From the Farmer's Mouth

Farmer Dave and his faithful friend Duke

My friend (and one of my favorite organic farmers!), Dave Dietz, had this to say about the effects of GMO alfalfa:

This is incredibly important to the integrity of organic foods, especially the dairy and beef industries. Because bees pollinate alfalfa, and they travel for miles, there is no possible way GMO alfalfa can be kept from contaminating organic alfalfa, and thus ruining its economic value. It is beyond belief that any fair minded person would even consider the possibility of allowing GMO alfalfa. Please speak out now.

Scott and I wrote a quick blurb about cross-contamination over at our newspaper blog Seacoast to Coast, but I'm embarrassed to say I'd forgotten to write about the BEES! It's always good to get a farmer's perspective on these things. 

For more back story on how I met Dave and my adventures last year in rural Pennsylvania, including my visit to his parents' Mennonite church, killing my first rooster, and meeting some truly amazing women, check out the "Wonder What She Wrote About..." sidebar to the right and click on "Dietz Family Farm." Enjoy!

Instructions and other F.R.S.

So I was taking a break from my own living story and poking around on my favorite blogs in an idle search for random Fairytale Related Stuff, when I stumbled upon this particular...
...Key.
Secret.
Dreamportal.
Cheat code (if your metaphors are so inclined, and as discussed yesterday, who am I to judge?).


Talk about magic...
the idea of Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess collaborating on anything is enough to send me running for my cloak and basket of tincture bottles, ready to venture out into whatever Wood happens to be nearest. But this...

There's a small, wistfully indignant voice coming from the vicinity of my left elbow that wants to know where this book was when we were starting out on our adventures, but she's answered by another, warmer one in the back of my throat, who reminds her that we didn't need it.

And she's right.

Still, if anyone feels like gifting their favorite young (or old) adventurer with the best consolidated set of Instructions I've come across in - well, in forever, really - here's a link to pre-order it from Neil's online store. I also recommend Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles (aka the "Dealing with Dragons" books), anything and everything by Tamora Pierce and Jane Yolen, and Susan Cooper's "The Dark Is Rising" series.

I have a strong desire to venture out into the rain and mist right now to the local library and curl up cross-legged between the wooden bookshelves in the exact same spot I spent hours in as a girl, reading and rereading all my favorites. I bet it smells exactly the same as it did twenty years ago. I bet the carpet's still scratchy and the painted bricks are still peeling and the librarians are still busy helping awkward, imaginative kids find the myths and role models that will shape every one of their amazing adventures from childhood on. I bet it's still the most magical place in this tiny, little town.

I wonder if they've got room for another book?

Aaaaand, we're back!

...And utterly grateful to be here.

After almost 2 months, 2 countries, poverty and decadence, ghettos and jungles, close encounters, sticky situations, spiritual epiphanies, flayed-open
fears, the kindness of strangers, homemade ice cream, illegal taxis, thirty foot cacti, moonlit skinny dipping, sweat lodges, street food, sick dogs, scorpions, Cuban cigars, fresh papayas, salsa dancing, emotional revelations, flirtations, prayers, songs, the hard-earned bones of a long-awaited book manuscript, and more blisters than I thought possible, I'm back in New England.

Tanned. Bruised. Pummeled. And finally -thankfully- humbly... whole.

I have apologies to make.

For the times I've looked down on simple pleasures I didn't understand, or let my fears trump my love. For the many times I thought love meant holding others to my standards, or holding myself back. For trying to do too much, too hard, because I was scared that the things I knew I could do would never be enough.

For assuming that anybody else's Path would look like mine, just because they happened to overlap.

I had my ass and my heart handed to me on this trip, and one of the things I learned was how much joy there is in appreciating other people's pleasures. So go out there and do all those things that make you happy, and know that if I didn't get it before, if I rolled my eyes or lost my patience or had some snarky reason why I wasn't going to join in...

...there's a good chance I still won't understand. But I'll do my best to love that it brings you joy.

There's more to follow, as I sort through laundry, memories, and the random odds & ends of the past two months' adventures. And of course, now I've got the next stage of my journey to plan. Feel free to come along on as much of it as it serves us to share; it's gonna be a doozy...

Notes from the Jungle

So last time I wrote, I was staying in a palapa on the beach, enjoying el aire libre during the day and attempting to both sleep and stay warm at night - not an easy task when you´re up against a mattress shaped like a Pringle, a pillow seemingly stuffed with packing peanuts, and walls that are, in all reality, not walls so much as closely positioned poles. Still, it was Paradise, and there are many a common luxury lucky gringas like myself will go without in exchange for a chance to lounge on the beach and eat coconuts all day.
Much enamored with this simple life, I took to napping during the day. At night, I coiled myself into a multi-layered fabric tamale and rolled around on the Mattress of Doom listening to the booming surf and the Spring Break crowd party it up several hotels away. For privacy, I hung up a few blankets and sarongs; ambient touches that lent the place a delightfully exotic Gilligan´s Island feel, especially coupled with the palm-thatched roof.

Did you know there are scorpions that live in palm thatch? Because I didn´t know there were scorpions. Hell, I didn´t even know about the geckos.

There are lots of things I don´t know about Mexico, but there are other things I´ve learned rather quickly: Salsa dancing changes your internal rhythm. If you don´t bargain, you´re worth cheating. There are no such thing as too many popsicles, but there sure is too much tequila. And finally, most importantly, "she who wanders alone wanders best."
Having figured out the last one barely a day before we were scheduled to fly to Mexico City, I bit the bullet and parted ways with my former traveling companion (he of the travel itinerary, generous wallet and Spanish-speaking skills) in favor of finding my own adventures. And find them I have.

If anyone would like to visit me here (and you´d better do so quickly, because I´m leaving for even more adventures in 4 days), here´s how to do it:
Pack a flashlight, some bug spray, a sleeping bag, and your passport, and take the next Air Mexicana flight into Cancun.
From Cancun, grab the Mayab bus to Tulum.
When you get to Tulum, walk across the street to the popsicle shop and buy a fresh kiwi or mango or guava popsicle, and eat it under the tamarind tree.
Go back to the bus station and buy a ticket to a barely-there town called Manuel Antonio Hay. Tell the bus driver to let you out at kilometro veinte y seis.
When he opens the door, walk towards the brightly painted building - the only building - and keep walking until you come to a small path.
Ignore the rooster and follow the path. Look for a break in the trees on your right, through which you´ll see a small building made out of very loosely assembled sticks.
Call my name.
If you´re really lucky, a very tan (or very dirty; it´s hard to tell) woman with dark hair and muddy clothes will come out, look very shocked for a few seconds, and then hug you like you´ve never been hugged before.
Congratulations, you´ve found the bruja verde of El Alebrije.

