American Dog, art as writing prompt

Painting by Rebecca Ripley

American Dog

 

by Joyce Wycoff

 

He was an American dog, 

galaxies in his eyes,

heart big as the night sky.

He untethered sun and moon,

launched uncounted stars

of joy and sorrow, light and dark.

He wove all into our story,

though his words were square,

unheard by hearts laid bare.

Sad to the bone,

he headed home,

Alone.

Becky Ripley shared her amazing art with me in the form of a set of greeting cards. I coveted them too much to think about sending them to others, so I took each one as a writing prompt. 

Before I read the title of this particular card, what I saw was a dog. I tried to find something else since it really didn’t look like a dog, but I kept coming back to dog. So, finally, I gave in and allowed it to be dog, and the first line showed up … He was an American dog.

What am I supposed to do with a line like that? 

Ride the wave, I thought.

I never write in rhyme. 

This dog wanted rhyme.

All right, I said, following the dictates of rhyme.

Without Becky’s art,

Without the demand for rhyme,

This particular assemblage of words would never have been born.

This particular feeling of sadness would not have been given space on the page.

 

I would not have admitted that in many ways, I am sad to the bone,

and, too often, feel alone.

This is my American dog.

He will lead me home.

By the way, Becky’s title for this piece is “Night Mask." After I had finished the writing from this, Becky said this about the development of the piece:  "I had recently completed a Thinking Patterns workshop on the work of Dawna Markova. Jacqui and I were then in Santa Fe for Paint Camp. The other campers had driven into town to see The Mission, and Jacqui and I decided to stay home and enjoy the hot tub. Looking up at the sky, I planned this mask to represent my alpha, beta, theta states…"

 

 

Here are other writings prompted by her inspiring art.

Who are the moon dancers?

Night Flight gifts

 

Who are the moon dancers? art as writing prompt

Moon Dancers by Becky Ripley  

see more beauty and wisdom at BeckyRipley.com

Who are the moon dancers?

by Joyce Wycoff

women. women celebrating life. celebrating tribe.

dancing connection. dancing joy into the night.

unfettered by custom and cloth

undaunted by shoulds and shouldn'ts

wild rhythms shaking belly and breasts.

sparks from the communal fire

shooting into dark sky, 

meteor bits streaking silver echos,

bedazzling dancers and unseen eyes.

drums drumming; blood thrumming,

cells loosening, remembering ancient 

joinings in shadowed crevices

softened by undulating strands of seduction

entwining now and forever

in moments of generosity. 

 

women.

women dancing.

women moon dancing.

join in. 

 

Love Letter to my life #30: 2020 Summarized

by Joyce Wycoff

(We know the day we were born, but most of us do not know the day we will die. This love letter to my life is written on the day I've designated as my death day, the 17th of every month, and reminds me to be grateful for my incredible life.)    

The last love-letter of the year falls on the combination of my monthly death day and my birthday, prompting this summary of the year. 

 

In 2020, I ...

• Moved. When the perfect RV park on the Truckee river raised their space rent and offered no assurance that they wouldn’t raise them whenever they wanted, I bought a mobile home in a nice community with a clubhouse, pool, and exercise facilities. It didn’t take long to realize that being on a hill in Reno meant wind … lots of wind. It also didn’t take long for access to the club facilities to be closed due to COVID-19.
• Focused on making photo books. Created The Road to Gerlach as part of an application for an artist in residency program. Was not chosen for the program.
• Flew to Florida to visit a long-time friend and helped her make her own photo book about a local rookery.
• Developed a guide book to help people make photo books and was accepted by Truckee-Meadows Community College as an instructor to teach a class on photo book making.
• Explored the Nevada outback with the kids. Rocks, golden eagle nests, Aurora ghost town cemetery, fun time with family. 
   

  

  Available here.
  

   
• Created Corona Wisdom, a book of art, poetry, and reflections about the pandemic. In order to make this book, I followed a frustrating path of learning InDesign and focused on the unfolding lessons, frustrations, and upheavals caused by the pandemic.
• Was horrified by the number of typos sprinkled through the pages of the first soft-cover copies of Corona Wisdom. Plus, the design didn’t please me. So, back to the drawing board until a hardback copy arrived in mid-November. It makes me happy and has received some lovely reviews.
• Answered a spirit call to be closer to water and nature by buying a 20 year-old RV located in Vagabond RV Park on Lake Almanor in Northern California. Being there made me want to connect more fully to nature and my spirit.
• Returned to California. As a result, I put my Reno house on the market, bought a 10 year-old RV and had it towed to Pinezanita RV Park just outside Julian in Southern California. The plan is to spend five summer months at the lake and the seven fall and winter months in the mountains.
• Reconnected with dear friends in the San Diego area and suddenly felt supported. 
   

