More Old Mermaids Healing Tales

I've had such success with the Old Mermaids Healing Tales that I've expanded what I'm doing. You can go here to find out more.

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The Old Mermaids Elixir

Go here to read a new Old Mermaids tale.

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Photos

I just realized you can go see my photos on FB now even if you don't have a Facebook account. If you click on the first photo on each, it'll go to a bigger photo and I've written some about most of them.

Sonoran Desert photos here.

Flower photos here.

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Shimmer

It is dusk and I'm sitting in the Quail House working for the first time since I arrived here at our retreat. This is the first time I've felt relaxed since we got here. Well, maybe not the first time. When I was doing healing work for my dad and for other people, I was relaxed. I was in the flow. Felt like I was doing something. And no story was knocking on my subconscious demanding to be written. No character was whispering in my ear.

It's not that no stories are coming to me. Stories always come to me. One on top of another. Sometimes I think that's why I worry so much. My mind, or my imagination, jumps from the fact of what is happening this moment to what could happen. And usually it's not a happy ending. I do that when I go see a movie, too, and when I read books. It's not a lot of fun. Because in the movies and books I'm usually right. Thank goodness in real life I am often wrong.

But who cares about that right now. Right this second the sun has plunged into the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles away and the splash is painting our desert sky first lavender and now rose. And the desert is so quiet I could hear a feather drop. Now it's adding gold to the structures near and far. The tree trunks which hold up the roof of the Quail House are black tinged with gold. In this light, they looked edible. Dark chocolate.

Everything shimmers.

I had an epiphany about my father yesterday. It's one I had to have before I could work effectively with clients. My dad's journey is his own. I couldn't direct it. I couldn't fix him. I couldn't make it all better. If something happened to him, I would be devastated, but it wouldn't be my fault.

I have always thought it was my job to fix the world and everyone in it. Yes, people have told me that takes a lot of hubris. Maybe. But it didn't feel that way when I was a child. It just felt like that was my job. Especially since I was so empathic. I've mentioned before that when I was about twelve I saw the Star Trek episode "Empath." As I watched it, I was horrified and excited. I whispered, "That's what I am." (Horrified because she had to sacrifice herself in order to heal others.)

Oh my. The inside of this tiny studio is now golden. The sky is pale blue except in the places where pink clouds stretch across the sky like a horizontal aurora borealis. The cactus crowding the windows all seem to be reaching up, up, trying to tickle the belly of the sky.

I don't believe in suffering for sake of suffering. I have never seen any benefit to being empathic. In fact, it often felt pathetic. I always wanted to be tough. Tough but loving. Fierce compassion. Fierce love. The other day my husband told me he saw me as tough. "Really?" I said, "but I have so many fears." "You get knocked down and you get back up," he said. "You keep going through it all." That was not how I viewed myself at all. I often chastised myself for not overcoming my fears. "So what, you see me a kind of Clint Eastwood character?" I asked. "Yeah, kind of," he said. I laughed and thought, "But he's a Republican."

I didn't want to be sensitive. I didn't want to be empathic. So many people seemed to go through life successfully without ever having a clue to the suffering all around them. Or to the beauty around them.

Ah. It is almost dark. A raven just flew by. Where the sun was is now a spray of scarlet. No, darker red. Bloody red. I feel that shiver that comes at twilight. Do I go out now while it's light to make my way back to the house. Or do I stay here a while longer, until it's dark, and then make my way through the possible javelinas, cougars, and coyotes.

Doctors used to tell me that I was like a canary in a mine. People like me got sick or were sensitive to things others weren't but that didn't mean others weren't in danger. I never liked that analogy. I kept imagining those poor bright yellow canaries dropping dead and then the miners running for their lives to outrun toxic fumes. What good did that job do the canaries? I did not aspire to be a canary.

Now I know that being sensitive and empathic is not a weakness. I just notice more things in my environment than other people do. That can be a pain in the ass for me and others around me. I used to hate it. Now I just realize it is a part of who I am.

