"I am convinced that men hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don't know each other, and they don't know each other because they don't communicate with each other, and they don't communicate with each other because they are separated from each other."
Martin Luther King Jr.
Turkey Tail
the soft gray, almost blue and gentle browns at the top….the True turkey tail. So much is written about it's benefit to the Immune system and "also throughout Asia, Turkey Tail symbolizes health and longevity, spiritual attunement, and infinity. It has a long history in Traditional Chinese Medicine where it is known as Tun Zhi. This powerful mushroom is also said to strengthen the lungs, spleen, and stomach and bring a calm sense of energy to the mind."
but what?, the golden orange of the False Turkey Tail below???????
Maybe just Beauty . the deep pleasure of coming upon it? More research is needed. I think there's more.
This is my friend Jane…..friends from maybe 19 years old? Best Friends. Her daughter messaged me this pic today after a 2 hour phone conversation. How can i tell this story. and Why would i. it will be fragmented.
It all began because the daughter sent Jenny a photograph of the Cass Avenue Unitarian Church, Detroit Michigan that a cousin took, asking if Jenny would pass it along to me. Which she did. It's a very old building. Beautiful. 3 floors a curved balcony. Made from stone. Jane's daughter said I'll bet your mom has many stories from there. I do.
The daughter was there from birth. Friend Jane and daughter's father were hired (amazingly) as caretakers of the church living in a small apartment on the third floor. Their big Collie, Loki. Jane and i were around 20. her dad, 21, friend of the person who ended up being the father of my two children. Exact years are blurry…we can figure it all out if need to. But it was the end of the 60's. Viet Nam. and in Detroit, the White Panther Party, Associated Rainbow Coalition, John and Leni Sinclair. Detroit ALIVE with Peace and Justice.
Here's where it starts to get hard to tell.
Connected to their apartment on that third floor was what we called the Ballroom. I don't know exactly what it was? but large, like a basket ball court maybe? We spent a lot of time stoned. Jane's friend had moved to the UK and traveled a lot to India and sent chunks of hashish sewn into beautifully embroidered elephants to the daughter…a baby….. the church had an industrial sized kitchen downstairs and we….maybe 20 people? would make these what we called International Dinners….cooking down there…All this Indian Food, Syrian, Fried Rice etc always very care Full to clean up and it was never an issue with the church people and we brought it all upstairs to the Ballroom. We went downstairs to the basement where they kept all the costumes for the church plays and picked out what we wanted to wear for the International Dinners. Down there also were long corridors i guess we can call them and i knew them to be from the days of the Underground Railroad…but at the time didn't have enough sense to understand the GIFT of that…just being too stoned to wander them…some people did…i didn't. ok…i can feel myself losing steam here…so….gotta figure out what exactly i want to say ………Daughter is right. SO MANY STORIES. For reasons, she Needs them. And yes. I will tell her. It's going to take some time.
so….this pic above….. At some point, we were all living in Ann Arbor. this daughter about 9, Jenny about 3. Jane decided that there was more "opportunity" in Alaska……….and took the daughter and their dog Crowfoot and left. The daughter grew up in Fairbanks.
There are many stories. Daughter wants to hear them all. Wants to piece her understanding of her life together…like how we stitch together a cloth…..a quilt….a blanket.
she asked today…..you grew up in the 50's…….HOW DID YOU DO ALL THE THINGS YOU DID??????????????????????
She loves this pic of her mother. She loves me. I love them. I told her today….ok….we will GROW this. ok.
i just wasn't going to talk about this. Just…..keep it to my Self because of too much Sad for a blog.
but then, it's kept bothering me. Does not Honor her…. Arctica. Alyssia's Goat. Daughter of OOna.
we were blindsided. This shouldn't have been true, but it was. Oona was buried Monday the 8th. Arctica went into the Rain House and layed down and died. the night of the 9th. I am not going to tell the story of that. Just putting it here, because we loved her. Because she lived 13 years, Beauty Full and fiercely independent Goat.
and i almost forgot….. Today something of great majesty occurred. The bottom tier of the Iron Gate Dam, of the Klamath River, Siskiyou County California was drilled through….OPENED and the river flowed for the first time in a century. One of 3 dams to be removed. Their associated reservoirs approximately 1,300 acres will be revegitated and restored to provide critical riparian habitat. The short Youtube will make you cry with Love.
things ARE happening Out There. Up in Sunny Ray's Forest. The first is the largest, almost if not 12 inches across. !!!!! and then, 6 other clusters, like second pic. I found my Mushroom ID pamphlet….will sit with it again tomorrow….and go back, to see if there are gills or folds….which tell it all. They were startling. Just suddenly THERE amidst all the browns and greys…??? Why????? Another Beauty Full question….Why, I need to go find where i read about Mushrooms and if anyone remembers too, tell me….maybe Deb G who reads much the same as i?????? That the mushroom is the fruit of the "plant"….that is underground, the mother plant, this the fruit and that they occur now, in this wet overcast Season…?????? it is just nothing less than a total Wonder.