Of course, I´m only the temporary green witch of El Alebrije, an intentional community in the Mayan jungle based around green living, yoga, and the Mayan calendar. In a few days, I´m going to another country to study Spanish for two whole weeks and continue teaching -and learning- about herbs. For now, though, I´m getting ready to teach an herbal medicine 101 class on the day of the Women´s Sweat Lodge, and I´ve traded in my ocean-side palapa for an even more ramshackle hut in the woods, where I spend my days surrounded by plants and my nights swinging to sleep in a hammock - and boy, was that part an adventure in and of itself.
It took me a week and some crazy maneuverings, but I´ve finally gotten it all figured out.

Picture this: it´s my first night in the jungle, and I have yet to figure out that the palapa has electricity. I have one candle and a flashlight. It´s very cold. As I listen to the moist crunching sound of thousands of insects chewing through (and around, and above, and inside...) my new abode, I feel very exposed. And cold. And alone. And vulnerable. And there are lots of animal noises happening very, very close, right outside the non-walls. My friend has mentioned monkeys and scorpions, and I am pretty sure that if this unfinished hut has a mosquito net hanging over the hammock when there isn´t even a floor yet, it´s probably for a damn good reason.
So. I blow out the candle, place the flashlight in my mouth (so my hands are free), and begin an event so ridiculous, it rivals the Great Squirrel Incident of aught nine. Double-bagging my sleeping bag with a second one for warmth, I wrap a blanket around my shoulders and hold them all in place with one hand while pushing the mosquito netting aside with the other. Awkward, but so far, so good.
Step two (climbing onto a moving net butt-first and hands-free) was a little trickier, but still feasable. Steps three through eight hundred and seventy three (wrap one side of the hammock over the top of your head, lean back until you´re completely prone, lift off the ground, tuck your knees to your chest, kick your feet out straight so they -and all the bedding around them- are enclosed in one side of the hammock, while your head -and its bedding- stays firmly enclosed by the other, and wriggle around until you´re comfortable) eluded me.
All night long.
For several days.
Once, it eluded me so well, I found myself upside down on the dirt floor with my feet tangled in the hammock, my body trapped in the sleeping bags, and the now-filthy mosquito net falling in graceful swathes around my head. It was the most comfortable I´d been all night.
As far as I´m concerned, the hammock-and-blankets combo is the Black Diamond of Mexican sleeping arangements. Go figure.

Still. I´m learning an awful lot and having a blast. It took me a few days, but I slept like a baby last night. I cooked black bean soup over an open fire while the rooster (aptly named Romeo) watched amorously nearby. I go grocery shopping by myself, and I usually know what I get. And I´ve made some amazing friends.
Julie is origionally from the States, but she´s been here long enough to have an accent as beautiful as she is. She reminds me a lot of Emily, with the same kind of gentle strength and warm spirit that emenate from all her interactions with the world. She´s teaching me about some of the local plants and Reiki. I´m teaching her as much as I can about herbal formulas and permaculture so she can start her own business and make the community sustainable.

The other night our shaman, Francisco, held a temezcal (a Mayan sweat lodge). It was a really magical night; intense and full of shifting energy. Francisco asked to use some of my herbs and oils in the steams, and it was a blessing and honor to smell them inside the Lodge and remember when and where I´d harvested and bought them on my last journey- all of them were procured with joy, and used for good. Praise the goodness that flows through all!
That night I gave energy adjustments to over fifteen people. I´ve been honing the work I do with peoples´bodies and energy, working to align and strengthen their energy flow, straightening out the kinks or jams and opening up the blocked channels. As I start to learn about Reiki, I´m looking forward to seeing how that changes and advances what I feel and know (and let myself know).
The night of the Lodge, I started out doing one adjustment, and when I looked up, there was a small crowd of interested, hopeful faces watching, so I just kept going. Francisco and Onassis (our resident farmer and Julie´s boyfriend) tended the fire and led the ceremonies, which lasted for over five hours! It was so hot and powerful, and by the end of it we were all covered completely in mud and aloe and each others´sweat and all felt very much alive. I missed a lot because it was all in Spanish and Mayan (there´s lots of Mayan languages, but people just say Mayan for short, and it doesn´t seem to be rude), but I got the main parts.
I especially loved the chant we sang:
La tierra es cuelpo. El agua es la sangre. El viento es el aliento. El fuego es el espíritu.
The earth is the body, the water is the blood. The wind is the breath, the fire is the spirit.

In addition to all the energy and plant work (and research and cooking and just generally being on vacation) I´ve also been playing vet to one very small, very sweet little white and black puppy. She and her eight brothers and sisters just opened their eyes 2 days ago, and while they´re all now about twice as big as she is, I´m pleased to report that she´s recovering very well from what our Mayan friend Antonio thinks were two tarantula bites. I met her the first day I came to the community, and though it wasn´t obvious (to me) what the cause of her distress was, it was clear that without some assistance la pequiña perrita was probably not going to make it. Tatiana (owner of both land and puppies, and salsa dancer nonpareil) looked very squeemish.
Not being one to balk at the idea of stabbing a newborn critter for a good cause (and eager to endear myself to my new landlady), I decided to take the healing thing to a new, minor surgery sort of level, and returned to Tatiana´s house moments later armed with the best medical supplies my backback can provide - namely, my first aid kit and a pocket knife.
It turns out there isn´t much you can´t do with hot water, a clean cloth, some herbs, and a sharp knife. I´m pretty sure babies have been delivered with a lot less. I´ll spare everyone the details, but as messy as it was, it was useful, and doable, and if all is as I left it this morning, the pup is doing well and probably nursing even as you read this.

That´s all the news from the jungle. I probably won´t post much -if at all- until I get back, but I love you all, and am sending sweet energy to everyone up North.... Many blessings,

-Blackbird´s Daughter

Top Five Best Kept Secrets About Tulum, Mexico (On the Cheap)

Here´s a sample article I wrote for an online travel mag. Enjoy!
..............................................

