jo(e)'s Invisible Trail

jo(e)'s invisible trail

I went to visit my poet friend, jo(e). She loves nature and poetry and is kind, generous loving and funny, always a joy to be with (and to read).

After warning me that her woods were full of mosquitoes, she asked if I wanted to walk in the woods behind her house. I did. Walking in nature is one of my favorite things to do. The sun was shining, and I couldn't wait to get out.

We headed out, across her back lawn, through the small field behind it and into the woods. I took her picture, walking in, because the long blades of grass echoed the vertical tree trunks and the trail was lush, spring-like and inviting.

It was also overgrown, but I didn't worry. jo(e) seemed to know where she was going. We talked and laughed and caught up on each other's activities and those of our children and families. We sat on the fallen trunk of a tree and talked until the mosquitoes drove us away, and then walked some more.

"The trails are a little overgrown," she said apologetically. I didn't mind. Then, later, "You probably wonder how I can find my way." Actually, I neither wondered nor worried. But her concern reminded me of a mutual friend who when we walked in the woods, often asked how I knew where I was going. My daughter asked me that once, and I wrote the poem that became the basis of this blog.

As I walked with jo(e), I could usually (but not always) see the hints of the trails that she was leading me on. And since I often tramp through the woods along old trails that are barely visible, I know the process. A number of things contribute to such way finding. There is body knowledge or kinesthetics. It's amazing how the body knows where to turn, duck and bend. And there are landmarks, and trail traces, the berm or ditches of old logging roads, the stream or pond or curve of the hill the invisible trail follows.

I felt at peace with jo(e). Comfortable. I trusted her completely, as I trust myself in the woods. I am writing this as I walk alone through rainy spring woods on another invisible trail. And our mutual friend? She too has since learned to navigate the invisible trail and to trust the woodswomen and men in her life.

jo(e) walks along a log in her woods. below

Spiral Grove with intentional Blurring

 

Death at the Spiral Grove

 

Beaver Skull Pond, 3R

Beaver Skull Pond, 3R, by Mary Stebbins, click on image to view larger. 

Beaver Skull Meadow and Spiral Grove Rambling

Wednesday, March 29, 2006,3:57 PM 3R

I'm at my favorite "campground" (or "picnic area") at Beaver Skull Meadow at Three Rivers for my walk. It is sunny and in the 59s and I'm in my T-shirt.

I read my one prewalk poem about St. Dympha. I listen to the crows and the geese and study the aspen catkins. I hear the clicking of wood frogs, like little wooden motors. The moss on the trees is green. Very green. On the way here, I passed big piles of snow and considered a picture, but didn't stop.

The sun is warm and lazy and I'd like to loll about but I need to stay on task and get back to sorting or I'll never get out of the house.

I didn't even BRING a jacket; hope I don't regret that, the wind is cold.

There are piles of feathers where some bird was eaten. Pigeon feathers by the look of it and my guess is someone shot the pigeon and then something ate later.

Peeper, a din of them. Crow, little bluestem grass. I wanted to ask Sara about that picture near the osprey nest, about the little bluestem there, but I forgot

Someone has put out bird food and the chickadees are gorging on it. I get into a swampy spot and can't skirt it because of the multifloral rose. Rip, tear. I'd sprayed my shoes a little with silicone but not enough because I hate the smell.

I wish I could record that peeper din!

I won't hear it in Detroit!

I stop at the first beaver dam and take a few pictures, scenic ones but also beaver dung and beaver work. Yesterday I took what I think might be coyote dung bust haven't looked it up yet.

I wander around in the woods behind Beaver Skull Meadow, checking the trap lines as I do every spring for beaver and muskrat skulls. Raccoon skulls. I wonder if now that there's a market for them if they don't leave them behind. But then again, other years, I wouldn't find them, and then would discover a whole cache of them. Peepers and geese. Not so many wood frogs here, they tend to be in the woodland ponds.

It seems entirely unconscionable that I would be expected to live in a place without peepers and wood frogs.

In a place without woods, I think, looking around at the pines and hemlocks and maples. The oaks and blueberries. SIGH!

In he winter time, living in Detroit doesn't seem so bad, but in the spring, argh!

There is no one out here in these woods who expects me to dress up, wear makeup, carry a fancy handbag, attend events, or do anything else. And that's the way I like it. That's because there is no one out here at all except me and the geese and the frogs. The sun through the pines and the breeze.

That's the way I like it.

Of course, I love Keith and graham and want to be with them. I wish I could be here (or somewhere like this) during the day and with them at night.

Of course, it would always have to be spring or fall, warm but not hot. Why don't we live in heaven? Well, I'm not eager to DIE if that's what it takes.

4:51 PM, I am over in the Spiral Grove now. I took one picture of shadows and attempted two of a pitch pine, or what I think is a pitch pine, but they probably won't come out. I am only halfway through my walk and feeling heavy and awkward. I think of how badly I used to want to walk silently, like an Indian, and how loud I am now that my hips hurt and I'm heavy and tired and "old."

I wish I could lose weight, but though I rarely eat sweets or desserts, I can't seem to eat little enough to lose weight. I'm always hungry.

I'd like to go back and sit in the car and read and nap. I'm tired of walking. And I don't want to go back and work. But I need to push on and go home and work.

I still have to walk 22 more minutes. I wish I weren't so tired. I'm not on a trail and bushwhacking is hard work.

I guess I could just go walk down the ROAD. Wahn. "What a drag it is getting old."

I discover an area of the spiral grove where most of the tops are gone from the trees and lying on the ground, and I wonder why. I tend to think symbolically, since I see this as a sacred place, and the grove's demise an act of profound evil.

Like the little girl emissary who was killed in a place accident. The echthroi got her.

This was a true story, not fiction, that is, she really died I a plane crash.

Because she wrote a letter to Putin or whoever it was, I forget the details now.

