Daily Archives: December 3, 2021

Dogs

Rigel at 13

Leave a comment

Samain and the thinnest Holiseason waning crescent

Friday gratefuls: Cleaning out the cabinets. Underway. Chicken stew headed to Judy’s with Bread Lounge ciabatta. Alan. Evergreen. Conifer. Our wildfire risk. Black Mountain Drive. Our only route out. The Lodgepoles that will burn. Renewal. Forest metamorphosis. The houses that will burn. Ecojustice. A chance for renewal. That slab of Taj Mahal waiting to be cut precisely to fit my counter. A beauty.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ursa Major outside my bedroom window

Tarot: Three of Stones, Creativity.

 

Rigel, 2011

Rigel. Has turned 13. A rascal still. Just this morning she grabbed an empty treat package, carried it out to the sewing room rug and ripped it apart.

The very day we brought her home to Seven Oaks in Andover she got her head stuck in the wooden gate going down to our perennial garden. I had to take the gate apart to get her head out. And, with my manual skills.

Kate told me this story. Rigel had come in from outside looking proud of herself. She got into the kitchen, coughed once, and threw up a Rabbit’s head. Eyes still glistening.

Rigel also got her sister Vega in trouble. Often. She discovered a downed Tree limb that provided a route over our 2,500 foot long chain link fence. Located in a far corner of our Woods it took me more than one escape to find the Tree limb and cut it down.

Rigel digging with Vega, 2010

Once she went over, took Vega and Hilo, one of our Whippets, with her. Vega and Hilo returned home for dinner, but Rigel didn’t. She was gone three or four days, having been captured by a neighbor. We finally found her through the dog shelter who relayed a message. While she resided at the neighbors, his son named her Queenie.

Seven Oaks was on the Anoka Sand Plain, the former shore of the ancient glacial River, Agassiz. Great for gardening. And, for two sisters tag-teaming to dig really deep holes. Not one, not two, but multiple holes deep enough to hold a 100 pound+ IW/Coyote Hound mix. Since I occasionally needed to drive a truck in the back, these holes were downright problematic.

the baby

Loud barking. Really loud. Baying. Non-stop. Geez, guys. What’s going on? I searched around in our woods until I found Rigel and Vega digging a hole under a downed Cottonwood. Something was up in the hollow portion of the long dead Tree. Took out my phone and snapped pictures because I could see anything. A baby Opossum. Never understand the strategy of barking at something in a Tree.

Up here on Shadow Mountain where Rigel has spent more than half of her 13 years she continues to hunt. She’s dug out around our deck, trying to get underneath to the tasty baby bunnies that live there. Same for the shed. In spite of severe arthritis in her rear left leg she continues to follow her predatory instincts.

With Rigel, Andover

Last year. August. I felt her forehead. It was hot. Kate took her temperature. 105. Something was going on. Covid raged outside our house. It was a weekend. As often happens.

I took her in to the Veterinary Referral Service in Lakewood. Because of Covid, they had signs on their front door and windows: Humans. Sit. Stay. I had to call in. A vet tech came to get her. I waited in the car, 94 degree heat, for six hours while triage pushed her back in priority. When they finally got to her, the vet confirmed she was really sick.

It took three or four very expensive days to diagnose her with endocarditis, the next to last thing on the differential tree. After that it took two days of high dose, high impact antibiotics to get her ready to come home.

Rigel and a bull Elk in our back a day before my first radiation treatment.

I cried when she same out because I thought I’d never see her again. She was thin, weak, but happy to go home. High doses of antibiotics continued at home for three months. It took about that length of time, maybe a bit more, for her energy level to return to normal.

Today she runs up and down the stairs to the loft. She and Kep have made home a welcoming place for me since Kate’s death. So important for me that I don’t have a word for my gratitude.

Each time she goes to the vet he says she looks really good for as old a dog as she is. At her physical he compared her to a five-year old dog. She’s still like that. How long she can go, I don’t know. But her life has buttressed mine and mine hers. Fair enough.

Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Kabbalah, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

A New Totem Animal

Leave a comment

Samain and the 5% waning crescent of the Holiseason Moon

©willworthingtonart

Friday gratefuls: Blue Skies. Black Mountain. Green Lodgepoles. Naked Aspen. Oceans. The World Ocean. Lakes. Ponds. Puddles. Creeks. Streams. Rivers. Mighty Rivers. Volcanoes. Steam Vents. The Earth’s Core. Riding on the Mantle. Crusty.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Brother Mark

Tarot: The Great Bear, #20 of the major arcana

 

As they often say in fantasy movies, it has begun. I’m deconstructing the kitchen. Drawers with thermometers, hot pads, skewers, kitchen towels. Cabinets with bouillon, cream of mushroom soup, ladles, and wooden spoons. Into the boxes I’ve been saving. I’m doing a little pruning right now, but the priority is to unload all the cabinets before Monday. I’ll prune more as I replace things in the new cabinets or, better perhaps, after I’ve gotten everything in boxes.

I’m excited to have this project moving forward. It’s completion will be the trigger for moving furniture, rearranging the house. One thing I look forward to upstairs is a conversation area focused on the fireplace. Since I don’t have COPD, I can have fires, but a lot of them? No.

The first fire after the furniture and new lamps and table are in place will be Irish peat logs. I mentioned them a while back as reminiscent of the nights W.Y. Evans-Wentz spent in Celtic homes listening to stories around the fire, often peat logs burning. I want to experience the smell and the fire.

Fits in with the Hermitage notion. I’ll welcome you here if you want to come. Oh, and I’m working on that host thing, too.

©willworthingtonart

I may have a new, or additional, totem animal. Can you have more than one? Love the card I drew this morning, the Great Bear. Here it is again.

The Great Bear guards a passage tomb, a sort of pre-Celtic columbarium that could contain multiple tombs on either side of a long passage. In the tomb souls await rebirth and the Great Bear protects the souls as they wait to renew themselves.

The Great Bear, in the Wildwood Deck, corresponds to the Winter Solstice, that longest night when we sink into the darkness. Happens to be my favorite holiday. Matching it with Ursa Major and the Aurora Borealis makes the Winter Solstice take on an even deeper meaning for me.

As it goes, so it comes. When darkness reaches us, it invites into the passage tomb. We have no need to worry because the Great Bear will protect us through the vulnerable process of our soul’s metamorphosis. While we’re in the tomb the night sky shines above us in all its starry, auroral glory.

The Great Wheel teaches us that rebirth is not a singular event. As the dark Night goes, it will come again, offering another chance for renewal, for rebirth. This is a comfort for those who mourn, who feel a new life awaits. For me.