I started this post to write about something else. Instead the shimmer of dusk brought me to this. To this question of identity. I thought that people went through identity crises when they were teens. Or young adults. I have seen myself as a writer almost my entire life. Since I was five years old at least. I was defined by that part of who I was. A friend of mine once told me he was afraid of what would happen to me if I couldn't write.

When I first got sick, I couldn't write for over a year. I let go of the idea of being a writer. I went to school for another career. But then the stories returned, and I was able to delve into my imagination without my brain twisting in the wind of anxiety. Now I know I am still a writer but there are other ways I can be in the world. In my stories, a lone woman is always finding community. That's my theme. That's my search. A search for home. More and more I am finding home in nature again. In places where words aren't needed.

Maybe we invented words to try to celebrate Nature. It was a kind of art, this invention of words. To recreate the beauty all around us. To praise it. So we formed words to emulate life, the way a painter forms colors on her palette.

And now sometimes words get in our way. They're used to obfuscate rather than clarify. They're used to bore rather than enchant. They're used to lie, rather than truth tell.

Today someone gave me the word "shimmer."

It sent a shiver up my spine.

It is an enchanted word.

It opened a door and a story walked through it. Or rather a group of characters did. Now they're sitting all around me, waiting for me to listen. Then I will try to invent words to recreate what they tell me. Invent words to praise what they say.

It is completely dark outside now. Inside, the golden tail of the tiny ceramic mermaid on the window sill glitters in the dim light. I know it is time to step into the darkness and see what is out there.

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Desert Dreamin'

I've written down my dream night last night in detail because it feels important to me. As usual, don't read on if other people's dreams bore you because this retelling would most likely drive you crazy! For me, this is a good place to document my dreams for later.

I dreamed I knew exactly what to say to hurt Mario. So I said it. I was very cruel. Later I was talking with Ingrid, woman who is going to teach a year long rune class (in waking life). She had all these dolls and some clothes, all made by her. They were extremely expensive. I thought she was gouging people.

She started yelling at my friend Jenine, trying to get her to buy something she said Jenine had taken home. I stood up to her and told her she had no right to talk to Jenine that way. She backed down. I had taken home one of her tops. It cost $1,800. I surreptitiously put it back. (I've been looking into taking a desert plant spirit medicine course but it costs $1,800, which I think is way too expensive.) In waking life, she's very kind; in this dream she was imperious. Despite all of this, I think I was still going to take the rune course from her.

Then I was preparing for a meeting with Ron Perlman, his wife, and his daughter. (Not his real life wife or real life daughter.) We had been in love back in his "Beast" days, but we had never done anything about it since we were married to other people. I hadn't seen him in years, and in the dream, I knew I hadn't seen him when my nose was so swollen and distorted because I felt so ugly. Now since I looked more "normal" I could see him. We drove to meet him. I saw him unloading something from his truck for his new store. I stopped to say hello but he ignored us, so I turned the car around.

Then I was helping with some kind of movie library before our meeting. They were going to make Ron a suit out of this fabric with brightly-colored squares. I thought it was awful. He wasn't sure. I held the fabric up to myself and they all saw how awful it was. I said, "Just go as you are. You look fine." He was wearing black slacks, a kind of dull gold shirt, and a brightly colored tie that clashed. I went up to him and said, "Just take off the tie," and I helped him do that.

Then we were in the park. His daughter was running. I was worried she'd fall in this dip in the ground. I picked her up and swung her around. Her eyes were amazingly black. I put her down. His wife was there somewhere and so was Mario. Ron sat in a chair (?) and I stood behind him and put my hands on his chest. He said, "I knew you would understand." (I don't know what that meant, but it was a deeply personable and affectionate moment.)

It was dark in the park. I sat on the grass and momentarily worried about ticks. Next to me was a tall grassy mound or hill. I looked up it. When I looked down I saw these tiny white flowers everywhere. I said, "Fairies." I saw something in the grass.

