Up all night birthing a goat

At morning’s first light–before a busy day–slowly scrolling down the Facebook home page.

Marvelling at the differences in friends, family and acquaintances.  Marvelling that I’m not feeling irritated at the differences this morning–that the mind is not judging, sorting, categorizing as it loves to do.

Instead, look at the sparks of God!

This one ponders if she’ll be up all night birthing a goat.

A week-old baby goat. OK, I didn’t help birth it.

Fare thee well, fallow fields and yet another blogging break

Time to leaf you…

And now…it’s time for this one to take another blogging break.

Yes, you knew this would happen, didn’t you?

You recognize the pattern, don’t you, even though I’ve tried to deny it?

Some of us create, create, create, create…and then our fields must lie fallow as we renew, as we build up the soil of our creativity.

As the chill of November deepens, as the winds whip to a frenzy on Lake Superior, as the snowflakes scurry and spin…some of us heed the call to turn inward, to dream, to listen to the deepest inner voice whispering between pine needles, between scurrying autumn leaves scuttling on the frozen earth.

Last time I took one of these regular breaks a couple of you expressed concern, worry.  No, my friends!  Never worry about me while on retreat.  I am happy, somehow, at these times.  When the computer mostly turns off, when the emphasis turns inward, something in my soul sings like a cheerful chickadee.

(It sings in outward creativity and sharing, too, but it’s a different kind of song.)

As we turn toward the Thanksgiving holidays, I give thanks for all of you.

For your steadfast presence in my life.

For all the gifts you share with others.

For the gift of sharing your precious self, your unique thoughts, your individual gumption, your brightness, your magnificent beauty.  Your gorgeousness…

In my absence, please feel free to peruse my New and Revised blog roll.  Finally, after months and months, I’ve added new names & faces for you to enjoy.  I’ve deleted those who’ve passed by the wayside or remained silent so long that they’re composting into new friends.

Evergreen blessings!  May our hearts open further in gratitude in this upcoming season…

Life’s patterns…

P.S. The comments are turned off, dear readers, because we’re not saying goodbye, are we? We’re saying fare thee well, ye fallow field, ye. We’re shouting *over the river and through the woods* “Until we meet again! Fare thee well! Fare thee well!”

200,000 hits? Arms wide open…

Zig zag

You may have noticed a flurry of blogging here on Lake Superior Spirit lately.  (You haven’t?  You thought it was just ordinary blogging?)

I am here bright & early before work on a Monday morning to tell you–it’s been a flurry. 

Flurry, flurry, blogging flurry.

I would like to send you a Christmas card.

Old cards cut up...ready to make new cards

I would like to send you a Christmas card.

If you are a regular reader–

or commenter–

someone with whom we’ve formed a blogging relationship–

I would like to send you a Christmas card,

a token,

an appreciation for your presence in my life.

Every year, come December 1st, I send out 20-40 Christmas cards to loved ones, family, friends.

But this year I would like to send you a Christmas card, too, because you are dear to me.  Because you pause to read.  Because you care.

Please email with your snail mail address to:

(please put a comment in the “comment” section and I will respond to you by email)

and I will send you a Christmas card filled

with love and gratitude.

(It may even be a handmade one, too–or perhaps one with a Lake Superior Spirit photo on the front, even though it may be a flower or waves, thereby not looking like a Christmas card at all.)

Today does not look like Christmas at all. It's foggy, rainy and gray. However, we must start thinking about Christmas!

P.S.  If any spammers steal my email address–bad Christmas elves–may have to cut this offer short, so hurry and tell me soon!  The scissors, stickies, cards, photos and envelopes are ready.

I eagerly await creating something special just for you.

Love, Kathy

What is the opposite of Thanksgiving?

Larger view

Perhaps we all know what Thanksgiving is.  We know what it feels like.  Underneath all our turkey and stuffing, we know that Thanksgiving feels like gratitude, appreciation and love.  It smells like pumpkin pie mixed with joy.  It tastes like mashed potatoes whipped with the heart’s fairest harvest.  It is the giving of the feast of compassion, the giving of our deepest gifts.

