wintry dreaming: progress in rest

READ, so lovely:   "arctic terns: their latin name is Sterna paradisaea; they are somehow birds of paradise, or were so named by Erich Pontoppidan, the Pietist Danish prelate and contemporary  of Linnaeus who wrote a cyclopedia-atlas of Norway in the eighteenth centuary. he could not have known that of all living things on earth, the artic terns live in the most light and least darkness, but they work for it, flying seventy thousand kilometers a year as they migrate from near the north pole to near the south, and when they are not nesting they live almost constantly in flight, like albatrosses. theirs is a paradise of endless light and endless labor, like angels' (though they cross the band of day and night during their migration, and the tracking devices set up to plot their migratory course did so by measuring light and darkness). their scimitar-sharp wings, their fierce cries, their hummingbird hoverings, their swallowlike tails, their gull-like dives: all enchanting." rebecca solnit, cyclopeida of an expedition around svalbard. (orion magazine, jan/feb 2013) photo:wiki commons.

 i want to visit the frozen parts of the world, slowly thawing. i want to see arctic terns and polar bears and see the infinite grays of cloudy days. i want to see the glaciers.


http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6682/   <------- here is another great article from orion on ecopsychology. occaisonally they'll feature a printed article online.

a nativity i've had since 2nd grade, one of my treasures. the porcelain pieces are no larger than an inch high. yoda tops off my evolving spirituality. wink.

my broken foot initially allowed some more sitting time....i call this one "shoe box #1". maybe the flash wasn't a good idea?

...as well as presenting more opportunities to play on my christmas present. :) ty thrifted it for me...it's missing a few tuning pegs but it's got that great tinny banjo sound that, in my opinion, improves with age..

january. finding the wild within the cold; the low angled sunshine on our shoulders...(makes us happy...)

stretching out along the horizon in the late afternoon, me and linky, when the sunsets are orange and blue.

scampering along a slice of land bordered by freeways. we walk everyday. there a few wild nooks within a walking distance from our home. our favorites are short drives away.

this fluffy head. he points to pictures in books and it melts our hearts. he has his own beloved christmas card he pulled from a shelf. it has a glittery christmas tree and i can find him around the corner kneeling in the hall, pointing. he is 10 months old.

teddy painting. notice the lawn. if we stay in this house any longer it will become a rainbow of wildflowers among squashes and heirloom tomatoes. we have a few spaces in which we plant around the yard....sometimes i don't understand why i haven't already turned the lawn into a permacultured-haven. what would you do with a space like this all to yourself? i also dream of turning it into a native plant space, hoping to invite the native creatures...buckeyes, sedge, walnut. how cool would that mini-forest be? my seed saver catalogue came in the mail, mmm...mmmmm, now that makes for great spring dreamin'.

this might possibly be the closest pine tree to my house, about five miles away. teddy and i found it the other day. it's an old, gristly grey pine standing in a grove of interior oaks. i can hug trees and feel their life, like a peaceful, warm vibration. true story.

there it is, left-center, sprawling, sanctuary.

winter birds picking seeds from neighborhood trees, bred for color of leaf, fruits shrunk. it was my love of these birds that broke my foot. not really. i was grabbing the bird feeder and stepping down a rock in my back yard and slip, crack! big time OUCH! :( my deep breathing got me though it.

river walk.

mugwort in it's winter duds.

horehound, not native, but prolific around the river. i've always wanted to try horehound candy and be like laura ingalls.

effie yeaw nature preserve

plant walk with local enthusiasts....learning about the willow and it's uses in basketry and tule houses.

the bluest blue. before gold mining the river shores were grassy and sandy, perfect for maidu villages. after hydrolic mining the eroded hills came tumbling down as rocks, lining the whole river.

little snuffler going for a ride. typical. he's usually on my back.

little sawhet owl. sounds like a mewing kitten in the wild. once, as a teen, i heard one calling throughout the night. i got on my boots, grabbed the maglite, and roused my brothers to help me find the lost wild kitten in the woods. nope.

blue vervain, menagogue, herb of the poets and bards......or so i've heard.  (you think someone who blogged mainly in photos would take nicer pictures.....)

wetlands right outside of sacramento. they (who?) built the sac airport right along the main stretch of bird migratory routes. great. tyler says the airport has the 2nd highest amount of birdstikes in the nation.

teddy sorting out one of his many treasure trays.

fishbones, gold thread. bark heart.

unloading wood. at this very moment he is building the shelves for our "library." our house has the wild, messy look of remodeling and creativity. ;-p (yeah...that's what it's called.) he smells sweet like sawdust.

it seems, at 10 months, that we're finally hitting our nursing stride. i have to make sure that i am eating enough clean protein or else i feel like a zombie.  he hasn't had too much interest in solids quite yet. i do love being able to feed him so well.

happy new year, you broke your foot! i mourned at first.... walking suddenly became the most graceful elegant movement and dance, the gliding and striding...but now i'm just happy i don't need surgery. this year has started out with a healthy dose of suffering, sadness, and pain. illness, injury, oral surgery....during more enlightened moments suffering can feel holy..;) life lessons; wisdom... feeling stronger already!!

the ER

here's where we are now: walking boot. i get it all muddy and then i take it to bed. :) i wear my one sweet doc martin because it is my thickest-soled shoe. linky has a new napping nest, only ty can put him down to sleep because link doesn't expect milk from him. co-sleeping has it's tolls at night.

flashback: ty and our tiny guy in the wilds of nevada.

turkey tails..... currently being used in experimental cancer treatments.

a very purple specimen.

yarrow. one of my favorites. it speaks to me.