The Path Out



I took this shot of the field on the last walk we took, late in the
afternoon of December 10, after the house was emptied, swept
and scrubbed, so that nearly every trace of our 20 years of
occupancy was rubbed out. Everywhere we turned, there were
memories, but mostly we were just exhausted.

Max showed up just as the dumptruck was leaving, hauling off the
last of the broken things and junk from the yard, and we walked
through the house with him.

Here's where you were born, Max - right here! - and here's where
your brother jumped off the roof, and here's where Sandi's puppies
were, and Ana and Jody's wedding was there, in the pasture --
and the trees we planted, the fences we built...and how many people
ate at our table, and how many were healed here...uncountable numbers.

One more walk through the path of the field as the mountains glowed
purple. Max hugged his father and thanked him, and we all cried, grateful
that it was over and grateful that we endured those years and all the
pleasures and pain we experienced in that place, and then we closed the
door for the last time. No regrets, really...it was past time for a change.


The last load goes out

Yard Work

Ariana and Jody sent some photos of Noah,
helping with the yard work --

I apologize to anyone who has been checking this blog
for updates - I haven't been keeping up with it because
my life here is in disarray, so the blog is a reflection of
that situation.

Our house is sold - closed, as of November 7 - and we have
a month to clear out of here and close the door behind us.
After twenty years, it is a profound experience. It is also a
welcome change. there have been a few tears, but we are
certain that new doors will open for us.

We are letting go of lots and lots of old stuff, sifting through
memories and looking at many scenes with the recognition
that we are saying good-bye. Much love and many years have
graced our pretty plot with complex emotion, incomprehensible
beauty. We are willing to move on.

Moving on means moving down the road, for now.
We found a place to go to - a rambly old adobe with history
and soul. It feels right.

The process, nonetheless, is unsettling - all these boxes, piles
and puzzles, so many decisions to be made. Trash and treasure,
weight to be measured, shaping our new life as it comes.

It took a major astronomical event - & a major astrological alignment -
to release us from the grip of the past! We needed all the help
we could get! On November 8th 2003 we watched a total Lunar Eclipse
displayed in clear skies. The Harmonic Concordance at the same time -- a
planetary alignment which creates the Star of David in the charts --
also took place. Check out the significance of these events at
Lunar Eclipse & Harmonic Concordance


Corrales Afternoon

The Apparition

A year ago, we laid our Sandi in the ground, on the last
golden day of Indian Summer. It has been a difficult year
and we were amazed to go for another trip around the sun before
we could let go of our deep ties here, even though Sandi moved on,
gracefully and with courage.

This poem tells the story-- It is from The Atlantic Monthly:

The Apparition

True to his word, our vet
comes in late afternoon
and kneels in a slant of sun.
A pat, a needle stick
stills the failing heart.

We lower the ancient form
to the hemlock-shrouded grave
and before the hole is brimmed
set a layer of chicken wire
to guard against predators

so that the earth we broke
reforms, a mild mound.
The rock we place on top,
common glacial granite,
is mica-flecked and flat.

That night the old dog works
his way back up and out,
gasping, salted with dirt,
and barks his familiar bark
at the scribble-scratched back door.

I pull on shirt and pants,
a Pavlovian response,
and stumble half awake
downstairs to turn the knob
where something, some mortal stub

I swear I recognize,
some flap of ear or fur,
swims out of nothingness
and brushes past me
into its rightful house.

--Maxine Kumin

SOLD!

I haven't had the time or inclination to keep up with this blog
for the past month or more -- It has been a very intense time
with precious little opportunity for reflection or communication.
I apologize to all, I have been quite overwhelmed. Tomorrow I
suppose we will find out if we indeed have a "deal" - after
five years on the market, our long-time home and green pastures
in Corrales will be sold, presumably, to a buyer with whom we have
had some intense negotiations. We've never met; check out her
website - whew! I'll let you know if it happens, or not!

'ghetti

We spent a few days with Noah for his birthday - 2 years old!

He tried spaghetti - his first time - I took these photos...

THE GRASSES

The same wind that uproots trees
makes the grasses shine.

The lordly wind loves the weakness
and the lowness of grasses.
Never brag of being strong.

The axe doesn’t worry how thick the branches are.
It cuts them to pieces. But not the leaves.
It leaves the leaves alone.

A flame doesn’t consider the size of the woodpile.
A butcher doesn’t run from a flock of sheep.

What is form in the presence of reality?
Very feeble. Reality keeps the sky turned over
like a cup above us, revolving. Who turns
the sky wheel? The universal intelligence.

And the motion of the body comes
from the spirit like a waterwheel
that’s held in a stream.

The inhaling-exhaling is from spirit,
now angry, now peaceful.
Wind destroys, and wind protects.

There is no reality but God,
says the completely surrendered sheikh,
who is an ocean for all beings.

The levels of creation are straws in that ocean.
The movement of the straws comes from an agitation
in the water. When the ocean wants the straws calm,
it sends them close to shore. When it wants them
back in the deep surge, it does with them
as the wind does with the grasses.
This never ends.

Rumi

The Last Day of Summer

Ozone hole three times size of US

from AlJazeera news online

Dramatic images of the earth reveal full extent of the problem

The huge size of the hole in the ozone layer is at a record level measuring 28 million square kilometres, according to the World Meterological Organisation.


