Down to Earth - The Shamans Circle

Last Night in the Wee Hours…

© 2010 Nan Moss

 

They came around last night.  Awoke to their presence just as the nearly full moon emerged from a streak of clouds. In the act of setting, Moon offered a shining path to the west – right over the cove at low tide – and directly before us. But I did not follow, for the action was right here, and as close as could be – in the meadow between us and the cove.

The coyotes are back! I thought they were gone forever, or at least would never show up so close again. Thought those days were long gone – along with the whippoorwills, fire road signs, long stretches of woods, and visits from a dear friend.

And they’re back in numbers! Not the searching howl of one alone in the dark, but a pack, maybe more.  Thought I might be able to see them from our upstairs window in the moonlight but instead stayed put under warm covers and just listened – for this was different, a quality of presence I had not heard nor felt before. I guessed the pack was young – buoyant, vibrant, happy, so adolescent coyote hip-hop – that I could feel-see them popping around as they worked out their signature howls.  I could hear and feel their exuberance of living life NOW, on a moon-splashed night, together.  I too felt uplifted by the presence and sounds of revelry.  A rare gift.

And then they quieted and went about whatever hunting or other coyote activity they chose.  And then the sadness moved in.  For I know something they don’t.  I know that the bogeyman is coming – if he is not already here.  I wanted to send out a call, a warning, a plea for their lives.  I wanted to tell them to go, go now and take your love of life and wildness elsewhere.  Go to a place where you’ll be safe from sorrow, hurt, tragedy.  For it is the season for killing and the coyote hunters will surely come around again with their dogs and guns and radio communications and with no room in their hearts for you.  They will hunt you down, chase you into your lairs or some other crook or cranny and shoot you.  They will show no mercy and not stop until there are no more howls to be heard – anywhere around here for a long time to come…

And yet where else is there when you are Coyote and do as coyotes do?  And what about our human young? Must we send them away because we fear for their safety? Their lives?  Is this really what we want for the descendants of our world, be they two or four-legged?

Yes, life is tough, tragic, ugly, incomprehensible and it is also beautiful, astounding, vibrant, loving – and more.  I thought about this in the wee hours of silence and dark, in the aftermath of celebration and moonset.  I realized that there is no “away” – there is only here – and that this life is ours to live, to love.  Let us take joy where we find it and do our best to bless the rest.

Nan Moss

Equinox

© 2010 David Corbin

Equal day and night, light and dark. Yes and No. Is the glass half empty or half full? Whose side are you on anyway?

Do we really know what it means to be in balance?

Balance can be still, as when the two sides of a scale are equal, and there is no movement at all, ever.

Balance can be fleeting, as is the  Equinox, with the Earth hurtling around the Sun at unimaginable speeds, with the moment lasting only the space between future and past.

This fleeting moment of balance is a great opportunity. Equal parts light and Dark, neither can hide behind the other.

If we pay attention, we can see, for an instant, that other part of us, the side we don’t always know about.

A quick glimpse, before one side or the other returns back to the subconscious.

Yet it has been seen, and that moment has changed us, forever.

Happy Equinox!

David & Nan

Comings and Goings – Afterthoughts of Hurricane Earl

 

 ©2010 Nan Moss 

Once again we (David and I) came into Montana and inevitably, once again left Montana and family until the next round.  Arrived back in Maine just as Hurricane Earl and Earl’s ‘following’ were plotting its path north of the Outer Banks and with a slight tilt to the east.

Storms come and they go.  This is plain to see – and as with Life in all its varieties of experience, storms are at times gentler than we anticipate. Up and down the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast coast news stories featured locals preparing for a hard time, Labor Day weekend vacationers evacuating the beaches, and those refusing to evacuate – trusting that their call on this storm was a good one.  And after Earl’s passing (as all things do in Life) there is the task of clean-up, restoring the old order – and sometimes the necessity of creating a new life.

 At the very least Hurricane Earl and its kin command our attention, feed our capacity for fascination with the transformative powers inherent in Nature and their eternal dance of Chaos and Order.  At the very least we are reminded that this is about Life itself on our planet.

Yet to be visited by a storm is more than a passing event.  It is also an experience of relationship, of literally sharing our ourselves with another – in this case with an immense (as large as the state of CA) and complex expression of weather, now Tropical Storm Earl, itself in a dynamic relationship with atmosphere and the oceanic and continental surfaces of the Earth – and all of us.  

 As such, the presence of this being of Storm not only stirs our emotions, captures our attention, influences our plans, changes our activities, sometimes forces us to evacuate, run for our lives – it also affects us in another real and profound way.  Love or despise it, we relate to and with Storm.  We even share our molecules!  Our very beings coincide for a bit of time with our subtle borders overlapping and intertwining as our relationship plays out.  We are in communion with that which we normally perceive as ‘other’.

For us here on the Maine coast, as Tropical Storm Earl revolves onward to our neighbors in the Maritimes, I think I can speak for most when I thank Earl for coming by in a gentle way – for the good rains and oh so needed clearing of the stagnant air and heat of what was. 

Nan

 ©2010 Nan Moss

©2010 Nan Moss 

What times these be…

 Photo © 2004 Nan Moss  

Lets see what we have here:

A Volcanic ash cloud that shuts down air travel in Europe, threatening to ruin the economy. The volcano continues to erupt with no sign of slowing down.

A runaway oil well beneath the Gulf of Mexico, creating an environmental disaster of an extent that we have never experienced. It endangers the entire ecosystem of the Gulf and its delicate shorelines. And, needless to say, threatens to ruin the economy.

Unprecedented floods in the Southeast, devastating neighborhoods, farms, businesses, families, and threatening to ruin the economy.

Throw in a failed terrorist attack in New York, a financial meltdown in Greece that is may to spread through Europe (threatening to ruin the economy), and we have a very strong dose of what the old Chinese proverb refers to as “interesting times.”

(The phrase “ruin the economy” seems to have caught my fancy, but it really is besides the point. It just affirms that our economy is so delicately based on environmental and social conditions that are beyond our control or understanding, yet we speak of it as something that by right should be strong, stable and secure, much like we speak of the world’s climate.)