If you´re contemplating a visit to Tulum, Mexico, no doubt you´ve found your way to the many travel sites designed to lure you towards the perfect beaches, Mayan ruins, and underground cave-diving expeditions that await the adventurous, off-the-beaten-Cancun-path traveler - for a price, of course. Before you change those hard-earned US dollars into soon-to-be-spent pesos, however, here´s a list of ways to enjoy Tulum on the cheap, designed to keep you -and your wallet- full, happy, and ready to toast "¡Viva la Mexico!" over your next 2-for-1 margarita.
1) Eat local and you´ll eat well. Expect to pay steep American prices on the beach, slightly less outrageous ones on the main drag, and next to nothing at either end of town, where you can find good tamales and tacos for less than one US dollar, and fresh fruit popsicles for even less. Speaking of fruit, don´t overlook the fruiterias, or fruit markets, either, where a couple of bucks can keep you hydrated and in taste-bud heaven for days. As for las bebidas, keep an eye out for billboards offering drink specials - you´ll find plenty of half-price Margaritas and Cuba Libres (rum and coke with lime) all along the main street.
2) Bargains abound (but you wouldn´t know it from the price tags). As a tourist town, Tulum is priced accordingly, but fear not - with the right expression of indifference and "un poquito Español", a handmade hammock marked for eleven hundred pesos in the morning can easily be gotten for four fifty right at the end of the day. Though prices at the grocery stores and restaurants are fixed, everything else is fair game for a haggle - including taxis, if you catch them anywhere other than the main street. (Hint: plan on souvenir shopping on Sunday, when all the other shops are closed and the few open vendors are looking to make a sale).
3) Mayab, the locals´ bus. If you want a cheep ride from Tulum to Cobá, Playa del Carmen, or even Cancun, Mayab bus line is the way to go. A 250 peso taxi ride from downtown to Cobá will cost you twenty-two pesos on Mayab; even less if you catch it from the grocery store at the end of town. Another common option is hitchhiking; locals do it all the time, follow suit at your own risk.
4) The ruins are overrated (and other tourism sacrilege). While beautiful, the Mayan ruins at Tulum are overcrowded and disappointingly cordoned-off. For a more authentic, adventurous look at the architecture of the ancient Mayans, take the bus to Cobá, where you can rent bicycles and ride among the jungle ruins, stopping to climb a pyramid or wander through an ancient ball court at your leisure.
5) No guide, no problem. Between the locals, the international tourists, and the large number of expats who call Tulum "home", the town is filled with friendly, helpful people who are happy to point you toward good deals and fun adventures. And whether you´re traveling by yourself or with a group, a smile and an invitation to share a drink are all you need to find good company for any number of day trips, nighttime dancing, and future adventures - wherever your wanderlust takes you.

¡Viva la Mexico!

Heya, gentle readers! This post (brief as it is) is coming to you live from a hole-in-the-wall internet cafe in Tulum, Mexico, where I´ve been busy diving in underwater caves (called cenotes), eating tamales from street vendors, climbing ancient Mayan ruins, snorkling with sea turtles and baracuda, salsa dancing until four in the morning (and drinking waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much tequila in the process - no mas!), getting far more tanned than any gringa has a right to become (and yes, my cautious familia, I promise I´ve been wearing more sunscreen than clothes, though that´s not hard to do when you live in a sand-floored cabana on the beach)!

A few travel notes from my journal:

Judy Collins´Amazing Grace piping out from the Los Arrecifes cantina to the accompanioment of waves and full moon, ¨coming in at #57 this week¨from an old Top Whatever countdown list - way better than the almost constant tinned music that they usually play. Paradise paved, certainly, but not completely lost.

The bicycle pushcart from the bakery that a teenage boy drives around town selling sweet buns from and honking his horn as he passes.

Opening coconuts filched from the trees surrounding Los Arricefes with a machete every morning, squeezing in fresh limes, and drinking straight from the shell.

Skinnydipping at sunrise.

The ghost crabs that scramble up through the sand and out across the ground in search or whatever food scraps they can find, leaving their cuneiform trails through the dunes and across the floor of my cabana.

The gecko that squeeks at me from the thatched roof every night.

Almost climbing coconut trees, but chickening out every time at about 5 feet.

Papayas with lime at every breakfast since arriving in Mexico.

Swimming in the aqua waters off the Cancun coast with Matthew, and carrying him around on my shoulders. His urchin look - red crocks, long shorts, blue and white striped shirt, topped with too-long red hair and his uncle´s "Fifel the Mouse" hat atop a grinning, pointy-chinned kid face.

Feeling beautiful. Long shorts, ranchera hat, sarong, or (most often) nothing but a bikini, hibiscus blossom, and cowrie shell earrings. Barefoot. Tangled hair, curved tummy, and still-young everything else. Mexico makes me feel beautiful.

Alright, amigas y amigos, enough posting from Paradise. I have an evening to attend to.

Living In Season (also, some nifty news & NOFA notes)...

...all brought to you by your favorite vagabond herbalist, who finally got some business cards printed up, just in time for this year's Northeastern Organic Farming Association winter conference. Also handy as I travel down to Mexico this Friday.

Did I say Mexico? I meant Mexico. Viva la aventura!

Let's do a little backup, catch up, "what the heck has Blackbird's Daughter been doing for the past month and a half, 'cause it sure as shooting wasn't running a blog" Q&A, shall we?

The quick answer is that Blackbird's Daughter has been trusting in the slow, dark, incubatory energy of the post-Yule, pre-Imbolc season, that's what.

The longer answer is that I've also been working incredibly hard to envision and craft what the next growing-cycle of my life will look like, while also striving to stay grounded and present in the here-and-now.

The tricky part of this late-Winter, early-Spring time (and yes, according to the Euro-pagan -for lack of a better phrase- calendar, it is now early Spring!) is that there's not a whole lot you can actually do, other than wait to see how all those bulb crops come up, tighten your belt, plan out your new plantings, and enjoy the quiet of the woods. Sure there's lots of stuff like missing buttons and old mail and the back of the refrigerator to attend to, and that's all fine and good and necessary, but it doesn't have the same feel of easy production as, say, a few months from now, when you won't be able to set foot outside without walking over parties of tender, delicious little baby dandelions and plantains and other weedy delectables, all popping their nutritious and impossibly green little selves out of the ground and shaking their little baby groove things in the wet and warming air. I don't even know what to call them, they're so many and cute and everywhere, like a blanket of tiny green rainbow gatherings with miniature drum circles and euphoric ant dancers all over the place. Those ecstatic, brave little plant-friends aren't just adornment for the lush and muddy soil, they are a full-on, plan-ahead, bring-the-kids Event; a not-to-be-missed Happening unto themselves.

But of course, that time is not this time, and this time is, by most accounts, pretty darn stark. Money's tight. The apples are wrinkled. There are only so many root vegetables you can cook in so many ways before you find yourself re-rummaging through the back-of-the-cupboard international cookbook pile, desperate for any legume-based culinary inspiration, and even those $5.99 boxes of insipid, pinkish strawberries start to look like a possibility.

Luckily for us, it's not actually that long a season. I know, I know, I can feel readers' polar-fleece-lined indignation from here, but bear with me on this one:
I'm not saying that almost six months of cold isn't a long time - I'm saying that it isn't just one extended limbo of non-growth and desolation. What we think of as "Winter" is actually comprised of multiple seasons: Winter (from November 1 through January 31), and Spring (Feb. 1 through April 30). This doesn't show up on the current American (political) calendar, but then neither does Presidents' Day on mine, so I guess we're even. (For the full and righteous eco-faith shebang, you gotta git on over to the Mystic's Wheel of the Year - go on, git!)
The way I've taken to viewing the year means that while lots of folks are bemoaning a dull and dreary landscape, I'm taking emotional refuge in a richly diverse series of gloriously minute shifts and soul-expanding beauty. Look at it this way:
When the year ends at Samhain (October 31), we have three months to reflect on and cast off the old patterns of the previous year before Spring is born at Imbolc (Feb. 1). Now that Spring is here and the castings of the previous year have fully sunk into the earth to fertilize the new one, we can look forward to the growth that is quickly working its hidden magic beneath the soil. The past few months have been a time to let go and relax into the greater cycle, acknowledging that we've accomplished all we could with last year. It's done. Let it go. It's time to allow ourselves to have faith in what's new.In the counseling world, this would be considered the Season of Closure, followed by the Season of New Beginnings. (Mumma, I'm giving this one to you- the "Mental Health Wheel of the Year" - see bottom of post.)