But what is the opposite of Thanksgiving?

Closer view

Could it be the way we steer through our days on auto-pilot, concerned only about getting things done?  Concerned primarily about connecting the dots between A and B?  Could the opposite of Thanksgiving be our busy lives, our focused doing, our physical robotic movements?

Could the opposite of Thanksgiving be our forgetting to be grateful?  Our forgetting to marvel at the small gifts which life presents, moment after moment, hour after hour, day after day?  Could it be a sin of our attention?  As we focus on (you fill in the blank of your hectic schedule) do we simply give our attention to other things, forgetting to let the heart drink of appreciation and gratitude?

Closer

Is the opposite of Thanksgiving our tendency to focus on what’s wrong, what’s not working in the fabric of our days?  Are we focused on what’s ripped, what’s broken, what seems beyond repair?  Are our eyes and thoughts frantically attempting to fix, to sew, to knit new ways of existing?  Are we lost in our imperfection, our humanity, our feelings of wrongness?  Could this be the opposite?

Dock reflections

Are we ever simply ungrateful for what Life brings us?  Do we expect Life to bring us wine and roses, and mutter under our breath when it delivers compost and mud?  Do we think we deserve a basic standard of living or a millionaire’s dream?  Are we comparing ourselves with our neighbors and feeling envious?  Is this the opposite of Thanksgiving?

Do we think Thanksgiving is too much effort, or too silly, or impotent?  Do we think that it doesn’t really matter?  Do we not care?  Do we think gratitude is not a dove flying free above the trees, an orange sunset, the hug of a small child?

Ladder above and under water

Do we sometimes give from obligation, from tradition, from a heart partially squeezed shut in a frustration of too-much-materialism?  How much do we hold back from our family, friends, the world?  Is the opposite of Thanksgiving stinginess, clutching our gifts toward our own chests, attempting to fill an inner sense of lack, an inner suffering?

As we sit before our turkey or ham or green bean casserole, as we kneel our heads in prayer, as we smile at family members, shall we remember also the opposite of Thanksgiving?

And tomorrow–when we whip out our VISA cards and buy Christmas presents–can we remember again what Thanksgiving feels like and bring it into our daily busy lives, our tendency to forget, our focus on what’s missing?

Day is done. Gone the sun...

Thanks.  Giving.  Two simple words. 

Bringing them more fully into our daily lives may mean looking more deeply at why we choose other options between sunrise and sunset, why we grasp or push away Thanksgiving in our daily lives.

It’s not about feeling shame or guilt–wishing we could live Thanksgiving 24/7.  Instead it’s about finding space for these precious qualities in the ordinary moments of our day, in the rushing out the door, in the simple act of baking pie.  It’s a gentle reminder to ourselves:  Thanksgiving is now, when we choose to remember it.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends and family–from our Little House in the Big Woods

Deeper and wider seeing in 2011

Silver River. Silver snow.

Time to show you some more old friends. 

(Photos can be old friends, too, you know.)

Old car in woods

Scott Thomas has posted a photo assignment for us here at his blog Views Infinitum. 

Please feel encouraged to play along and post your “best” photos of 2011 on your blog.

Fountain, Central Park, NYC

I am afraid you may learn something–like I did.

Another day, another fountain. NYC.

I couldn’t begin to choose “best” photos, although some certainly stood out more than others.

Perhaps you, too, will learn that it’s easier to pick “favorites”. 

Old man pets dog

To choose photos which speak to your heart and memory.

Scott did say we could choose photos that had a special memory for us.

Yoga deer

All of these photos fill me with delight.

It’s amazing what the camera will capture.

Ladybug on the web of life

I never really think that it’s “me” taking the pics.  It still feels like the camera is taking the pictures and I get to be amazed to see what it decides to share.