I reached down and picked up a black rosary. It was beautiful. The beads were made out of some kind of matte gem or material. The metal pieces had the signs of the zodiac on them. Also, the metal centerpiece (or maybe where the crucifix was supposed to be) was a mermaid, or at least a woman/goddess head with long flowing hair. I thought I should probably turn it in because it was so beautiful and someone would miss it, but I did want to keep it. There was more in the grass, maybe even rune pieces, but I woke up.

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By The Light

It is sundown in the Sonoran desert. The edge of the east horizon is scarlet. A dog is barking somewhere. No sign of the great old horned owl that usually sleeps in the palm tree near the peanut-shaped pool. The east horizon, above the Rincon Mountains, is a delicate blue, almost turquoise, and I want to wear it, like a dress, with a scarf around my neck the color of the east horizon.

Mario has gone to town to get dinner. I have a headache. The sound of the heater is annoying. The light from the compact fluorescent bulbs hurts my eyes. I am certain one day they will tell us that exchanging all our incandescent bulbs for these fluorescent bulbs was a bad idea. The light is stark and clinical. Incandescent light is...well, incandescent. Fluorescent bulbs aren't going to save us.

But I digress.

I am trying to unwind after a very scary and traumatic week. I woke up today feeling as though I'd been hit by a truck. As I stumbled up out of bed, I could only imagine what my father felt like. All day we kept getting good news about him. He was out of bed. He was joking around. They took out all his lines.

I felt more and less stressed all day. Mario started his new novel. I wondered if I would be able to begin my writing project. It is the reason we come here every year: to write in a beautiful (and sunny) place. But I need to relax. I did some meditation today, something I should do every day and do most days when I'm feeling good. It's those times when I don't feel like doing it that it would most likely benefit me.

This afternoon I have been thinking about why I write about taboo subjects. I have been writing on a blog for a long time now, since 2003. I've written about politics, my fury and despair over the Bush years, my depression and anxiety, food, nature, my travels, my writing, ecstasy, and various other things. I've had people I know say, "Do you really want to say these things in public? It's so personal."

It's an interesting question with a simple and complex answer. I have been writing since I was five years old. Writing was always how I communicated with the world. It has also been how I figured out the world and myself. I have written publicly about my own struggles with depression and anxieties because I think it's important to do so. Depression is still one of those things that people do not talk about. And anxieties or fears are even more taboo subjects. In fact, any kind of illness, especially so-called "mental" illnesses, are restricted topics of conversation. There is still so much shame attached to any kind of mental illness.

But mental illness is not a character flaw. Having fears and anxieties is not a character flaw. No one wants to be mentally ill. No one can just "snap out of it." No one gets depressed or becomes fearful on purpose.

For years I didn't tell anyone about my off again on again depression, besides the numerous therapists. And no one knew about any of my fears. Even today when people who have known me for years find out, they often say, "But you seem so confident. I can't imagine you afraid of anything."

I think the people who have fears and who carry on with their lives are the bravest people in the world. If you aren't afraid of anything, you aren't brave; you're just clueless and/or lucky as hell.

So I write about depression. I know how lonely and hopeless it feels. I know we are so brave for trying to struggle our way out of this damn proverbial paper bag. I want everyone who has depression or who has had depression to know that they are not failures, they are not unlucky, and there is light at the top of that paper bag.

And it helps me to write about it. I still don't talk about it much. People don't know what to say when I do speak of it. I told a friend about it once and she said, "I don't have time to be depressed." At my two year Celtic program, I told one of the participants about feeling depressed and she said, "It's because you aren't connected to the Divine Source." Neither of these responses was appropriate or compassionate. What they should have said is something along the lines of: "I'm so sorry. I'm here to listen if you need a sympathetic ear."

Another strange thing I write about publicly is my relationship with the Invisibles. I talk about fairies and plant spirits and other such goodies. And I talk to fairies and plant spirits and other such goodies. I come to all of this honestly. I grew up in the country, and my best pals were the trees and plants and animals all around me. I didn't get people. What they said often contradicted what I thought the truth was. (You know what I mean. "Nothing's wrong. Every thing's OK." When actually everything was wrong and nothing was OK.)