Those who work in the shamanic world view know that we live in a delicate relationship with all that is around us. There is nothing that happens that does not in some way affect everyone and everything. This in itself is interesting, but what does it mean? How does it help anything?  (Aside from instilling guilt, knowing that our actions may be contributing?)

In a practical sense, it means we can help. Many people in the shamanic community have been working very hard, journeying to the helping spirits, transfiguring, working with the spirits of the land and atmosphere. Perhaps this has helped keep the oil off of the coast longer than expected. We will never know for sure, (as we never really know if a personal healing cures the disease, or if the original diagnosis was wrong.)  Yet we do know, and we continue to work from a place of knowing.

There is more we can do. Have you thanked the gasoline in your car lately? Oil is caught in a raging tempest of emotion. It is sucked out of the earth in prodigious amounts, making certain corporations and people very wealthy. It is the cause of many wars and indeed fuels much of the strife in the middle east. It is reviled for its pollution and now for its role in global warming. Yet for the most part our lives and living depend upon it. Perhaps we should take some time to thank it, have some ceremonies of gratitude.

We have spoken at length about honoring storm. Floods and tornados are deadly, yet they are important. They too, perhaps, feel bad that they cannot do their work without harming those in their path. Perhaps we can journey to their spirit, ask how we can help them do their important work in a way that can bring less pain and suffering.

Volcanoes are a window into the great power of the earth. Throughout the ages they have changed the landscape and the climate. They to have work to do. They too need appreciation. Perhaps the relief of pressure within the earth in Iceland may prevent a large earthquake in New York (talk about ruining the economy!)

As above, so below. As within so without. We and others have spoken of how our inner state is directly connected with what is outside of us.  Our thoughts, emotions, actions all affect the weather, the environment, the state of the world.

Look to your inner storms, your volcanoes.

Look at the terror that is within us all.

This is the healing the world is showing us we need.

Just imagine what that would do for the economy!

 David

 

Coming into Montana

 

© 2010 Nan Moss

It’s a long road to Montana, and an uphill climb from most any direction.  Coming into Montana requires a clear and abiding intention and sustained effort…

Overland to Montana from the East we traverse the Great Plains, weaving in and around rural and urban realms, watching for the first sign of each north / south river (I’m good at this – as a child my Dad used to pay me a quarter for being the first to call an upcoming bridge).  Rivers worthy of notice, celebration, honoring – the Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Mississippi, Des Moines, and finally the Missouri (whose headwaters spring forth from a high place in southwestern Montana) – and where each crossing counts as a giant step from east to west.

            From points South on our way to Montana we head out from the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains of New Mexico – Shaggy Peak being the designated southern terminus of the Rocky Mountain complex – and with a substantial, soul and belly-warming breakfast of ‘huevos rancheros’ and/or bean burrito, topped with both red and green chile – a full tank of gas for us all!  Usually the path of least resistance – but not always the one chosen – brings us to the east side of the Rocky Mountain Front, where the southern muscles of the great plains butt up to the grand vertebrae of our continent – sashaying around Denver, Boulder, Ft. Collins – then Cheyenne and up through Wyoming – all the while feeling the wall of mountains to our left and the big open to the right… 

Eventually we cross over into Montana through the beautiful, spacious and spirit-filled Apsáalooke (Crow nation) homelands, a fitting entry that never fails to remind the traveler of those who knew this realm as ‘home’ from long ago…

            And East to Montana?  Travels east to Montana usually begin for us at the California shoreline of Mama Pacific and immediately thrust us into challenges of driving contorted, amazingly narrow cliff-side edge-of-the-continent roadways – yet always breath-taking in their sometimes terrifying beauty –  followed by congested city and Interstate traffic everywhere.  Nonetheless we wend our way east and ever higher in altitude – from sea level to 7085 feet at Donner Pass in the high and mighty Sierras before we descend out of the realm of the Great Bear and into the silver state of Nevada, continuing on a long drive within an expanded vista away from crowds where ‘empty’ rules yet is illusion at the micro level.  Suitable landscape for dreaming Big – stark and seemingly isolated mountain range after range – clusters of familial peaks and mysterious draws with cousins of foothills surprisingly stunted by vast stretches of alkali and rabbit brush flats.

 Then there’s the familiar rest stop where the history marker tells a tragic tale of the murder of an Indian woman and her child long ago, yet somehow dated far into the future! – and where we used to spot distant hot springs that the geology marker speaks of but have since disappeared.  Crows still hang out here and the old nest in  the cottonwood still shelters their young. 

We honor the spirit of medicine man Rolling Thunder as we pass his former home ground and later than sooner, almost to the Utah border, we hang a left – North – towards southern Idaho and the realm of potatoes and both ancient and not-so-old lava beds, where the Snake River flows through a steep-walled gorge just outside of Twin Falls.  The great Snake, once home to myriads of salmon, from tiny fry to old, beat-up large adults – young ones swimming West to Mama Pacific from their high country birthplace where their parents found spawning holes to their liking – or as mature adults heading East some years later – utterly transformed along the way by their greatest adventure from salt waters back up and up and up to the original pools and eddies of their births – nourishing many – eagles, bears, and people along their way – a laborious, passionate and ultimately fatal passage for the individual, yet vital for the re-creation of their entire species.  

If we were to keep on straight North we’d make it to Ketchum and Sun Valley, from whence we could still make a circuitous and stunningly beautiful trek to Montana – alas, not the season to get through the highest country except on skis, dog sled or snowmobile.  Instead we turn east again for a ways and just before Pocatello aim North once more, this time on a bee-line to the southern border of Montana. 

All ways and directions for coming into Montana require strong will and persistence – an abiding willingness to go the distance.  And there is more: there is this kind of boundary zone, gateway, a kind of numinous port of entry where the spirits of the realm of Montana check you out.  Where you may, and often are, given one more little test – just so you know you’re allowed passage here.  Just so you don’t take anything about Montana for granted.  Yes, it is possible to just trundle on in and not even know you’re scrutinized, evaluated – but there will come the time that you finally get it – and once ‘gotten’ never fail to notice again. 

Once in a while you may be turned away, or at least delayed until you’re not. Throughout it all, Weather plays its game – exerts its influence, rules, timing and path so that we never come into Montana without its permission, blessing.  The whim and influence of Weather – and its willingness to change the rules – has more than once confounded our travel plans, shifting arrival ETA’s and desired routes.  We’ve learned that without the consent of weather all is futile.

