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There are quite a few spots here in this area that I feel a connection to. I've just gotten out of tune lately and I can feel it's time to get back on track.
I usually am barefoot when I get to where I'm going and can sit or lay down.
There is a place near Weed I like to go where I can be near the creek. I feel a connection there.
Dropping by to say hello to you all in the Circle.
I've been away for a bit and off doing mundane things.
I feel my best around nature. I've been off balance lately but am getting back on track. It helps when I drum and it helps when I talk to people that want to be in harmony with the Earth and it depresses me when most people don't understand this is what makes me tick.
I don't need to be rich. I don't need a big house. I don't need fair weathered 'friends' and I don't need a bunch of drama.
I need balance.
May I drum awhile with you all in the Circle?
songinthewind, it has been awhile since you have been in our presence, but it is always good to have a good drummer, come and sit so that we can enjoy your presence and your drumming..
Hello again; it's been a while since I posted here but I've been reading all along.
It's been a sad time around here; last Saturday was the memorial service for a great and good woman named Bonnie Tinker, who died in a bicycle vs. truck accident while she was attending a Quaker conference in Virginia. She was there to present her workshop on 'Opening Hearts and Minds'. Opening Hearts and Minds: Speak Peace | Friends General Conference
In addition to that kind of peace work, Bonnie was a founder of the anti-war group "Seriously Pissed-Off Grannies". Earlier, she started one of the first women's shelters (Bradley-Angle House) and a women's health center, and spent the last few years building Love Makes a Family (Love Makes A Family | HomePage), a support and advocacy group for sexual-minority families. The world is truly poorer for having lost her. I didn't know her well, but my wife was her friend, and misses her terribly.
The memorial was touching and inspiring. Over 500 people attended, including the mayor of Portland. At her house later, we met her siblings, two of whom were the plaintiffs in the "Tinker v. Des Moines" case that still guides schools in how & when they can limit political expression by students. We ate, drank, talked and sang songs well into the night. It was a wonderful group of people, who I'd love to see again under happier circumstances.
As the Quakers would say, please hold her in the light.
Deep in the hills of Kentucky, so isolated few people know of it, there is a small creek racing down between the hills and woods on each side of her. In the hot summertime I walk to the banks, remove my shoes and socks and place my feet in the cold water. I close my eyes and feel the water caress my feet as it runs under, over, and around them. I hear her song, so happy, as only freely running water can sing. After awhile, I open my eyes to see the way she flattens out when she has enough space, narrows and runs deeper to flow between rocks, speeds up to race over a drop off, swirls into a small whirlpool when she hits bottom. Clear and colorless she can still form endless hypnotic patterns. I expand myself to take in the surrounding woods. The way the sunshine sends shafts of light to the forest floor, the squirrel darting from branch to branch, the rustle of the leaves in the slight breeze, The birds watching me to see if I might become a threat, then deciding that I am not and going about their business. The lizard popping his head over a nearby fallen tree to check me out. Have I been here moments or hours? It does not matter, an experience such as this is timeless.
I will slowly find my way back to my kitchen, where I will start kneeding the dough for a loaf of homebaked bread, feeling the way the dough changes texture, from liquid to a stiff, perfect dough ball, smelling the yeast, knowing my family will enjoy eating it as much as I enjoy making it.
It is these experiences which make my life worthwhile. It is enough.
I posted this in another thread, but thought those of you in the circle might enjoy it.
Deep in the hills of Kentucky, so isolated few people know of it, there is a small creek racing down between the hills and woods on each side of her. In the hot summertime I walk to the banks, remove my shoes and socks and place my feet in the cold water. I close my eyes and feel the water caress my feet as it runs under, over, and around them. I hear her song, so happy, as only freely running water can sing. After awhile, I open my eyes to see the way she flattens out when she has enough space, narrows and runs deeper to flow between rocks, speeds up to race over a drop off, swirls into a small whirlpool when she hits bottom. Clear and colorless she can still form endless hypnotic patterns. I expand myself to take in the surrounding woods. The way the sunshine sends shafts of light to the forest floor, the squirrel darting from branch to branch, the rustle of the leaves in the slight breeze, The birds watching me to see if I might become a threat, then deciding that I am not and going about their business. The lizard popping his head over a nearby fallen tree to check me out. Have I been here moments or hours? It does not matter, an experience such as this is timeless.
I will slowly find my way back to my kitchen, where I will start kneeding the dough for a loaf of homebaked bread, feeling the way the dough changes texture, from liquid to a stiff, perfect dough ball, smelling the yeast, knowing my family will enjoy eating it as much as I enjoy making it.
It is these experiences which make my life worthwhile. It is enough.
I posted this in another thread, but thought those of you in the circle might enjoy it.
The simple pleasures that one enjoys, are the best..
Nice word pictures, Masonsdaughter. I could feel the coolness of the water, and the warmth of the sunshine. I could see the squirrels playing, the birds and the lizard being cautious, then accepting of one's presence. I could feel the texture of the bread dough, and smell the goodness of it baking. It is, indeed, the simple things that reminds us of the richness of life.
A beautiful post ,Mason.. I wish more people would take the time to observe the many wonders of nature that the creator made for us..Nothing else brings me peace, comfort or restores my faith and brings me close to Him as my time spent just letting the powers of nature renew me..And of course Eastern Ky. and the beauty of the mountains sooths me..
My house has been really a madhouse or the past few days with a lot of company and two grandsons moving in, not to mention the rebuilding still going on since the flood..Don't know what I would do without my early morning coffee, my ole fleece jacket and the moments I spend alone on the back deck watching a new day awake as the doe and fawn make their way down the old dirt path on the tree covered mountain that is my backyard..I often wonder, at the end of the day when I return to the deck why I never see them go back up the mountain. I wonder where their path is that leads back up..and if they ever stray from it.....as I have often done
i feel so comfort-able and comforted by human kindness.
i wanna die.
thank you, the accomplished and hardened in their old school ways, for being so elaborately and intricately evasive.
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