Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.”

31 January 2009



“Nothing beats being really honest about who you are and what you need. All the rest just works itself out.”

More cold. the february drag ensues, but monday we get to burn the christmas tree and after that mail away the seed order and get the trucks fixed and figure out what is wrong with the stove. i have little to say but am painting more, reading more, remembering that a seed needs an embryo, armor and a yolk of nourishment. he rattles me after all that and the recent show of light quickly drawn over with tarp and cinderblock. februarys sense of waiting. and a sense that there are omens and angels everywhere, dropping hints onto my path, a breeze past my hand that chooses one over another.




"...Fences were nothing compared to that./People were nothing. They slept standing,/their throats curved against the other's rump./They breathed against each other,/whinnied and stomped./There are things they did that I do not know./The privacy of them had a river in it./Had our universe in it. And the way/its border looks back at us with its light./This was finally their freedom./The freedom an oak tree knows./That is built at night by stars."

20 of 365:

1. prairie home companion.
2. getting the blankets done (on time).
3. my hot water bottle.
4. books, and my ability to read them.
5. finding the flint stone.
6. seed catalogs.
7. winter oranges.
8. paint.
9. hot and cold running water.

"Leave space around your certainties for all those unknown x factors potently operating outside the box of what you presently comprehend. And remember that as you expand the sphere of your awareness you will also expand the circumference of unknown that surrounds you."

29 January 2009

"...And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters."

-J.K. Rowling

26 January 2009

heres a video from my lovely new friend, erin.



"No human being who devotes his life and energy to the manufacture of fantasies can be anything but fundamentally inadequate."



inadequate is as subjective as art. and is art not the manufacture of fantasies, at least in its broadest sense. and is not life art? not much clarity but i dont presume to offer. early early morning, clear sky with million stars, million million, a song to the stars the teeth and tongue of my mammalian vertebrate self inadequate to sing the song of the stars but my song is art, doomed from the start, forever and ever amen. the sky this winter has been so clear and vicious cold, liquid cold, a cold you need not fall through the ice to feel. ive been letting myself get more sleep, the sleep my monkey brain craves in the rime-laced cave of january. but i can tell were on the upside, riding out from the trough, still staring at a wall of snow but soon soon well feel the sun full on our face rolling in the grass and smelling of pollen and mud.




"Desire change. Be enthusiastic for that flame in which a thing escapes your grasp
while it makes a glorious display of transformation. That designing Spirit, the master mind of all things on earth loves nothing so much in the sweeping movement of the dance as the turning point."




brought a lot of wood in, baked brownies and painted a bit with #4 when he came home. getting the paperwork in, no paper here, nothing new, we make do. thinking about my friend suzie, thinking about the wonder of the world, seasons, trees, dogs, pregnant women, everything dancing atoms and theres more space than anything else. breathing. believing. pink geraniums. we blow through straws to spread the ink, let it bleed and grow into other colors, let it run, fingers of ink gripping the day of the page like light. i am the paint, the day and the light. be well, suzie, and ill see you soon under the sky.

25 January 2009



(sigh) well, lets try it again...

from stephany who got it from tabitha

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me. I will try to make these be about or tailored to those five lucky people. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- What I create will be just for you.
- It’ll be done this year
- You have no clue what it’s going to be.



The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well, if you expect me to do something for you! And please link to your blog so that I can visit and read in case we are new friends.

***(im going to add here, just for me, that you dont need a blog to participate. if you ever just come by, put a comment up and well go from there).***

"To give and not expect anything in return, that is what lies at the heart of love."

23 January 2009

speaks for itself (!)

21 January 2009



"All respectability, all honor is meaningless if it drives you against your nature. What can you do if you are not a lotus flower, but just a marigold? Enjoy being a marigold."



they begged the boss to let me on the bus and i hung with the crusty mucus-slurping firsters and took a minute to dip into beedle tales and smiled the rest of the day. theyre all pregnant or toting breast pumps or trying. theres a ghost that rattles around inside me, clanging her silver cup against my ribs, dancing with rosy ghost toes on my abandoned uterus. but i come home and throw frisbee with the dog and have some chocolate and hope one day i come to the sudden realization that i havent thought about it in years.

"I swear, without a word of a lie, that the very next time someone tells me that they “wish they had all that free time to knit” I am going to look them dead in the eye and ask them what they watched on TV last night."