This February we anticipated one of the more subtle crossings… Thought we’d have it easy this time. The skies over Idaho’s northern desert in the late afternoon were mostly clear, the latest big storm now far to the south of us in Nevada, mild temps though cold in the southwesterly wind. We could see the Grand Tetons way over towards the East, and the massive spiky southern end of Idaho’s mountains loomed ahead just over to the north and west as we drove through the familiar black lava flows only around 10,000 years young.  Clear going and my long-day-on-the-road doldrums were falling away to make way for good things coming – the chance to be home in Montana again and the welcome of loved ones. 

Approaching Monida Pass – known to close down at times sending motorists back to Idaho Falls or to hole-up in tiny, isolated Dell, just on the other side of the state line, depending on their direction of travel.  We watch our temperature gauge head south until the little blue snowflake pops on warning us of what we’re hoping not to deal with.  No matter – just a little blowing snow here and there across the roadway with skies above the Targhee National Forest lands on one side and the Medicine Bow mountains on the other, magnificent in their almost sunset glow.  A little more blowing snow, some lengthier patches of white on the highway and then we’re over the top and well into the realm of Southwestern Montana, at last.  Zipping along North, past Hap Hawkins Lake where they drowned the town of Armstrong to create a reservoir that the Red Rock River runs into and then emerges as the Beaverhead.  Gas up in Dillon, my first home in Montana and where I earned a degree in rural education, a wave to mountains I admired every day for seven years – the still growing Blacktails and the Pioneers, some of whose hidden places I hiked to, dreamed in, and loved.

 Now serious twilight and from Sacagawea’s Beaverhead Rock on towards Twin Bridges, Silver Star, and Whitehall we keep our eyes peeled for the many deer in the fields and riversides along our way.  Surely we’ve done it!  We’re really here and no test this time – maybe we were issued a free pass, a right to ‘cross-over’ into this Place on the Earth, a privileged visitors’ status – maybe those spirits are just off-duty for now… Let’s see, in just under 2 hours we’ll be there – still in time for dinner.  Can hardly wait!

You bet.  From Whitehall we turn onto the Interstate, heading East, passing by the gold mine I try to ignore and deplore, up and over the easy pass – destination Bozeman and beloved Gallatin Valley (Valley of Flowers) enfolded by the Bridgers, Hyalites, Tobacco Roots, Spanish Peaks – magnificent mountain ranges all – and then the Rivers – the Madison, Gallatin, Jefferson all conjoining at the place Lewis & Clark discovered, now known as Headwaters – where the immense Missouri River is officially birthed. If it were daylight I would see the familiar skyline still far ahead and as I always do, point out this and that as if David had forgotten. (I do it in the dark anyway.)

Homestretch – almost to Three Rivers, the lowest point on our trail before we gradually climb up to Bozeman’s altitude.  And then we get our welcome, our little test of scrutiny and evaluation.  Abruptly we’re startled by a flash from above as a flaming ball of light suddenly streaks directly over us – low and in our direction of travel – and looks like it has to crash-land somewhere not too far away.  Almost as suddenly we drive out from under a clear night sky into a wall of Fog – my old friend, teacher, at times seeming nemesis.  I can barely tell that we’re crossing one of the rivers, and our speed ratchets down from 70 plus to what feels like a crawl.  Wondering about it all with no little amazement I’m still thinking that this will be just a brief visit with Fog – that as soon as we get a little higher – for sure by the Buffalo Jump – the skies will be back to stars. 

And yet Fog persists, for miles and miles, all the way to the first Interstate Exit to Bozeman.  For much of the time it is so dense we can barely make out the front end of our car or anything more than a few feet of our headlights.  I have never driven so slowly on this road – not even in a snow storm.  For at least an additional unplanned hour or more of travel, we anxiously watch our backs on the off-chance someone is comfortable with blind driving at Interstate speed – and then there are still the deer and other animals out and about, fog or no.  The metaphorical portents of it all in light of our upcoming stay in this realm are rich and only the perspective of hindsight will reveal how it all plays out. What is relevant in the Now is we will not be home in time for family dinner and I am required to exercise patience beyond my comfort zone.  Once again, I surrender to the way of Fog and its teachings!

And then, in its time, there is the matter of leaving Montana… direction East.

 Nan

 

 

 

The Ridge: Does Remembering Go Both Ways?

  Yellowstone at Equinox © 2010

 

“The Good Road and the Road of Difficulties

You have made me cross

And where they cross

The Place is Holy.”

Black Elk

Crossroads, where things can go either way.  A still-point in place and time, and then we’re off again – in one direction or another.  Sometimes we choose the easy way and sometimes the hard. Sometimes we even know what we’re doing!

    Location, location… Power of place, spirit of place, dreams of place – when I think about it I realize how profound is our – my – connection with place.  How so much, maybe everything that is meaningful to me is anchored in a particular spot, or location upon or above or below the surface of the Earth. 

    Just pause for a moment and give it a quick think to see if this is also your experience… for what doesn’t happen in a place, somewhere underfoot or nearby or far away, and in present or memory time?

I found the above quote from the medicine man, Black Elk, on a commemorative plaque affixed to a wooden bench positioned – placed – just off the trail at the top of the Ridge – at the high point, the very spot I’ve long considered ’special’, and from where I can see mountain ranges and valley in every direction. What’s more, just a bit downhill of this very spot lives an old  scraggly juniper tree I’ve honored for many years and that now hosts a metal ammo box nestled in-between its two trunks with a sign forbidding its removal.  I decide this is about an orienteering game or something, and turn away to climb back up to the high place, where years ago I visited nearly every day to greet the cardinal directions.  

As before I wonder who else in times past climbed up here for the long view to scan the landscape for animals or people or whatever else down below? Or for its beauty?

    Do places once perceived as holy by whomever – even me – retain their sacredness through time and inevitable changes? If we should forget the numinous essence of their nature, does a place remember itself, as long as it exists, in one form or another? 

    The real question I’m thinking about as I trek the Ridge these days is, “Do you remember me?”

