6.18.13 Riverlove

I have begun adding posts of  frequent visits to the beloved Connecticut River at The Alexandra Dawson Conservation Area, at times only with the intent of sharing photographs of how the river looks today...how, in fact, this small slice of earth looks....today....in this one tiny place.....spinning in the universe.....in the midst of endlessness. Lest we forget the wonder of it all, versus needing to buy gas, go to work, take out the garbage, and use machines. There. RiverLove.

Done with seeing clients, it’s mid afternoon as I drive a few miles home from my office, whistle to alert the dogs as I get out of the car, change into mud/river/dog- proof clothes as they bustle about,  all of us waiting expectantly to go have an adventure on  the river.

Bundled into the car, we are off, palatable excitement…shifting paws, dog noises, til we arrive at the Alexandra Dawson Conservation Area, a strip of land following along  the Connecticut River for a few miles, a piece of heaven. This small area is an unintentional secret, just a block or so from Route 9 in Hadley, yet a whole wild world unto itself.

Rain it did  once again last night, and the ground continues through the day to be damp, the skies darkened. The old dog is no longer fond of the muddy areas of the path,  but instead, loves the slow aged meander, and the long, contemplative snufflings.   Satiated by her smaller stroll at almost 16, I return her to the car from her precious moment of pup-less-ness, and then release the impatient 14 week old German Shepherd for his ranging romp. Full of inestimable delight, he leaps into the grasses, discovers anew the blossoming of some neighbor’s peonies, pauses, neck craned as he eyes the wonder of  birds flying overhead, and relishes the mysterious experience of broad gusts of wind that pass us by. All the while, the powerful Connecticut  pulls round its ‘Honey Pot’ curve, sending sprials eddying as the urgent waters press by the firm riverbanks on their way.

Today all creatures that thrive on insects are happily filling themselves, the bright blue, cinnamon and white summer swallows streaming in wide, elegant arcs overhead, and then with remarkable agility, swooping across the waters, feeding themselves and their young. Many days, there is a grouping of thousands of young fishlets of one kind or another, traveling down en masse, their bodies not visible, but the circular ripples made by their evening gusto of dinner sprinkled all across the waters. It took me years to begin to notice these populace of the river, and I never know what type of fish either was released, old enough, or began traveling down with their own timing, at just the right moment in development for them to leave some small protected enclave and be large enough to survive the passage. So often, if you stand and look for the rippling, you suddenly realize the magnitude of the population of young fish being carried in the current, down down toward their destination. When I mention this to known and unknown fellow river visitors, they shake their heads in amazement, once the SEE the signs of the masses of young creatures, living quietly alongside  our own selves.

It is a quiet evening on the river, no Herons or Hawks today, even the Blazing Yellow Finch absent. When one visits one place, day after day, an intimate bond begins to form, together with the gradual knowledge of the cycles of the place; the movement and timing for each wildlife creature and plant, each that come and go, have offspring, bring forth leaf and bud and flower, all in a choreography of sustainable wisdom.  The herbalist, sea vegetable farmer,  contemplate, and writer Larch Hanson speaks of this as a ‘Sense of Place’, a part of life so essential and yet quickly losing ground in today’s fast funny life full of things to want and all distractions that have that capacity to keep us…from our own selves.

As an herbalist, I watch the lives of so many plants that, for themselves, hold various healing properties, and for humans and other creatures, have support they provide also, as each one comes into fruition and then, their time  spent, passes by.

As an herbalist, I watch the lives of so many plants that, for themselves, hold various healing properties, and for humans and other creatures, have support they provide also, as each one comes into fruition and then, their time  spent, passes by.

We reach the end of the path, and the pup stares at the sign blocking further access, a bit curious, a bit on guard with the strange object. I laugh, tell him it’s fine, as we turn about,  retrace our steps. A blustering June wind picks up, shuffling the grass heads heavy with rain, blowing through the trees lining  the ancient river bank, as The Connecticut  makes its age-old way.