But trees! Ahh, they were my saviors. I'd climb The Lullabye Tree, sit on one of the limbs, and sing for hours. It was my favorite place in the world, there where the woods met the marsh. I left food for the hawks in an old scraggly evergreen. I named rocks and had conversations with them. I stood at the edge of the marsh and watched for ignis fatuus (and flying saucers). And I had an entire "imaginary" world where the girls and women had magical powers (and men and boys didn't). I was only visiting Earth and disguising myself as an Earth girl to learn about Earth ways.

I spent most of my time out of doors. It was my father who taught me the names of the flora and fauna. It was my father who sniffed the air and said it smelled like snow and from then on I knew what the air smelled like just before it snowed.

I was completely in love and entranced by the natural world. It is no wonder or surprise that as an adult I would rekindle my love affair. I have experiences with plants that are just as real and incarnate as my experiences with human beings. So why would I doubt the veracity of them?

I believe we have more than six senses in our beautiful bodies. If we're open to the possibilities, who knows what we can sense, what we can experience. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a scientist. I still consider myself a scientist: I am constantly studying and learning about this old world of ours. There is so much more to learn.

I suppose I could say I write about what I know, but I also write about what I don't know. Sometimes in the writing of it, I learn more or realize I know less. I write about what I love, but I also write about what I despise. Sometimes in the writing of it, I change my mind. I write about my life because it is fascinating to me. Sometimes I am amazed I get through it; sometimes I am amazed at the charmed life I lead. But in the end, it's what I do. I write. I live. I write some more.

Ain't I lucky?

Mario just got home from the grocery store. He brought me a present: incandescent light bulbs. We go around the room and put them in here and there. The room feels better immediately, more homey. Softer. I'm sure all the Invisibles in this room quite agree with me.

Or maybe it's just me. But I feel positively glowing.

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Up and Over, Down and Under

Sunday

We left in the dark Sunday morning. Traveling away from the heart of the world for our annual pilgrimage to the Old Mermaids Sanctuary. I had sung to the weather spirits and whispered to the mountains and the dragon of the hills for days ahead of time. Now we said goodbye to the house and the land and drove away.

We stopped every hour to change drivers. At one rest stop, a group of scrub oaks grew up tall and lithe and looked like a grove of dryads caught in the dance. We bowed to them.

Later we went up and over. The pass was clear. I pressed my hands against the window in thanks. When the White Mountain came partially into view—she wore clouds like a veil—we stopped the car and made offerings to the mountain and the weather spirits. The wind whipped the offerings away. And it was done.

We passed the dragon made visible and knew we were on our way. We waved.

We kept driving. The light on the distant hills was mesmerizing. Unlike anything we had seen on this journey in other years. Sweet light shafted the hills here and there, like giant spotlights, making the hills look like mountains, green and gold, never dull, never gray.

When it wasn't raining, hawks perched on fence posts in the fields just beyond the highway. The hawks looked toward the road, waiting for some passing car to kill some passing creature. I loved the plump hawks immediately but was glad not to participate in their feeding this day.

We saw crows everywhere on our journey: individual crows picking at dead things on the pavement and flocks of crows rising up from the trees and fields. There they were, our ever present road companions, at every rest stop. In every field.

Redding was nondescript. In our hotel room, I got emails from my father. He seemed to be recovering. Wished I could do more.

I slept some.

Monday

We began the morning driving through thick fog. Sometimes my vision was so impaired by the fog that I kept driving only on faith. It felt like one of those nightmares where I was driving with my eyes closed—or through a thick fog.

It seemed appropriate for this pilgrimage to the Old Mermaids Sanctuary, somehow, to have to make it through the fog. To come out the other side.

All my trips to the Old Mermaids Sanctuary are pilgrimages. I go to write. To rest. To be still. To walk with the wild things. To be in the desert is to be present to all things, to the possibility of death. The possibility of life. The fog only reminded me that the veil was thin between here and there.

The fog ended. I heard from my youngest sister. She said our pops looked good. I was glad to have some of us there looking out for our dad. On Saturday last, five of my friends and I had done healing work for my father. It felt powerful and loving. Before I left home Sunday morning, my dad emailed that he'd had the best night yet and asked me to thank the healers.