Thanks, SB, for taking us on this little jaunt down memory lane, in case we thought Obamas innaug. was too bland:



1. love.
2. we overcame, that much more.
3. gwb is no longer president of the united states.
4. the health i enjoy.
5. brown rice and salsa.
6. making av laugh like that.
7. my bento box
8. playing disc with z. after work.
9. stretching, feeling the stretch.

20 January 2009

(exhale)



The Big Day. romantic snow falling im knitting across the transfer of power the little birthday blanket for the little limb. painted an amanita muscaria and traced my hand. everybody comes home, #4 finds chocolate i stashed and forgot about. ate a great quantity of purple cabbage for dinner. happy. walked out into the world. talked with my neighbors. smiled at the trees. the quality of light is changing, there was a bright smudge of yellow in it this afternoon. the two of us are cuddly and a wee bit more at ease. #2 calls to wish me a happy inauguration. its official, its real. theyre so beautiful and easy together. only the best. may he be our Good Captain. there is a quiet in my heart, a night in winter, something stirring deep beneath, waiting for the solid snow to sing water into the earth.



18 of 365:

1. it went off lovely, and i was alive to see it.
2. walking out into the snow with my dog.
3. firewood.
4. friendly neighbors.
5. art supplies.
6. his gentleness and kindness.
7. the organic loveliness of purple cabbage.
8. surprise chocolate.
9. uncovering a stash of paperbacks that saves his near reading future.

19 January 2009

O GREAT ORACULAR iTUNES!!!
(cd available upon request)

1. What does the Winter hold in store for me?
So What, Derek Trucks Band

2. What does the Spring hold in store for me?
Yellow Submarine, The Beatles

3. What does the Summer hold in store for me?
Fire Door, Ani DiFranco

4. Will our journey to Sherman be successful this summer?
Pony Boy, The Allman Brothers Band

5. Who Am I?
Paradise, John Prine

6. What is my Theme Song for this Year?
Open, Peter Gabriel (LToC Soundtrack)

7. What should i understand about my Emotional Life?
Teknochek Collision, Slavic Soul Party

8. What should i understand about my Physical Life?
Hypnotized, Ani DiFranco

9. What should i understand about my Spiritual Life?
My Manic and I, Laura Marling

10. What song played over my Soul as i was born?
Oh Susanna, The Be Good Tanyas

11. What song shall usher me Out as i die?
Campaigner, Neil Young

12. What song holds a secret key to my deeper happiness?
It's All Over Now Baby Blue, Bob Dylan

13. What is the Theme Song of my Very Life?
Back to Memphis, The Band

14. What Goal Should i Work Toward this Year?
Friend of the Devil, The Grateful Dead

15. Will it Be Alright?
Daylight Fading, Counting Crows

16. The Song of my 36th Year?
Ice Cream, Sarah McLachlan

17. The Song of my 37th Year?
We're All in this Together, Old Crow Medicine Show

18. What do i Need to Understand about N?
Good King Wenceslas, John Fahey

19. What do i Need to Understand about #2?
A Long December, Counting Crows

20. What do i Need to Understand about #3?
It Takes A Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry, Bob Dylan

21. What do i Need to Understand about #4?
You Had Time, Ani DiFranco

22. What do i Need to Understand Me?
Alive and Well and Living In, Jethro Tull

23. What is the Meaning of Life?
Baby Let Me Lay it On You, Etta Baker
Excellent synopsis of conscious interaction and killing with kindness,

and this gem that gets me thinking about how i would define the indefinable:



something pulled directly but backwards and with altered punctuation from a gentlemans blog.

How strange to be gone in a minute.
Spare hanger in a bone closet
Accidents are not itineraries,
The emperor's old clothes.
I've stopped being Theirs--
Is there sex in this class?
Let me recite you a ballad,
Admiral and existentialist.
Not waving but drowning--
What price salience?
Daring as never before,
Nearing the non-ending,
Shyness unrequited
I do not think it will signify to me.
Unsettled by the name Oil Can Boyd,
There's no such thing as post-publication
(Stiff shirt in a sad closet).
I think I'll write a dictionary;
Rebel angels, measured heaven,
The well-hung muse.
A little more uncertainty, please.
Big man, small town
(My typewriter is bigger than your typewriter,
And if not, not).
Does a bear shit in the woods?
Badda bing, badda boom.


"The future is not some place we're going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and their destination."