Pow Wow boy

Looking back at old photos from old blogs, I am interested to see how pictures that now look–well–not so professional looking–once captured my heart beyond belief.

There is an innocence when you first begin taking photos, when you first begin seeing the world with different eyes.

As we “grow up” photographically, sometimes we begin to assess the photo in more discerning or judgemental ways.

Little girl at 4-H fair

Sometimes I long for the days of photographic innocence when my eye wasn’t as keen, as appraising.

Other times, I am grateful for developing some skill, for a better camera, for learning how to use photo-editing software.

Goose

I am grateful to the camera for teaching me better how to “see”.

Lake at sunrise

Learning to truly be present with our world, to see in more detail, can be a lifelong process, can it not?

Lake at sunset

Wishing us all that the weekend brings us deeper and wider seeing, more delighted seeing, more grateful seeing.

Glad to be on this Planet Earth with all of you!

Nothing can take away our memories

Mother-daughter splashing while sitting on dock

These photos come from our trip downstate last week. 

My daughter, Kiah, and I traveled “below the bridge” to what Detroiters call Northern Michigan.  It’s a 550 mile trip east and south to reach the Thumb of Michigan. (Look at your left hand with the thumb on the right hand side.  That’s your visual of what lower Michigan looks like.) 

We went to the very tippy-tip of the Thumb for Cheeseburger Weekend in Caseville, but before that we stopped at my other brother’s cottage in Bellaire.  All these pictures come from Intermediate Lake.

You remember Kiah, don't you? She's the daughter part of the splashing duo.

I grew up going up north to Intermediate Lake–from the Thumb–starting at age thirteen.  Took driver’s training on the backroads of Antrim County. 

Went roller skating with my little brother in downtown Bellaire one night in the 1970′s when a tornado decided to spin across the lake.  My mom, dad, brother and a friend dove beneath the heavy kitchen table to watch hydroplanes and lawn chairs flying outside the windows. 

We roller skated on in town, oblivious.  A neighbor had to drive us home in his pickup truck because too many downed trees filled our lane.  Luckily, no one was hurt. 

Sunset approaches over Intermediate Lake in northern Michigan (Lower Peninsula)

The night Kiah and I spent on the lake last week was peaceful, serene.

We bought Chinese take-out and drank some wine overlooking the docks and boats.

Rays of sunset

The cottage is now for sale.

We drank in the beautiful sights, attempting to hold the memories of the past close to our hearts.

We silently said, “goodbye”, in case the cottage sells. 

Docks and boats in morning fog

Before we left, I realized that nothing can ever take away our memories.  They remain in us always. 

Who knows, in this economic climate, whether our cottage will sell?  Perhaps I will re-visit you again, dear cottage…

Reflections

I’ve been feeling very quiet again lately.  Nothing much arises to say.  I try to think about what to share on a blog–and nothing surfaces. 

But who knows?  Maybe tomorrow a million words will come dancing through… smile…

Symmetry

 I think there is often a perfect symmetry in life–times to speak, times to be quiet.  Times to buy a cottage, times to sell a cottage. 

Beneath the boat

Reflecting a lot on the preciousness of life, of health, of family, of friends.

Blessings to all of you…

Life is a bowl of cherries and won’t you celebrate with me today?

Today's my birthday!

A native American elder once said, "On your birthday, be sure to thank your friends and family for the gift of knowing them." Therefore, dear reader, I thank you all sincerely and offer you a cherry and a wish!

Hot mama in the city (as in sweltering mama in the city)

Picture this.  Alarm peals at 4 a.m.  Quickly checking flight status on computer, getting dressed, kissing sleepy husband goodbye, starting the car.  Glimpsing a bear lumbering into the trees as you turn left past your road.  Driving mile after dark mile after dark mile through the woods, headed south and west.  

Lightening electrifies the sky with magnificent eerie beauty.  Rain spatters from the sky, then ceases, then spatters again.  You want coffee.  No open gas stations, no restaurants.  You drive for two hours before a gas station appears and you gratefully praise the God of Coffee, never once judging it as “gas station coffee”.  No you sip it gratefully, as if manna from the heavens.