There's powerful medicine in this particular season of darkness, but if we're not used to living cyclically, it can be a time of great depression and emotional difficulty. We can remedy that by 1) accepting the Truth that nature, the planet, and our bodies are telling us, and 2) letting go of the rigid expectation that we strive for chronic consistency. This (often self-imposed) drive for uniformity & peak performance is akin to planting a tree and then expecting it to take root, acclimate to its new surroundings and climate, bud, blossom, bear fruit, produce sap, store nutrients for later, use those nutrients, photosynthesize, grow a healthyMycorrhizal network, interact with said network, grow taller, insulate itself from cold, feed millions of critters (both minuscule and large) etc etc etc....all at the same time. We wouldn't expect that of our plant allies, so why on Earth do we expect it of ourselves?
This sort of seasonal disconnect isn't just unrealistic on a personal level, it's incredibly unhealthy systemically, culturally, and planetarily, and it's a recipe for exhaustion, burn-out, illness, and a whole host of other unnecessaries.

So while it's true that I've been staying busy bopping up and down New England, selling my car, reconnecting with my amazing and talented sister-goddess (you can find her amidst the vanilla-scented cloud over at Life Is Short. East Dessert First.), planning for a spur-of-the-moment trip down South to explore the Curanderismo (herbal medicine) of Mexico, attending the NOFA Winter Conference, and planting seeds of possibility for this summer, I've been consciously working at respecting the fact that this particular liminal time in my life is both necessary and healthy. And you know what?

It's working.

I've been in Vermont for eight years now, and the longer I stay, the shorter the winter feels, and it's got nothing to do with global warming. It's the fact that I quit my jobs and got out of my car.

Seriously.
Here's what my old Winter schedule used to look like:
-Get up in the dark.
-Drive down gray city roads lined with gray, exhaust-covered snow to my gray and green place of employment.
-Stay inside for the entire time it was light out, with occasional breaks to accompany students somewhere or dash across the parking lot for a pre-meeting cup of coffee.
-Drive the same gray route home in the deepening dusk.
-Repeat.

Here's a sample of what it looks like now:
-Get up when I want.
-Work for someone else when I want.
-Work for myself when I want.
-Go outside when I want.
-Travel when I want.
-Repeat (when I want).

This new schedule leaves me very broke, extremely open to possibilities, intensely aware of my choices & challenges, and pretty darn happy. It forces me to be consciously vulnerable. It lets me be stressed out in way that I have control over changing. It teaches me to breathe.

And for the first time since I was a kid, it gives me the opportunity to really live with and in my surroundings, experiencing the climate and ecosystems the way we used to, from our feet on up.

On that note, I'd like to offer a huge thanks to NOFA and all the amazing agriculturally-minded folks that attended this year's Winter Conference.
Thanks for bringing the median age of farmers down for the first time in over 40 years. Thank you for revitalizing our soil and keeping our food chain real, healthy, and local. Thanks for taking on the absolutely critical role as the next generation of farmers, growers, bee-keepers, and more. Thanks for following your passion.

I guess the long answer to the question that started this all - What have I been doing? - is simply that. Following my passion. It's all I know how to do. But I do it well.

The Mental Health Wheel of the Year

In which Seasonal Affective Disorder is not an illness, but a positive sign of unconscious connection to our animal, place-based Selfhood; a "sane response to an insane world"; a 'symptom' of deeply-rooted wellness and an opportunity to grow and live in synchronicity and ease with Nature.

Samhain Season – active (act of) change making

Winter Solstice – closure

Imbolc Season– planning and readiness, new beginnings

Spring Equinox – new changes, skill growth, reflection on new needs

Beltane – big new change/awareness of possibilities/fertility of choice

Summer Solstice – maintenance/balance

Lammas – harvesting new changes

Autumn Equinox –reflection, readiness for change

For those who don't know, my mom is a pretty amazing holistic mental health counselor. She founded a practice called Liminal Therapy, where she references things like the hero's journey and helps her clients change "I should really..." to "I could really...". Here's a quote from her:

“Liminality”
Refers to the middle stage of change, the threshold between what was, and what is yet to be.
It is when we are forced by circumstance or choice to leave what is familiar; to journey into a place of uncertainty. It is a normal part of being human.

So inspiring! Anyway, I bet she does amazing stuff with this one :)

A Prayer for a Stranger

The travels are by no means over, but as of about 12:30 last night, I'm finally back in sunny, snowy New Hampshire, enjoying a cozy, cuddly Christmas with family. We're all about to gather up for what my mom has dubbed the "Chanukah for Christmas" dinner, and I'm feeling pretty euphoric about the whole thing, especially seeing my grandparents - there's a sort of mental "happy puppy wiggle" going on in my head right now.

Much love to all the fellow travelers, hosts, and dear sweet people I've met along the way - thank you for your hospitality, warmth, generosity, and spirit.

Also, I'm sending out a special prayer out to a street kid named Sean who I met in New Orleans. I have no way of thanking him or his family, but if you don't mind, I'd like to invite you to send a minute of warm wishes out to kind-hearted and down-on-his-luck young man who took me in and under his wing, despite having so very little to call his own.
I didn't blog about it, but I spent a homeless night in the Big Easy, and it actually was easy due to Sean's hospitality. When my lodging plans fell through, he took me under his wing and gave me a guided tour of the side of the city I wanted to know but would never have gotten to see withouut his protection. Gritty, archetypally roiling, and Dickensian in the way I imagine most cities' underbellies are, the streets of the French Quarter are an intense place; a purgatory of dark magic and old energy - and kind-hearted dancers in the dark.

A Prayer for Sean

Sean, I hope that you're ok this Christmas season. More than ok, I pray that you are safe and reunited with your family. I pray that you're warm. I pray that you have enough to eat. I pray that you're healthy. I pray that you have a new guitar, and that you're playing it for your little girl, and it brings you both joy. May you find happiness. May you find sobriety. From one traveler to another, I wish you a way in from the many cold winds of your life; a pathway out of the purgatory you've been traveling through and into a place of peace. Thank you for befriending a stranger on a rainy night. May the Universe hold you sacred and loved, and surround you with people who treat you kindly and love you for your inner Godlight. Wherever you wander, wherever you are, may your feet find the path that leads you Home.

Mary Poppins (coming soon to a driveway near you)

Whitney, 10-year-old extraordinaire and daughter of the herbalist I'm staying with, asked me yesterday if I used some sort of magic spell on my car.

