Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Friday gratefuls: Jackie and Rhonda. Ears lifted. Diane. Kristin. Jennie. Artemis. Ruby gleams. Aspens. Lodgepoles. Lycaon

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Jackie

Week Kavannah:   Yetziratiut. Creativity.   Feedback on my new writing style.

Tarot: #13, the Journey

I’m in clinical trial world, my cancer path, once stable, turned over to randomization and hope.

One brief shining: A lightness in my step. Decision made. Eager to get on with it. Hair cut and beard trim. Agency lifts the heart, the lev. Dance to the music.

Most of us old folks want to stay home. Not as shut-ins, but as persons living where the grandkids came for Hanukah. Where Kate and I came when the mountains called us. To this spot on Shadow Mountain.

Home. Minnesota, forty years. Andover, twenty years. Shadow Mountain, in the twelfth year. Competence. Autonomy. Belonging.

I took care of Kate here.

I take care of myself.

Alone, but not lonely. Congregation Beth Evergreen. Here, I’m at home.

Memory plus strong emotion. Embedded, lasting. So many memories. Jon and Ruth, with her little plastic shovel, removing snow on our new driveway so the moving van could park. Tom and I letting the dogs out after the long drive from Minnesota. They ran around the yard once and jumped back in. Ready to go home.

311 E. Monroe Street. Alexandria, Indiana. Where our milk came each day by horse drawn delivery wagon. Where mom and I watched the yellow and black garden spider live her life.

419 N. Canal. I used a slingshot to break the windshield of an insurance agent visiting mom and dad. Paid for it by washing dishes at twenty-cents an hour. I listened to the Ring cycle in my bedroom. Mom died.

Andover. Flowers. Raspberries and leeks. Honey and the Orchard. The firepit. Seventeen dogs.

Home.

Not only shaping home with garden trowels and dog bowls, but being shaped in turn by the homeplace. In Andover we had two and a half acres, partially wooded, and room for gardens, for dogs to run free. Kate and I chose to live into that place filling it with flowers, vegetables, dogs.

On Shadow Mountain we lived (and I live) in rarified air. Lodgepoles and aspens. On an ordinary day driving by Black Mountain. Following Maxwell Creek down the long slope of Shadow Mountain. Kate said she felt like she was on vacation every day.

Home.