6.13.13 Loveliness, At Each and Every Turn

I’m just finishing up with a three year old client, after a rousing game of marble chute,  and then a particularly funny book read by their parent, as I align their small spine and tonify organs, applauding as great masses of marbles fly about , and then laughing at the silly story their parent finishes as we end. Leaving them to close up the waiting room so they can take their time, I step outside my office and have the glorious surprise of Tessah (1) and her Guardian, waiting for me under the eaves of the front walk as the rain splatters into the garden.

Smiling, she is wiggly with delight at appearing unexpectedly, and we all embrace hello, then decide a walk along the rail trail over the Connecticut would be just the thing for a rainy day like today.

In the car, she explains that today at preschool was a special beginning-of-summer-and-insects fair, complete with special projects. I had showed her a yellow spider I found in my bathroom this past week, who had made a sac to live in. I had looked up ‘Yellow Sac Spider’, and discovered that was her actual name, being a somewhat poisonous and problematic visitor from Europe. We had admired her iridescent body and her finely spun sac, before moving her carefully to the woods, and Tessah reported this and more at the summer-insect celebration.

 I have a fondness for insects and creatures, so she often helps take photos and we sometimes sit and draw what we see after tromping about the yard or woods, on visits, reminding each other of recalled details as we pick up and put down crayons. She is fond of drawing very very large things, so sometimes we use a roll of paper, in order to attain true proportion.

At times, when her Guardian comes to pick her up, we have some many-legged creation that has unfurled the length of the long galley kitchen floor, the German Shepherd pup restrained with great complaint in the front hall, while we sing songs and she talks incessantly about what part she is now working on and why its nails are like this or why it has so many many pokey-out eyes, and that sort of important thing.

It is often imperative while drawing together to burst into song, and the songs usually come bursting  out of her, pertain to the creature  or the Tessah we are drawing , what they did or saw or ate. The other (me)  then picks up the song when she is quiet for awhile, and carries it , til  possibly the younger of us becomes bored NOT being the one singing, and cuts in, ramping up the volume as she takes hold of our song, and rambling off with it while I sit back in amazement, trying hard not to smile as-if-she-is-so-cute, (which she HATES, and notices very easily. So watch out. )

Today in the car she tells me she gets to wear her special fuzzy pink sweater with the bug buttons , because, wonder of all wonders, it is cool out today. She shows me her hair clips restraining her irrepressibly curly brown hair, her stretchy bracelets adorning her small wrists, and her oh so pink rubber boots specially designed for a splashy walk the likes of which we  now go enjoy. With unrestrained gusto. Ending up terribly wet, of course.

Later, back at her house, she stands in the doorway of her bedroom waiting patiently for me, so we can climb upon into her tree house bed and admire the long green papers  hanging from the ceiling to simulate a forest. We sit up there, cross legged, after our splashy stroll, while she describes her friends, not liking boys, her best friend (a boy), what she dreamed last night , and we imagine hearing sounds of all kinds of animals that live in her forest, and maybe people who are from other lands who will become her friends,  which she will then be busy drawing for days after.

I tell her stories of meeting her when she was an infant, and the years since, all her perfect ages, as she grows so fast and furiously, wandering about the world so confident and loved and Tessah-ish, unlike anyone else ever.

We end our visit sitting in  their kitchen while she cuddles with her Guardian, us swapping favorite Tessah stories and past adventures we all have shared, while she basks and shines, then, predictably gets bored and itchy, scrambling off  to draw on the part of her bedroom wall she gets to draw on, creating huge make believe animals. Later she will get someone to write down the make believe names, listing them patiently, because she is four and a HALF , after all, and despite all her remarkable abilities, still needs some help with some things.

Her Guardian and I bask also, recalling the unspeakable circumstances she was whisked away from soon after birth, luckier than many, sadder than some, to be raised with such love and stability and amazement of who this small person is.

And at times, I see the vestiges of the wounds from long ago, the small separation from her self that still lingers.  But these things do happen in our lives, do they not? And here she is, seeing, hearing, tasting, knowing her true loveliness at each and every turn.

