12.29.16 Off we went FB video

Well, my honey was off, dashing through the snow to an appointment, and the pup was going nutso, and we had about one more half hour of light. 

So I dressed up while he leaped about me in dog happiness, 

and I opened the back door as he exploded off into the white field. 

Down we went, happy as anyone's business , 

to explore and crunch down the hills and wander into the forest 

and gaze at the ravine 

and go in a bit to the outwaters and breathe the winter fresh air. 


Far out into the out waters I could hear the coyote all calling in the new snow. 

Then off we tromped up the snow covered hill, to our little warm waiting home , 

happy and breathless and shining.

https://www.facebook.com/gwen.mcclellan/videos/10208576262347531/

12.30.16 How far will we stray FB video

     We have such an enormous unfathomable macrocosm, within which our knowable microcosm of everyday life exists. 
     We add to this the assumption of digital distant realities, things we have learned do exist, despite being unable on a regular basis to employ our hearing and sight and smell and touch to gauge and interact and assert and compile and respond. 
     To people and situations and environments. We squeeze so much that once was sensory into online information gathering and interaction.
     We are no more genetically prepared to live this way than the food we now customarily consume.
     It's all here and we as a species have created it and then we are born into it and do not question it and become gratified by it and build entire lives around that which we are not yet genetically prepared for.
     The adjunct, of course, which once was primary, or in fact, the solitary way we functioned as humans, is the going outside. 
     The going outside and not reading our phones or talking on them or photographing things for the express purpose of sharing them later and too the express purpose of selecting every single interaction while having part of us suspended and non interactive and non connected, which is the part that is making certain to think and edit and photograph and even choose what we experience, with the primary factor being that it will be something we will share online ,and how well it will be liked ,and if it will provide the status that will confer upon us ,so we can have some sense of who we are, and feel good about ourselves for a bit anyway.
     I'm just wondering how much farther we will stray from Whitman or Sappho or Russell Means or Angela Davis or Elder LaDonna Tamakawastewin Allard , before we all turn to dust.

https://www.facebook.com/gwen.mcclellan/videos/10208584910403727/

12.30.16 Adagletto

All night the sound came back to me

Until morning, wakening

The light tumbling over the range

Spilling upon the outwaters of this old river

Stansas thick and penetrable

Adagletto, playing by my side

12.30.16 Seems like smells like looks like feels like sounds like

It seems we will be like any other civilization or dominant species we know of from history, uncontrollably creating and then consuming and living within ways that will limit us, and ultimately finish us. And then, over time, earth will heal and revert and someone else will rise up, and come on out to play.

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1181269088576540/

12/30.16 Bedtime at the OK Corral

Down by the Eagle Sanctuary 
the earth was readying for bed

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1181267968576652/

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1181268788576570/

12.30.16 How it is

The winter forest makes 

my heart go pitta pat

12.20.16 Down by the farmers fields

the newly fallen snow glistened in the gorgeous bright winters day, the sky the dreamiest blue, with every racing cloud astounding

12.30.16 The snowy day

Out back, the snowy winter day 
shone in the morning sun

12.20.16 Even as we dive

 into winter, so the Maples slowly put forth their fruit

12.20.16 The boyo, watching

 birds and squirrels feeding by the front of the house

12.30.16 Our neighbors

Our coyote neighbors were busy out front by the compost last night

12.29.16 Neighbors with silver fur and tails

     Outside, I began noticing my neighbor possum, an adolescent , who comes round in the evening now with winter and hunger, with great hopes for sustenance at the compost , despite their great journey to get there. 
     I love possums. I love small mammals. I guess I love everything alive, in some ways. 
     I've rescued a lot of possums. Big ones, loads of babies. 
     I know how tough it is for them to survive. And how much we need them to.
     So I started putting out a little dish of our very nice dry dog food. And I'd peek out in the evening, watching them come up the walk, and , amazed, dig in. I don't usually do this with wild animals, except birds. And I get that until Spring, what you begin you must continue.
     By the third night, they'd become accustomed. Ate some, went off around the bird feeding table to nab a few delicious mice who scoot out to gather foodstuffs, and then return and finish off the dog pellets.
     Tonight they carried off the tiny plastic dish. I'm not certain why . Probably still smelled of food.
     Last week after that snow, and before the subsequent rains that erased it, I was out in the fields, way down low, and saw possum prints in the snow, with their delicate galaxy of pads, making their way across the broad field.
     So I'm guessing they're not fair game to the owl, the fox, nor coyote.
     Outside my front door now, in the relative darkness, remain their intricate footprints , decorating our front stoop. By the small mountain range, home of so many sparrows, here in the relative darkness.