    The Ridge has always been generous and seemingly welcomed my regular visits. As I reflect back over the years I remember some things – such as the gift of a particular kind of song (genre of shamanism) I’d been asking for and then there was the time when Eagle and Raven did a dance just above my head, and in the earliest days, the company of the horses.  The Ridge was where I first went with my new flute to try it out – and just after a few minutes of “playing” it,  I opened my eyes to see a herd of deer just below!  And then there were those sunsets and moonrises where from the Ridge’s perspective I felt like a part of the grand embrace of Beauty of land and sky.  The Ridge was where I first heard the voice of the land – or even thought of such a thing…

    Now as I walk the Ridge much has changed – true, the hill climb still kicks my butt in a ‘buck-up’ way, and the expansive views are all there complete with magpies in the foreground.  I see the first round of soon-to-bloom spring wild flowers, and the trail is the usual combination of dry and mud with old snow in patches.  The sage continues to flourish and the few trees are a little larger.  The high place remains so, and yet there are the new additions…

    But now the Ridge is known and loved by many – people and dogs in particular.  Below is a designated – and paved – parking lot with signs  introducing and mapping the terrain.  Other signs along the way give names to the spur trails and beg visitors to stay on the path and refrain from picking wild flowers.  The sledding hill remains a favorite, and the woman who always walked the Ridge with one dog or another, on foot or skis, “the Ridge Lady” still shows up and I still wonder if she spends her whole day up there. 

    Ok, so we all change – that much can be counted on – every relationship must live with, endure if need be, the changes of life – be we configured of soft tissue, pruning-up over the years of sun, wind, heat and cold – or hard-cast metamorphosed long-ago shallow inland sea deposits topped off with volcanic fire offerings and molded by the whim of past glaciers and ever-present weathers…  And so I find the Ridge quite a different place from before as I, too, am not the same as before. 

    Do you still know me, Ridge? Can we pick up where we left off? Does your trail welcome my sure-footedness along with the slips and slides? Do you like the snow angels? And did I just get my answer yesterday with that new song?

 Nan

 

Equality

 Yin Yang © 2010 David Corbin

The time of balance – the time of change.

The egg stands on end, but only for a moment, as we hurtle through the balance point.

Dark and Light are equal, but only for a day.

We speak of bringing the world into balance, ourselves into balance, as if that is a steady state, an achievable goal, that will last forever solving our problems. As if stillness is possible in a swirling spinning turning world, within a swirling spinning turning mind…

Yet true balance really does exist.

Within each moment – it moves by quickly, we must be alert!

If we pay attention, we can feel it.

If we pay attention, we can know it, deep inside of us,

            within the rushing of time, the howling March winds, the inner turmoil of our minds.

If we pay attention, we can see the egg standing on end – but only for a moment…

 

Happy Equinox!

David & Nan

Yap Keehn Um

© 2010 Nan Moss 

Yap Keehn Um – “the place of gathering” – and where we stopped for the night and learned something…

On our  way to the homeland of green giant cedars, spruces, Doug firs, rain forest, mountain forest, valley forest, bony coastal and riverine alder forest (and yes, where there are forests, there are logging clear-cuts…)  Realm of peninsula and islands, open ocean and straits, inlets and coves, snow-crested Cascades of mountain peaks and rushing waters – and always, the Great One – the one who soars impossibly higher than all the rest, the one that more often than not only reveals ‘it’self now and then, by the grace and whim of cloud and wind and who knows else… The One who at times blasts forth with fire and pyroclastic flows, only naps for now undercover of snow.  Seattle – ‘emerald city’ – where millions of people reside within the grand encircling of muscular glacial-sculpted mountains and the wintertime ambiance of soft rain and fog.

Truly the domain of Yin and Yang, waters and upthrust land. Truly the realm of fire and ice – volcanoes past and present, capped and soothed with mantles of sparkling (the sun does shine above the clouds!) high altitude snow. And the waters – fertile, life-sustaining, cold and salty, always restless ocean waters, as well as just about every sort and beauty of sweet waters of rivers, lakes, streams, springs, rains and drizzles… domain of hydro-power, wind power and dreams of more. Just a ferry ride away across Puget Sound, west of Seattle and high up in the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula, can be found one of the sites for measuring the purity of sweet waters for our entire planet. 

But I digress. I want to talk about Yap Keehn Um, “the place of gathering” in the language of the indigenous peoples living among the mountains, forests, and lakes of the Idaho panhandle.  Just over the long mountain pass (or just before depending on your direction of travel) is Lake Coeur d’Alene, a mysterious and sinuous holding of sweet waters.  On its northern shore is a span of beach formally dedicated to the Coeur d’Alene tribe in honor of their ancestral gatherings with other Indian peoples (Pond Oreille, Kalispell, and even the Flathead from the Bitteroot valley in Montana) – generations of people, maybe over thousands of years, trekking to this shore in anticipation of gathering together for celebration, fishing, gaming, dancing, ceremony, socializing, and all else that goes on at these times.

Late in the afternoon of our trek from Montana to Seattle, we arrive at the northern shore of Lake Coeur d’Alene, and strolling along happen upon this dedicated place of gatherings past where even strangers such as ourselves from another world and time pause, and pause some more – trying to feel into what this place has seen and experienced – wondering what goes on here in our times.  For today, those gathering at this beach have wings and shiny black feathers, raucous voices, and perch in semi-circles of tall elder ponderosas – magnanimously holding presence and space well beyond their girth and numbers.  

Freed-up from the constant focus of the highway, my thoughts gratefully spin off into musings about ‘place of gathering’.  And I find that I am meandering back along our cross-country trail this winter and realize that we, too, are showing up for gatherings – in places where hundreds, thousands also show up, gather together for trading, celebration, food, socializing, gaming, ceremony – over the centuries and generations.  First New York City, then Santa Fe, San Francisco, Bozeman, now Coeur d’Alene, and tomorrow Seattle for a gathering of those interested in our weather shamanism work.

What is it about a place that draws us forth, from all directions of life experience, points of view, motivation, location? It seems that other animals have their Yap Keehn Ums.  In late summer/early autumn grizzly bears in Montana gather in high altitude country for a feast of moths from army cut-worms who also gather on particular mountain rock slides and scree fields. (Just one bear can eat up to 40,000 moths in a day which provides 20,000 calories a day.) Grizzly bears also head for high elevation ridge tops where the white bark pine cones and their seeds sustain them.  They typically don’t climb trees and here in these places of gathering the trees are short and can be shaken with cones conveniently cached by red squirrels. 