I probably do. The sheer quantity of stuff I've fit in my little teal home-on-wheels has earned it comparisons from "a magic bag" to "a traveling Walmart" (you know, if Walmart carried mostly organic stuff, gave it away, and supported the Dixie Chicks...). I prefer to think of it as a cross between a prairie schooner and a three dimensional Tetris game.

The list of things that I have in my car is pretty varied (who else roams around with gold flakes and henna?), but almost all of it falls into one of five categories: Herbs, Ingredients, Clothing, Camping/Household Supplies, and Entertainment & Education(Books/Music/Art). Since most of what I own fits in those groups anyway, even when I'm not playing nomad, this allows me ample opportunities to announce my favorite travel phrase: "Ooh, I have some in my car!"

Lynda and Whitney have taken to calling me Mary Poppins.

In no particular order, here's a sampling of the things people have idly wished for or seemed to need that my car has immediately procured:

-whiskey
-veggies
-a blanket
-maple syrup
-a Verizon cell phone & chargers
-good chocolate
-a jacket
-ceremonial tobacco
-hair tonic
-cold remedies
-spice and herb blends
-books
-pens
-makeup
-informational pamphlets
-fresh fruit
-henna
-skin salves
-sweaters
-herbal emennagogues
-allopathic medicine
-honey
-olive oil
-all natural conditioner
-soy milk
-empty bottles
-empty jars
-CDs
-sleep remedies
-dried herbs and spices
-seaweed
-a sewing kit
-a lighter
-dental floss
-rope

This happens all the time, but I've never run out of what I need.

My theory is that as long as our hands are open, we're conduits for the Universe's blessings, messages, lessons, and gifts. As soon as we try to hold onto what we have, we lose the capacity to receive what we need.

I'm not saying give away the things, time, or energy you don't want to part with. There are times when it makes sense to protect and defend that which you need and want or are holding in reserve, to say "No" to that which is asked, offered, or demanded. But to do so bears a cost, as does every choice, and it pays to be aware of the exchanges we're engaged in, both miniscule and grand.

Think about your life and ask yourself: Do you want what you have, or are you willing to consider an upgrade?

Citizen of the Planet

Alanis Morissette has an amazing song called "Citizen of the Planet" that's been resonating with me ever since a new and dear friend had me listen to it about eight states ago. One of the lines talks about-
-you know what? I'm not gonna do it justice. Here, you listen and tell me what you think.

......................................................
Citizen of the Planet
I start up in the North, I grow from special seed
I sprinkle in with sensibility
From French and Hungarian snow
I linger in the sprouting until my engine’s full

Then I move across the sea
To European bliss, to language of poets
As I cut the cord of home, I kiss my mother’s mother
Look to the horizon

Wide eyed, new ground
Humbled by my new surroundings

I am a citizen of the planet
My president is Kwan Yin
My frontier is on an airplane
My prisons: homes for rehabilitating

Then I fly back to my nest,
I fly back with my nuclear
But everything is different
So I wait

My yearn for home is broadened,
Patriotism expanded by callings from beyond
So I pack my things, nothing precious
All things sacred

I am a citizen of the planet
My laws are all of attraction
My punishments are consequences
Separating from source the original sin

I am a citizen of the planet
Democracy’s kids are sovereign
Where the teachers are the sages
And pedestals fill with every parent

And so the next few years are blurry,
The next decade’s a flurry of smells and tastes unknown
Threads sewn straight through this fabric
Through fields of every color, one culture to another

And I come alive and I get giddy
And I am taken and globally naturalized

I am a citizen of the planet
From simple roots through high vision
I am guarded by the angels
My body guides the direction I go in

I am a citizen of the planet
My favorite pastime edge stretching
Besotten with human condition
These ideals are borne from my deepest within

......................................................

...and they are.

Backstory, Bounty, and Blessings from the Universe (sometimes painful, always good)

A great big "Thank You!" to whoever slipped fifty dollars into my coat pocket at some point between Georgia and Mississippi. Seriously? Seriously. I'm tickled and humbled and totally grateful.

Everyone keeps saying these adventures of mine will make a great book, but I'm pretty sure the above example and the following Cliff's Notes version sum it all up:

I travel. I give away herbs. I open my heart, strangers open their homes, and miracles occur. Together, we turn Enough into Plenty.

How far-out awesome is that?

................................................

Of course, that's not the full story.

A year ago I told my students I was leaving.

I didn't tell them how sick I'd gotten; how my adrenals were shot and my heart was heavy and I could barely make it to 2:15 before collapsing at my desk. I didn't tell them what I couldn't yet tell myself; that my six-year relationship was also reaching its desperate, terrifying, life-altering end, and with it, all the dreams and stability my partner and I had worked so hard to craft. I didn't tell them how hard I was trying to hold things together, or how scared I was of not knowing what would come next, or how I was so busy vacillating between euphoric and desolate, I couldn't tell if my inner self was singing, screaming, or just plain numb.

Instead, I told them how much I loved them, that I was looking forward to traveling and cooking and learning about plants, and I hoped someday they'd do the same.

I had no idea that three months later, I'd find myself on the other side of the world, prostrate and sobbing before the Goddess of Compassion. Or that three months after that, I'd move to a tiny, one-room cabin at the edge of the woods, throw myself into a new job, and leave three months after that, so I could spend the next three working my way from Pennsylvania to Mississippi, cooking breakfasts for strangers out of my car and dispensing tinctures and chocolates, bath salts and teas, from the depths of an ever-rotating reserve.

A season of death. A season of germination. A season of growth. A season of change.

Once again, we've come full circle, and I find myself marveling at the painful, wounded, necessary place I was in back then, and how little it resembles the (sometimes) painful, (mostly) healthy, and completely necessary place I've arrived at now.

Then again, a year ago, I still thought the right combination of willpower, stick-to-itivness, and emotional duct tape could keep the swiftly severing threads of my chosen life-rope from snapping apart. A year ago, I had no idea that in the end I'd find the strength to saw through them myself, choosing to lay the clean-cut ends down with love and reverence, rather than tear myself ragged in a futile tug-of-war against the inevitable.

I remember driving through the frozen streets of Burlington, singing and re-singing the same two lines of a song I've yet to complete:

I had nothing left to cling to
once my bridges were all burned
I felt ashes slip through my fingers
each a lesson that I'd learned.

................................................

Change can be a scary thing. Sometimes it manifests as a choice, and other times, it leaves us gasping and flailing, scrambling to stay upright in a newly-overturned world. Whether we're responding or reacting, anticipating or recovering, it's all part of the Journey. No one's immune. No one's exempt.

And no one's alone.

Namaste,

Blackbird's Daughter

PS- Funny how the other definition of change - the leftover bits of riches that most of us have scattered through our pockets and cars, the dull and shiny pieces we pool together when we're desperate and worried that we don't have enough - means pretty much the exact same thing.

