Through the open window the sounds of life come in all night long. There’s a freight train about 1 AM that can only be heard by keeping still and both ears unblocked by pillow and blankets. There’s a parliament of owls who appear at times during the day and are quite large. The summer sound of frogs surrounding the beaver pond are now being replaced with the last crickets and the wosh of autumn leaves swirled in the wind. A pine tree fallen half way to the ground is caught in hardwoods and squeaks a bit on windy nights to our east. There’s the rare and fearful sound of coyotes yipping as they make a kill and the sound of deer outrunning dogs- thudding hooves. Some nights when we go out to pee and see the stars, deer bedding down in the sloping field think us rude and too close and leave suddenly, slipping fast and silent into the forest that surrounds us on all sides. There has been some crashing sounds at times that we can only think are bears taking down very dead trees. And some nights there is the sound of a live tree coming down by the beaver’s good hard work. These are muffled and down in the woods. We had a bird of some sort this summer who sounded asthmatic and distinctly socially awkward whose calls joined the owls but had a tone of vagrancy and solitary life and would come near the house late at night. There is some sound of trucks on the interstate at first light, but one has to lie very still to sort out this sound from wind in the pines. I remember sitting on a mountain ridge in Colorado back in the 80’s one evening and a friend helping me to hear the difference between the sounds of the wind and the river below.
After 4 days of wonderful food- Marshall roasted a whole salmon, and stacking firewood- John Meyer and I stacked the rest of the 2 cords for this winter while Marshall did a final paper on 2nd language acquisition, and teaching me how to play Scrabble, and telling the old stories again- John Meyer told the story from FGC gathering 1990 when he complimented Claude Branque on his beautiful eyes and Claude, ever the wild card, tapped his finger against his glass eye, making it click click click. I’ve never seen John M at a loss for words- he couldn’t even think. Much hilarity. Talk of the future, musings of what might be. Now alone in the house, awaiting a client, dishwasher doing a final load, and making a small fire to take the chill off the morning air. How good to do life so fully, something I didn’t dream as a young person. Hope this finds us all well and mining the Light.
This day is one of great luxury for me. All the house is cleaned, wood furniture oiled, trash and recycling gone, all is in it’s place, a guest futon freshened with new sheets. Marshall has made a special menu that I shopped for this afternoon and now it’s time to lay a fire in the woodstove and set the table as a dear old friend makes his way from a whole days drive away. Foot bath at the ready, hot towels to precede a face massage after dessert, and most luxurious of all – hours of laughing and catching up on news of one sort and another with this weekend visit. A clan member comes in off the road to share hearth and home bringing dear memories of years and decades of knowing one another- our best, our worst, our least, our most. And great delight is taken that in this time of now and in the space of here there is the luxury of sharing the path, no translation needed, rest taken together, a big old queen fest so happy to still be here and laughing.
I am heartbroken to read of Congo and the rape of women as a widespread weapon. This is the oldest form of torture and surely leaves the deepest wounds. I hold this knowing with a heavy heart for all women across all boundaries around the planet. There is so much good humans are capable of and yet there seems to be no break in doing the worst over and over.
As a comfort, I recommend the book, A Body Story, by Arla Patch, a Maine Quaker whose gentle photos and brief autobio story are honest about violations to her body, sexual and surgical, and her healing.
We are having a rainy day here in Vermont. The fall colors have come slowly here in the south. We’ve had no frost and green is still most of the landscape. I’m headed to the laundromat after doing a bit of energy work with a new mother- yes, I did get to help with a birth for my first time ever. This was an amazing opportunity to witness life and women giving life. I felt blessed. And so very happy to be only a visitor!
Hope this finds us all well and mining the Light, John