Hugging her busy, wiggly self goodbye, I leave her to her creations as she describes to herself what each creature is doing, making my way to my car and my home and my life, filled to the brim in my heart.

(1) some facts changed to retain privacy

6.5.13 Plantlings and Fishlings and Now Alone Herons

     
                                              Aaaccckkk, so good to have all the rain on and off, certainly. but our CT river outwaters are working overtime to breed mosquitoes, and all those starving females !! Have to wear a raincoat and layers and spray essential oils on you every 10 minutes to avoid being eaten alive.     
                                            
                                             Still, its that intoxicating early gardening phase, where you have ALL the ideas and ALL the dreams; where you look around you, and what you see is what you imagine will happen, not what is actually there. 

                                            I love this phase. I pretend amnesia of the frequent third phase, where you have successfully mulched a bit more than the previous year, but still, the awful multi-rooted-where-ever-its-greedy-little-legs-can-reach grass begins to DOMINATE. 

                                            The mosquitoes begin really to get tiring, as you parry early sunny mornings in hope of darting between them to get gardening done...to afternoon attempts,to forgetting all about any possibility of sitting out at night and relishing the loveliness of what is growing so well. 

                                             Then we have the furtive early morning yogurt-container-with-soapy-water-in-hand routine, as you sneak up upon the Japanese beetles and pop them with great gardener agility into the soapy water, to die...quickly. I stand there, popping them in, so many of them in multiple mating postures, saying 'sorry, sorry, and sorry', as I go. 

                                              This year, I finally actually gave appropriate plant food. Go figure. To the acid loving Azaleas and Mountain Laurels and HOlly and Bayberry. To the Roses, who have exploded before my eyes. To the other plants and little trees, all fed and greedily growing so fast.

                                                In the meantime, the zillion plantlings in the little tiny six packs I so optimistically and greedily planted are growing so fast, as I get bits of weeding done here, then there, beginning to think about where on earth I will put them, or, yes, who might want flats of these huge tall pink and white and purple zinneas, or 1,000 Cosmos, 4 kinds,  or how about the 100 perennial Salvias, and better yet, those sure-to-be-delicious 1 million lupine babies......oh my. And so much more. 

                                                  Possibly, gardening is a condition, or even a disease, where we manifest both our joy of mixing our feet and hands deep into the soil, have conversations with plants and insects, sit back on our heels and watch as the baby Phoebes consider leaping from the nest, observe the Broadwing Hawk announce their territory overhead, meet up with the old toads who have lived here for years and escaped the intermittent gardner snake's jaws. The chipmunks finally making themselves known, coming up to windows to catch the eye and ire of the four felines.

                                                 If this is a condition,I accept it with grace and gratitude. Somehow what most of us come to learn, over time, is that the actual appearance of the garden, despite that joy, comes sauntering in a distant second...to the actual mindful timelessness that seeps into us while crouched upon hands and knees, ferrying objects and wheelbarrows back and forth, wiping sweat and rain and dust from our foreheads, puttering about saying hello and checking in on all the small places, and then sitting , swatting those self same mosquitoes, while drinking in the experience of each lovely spot that somehow becomes its own place.

                                                 A few years ago, I had my Acupressure/Herbalist offices here, one in the cottage to teach bodyworkers, and one in the house, so we could have multiple Apprentices seeing multiple clients, and I would go from one room to another, supporting and teaching and showing and working. There was one chipmunk who was fond of climbing up into the Mountain Laurel next to the house,  who would regularly sit and watch, undeterred, as clients were worked upon. I cannot imagine what it seemed like to them, or how they became so interested, but there they were, day after day, perched, turning their head this way and that, like a tiny dog listening to a small song.

                                                 Now, each evening, dogs and I escape to the river, the old dog relishing one small thoughtful walk, snuffling and making all the rules, then brought back home so that I and the German Shepherd pup, Dante can have a more vigorous stroll, not too long for a pup who will be enormous, but enough. 
              

                                                  All along the river, on different days, are different fishlings feeding on the surface, the river glistening and moving like a living thing, as insects swarm above it, an occasional big splash of big fish probably chowing down...on fishlings, all of them streaming fast down the river in its powerful current. 