I just remembered that our shooting gallery post for April is blurred in camera motion. Intentional, so I try a few shots. The forest as taken on a misty magical feel, though it is hard to capture in the camera.

I like the magical mystical misty look and feel of the forest and the way I feel in it. Peaceful, relaxed and happy like I don't feel sorting junk at home or trying to do taxes and other such. Of course, living in the woods year round is not very practical unless you're rich, because you still have to eat and buy land to live on and build the cabin and heat it and have medical insurance etc. If you were young, you could do it, but at 60 with issues, it'd be a little harder. Unless a skinny miracle occurred, I'd need electricity for my CPAP and how would Graham get to school?

I'm on the road now, headed back to the car. I noticed my shadow and grabbed a hip shot of it with the point and shoot. There's still a lot of snow along here.

In a way, when there's a bright sunny spring day, it seems really dumb to go in the woods and I ought to walk out to the ponds. The Sophie pond.

Not today but some other spring day before I move to Detroit. Oh, Sophie pond. No Sophie Pond in Detroit.

Don't get me wrong, I WANT to move to Detroit, I WANT to be with Keith, and Graham, but I just can't help feeling sad about leaving here.

It's also true that when I'm in Detroit, I rarely think about the Sophie Pond or Beaver Skull Meadow or the Spiral Grove. What I do long for though, is nature, wildness, open space. And in a way that Keith, much as he loves me, doesn't seem to fully understand. It's like nature is my "demon" (a la Lyra) or spirit guide without which I'm only half a person, like an empty shell. And Balduck Park and the cemeteries etc are nice, but not even Belle Isle is like being HERE, where there is no manmade structures, no houses or pavilions, no traffic (well, there is nearby traffic of sorts). This area is so vast. Belle Isle is nice and I like it, but it is somehow citified. You can see either Detroit or Windsor from almost everywhere.

I don't feel like I'm being very articulate. I just hope I don't shrivel up and die when I move to Detroit.

Even the Pinery, which is wonderful, is overcrowded with people.

I read my end-of-the-walk Patrick Lawler poem ("Georgia O'Keefe and the light touching the child") and prepare to go home and bite the bullet.

6:10 Home again, home again, jigity jig. There are mourning doves in the tree and I was going to try again to get them but the sun's setting so fast I don't think I can get out the camera and change the lens.

I take a shot and adjust, take a shot and adjust, and just when I get it the way I think I want it they fly. The beeping of the camera seemed to bother them.

The oil light is on on the car all the time and I'm afraid the car will blow up or die in the middle of crazy traffic and I'll get killed.

Boardwalk at Hamlin Marsh

Boardwalk at Hamlin Marsh, photo by Mary Stebbins

Mourning Doves

Mourning Doves, photo by Mary Stebbins. The first thing I saw when I walked outside to take my walk today were these doves. 

Protective Coloration

I saw this rabbit on my walk today, but it was hard to spot!!! 

Erin and Mary at Radisson

Walking the Visible trail 

walking with Sara at Great Bear

 

Ignoring my Own Advice Again

Monday, March 20, 2006, 6:05 PM It is still amazingly light. Geese are flying overhead honking. It is snowing, windy and cold. Brrr, cold. I am out walking. Because I had that strange dizzy spell at noontime today, I did not drive anywhere to walk, and I am going to walk in segments, assuming I can walk. I am walking around the block on the road, rather than plowing through the snow. But I dislike this, as there is traffic and no sidewalks, so I have to walk in the road. There is a snow bank beside the road, so if a car is to close I have to leap into the snow.

My hands become too cold to write so I put both them and the computer in my pocket. I am so used to writing while I walk that it does not seem unusual, special, or dangerous to me. I've been doing it for years and years.

I deeply dislike walking along the road in my neighborhood, and much prefer woodland trails or at least the paved sidewalks at Radisson. I am really not looking forward to living in Detroit at all EXCEPT for Keith and Graham and Sam and Joan and ML and so on. Gail, who is in Jackson.

The place where I walked down to the river is posted, the one at the bottom of the hill that I walked to from home. So I was trespassing when I went there, but I did not break and enter, I simply stepped over the chain. If the gate were closed and locked and I sawed open the lock, that would be breaking and entering. It is one step worse than trespassing. But I would not do that, because it would cause harm.

I do make a sort of infrequent habit of trespassing, maybe 5-7% of my walks. This is because I feel that I am doing no harm to simply walk through. I try to minimize any damage I might do. But I have gotten in trouble of number of times, and I don't like that, so I do it less often. And some of my favorite trespassing places have been made more secure against trespassers, perhaps in part due to me, but not too likely. So I can't go there any more.

I am nearly back home. I seem strong and balanced, though I do not yet feel normal. I decide it is safe for me to walk around another block, but my hands are very cold.

When I called the doctor's office about my dizziness and the spinning room, she asked if anything were making me anxious and I said no, no more than normal. But I suppose sitting up until 1:45 AM sorting stuff and feeling that I'm making no headway and will never finish could be a form of anxiety. I was thinking panic attack, and I was feeling fairly calm, the thing that was making me anxious was the DIZZINESS itself. I was starting to imagine all sorts of dire things it could mean.

My friend Judy got dizzy and few weeks later, she was dead of ovarian cancer.

My father got dizzy and collapsed on a walk with my brother and me and that was when his cancer returned.

And he died.

I guess I really AM anxious about my house and getting out of it, I'm so BAD at this sort of thing. It makes me unhappy and I feel worthless. Still, would that make the room spin around me VIOLENTLY?

I am nearly home again. I walked less than half my required 45 minutes (for fibromyalgia). But I'm taking a break. Making stir-fry. Cabbage, zucchini and beef. Then hopefully walk more.

I'd prefer to walk somewhere other than on the stupid streets in the dark with traffic and no sidewalks. But I am not feeling up to par, and don't want go anywhere. I am feeling significantly better than I was. Though after my two blocks, I felt more tired than usual.