Song in Progress (somewhere in Mississippi)

Think Joni Mitchell meets Ani Difranco.

It feels so good
To get my feet back under me on the ground
Now I'm traveling down, down, down
Down South again, don't know when I'll be back home
Back up North, back where I belong
Where I belong (repeat 3x)
And it's been so long since I felt the cold
And I love this car but it's getting old
Love this trip and I love the fun
Taking joy in the setting sun
Take my pleasure in the rising tides
Change of the moon, thought of your eyes
Yeah, I'm twice burned with half a plan
But I got enough food and I need no man
Need no man (repeat 3x)
I do what I can
To be happy without the things I don't need
Letting go of guilt and greed
And those moments of fear that I ride so hard
Shake 'em off shake 'em down open the door and get back in my car
Back in the car (repeat 3x)
The sky's gotten dark
But I've still got a ways to go
Signs flash on a river of road
It's a rare night that I feel this incomplete
With only me in the driver's seat
In the driver's seat (repeat 3x)
The road is sweet
And tough but there're tricks I know
And I want things fast but I'll take 'em slow
Still I want roots and I want them now
Miss the dirt and I miss that town
Don't know if it's where I belong
But I've got time and I've got this song
I've got this song (repeat 4x)
Yeah I take my pleasure in the setting sun
Spinning wheels and what I've begun.

Things to Smile About (the Pennsylvania version)

1. At night, when we bring the chickens into the coop from their various huddled roosting-spots out in the yard, they're sleepy and tractable and easy to scoop. When I fold them against my chest, they murmur drowsy, confused clucks and flap briefly before wrapping their feet around my fingers and leaning their downy warmth into my jacket. They are exactly like sleeping babies, the way babies wake just enough to clutch your finger in their sweet, shockingly strong grip, then plummet back into limp and trusting unconsciousness.

2. My hands smell of peppers and tomatoes and basil, or vanilla and custard, and my clothes smell of good dirt and chicken shit and sky.

3. Local dialect and phrasing, so peculiar at first, is so easy to pick up. Frugal as Yankees and practical as rubber boots, the founding Pennsylvania Dutch must at some point have determined the "to be" verb unnecessary and thus, if not an outright sin, at the very least well worth avoiding; a moral edict that's imbued the local vernacular with such gems as "The potatoes need dug" and "The rug needs vacuumed yet." I'm not sure where the extra "yets" come from. Around here, people pour "yet" onto sentences as generously as they do syrup on scrapple.
For all their heavy-handedness with that particular idiom, though, they're shy with my given name, as if it's an obscure piece of farm equipment, practical in an emergency when "she" or "her" won't get the job done, but newfangled enough to warrant a cautionary pause before attaching it to any well-worn machinery and turning it on. I get a kick out of this; "Jessica" as a word of last resort.

4. The other night I spoke with my Boston aunt. She's a graphic designer, cosmopolitan in the way only urbane, childless people can be, and joyful in her freedoms. While the rest of us bundled our woolen sweaters tighter and piled into the minivan to go visit the grandparents at holidays, she and my uncle would skip town to race sailboats under exotic skies, bringing back delicious wines and beautiful tans. I admired her independence as some sort of Houdini-esque, over-the-top act of familial resistance, charming in its unabashed selfishness, and took great pleasure following suit in later, firmer years.
When I told my Boston aunt of the joys and respite I'd found here on the farm, that I've half a heart to settle down and become an Anabaptist housewife, spending the rest of my days baking pies and raising children and pulling warm eggs out from under the chickens, there was a horrified pause.
"That's crazy talk," she informed me, loudly, her voice taking me by the shoulders and shaking.
"The next time you think crazy thoughts like that, call me and I'll talk you out of it."
Coming as it did, it was testament to both her love and her concern for my general sanity.
But some people really just don't get chickens.

Bits o' Wisdom & Crumbs of 'Huh': part 2

Pathway (Mt Tremper, NY)

I left the woods and drove down the mountain. The monastery, of course, was right around the corner, about a quarter of a mile further on down the same road I'd driven at least twice. Looking at the sign felt like a tiny memory-injection of Japan, but it was so clear that I'd already done all the things I needed to do in Mt. Tremper that I kept driving. For a couple of days, I wandered through New York state, and at one point I did indeed go to Woodstock (though I remember it, so maybe I didn't really go there after all...). By the time I started the drive to Pennsylvania, I felt pretty good - reborn, in a way, and definitely refreshed.

My itinerary was pretty simple - visit with my friend Dee and her little daughter, find a decent mechanic (my car needed a checkup, but nothing that couldn't wait), and maybe explore some of the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside. In the meantime, the sun was out, the scenery was beautiful, the traffic was cruising along at a steady pace...and then I hit New Jersey.
I found out later that the traffic in that (very rural) part of New Jersey was backed up because of an overturned tractor trailer, but at the time I thought it was due to rush hour. So I settled in for a long, bumper-to-bumper wait, and had just decided to make some phone calls, when my hubcap -my new hubcap, the one I'd been casually looking for for since last November, and had just found in the woods the day before, at which point it had fit perfectly- started rattling.
Now, I should point out that I drive a Chevy Prizm. And as far as I can figure, this particular hubcap came from a Plymouth Seabreeze. But still. It fit. And I'd been trying to manifest a new hubcap for months, so I certainly wasn't about to turn this one down because it didn't match. Also, I'd found it in the woods, which practically counts as wildcrafting, and I have what amounts to a near-compulsion when it comes to wildcrafting anything, be it edible, medicinal, or transportational.
The point is, I'm quite pleased with my new hubcap. My hubcap and I are going to cover lots of ground together. There was no reason for it to start making noise as we crawled along the backed-up New Jersey highway. But it did, so I pulled over, kicked it back into place, and started driving again.
Have you ever had a loose hubcap? You know that noise, that gravelly, vibration-y sort of noise?
You know that noise.
So do I. Which is why when I heard it again, about 10 minutes -roughly 200 yards- later, I sighed and pulled over. Again.
I gave it a few well-aimed kicks (again) and once again, it stayed in place for approximately 10 minutes, or until the next exit, at which point I was pretty much itching to get off the highway and out of traffic. I'd also been eying the really pretty adjacent country road with all the farm stands, so getting off the highway was a no-brainer. Ditto pulling into the first service shop I came to (which was conveniently located across the street from the campground where -little did I know- I'd end up spending the night).

Now, I'm a friendly sort of critter, and I like to think I know the difference between when people are being friendly and when they're flirting. I've got no problem rolling into a strange mechanic's and asking if they've got a new hubcap. I admit to being a little surprised when I mumble something to myself in Japanese and the mechanic replies in the same tongue; even more so when he seems less interested in the practical issue of whether or not he's got a hubcap that fits and more invested in hearing why I'm driving around with one from a Seabreeze, what all the plants that are drying in the back of my car are called, and do I happen to have any herbs to make his beard grow faster?
Still, unexpected as this is, I can deal.
What I almost couldn't deal with (really. I had a little hissy fit right there in the parking lot.) is the fact that when the mechanic in question happened to check the oil, it turned out to be empty. Like, 4/5 empty. And the transmission fluid was basically black. And, ummm, I hadn't checked it in months and I am on a ROAD TRIP. How did this skip my attention!?