                                                 The Great Blue Heron couple of many years, who had nest after nests of beautiful babies to be seen feeding on the rivers edge by themselves as the summer came to an end, was sighted last fall after one injured their wing, in distress alongside the river's path. Now there is only one solitary and beautiful bird, seen daily by us all, irrevocably returning to the same area as they have for years, at night, minus their much beloved mate.  

                                                Dante and I begin our stroll back toward the car, numerous people stopping to admire his stand-up ears, his fluffy baby self, as he slowly grows taller with each passing day, greeting each and every person delightedly, as if the whole world was explicitly for his delight alone. 

                                                 Years ago I was in a room with so many two year olds. And as someone began to applaud, each and every one turned and fully believed the applause, of course, was for them. I loved that, that not-crushed-yet expectation that any applause would be especially...for you.

6.1.13 June Lust

     After my daughter and boyfriend and Pitty leave this Sunday afternoon, I fall , besotted, into garden immersion. The nice white sneakers my older son gave me, with visions of some pristine mama jogging down the road...gradually fill with dirt and mud and hose water.                                                                                                                                              .     I have been very lustful and greedy, unable to use only some seeds from each packet, so I go and spawn millions of small new plants..which will fit...somewhere.                                                                                              Filled I am with that June lust, in my blood and spreading slowly over the hills.                        .       The first summer storm comes up over the range, splashing its wild-looking clouds across the sky, that in turn wildly race by, tossing about heat lighting and mumbling possibility.  

                                                                                                                                                        .           .    While I pitchfork here and dig there and welcome three false indigos from the local garden store, and the  two tiny hollies that wintered over in the kitchen, now delightedly introduced to the real life of outside...of rain and mist and the endlessness of real soil instead of tiny pot.                                                                                                                               .     You remember plants converse, right? That trees assist each other. I can't recall right now the name of that wonderful woman and scientist who finally utilized machines to prove what we knew all along.                                                                                 .     So i say (needlessly, silly human, nevertheless )..Holly , meet Heuchera. Heuchera, Holly, as I dig happily into the land, my fingernails caked, knees thick with dirt.                                         .     The air crackles: I look up to see the swift moving skies, the serenade of some parent Hawk calling their young, the sweep of the Phoebe darting back and forth as they feed their nestlings in the moss and mud creation of a nest, under the eaves and upon the outside light.                                                                                                                             .      Rain finally begins, politely at first, as I continue my crazed happiness-  children grown and happily gone, partner off on an adventure.                                                                      .       I am drinking in the solitude, the freedom of choice, the deliciousness of following, for the first time in my life, after parenting siblings and children, my own simple lead.                                                                                                                                                .        Pouring luscious seedling soil into more and more little packets of pots, I spill more seed, pressing down gently, the German Shepherd pup watching the lightning, unfazed.  The inevitable downpour is  now approaching on the heels of the heightened wind , which stirs the trees across the field like capricious , stumbling dominoes. All along the range the gusts race through the valley, and then on down to the river.                                                                                                                                               .         My young beloved canine's long puffy baby hair begins to soak, as he sits, assuming that if I am out here, so shall he be.                                                                              .     We take a break, getting some freshly cooked chicken pieces, and  off leash he is!!                                                                                                            Heel, sit, come, stay. I am giddy with his 10 week old brilliance, as we briskly stroll about the back yard, as this welcome summer storm properly ramps up.                                           .     I finally bring the little one in, then rush back out to rip out weeds and pop yearning Spikenards and Elecampagnes and Valerians into the soil, their cramped white rootlets poked and prodded, then settled into their long awaited home of rich river soil. The lighting laces the sky, silent but visually explosive, as  a beautiful array of  spiders rush away with their tender egg sacks in hand, alarmed by my ardent weeding, beetles of all colors following suit.                                                                                                                           .     Now the downpour arrives, wetting everyone, giving freely to the thirsty water table, cleansing the air, the sky bright pink eventually, as I gaze at filthy hands, mud encrusted jeans, dirt streaked face, hair soaked with mosquito-hating essential oils, standing in the midst of the torrent passing slowly through the neighborhood.                                                                                    .      In the deepening nightfall, I watch waves of rain billow across the field, through Aspens and Sassafras and Sumac.                                                                                                                          .       Finally inside, I drop sopping sneakers at the door, and further in, create a pile of sodden, fragrant clothes.  My beloved old dog stiffly comes round the corner, drawn by the earth soaked smells, snuffling with delight.                                                                     .       .       The pup now insists upon taking a shower with whomever is in there, sleeping in the tub in between times, or wrapping himself around the cool toilet so often that I obsessively wash it daily. So, tonight, Into the shower  he launches himself, relishing the wonder of splashing water everywhere, me laughing at what a funny small, soon to be enormous, boy he is, joining us here in this melee of an ark of four footeds.  How different, at 60, to watch some small new member of the family feel the wind for the first time, find himself strangely drawn to pulling his paws through the dirt, over and over, until the cool soil beneath is sniffed and laid upon, in some brand new delight.                                                                                                                                               .         Outside the row of  kitchen windows that peer out into the distance, the storm has now passed. The garden and hills and live things are wet and shining in the bright sky sunset, pink and singing to the last.

