Ganga Giri Alert

Ganga Giri will be playing the Vancouver Folk Festival this July!!

I saw him perform last year on the island and he is AWESOME. Check out his website: Ganga

I was transported by the music and his multi media show to the place of the ancestors. I highly reccomend his show.

More Garden

Its hard to see here, but I have placed a rubber snake in amongst my strawberries.
No birds have raided them but most have been eaten by the little grey sow bugs.
Hey Mr. Anchovy! Here's my allium, finally blooming. Thats sage, oregano, lemon balm and savoury in the background. Mr. Anchovy has some beautiful garden photos on his Blog(link to the right).

The view from here

Here is the view from the deck. Also from the kitchen window.
Taken from a slightly different angle to see the willow tree down
by the pond. One can see the pond in the winter when there are not so many leaves.

After reading Eckhart Tolle's "Power of Now", I lived in an altered state for awhile.
I can still access that state by being firmly rooted in the present moment. So that The view from Here becomes interesting and enough. Seeking ends.
This is especially helpful when a relationship is changing, or when I am waiting to hear from the bank. (like now)
I'm useing this oppoprtunity to dive into this moment, to be fully present with my life in each second, otherwise I could go into a tailspin of anxiety and grief. I am not against feeling my feelings, I do, but I don't like it when thats all I can see/feel/do. Often what is really happening in this moment is really gentle and beautiful, nothing to do with my thoughts.

The Problem with Fresh Eggs

I love wandering out into my own yard and collecting fresh eggs from the hens nests and feeding my family. Its a great feeling. HOWEVER, keeping chickens has its drawbacks. Last night around 2am I was awakened by horrible screaming, I knew immediately that it was one of my chickens. I stumbled out my door, flicking outdoor lights on and throwing rocks at the same time. When I got to the coop there was a squawking white hen, disoriented but otherwise ok. I shooed her back into the house and locked it up. I went back to bed, glad that I was able to protect them. In the morning, I was shocked to see what was left of one of the red hens. I guess I didn't see her in the dark or that she was already half way up the Douglas fir in the jaws of the raccoon. I don't know. I will be on extra alert the next few nights, as I will need to discourage the raccoons from using my chicken coop as a restaurant.

Deck progress

We are over half way to a completed deck. First, we had Ken, the carpenter/architect, with his assistant, Charlo. The we had the "decking" laid by a vinyl deck company. I got to pick the color! I was excited ay the possibilities until I saw my choices. I was disappointed to see a very limited selection. I chose "Adobe".
Next, we are waiting for the railing company. I get to choose the color for the railing as well. I think I will tie in the color of the roof.
This project has taken over a year. Throughout the winter, we were dismantling the old deck. I heat the house with a wood stove, so when I needed wood, Jim would go out on to the rotting deck and saw off a bit. It was very satisfying re-useing, re-cycling in this way, yet hilarious at the same time.

Unsung talent

Here are the talented people working on my deck.
I really appreciate their talent.
Charlo Gouin is a musician, check him out at www.bossaloca.com.

When he is not accompanying his girlfriend on guitar in their band he is constructing..so versatile!

Ken is the boss of the show. He has done some amazing work around our place over the years.
Thanks Ken!

Jesse is hard at work as well. Nothing makes a mother's heart swell quite as much as seeing her teenager volunteer his time and talent to the family.
Thanks Jesse!

Deck project

The deck has been framed and now we are working on putting on the plywood. When I say, "we", I mean the carpenters that I hired. My son stayed home from high school yesterday to catch up on his sleep, so he ended up being their helper. He was awesome.

I really appreciate the talent of other people, I learned from experience that I cannot build a deck. The carpenter was refered to me by the mother of little girl that I cared for over the years. She was like one of the family (as all my daycare children are) anyway, he's her grandfather. I like the friendliness of knowing the family and getting to know the grandfather now. Hes a very cool guy.

Toltec point of view

In the Post below I wrote out the 4 Agreements, from the book, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.
From the 1970's, when I started reading Carlos Casteneda, I have been a fan of the Toltec perspective. The 4 agreements came out in the late 1990's and I was thrilled to re-visit my Casteneda memories from a different perspective.
March 2004 I went to Teotihuacan (as seen in the movie, "Frida") to spend time with Don miguel, his son Michael and a host of Toltec Teachers.
Thats me on the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, a hat and scarf being my sunscreen. I really have an aversion to slathering on creams with chemicals in them. I had my head down in contemplation. It was a great moment. I loved every minute of my trip.

The Four Agreements

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don't Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you wonít be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don't Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

Today in the garden

Today I tidied up the walk way that I am developing.
I decided to use "drain rock' because it is very cheap. Then I've been adding rocks as I find them to give it a random river-bed look.
I've been collecting driftwood and shells too.

The large rectangle rock was unearthed in the backyard when I was having my septic feild redone. I asked the backhoe driver, Steve, to please bring it to my garden.
I had to dig a fairly deep hole to place it in, to make sure that it wouldn't fall on any unsuspecting garden stroller.

When I put a very heavy quilt out to dry on one of the gates to the pasture, I found a little friend seeking refuge here.

horse friends

Three Poems of Robinson Jeffers

Rock and Hawk

Here is a symbol in which

Many high tragic thoughts

Watch their own eyes.



This gray rock, standing tall

On the headland, where the seawind

Lets no tree grow,



Earthquake-proved, and signatured

By ages of storms: on its peak

A falcon has perched.



I think, here is your emblem

To hang in the future sky;

Not the cross, not the hive,



But this; bright power, dark peace;

Fierce consciousness joined with final

Disinterestedness;



Life with calm death; the falcon's

Realist eyes and act

Married to the massive



Mysticism of stone,

Which failure cannot cast down

Nor success make proud.


Carmel Point

The extraordinary patience of things!

This beautiful place defaced with a crop of surburban houses-

How beautiful when we first beheld it,

Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;

No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,

Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads-

Now the spoiler has come: does it care?

Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide

That swells and in time will ebb, and all

Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty

Lives in the very grain of the granite,

Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff.-As for us:

We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;

We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident

As the rock and ocean that we were made from.

Summer Holiday

When the sun shouts and people abound

One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of

bronze

And the iron age; iron the unstable metal;

Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the tow-

ered-up cities

Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster.

Roots will not pierce the heaps for a time, kind rains

will cure them,

Then nothing will remain of the iron age

And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem

Stuck in the world's thought, splinters of glass

In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the

mountain...

Thankyou for the poems , Candy
and for all your Blog-starting-help!!!
love you.