Hard

This morning I failed to explain what I wanted to convey by saying that dying is hard. And on my walk, shortened due to a roaring chill wind (stabbing my throat), I remembered Mojo during his last days. He was ready to curl down into  dying, but he was acutely aware of it not being quite time. I would let him out, watch him head toward the river, stop and stand as if weighing the wind and his heart. Or perhaps he was noting the stiffness in his bones, his failing kidneys. He would pause in a frozen stance for minutes; on several occasions I went out to encourage him home. But on his last day determination and time matched. He went straight for the path to the river, slowly - but with no pause. Later that day walking with friends, we found him in the warm sun, nested in leaves by the creek in the warmest section of the steep ravine. He even followed us down to the river ever so slowly. I knew he wouldn't make it back to the house as I walked with my friends home. This is what I mean by "hard." Hard because we are in flesh that is pulled into the living; and strong as the spirit may call at us, the tug of the sinew of flesh is strong. We are attached. Hard doesn't necessitate pain,

dark or misery, it just means awareness of the process. Hard is struggle and stress, not without smile. In Ethiopia, a 116 old neighbor, visits, led by a child.

River stones

Over 40 years I have collected rocks from the river and brought them home to set in pots of flowers. Yesterday it occurred to me that when I reach 80, I will begin to bring a stone back to the river, each time I manage the trip down. A gesture of thanks, a giving up of things i have collected. Perhaps it will inspire me to disseminated other possessions. And leave less for my children to bother with after i am hanging out in another dimension, whatever. Or maybe they would rather bear a rock with them as they walk to the river, place them on my grave, if I have a grave - or just a depression in the field as do the graves of the two llamas. Unless I am ashes, and that would be easier to deal with, the only spot on this rocky land to dig a grave, is the sandy bottom land. If ashes, maybe a spot under an old oak on the top of Red Bud would be nice.

revisited a poem from Rosicrucian workshop

May comes

dogwood blossoms curl, brown

glad orange poppies about the house.

On top of Red Bud mountain

my dog and I pause

our house between branches

down where the spring runs.

I understand cremation has the advantage

of stopping the desire body

from coming back.

Yet I know the lust in my heart

is huge for this spot

and it will be all I can do

to not return.

Mhnorth

4/29/12

“the desire body in May”

Elizabeth's hexagram

For awhile in the performance, Elizabeth unfurled the last hexagram in the I-Ching: BEFORE COMPLETION.  This image comes to mind this morning as I try to shrug the gray mood of performance done, over, fini! So I go with the I-Ching and figure today is just the day before the end (and so forth into infinity!). I read in The Book of Changes, "Things cannot exhaust themselves. Hence there follows, at the end, the hexagram of BEFORE COMPLETION. BEFORE COMPLETION is the exhaustion of the masculine."

Aunt Estelle is still strapped into the passenger seat of the Prius from the trip home last night; it was late and I had to let the dogs out of the house to accompany me on the trek to the blue house to close the chicken house. I am glad that we will see each other this afternoon at Ann's to gather together chairs and other items we brought for the play. Cool morning and a forecast low tonight of 38.

As I walked with the dogs to the river this late morning, I dwelt on the grounded/metaphysical mix in each of our works. From Elizabeth's wise and passionate earthiness to Diane's two feet into the other world albeit tugged earthward by family. How I seem as Joni so well painted, a poet with one foot in the world of living and one foot in the dead world. Pat who is so grounded building her house, by Tyree's Ashes is "jump started to the stars". Susan  breathing stars into her mother's spirit, then caretaker of her dad. Ann is keeper of memories and of the preciousness of life. I love the way our works touch each other, images mingle and transform - I want to dance more with this performance.