"Each time we act in service of our sacred intentions, each time we align our energies and our actions with what we most truly love, we gain in personal power and ability, the path before us becomes clearer, and the help and allies we need come to us."



"...because there is/joy in what the earth gives, allowing/our bodies to mingle with it, our voices/small on the field, our work assuring the goats/can give milk, the sheep can grow wool,/and we will have in our bones the taste/of something so old it travels in light."

#4 and i celebrate MLKjr listening to his speeches on npr and the voices of those who were there. mavis staples and odetta. we craft. he paints a picture of, "a tree that is struck by a sunbeam and by lightning and the tree is dancing and screaming." he says his life is complicated. the sisterpack leaves, ready to renew their love of luxury. made monkey bread, biscuits and gravy on request. the sun shines. mercury in retrograde. in a quiet headspace, riding the groovy wave of hope these days have in me inspired. the days are longer but terrible cold. coffee and monkey bread and tomorrow is january 20th, 02009. im learning the power of prayer in a lot of beautiful ways. thank you.



17 of 365:

1. NPR.
2. Monkey Bread, all 72 Pieces of It.
3. Mavis Staples.
4. Cinnamon and Flaxseeds.
5. Watching Ferris Buellers Day Off with #4.
6. #4 Beat-Boxing.
7. He Apologized for "Everything."
8. The Crushing Psychic Burden It Suddenly and Subsequently Liberates me From.
9. Whales.

16 January 2009



"Slaves in the realm of love/Are the only truly free men."



"If we are spiritual beings on a human path rather than human beings on a spiritual path, then life is not only a journey but a pilgrimage or quest as well."

Wicked cold. Prohibitive. Cutty-pasty and zinfandel. Bibliomancy. Late-night popcorn and ill get through as much Sense and Sensibility (the book) as i can because the quiz told me i was Miss Marianne. Definitely coming out of deep freeze, starting the big black book again, the longer posts, the craving to walk. Theyre all off with their fathers or friends so its me and the extended pack and the infinite ultimate radio of itunes. i may be getting sick. the sneezy-sneezy tickle-throat.

16 of 365:

1. glue stick.
2. inspirational blog community.
3. the wee warm hoosie.
4. he dug the blog i sent him.
5. the sister pack blends successfully.
6. gesso and gel medium.
7. thawing.
8. jane goodall.
9. he got back from peru safely.

This is so totally for #2.

15 January 2009



"I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace."


im supposed to go to mexican with w. but she gets distracted by pike because its their third anniversary and im at school theres a movie and i sit next to the missionary baptist lady and we both have wheat stalks embedded in our toes and theres a fork in my foot (i must be done?) and it didnt hurt to pull the fork away but the wheat stalks stung. another awkward lavatory segment. #4 tells me his
extraordinarily disturbing dream this morning. ten years ago today it was the coldest day of the year. i remember being sad. there was no ring, no flowers. it was a secret. i loved that old land rover, though.



the sky a perfect pearl blue, peace blue, aura blue. when she gave me the georgia orange tears came. and i hoarded that orange and didnt give it away. today i ate the georgia orange. there was no bitterness, the peel was pliant and fragrant and radiant. everything sparkles all light reflected and refracted. pale sky morning and night, everyone home, the ice-spirits outside sheathed in sharp transparent shrouds. thinking about my night of reading, warm cozies and cabernet ahead, thinking about all the death and grieving falling like black-hole snow from the sky elsewhere. dowstairs the pink geranium blooms upstairs the pink cyclamen. gentle spring spirits in the depth of winter. made apple crisp and washed the sofa covers for weekend movie marathon. lost? deadwood? bladerunner? i need a shower. im thawing at the edges, showing snowdrops of soul.



15 of 365:

1. "The oldest mitten in the world was found in Latvia. It is a staggering 1,000
years old."
2. The Radiant Georgia Orange.
3. Dream Telling.
4. Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
5. Homemade Bread with Butter.
6. Colin Meloy of the Decembrists.
7. My Health.
8. Creative Blogs.
9. Getting a Little Feeling Back in My Spirit.

14 January 2009



"...to be incorruptibly true to myself/and fair to others,/to find in this way/the right measure/of my own worth."