You follow the muddled Google map directions through the itty-bitty city of Rhinelander, Wisconsin, feeling like you’re totally lost and will completely miss your flight.  But–another gift from the Universe!–the directions work and you drive up to the cutest little airport in the world and walk inside to hear, “Flight 708 for Minneapolis boarding now”.  What exquisite timing!

Then you fly west before boarding another plane toward the east and eventually look down through the window to glimpse the Statue of Liberty on a small island below the jet.  And–hark!–there lies the hundreds of skyscrapers of Manhattan, and the long green expanse of Central Park–and now the pilot announces we’re landing in Queens.  Queens, home to cheaper rents and millions of multi-cultural families and your very own daughter–and there, here she is now, waving from the baggage claim in her pretty long black dress!

You step outside.  Oh no.  Oh NO!  Heat like you haven’t felt in months and months immediately frizzles your hair.  You’re sweating, carrying your camera and heavy computer, even though your sweet daughter lugs your suitcase.  You get on the most crowded bus in the Universe.  The pertinent Question is How do you get off this bus?  But, sure enough, it works.  You nudge your way through the zillion people and alight on the sidewalk, sweating more heavily, and your daughter takes you for a run through Queens.  (OK, a fast walk.  OK, I didn’t tell her to slow down.)

Confucius sits atop red stool. He was carved from a single piece of wood.

Some, just some, of Diaa's many books. (He is a student of literature.)

Plant. Table. Window.

Distant city of Manhattan through apartment window in Queens

Last time I visited Ms. Kiah she lived in Manhattan in a higher-rent district.  Now, she and her boyfriend live in Queens among Greeks and Egyptians and Indians and dozens of other nationalities.  Some of the exterior buildings look more run down, but their apartment is newly remodeled and looks  so inviting!  Confucius perches on a red stool, overseeing the apartment.  I feel at home immediately.

Sweltering, but at home.  We sip tea.  We laugh, we talk, we fall into our usual mama-daughter pattern.  She lends me a black t-shirt and a fashionable white overshirt which remarkably fit (how did this happen?) and I don a skirt and we wander off through the streets of Queens, searching for a glass of wine which later turns into a strong Greek coffee–frappe–which keeps the traveler awake.

Later we meet her boyfriend, Diaa (born in Egypt, but who attended elementary school in NYC) as the subway pulls up.  We were headed to meet him at a Greek restaurant, but Kiah spots him on the train.  Hello, Diaa.  Hello, Kathy.  Hello, Kiah.  I met Diaa once, a couple of years ago, at a restaurant where both he and Kiah worked, but I didn’t remember him from the dozens of introductions.  Plus, they weren’t dating back then.

Confucius ponders

Kiah makes a delicious lunch!

Typical street in Queens

I like looking up at the patterns of fire escapes.

Bikes. Shadows of bikes. Mural on city wall.

Look! Another lover of the woods in the city...

Outdoor vegetables. Colorful!

We ate delicious Greek fish and Peasant Salad and lemon-butter potatoes and drank some more wine and got to know one another a little more.  It was after 9 p.m., dear reader!  This Mama Bear from the Forest usually goes to bed by 10 p.m.  And she had risen with the stars.  Thank goodness for that strong coffee.

The young ‘uns saw that Mama Bear was falterin’ so they hailed a taxi–which didn’t look anything like a taxi and made the forest lady suspicious–but, sure enough, turned out to be a taxi which any self-respecting New Yorker would know due to the license plate. 

She fell in bed like a zombie, exhausted, and slept and slept, and sweated and sweated, and awoke to a forecast for 97 degrees today.  The kids are still sleepin’.  Mama is already hot.  What will we do today?  Will it involve air conditioning or perhaps sweating off calories? 

Simple beauty...