  

  Free online version.
  

   
• Launched an online magazine, inspired by the fall colors of the oak woodland around me and watching woodpeckers create their granary trees, I launched an online magazine: The Granary Tree, where I will store bits of gathered wisdom from my journey … my acorns.
• Got cold. Became frightened by the mechanical aspects of living in an RV. Searched for a way out; contemplated moving.
• Discovered Borrego Springs, a small desert town an hour away from Julian. Stunning landscape surrounded by 600,000 acres of Anza-Borrego State Park, Borrego Springs has an artsy and somewhat quirky culture that appeals to me.
• Came close to buying a mobile home in Borrego Springs, which would have meant abandoning the idea of a two-RV lifestyle, but the beauty of the trees of Pinezanita, as well as the simplicity of my life, held me in place, resisting the pull of self-inflicted change.
• Turned 75. Grateful for my excellent health, kind and loving friends, and the lessons that just keep coming.

2020: a year of perfect vision gone awry turns out to have delivered a dollop of wisdom. I have chosen to live closer to nature and will learn to live with its challenges. 

 

Dear 2021 ... it would be perfectly fine with me if we made it through the year without moving. Just saying.

   

Night Flight Gifts, art as writing prompt

Night Flight by Becky Ripley, see more beauty and wisdom at BeckyRipley.com

On the morning before the night of the Geminid meteor shower, 

thinking watching would be too cold, too late, too hard, too dark,

a bright dragonfly appeared as a gift from a friend.

She hies toward a luminous moon surrounded by shooting stars,

pulled by inner vision, braving all to connect with the light. 

Hers is a Night Flight of courage and willingness to follow beauty

and the wisdom of nature. 

How could I not follow her guidance?

Wikipedia states: The Geminids are a prolific meteor shower caused by the object 3200 Phaethon, which is thought to be a Palladian asteroid with a "rock comet" orbit. This would make the Geminids, together with the Quadrantids, the only major meteor showers not originating from a comet. 

However, what made me want to brave the cold night was color and quantity. This year promised as many as 150 meteors per hour in very dark areas. And, Accuweather.com hooked me with, "In addition to the high frequency of meteors, the Geminids are known for featuring shooting stars that are bright and intensely colored. These colors are caused by the elements that make up the meteors. As they burn up in the atmosphere, the elements glow in vibrant colors with each color relating to a specific element.”

I began my vigil at 9 p.m., multi-layered and eager. Two quick streaks gave me hope for the crescendo expected at 2 a.m.. I set an alarm for midnight and dozed.

A ring tone later, bundled in Patagonia thermals and wool, I sat in a plastic chair just yards from the tempting warmth of bed. Orion’s belt caught my adjusting eyes and I began to contemplate ancient sky watchers. 

 

Who were those people from long ago 

who braved the night cold and made friends 

with bright constellations and unraveled their movements? 

 

How many long nights would I have had to sit here 

before I recognized the patterns above me? 

 

How could I have held that immensity in my head 

in order to share it with my people in stories and dance?

The meteors were few; 

the night cold, 

the unexpected gift 

of connection across time 

warmed me. 

 

 

Borrego Tales: Requiem in Green and Red

 

A satellite would see a bright pinprick of green on a wrinkled spread of variegated tan with a blue hole in the middle. Traveling east to west at seven thousand miles per hour, it would take the satellite two seconds to pass over the unlit expanse of Anza-Borrego State Park and almost a minute to reach the blue Pacific stretching away from the lights and traffic of San Diego. 

 

The satellite was traveling way too fast to have seen me sitting on that pinprick of green being rudely attacked by a pinprick of red, genus Solenopsis, fire ant. My unwelcome mini-visitor apparently was deluded by heroic visions of downing a megafauna to feed his village hidden somewhere on this oasis of green known as Christmas Circle in Borrego Springs, the cultural center of six hundred thousand acres of desert. The miniscule ant bit skin to get a grip intending to then administer his sting of death, perhaps without understanding it would have taken him plus his entire village and maybe several others to down this particular specimen.

Or maybe he was just pissed that his territory had been invaded. Two days later, his mark is still visible, still irritating, and I have to wonder if he survived his sudden launch into space, an autonomic reaction to his bite. If so, I hope he carried home tales of evil giants and a warning to his kind to quit messing with the big ones.

 

He left me with a thought though ... size does not equate to impact. Each of us may only be 1 of 7.5 billion planet mates, but we each have impact.

Sharing is caring: A story of Sapphire the Fairy

One lonely night in the midst of a pandemic, a sad woman who couldn’t sleep walked through the dark, empty streets. In front of one house she found a little fairy garden at the base of a tree with a note about a 4-year old girl who also felt lonely because of the pandemic and wanted to spread some cheer. 