Sometimes life works in mysterious ways.

Near the end of the day, we drove The Grapevine, up and over the Tejon Pass and then down toward Los Angeles. I could feel the dragon in the land. Moving, stretching, twisting.

We found a place to stay the night. After dark, we went out to the spa by the pool near our room. We took off our shoes and socks, sat on the stone, and put our feet in the hot water—becoming mer creatures for the evening. At least part of us. The sound of the traffic seemed to surround us, as though we were at the bottom of a circular waterfall, only it wasn't soothing like a waterfall. It felt intrusive and overwhelming. I got up and turned on the jets of the spa. The sound of the traffic disappeared.

We kicked the water. I closed my eyes. I whispered, "Hello." And then I felt as though the disappeared and displaced creatures from all around came to be near us. "I had nothing to do with this," I said. "I wouldn't have paved paradise." Although I wondered if it was true that I had nothing to do with it: After all, I was sleeping in a place where they paved paradise. "And he had nothing to do with it either." Not my Mario. "What can I do?"

Sing.

I looked around. Was that a rowan tree heavy with berries near us or some other tree disguising itself as the rowan on this Winter Solstice night? Weren't rowan trees notorious fairy hangouts? There was something wholly natural about this tree in such an unnatural setting. The red berries hung down from the branches like tiny edible rubies waiting to be plucked.

I could feel the real place beyond the concrete, beyond the traffic, underneath. Underneath.

Under the Earth I go...

I opened my mouth and sang. A wordless song. A song of recognition. Everything got still as I sang.

All that has passed away, all creatures, the flora, the shape of the earth, all these beings are mi familia.

It seemed as though the world settled into place as I sang.

Or else I did.

Eventually we shook the glittering scales off our feet and legs and got out of the water. Nothing looked the same any more, or any different. Mario and I held hands and went back to our room.

Tuesday

In the morning, we drove away from the dragon place and headed east to the desert. Blue-black clouds hung from the sky like a heavy theater curtain ready to drop. Eventually the clouds moved north and the sun came out. At a rest stop a hummingbird greeted us. Our first desert creature. The dirt beneath our feet was pink and diamond-colored.

On the radio news, we heard the wind had kicked up a dust storm on I-10, not far from us. The dust had became a cloud and moved over the road. People died in collisions and explosion. I stood on the pink dirt and called out to the wind. Be calm, be calm. The wind snapped the flags at the rest stop. I didn't remember ever seeing sustained wind like this in Arizona before.

We drove deeper into the desert. The low mountains hunkered into the ground. Saguaros raised their arms in greeting. I recognized this land. I knew it in my bones.

After a while, ahead of us, a strange kind of fog moved, only we knew it wasn't fog. We talked about what we would do if visibility got bad. We realized we had no idea what was a prudent course of action in a dust storm. I wondered if this was what the West would become as the climate changed and the top soil continued to erode: a giant dust bowl a la Oklahoma? We should all be prepared for this.

I thought of the dream I had last week about tornadoes. I could see small one and huge ones all across the landscape. In fact, I couldn't see the land, only the storms. In the dream, Mario and I tried to get to my father. We passed through the wall of the tornado unharmed. Later we survived a tsunami. We ended up at an old farmhouse, or some such—some kind of amazing house made from dirt, sunlight, and darkness.

As we watched the dust storm, I sang for rain. Wouldn't rain stop a dust storm?

We kept traveling through the dust. Visibility never got bad or dangerous. Yet it felt apocalyptic. As though everything had changed and we just didn't understand that yet. We were all living a life that had already passed us by.

Then it began to rain. Arizona monsoon rain. Only this was December. The sky was black. The dust storm disappeared into the ditches to be resurrected another day.

The rain followed us to the Old Mermaids Sanctuary. It stopped while we unloaded the car. Then it rat-tat-tatted the roof while I put away our things in our casita. It rained as I thought about how grateful I was to the people who owned this place, who built this place, who loved this place, who are this place. I thought about how this place had saved my life. How I would not be the person I am today if it wasn't for this place where I go and listen to the voices of the desert. Where I listen for the heartbeat of the world. Where I sing with the coyotes.