Stay tuned for further adventures in the Big City.  One never knows what lies ahead…

A perfect ideal wonderful awesome incredible gorgeous magnificent day in the woods!

What you see when you walk outside our house at 8 a.m. in bare feet.

Quiet morning in the woods.

Actually, it’s not quiet at all.  People only think the forest is quiet.  Actually, it’s a noisy squawking pounding cackling world out there.  The woodpeckers drum on the rotten trees, searching for insects.  Robins and sparrows and 341 other species of flying creatures call, careen, sing, bicker, chirp and tweet.

Light begins to filter through the trees very early.  I’m not sure exactly what time.  (I’ll know on Tuesday morning when I hop in the car and drive way down to Rhinelander, Wisconsin, to catch my flight to NYC via Minneapolis.  Will probably have to depart around 4:30 a.m. although the final decision is still out.)

It gets dark late here in the Northwoods in June.  In less than three weeks (the Solstice, you know) it will be light until about 10:50 p.m.  Honest!  Part of the reason for this anomaly is that we sit directly north of Central Time Zone.  We probably should be in CTZ.  But we’re not.  So we enjoy sun late, late, late into the long summer nights.

Back to the woods.  (Oh, excuse me.  The intent for writing this blog today is to avoid starting work on my township checks and other book work.  Procrastination, you know.  Suddenly blogging seemed a much more appealing project!  Hank, that’s why you blog, Hank that’s why you take pics...see yesterday’s blog if these italicized words seem like gibberish.) 

But back to the woods.  Yesterday a wee bird flew into our window and sat, stunned, eyes closed, on the deck.  I almost stepped on the fellow while preoccupied with a luncheon plate, carrying it out to the deck table.  The bird refused to move.  It never budged when the big eye of the camera approached it–really close.  I photographed it for five minutes and it never blinked.

Poor injured little bird. Finch? Sparrow?

Suddenly it occurred that perhaps I shouldn’t be coldly clinically photographing the little stunned woodland creature.  Perhaps prayer and energy might help it re-awaken and fly away.  I tried to imagine energy filling it, healing it.  The bird opened its eye and blinked and tried to move.  It still couldn’t move.  Ahhh, let it rest awhile longer.  And later–I looked again–and it was gone.  Flown away.

Cheerful orange-breasted robin in maple

That’s when I noticed the red-breasted robin sitting in a nearby maple.  It’s the papa-robin watching over mama-robin in her nest beneath the deck. 

 And a flicker dug for worms or insects in the damp earth beneath the robin.

Flicker

Green, green, green leaves electrify the woods everywhere!  So do mosquitoes and the new hatch of black flies.  Just when the woods are the most beautiful, you don’t want to enter for fear of attack.  They like to lunch on tasty warm-blooded morsels.  Yes, you.  They would like to eat you for breakfast, lunch, dinner and sixteen snacks.  Just sayin’.

What happened to our black & white world?

Our garden is 86.5% planted.  After today it will be 93.5% done.  Tomorrow–should all go well–should the bean fence be resurrected–it shall be 100% planted.  (Dear Rain God,  Please Hold Off any more Moisture.  Thank you.)

Our garden. To be fully planted by tomorrow. We hope.

We are bringing our garbage to the Garbage Man between 11:30-12:45 at the Aura Town Hall.  We are hoping he will agree to take our ancient vacuum cleaner.  I wondered to Barry why we BOTH had to go to the Garbage Man.  He explained because it’s our “date”.  Ahhh….see how we entertain ourselves in the woods?

OK, I have just written 672 words attempting to avoid my township work.  It is now time to turn bravely toward the checks.  The birds are all chirping and hollering in agreement.  The temperature is supposed to reach 80 degrees today.  (26.6666666666 in Celsius, so says the Google search.  There were probably a lot more 6′s but I thought you would understand.)

A perfect ideal wonderful awesome incredible gorgeous magnificent day in the woods! (Except for those mosquitoes and black flies and wood ticks.  Here’s one now.  Slap!  Slap.  Miss…)