I am very appreciative of so many very tasty things this past year especially the inspiration to begin this blog and to continue with it.  I am excited to be able to more fully experience 2013 and hope you will enjoy some of those fruits, right here, as time goes by.

There was the sound of desert water this morning and I had a very hard time narrowing this down to the three pictures of awesome desert droplets below.  I especially love the heart in the second one.  Enjoy!

Beautiful!

…wondering why I had not done this one thing from my ‘4 1/2 days’ list from last week.  It was the ‘listen to music and dance’ one.  What came up was that I really cherish, even more, the silence.  Further, that way out here in the desert it is often very quiet and then otherwise the ‘noise’ is birds, bugs, wind, etc.  I am very out of touch with urban sound.  And when I crave somewhere else, it is near water sound-waves, streams, rivers, even rain. 

oh gosh…I just realized that the third picture reminds me of Indra’s Net…
amazing what there is reflected in a drop of water and we just don’t see it…

I absolutely love the picture of the rainbow in your backyard and the ‘soft cactus’. How magical a rainbow is to us all. It seems that’s one of those special things that starts when we are children and never diminishes as we age. It’s just magical!

I love this post. I love the pictures. Great work!

I think you are painting with the camera.

Lovely!

Amazing photos Gale! And sentiments to remember. Thank you.

We wish for you and your loved ones in 2013 and beyond:

An abundance of beauty in all its varieties.

The ability to see and recognize the beauty through the hustle, bustle of our days, to pause and cherish it.

The courage and support to make the ending/beginnings that you desire.

To feel deeply your connection to all of earth and especially its precious humans.

The pictures are some recent beauty from this lovely desert. 

I had never seen a rainbow’s end so close to the house before.  This was during our most recent rain after 3 months of not-a-drop.  I already know that this really is all a huge pot of gold out here.

The view from inside out of a downed sahuaro, with some color manipulation, looks like an exotic bloom.

How could a cluster of prickly cactus needles look so soft and tender?

I love the glisten of moisture on this bug wing, the contrast yet similarity of texture and structure of the wing and the palm of the hand.

I hope one coalesces for you in this new year. Several of us met last night and did everything on the list except we didn’t get to the dancing…yeah!

I never heard of ball lightning before. Wow. That must have been some experience!

I love to read your posts.
My list is similar to yours, but I would like to have a ladies tea group.
:-)

I love the
elemental qualities of fire.  Unlike
other elements, it requires the
participation of the other elements in its being.  It requires fuel which is from the earth and
it requires air for the process of combustion to occur.  And though you think of water as putting fire
out, fire actually liberates and frees water from grasping onto its complex hydrocarbon
containers.  That is why you get those
huge clouds over forest fire, huge amounts of water vapor and heat is being
released. 

complex carbohydrate + spark + air = carbon dioxide + water vapor +
heat

Appreciating fire
for its heat this morning, as it is the first freeze of the season up here.  There is an art, or at least a process, to
making a fire.  Mix dry, crumpled,
individual sheets of paper and small, small pieces of wood, layer with lots of
space/air between, some small pieces of wood over that, than the large pieces can
go over the top after the bottom has caught. 
I wondered if that could be an analogy or metaphor for how humanity
might take on new ideas and change.  A
critical mass of grass roots igniting, taking in larger and larger entities
until institutions are consumed too.  And,
of course, a mega spark, like lightning, can consume huge ‘pieces’ rather
quickly.

There was a
favorite snag, what had been a huge ponderosa pine, next to Horseshoe Cienega
Lake where we spent many, many summers. 
We visited it daily because it was on the far side of the lake, where
there were seldom other people and the dogs could be off leash.  Often, one of the family of osprey that spent
the summer up there with us, was sitting in the tippy top looking for, or
consuming, trout from the lake.

Around midnight one
night during monsoon season a great storm broke out.  You are at 8500 feet elevation there, so it
seems you are IN the storm and not just under it.  The lightning and thunder was unusually close
and all four dogs were up in the bed. 
Raziel, the oldest, is the most afraid, and was trembling in my lap and
insisted on being comforted.  So I sat up
and enjoyed the brilliant flashing and crackling, thinking that we were safe,
that the rubber tires grounded the trailer. 
Truly a high point in my life, and it was just about to go over the top.  About 20 feet away, in a small clearing amongst
the tall pines, a ball lightning, St. Elmo’s fire, appeared.  I questioned my vision and sanity, but it was
there, 3 to 4 foot diameter, just floating above the ground for about 2
seconds. Holy shit!!

Next morning, there
was absolutely no evidence of the ball lightning, but we found the snag ¾ consumed
and still standing, smoking like a giant cigar. 
It took several days to go out; then the skinny stick that was left fell
to the ground to rot out in the ‘normal’ way of wood. 

Sometime I feel
like that ball lightning.  I get a flash
of inspiration and clarity, but I am isolated and floating and can’t pass the
inspiration on, and then it is gone, the ‘everyday’ consumes me and the spark,
and there is no evidence of it.  It would
be nice to be more like the snag and slowly smolder for a few days, luxuriating
in the dissolve.  Or, to be a piece of
dried kindling with my tribe of kindling and start a really big fire.

We have been plagued
with forest fires here in the west lately. 
It takes prolonged drought, crispy dry. 
It takes lots of small pieces (as opposed to the open park like
structure of old growth forest).  It
takes lots of wind and moving air (air as a symbol of intellect).  It takes a spark.  After, everything has dramatically changed
and YOU CAN’T GO BACK.

are you ready?

this is the fallen snag…i love that it is in a cross formation!!

We are
consciousness,

spark, come into
complex carbohydrates,

organics

forming various and
assundry

containers for
water

to move about
FREELY

among other organics

that have taken on
various other levels of spark,

to visit, to
witness, to appreciate

the delicious
complexity

that is patterned
as

fractal within
fractal.

We play among the
continuum from spark to organic being

with a rich chaos of
thought and emotions

in the between.

I woke in the middle
of the night with this phrase in my head, “you have 4 ½ days to live”.  Coincidentally that day is 12/21/2012.  I did just watch the movie ‘Seeking a friend for
the end of the world” before I went to bed, so….But as the first words out of
my husband’s mouth this morning were about guns and recent horrors, I thought
this was the perfect phrase to live by for the next 4 ½ days.  We spent the next half hour talking about how
we would live these last 4 ½ days of our lives. 
You may think at first glance that this is macabre, but it turns out to
be exactly the opposite.  Maybe you can
give it a try.  I will be constantly
bringing myself back to this during this week, especially when things seem to
go awry. 

So here are 10 that I came
up with rather easily:

-Take longer walks
and more often.

-Make chocolate cake
and eat it with champagne.

-Listen to music I
love and dance really hard.

-Have deep and
imaginative conversations with friends.

-Watch the sunrises,
sunsets, and night skies.

-Have tea with my
ladies.

-Hug everyone I see
deeply and take them into my heart.

-Breathe consciously
and be extremely present in my body.

-Snuggle and spoon
with my husband and my dear pets.

-Only ‘do’ what I
have to do and lose ALL the ‘shoulds’.

 Consider ‘commenting’
on  something you would do.

I really want to be careful about not adding self righteousness to the craziness.  This is just about how I am feeling and not like I know what is right/wrong, good/bad, or have any idea even remotely approaching a possible solution.  I am moved to put this out there…so here goes…