I'm meeting with my poet-friend Janine tomorrow for breakfast at 8:30 AM so somehow, I have to have a few poems ready tonight--TONIGHT--since I have no printer here, I have to email them to her to print.

(I'd better set the alarm before I go for more walking, as I might forget otherwise!)

I am not (NOT!) rich, but we are all rich compared to the people spoken of in the Bible.

Hope I can sleep tonight!

Live simply that others might simply live. I like that but boy I'm no-good at it! All my life I've aspired toward it and failed. Though I've often lived much more simply than other people, that's not really enough. I'm not sure what enough IS.

I am out walking again. It is snowing again, still. In the dark, I can't see the snowflakes, but they show up in the street lamps and the car headlights.

I feel almost normal again, still slightly funny, off. Little belly ache, almost gone. Little "weak", though certainly able to walk.

In spite of the snow, there are holes in the clouds where I can see the stars. The snow is falling gently, like in a Christmas card.

I'm walking the less traveled streets where ever possible and it is quiet and peaceful. Occasionally, I hear a voice. No dogs barking, which is nice.

Back to the question of God. How does one know God's will?

• by reading scripture

• by reading other theological works

• by attending church

• By talking to God or His or Her emissaries.

This reminds me that when I was talking about God, I never had time to discuss all the points that were whirling about in my head. Shamanism believes that the world is peopled with spirits and that these spirits can intercede on behalf of people.

If one were to see God as the mind of the universe, all things then partake of that mind. (It confuses issues of good and evil, though, a separate point entirely).

If God Him or Herself is vast ad unknowable, but exists in all things, perhaps we can communicate with God

• inside ourselves, if we can reach the spiritual part of ourselves

• through animate and inanimate physical beings and objects

• through "spirits"

Dreaming is a time-honored way to talk to God, as is visions, prayer, and meditation.

Talking to God seems relatively easy (although doing it well may not be), but listening to God is another matter altogether, as you know. The object of prayer is to have a dialogue with God, a two-way conversation.

Of course, who am I to attempt to talk about this when there are trained professionals? That would be like my giving advice to the Lovelorn or Heloise-type household hints. I probably should just be quiet about it before I get in trouble.

Not being one to take advice, even my own, even when good, I would say one thing further. Though a combination of listening skills and other methods (praying, dreaming, visions, priestesses, etc) is ideal to engender a dialogue with God, the more direct the link the better. That's my opinion, anyway.

Forgive me for going on about it.

(Of course, nothing is solved by all this rambling. I don't even know that I answered your initial questions.) (I have mostly only questions, not answers anyway, questions and tentative opinions.)

Time: my daily walk again

Another day, another walk.I haven't posted all the pictures I've taken because the blogger has been down (mine has, anyway!)We had 6 inches of new snow!Sorry about any accidental duplication! 

My feet in the snow

from yesterday's walk 

Willet Pond

Willet Pond, from last night's walk. Photo by Mary Stebbins. Click on image to view larger. 

Stickleback Creek

Stickleback Creek, from last night's walk. Click on image to view larger. 

Radisson Walk: A Personal Spiritulaity and Notes on the Nature of God

Sunday, March 19, 2006, 5:06 PM

                We had six inches of new snow this morning and it is still snowing.  But at the same time it is snowing, the snow is settling.  Even though it has snowed all day, we probably have less snow in inches, but it is heavier, denser.

                It is time for my constitutional, but I can't find my wind pants and I want to start some stew before I go out. I was so cold yesterday that I would prefer to find my wind pants and get them on.  They might be in the trunk of the car.  Aiee!

                5:49 PM Yesterday, I walked from my Baldwinsville house down to the river and along the wild river shore which is all Hawthorne and buckthorn and not comfortable to walk, especially while attempting to write an answer to your thought-provoking questions.

                Today, tonight, really, I drove along the river and parked at the Radisson Golf course and walking down the narrow lane between tall trees through snow and ice, also not conducive to good writing!  It doesn't help that the snow is deeper than my boots.

                I came here because twice this week or more, maybe three or ore times, I walked from my house, and twice I didn't walk at all.  I'm trying to accomplish something at the house, but I'm so bad at it.

                I have to stop typing and attempt to warm my hands in my pockets!  Already it is getting dark, and I'd hoped to take a picture to show you our "signs of spring," LOL!  Six inches of snow over everything!

 

Some notes on a Personal Spirituality and the Nature of God:

 

                My mother is English Irish, Welsh and Scottish. Half English, 1/4 Irish, and 1/8 each Welsh and Scottish.  She used to profess agnosticism, but later, after my father died, seemed interested in God.

                (I stop to take a few pix before all the light is gone entirely.)

                My father was Italian and his family was Catholic, and he was a professed atheist.  My parents like to sing and we lived in a small community, so they were member of the Baptist Church and sang in the choir.  I also went to the Catholic Church with my aunt and Grandmother and to the Methodist Church with my best friend and later, my parents switched to the Unitarian church and we went there.

                I was never told what to believe by my parents.

                As a young teen, I sang in the choirs at both the Methodist and Baptist Churches.  As an older teenager, I joined the Presbyterian Church, took confirmation classes, was baptized, and confirmed. 

                (I walk along Stickleback creek and lost pond and stop and take some pictures but it is so dark I have to use 1600 ISO and the pictures aren't that great anyway.  I had two tripods in the car, no three, but I didn't carry them because it was so windy and snowing so hard that it seemed pointless.  But both the wind and snow have stopped and the scenery might relinquish a fair shot with a tripod.  Or not.  The creek is open, but the pond is covered with rotted ice that has those fractal-like cracks that I love so much.)

                (Photography seems hopeless at this point, so I stop and put the camera back in the day pack).

