3.24.17 And you both finally grow these

It's so funny how, as time passes and years pass, you get these astounding gifts. 

Like being with someone and no matter your own sometimes dumb sometimes blind sometimes insistent delusions, or theirs, you may both persist and grow more generosity and compassion as the years pass, in amongst the persistent often very painful messes.


Which is normal. Crabby reactive happens.

Or how one of you gets not-well, and the other has to make all the money, and never wanted that role, either of you, at all, but there you are. Right there.

Or how after bunches of years and upsetness you both finally accept that one of you can't go visit friends or have friends over or do a whole lot of anything around the house. 

And it's not laziness or not trying hard enough, even when one of you is very upset or stressed about it. It's simply not-well-ness, after trying everything anyone ever thought of.

And you both finally grow these great big muscles and generosity and work hard to not get all alarmed when both of you are quite challenged. And learn to refuse to feel afraid or badly or guilty... and just settle down and problem solve and then take a breath and hold hands and enjoy the beautiful day you are given.

3.24.17 All the time

     All the time we have possum, who make themselves known come winter, when they must come to the compost for food. They are always adolescent, and sometimes I put bits of dogpellets out front in the frigid weather. They mutter round the birdseed table at night, grabbing up the mice that venture out for midnight meals. 
     They are known to live a maximum of two years in the wild, due mostly to human's cars, after that, due to predators like Coyote or fishers. So ours here appear and then invariably are killed by car, which is what happened a few days ago to my little silver furred adolescent.
     I pulled out to drive to town, and caught sight of their still little body . So I put on my flashers, despite the curve and steep hill out by my front drive, and while many cars on both sides waited , I lifted them by the tail off to the roadside, and said a small goodbye.
     Later that day, Kevin caught sight of an adolescent Eagle, clearly hungered by winter, having a meal.
     The next day, a beautiful russet brown adolescent Turkey Vulture cautiously perched on a limb above the possum. Then, lured by hunger, landed and fed for a few hours.
     I was reminded of humans sharing our eyes and livers and hearts after death, and each time I passed by, I kept my distance so the young hungry ones could feed upon the downed young one.
     The next day, possibly because days and nights had been sufficiently cold , a young hawk was out, standing over the remaining carcass, carefully deciding to feed, despite the occasional car whizzing past very close.
     So they remained for over two hours, beautiful buffed young self, and as I came and went, I was touched that, if the possum was to be hit, how beautiful that other ones lived as a result.

3.24.17 Touched by the lengths

     Not rain nor sleet nor cold; not snow, not fatigue or face biting wind can prevent you from giving a good rousing walk to a big pup. So off we rambled down the farmers fields road, as a sudden snow storm left off, the road a bit soft beneath our feet, muddy bits between frozen reams of snow. 
     Far beyond at the turn of the dirt road I caught sight of someone small trotting up toward us... a small Coyote small as a Beagle! So beautiful and tiny and grey, with the small ruff of mane young ones gradually grow.
     They caught sight of us too, stopped quick, quickly and surreptitiously trotting back into the woods.
     I grabbed Dante, seeing him take notice, but not really.
     So I kept him distracted, with throw throwing of two balls, over and over , and declined the longer walk, so as to give that small one time to get some distance.
     I am forever touched by the lengths wild ones must go to,to survive the human dominated world. Bless them.

3.24.17 Being not well is a lot like the rest of our lives.

Being not well is a lot like the rest of our lives.
The day is as it is.
Others have all sorts of gifts and great challenges.
You can do some things and not others.
No one knows what it's like to be you, and you have no idea what it's like to be another.
You have your day, and sometimes the great difficulties fill up and spill over and you just need to mourn .
And other days you can just go about being grateful for that which you are given .

3.24.17 Trilling and circling

It's a beautiful morning, Red Wing Blackbirds trilling, 
the Goshawk circling overhead in the early morning sunrise.





https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1263901166979998/

3.23.17 I'm not certain younger women

     I'm not certain younger women think about being woman-identified vs man-identified. 
     It was something many of us inquired into and learned about and changed in ourselves. 
     Many of us grew up unthinkingly and automatically doing every single thing to 'please' some man. Any man. THE man. 
     It was absolutely essential, to gain equal access to equal rights.
     We dressed and smiled and offered and cared for and looked out for and arranged and listened and took care of our bodies and our health for.... men.
     We were taught this as unthinkingly as we carried it through, and only over time, and with the insight of the latest 1970's wave of feminism, did we awaken from our dream.
     When we did, we first hated other women.
     We worked through that bullshit, and then we found ourselves hating our selves.
     Our bodies, our feet, our hair, our smell, our voices, our laugh, the way we walked and ate and slept.
     It took quite a while to learn that discrimination had driven all these lies. We had to work and work hard, against our mothers and fathers and friends and siblings and lovers, to pull our selves free.
     'm uncertain how impacted young women are today. I'm uncertain which areas of their lives are aware and independent and free to find their own choices and options where they can.
     What I do know is that, at almost 65, I had the gift of living a life of inquiry and discovery and a gradual authentic self esteem.