Cold, and ive started answering the phone, but im not jazzed about it. shut my mouth and call me pavlovs dog. bought chikn-n-fixins one town over and it seems like all the women i talk to are becoming massage therapists. this happened in the early nineties, too. those massage therapist women have all moved to the west coast to pursue more lucrative tomorrows without the carpal tunnel. i love my dogs. i love gary paulsen because he loves his dogs, and he understands that he doesnt understand but he wants to understand. gotta keep the channel open. burnt #2 another disc and he left with high-carbon-footprint fruit, somewhere theres a bowl to put it in. that awesome vintage wooden fruit bowl on the wooden bead feet and i gave it away because thats what you need to do. give it away. give away the fruit and books and all the light and energy i hold in my heart. give it away. but the channel needs to be open to receive. my eyes are tired and im flannel-brained from my nightly cabernet night-cap but i just started another load and need to empty the dish drain and prompt coffee for the morrow. were a funny couple. an old couple. and hell or high water well make the summer hootenanny well stocked, the color of the sun.

14 of 465:

1. Hot Water Bottles with Homemade Cozies.
2. Gary Paulsen Books.
3. The Second Son.
4. Striding Through the Cold, Noticing Things.
5. The Hearth.
6. My Atlantis Stone.
7. Tom Waits.
8. Dancing.
9. Fruit.



"Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun."

13 January 2009



1. i crave indian food always.
2. i am addicted to books, like a junkie to junk.
3. my favorite color is brown.
4. i prefer animals to humans, outside the realm of intercourse.
5. knitting is deeply therapeutic.
6. popcorn with butter and salt, popped in the stove-top popper.
7. i love to sleep.
8. after all this time i still feel deeply alone and have decided it must be
psychological.
9. i really want a little scooter to drive to work.
10. reindeer, black panther, rabbit, dog.
11. i am, i have come to accept, extremely sensitive.
12. i love everyone.
13. i am possessed by an extraordinarily naive heart.
14. i am a slacker with no self-esteem. it may be that i do not know, after all
this time, what it feels like to really be me, and one of my true wishes is to
make this untrue.
15. in college i wanted to study how geography affects religion.
16. there are things i am not willing to disclose here.
17. as a rule, i do not wear underwear.
18. i always wash the utensils in groups of four.
19. i would rather not talk on the phone.
20. the direction of the toilet paper has lost its significance.
21. there is a deep grief in me that has yet to be lifted.
22. i am an insufferable and relentless know-it-all.
23. i do the crossword compulsively, in pen.
24. i will not wear red.
25. psychedelics have been a huge influence on my world-view.
26. i love that skunky puppy smell.
27. i am extraordinarily superstitious about numbers: letting the microwave
run down to zero, the amount i pay for petrol, the bids i make on ebay.
see #18.
28. writing this list inspires paranoia in me.
29. i have always preferred movies about outsiders who find where they belong.
30. im bad at etiquette, deadlines, and state-sanctioned holidays.
31. i want to be your friend, but at a remove, and will gladly avail you of my
blood, bone marrow, and/or spare organs.
32. i am a loner.
33. i believe in non-violence.
34. i love the art of andrew wyeth and susan seddon-boulet.
35. i believe life on earth is miraculous and endlessly wonder-full.
36. my favorite month is october.


"There can be no doubt that a society rooted in the soil is more stable than one rooted in pavements."



13 of 365:

1. Mrs. Z.
2. My Bento Box
3. Slim Straights, and My Ability to Fit Into Them.
4. Being Useful.
5. Homemade Tortillas.
6. Extreme Knitters.
7. Choosing Non-Violence.
8. My Trailmix.
9. Walking at Night in the Snow.

11 January 2009

She told me id need a hanky and i didnt believe her.



What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges?
I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.
When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking
'Is this the one I am too appear for,
Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar?
Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus,
Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules.
Is this the one for the annunciation?
My god, what a laugh!'
But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.
I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button.
I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.
I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains,
The diaphanous satins of a January window
White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory!
It must be a tusk there, a ghost column.
Can you not see I do not mind what it is.
Can you not give it to me?
Do not be ashamed--I do not mind if it is small.
Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity.
Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam,
The glaze, the mirrory variety of it.
Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate.
I know why you will not give it to me,
You are terrified
The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it,
Bossed, brazen, an antique shield,
A marvel to your great-grandchildren.
Do not be afraid, it is not so.
I will only take it and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle,
No falling ribbons, no scream at the end.
I do not think you credit me with this discretion.
If you only knew how the veils were killing my days.
To you they are only transparencies, clear air.
But my god, the clouds are like cotton.
Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide.
Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in,
Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million
Probable motes that tick the years off my life.
You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine-----
Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole?
Must you stamp each piece purple,
Must you kill what you can?
There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me.
It stands at my window, big as the sky.
It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center
Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history.
Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger.
Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty
By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it.
Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil.
If it were death
I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes.
I would know you were serious.
There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday.
And the knife not carve, but enter
Pure and clean as the cry of a baby,
And the universe slide from my side.