                I went to a Christian College.  In spite of the name, St. Lawrence, it never occurred to me that it was a Christian college when I went there, and I was quite appalled that we were required every single at 8 AM and 4 PM to go to Chapel.  What a horrifying concept.  It turned me off to Christianity and I fell in with a wild crowd and at the end of my first year of college, I made conscious choice to "turn my back on God."

                I wanted "to be free."

                I thought that God's requirements were onerous.

                (I am not supposed to be doing anything EXTRA and the walk is already going to take too long because of the snow, but I just detoured over to the willet pond overlook and set the camera on a post and took a couple shots that probably won't be worth the walk over.  Aiee!)

                I began a study of comparative religions, not in college, but through reading and participation in various groups.  I studied Buddhism, Zen, Yoga, and a bunch of other stuff, eventually getting into Wiccanism and Shamanism.  I studied Dream Shamanism and discovered I had a talent for it.

                During this period, I started having "visions," and I do NOT mean drug-induced visions.  For example, one day, I had to work late at the museum where I worked for 22 years.  I was in my 49s, I think, and I went out to "lunch" (dinner, in the evening) before the program.  It was a pleasant summer evening, still totally light and sunny, (maybe 5:30 PM) and I took my meal from Nancy's coffee shop out into the little park in front of the museum and sat and a bench to eat it and was reading a book.  I closed my eyes to think about what I had been reading and I saw Jesus.  I saw him as plain as day.  He was naked, and standing very close to me (but I could see anything inappropriate).  I could see his skin and individual hairs and send grains clinging to his skin.  He had been out on the desert fasting and praying and he spoke to me.  This is what he said, "You are mine, you have always been mine, and you will always be mine.  You are forgiven now and forever."

                You could say I fell asleep and had a little dream, but I swear I was wide awake and even opened my eyes.  There were a lot of people walking around and a little band setting up to play music and guy talking on the phone to his girl friend and I heard and saw everything. 

                You could say I had a little fantasy, and indeed maybe I did, but if I were CHOOSING a fantasy myself, why would I choose that?  I was not interested in Jesus at that time.  And it was so real and VIVID.

                And only the first in a series of these.

                You could say I was going crazy, that I was schizophrenic.   Maybe I was.  But I was able to work, and go to school and live a somewhat normal life.

                So whatever.

                I haven't time to tell you all about it.   In the mean time, after living a very "spiritual" life for a number of years, I have fallen away from it and am not any more.  Not living like that.

                I'd like to tell you a little more about that life, but I'm almost out of time.

                I loved that life, in some ways, and would like to recover parts of it.

                So, after all that, what then do I believe?   I don't know what I believe.  I guess I'm an agnostic.  I don't go to Church, and never have since I was a child.  I believe we are spiritual beings, or that at least some of us are.  I believe we are hardwired to be spiritual, seeking beings.  But I do not necessarily believe there is anything OUT THRERE to be found.

                I believe in essential goodness, I believe in love, I believe in behaving honorably.  And I believe in the search for meaning, even if there is none.

                I am walking through the snow in the dark, trying to type.   There are icy spots and slippery spots and the walking is hard.  It's dark and I can't see what I am writing or where I am going.

                This reminds me of a saying, only I don't remember how it goes.

                Something about life and the search for meaning being like driving at night.  You can only see as far as your headlights penetrate the darkness, but you can get all the way home that way.

                I am beginning to feel like I'll never get back to my car.  I thought I was close, but dragging along through the snow is tiring and makes it seem farther.

                I am very hungry.  Before I left, I put on some stew.  Beef, carrots and cabbage.  No potatoes, nightshades exacerbate my arthritis.  I should be done when I get home and I'm eager for it. 

                I've made it to the road and am heading for the car park.  It's gotten colder and the road is icy and slippery.

                I am back at my car finally, 7:11 PM.  I walked 62 minutes, which is almost 20 minutes longer than I meant to walk, bad me, between the detour and the snow.  On the other hnd, I missed two walks earlier in the week.

                The part I hadn't gotten to is who God is, and what S/he expects of us.

                This is what I think.  If there is a God/dess, S/he is unknowable.  She is both genedered and genderless.  She is light and dark, she is the mind of the universe, the combined mind of the stars and galaxies, she is paradox and she is personal.  And when they say we fall sort of the Glory of God, they are right, but at the same time we are God, we partake of God, we are a part of that vast amazing unknowable mind.  IF God exists at all.

                I think God exists and doesn't exist.  Simultaneously.  I think we create God and that God creates us, that God is both unknowable and personal.  MY God believes in LOVE and Goodness, a goodness born of pure love and of human love.  I think God, the personal aspect of God, wants us to be fully human and fully spiritual and actualized.  To be the best and most we can be.  And that's a lot and a little.  We are both individuals and cogs in a vast machinery of Godness, and if we, each of us, do our part, God's will is done.

                So how does that relate to the very personal question of what God's will is for us and how much time should be spend on BP?

                I say, talk to God about it.  Art is one of God's works in the world, and there are many ways to minister to people.  God works in strange ways.  It could e through BP that God could have us work-like my helping Dorothy, that 80-year-old woman.  I'm not making excuses.  It can also be a bad addiction.  And I do have more important things to do.

                Today on NPR I heard a comedy piece on the Rapture and all the peace activists were taken up to Heaven and George Bush and Billy Graham were left behind, LOL!  I often think that George Bush is the incarnation of evil, but he might think the same about me.  (If he thought about me at all).  I'm sure BP is less harmful to the world that "Shrub" is!  But, like I said, I do have more important things to do—that's what it comes down to.

                I ate my stew and it was DELICIOUS!! Utterly fantastic, just perfect.  Now I need to do some work!  (I wish I could have a little dessert, but I don't know what is safe for me to eat.)

Blown Snow on Pond

From my walk today--I know this picture is very subtle and most people won't like it, but I love the way the wind funneling between the trees made long strips of snow on the ice. 