In British Columbia the bears gather for the nourishment of salmon and steelhead from the rivers where the salmon gather. They voyage from their fresh water stream and river places of birth to gather in salt water Pacific homes and finally return to their original waters in the high inland mountains for celebrations of procreation and more. Plants have their places of gathering as well: sacred groves of oaks, towering stands of cedars, sprawling colonies of creosote shrubs thousands of years old in the California desert, and more – lots more – just ask any herbalist who wildcrafts.

For us humans, then or now, whether wild or rural, urban or suburban might these be places of a certain kind of spirit, a sentient power that invites, even yearns for a blending of the beings and spirits of others? Asks for our attendance, attention, perhaps a measure of our life force, an offering from our soul? And might they also be realms that feed us and our souls so hospitably that they are irresistible? Surely these are locations where if we feel welcome we can trust that something in us is akin to something in the place – that we mirror one another somehow. Moreover, these are power-filled places for the many – perhaps not suitable for the lone visitor or petitioner of spiritual power.  Those places are another kind.

And so now that I am awake to this (and gratefully so) I want to continue to notice, as best I can, wherever I find these places – or they find me.  Maybe I’ll feature them in my own cross-country and sky map of this marvelous Middle World…

May the ancestors of the Coeur d’Alene peoples and their descendants and countless others likewise in their Yap Keehn Um/places of gathering carry on with well-being and good will.

Meanwhile, back in the Northeast, the storms go on without me… Oh, and the weather in Seattle on this 3^rd February weekend? Glorious sunshine, endless sky, barely a hint of cloud in any direction, light breezes here, there, now and then, with balmy temps – in February!

©2010 Nan Moss  

 

So what’s up with the weather?

 

© 2010 Nan Moss 

We’re definitely not at a loss for something to talk about these days…  From January’s Parade of Storms  to this month’s February Fury (TWC) to the lack of snow woes at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver we have no end of interesting weather – the kind of "interesting" that brings to mind the old Chinese blessing/curse of “May you live in interesting times.” Frankly, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear if some organizer for the Olympics reaches out to local tribal people who still practice traditional ways for help with the weather – it’s been done before – and yet hard to tell in this case since from opening day it’s been a mixture of snow and rain, mist and fog, ice and slush… “the slowest snow in the world” (today’s Men’s Biathlon Ten Kilometer Sprint)

                  Meanwhile the Southeast, mid-Atlantic and Northeast have partaken of California’s left-overs as the Parade of Storms and February Fury served up back to back record-breaking snowstorms ever since Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow when he was dragged out of his little bed on that early morning nearly 2 weeks ago.  Of course record snows in the Appalachians around Christmas, ice storm travails in Oklahoma and Arkansas preceded these and more…  To date, Baltimore now has received 79.9 inches of snow and their average for the winter season is 18 inches! Just two days ago (Feb. 12) Dallas got 12 inches of snow while yesterday the back roads of some of the deep south were closed to traffic in anticipation of eminent snow that the local road maintenance crews didn’t feel equipped to handle. I don’t think I’ve ever heard this latest news bit: EVERY STATE IN THE U.S. (excepting Hawaii) has snow cover at this time!

And winter’s not over – it’s just Valentine’s Day.  Speaking of which, despite all the genuine hardships and other weather engendered woes, I propose that we give the weather spirits a valentine – an offering of gratitude somehow – even if it rankles as many continue to sweat bullets on slick roads or feel cold in dark homes or worse.  It may not make it all better but we can’t lose by doing this, by blessing the weather.  Look at it this way: sometimes it really isn’t all about me and my preferences – sometimes there’s greater work afoot for a greater need. Take California’s storm parade for example – which came during a severe drought of at least 4 years that threatened not only locals but all the rest of us who depend on California’s agricultural bounty (so we can take it personally after all).  Yes, the storms brought huge amounts of so much rain and so much snow – which led to the inevitable damaging floods and mud slides thanks especially to at least 2 years of brutal fire seasons… Yet reservoirs were dangerously low, the realm and its wild inhabitants parched, and life-giving Change sorely needed. 

And so again I ask, “What’s up with the weather?“ What can we make of all these seemingly endless record-breaking storms? Is this ‘just’ an El Niño winter or might there be more at work here – for us collectively and as individuals? Storms have their priorities and can mess with us and bless us in any number and kinds of ways.  When they stomp into our region, cities, neighborhoods and homes, storms stir up our psyches into unique blends of emotions of awe, wonderment, joy and/or fear, frustration, inconvenience, anger – and they don’t stop there – they sometimes rearrange our careful schedules, plans, and lives into that which we may experience as setback or day off, devastation or new beginning. Even if we think we’re indifferent – untouched and unmoved by Storm and its doings – that too says something about the current state of our psyches and circumstances. 

And how about life in Washington D.C. these days? It sure caught my attention to hear that the Federal Government was shut down for 4 days thanks to epic snowstorms. How about that as a counterpoint to all the relentless quarrelling and spiteful politics in our Congress? Talk about ‘chilling out’ for a while… Just as surprising, I heard my nephew Henry wish out loud that he would be able to go back to school despite the predicted 2^nd or 3^rd snowstorm! (He really is a normal kid – it’s just been a lot of ‘snow days’ off from school  in a realm where they used to be rare and therefore special.)

Throughout all the drama, I like to remind myself (usually David reminds me first) that the seemingly aberrant weather we’re experiencing is actually normal.  That it’s normal to have abnormal conditions and events. That balance comes not from a place of stasis, but from a flow of energy – one side to the other, within and without, up and down – and from storm to calm there is this betwixt and between place along the way – perhaps a moment of balance. 

So when storm-doings bust a drought, calm our frenetic routines, startle or scare us, provoke us where we may be stuck, challenge our sense of normalcy… where’s the harm in sending out a little love?

  Nan

 ©2010 Merlin Moss

 

Rambling Roads...