When the place felt like ours again, I went outside and stood at the edge of the rain. And I sang. The rain came down harder as I sang. Water splashed up all around me. It was so dark out I felt a little spooked. I thanked the weather spirits for helping us get here safely. I heard thunder. I shivered and went back inside. I could almost hear desert calling out to me, "you can run but you can't hide!"

It is true: in the desert you can't hide anything. It's all out in the open. One way or another, if you stay long enough, the desert will show you the truth. Every year here I learn things about myself and the world I didn't know before. Sometimes they are things I would rather not know.

But I am not going to think about any of that tonight. I am not going to think about my father's surgery in a few days. Or about what novel I'll write while I am here. Not yet. Tonight I am going to fall to sleep next to my sweetheart and listen to it rain in the desert.

Right now it sounds like the Old Sea is coming back to the New Desert. Perfect conditions for this pilgrim.

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Personalized Old Mermaids Tales

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Woman, Interrupted

The sun came out today after days of storms. I had lots of work to do, but I dashed outside to enjoy the sun anyway. Plump gray clouds dotted the pale blue sky and rode along the tops of the snow spackled gorge cliffs. Gold shimmered in the air and fluttered on the branches of the alder, birch, and cottonwoods that grew along the river and popped up in groups here in there amongst the dark copses of evergreen. It's the last show of color before winter. Some of the gold and yellow has already fallen, knocked from the trees by a wind so strong it became a tornado not far from here.

I left the house and walked to the Columbia River and watched the choppy gray-green water for a time. Then I hurried up over the railroad tracks and across the state highway and walked toward the fairgrounds. I wanted to see if the salmon were running in the creek. I stood on a footbridge over the creek and looked down.

The water ran deep and fast. I couldn't see any salmon. I looked over closer to the shore where the water was a bit calmer. That was where the salmon often rested before continuing their journey. I didn't see any there either. The higher water made the trip upstream easier for the returning salmon, but it also made it more difficult: They didn't have to struggle up over the rocks but they had to push against the weight of more water.

I smiled as I looked down at the water. I had been feeling stressed out by the news lately. It sometimes seemed as if the whole world was falling apart. Even my calm reasonable husband wondered if it was all about to end. After eight years of living in the hell of the Bush administration, we thought things would get better quicker sooner. And we thought the crazies would calm down.

That has not happened.

As I watched the water, I thought about how often I just want to give up and walk away. I hear so many people saying the same thing. Nothing I did seemed to make a bit of difference in the grand scheme of things. I looked away from the creek, toward the rocky shores, and I saw crows eating something. Salmon? I crossed the footbridge, then walked along the cliffs near the creek until I found a path down to the shore.

The rocks, most of them stressed to the point of fracture--like Andy Goldsworthy art pieces--stuck out of the muddy plain that went from creek to lake. I walked carefully, trying to avoid the mud and the rocks. I watched the crows from afar. They were feasting on salmon. The red flesh of the salmon was startling against the black, brown, and gray rocks and mud.

I hoped these dead salmon had completed their mission: to spawn.

Salmon are such heroic creatures to me. I understand they are answering an instinctual biological call that they probably have no control over, yet their journey is a kind of heroic quest. They're born in fresh water, yet because of some evolutionary process scientists don't quite understand, salmon are able to adapt to salt water. And when it's time to spawn, their bodies change yet again as they return to fresh water. During this return they swim upstream, against the rush of water, up over rocks, through muddy shallows, all in the search for home, all in an effort to spawn. They don't let obstacles stop them; they jump over or around them!

I want to be like them.

The Irish thought the salmon were one of the wisest and most sacred of all creatures. Yet they fished them into extinction. The Native people of this area also hold the salmon in high esteem. Before the white settlers came, the Columbia River ran red with salmon. They used to say you could walked across this wide Columbia River on the backs of the salmon: That's how many there were. I have dreamed it is still so. I have dreamed I am a salmon.