Pond with invisible snow

From my walk today.

It was snowing pretty hard, but in this shot, you can't even tell!

The Deckless Dock

The Deckless Dock, by Mary Stebbins, lcik on image to view larger. 

A Letter to Kate: What I want to do to Change the World

Saturday, March 18, 2006, 4:54 PM
Dear Kate,
    I am out on my daily constitutional.  My camera is in my North Face backpack because it is snowing and
dark and very unpromising.  I almost left it home. 
    I am not wearing my long johns or wind pants because the long johns are in Detroit and the wind pants were
in my camera bag in the trunk of my car, it was late and I did not want to delay my walk by the amount of time it
would have taken to walk out, get them and go in and take off my shoes and put them on again.  And I did not have a
proper walk yesterday, or two days before either.
    My hands are very cold in the wind, so I will have to stop writing and warm them.  I am writing while I am
walking and the snowflakes are whirling around my head and the wind sucking the heat from my hands.  I jam my
hands in my pockets to warm them and walk through the children's playground at the bottom of my street among
flocks of robins searching for worms in the half frozen lawns where the snow is just starting to gather again.
    I step across a small stream headed for the river.  The access to the river is fenced but the gate is open.  A
chain hangs across the entry.  I see no one in there to stop me, so I duck under the chain and go in.
    It took me thirteen minutes to get down to the river from my house, something I will never be able to do
again once I get moved.  It usually only takes ten.  I had to skirt vast acres of mud (but am getting muddy anyway)
and vernal ponds.  I took a few shots of the river with my point and shoot.  Also of a couple of the ponds.  There used
to be a dock here and I would come down and sit and write and read and watch the boats go by, but it was poorly
maintained and hazardous and they have taken away the boards and left only the posts.  One of the pond shots is of
a pattern of snow created by the wind which no one but maybe Keith would appreciate.
     
    "So what do you think you could do to change the world if you did not play with photos?"

    You asked what I would do.  First, I would do no harm, which of course is impossible.  You cannot live in
the world without doing harm, but I want to do as little as possible.
    I come from a tradition that believes that when a woman's children are grown and she has had menopause
and become a "Crone," it is her option, verging on duty, to work to better the world.
    I have caveats and a lot to say on this topic, so be patient.  First, my children were grown, but now I have
another.  Second:  I believe I have worked all my life to improve the world in my own small way.  A cog in the
machineries of yeas rather than nays. 
*    I worked teaching biology and sex education to Mormons and others in Idaho.  Not everyone would
agree of course, that that was changing the world, but at the time, they had one of the highest teenage
pregnancy rates in America, higher even than inner city kids.
*    I worked as a naturalist for years, teaching about nature, trying to foster a love of nature, a respect for
nature, and to increase environmental awareness and action. 
*    I worked as a science educator, teaching inner city children about science and nature, and also as a
poet in the schools, teaching them poetry.
    Let me state clearly that I believe that ART, including photography, is a meaningful and important pursuit
that adds to the quality of life in the world.  It is part of being human and part of the dialogue we have with the world
and each other.  It is valuable and necessary!
    I want to do art, photography and poetry.
    I think we can contribute to the world through art of various kinds.
    But that is not the end of the story for us or for me.
    For me, there is Keith and Graham.  This is a huge issue.  I chose them.  I made a choice and because of
that choice, I have to find an appropriate balance.
    Let me explain that Keith and Graham were a gift.  Did I tell you the story of how we met?
    5:32 PM  I've been walking 31 minutes and my legs are very cold.  The snow is ever thicker and my hands
are really cold, but I can't leave this.
    So, picture, if you will, the hand of God, holding out Keith and Graham as a gift.  "An opportunity," She
says. "Love," She says.  She offers a choice.  I can take them or I can leave them.  I took them, and my life is
changed forever.
    I have a commitment to do my best to be a good wife and mother.
    I have an equal commitment to myself and to the world, the earth.
    I have to somehow balance those things, to the best of my ability.
    Balance is a difficult issue, especially for an artist and for someone with ADHD (me).  But let me say that I
am not a person who sees balance as a static thing.  It is not a scale with two pans and equal weights in both pans. 
Rather, it is a dynamic flowing movement.  This is more difficult, it's like juggling a hummingbird, a piano and a
cactus.  The hummingbird's wings are strapped to his side.  You don't want to hurt him, but it's a grand piano and a
very spiny cactus.  That's my life.
    So I've got the hummingbird cradled in one hand and the piano and cactus in the air with the other.  The
humming bird held to my heart with the left hand and the right hand frantically tossing and catching.
    Great metaphors you may (or may not) say, but how does that apply to real life?
    In reality, there is more than one hummingbird.  One of them is Graham.  One is my relationship with Keith. 
I need to nurture the keep them safe, do everything I can to preserve and heal them.
    None of this is helped by the fact that I am clumsy and cranky and fat and slow and sometimes stupid, that
my primary skills is making mistakes.
    Somehow, I have to be an artist without jeopardizing my love for Keith and Graham and my relationships
with them
    It is snowing really hard now, and the wind has picked up.  I worry for the little computer and my hands (and
my icy legs!).
    One of the things I need to do is get moved.  I need to move to be with Keith and Graham.  Every second I
spend on my art (any of it) is a second less time spent packing and moving.  (And every second I spend moving is
one second less for my art!)
    For me, moving is essential and art is essential, and each adds to and takes away form the other.  In a
dynamic balance, I might spend three days packing and cleaning and two days in art-related activities, or half a day at
each or any other combination that works.  Too much time on either upsets me.  What too much is is hard to define. 
Too much packing makes me dull and anxious for art.  Too much art makes me guilty and worried.
    And those are only two of the balls I have to keep in the air—or try to.
    It is snowing harder and harder, and the wind is more and more fierce.
    I think art is essential, important and contributes to the world, but its effects are often indirect and slow. 
Sometimes, I feel it is essential to take DIRECT action.  To write a letter to a congress-person, to march, to help in a
disasters, to give aid of some kind.  I used to march a lot, write a lot of letters and do a lot of volunteer work.  I do
little of any of that anymore.  I'm lucky if I just make it through the day.
    My sleep apnea, insomnia and fibromyalgia rob me of energy and I just struggle to get a little of my packing
and cleaning done.  I hate it so much that I can't wait to have a chance to some photography.    But if I don't work
harder, I'll never get moved, never be able to get on with my life.  Never write NOVELS.  That's what I want to do.
    I think well-written novels where characters grapple realistically and meaningfully with their issues, including
the enviroment, acceptance of and kindness toward others (helping others) and so on really help people grapple with
these things themselves.  I want to write, novels and poetry (and take pictures), and to balance my writing (and
photography) with family, community and spirituality.  A sort of large order for someone as compromised as I am.  I
think these thing would help,* maybe, but not til I get moved.  So less BP and more packing.