3.23.17 A day like any other

3.22.17 Out in the morning sunrise

3.22.17 Magic.

Before the storm, and with the storm. Magic.




https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1262526237117491/

3.22.17 Bright bright golden morning light

3.22.17 Just a moment

A moment with the range and the sunrise

3.22.17 As it began

The snow began swirling 
as the crows took to the skies

3.22.17 There were these lovely early moments

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1262522900451158/

3.22.17 Blue and brown and white all over

  

3.22.17 Blustery

Beautiful cold blustery bright sunshiney March day

3.22.17 Thank goodness

The world news + my current day
= thank goodness for the river.

3.22.17 Not for all the sun

Myself, I wouldn't trade this for all the sun 
in some warm sunny place. Ever.

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1261949613841820/

3.22.17 Time suspended

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1261949043841877/

3.22.17 The golden sunrise, before the snow squall

Down by the river this morning, the golden sunrise, and an arriving short snowstorm

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1261947987175316/

3.21.17 Out we go

Out out, in the bright bright snow

3.21.17 There were no words.

3.21.17 Here this morning

   Down behind our home, down past the conservation field , where Indigenous Peoples had villages long ago... down past the deep ravines running down from the mountain range above and behind us...lie the outwaters of The Connecticut River. 
  I used to frequent them in all seasons, tracking the fox and coyote, taking note of the weasel. 
  My breath taken by the heights of some outcroppings.
   There is a tall ridge out behind, which you can sit on or walk along, and peer far down into the waters where life teems.
   Here this morning, standing outside in the late March day, I heard flocks of geese and duck calling out, as they came in for a landing. For sustenance and coming together and Water, Which Is Life.

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1260943170609131/

3.21.17 Salmon Sunrise

3,21.17 Bells, whistles

Dawn arrives, with its bells and whistles

3.20.17 Woof woof

Woof woof woof I'm about to have my walk finally 

woof woof I can hardly stand it 

woof woof poor boyo 

as the sun sets and the magnificent sky streams wonder.

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1260531900650258/

3.20.17 One of these days

     It was one of those more-lousy-health-than-usual days. 
     One of those 'Don't you dare go trying to get a thorough sense of the world' days. 
     One of those 'Wake up and do and go to sleep and wake and do and now you must sleep again'; rinse , repeat. 
     But it was my every other week time for my dear beloved friend to give me a resounding bodywork treatment, while I handed over to her great delight a small watercolor.
     And we got to animatedly talk about the vast complexity of physiological function with various conditions, and then kid updates,complete with unbelievable just-like-life complications . Empathy and love and respect all around.
     The canoodling cosmos veering here and there, as we were side by side, observing, making our best efforts, and then letting go.
     Til at home I passed out again , half grateful we here can somehow manage because I cannot work, half miss missing the precious fascination of being a practitioner, helping others effect such change in their health. 
     Half just filled with great gratitude for this day that we have been given.

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1260531497316965/

3.20.17 What are you gonna tell

Wake up, little Susie

 

3.20.17 Thou answerest them only with Spring

3.19.17 There is beauty everywhere.

Such a beautiful wetland. 

If you turn and back up, you're in a Stop and Shop parking lot and mall. 

Beautiful places lurking, in amongst all of the human stuff.

3.19.17 Down by the farmers fields

Down by the farmers fields, in the late winter sun

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1259490670754381/

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1259491150754333/

3.19.17 Kind of all works out sometimes

     Life is a funny thing. 
     This morning I left the driveway, and then stopped my car on the narrow mountain road , making everyone wait while I moved my sweet adolescent possum neighbor off of the road and onto the side, who has evidently been hit by a car in the early morning light.      Later in the day, my husband paused to take a photo of an adolescent eagle, hungry in the late winter, who had caught sight of the dead possum,and began having some sustenance. 
     Kind of all works out sometimes, doesn't it.

3.19.17 Passed in a flash.

My beloved and my very new infant first child. Sigh. 
36 years ago? 
Passed in a flash. 
Reading Karl Marx aloud. 
Didn't take.

3.19.17 As we walk

A little pre-Spring cleaning, as a few old photos surface, as I share them with kids. As we walk out in the warm enough sunshine late winters day, everything coming awake.

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1259473387422776/

3.19.17 Blue

Bright bright blue and white