I turned away from the crows and walked south a bit, carefully making my way through the charnel grounds. That's what it was: rocks becoming dust; salmon becoming bird feed. I wondered where the eagles were, or the bears. Did coyotes and cougars eat salmon, too?

Every year at this time I wait for the salmon. I stand on the shores of Eagle Creek and watch. By the time they arrive at their particular spawning grounds, flesh is usually falling off their bodies. Their fins are often skinless, and you can see their bones. Still, the females have enough energy to lay salmon-colored pearls; the males have energy to fertilize these treasures.

The first time I saw salmon eggs, I thought some child's necklace had broken and the beads had scattered in the water.

Some years I put on high water boots and I slowly, carefully, wade into the stream. I can feel the icy water through the boots. I can feel the sandy creek bottom give a little beneath my soles. I stand very still. It doesn't take long before the salmon swim all around me. I immediately become one of them.

The salmon have healed me in ways I cannot articulate. When I was ill and felt like I could not find my way out of the mess of my life and my body, their journey inspired me. When I felt as though I had nothing left to say, the thought of them reminded me that I can be silent. And when I am sad, I see them in my mind's eye leaping, leaping out of the water—bedraggled, red with life, bodies twisting in the air—and I feel immense joy.

Today I stopped walking and sat on a log. I looked down and saw someone had carved the word "cunt" into the log. It didn't appear to have been scratched in angrily, as swear words often do. The letters flowed into one another, like caligraphy. I wondered if the writer was thinking of the great goddess Cunti or Cunina, the Roman goddess whose name meant "mother's milk." The word "cunt" has the same root as country, kin, kind. Meaning, to me, that we all come from the womb, from the cunt; therefore we are all kin. I doubted the carver knew any of this. Still, it seemed appropriate to think about our relationship to everyone and everything as I looked out at the water, the kildeer that ran back and forth across the plain, the crows eating salmon, and the cars going by on the highway in the near distance.

Just then a crow flew over to a rock near me and finished up a morsel of salmon. She fluffed her feathers and I could see she was probably a juvenile. That explained her close proximity. She ate her food and then flew back to a salmon. She stayed only a moment, then flew away. I got up and walked over to the carcass. The salmon was two and half feet long, pink, its eyes long gone. I wished it well. I thought of all of us who feel as though we are constantly swimming upstream to find home. It would be so much easier to be swept away, back to the ocean, back to when and where we could just go with the flow.

Yet this beautiful salmon did it. She continued to swim upstream.

I wished her well.

Then I walked up the path away from the creek and back to the road. I crossed another bridge on the way home and looked down at the stream. Ah. There. To the left under the cottonwoods where the creek pooled quietly, I spotted several salmon swimming just enough to remain stationary in the pool. Salmon rested in places like this before continuing their upstream journey. Without these places of respite, scientists believed, the salmon could never make it.

I watched for a while and then climbed the hill toward home. I had a lot to do when I got home. I was glad for the break.

Now I was ready to lay pearls and leap!

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Patricia Lay-Dorsey

My friend Patricia Lay-Dorsey got a write-up on the New York Times blog. So cool! I love Patricia's work. All her photographs feel so authentically lively or authentically still, depending upon the subject. Beautiful art supreme. I am so happy for her!

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Gaian Tarot

Joanna Powell Colbert's beautiful Gaian Tarot will be published by Llewellyn Worldwide in September 2011, but in the meantime, Joanna has created a special deluxe edition of her tarot deck, and she's offering it at a discount if you order by November 3. They are lovely songs of the Earth, sung in art, just waiting for you! Go here and find out all about it.

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My Old Home

We got home a few hours ago. First thing I did was go for a bath. Ahhhh. Mario began putting stuff away. I crabbed at him for doing too much. 'Learn to relax,' I said. 'You are not a human doing; you are a human being.' Said the pot to the pan. Fall has definitely come to the gorge. The leaves of my peony bush have turned light red, tinged with orange. The poppies are in bloom again, and the gorge cliffs are sighing out summer breezes one last time. The wheel turns.

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