5.30.13 There She Was, Everywhere At Home

How can I describe how I came upon her, walking quietly in her wooded neighborhood, one late afternoon?

Somewhat lost in the backwoods of Shutesbury, unable to discern one direction from another, no road signs, virtually no inhabitants, as a brief torrential storm began, we drove slowly past a small overgrown cottage …peering out car windows through thick sheets of  rain and the sudden summer wind at  two adult Wild Turkeys, and their tiny clutch of babies, huddled beneath a old crabtree.  

Up one pot-holed road, down another, we veered round corners, gently making our way, no rush to  our  destination.

Finally the sky cleared, and we were surrounded by all living things wetted and thirst quenched, the wetlands and ponds numerous and wild, a blue heron here, wild ducks there, as we slowly drove along the rutted road.

I won't forget her face, as we came upon her, turning slowly toward our approaching car,  long of powerful sinew, jeans and a sleeveless shirt, gangly huge dog loping by her side, her gait of inimical indifference .

Pulling up alongside, who were we, slowing and excusing ourselves, asking our whereabouts?

And look upon us she did,  gaze certain and unyielding as she took us in, nut brown hair cropped inveterately, the two slowing their pace.

And politely she did give us direction, standing now solid and sure before us , for just one economical moment.

I did see her, then.Everywhere at home.

There in her forest and its ancient dirt roads, her canine companion looking guardedly in the car window, a warning in the dark grave eyes, until we thanked her, and proceeded down the road. 

Looking back for a moment, there, the dog did then relax, returning to her side in communion, as they continued once again.

As we resumed our own way, I found myself seared with the depth of her grey eyes. The underscore of stories upon her face, her limbs, her movements. The wisdom of her four footed guardian.

And, too, the stippled scars covering the length of  her beautiful arms; hundreds of age-old slices. Each with its own history, its own song, its own telling of a vital time.  You could almost hear, against all of the rules, each time with its own ancient call and respond. 

This so many, sadly, discover, in their distress, and then so many know not of.

For there are those who harm and injure, and create this necessity. And then deny and push off to another land. Leaving behind the object of their tragic injuries, and all of the unspoken songs and tales and times.

Yet too, here, all were healed. Every moment expressed, secrets told, and somehow over time, not repeated again. So the scars and their fissures seemed replete with evidence of a badge of survival. A brandishing, in those soothing, isolated woods, of certainty, of restoration.

Mended, beautifully, the story told, the song sung, the woman somehow triumphed, and possibly now become whole

 Now safe, now accompanied by her protective companion, deep in these soothing woods.  Arms bared to the trees and the storms and the wind and the heavens, singing their song, and at times, to the occasional passerby.

“Here I am”, I heard as we  drove past,” Witness me everywhere at home.”

Years ago, yet I remember her still.