© 2010 Nan Moss

I can say (yet again) that Change rules - nearly constant travel, locations and realms, both familiar and new, rural terrain segueing  into urban and back  to rural as we travel from north to south to west - from sea level to piedmont to mountain and valley - marking our progress as we cross, from east to west, each great river that runs north to south, as we gradually emerge onto the great plains and then back to mountains and now desert rising ever higher in altitude where we once again enter into the refinements and luxury of strong coffee (at last) and the near-ecstasy of gourmet chili-spiced foods and art almost as amazing as the native landscape and sky -and then a brilliant morning of saluting the ‘sinuous life-giving-famous-fought over and fought for - beloved water-way river - gift of mountain snows and canyon-carver’ into  expansive moonscape desert with surprisingly blue sky, crystal clear sharp edged vistas defined by bare craggy red and tan and yellow little mountain ranges perching in all directions, minimal zen-garden-like vegetation sprinkled everywhere in and around ancient and not-so-old lava flows lending the illusion of shadow on the world, and the miracle of standing water - not mirages this time - strong crosswinds, and finally leaving the realm of King Creosote as we dip down into the fog and smog of the long valley stretch in between the seriously high mountains where the most ancient living beings that we know of still grow (the venerable Bristle Cone Pines) and the rounded coastal mountains corral us back to solid lines of ever moving semi-trucks and all of us riding along the famous and infamous fault line and its relatives where so many of our foods grow to an abrupt downhill rush hour zip and crawl back to sea level and urban - only this is where the sun sets last of all each and every day and we started out where the sun rises first of all on our grace-filled continent.

      And the weather??? Whom among us hasn't noticed the weather and its surprises this winter? (or at least had the opportunity to step out the door of a comfortable, warm home unless of course the electricity is off thanks to the power of the latest ice storm or blizzard or flooding rain?)

      The song of life on the road has many melodies and rhythms, and is at times harmonious and other times downright discordant. Besides the tunes of changing highway surfaces and radio stations, there are the vocals of weather, from Thunderbeings in the early morning at Hurricane Mills, TN to the beat of hail pellets followed by the Santa Fe welcome of a thunderclap that as reported in the next morning's paper startled a sleeping dog so that he jumped  2 feet in the air!  

To be continued...

On the Road © 2010 Nan Moss

 

In the Company of Fog and Trucks

©2010 Nan Moss

January , 2010

 

     OMG!!! so many trucks on the highways and byways!

Kind of makes crossing streets in NYC seem restful.  Rolling down I 81 in southeastern Virginia with a Starbucks between my legs and listening to blue grass music ("Foggy Mountain Breakdown" at the moment).  Clouds sinking lower of their own accord as we rise higher in altitude.  There is this squeeze-through area coming up where mountain and hillsides  tighten the highway as we wend our way through the confluence of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.  Just as I scribble these words the song "Rocky Top, Tennessee" comes up, and it's starting to rain ever so slightly.  I knew we were in for rain today when last night our motel room gifted us a rubber ducky with his winter hat on - a happy new member for our dashboard gang!  Just goes to show, yet again, that relevant signs and omens can be found anywhere...

     And so now the mountains have disappeared but not because we are in flat land - not that at all - it's my mentor Fog.  Earlier this morning Fog showed up as local and particular, hanging out here and there in attractive poses in hollows and a pasture or two. Now we're in All-Embracing Fog, the kind of weather-works where overcast sky, steady rain, low cloud tops and mist rising in plumes from forests and fields all meet.  Fog has always been generous with teachings - a lot about paying attention but not getting caught up in too many details (Fog makes sure they aren't available so we're compelled to work with what we have - learn to tune-in with other sensitivities.).

     This day, this time Fog teaches something else - today in this unique realm of the far corner of southeastern Virginia almost North Carolina and nearly Tennessee, Fog is a teacher of 'betwixt and between'.  What has Been is changing into What is Coming, and clearly the What is Coming  has shifted into the Now - the now of this realm of pouring rain where it's good to have at least some of those big guys lead the way...

    On the grander scale this region's unseasonably mild winter weather (according to The Weather Channel) is changing over to a colder, snowier time. Right now it is just thinking about it (Fog's piece of work) and in a couple of days this or that will be That. Meanwhile to the north of us an ice storm dances while ahead, coming on fast, is the "Pacific Wallop: the Parade of Storms" which for us means we'll meet up with yesterday's flooding Pacific storm energy in the west tomorrow somewhere in Tennessee or Arkansas.  The Big One in the parade is forecast to arrive in California tomorrow which will be our yesterday when we meet, likely in New Mexico...  Meanwhile to the south of us, in the Now of today, there is a large and expanding congregation of severe thunderstorms forecast to nudge up to Tennessee and our intended overnight rest stop at Hurricane Mills, likely as we sleep.

    So it strikes me that Fog is not to be underestimated in its doings and fore-telling.  A  lot of 'tomorrow talk' - but for now it's all about the present as we roll along, sharing the road and noticing the Beauty all around us.  (So glad David is driving!)                 

                 Nan

Belonging . . .

 © Nan Moss 2009

        Winter has settled in.  Bears are hibernating, most plants have "gone by", summer birds are long away - leaving the realm to the likes of the exceptionally hardy, such as fox, crow, raven, eagle, owl, eider ducks, coyote, deer, squirrels, chickadees, the blue jay gang, and the little furry ones who skitter along their runways under the snow. The lakes, ponds, even streams withdraw into the intricate designs and brittle will of ice. The woods become quiet, very quiet. If you look closely, you may find that the entrance to a small burrow is decorated with little icicles - a sure sign that someone lives and breathes there. Trees still stand tall (unless wind has upended them, or ice and snow have bowed them over) and the leafy ones of summer now display skeletal forms in a contorted naked beauty I never tire of admiring.

            Even wind speaks with a different voice and tune these days - be it breeze or gale.  The iced cove sings a different song also as the tide comes and retreats. And Grandmother Sky - especially when she's clear and cold - is spacious enough to receive and bless every dream any of us has.

            And so I nestle in for a long winter's respite, reverie - right? Nope. I leave - right in the thick of winter. Not in the fall when the sensible flocks of geese fly over. No, I wait until the thick of cold and nights longer than days. But first I pack. And I fret about what to pack. It seems that year after year I endure this encounter with myself and my apparent need to bring stuff - lots of stuff - with me.