 

The woman felt a tug at her heart and the next day she wrote a note to the little girl pretending to be a fairy named Sapphire who had come to live in the tree because it was such a lovely garden. In the note Sapphire said she would gift the little girl with some magical fairy dice if she did these things: 

 

 - say 5 nice things to people you love

- do 3 helpful things for someone in need

- promise to always be kind and brave and to show love to those in need

- draw a picture of your favorite animal so I can show the other fairies  ;-)

 

If these things are done, I will leave the magical dice here Friday morning for you. Be sure to share them if anyone helps you with these tasks.

 

Sharing is caring!!

 

love, Sapphire

 

Sapphire didn't know if the little girl would find the note or if she would respond but it was fun imagining how she would respond.

The next night on her walk, she did find a note from the little girl ... one that made her burst into tears.

 

Dear Sapphire 

Thank you for leaving the note in my fairy garden. I did the things you asked.

    - I sent mail to 5 of my friends and family telling them nice things

    - I delivered birthday things to my friend for his birthday today

    - I picked up trash and recycling around our neighborhood

    - I set the table and helped mommy and daddy with chores and with my baby sister

I am so excited for the magical lucky dice! I am so happy you live in this tree. I made a picture of two piggies for you because they are my favorite. I hope you like it. I love you.

Also I promise to be kind and brave and always show love to those in need.

 

 
 

Sapphire left a bunch of her glittery dice for the little girl (and a note to her parents with her contact info so they wouldn't worry about strangers).

The notes continued and Sapphire discovered that the dice were very special because the little girl and her parents had been playing a game that included dice and now she had her very own magical lucky dice.

Later, the woman told this story and said, "Doing this every night gave me purpose in a horribly painful and lonely time. I looked forward to my days again and I started ordering art supplies and little trinkets to leave her. We wrote back and forth throughout the last 9 months, helping each other feel less lonely and I got to chat with her mom via text to make sure my gifts were a little more personal. At one point she asked for a photo of me and thankfully I had some elf costume items from the previous Halloween so I photoshopped some photos of myself in costume, looking like a fairy."

As life happens, though, the little girl's family decided to move and Sapphire said she was going to move also as a way of helping the little girl feel better about leaving. They wanted to meet though and Sapphire longed to hug the little girl.

What the little girl didn't know was that when fairies move, they get one day as a big person so they can get all their stuff moved. So, Sapphire got to spend a day with the little girl, (everyone having been tested so they were safe), answering all her questions about what it was like to be a fairy.

The woman,  sometimes known as the Fairy Sapphire, later said, "It was incredible and one of the
most important and impactful afternoons of my life thus far. I hope one day when she’s older she can understand that I truly needed her as much as she needed me these past few months. 

'This is the book she wrote me after I encouraged her to keep telling such amazing stories."

****

When not befriending little girls as the Fairy Sapphire, Kelly Victoria is a photographer who can be found on Twitter and Instagram as @saysthefox

 

 

 

On the 75-year journey of becoming a writer/artist

4th grade: magazine image of a gondolier in Venice. 

A soap bubble of imagination rises with a yearning

to tell his story, too soon popped by the sharp prick of reality.

Recess plays written by Charlene Storm, acted out by four little girls.

One budding playwright submits a script in tiny, unreadable words. 

First rejection.

Books: magic carpet portals to other worlds. 

Story-gifts from the gods.

Safe-haven for a lonely, unseen wanderer.

10th grade: a picture on a wall, dark and misty, 

a lake, a windmill, a house on a far shore.

words rise unbidden, weaving a story:

a woman, a man, a connection across time and space.

A beckoning to tell their story forces words onto paper.

Pages tucked into a class notebook

remain a story untold from a writer undeclared,

as intention to share is silenced by fear.

College: flooding of dark words playing themselves into poems,

creative writing classes with wild man and storyteller, William Foster Harris,

red-inked submissions returned with no encouragement.

Tiny, unremarked diversions from the path of real life.

Real Life: numbers, assets and liabilities, income statements

overshadow periodic leaking of words onto the page,

beloved IBM Selectric hidden in a cramped under-staircase closet,

secret submissions to magazines and journals, 

fat returned-manuscript envelopes, form letter rejection slips. 

 

(years scroll by until ... )

New Editor: rejection-proof newsletter: MindPlay, editor Joyce Wycoff.

Content: whatever sparks curiosity and interest.

Slowly, a small group of followers emerge.

Suddenly, a book contract appears, and then a book.

One day, at the checkout counter in a bookstore,

a woman stands holding a book with a bright blue cover:

my book. 

At 45, I became an author. It would take many more years

to understand that I am a writer. It is what I do; it is how I

process the world. It would also take the upheaval that came

with losing my spouse to realize I needed the combination of

words and images to say the things I wanted to say.