Three times the size of the United States, the ozone hole has continued to grow over the last few weeks and is set to reach a maximum size in late September.

The consequences are likely to be serious and far-reaching.

WMO Professor Obasi warned on Wednesday that the most immediate threat to humankind relate to “increased variability in the intensity and frequency of storms … floods and droughts, heat waves in major urban areas and the impact of sea-level rise on low-lying coastal regions”.

The Diver’s Clothes Lying Empty

You’re sitting here with us, but you’re also out walking
in a field at dawn. You are yourself
the animal we hunt when you come with us on the hunt.
You’re in your body like a plant is solid in the ground,
yet you’re wind. You’re the diver’s clothes
lying empty on the beach. You’re the fish.

In the ocean are many bright strands
and many dark strands like veins that are seen
when a wing is lifted up.
Your hidden self is blood in those, those veins
that are lute strings that make ocean music,
not the sad edge of surf, but the sound of no shore.

Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)

Hurricane Isabel
NASA satellites have taken some remarkable pictures of Hurricane Isabel's North American landfall.

"A billion is - - - "

"A billion is - - - ",
as presented at the web site of Lydia Mancini
_______________________

From What Matters :
The Bush junta has spent $79 billion on the devastation of Afghanistan
and Iraq, and plans to spend another $87 billion in Iraq - of which
billions will go to U.S. corporations with which Bush and Cheney have
especially good relations.

How much is a billion?
A billion is a difficult number to comprehend. An advertising agency
has done a good job of putting the figure into perspective. In a 1991
release, it stated:

"A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

"A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

"A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

"A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate
Washington spends it."

Now, 12 years on from 1991, a billion dollars may be down to less
than 5 hours at the rate the Bush junta spends it.

WHAT DO WHITE BIRDS SAY

The earth has disappeared beneath my feet,
It fled from all my ecstasy,

Now like a singing air creature
I feel the Rose
Keep opening.

My heart turned to effulgent wings.
When has love not given freedom?
When has adoration not made one free?

A woman broken in tears and sweat
Stands in a field watching the sun and me
Trade jokes.

But never would Hafiz laugh
At your blessed labor
Of finding peace.

What do the dancing white birds say
Looking down upon burnt meadows?

All that you think is rain is not.
Behind the veil Hafiz and angels sometimes weep

Because most eyes are rarely glad
And your divine beauty is still too frightened
To unfurl its thousand swaying arms.

The earth has disappeared beneath my feet,
Illusion fled from all my ecstasy.

Now like a radiant sky creature
God keeps opening,

God keeps opening
Inside of
Me.

by Hafiz(c.1320-1389)


Bird's Eye View

Talk Like a Pirate Day!

September 19 is the second annual Talk Like a Pirate Day as invented by Dave Barry last year....and my sister-in-law Michele, a 7th grade Language Arts teacher par extraordinaire is going back
in there in her Pirate Persona - Captain No-Beard -and she's making those kids walk the planK, the scurvy dogs!
Avast, Ye Matey! Arrrrrrrrrr!!!

I've been out of the loop for awhile now, mostly because I got a very
nasty virus that snuck in from somewhere and disabled my computer
completely. I think it even disabled my virus software, and it tried hard
to kill my hard-drive. It was a great big shock to me, because I have not
done the back-up I know perfectly well I should have, and therefore I was
facing the terrible possibility that everything on there, all the years of
writing and research, photographs and memories, the Soul of my computer,
or at least the Psyche, was potentially wiped out, irretrievable.

This was not easily accepted and I was forced to realize that it was only
going to hurt for a little while, I'd get over it and move on - perhaps it is
time to leave behind the old puter-self and start over with a new, fresh
Me - like, maybe on a beach where I could forget about this whole mess.

I have to thank my dear friend Gayle Kinsey, who did a heroic job of saving
and salvaging my pathetic puter. She is amazing. She cleaned off an entire
gigabyte of crap - thousands of little files - off my hard-drive and wow, it sure
does work better now!

I am going to take this as a serious warning, however - and I pass it on
to you, dear reader - BACK UP your stuff and run that live update on your
virus software - there are some miserable bugs out there that seem to be
getting worse every day. It could be we are nearing the end of this whole
movie - That beach doesn't sound bad at all to me!

MARS



Mars rises in the east-southeast shortly after the end of twilight,
shining a bright, fiery orange. It's beautifully placed in the south
before dawn. Mars is now unusually large and shows quite a bit of detail
in a good telescope when the atmosphere is steady; observe the planet
when it's highest before dawn.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

MARS AT ITS ALL-TIME FINEST

Never before in human history has such a golden opportunity to observe the
red planet presented itself. Make the most of it with our online Mars
observing guide for 2003.


------------------------------------------------------------------------

MARS IN 2003: WHICH SIDE IS VISIBLE?

To compare what you see on Mars with a map, you need to know which side
of the planet you're looking at. Our handy Mars Profiler tells you that and
more, for any date and time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

MARTIAN FLARE WATCH

Sharp-eyed amateurs have an opportunity to observe a rare phenomenon on
another planet and help solve a long-standing puzzle. Bright, star-like
flares from certain regions on the planet Mars likely come from sunlight
glinting off patches of frost or ice on the Martian surface. Discover when
and where to watch for these flares this year at: Sky & Telescope.com