I'll tell you how: I was operating with full confidence that I was going to find the right service station, probably in Pennsylvania, and anything that needed tending would be taken care of in due time.

Like I said, I was convinced of this.
Absolutely certain - so certain, in fact, that before I left New Hampshire I blithely turned down any and all offers and reminders to get it serviced, wrote down a list of things that my uncle suggested I have checked, set aside some money to have it all done, and -as of this story- was literally planning on finding a service station the next day.
So everything happened more or less as expected, if not a little sooner.
Nevertheless, there's a fine line between having faith and abdicating responsibility, and somehow, in the midst of everything else - and this kind of makes me cringe when I think about it, though that may have more to do with the scolding I got from the mechanic than anything else - I had forgotten to check the oil. More than forgotten, actually: I had sort of blanked in that linear-time-has-no-meaning-in-my-world way that I do, and was truly convinced that I'd had it checked no more than a month ago.
Which is practically yesterday, right?
Try several months ago. Several, several months.

In my defense, I'd like to point out that a) linear timekeeping is an incredibly new sort of mental technology, b) I naturally dance to a far older sort of rhythm, and b) if we'd just go back to the cyclical, seasonal sense of time that virtually all of our ancestors followed, we'd be much more aligned with our environment, our bodies, and the world as a whole, everybody'd be happier and probably healthier, and starting now, I vote to ignore all clocks as a symbolic gesture of resistance against the capitalist, anti-nature patriarchy! Who's with me??
...
......
...
Right.
So.
I'm obviously on my own on this one. Still, from now on I'm getting my car serviced every time the seasons change, as well as when the damn odometer says I have to. (And yes, I will also try to check the oil every other time I fill the tank, a practice I used to do when I bought my first car, and somehow got out of the habit of doing).

Anyway, the mechanic (who's given name is Gabriel: you know, the messenger? I'll give it a minute to sink in.) was on his way to yoga (thereby overturning the first of way too many stereotypes I'd been holding onto, and hallelujah for that, since they obviously needed changing even more than my oil), but he offered to come in early the next day to take care of all the stuff that needed doing. And invited me to lunch.
So I one-upped him and invited him to breakfast.

Now, I have to admit that I was thrilled at the idea of having someone else to cook for, but it didn't hurt that he keeps chickens and offered to bring some fresh eggs. Or that when he did come over to the campground the next morning, he brought me a dozen and a half (Dee and I are still working our way through them), fresh pears, and a bouquet of wild flowers. Talk about smooth...

Anyway, to make a long story short, my car is happy again, the hubcap hasn't whispered a word of discontent since he popped it back in place, and over a breakfast of coffee, pear pancakes with chocolate sauce, and scrambled eggs (that I sadly committed sacrilege against when I mixed them with canned milk) my curiously well-traveled and well-versed mechanic-cum-messenger gave me several good pointers regarding all of this reality/duality/back-to-the-land stuff I keep stumbling over.

My head is filled with thoughts of balance, and alignment, and the myriad ways the various mechanisms of existence fit together and overlap. Now to synthesize it all....

Bits o' Wisdom & Crumbs of 'Huh': part 1

It won't go in words but I know that it's real...

-Willie Nelson, Still Is Still Moving To Me

Brook (Woodstock, NY)

Long ago and far away, the favored servant of a favorite king was shopping in the marketplace when he came face to face with Death. The two stared at each other in surprise before the man, recovering his wits, ran to the king and begged the use of his fastest ship, "for death," he concluded, "is surely out to get me."
With the king's blessing, the man saddled the king's fastest horse and rode to the harbor, whereupon he set sail for a foreign land. Arriving in port the following week, the man stepped off the boat and onto the pier, only to find Death standing there, waiting.
Sighing, the man bowed his head in resignation, then looked up with a question.
"Before you take me, I have to know - why did you look at me so strangely that day in the marketplace?"
"I was surprised to see you there," she replied, "For I knew we were to meet here today, and I could not fathom how you'd manage to arrive in time."

-my retelling of Fudail ibn Ayad's "When Death Came to Baghdad" (9th century)

.........

So, remember my plan from a couple weeks ago, the one where I'd go to a Zen Monastery in New York where I'd find a Messenger who'd impart some sort of divine, critical wisdom?

Turns out he was waiting in a garage in New Jersey.

No, seriously.

But first...

...After traveling from Bard to Mt. Tremper, only to not find the monastery, I held my own services in the woods. By which I mean the woods talked and I started to listen. What exactly did they say? How to "draw out" the arthritis from my hand by breathing in different patterns. How to receive blessings from certain place-energies, where the trees lean together to make pyramids with their bodies. How to look underneath horizontal branches to reveal the paths you might not otherwise see.

Believe me when I say that I know how strange that sounds. I, maybe more than most, have spent a good chunk of my life worrying at the line between what's Sensible and what Makes Sense, balanced nervously between what I experience as truth and what I know I can talk about without people thinking I'm unable to distinguish between reality and imagination.
These days, in some ways, that may be the case -but only because I've worked to become both practical in my methods, and expansive in my approach. And in doing so, here's what I've learned:

1. Reality is obviously a web of illusions, individually and collectively crafted.
2. Truth exists in fiction, parable, myth, religion, poetry, art, and dreams, and does so in quantities far greater than any one person's waking reality could ever hold.
3. The imaginative and magical worlds are valid, significant, and real.
4. There are myriad ways of accessing and experiencing knowledge and wisdom from the Collective, as well as those realities beyond the ones we're most familiar with. Every faith has them. Every lay person has access to them. From meditation to mitzvot to medicine, to just stumbling into the right place at the right time, we're constantly presented with opportunities to connect with the rest of existence, to establish and reestablish the little root-tendrils and hand-holds that bind us all together.
5. The old phrase "all the Gods are one God, and all the Goddesses one"? True dat, yo.

I have a degree in Transpersonal and Counseling Psychologies, and the more I travel and talk to people about their experiences of reality, the more I learn that I've got about half a degree I don't understand. I'm tempted to go back to Burlington College and take up Consciousness Studies.

But back to my story. I should point out that I don't know how or why any of the things I learned in the woods the other day work. But I don't doubt that they do, and I'm sure that if I were to search around a little bit, I'd be able to find several cultures and faiths that understand those bits o' wisdom as common knowledge. "What, you mean you don't get a tingly, breezy sort of feeling when you walk under those trees? Get out, everybody feels that."
So remember the first lesson the trees shared, the one about breath and healing? That one's really interesting. I bet it's entirely possible to do a lot of healing with bones and joints through different breath-work; that it's an entire field of medicine, like homeopathy or chiropractic. Does anyone out there have any info on this? Maybe you've heard of some shamanic practice or folk medicine that sounds familiar? I am so curious, and it's so obvious that what I've got is the most cursory, minute bit of elementary knowledge.