            Why leave now when any sensible animal has already moved on or dug in? Why the angst, neediness around what to bring? All along I know the answer to this one, though it doesn't seem to change much in the way of over-packing. The truth is that it is downright sad to leave. Mind you this leaving is not about vacation, and though there are opportunities for good times, this leaving and its duration of 2 - 3 months is a long stretch at this end of the journey. And so I get it about the stuff issue in terms of vulnerability and emotions around saying good-bye. Perhaps more to the point it's my attempt to anchor and hold fast to the rocky shore like a long wavy (and delicious) strand of Alaria, thriving in the chaos of winter seas.

            This exposure to my own naked, contorted (but not beautiful like a tree) foibles brings me to the inevitable issue of "belonging". Where do I belong? Am I leaving where I belong to go to where I don't belong, or am I compelled to leave where I don't belong - once the distractions of summer are past - to where I do belong, or maybe like a goose whose timing is off I am leaving where I belong to go to yet another place where I belong? 

            Does a cloud have these confused issues? Clouds spend their lifetimes on the move, interacting with the realms they pass over.  They need no burdens of extra clothing, no bags of food in case of weather delays.  Ah but clouds are not earthbound as I am, and the sky is more restless. They are born to the life of transformation, constant change, and a vast, endless road. This is their job, their existence, reason for living. But I am not a cloud, and I do not fly.  

            I can see that a cloud belongs in its realm and to its expressions and gifts of life.  So do the trees rooted in the ground of their birth.  Likewise the animals that stay for the duration - they belong.  Now another thread to this unwinding of internal knots reveals itself... Trust - trust that one's needs for sustenance, well-being, survival, and all that is about living, is available - especially where you belong.

            What if I am not so different from all these other beings? That we are similar at our cores? If I let the trust of trees, animals, and storms inspire and show me the way, then maybe I can get better at this. Travel takes trust - lots of it - and though it's harder to be bold in winter, I could learn to loosen my grip, just a little - pack one less bag (at least) - and let the good-byes become "farewells."

            Now I will leave where I belong and go to places where I think I do and don't belong - and trust that once away, sooner or later, I'll discover that the adventure has already begun.

Nan 

Emerging...

Emerging © Nan Moss 2009 

Remember when you were nine-years-old-going-on-ten? I do. I was riveted by the fact that at no other time in my life - ever - would I count my age as a single number. Forevermore I would be in the realm of two digits, and if I lived long enough I could enjoy three, but never ever again would it be one.

I hadn't reckoned on the change of centuries however, and now here it is once more - and only once more - the shift from the first decade of our century's lifetime to the forevermore double digits. Yet who cares? Why on Earth is this important to me - or anyone else?

And now I'm right back to the Middle World reality of Change - one of the finest principles of Creation the Universe has come up with - and of course its concurrent challenge (and my sometimes nemesis) of "transition". Transitions bring endings. And as we all know, endings can be tough in any number of ways... Just remember all the Y2K and apocalyptic versions of a decade ago when we changed centuries.

Yet thankfully this is not the whole story. The grand principle of Change is not confined to a single dimension or presentation. As the sun sets, so it also rises somewhere else. Endings promise beginnings. And if the endings feel sad, scary, hopeful, joyful or whatever else they can be, the one thing we can count on is that endings are by nature, uncertain - they hold the ace card of the unknown. They are like newborns filled with an as yet-unrealized potential for a life. They are you and me - and all of our possibilities as we continuously transition - weave over, under, and around our own unique design within the Great Round of Life.

Like storms. As I write, a nascent storm is appearing on the computer models. Like that gleam in your daddy's eye the beginnings of a storm are uncertain - will it emerge as a full-fledged cousin to Thunderbird? - and what might Storm's effects be on our lives and our world? Will we love it? Should we cut and run now?

Is it any wonder that on the scale of stress ratings transitions in and out of relationships, jobs, home locations are in the highest positions? And how about the changes that newborns bring to our lives - be they kids or puppies? Just look at what we did to our parents!

If we could banish transitions I'm sure we would try, and the resulting stagnation would bring on a relentless visitation of Spirit of Woe (which we already have quite enough of) and at the least unending life-stultifying boredom.

So let's get down to the hard core. "The Year is dead. Long live the Year!" The last single-digit year of any of our life-times as well as this century's - is past. Only a memory now, though we live with the experience of it. And this new year, 2010, is newly emerging, transitioning into a new decade and who knows what for any of us! Isn't it wonderful that we celebrate the brand new year right at the moment of its birth, when we haven't a clue as to what we'll look back on? Like this emerging storm - the meteorologists think they know what's coming - and it looks good for those of us who love winter storms and are all cozied-up at home - but no telling, definitively - really - what it will amount to and how it will affect us. After all, the two Lows that must unite to spark this weather creation are just now introducing themselves...

 So I'll keep scanning my horizon, and so might you - for emerging always happens.

 Nan

"This weather is my weather, this weather is your weather...."

(with respect to Woody Guthrie)

    © Nan Moss 2009

 Sunshine this morning with temps already in the mid-forties in the shade.  I can actually feel the heat of the sun on bare skin! This is par for a respectable winter day in southeastern Virginia where I was raised, but here and now in Maine? And it gets better - tomorrow's forecast calls for windchills of minus 17 degrees Fahrenheit!  Those engaging Northwest winds are coming to visit again... Do you think if I greased my face and hands with butter that would keep me from freezing as I sleep?! Maybe bear grease would do it.

So that record-breaking, record-setting Christmas storm in our continental mid-section did finally arrive here yesterday and with yet another personality.  Instead of a dramatic blow we got rain instead - lots of rain - and soft rain even though at times it was torrential and just a bit sideways. It started in the wee hours with a skiff of snow and then changed its mind and set about refashioning the color scheme of our landscape so that this morning the job is complete - all the frozen white gone, all the blocks of ice in the cove dispatched by the outgoing tide - and a crunchy frost everywhere.  Now tomorrow...