12.29.16 We did

Well, it did snow, and we did rest, and then just in the nick of desperate-dog time, there was energy to go happily tromp about the conservation fields.

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1180411458662303/


https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1180412018662247/

12.29.16 All these things too

The snow came and the afternoon grew late as the sky darkened and so we ran about across the hills of the conservation field and threw snowballs and leaped and laughed and far below all the Coyote called.

12.29.16 Beneath the hard frozen ground

It is a tired grey day of rest resting.
Outside my window, there is no wind.
The land is quiet, immemorial, awaiting a big snow.
The dried tops of plants stand still in the cold winter day.
Their roots and crowns are vibrant and alive beneath the hard frozen ground.

12.29.16 Let it let it let it snow

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1180224845347631/



When the weather changes and the outside world is all abuzz, 
I'm out in it, and dumbstruck and moonstruck by the changes 
and the smells and the view and the altered cadence of 
wind shimmering through the trees and the glittering 
of the Beech and Oak leaves remaining, golden or bronzed, 
shining their particular beauty and light out in the forest.

12.29.16 The bored boyo

The bored boyo, waiting out my rest resting and , too, the snowstorm.

 I'm hoping strength will come UP , and we can go run in the snowed upon field before day's end.

12.29.16 From here

What evening looks like from here

12.29.16 Going home

Going home, heading into the range 

up its long broad foothills

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1180035702033212/

12.29.16 The tree stands alone

Down by the river
in the quiet grey of the morning


https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1180032672033515/

12.29.16 As we walked

"Oh, hello!"  I thought , crunching through the snow 
and sinking into the mud
As I watched their long lithe branches turn and sway in the wind
 as we walked along in the warm quiet day.

12.29.16 yesterday

Yesterday morning was warm, after 
so much rain had melted so much snow, 
slowly refilling our thirsty water table, 
feeding all the living things.

12.28.16 The day seemed

 all about 
big sky in the country

12.28.16 Down alongside

 the river, I strolled and greeted and inhaled peace and timelessness.

 Someone came by with their tentative big young pitty girl 

who was unsure of me and my photographing movements

so needed reassurance that still, all was right with the world.

12.28.16 And far above and behind

And far above and behind the Food Bank Farm shone the old Summit House,

atop our small mountain range

 it's white form reflecting the fleeting dusk light

12.28.16 The slowly fading light

Down by The Food Bank Farm, the mud deepened from the warm winter day, the dried Milkweed swaying in the gusty wind , with its remaining flaxen seeds billowing , and the sun shone magnificent in the slowly fading light.

12.28.16 Strewn

Later , I stopped by the river, as the day was drawing to its end

the spattered clouds filling in

the blazing winter sun golden against the horizon 

golden strewn upon the rushing waters

12.28.16 While we walked

While the boyo ran 

and raced in the melting mud 

all along the dirt road

 happily retrieving one ball

 and then the other

 as we walked along

 in the vast winter beauty 

and stark impenetrable solitude

12.28.16 Shining

Down by the farmers fields yesterday
the brazen blue of the sky, beneath the tall thick clouds
shone like a light, in the water left upon the earth

12.28.16 The way and the light

     Out on the cold windy river today, I knew that sometimes, the longer we're here, the more past we sift through, slowly each day, and the more nicely composted old tough stuff becomes. And the more pure peace of mind we find we are living with each day .
     You feel it coming up, a grudge or a fleeting sad thing or pain or loss or disappointment or hurt or anger. 
      And, I'm telling you , up it cones, welcomed, to have a moment with you just watching. 
     And no matter how small or big and lousy, as you be with it without evasion , it then turns and goes and settles back down, better than it ever had before.
     Til slowly you are left being someone walking around ,living your days, with mostly settled stuff.
     Until finally, after years of welcoming what comes up ,instead of boxing it up or enduring it with all kinds of unfortunate assists, the flow of stuff begins to ebb.
     And you get to embrace being just like we are, right here. And finally, you realize that, with your good tenacious work, peace has sometimes arrived at last.

12.28.16 Take me home, country road

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1179721662064616/

12.28.16 Slowly

Out back this morning, the winds blew
and the clouds raced and the day
slowly revealed its self.

12.28.16 Just look at you

Oh my, just look at you. All pretty 
with filigree, in the darkened morning light.

12.28.16 We'll do ok

When we are in our teens or thirties or even fifties, and we encounter death , we respond differently than when we are sixty, or seventy; eighty or ninety . Developmentally, our response unfolds within us in a different manner. We experience a domino dynamic of intellectual, and then internal responses. More interesting still, we become surprised when, in our sixties, we begin noticing ourselves more profoundly impacted by the deaths of those we know, or only know of.