Sylvia Plath

09 January 2009



12 of 365:

1. The Big Beautiful Full Moon.
2. The Rare Fish Dinner.
3. The Inevitable Reunion of Women who Love Them.
4. Lemonade to Splash in My Water.
5. The Buffalo Robe.
6. Memory Cards.
7. The Mittens i Knit for the Bootsies.
8. Fugazi.
9. NPR.
10. "Keep Calm and Carry On."
11. Coming Home.
12. All the Dreadful Songs i Like Anyway...Sundown, Cathedral, Everybodys Talkin...

08 January 2009

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."

11 of 365:

1. Another Successful Day of Eating Really Good Food.
2. Whole Wheat Brownies Everyone Likes.
3. Reading with #4.
4. He Reminds me Nicely to Take My Meds.
5. Snow.
6. Getting More Organized Every Day.
7. The Days Get Longer.
8. Happy Pack with Peanut Butter Infused Chew Toys.
9. Knitting for the First Branch.
10. Mr. Ben MacAnTuile.

07 January 2009



Id come back as her, anyday.


"The world is to us what the Garden of Eden was supposed to be to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were banished, but we are banishing ourselves from our Eden. The difference is that Adam and Eve had somewhere else to go. We have nowhere else to go. We hope that by the time you read this you will have at least partially curtailed our reckless greed and stupidity. If we have not, at least some of us have tried. … All we can say is learn from what we have achieved, but above all learn from our mistakes, do not go on endlessly like a squirrel in a wheel committing the same errors hour by hour day by day year after year century after century as we have done up to now. We hope that there will be fireflies and glow-worms at night to guide you and butterflies in hedges and forests to greet you. We hope that there will still be the extraordinary varieties of creatures sharing the land of the planet with you to enchant you."



"The way of love leads all ways to life beyond words, silent and secret. To serve that triumph I have done all the rest."



"Many of us are in it for the process rather than the product...keep this in mind: It’s called “knitting,” not “sweater-making.”


Snow day. slept way in. winnowed the piles and organized the yarn. little pockets of order every day, along with dishes and laundry. the horror of Gaza. toasting marshmallows for my boys. it snows some more. mythological creatures in the flames, waiting for the financial energy to flow in, making nice with creditors who want to chat about the dogs. im grateful for my abilities and the opportunities im given to utilize them.

10 of 365:

1. Hush-Puppies with Syrup.
2. Badger Balm.
3. #4's Appreciation of Gary Paulsen.
4. Michael Moore and all the Muck-Rakers.
5. Firewood.
6. Wild Dreams while Sleeping In.
7. Breathing Easy.
8. H.H. the Dalai Lama.
9. Aloe Plants.

06 January 2009

Dig This. Or, why i decided to become a vegetarian after a long time away from compassionate consumption.


"The cosmic rhythms are nudging you to enjoy a time of profound slack."




The blue of my Heart. crepuscular blue. liminal blue. faerie blue. twilight blue.



the downward spiral runs through the valley. i can do so much with so little, but am embarassed at my self-esteem. theres black beans and a lucky acorn and today im supposed to trust myself. begin to trust myself. because i have all these things within me to bear and share. its still early january and im not quite awake. bitter liquid cold this morning and ice from the sky tonight, and maybe over dinner on friday she and i can waltz it out into the light, into the next season of our knowing what there is to know about us. i still secretly wrestle with why i didnt get the job but so it goes and there you are and whats to be done? i still chalk it up to my infinite shortcomings and dreadful luck. but then again im blessed, im fed an going to bed and waking up to coffee and cake with chocolate frosting i made from butter and chocolate, barley flour and eggs. itll be alright, whatever it turns out to be. trust me.

9 of 365:

1. Dusk Blue.
2. Not Worrying.
3. Being Able to Feed my Family.
4. Roasted Butternut Squash.
5. Literacy.
6. Thinking Maybe we could be Friends Again.
7. Cuddled in the Red Chair, Reading.
8. The Pack didnt Deconstruct my Enormous Ball of Yarn while i was Away.
9. Green Himalayan Tea.