If I had been particularly astute, I might have learned that

in the fourth grade. 

 

Now available at BookBaby Store

 

Still available almost 30 years later.

Building Resilience through Gratitude

I’m cold … and it’s not even winter.

(Truth in blogging requires that I reveal this photo is from outside Reno (where I moved from) not from here, the place I'm whining about.)

 However, I am cold and believe the Universe is saying something to the effect of: “Your resilience muscles are flabby … time to toughen up.”

Of course, I didn’t know this when I made a sudden, spontaneous (is that redundant?) decision to uproot my just-recently-settled life in Reno and move to an RV in the mountains east of San Diego. You might think that meant I owned an RV and knew what winters were like in the Julian area. Not a chance on either count.

The Universe tricked me. I had a wild-hair idea and she kept making it easy to take the next step. I thought each step was a miracle that meant I was supposed to do this. I landed here seven weeks ago, and now know that somewhere there’s a devil-goddess doubled over in side-splitting laughter.

This is where I really am

Just so you have a more complete picture, I’m living in a lovely, ten year-old 37-foot fifth wheel with ALL the conveniences of a tiny home in a stunningly beautiful RV park surrounded with trees that I’ve fallen in love with. 

 

Should be paradise, huh? I’ve written earlier about some of the issues of a mechanically-challenged woman trying to swim through a mechanical world. So far, I haven’t drowned, thanks to dozens of YouTube videos, the advice of some kind neighbors and a gosh-awful plumbing bill … and was only without a toilet for a week. Fortunately, this park has some of the cleanest facilities I’ve seen, it’s just a bit chilly to get to them.

Anyway, there’s a point to all this rambling. As it’s gotten colder, I’ve begun to balance what I love about being here with the uncertainties of dealing with weather and mechanical mysteries. Heating an RV can be budget-challenging. Trying to live within that budget resulted in waking up this morning to a 46 degree house with a reluctance to use the gold-plated furnace or space heater. Extra layers of clothing help, but it’s not like sitting in front of a roaring fireplace. At some point, I had an epiphany in the form of a question … 

Who ever guaranteed that you’d always be toasty warm?

I began to think about indigenous women and pioneer women … how did they cope with winter? How did they keep their babies warm? I thought about Jeremiah Johnson (movie of same name) who wanted to be a mountain man and suffered through his own harsh learning curve of cold and hunger and being chased by people who wanted him dead. I even got around to wondering how prison camp survivors lasted sometimes for years under soul crushing conditions.

All of those people had few choices. They had to cope with what they were given, or die. Maybe that’s part of my issue: I do have choices. I could call this a mistake and go back to Reno, although there's no furniture left in that house. But, I really want to stay here and also need to respect my budget, so I get into this push-pull cycle, slogging through my own insecurities. 

In the midst of this vacillation, a friend called me and started reading to me … from my own book: Gratitude Miracles. It is a gratitude journal organized around thirteen four-week cycles focused on the benefits of practicing gratitude. 

 

Barbara said: “Listen to this … it’s from page 161 ...          

Robert Emmons, the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude says that, in troubling times, “not only will a grateful attitude help — it is essential. In fact, it is precisely under crisis conditions when we have the most to gain by a grateful perspective on life. In the face of demoralization, gratitude has the power to energize. In the face of brokenness, gratitude has the power to heal. In the face of despair, gratitude has the power to bring hope. In other words words, gratitude can help us cope with hard times.” 

 

She went on to insist that I should get the book out into the world because people needed to be practicing gratitude, especially in this time of a pandemic and so much political turmoil. (Actually, the journal is available on amazon.com)

 

I agreed and thought I needed to be the first person in line for it. While I’ve developed an attitude of gratitude, I haven’t been officially practicing it, so I brought out a copy and turned to page 161, which is part of the benefit cycle of Resilience. What I read launched my third journey through this journal, starting with Week 1 of Cycle 10: Gratitude Strengthens Resilience.

Already, I feel gratitude shifting my mind. I recognize that I have slipped into a mindset of not having enough, not being enough. This morning when I opened the door of my RV, I felt warm sunshine. It was still chilly but as I walked through the park, my spirit soared and I thought: I can solve these issues. I can stay warm enough (although maybe not my preferred 70-degrees); I can learn to deal with my RV issues and be smart about how I use my resources. 

 

 

All of this stuff is just falling leaves, changing of seasons. I can stay in this place that feeds my spirit ... or I can decide to do something else. It's my choice and I will be grateful for whatever comes, including the lessons that build my resilience. 

 

You can learn more about the Gratitude Miracles journal and resilience here.

 

Love Letter to my life #29: The Granary Tree

by Joyce Wycoff

(We know the day we were born, but most of us do not know the day we will die. This love letter to my life is written on the day I've designated as my death day, the 17th of every month, and reminds me to be grateful for my incredible life.)   