                                   

Unless we live in a high crime area or a war torn country, when younger, we interpret death as an unlikely anomaly. If we know someone or love someone who dies from an illness or accident when younger, it is an unanticipated untenable shock we do not recover from easily. It is counter-intuitive and nothing we ever thought could happen. It tends to destroy our concept of life as we knew it, and we struggle to reconfigure a way of life that continues to make sense.

In our sixties and older, we intellectually realize we are growing closer to a time when those of our species grow ill or older and their life comes to an end. It's still a concept, but we are just beginning to gather its accuracy, and it's import to us, in our own lives.

When we begin to notice our own vulnerabilities and health challenges grow, our distrust of how these things would ever apply to us is slowly shattered, and just as slowly, we begin to grow developmentally , with a deeper realization of our own mortality, as we begin to rearrange priorities and plans and options. 

As we gradually grieve probable losses and reconfigure our self concept , based on how it seems our time here has, so far, turned out. And what may or may not end up happening. And how to dry up into angry bitterness, or deepen our awareness and acceptance, and turn to relish what it is we have here, in our hands.

Simone de Beauvoir took note of this at age 60, and decided to realize which of her plans for the future would probably not work out, and what she might want to prioritize. 

Interesting enough, she decided that a many-week-long solitary bicycle ride was at the top of her list. She got in shape, made her plans, and set out. Had a great time. Never regretted it. In my twenties while reading this, it stuck with me, this admirable pragmatism and foresight.

I was curious as to why I was recently so touched by Carrie Fisher's death. I'd been so impacted by her open struggles with addiction, with biochemical imbalances. By her artistry, and her decision to share with the world the reality of these struggles, expunge shame and blame related to them, and do what she could to normalize them. What a choice. And to publicly , with authenticity, answer gossipy questions with respectful candor . And share widely what she had learned. 

I loved some of her writing and, frankly, didn't think a lot about how I felt a little bit more okay with her spirited sharp wise self in the world. I didn't know I'd feel a loss, and a sadness, at the quickness of her death. My breath caught when I heard. I became so touched by her spoken words about death and dying.

So why such an impact? Well, I realized I'm 64. More people I know have discovered serious conditions . My own realizations regarding the reality of aging and illness and death are making some pretty profound changes far within, each season, each evening, each day. 

My sense is that this is how life works. My sense is that it is only human limitations that keep us from comprehending the complexity with which ants and trees and bears process their growing realizations of their own aging or illness, or the reality of eventual death.

I've known innumerable people older than myself who experience that tough stuff, of the deaths of the people in their lives who have known and loved them well, known them since then, understand how they feel and think and why. 

When they live long enough to have no one who either knew them then, or knows how that feels, it becomes a difficult road.

Think of all the older people you knew, when you were younger, who had inconceivably younger photos of their younger selves , set on a bedside table or dining room wall. They would look at their younger selves for recognition. For this very internal process. 

For that developmental digesting of this strange reality . Of growth and lifetime and aging and change, and the seeming lost and found of transformation.

And you would stand there, not registering why this wrinkled hard-of-seeing and hearing and walking person would ever have this strange version of themselves right there. You didn't even get it . Nor did I. I remember those moments . 

So now, it begins. For those of us who are in our sixties or seventies or eighties or nineties. 

We are learning these things. And if we pay attention and keep our eyes and awareness open,

 it might get pretty tough, but we'll learn. 

We'll do okay. It's all just in the moments. We just want to stay awake.

12.28.16 Stark

Stark winter beauty

12.27.16 Carrie Fisher, here and gone.

The interesting sense some of us are left with, after hearing of the sudden death, and the ending of the life, of Carrie Fisher, is as if we knew her. In a way, growing up watching her quoted in Life Magazine, and interviewed for her youthful role in Star Wars, some of us relished her ultra personal memoirs and writing and commentary. 

We read and listened to her inimical manner of sharing frankly her life and responses, with candor. We listened to her describe how she struggled along her tougher-than-some and easier than many path. 

She spoke openly about how she struggled with addictions that she learned to work with, sharing that there is no endpoint, or all better place, but ongoing work at being.

We read how she figured some things out and chalked other sucky things up to what just happens in life. Never glossing over, nor really dramatizing, but rather being herself and then laying her shares bare. 

I guess from what little I've known of her, I liked her and her ideas and ways of navigating. It was kind of nice to coexist on earth, knowing she'd written another piece and was wandering around sharing her thoughts and process on her frank fascinating ways.

 So I find I didn't really anticipate her gone.