    *I have to say, sometimes it seems that with all the investment of time and energy by good people in the
world, it never gets better.  Very discouraging.  Some things get better, and something worse pops up somewhere
else.

    This is only part I of my response.  It only partially answers ONE of the issues you raised, but it's all I have
time for now.  My walk, 55 minutes, is over.  I'm wet cold and hungry and need to eat.

    I also think you can change the world by LOVING one person at a time.
 

The Unveiling Darkness

Thursday, March 16, 2006, 7;37 PM  Hiking the Unveiling Darkness

It is dark and cold outside.  I would have preferred to walk while it was sunny and bright, but I dorked around packing for so long that the day is over.

                The sky, however, is amazing.  The background sky is nearly black, a proverbial "inky blue." With a smattering of stars.  The clouds are layered on this darkness in long streaks and puffy lumps, pinkish and purple and powder blue.

                But my hands are too cold to write.  Brrr!

                It was sunny all morning and I desperately wanted to be out, but felt I should ~accomplish something, then it got cloudy and dark.  Just before sunset, the sun dropped into a space below the clouds and lit the world with orangey-gold light.  Fantastic.  I wanted to be out in it, to open my mouth and catch the light on my tongue and see if it was as sweet as it looked.

                I am chafing at the onerous task of sorting and packing.  I want to escape, to run out and play.  Now I am out, and a large hole has opened in the clouds to reveal the black sky, blacker even than before, and the stars.  I crane my neck until I almost fall over backwards, but the constellations are fragmented.  Finally, I make out the big dipper, directly behind me.  I have to lean backwards to see it.  I am headed south.    But turning so the big sipper is ahead of me on the left.  Headed north east.

                All the snow we had yesterday has melted in the morning sunshine, except under trees and to the north or hedgerows and rocks.  It's cold now though, very cold.  Raw.

                I turn again.  This is no straight trail like the old railroad be.  The big dipper is ahead of me to the right, then behind to the right, then behind me.  Sounds like I'm circling, but I'll be turning back the other way shortly.

                Now I see Orion, clear as the clichéd bell, clearer than through spring water, ringing his sword on the stone of night.  There's Canis major and Canis minor, following behind, and above him, Gemini the twins.

                Bare tree branches, patches of snow, ice skimming the puddles and crystallizing in the mud.  A distant dog barking and dark penetrating cold.

                The sound of my breath, and an airplane overhead.  A distant car accelerating.

                Yesterday and the day before, I wanted to talk about hopes and dreams, how I've worked all my life, moving constantly in the direction of my dreams. But my ADHD and my fibromyalgia and the need to work sometimes more than one job and so on have kept me from my goals, along with various problems misfortunes and character defects, LOL.  Bu I keep trying, keep working at it, taking baby steps, making small progresses.  Now that I am nearly 60, my fear is that I will die before I accomplish any of my dreams.  Like getting one of my novels publsihed, or more than one.

                Right now, I am tied down by the house business, and my utter ineptness at this sort of thing.  Oh, there the Pleiades!  They were under a cloud before.  I wish I wasn't so inept or I wish someone would HELP me.  Dang!  I want to be an artist and a novelist, not a drudge!

                Sound of my footsteps, sound of running water, a horn beeping somewhere far away, another dog.

                Airplanes fly overhead, flashing red and green lights, one flies through Orion's belt with a tiny roaring sound.

                I've got that cold rhinitis, I keep wanting to look it up and remind myself what it's called, but keep forgetting.

                Some orangish leaf lying on the ground in the darkness looks like a fat tadpole or a hugely enormous sperm.  When I step past it and look back, it looks like a snake. Faint light and imagination almost hallucinatory or dreamlike.

                A rabbit moves dark into the dark bushes, running rather than hopping so lean as to appear to be some other kind animal altogether.  Just when I think it's either a monster or something unusual, it stops and hops a few hops to reassure me.

                Now, a whole area of sky had cleared and I can see Taurus the Bull and Auriga the charioteer, earlier lost in cloud.  I see Cassieiopiea and Andromeda.

                The dogs are to my left and andromeda to my right and the North Star behind me to my right.  So, I'm going northwest.  NO no, north east.  I have dyslexia and have trouble with right left orientation.  I rally have think about it.

                I was going to say there is not a single cloud left in the sky, but I rotated 369 degrees and lo and behold, there are a few wisps on one of the far horizons.

                The sky is vast and cold tonight.

                Tree branches are black and the sky appears bluer relative to them.

                But without the branches, the sky looks black.  Now that the clouds are gone, with their paleness to contrast against the sky, it looks less dark, and that is enhanced by the comparison with the black black tree branches.

                8:18 PM  I am nearly home now.  The dark night has charmed me, but I am eager to quick have some dinner.  I'm hungry and I'm going to make BBQed chicken, yum.  Beautiful as the night is, I will be happy to go back inside and eat. 