03 January 2009



"Spirituality, as it's been said, being the fine art of paying attention."



Louise wasnt having it so i caught the neighbor who forgot her fags and she dropped me off and i went to work and i was grateful. all returning, we wonder at how much is forgotten after two weeks, a building full of women growing older, our branches far extended over the river beside which we are rooted. theyre calling for cuts, theres a dysfunctional family elephant vibe everywhere. like the game where we hold our cards up to our foreheads for others to view.



I make pizza dough, mushrooms and onions, pepper jack and parmesean. i do what i can with what i have where i am. the sky was clear, day to night, the wide open night and bright fellow travellers on the oval course of eternity. blue dusk, firewood and compost, collecting #4 and making small bright connections, tentative looking forwards and the blue dog in my arms on the porch in the cold. my secret santa revealed, the woman with the beautiful hair, and she gave me the boy in the striped pajamas. walking home from the post office i could smell our woodsmoke and see the light on the creekwater and there was chocolate to taste and the trailermans cats spitting in the cold night across the bridge and the feel of the gentle dough under my fingers. the world is a marvelous place and im grateful for my health and the peace around me, all the while everywhere around the world there is suffering and injustice. violence of flesh and the souls tragedy. all the while im chittering away at a laptop listening to billy bragg drinking green tea, fed, literate, with the luxury of time to learn how to love my self at last.

8 of 365:

1. Mrs. H. and G.
2. Book Suggestions.
3. My Difficulties are So Minor.
4. A Short Walk after Work and before Supper.
5. The Woodstove.
6. iTunes.
7. Amy Goodman.
8. Homemade Pizza.
9. Clean Water.


“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”


7 of 365:

1. Peace in the Valley, for Me.
2. She's Okay.
3. Hope.
4. Clean, Healthy Food.
5. The Videos #4 Creates.
6. Sunlight.
7. Dog Love.
8. He Fixed the Chimney.
9. Safe, Clean Water.
10. Excellent Books in Small Format.



A day spent doing what i never let myself do. slept way late, pancakes and coffee, a book and a blanket, prairie home and knitting, letting it go. later on i may wash dishes and do laundry but the plants are watered and its the end of the holiday. monday its back on the bus and the year begins. many auspicious omens and signs of good regard. i suppose my head will be elsewhere until spring, but i keep my hands busy with the wonder of two sticks and string. blessed be.

"And if the question were asked: What is more real, the mundane or the sublime? most would hesitate before they gave an answer. On the one side, details: say, the aftermath of a breakfast, dirty chipped plates in the sink, their rims encrusted with egg yolk. Against this, the unnameable: small aching heart with boasts, what can you know? Outside the cage of everything we ever heard or saw, beyond, outside, above, there lies the real, hiding as long as we shall live, there stretch and trail the millions of names of God burning across the eons. When all through this our end will come before we even know the names of us.

For many the egg yolk prevails." -L.M.

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well."
-V.V.G.

"The perfection of the Absolute where all Becoming stops and pure Being, immutable, timeless, unchanging, hangs forever like a ripe peach upon the bough." -E.A.

"...and the whole incident was incredibly frazzling and angst-rod and filled almost a whole mead notebook and is here recounted in only its barest psycho-skeletal outline." -D.F.W.

"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards." -H.S.T.

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." -D.T.
"Cometh a voice: My children, hear; From the crowded street and the close-packed mart I call you back with my message clear, back to my lap and my loving heart. Long have ye left me, journeying on by range and river and grassy plain, to the teeming towns where the rest have gone - come back, come back to my arms again. So shall ye lose the foolish needs that gnaw your souls; and my touch shall serve to heal the fretted nerve. Treading the turf that ye once loved well, instead of the stones of the city's street, ye shall hear nor din nor drunken yell, but the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. I that am old have seen long since ruin of palaces made with hands for the soldier-king and the priest and prince whose cities crumble in desert sands. But still the furrow in many a clime yields softly under the ploughman's feet; still there is seeding and harvest time, and the wind still croons in the ripening wheat. The works of man are but little worth; for a time they stand, for a space endure; but turn once more to your mother - Earth, my gifts are gracious, my works are sure. Instead of the strife and pain I give you peace, with its blessing sweet. Come back, come back to my arms again, for the wind still croons in the ripening wheat."
-John Sandes, The Earth-Mother (excerpt, 1918)