 

A project called me to move to the Cuyamaca Mountains in east San Diego County ... a vague, blobby kind of idea about creating something around wildflowers and nature, focused on California, all of California, all 800 miles north to south and 400 miles east to west. 

 

As I went about learning how to live in an RV and began exploring the land around me, I cycled through a lot of project possibilities. Most lasted no more than a day or two.

The work I did about this time last year … which at the time I called my 5-Year Plan (because the idea of a 74 year-old woman making a 5-year plan tickled me) … clarified my intention to live the rest of my life in Delight. Out of that thinking, came four action words that I wanted to be the bedrock of all my doings: Learn - Create - Connect - Share. They became the criteria for all project possibilities, with the overarching mission being to create delight for myself and others. Most projects quietly went away under that spotlight. 

I was beginning to wonder if any project would survive that scrutiny when a new book showed up on my Kindle. Since I'm living in the midst of an oak forest, it startled me with a sense that it was written just for me. The first chapter focused on acorns and woodpeckers. Shortly thereafter, I knew I had found my project.

The story that began to haunt me was about granary trees. Oaks are keystone plants supporting a diverse habitat by producing an abundance of acorns that feed the neighborhood. One of the main inhabitants of oak woodlands are woodpeckers whose main diet is acorns. To store their precious food supply, they create communal store houses … granary trees. These trees may hold 50,000 acorns and take eight years to drill the holes and store the acorns.

Woodpeckers don’t “own” their store houses. Other woodpeckers eat freely from them, and, because the acorns shrink as they dry, squirrels, blue jays and other forest dwellers help themselves to the bounty. However, to outwit the thieves, woodpeckers move as many as five hundred acorns every week!

Soon after I arrived, I started walking through the woods in the surrounding woodland and thought “wouldn’t it be nice if I could actually see a granary tree?”

I practically ran into it … a huge Ponderosa pine. Within a couple of weeks I had found three inside the park where I live and a few outside the park. I can touch the acorns packed into the holes: some are loose enough to pull out with my fingers; some so tight I would need pliers to remove them.

Granary trees are a wonder as baffling to me as the great pyramids. They are unique in the animal world and require an enormous amount of work … drilling the holes, gathering the acorns one acorn at a time from surrounding trees, and then pounding them into the holes. And they are made by generous beings who share the bounty with the neighborhood.

 

Detail of one of the granary trees.

What’s coming? … The Granary Tree ... on November 30, 2020, under the full Acorn Moon.

Here's a description of the new project ... a periodic, online “magazine” (or as they are sometimes called “flip books”), filled with acorns (or wonders) about what I learn and whatever captures my attention, focusing on beauty and nature, art and generosity, wandering and wondering along the way.

 

To be sure to receive your copy, simply add your email address in the Follow by Email box on the right side of this post and press submit.

To RV or not to RV ...

Some of you may be thinking about living in an RV or heading out for the open road. I highly endorse the idea, with a few caveats about the learning curve that, for me, is part of this adventure.

I lived for 7 months in what was an RV bubble and thought I had a sense of what I was doing when I decided to live full-time in an RV. Now I think of that decision as being somewhat like deciding to eat only what you can grow yourself. Sounds wholesome, self-reliant, and fun ... until hunger sets in.
 
Perhaps the best way to share my thoughts is to describe the past three days.
 
Weather will be a constant companion whether you’re on the road or parked. Several days ago, I noticed that we were in for a week of wind, rain, and freezing temperatures; so I started making plans.
Two days ago, I decided to stabilize the RV with a tripod stabilizer and to wrap my water hose to prevent freezing. Buying and installing the stabilizer was easy. Wrapping my 100’ of hose was simple but time consuming. Two jobs well done and satisfying.

 
Yesterday, since the night temps were touching freezing, I started thinking about my furnace and the propane tanks that keep the warm air flowing. A friend suggested they might need insulating. Sounded reasonable, so I was off to YouTube (the repository for multiple answers to all questions, some actually helpful.)
 
After several videos by guys who all want to be my new best friend, the answer to why you should NOT insulate propane tanks began to make sense … boils down to: they work better when full and insulation hinders the evaporation (you have to watch the videos yourself if you want to know why that’s important.) Anyway, scratch “insulate the propane tanks” off my growing to do list.
 
However, the idea that they work better when full was troublesome. Are my tanks full? Who knows? Back to YouTube. Apparently, “How full is my propane tank?” is one of the mysteries of the Universe. Some guys thump ‘em, some pour hot water down the side and wait for a frost line, some buy a profusion of gauges which half the reviewers swear didn’t work.
 