I have to look at this another way - a personal way because that's how my world-view goes.  My life isn't "making" the weather do anything - and yet - there is something of a connection, a correlation, a mirroring, an alignment that is easier to see sometimes than others.  This one works pretty well for me:  as of yesterday morning with all the rain and bluster from a cross-continental traveling storm system, I realized that in just a few weeks we must set out on our own cross-country trek, in the direction the storm came from. That means Big Change is afoot and I automatically start digging in my heels.  Transitions, changes don't come easy for me, yet don't I have the weather as a teacher, an example?  So I guess the point is if the weather spirits can change their song and dance - and location - I can too, for we are all related - somewhere and somehow.

Nobody teaches us more about changes than weather. I guess that's why we talk about it even if we don't like it, or pretend that talking about it is boring or droll or something else. So what's your weather like?

Nan

 

 

 

Christmas Day

  Christmas in the Woods © 2009 Nan Moss

Peaceful.  Very peaceful.  Quiet.  Really quiet.  Calm.  Just back from a woods walk with Zeph and nothing moving anywhere in sight or hearing except for us.  Actually a hole in the ice on the frozen stream reveals moving water, yet silent and barely a ripple. Overcast sky - gentle shades of gray and not much for  distinct shapes or ripples of movement up there either.

I notice that this relaxing, peaceful state of calm though longed for and welcome is beginning to feel uneasy.  How come? True, a lot of holiday stress is now moot - what's done is done and what didn't get written, found, baked, wrapped, sent is done, too.

Holidays like this one are something like storms.  We have hopes, dreads, anticipations, expectations, forecasts of shopping quotas, travel exigencies, and the relentless crunch of time as its arrival looms over the horizon. Stress levels rise, emotions build up looking for cracks in the dam as we stock up with food and candy, fuel and contact with loved ones for what promises to be the “big one.”  Some of us love these storms - we dance, laugh, babble, eat and eat, drink, sing, make merry and hopefully silly - and others of us look for a place to den up and let the answering machine take our calls.

And in the end? It all passes, the Spirit of Balance moves in and we enter into the space of calm, peace, relaxation - if for just a little bit of time. 

So is this a problem I ask myself? Why the sense of unease? And then I think of the weather elsewhere in the continent and realize there is a storm coming! Again! And that right now, that tremendous storm is churning over the mid-west stretching north to south for about a thousand miles and setting records - all the more notable because it is here and dancing with our beloved human storm of "The Holidays."  Already the records are falling and setting up: Dec. 24 as the snowiest day "ever" in OK City with 15 inches of snow, first Christmas Eve "ever" with measurable snow in Dallas... And once again, huge travel snafus for thousands on land and air - many of whom haven't yet recovered from last week's historic blizzard - the very one that covered Washington DC with record snowfall and winds at the same time that the Senate was into their own record bout of overtime turmoil and at the same time that President Obama's state of the art Air Force One jet was delayed in landing upon his return home from a highly contentious international climate summit in Copenhagen - that many feel has failed to accomplish what is needed to deal with global warming. Whew!

All things change - nothing stays the same...  Calm or storm or somewhere in-between, here's to life on Mother Earth - what we experience now and what's to come.  Now how about that New Year's forecast?

 Nan

 

Storm's Coming!!!

Saturday, Dec. 19, 2009

 Halo Before the Storm © Nan Moss 2009

Woke up to sunrise in a clear blue sky.  A little later high thin clouds appeared on the horizon to the southeast.  A few hours later when the sun was at its halfway point low in the southern sky a resplendent halo appeared, and more thin clouds...  

About 12 hours earlier, very late last night the sky was crystalline with its darkness and star-shine, radiant in every direction we could see. Yet weather changes fast around here on the New England coast.  We've lived here long enough to recognize some of the signs of impending weather events (We intentionally worked at learning these things of course because even the Weather Channel and NOA can botch a forecast).  Besides, it's quite fun to look at the sky and tune into what's up!

And so a calm day, wind-wise, for a change. There's something portentous about that even without the halo visitation. This time of year the Northwest winds rule. The  spirit of Frigid Wind Chill is quite a gal. (did I just write that?!) Why ever was this spot chosen for a year-round home? What were they thinking? Did they build, back in 1830, without checking out the fall/winter weather patterns? What were we thinking? Did we move in without a clue, or a care,  about these matters 15 years ago? Even with burning copious amounts of fossil fuels (actually we keep our thermostat at 66-68 in the day and 58 or lower at night) our house/home welcomes those winds all too graciously. Not only are they allowed entry, the house sings to and with them in its whistle-y, creaky way.  NW winds seem to like that just fine and sing back even harder. Meanwhile we go to sleep wondering about frostbite in our NW-facing little bedroom.  Even our abundantly furry dog Zeph appreciates the necessity of snuggling up on these nights...

So let's see what happens - if the signs hold true, if and when this storm comes here, how it will be for all of us in this realm, and what we might learn from its visitation. At the least this is an opportunity to relish the expectation, the potential gifts of hunkering down, cozying-up to the woodstove, allowing space and permission for awe, wonderment, appreciation of storm beauty - even as we feel concern, and yes, sorrow, for those who are stressed, damaged by this manifestation of weather.  Head's up! Here's our chance to align with greatness.

Global Warming “Olympics”?

So, the world meets in Copenhagen for two weeks to “discuss” climate change. Each country competing with others to get the rules, regulations and accolades that will most serve that nation’s needs, for as little financial disruption as possible.

Suddenly stories about climate change abound. Greenhouse gasses are unhealthy! The past decade was the warmest in history!

So what happens when the two weeks are over? Will there be a meaningful agreement that will have a lasting effect, or just another compromise that no one wants to spend the money to honor?  Will the stories abut pollution and energy use affecting climate continue to be front page news? (Who hears about gymnastics after the Olympics are over?)

 We need, desperately, to keep this story from getting pushed aside. Climate change does not care about the economy. It does not care if we believe in it, or think it is natural or human-induced. It is happening, has happened before, and will happen again. We need to learn to understand it, adapt to it, and most of all, work in relationship with the land, the weather, and each other so we can create a lifestyle and economy that supports all of us.

 It is interesting that during the first week of these meetings, the weather in the US has been extreme. Record storms, record cold, even record heat in Florida have shared the spotlight. Maybe the weather is trying to get our attention, to underline the importance of our relationship and commitment to it, not just during these two weeks, but from now on, through thick and thin, sickness and health, till death do us part...