD I had not listened to but the front cover showed African drummers. Spending the night with my friend, I retrieved the CD from my bag and discovered there was there was no CD in the case. Shoot I thought, I’ll have to call the bookstore when I get home. Leaving early the next morning I brushed the 3 days a leaves off the car, jumped in the car, turned the ignition and this African drumming music came pouring through the car……. I looked at my tape deck and thought ‘that is impossible for that CD to be in my car tape deck,’ I have nothing like that in the car…… suspended in this veil of impossibility I could not think a thought …I was awe struck. A voice started speaking and I realized the CD in the tape deck was a book on tape I had borrowed from the library. Oh what a relief….what a surprise to be so relieved. I would have thought I would have been disappointed. A couple of days later listening to the book on tape in the car, I realized that the music wasn’t African drumming.
I was sitting in my new to me hot tub and the motor seem loud. I thought maybe I can listen carefully and the vibration would talk to me like a rattle or drum. I didn’t heard anything and I was relieved because I would have a hard time explaining my hot tub talking to me. Magic scares me because I might go crazy or other people will think I am crazy.
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You crack me up, Cinda. What a delicious response…and you paint the picture so clearly of why we as a nation of modern people “entranced by rationality and literalism ” have a hard time embracing the tricks that our minds play, that spirits play, that nature plays…tricks that actually open our senses and induce that felt sense of momentary connection with that which is so much vaster than we…
You might like to read an article about magic by David Abram, who also wrote two meaningful books: The Spell of the Sensuous and Becoming Animal. I’ll put a link to the article in my next post. It’s relevant to healing on several levels.
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