Anyway, if this reminds you of anything, please call me.

To be continued...

Nifty Things & Cards With Strings...

...that's what blogs are made of.

It occurs to me that I've got some long-overdue posting to catch up on - namely, from Montreal. This one, though comes from VT. My amazing friend Emily gave this to me - her man, Masa, found it in a museum shop, and I love it (though at the rate I'm traveling, I might run out of red string)!
Before I left Vermont, some friends took me on an edible tour of Montreal, from dim sum to chocolate crepes to Schwartz's smoked meats. Here's a taste of what we tried at Juliette et Chocolat:
Clockwise, from top to bottom: fresh fruit crepe with melted chocolate, "grandma's style" fair trade dark hot chocolate, and a chocolate shot. Not pictured: salty caramel brownie with white and milk chocolate chunks.
I know.
Lest that cup appear unremarkable:
It's not. That, my friends, is a Vessel of epically-proportioned goodness.
Do I look smirky? I feel smirky.
So smirky, in fact, that the next morning, as I sat licking my mental whiskers and hazily recovering (read: purring) from the previous day's gluttony, I decided to try and recreate the J&C salted caramel sauce. You know, the same way bloody maries are good for hang-overs?
Don't judge.
Anyway, the result was pretty darn tasty, which is why a couple of weeks later you got this post. I'm a little obsessed.

Fumbling Toward Ecstacy (Mt. Tremper NY)

We both, Vasili Ivanovich and I, have always been impressed by the anonymity of all the parts of a landscape, so dangerous for the soul, the impossibility of ever finding out where that path you see leads -- and look, what a tempting thicket! It happened that on a distant slope or in a gap in the trees there would appear and, as it were, stop for an instant, like air retained in the lungs, a spot so enchanting -- a lawn, a terrace -- such perfect expression of tender, well-meaning beauty -- that it seemed that if one could stop the train and go thither, forever, to you, my love ...

-from Cloud, Castle, Lake by Vladimir Nabokov

............

So, the monastery.
You know, the Zen one?
The monastery I've been talking about for, like, a month, in that very calm, sort of centered, Humble-Woman-on-an-Important-Journey voice? That one?
Didn't happen.

Went to Woodstock instead.

I can explain.

See, I left Bard on Sunday morning with every intention of arriving at the Zen Mountain Monastery in time to present my oh-so-humble, holy self to whomever was in charge of dispensing wisdom to wandering Jewesses and the like, before attending morning services. From there I would wander ever-so-intentionally around the grounds, nodding sagely at the various statues and shrines until casually entering into conversation with whichever intriguing stranger the Universe had planted for me to meet. My guide would then point me in the direction of my next path -maybe even the path!- and I would leave the monastery wiser, purposeful, and coated in the sort of incense-scented fairy dust that signals imminent enlightenment and general Omm-ness.

As you can see, I had a plan.
At this point, I think my ascent to Enlightenment can best be explained through the following visual:

(doorway to enlightenment)
+
(me)

To make a long story short, I couldn't find the Monastery, and determined that the fact that it wouldn't appear on my GPS was a sign that my plan, as obviously brilliant as it was, was not about to happen. So, in the grand tradition of several 'Jessie Goes Up the Mountain' moments, I found a mountain and went up.

And it was perfect. Scary perfect, actually, in that as soon as I got out of the car and into to misty, rainy woods, I found them so full of wisdom and lessons that I got a little intimidated. I don't feel ready to learn all the healings that the trees are so often willing to teach. And there were definitely paths in those woods that I didn't want to be able to see. But I did learn a little healing magic, and when I left I came away with far more questions than I had answers to.

And that, my friends, is a theme I'm getting used to.

Wildcrafting and Crafting (Bard College, NY)

(a note on the second floor bathroom door in one of the dorms)

So I'm staying with my "little" brother, who is in point of fact quite a bit taller than me, and about half as wide. He's a senior this year, which kind of blows my mind, but not nearly as much as the massively heady conversations we've been having about Art and Meaning.
I love my kid brother. He's such an amazingly cool person. He's majoring in studio art, and has this wickedly keen eye for design and space, as well as a ridiculously oddball sense of humor. Not only has he been totally generous and offered up his bed -several nights in a row!- he's paternalistically taken me under his squash-muscled wing, showed me around campus, introduced me to his friends, and shared meals from the quasi-awful dining hall.
I think he thinks of me as some sort of visiting pet/sidekick.
I am so tickled by this arrangement, I can't even say.
Tonight there was a craft party in the Campus Center, with "bad" 90's music that quickly turned into actually bad 2000s dance music. Luckily, the sequins were rollin', the fabric was stylin', and the tacky glue flowed in veritable rivers of crafty awesomeness. Glee!

Yesterday I went for a wander, and hung out at an apple farm for a while, learning about cold storage and the effects of temperature on various fruits' sugar contents from an incredibly knowledgeable man named Fred. I'd hoped to get a job picking for a day or so, just for the experience of it, but the boss wasn't hiring, so I said goodbye to Fred, thanked him for the apple and the lesson, and hopped back in the car to see what I could find. The answer? This:


It's a black walnut from this beautiful tree:

Here's what the fruits look like on the ground after I've stepped on them, and next is what I came away with (and used): a field guide to ID trees with, my gloves (now turned completely orange from all the oils!), and in the basket is the bounty: a scant cup or two for this winter, but a beautiful memory of the harvest...

After I harvested the nuts, I stomped on them to get them open, pulled them out from the fruit, and took them across the railroad tracks and down to the Hudson River, where I scrubbed them against a rock and each other until they were relatively clean. Even though I used gloves, my hands (and feet where they got splashed) are still pretty stained, and I have some cuts from the shells - not surprising, since black walnut hulls are so tough, they're actually used as industrial abrasives! The oils/juices are used for dying fabrics, and once upon a time, when I actually bought into this sort of thing, I had a fake tanning spray made with black walnut, which I recall working exceedingly well.
Did I remember that when I started harvesting the nuts? Nope! But I did remember the scene in Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees in which Taylor describes how when she was growing up in rural Kentucky, you could tell who the poor kids were because their hands were stained from picking walnuts. Once again, everything I need to know in real life comes from reading fiction.

Taste Testing with Grandma (Salisbury MA)

Guess how old the lady next to me is:What would you think: 80? 85? Would you guess 87? Add a decade and you'd have it: this here is my amazing Grandma Ruth, 97 years old and still willing to go for a drive down the coast to taste-test cruddy beach side pizzas with my parents and me! What a trooper!!
Here she is with my dad, waiting for my mom and I to return with our first samples:
The verdict: Ick (but no worse than you'd expect). So I grabbed a bag of salt water taffey, and we drove off to test some from the next place.
An obvious winner.