I’ve been here six weeks and had to assume that it was likely that my tank was empty. Well, that and the fact that my furnace didn’t seem to do much other than keep the frost out of the air. So I’m off to take my tank to the park office where they fill them … after watching several videos about just how to take them out of their compartments, of course.

I have a “split-bottle” system with an “automatic changeover.” That's good because the law of propane tanks is that they run out at 2 am. (Of course, none of that was spelled out in the large stack of manuals I inherited with this RV.)

As I looked into the cabinets that held the bottles, I saw more questions than answers. (Do remember that propane is dangerous … one wrong move and I could blow up half the county. My imagination painted graphic pictures.)  
 
Finally, in something of a state of panic, I took photos of both tanks and their respective valves, (this is not what I want to take pictures of), then photoshopped a page of appropriate photos and was headed out to the RV store 20 miles away, when a neighbor and his wife pulled into their space.

I almost gave him time to get out of his car before I was groveling at his feet, begging him to help me figure out what to do. Being a nice man, he gently took me over to my unit and revealed the mysterious workings of propane tanks. 
 
I felt saved until we took the first one out of its cabinet. Definitely empty, but the sucker was anything but light. My neighbor decided the other one was probably empty also and took it out. It still had some propane left, but I took both to the office to be filled.
 
My neighbor made me promise I’d let him help me reload them when I got back. I demurred for half a second; I am trying to be self-reliant.
 
It didn’t take long when I picked up the full-bottles to realize there was definitely an issue. Research has since revealed that a 30# tank weighs 55#. (It’s a little ridiculous to ask Google how much a 30# tank weighs. Like who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb? only in this case it would have been Grant and all the little Grants.)
 
However, with my neighbor doing all the heavy lifting, the full tanks were soon in place and the furnace ran at a near-toasty level. Another check mark on my to do list.
 
Today began well: nothing froze, water is still running. I knew I needed a system for loading and unloading the propane tanks and that made me wonder how long they would last. Google proceeded to tell me that a full 30# propane tank should keep a furnace running consistently for 25 hours. Since I have two tanks, I had 50 hours of furnace time … however, I had just used up 12 hours in one night! 
 
Drat! That’s not going to work for a 3-month winter. Small space heaters work well in small spaces though, so I was just getting ready to head to the city to buy another space heater when I decided to dump the tanks: black water and gray water.
 
Easy-peasy, just pull a knob and a valve opens and lets all the icky stuff from the black tank run into the septic tank. Close that valve and open the gray water valve and it further cleans the line. Close that valve and you’re basically done. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.
 
However, after dumping, the black water tank wouldn’t close all the way, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much WD-40 I sprayed on it, no matter how much I begged Ganesha. Back to YouTube and I now know more than I ever wanted to know about waste systems, paper clogs, and poop build-ups.
 
There’s more to the story, more Googling, more YouTubing, more crying on a friend’s shoulder, and one trip to the hardware store to buy tools that I don’t know how to use to try to fix something I can’t see.
 
Now, I sit here writing in a frosty room because I’m not about to use that precious propane, hoping I never have to go to the bathroom again, and wondering if I will ever feel competent and truly self-reliant.
 
However, on the way to the hardware store, I saw buffalo and a barn quilt. That almost makes up for all of these challenges. Here are the buffalo. Quilt next time when I figure out how to pull off the narrow, two-lane road.

A gift that dispelled despair

 Today has been hard and I’m sure many of you understand. Seeing Washington, D.C. boarded up as if a category-5 hurricane were about to land, struck a blow. I was overwhelmed by what might happen if we lose tomorrow.

Then, a gift arrived … unexpectedly as most great gifts do. Looking for distraction, I stumbled on an hour-and-a-half video of a panel discussion. I’m a 3-minute attention span person, but it was with three of my favorite authors: Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, Terry Tempest Williams, “Refuge, Erosion and many others, and Richard Powers, Overstory, which I'm just now reading for the second time. 

click here to watch

Richard Powers, Terry Tempest Williams, and Robin Wall Kimmerer

Terry opened the discussion with a story. (Forgive the first-name familiarity with these respected people. I have cried with them for the past hour and a half and feel a level of connectedness with them.) 

The story was of the impending removal of the Divinity Tree, a hundred-year-old Red Oak on Harvard campus. The tree was failing … and also in the way of some planned renovations. Clearly, Terry, who is a professor in the Harvard Divinity School was feeling grief and anger and her emotion opened a vulnerable and sharing conversation. (The opening photo is of the stump of this storied tree.)

For some reason, as I watched these three wise and kind leaders talk about how they are navigating this world and how we are being helped by plant beings, the despair that I have been feeling began to heal. Tomorrow might not take us where we want to be ... nevertheless, we shall persist! 

In recent days and months, I've seen a lot of unimaginable hatred and violence from my fellow countrymen ... but I've also seen amazing generosity and engagement. Our democracy and our ideals may not survive this particular challenge, but we will continue to fight for what we know is right.