Inca memories

I adore the Peruvian dress, the colorful full skirts, the intricate woven cloth from alpaca and llama. Small groups of inhabitants milled about every place we went asking for coins if we took their pictures or pet the baby alpaca. It touched me to see a red llama which reminded me of my llama, Crissy, at Machu Picchu. The town of Cusco is laid out in the form of a puma. Snake, puma and condor were the three main sacred animals of the Inka - well, I imagine llamas were also!
At the terraced site of the temple of the Sun the day after Machu Picchu, I was reminded of my small affinity to the Inca. There is a rock which juts out from Red Bud mountain on the path by the creek to the river which looks like a turtle head. I have over the years left rocks and wishes and gratitude on this cool rock face. For the Incas out crops of rocks on the mountains were worshiped as, in the case in the sacred valley, as the messenger to God. Our guide, Carlos, pointed out the nose and cheek bones, eyes and forehead and beard. Further up on the same mountain was an outcrop of rock in the image of a king - the constellation, Pleiades, moves during the year in the night sky adjacent to this face, telling of weather for the growing season. To the right of the messenger to God, is a stone storage building which is a passive refrigerator for potatoes and other vegetables. The Inca terraces are intricate, rocks on the bottom, then pebbles, then sand and last humus. They cultivated thousands of types of vegetables (especially potatoes). 

More Machu Picchu

Sitting here in my room with book cases to my back, further back my prosperous looking garden and red bud mountain in front of me - at all of 2,000 feet, I am awed that I took this picture just days ago (May 26th). I am still trying to find the words to describe this adventure. It will take time...a spiritual trip I can say. This high culture was so obviously dedicated to the civilization of man and the cultivation of potato (among many many other vegetables). On the last day in Cusco before bed, I happened to see an interview with a Peruvian artist - with a picture of large paintings (reminding me of Picasso's Guernica) AND a sculpture of a potato (i think in silver) with abstract figures holding it up.
This second picture from Machu Picchu shows our guide, Hamilton, on the left, with the red flag. the two guys to the right, obviously feeling the oxygen thin atmosphere, hands on their crotches! Oh, I used every mudra I knew in the climb as I felt as if there was a heavy brick pressing against my sternum.

I'm HOME! With still a Machu Picchu high coursing my brain, oxygen deprived brain that is. Managed to climb up to the highest point of MP and the next day up to the Sun Temple in the Sacred Valley - all more awesome than I want to speak of tonight. Tonight I am fit only for hugging Mr. Lee and kisses to beautiful grand-daughter and her beautiful parenti, a dinner of fresh steamed peas from the garden and soon a soak in epsom salt bath. but here's a pic! This is me of the green hat with a cup of cocoa leaf tea and my friend Mary Louise whom I have known since age 7 (another New Orleans person with ties to Texas and to Panama). more later!

March 7 at 3:41 in the altar-noon

About to be before my makeshift altar to repeat several affirmations which will begin to alter an issue in my natal astrology chart: Mars opposition to Jupiter, which apparently alludes to a karmic issue. I can muster no argument against doing this ceremony and have no doubt that after upteen million incarnations there must, indeed, be lessons still needed to learn. I've got to put on the blues - which is no problem as I found blue beach towel, blue Yoga blanket, blue flannel sheet - and old blue pants and sweater; this after I announced to no one that I had nothing blue to wear, black being in profusion in my wardrobe.
Mr. Lee and I have already enjoyed a walk under blue skies to the swim hole where I did find a blue slate rock to add to my altar. Earlier I went in the garden to pick greens from under one of my small hoop houses. First Katrina crawled under the plastic and then the wind tugged the whole side out from my hands, shedding water and tearing the plastic loose! Yelling a Katrina, I dropped the cover - only to realize that at this date, I can do without a cover most probably! So it is off and tucked into the woodshed. Enough greens for a smoothie are in the refrigerator.
I've put a picture of me and of Mimi and me in the altar as I wanted to include her. And I've put a homeopathic remedy which helped this morning with my acute reflux since I had the stomach flu Saturday. Oddly it is Ignatia - and I took one dose of 6C when I realized that I was suffering a horrid lump in my sternum, as if I was grieving. I realized that I was grieving from the information from the seminar. It is also the remedy which I left on the window sill at 1127 Sixth st when I spent the night (12 yrs ago) in the house where Mimi died and where her astral body lingers. Looks like we came into this world 3 minutes apart and we will leave this world together (astrally and for me physically). Perhaps I too will die violently or perhaps the ceremonies over time will change that too.