{"id":63644,"date":"2026-03-29T06:56:54","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T12:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=63644"},"modified":"2026-03-29T06:56:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T12:56:54","slug":"dysphoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=63644","title":{"rendered":"Dysphoria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Spring and the Moon of Liberation<\/p>\n<p>Sunday gratefuls: Mental energy. Physical energy. Emotional balance. Support. Driving. Agency. Diet. Mini-splits. Dr. Josy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Sparks of Joy and Awe:\u00a0 The night sky<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/wildwoo-four-of-vessels-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-63250\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/wildwoo-four-of-vessels-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter-420x639.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"113\" height=\"172\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/wildwoo-four-of-vessels-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter-420x639.jpg 420w, https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/wildwoo-four-of-vessels-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter-744x1132.jpg 744w, https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/wildwoo-four-of-vessels-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 113px) 100vw, 113px\" \/><\/a>Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut. Seeing the aspen and the lodgepoles. Seeing Artemis.<\/p>\n<p>Tarot: Four of Vessels, boredom. &#8220;&#8230;you may be overlooking new opportunities due to inward focus, fatigue, or dissatisfaction. It suggests a need to break routines and re-engage&#8230;&#8221; I have let fatigue and pain reshape, and narrow, my daily life.<\/p>\n<p>One brief shining: Spring rising on the Great Wheel. Last Samhain&#8211;Summer&#8217;s End&#8211;I was still harvesting. A strong hint. Something&#8217;s wrong. Missed it in my joy over fresh tomatoes.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20250921_164432-scaled-e1774781996929.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-63645 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20250921_164432-scaled-e1774781996929-420x220.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"420\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20250921_164432-scaled-e1774781996929-420x220.jpg 420w, https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20250921_164432-scaled-e1774781996929-744x390.jpg 744w, https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20250921_164432-scaled-e1774781996929-1200x628.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20250921_164432-scaled-e1774781996929-768x402.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20250921_164432-scaled-e1774781996929-1536x804.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20250921_164432-scaled-e1774781996929-2048x1072.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 420px) 100vw, 420px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Samhain to Spring. My harvest extended well into November. I had planted late, in July, because Artemis took a while to finish. Seeing how the irrigation worked, tuning the heater and the exhaust fan for optimal tomato conditions, perhaps a chance to harvest some lettuce. That&#8217;s all I imagined.<\/p>\n<p>The warm fall, which would extend into a warm, almost snowless winter, allowed the beets, spinach, kale, and tomatoes to continue growing, producing. I harvested these, plus a cucumber or two, until the nights grew too cold.<\/p>\n<p>The garlic went in in early November, while I was still harvesting cherry tomatoes.<\/p>\n<p>All of November, then December and January, now February and March I waited. To see snow fall among the lodgepoles. To have a quiet, white day. A fire in the fireplace.<\/p>\n<p>Spring came nine days ago. Shadow Mountain went straight to summer. Wildfire risk: Extreme. Denver hit the nineties. I slept almost naked.<\/p>\n<p>I have seventy-nine winters. None of them were like this one. Watching the snow fall. Sleeping in a cold bedroom. Bundling up to go out. Yes. Wearing a short sleeve shirt in March. No.<\/p>\n<p>Time and the climate. Out of joint. We earn our spring through winter&#8217;s cold and ice. No contrast.<\/p>\n<p>Lodgepole needles are brittle. Aspens, confused, push out buds. Elk herds have already started coming down to lower meadows. The Black Bears have been up and raiding garbage cans for a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n<p>I asked Jackie, a fly fisherperson, whether she&#8217;d been out yet. &#8220;No,&#8221; she said, &#8220;The streams are too low.&#8221; Maxwell creek, in another year, would be deep and fast as the winter&#8217;s snow cover begins to melt. No snow to melt.<\/p>\n<p>Trump says, &#8220;We&#8217;ll keep bombing our little hearts out.&#8221; I see my neighbors struggling to pay for gas and groceries.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t recognize my own country.\u00a0 Men I cannot trust; men who shame their friends and welcome autocrats. How have we let them in?<\/p>\n<p>To be old and to have the fundaments of my world stripped away disorients me. Where am I?<\/p>\n<p>I plant anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Protest anyway.<\/p>\n<p>I am here on Shadow Mountain.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spring and the Moon of Liberation Sunday gratefuls: Mental energy. Physical energy. Emotional balance. Support. Driving. Agency. Diet. Mini-splits. Dr. Josy. Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names. Sparks of Joy and Awe:\u00a0 The night sky &nbsp; Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut. Seeing the aspen and the lodgepoles. Seeing Artemis. Tarot: Four of Vessels, boredom. &#8220;&#8230;you may &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=63644\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Dysphoria<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,17,4411,100,4405],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-garden","category-great-wheel","category-greenhouse","category-politics","category-seed-keepers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63646,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63644\/revisions\/63646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}