I went up to stand in the yellow grasses on Yellow Hill, which is North of our house. In the fall these grasses are reddish, but right now, after the bleaching of winter, they are golden. I stood there as the wind whipped them back and forth in a mathematical wave. I haven't been at the ocean but the once, and it was not for long, but I imagine this must be what the tide feels like. I have seen boat wakes come in at the lake while standing chest-deep in the water. It was almost like that, but with tall feathers that bounced in the shadows back and forth around you.
our cat Loki smooshed into a blanket on the bed
I thought I would go stand in the world 'as it is' for a bit today, while the sun was nice, and the temperature had reached fifty. I put on my big heavy boots and trudged up there, and confused the dogs terribly by going into the grass instead of walking down the long road to the other mailbox and back as usual.
Those moments when no one is watching and you can smile and feel the golden light enter and linger.. the gift from the Universe for participating. That thing. Just for a moment. When the wind came over me like a tide, bounced against the edge where the grasses end, and then reverberated backwards around me again the other direction. Just a little bit, I can see the wind - the infra-red changes like mirage in the air - but this was so clear anyone could have seen it if they were in the right place to look and stood still. The wind was swirling and I was in it and in the grasses which were showing it all in real time / space when most people cannot see the wind at all but it is still there. That golden feeling comes in lots of other places, too - but sometimes it is this other flavor of 'found you hiding there' / 'amused in the simplicity of it all'. I don't have words for that. I'll think more about it.
And when I had laughed at the world with me in it, in this unlikely place at this time, when moments before I was sitting where I am now, drinking coffee in a technical environment - I walked back briskly wondering about ancestors and growing cycles, grinding lentils into flour with the touch of a button, or knitting a sock with every stitch small in wool yarn with needles by hand. It is a strange world we find ourselves in. But I still try to pry my head up out of the routine once in a while and feel my place in it, because I know it is always changing, the world, and the me.
I picked up a rock on my way home, one of those red ochre sandstone bits with the waves in it of white and red. I felt the rock all the way home with the rhythm of those big boots on the gravel. And I thought about being in the world. Before I climbed my stairs to the house I set the rock in a garden brick, face-up, as I had met it, and left it as just one more bit in my human altered landscape of seeds, plants, rocks and dirt.
I've been hoping I can do more in the garden this year, continue on that path I had been working with on this land. I am grateful I can see better now. But the seeds will never grow unless planted. And it takes more than a day for seeds to germinate, thoughts as well. You just have to keep giving it water and sunshine and pulling out the weeds and knowing where you are and where you would like to be.
Recipe:
HEAT OVEN to 375 degrees
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
what was probably 1/4 plus a bit of salt
perhaps 1/3 cup of quick oats?
1 store single-serve container of unsweetened applesauce
dash of saigon cinnamon (the strong stuff)
1 egg
probably 1/3 cup of whole milk
About 1/3 of a stick of butter, melted
mixed the flour and baking powder and salt together
in my little blender, put the oats and the applesauce together (freehand)
removed the blender from it's base - mixed the egg in with a spoon
filled the blender the rest of the way up to the overflow with milk
melted the butter in a little bowl in the microwave
put it all together into the flour mixture and mixed
spooned the milky oatmeal mixture into six cups of my deep muffin pan
baked in oven at 375 degrees for 10 minutes, 350 degrees for probably 30-35 minutes - the butter was glistening up in the little pores in the muffins and the edges looked brown.. just the slightest hint of brown was beginning to show on the peaks of the muffins.
They may have, to most people, benefited from brown sugar and vanilla.
I just smeared peanut butter on mine after breaking it open and it was good.
might try the 'cake' version next time but it will change the texture, too
I've had this yoga mat for years. Once in a while I get it out and try to crack my back out and work out something that has hitched. Of course, anyone who has had a yoga mat and a dog at the same time will identify perfectly with these two sketches. Hi, can I help you *SLURP* and I love doing what you're doing (sit on you)
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