The presence of Robin Wall Kimmerer on this panel reminded me of the huge losses of the indigenous people, and yet they persist in relearning their languages, reconstructing their cultures, sharing the wisdom they’ve gathered over millennia, living in gratitude for the plant beings who make every breath we breathe.

We might lose tomorrow and life as we know it might change. But, life goes on, and changes, and so will we.

Love Letter to My Life #28: Something about picnic tables

by Joyce Wycoff

(We know the day we were born, but most of us do not know the day we will die. This love letter to my life is written on the day I've designated as my death day, the 17th of every month, and reminds me to be grateful for my incredible life.)  

There is something about a picnic table. It’s not particularly comfortable, or lovely even in its cross-legged simplicity. However, the sight of a picnic table prompts a happy reaction in me. Maybe it’s the picnic table from childhood under the shady shelter of a large pecan tree; maybe it’s the symbol of years of camping trips and excursions; maybe it’s an ancient memory of eating in community out doors around a fire. 

My reaction to picnic tables seems to be deeper than its form or function. Something happened yesterday that started me on this path of thinking about picnic tables and called to me at 3:30 this morning until I surrendered and began this letter. 

 

San Diego County ... ocean to desert

 

I’ve been here in the hill country of east San Diego County for a week and a half, long enough to settle in and begin the familiar routines of writing, photography and making art. Yesterday, as the shade laced the yard, I spread my laptop and notebooks across the picnic table and settled in to think about a new project.

It was a perfect fall day: the air fresh and that perfect temperature that feels neither cool nor warm.. And, even though I’m in a rather large RV park (250 spaces), my neighbors were gone and the only sounds were a rustle of leaves and an occasional birdcall in the distance. I drifted into the project, writing, revising the related art work, mapping the project which slowly emerged like a developing photo in a dark room. When the day softened into evening and turned cool, I picked up my work and went back inside.

That's when I noticed the quiet. Not just the quiet of outside, but the silence in my head. I could hear, or rather feel, the silence, like being wrapped in a blanket of calm and peace. I thought it would go away when I noticed it, but it didn’t. It seemed to be in my body as well as my mind. It was part of  my breath.

In the past six weeks, I’ve been called to make this change, not understanding why. Every time I would have a doubt, it would be whisked away by the ease with which everything was happening. It was like walking through a maze of blind corners with no clue of which way to go until suddenly a “this way” sign would appear. 

I still don’t know exactly why I’m here but it feels right and the peaceful silence is still with me even though it did wake me up in the middle of the night, demanding that I get up and write about this.

Take a Stand #3: Free, independent press is worth protecting

"Take a stand” is a on-going series articulating beliefs which deserve more of my action.

Taking a stand #3: We need a free, independent press. We need journalism we can trust to bring us facts and truth. We need net-neutrality to guarantee the free flow of information.

Action: Subscribe to Mother Jones; donate to Democracy Now!; pay attention to attempts to end net neutrality, and reduce time on Facebook and Twitter through a social media fast on Mondays and Thursdays.

***

This stand was prompted by a podcast from Bioneers.org:  When Truth Is Dangerous: The Power of Independent Media featuring the leaders of two of the most successful independent news agencies in the U.S.:

• Monika Bauerlein is the groundbreaking CEO and former Co-Editor of Mother Jones, which since 1976 has stood among the world’s premier progressive investigative journalism news organizations.
• Amy Goodman, host and Executive Producer of Democracy Now!, has won countless prestigious awards, including an I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence Lifetime Achievement Award and the Right Livelihood Award. She has co-authored six bestsellers, including Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America
• Neil Harvey, Host and Consulting Producer

Podcast Highlights:

MB: The only way we are going to have journalism that serves the democracy that it is a part of is for the public to take ownership of it.

MB: Speaking of the history of corporate journalism.“Like any profitable activity, the people who were doing it, the people who owned the profit-making, wanted to do more of it, so there was an incredible amount of corporatization and consolidation. 

NH: A handful of mammoth of media monopolies now dominate the mindscape with familiar names such as AT&T, Comcast, Viacom, CBS, and Disney. Not only does this media concentration stifle freedom of speech it also throttles a diversity of counterpoints.

NH: In 2017, under intense lobbying by media monopolies, the Federal Communications Commission overturned net neutrality. Although the Internet was created and paid for by US public tax dollars, it’s now controlled by giant corporations. The information highway will start to act more like a toll bridge.

(The FCC's Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which took effect on June 11, 2018, provides a framework for protecting an open Internet while paving the way for better, faster and cheaper Internet access for consumers. https://www.fcc.gov/restoring-internet-freedom)

NH: Amy Goodman and her team began broadcasting in 1996 as the only daily election show airing on public television and planned to wrap it up after the election was over. Instead, it was a free and open internet that allowed Democracy Now! to flourish. 