these are the ones that are appearing EveryWhere …..along the road up, near and next to everything, new this year, ???? And if they are so profuse here, what all Else is Happening in the differing biomes of Doe Forest, Meadow and then the Forest above Campsite C?????? Even over in B Garden????? Some days all Rain, some with windows of clear and overcast, even some SUN bursts through….. those Windows when there is so much to get done before the Rain again and needing to get done………so……not time to just wander…..and LOOOK . It will shift soon, but not yet. Their strength is amazing, they push rocks and heavy sodden earth. There is no pause, no sleeping in this Cold Time…..different life becomes Active and blooms it's fruit
so much to learn so much to love
a couple things today… Understood more how Radical Acceptance is a Practice. On going. Differing, one experience to another. and
how intertwined, the experience of Death and Love. Tara Brach talks about Compassion being what is found as the ground of R Acceptance….I'll look when i can for some of her words about that. But this morning, woke to understanding the place of LOVE in the experience of a death. This softens it all. Softens the Sadness, FELT to be a Loving Response to the absence of life, which is Love.
inadequate words, but what i have
what is the difference between sadness and grief?
Alyssia and Jeffrey came this morning to bury OOna. It had been supposed to happen yesterday, after the kids Christmas but things went on and dark comes so early and they ran out of time. so they came this morning . She was just there, i'd covered her with the Walnut Sheet and the pretty india import bedspread. They came early, taking her down on the little sled thing to where Jenny had dug that grave a week or two ago when we saw the wound to her udder. It was too early for me, but i'd Fed the Others and just was there, squatting, turned away as they decided if the hole was big enough….i listened to them and at some point asked…is she In? and yes, and i was flooded with a rush of Sadness. Dear and Best Beauty Full Oona
and all day i thought about the difference between Sadness and Grief. i have Sadness today. I think there will not be Grief. Oona's life was long and GOOD. She will be very missed as a Leader. But she couldn;'t anymore. It was the wound to her udder but it would have been something else. That's tonight. we'll see how it is tomorrow.
I love you OOna….Beauty Full You.
i need to give the remaining days of this month to………….what can i call it?……..positioning mySelf? maybe. But to Questioning. or, Looking more closely at where i am so far so that some good Questions might arise? And it very well may be that it might not be Pretty or lighthearted or any kind of Fun. So you might want to skip it till February. I want to take things down closer to the bone. Let go of familiar stories that i have and do rely on. Seeing if they hold true or just make things seem easier. My propensity for procrastination….i'll think about that ………later And in keeping with this, in her email before each Gathering….this being before yesterday's Gathering, Wendy said " questions become the delight, not the answers. What blooms is often the alchemy of suffering and joy. We shall see what that looks like for each of you."
Again, what the Gathering gives me to carry forward , is the work of Radical Acceptance and now, rippling into the Sacred Pause. There is much more, but these are easiest to give words to in this moment. and, examples: Last night, at 8 something oclock, a SOUND out there…not expected, and so for a few times, confusing, but then …. Goat. Distress. I have thought all my life about dying, my sister having died when i was 7 years old. I've read a lot, thought a lot, Lived a lot…? about dying and am pretty ok in it all. Pretty ok. What does that mean?, pretty ok.? And that was the Question last night. i'd taken rice straw bedding over to put under the house where OOna had chosen to be her sleeping camp….which was a surprise, but wise on her part…, Rain, and cold, so i put the bedding after she was up and coming for her separate feeding. Later in the day as i passed by i looked and Lo and Behold, there was…not OOna in there, but Arctica…!? and i worried that she wouldn't allow OOna to come in. Knowing there was no way to control any of that, there was still the nagging concern of What Now for OOna but when i went out to Feed in the morning yesterday……they were BOTH there….the warmth of their bodies in the straw and i was so Happy to see this, surprised….but then at the Evening Feed….no OOna…and i let it go again….Out of my Control and just left her food there and then…..that calling in the dark. It was time. I can go on about this. It was over 2 hours. I tried to find where it was coming from but the battery in the Fat Max flashlight was weak and when i went out, the calling would always stop and walking around in the dark in the Doe Forest is not wise and i finally had to just face it. I could hear my heart beating in my ears and i KNEW there was nothing i could do And Mind worked hard but i realized there is way more work to do about
death
today i went to Alyssia's for the kids to have their Christmas with Emrie and Julian back. The hug from Emrie was LONG and SOLID, a kind of Force Field in it, from it. so much going on and i thought about my feelings re her coming back….how i'd realized that WHY i wanted her back so much was partly because there are things i want her to know…about how we live. Why we live this way. And it's TIME for more Thoughtful Effort on my part…to not take her for granted…..take our time together for granted
so these kinds of things. That's where i am right now, where i'll be in these next days of January. February will be here soon enough, more Light, less Rain, warmth the beginning of the Garden Season, season of Creating, and i'm guessing there will be cloth too.
and then…the thing of Prayer. What about it. That little saucer bowl in the pic. I want to put little pieces of paper in it with just a few words…kinda like the fortunes in Chinese Cookies…. They will spill over. I think about Nancy's posts…Pomegranate Trail, where she always ends with her "May you…." s My prayers are kinda like that. May you May I May We May the planet I want to understand more of this, take some time.
just a little. every morning. just to Keep in Touch
windthread 