                8:21 PM  I am back in the yellow light and relative warmth of my house.  Heidi once said, if you're SO BUSY, how do you have time to write al those long journals.  Yes, I really did write WHILE I was walking.  On the Psion, my little teeny tiny computer.  Whose screen is now fogged.  I use a headlamp so see.  OK, food now.

                Somehow I lost my coat, how could that be?  A frying pan disappeared, too, but my COAT, I just had it on, and it's GONE!!  HUH?

                Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee!  I look all over--is there a spirit in here, playing tricks?  No, here it is, I hung it up and it just fell off the hanger!  DUH!!  What a dunce!

                I curl my spine and sit all hunched over, sinking my chin into my chest.  It reminds me of my mother in her wheelchair, my father before he died.  Always hunched in his chair, never lying down.  I'm hunching to stretch my neck and back because of my fibro, before I stand at the stove to cook supper.  That always hurts me.

                9:08  I've had my BBQed chicken and am on the IM waiting for my sweetie..

               

      

The Old Spring House at Great Bear

I took the trail past the spring house yesterday, extending my walk a little, in hopes of a good shot. 

Overlooking the Gravel bed

From the drifted Promontories, photo by Mary Stebbins, from yesterday's walk at Great Bear. Click o the image to see larger. 

Great Bear 060315

Thursday, March 15, 2006, 3:32 PM

                I am sitting inside my car, which is shaking violently in the wind, and engulfed in clouds of blowing snow.  White out.  The wind is gusty and the clouds rise and fall and twirl and re-engulf the gar.  Swallowed in white.  Then snow devils, whirling dervishes.  Oh white, white earth, white sky white wind.

                I remember books by XX (old age and treachery sets in), where old people and children were writing color poems, one old lady wrote about her white wedding gown.

                Could you write about snow and never mention the word "white" or the word "snow?"  I'm not sure, but I'd better not sit here and philosophize.  I've been running late all day, and I need to walk and get home.

                I went to the liquor store for boxes, but they didn't have any and won't until next TUESDAY almost a week away.  I went to P&C, their boxes had no topses.  I shopped.  I should have gone to Weggies because P&C didn't have most of what I wanted and what they did have I couldn't find, huge waste of time.  I had to shop because last time I shopped; I had no list and only bought the obvious meat, veggies.  They didn't have any fish; it was put away for the night.

                I went to the bird sore and got millet sprays for Rocky and nice lady there who was all alone talked my ear off even when I was standing in the doorway trying to leave.

                I went to the egg farm, no eggs.  I wonder if they've given it up--the hens at work sign is gone.

                So they have passed and I've accomplished very little.  Did get a little shopping.  Now I need to walk.

                I haven't had a proper lunch because I've been away from home for hours.  I did rip open a bag or vegetable corn chips and scarf down some of them, but I didn't buy any salsa because they didn't have any of healthy kind.

                Vultures are circling, something dead?

                Thick as fog, pale as bleached bone, light as eiderdown

                Windblown and blousy, peppery and fresh

               

                That's snow without white or snow.  But a sting of clichés, I thing.  OY!

                There's four inches of snow on the ground and the snow in the trees is falling out in clumps and sprays because of the wind.  In the sheltered places, there is still lots of snow on the branches, but trees are creaking, rattling and snapping in the wind, scary noises when they come too close.

                It occurs to me that today is season day on Photique and I haven't submitted my full complement of pictures.  I'd sort of forgotten about it in the sorting frenzy of the past few days.  Today would be a good day for season pictures.  I wish I could record the roar of the wind and submit that!

                Good in some ways, lots of snow, but I haven't really seen anything photogenic since I got here.

                Not one picture.

                4:24 PM  I stop at the old lean-to overlooking the river.  It's hard work, breaking trail, plowing through snow.  I think it might be a good place to sit for a moment and rest, but I'm wrong.  Of course, the roof is caved in and the front sitting beam is covered with three and a half inches of snow. Which I don't want to sit in.  I'm about halfway back, or a little more, I walked 37 minutes, but most of the rest of the way is uphill and I am getting tired from the snow.

                I did take one or two pictures along the river, but nothing appealed to me, and it is dark and snowing and not very pleasant for photography.

                I wish I could find something to take a picture of that resonates for me that feels good, looks good.  That somehow shows the day.  I stop and take a picture of a pond with rotted ice.  But it is cluttered with too many branches and probably won't be worth the effort.

                4:37  I take the side trail over to the little spring house and take a few shots of that.  I wanted to write about hopes and dreams but that's hard to do crashing through the woods.  AA tree has fallen across the trail and when I duck under it, I see live spider, moving, climbing up a strand of gossamer.  With all the snow and wind, that's sort of amazing. It will make the walk longer to have come this way.

                I was going to go straight up the road to the car.

                Lots of trees have fallen on the trail and I have to keep detouring through the underbrush to get around them.  Phew.  Wish there were somewhere to sit for a moment.  Puff pat.  Uphill through snow and brush is hard work!

                Finally, heart thumping, I brush some snow, a lot of snow, off a fallen log and sit and rest.

                The buds on the red-berried elder bushes are swollen huge and ready to pop.  I don't bother with a picture though.  Seems funny with all this snow to see spring so immanent.  I don't take a picture because it would only be evidence, not art, and to whom need I prove the existence of fat buds?  Not to myself, I already saw them

                It's 4:46 and I have already walked 45minutes.  But because I came by the spring house, I still have a ways to go.

                4:49 PM I made it to the railroad bed and the gravel bed.  Someone ran a plow through here.  Boys playing?  (Gown boys?)  Or, for the wells?

                4:54 PM  I have made it to the rim of the gravel bed where I paused to take shot looking back down.  I am all sweatified from the climb.  It's much windier up here, white outs.