AG: But there was more demand for the show after than before. I mean, it was a way of getting grassroots, global voices out there.

NH: The early Internet mantra that “information wants to be free” gave way to web and social media platforms that are now some of the biggest corporate monopolies in history, such as Google and Facebook. The public town square is not in their business model, and they have siphoned away the majority of advertising money that funded traditional journalism. Nor do they pay to use the news gathered and produced by media outlets. 

These digital media platforms are also largely unregulated, and not subject to standards of journalism. In reality, their main profit center is your data, which are now the most valuable commodity in the world. 

MB: So the way Facebook makes a profit is the more people spend more time on the platform and share and like and engage, the more money they make by them being the people who do the bundling of eyeballs and selling them to advertisers.

*** Previous Stands:

Taka stand #1: I believe that we white people created Black Lives Matter out of over 400 hundred years of treating people of color as if they didn’t matter.

We did it to black people, native Americans, Chinese, Muslims, Jews, Indians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and others that don’t fall into the white, supposedly-Christian, used-to-be majority.

Action: Apology and resolution to be more outspoken

As a white person, I sincerely apologize to all people of color for not working harder to end the injustice that has gone on for far too long.

Take a stand #2: I believe all consenting humans have the right to love whom they love and their private relationships should not be restricted by laws or religious pressures.

Action: Apology and resolution to be more outspoken

As a heterosexual person, I sincerely apologize to all non-heterosexual people for not working harder to end the injustice that has gone on for far too long. 

 

Bioneers Podcast #2 - Interviewing the Vegetable Mind

Fire and Ice

About five years ago, I felt a small shift in my being when I was honored to have a piece of art selected for the Bioneers, San Luis Obispo conference. My compensation was a complimentary registration which I appreciated as I thought it might be an interesting experience. I expected an academic meeting of environmentalists. What I experienced were amazing, uplifting stories about love ... love of our planet, love for every living being on our planet. 

 I wound up volunteering to be part of the organization which turned into a seed that continued to grow even after I moved away from the Central Coast. 

Last year I attended the national Bioneers Conference last year and recently began to listen obsessively to their amazing podcasts, looking forward to the many different approaches to stories from the ..."revolution from the heart of nature."

https://soundcloud.com/bioneers/natures-intelligence

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a favorite author: Braiding Sweetgrass and Gathering Moss, and Monica Gagliano tells amazing stories of developing creative ways to test plant intelligence.

This is such a delightful, inspiring podcast. About 30 minutes.

“It’s a sign of respect and connection to learn the name of someone else and a sign of disrespect to ignore it. And yet, the average American can name over a hundred corporate logos … and ten plants. Learning the names of plants and animals is a powerful act of support for them,” — Robin Wall Kimmerer

Precepts of the Honorable Harvest … it’s just good manners.

“Every breath that you take was made for you by plants.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer

Trust the Journey

Embracing Uncertainty

A half-century or so ago, a kid-from-Kansas washed up on the shores of California. It was like rain falling on a desert seed which then blossomed into a love affair.

A bit more than fifty years later, wearied after so many moves, that same not-such-a-kid turned up in a not-California place, determined to grow where she had been planted. After all, it was the beginning of the year of perfect vision and a bright new decade stretched before her. 

So, she began to spin a dream, a dream of delight, a dream of living from her true center … learning, creating, connecting, and sharing. Soon, change came, saying, “Ok, you want a ride? Let’s go!”

All around her, storms began to tear at the old foundations. While the winds of politics howled, an unseen enemy locked down the customary paths of everyday life, and hatred, hurricanes, floods, and fires raged across the land, making life seem less predictable, each day a precious gift.

In the midst of the cacophony of tribulations, our weary traveler heard a tinkling bell and followed it, step-by-step, to a blue lake … in California … where a new adventure was waiting.

---

I sit here in the still-dark morning, the stuff of my life melting away, my new turtle shell home looming on the empty lot just outside my door, waiting for the rest of my basic necessities to be stuffed into its nooks and crannies.

Five days from now, a man with a truck will shepherd my tiny home toward a new life, a new project, a return to California. I have moved for jobs, for a partner, for reasons not quite understood. 

 

This time, I’m moving to follow a still-undefined project that calls me. Bits and pieces of the project are clear: California - wildflowers - nature - indigenous wisdom … but the details are still a swirling fog and it’s easy to fall into doubt: Who am I to attempt something which feels so enormous?

Every once in a while I just breathe deeply and try to remember to trust the journey. This morning I woke to my mostly empty house, words demanding space on the page, and a thousand questions rattling through my brain, wondering if I'm on the right path.

Breathe. Trust the journey. Breathe.