                4:57  I climb up through deeply drifted snow to a series of promontories in search of a vista, but none of them really please me.  And the light is foul.  But since I'm here, I take a couple shots anyway.  I can always delete them right?  Yeah, right!

                Hopes and dreams.  All my life, I've wanted the same things:  to love and be loved, to be independent and capable, to be intelligent and kind, to be an artist poet writer novelist photographer naturalist shaman.  I'm almost 60 and though I've dabbled in all that and more besides, I haven't accomplished what I'd hoped to which was published books. And won prizes and so on.  Is that how I should measure my success or failure?

                5:08 PM I am back at the car.  I walked 61 minutes, not too bad, on 16 minutes more than the target, but still, I wanted to stay on target since I have so much to do.  The car again is shaking and engulfed in blowing snow.  I've got my breath back and am all sweatified from the exertion, rosy cheeked, and exhilarated from the wind, though sometimes it seems to steal my breath.

                Tonight is trash night, but it's so very windy that I don't know if I dare put out the trash. 

                I have groceries in the trunk waiting to be put away, fish, eggs, olive oil, tissues, etc.

                Before I start the car, I read one poem from Patrick Lawler's new book, Feeding the Fear of the Earth.  I read another after I turned off the engine when I first got here.  I read them both twice, sitting in plumes of falling and drifting snow.  Once is never enough.

                5:30 PM  I am home. It is still snowing and blowing and the roads are getting snowy again, I'm glad to be home, but wish I'd been able to get boxes.

                I walk in with bags of groceries and out with bags of trash.  I take out the full garbage can, the large heavy bag, 2 recycling bins.  The rest I'm afraid to put out.  Too windy.

                Oh and I forgot to get back-up batteries for the Psions.  I wonder if Keith will ever have time to fix the others, and if he can.  Pasada C, the Canon powershot 500 that got run over.

                I nee to talk to Keith about the recycling, as he did it wrong again, only differently this time.

                I probably should change my clothes, maybe just put my PJs on, because all those up hills got me all "sweatified" and I will probably get a bad chill if I hang around the cold house in damp--very damp--clothes.

                I was thinking about Patrick's poems.  The one where he has two famous people meet each other.  In lots of them, the people don't even appear at all, as themselves.  (Some do).  It's as if he Patrick plays the parts of those famous people or someone else does.  There are some pinciples at work, and a lot of wild imagination and language connections.  So far, I haven't been able to do it.  I've never been able to imitate Pat.  His mind works so differently.   I think he's some kind of genius in some areas.

                I have to get those groceries put away and ought to take out the compost while I'm still dressed and see if there is any other garbage safe to take out.  I hope it's not as windy tomorrow as today.  I don't want my garbage can to blow away.  I know that's a trivial concern, but I don't want to waste a single penny buying a new trashcan.

                Tonight I am having Salmon for dinner.  Or is it lunch, since I never had one.  I think I will lay it in a frying pan and lay vegetables around it and make a one pot meal without it being a stir-fry or stew or soup or anything.  It would be a goodnight for a soup or stew.  But I don't think that's what I want to make.

                I am sitting here thinking of Florence rather than doing what I need to do, a small issue that I hope doesn't kill me.  So much for Dr. Lal's test.  Failure.  Bad failure.

                When I open the new Olive oil I bought because I was all out and had been using some other oil, the metal seal has already been broken and there is no plastic seal over the exposed olive oil.  I feel a sudden wave of exhaustion.  The idea of taking it back to the store seems too much effort.  But someone could have poisoned it and I could die.  I pause with the oil in my hand and then pour it into the pan and lay the salmon in and the mushrooms and zucchini.  THEN, I see two other bottle of olive oil I hadn't seen, not in the usual place I keep them.

                I think, if there can be good coincidences, like meeting Keith, there could also be bad ones, like buying a bottle of oil I didn't even need and poisoning myself.  I hope I don't die tonight in horrible agony.  I hope I don't die at all.

                Ever, but particularly not tonight.

                That reminds me, I'd been thinking about comparative religions, the sameness and their differences.  I'd like to follow that thread, but I have so much to do.  I am very hungry and scarf down my salmon, mushrooms and zucchini, which reminds me of the Todd Anthony School of cooking.  I'd like to pursue that thread, too.  My lips burn a little and I worry again that the olive oil might be poisoned.  Or it might just be chapped lips and salt.

                Does that oil taste bad?  Is there an unusual bitter aftertaste?  Will Morphine help if I am in unbearable pain?

                I am going to treat this meal as dinner unless I get hungry later. Then its lunch.  Since I had no lunch.  If there is a later.  AK!

                I just realized that I didn't finish taking out the garbage and recycling.  When I brought the last bag of groceries in, I totally spaced out about taking out the next two loads of trash.  Never mind the compost etc.

                I was thinking of Sara identifying "jo(e)'s" kids as boy in black, shaggy-hair boy, with-a-why and beautiful daughter on the closet door.  Those are the only names she knows them by.  I'm almost forgetting their real names. The global community has invaded our living room.

                I'm telling you, I have a bad taste in my mouth; I should have taken that olive oil back.

                7:17 PM I took out the compost, the rest of the garbage and recycling that was safe to put out, and prepared and mailed three "letters."  Now I feel unbearably tired and I don't want to stand here washing dishes and run down and do laundry, etc, I want to sit at the computer and rest or just go to bed.

                7:59 PM  I changed, collected a load of laundry, started a load of darks, and washed about 1/3 of the week's worth of dishes piled up because I've used all my available time for sorting--otherwise I feel as if I'm accomplishing Nothing.  I still have to eat, sleep, shower, walk, shop, do laundry etc.

                9;29 PM put away the first 3rd of he dishes, washed the rest of them, put the clothes in the dryer, and started the lights.  Now Keith.  Yay!

--
I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
Mary