winter fire
star alignment & simplicity
Thank god I have a million half-full notebooks scattered everywhere, because this morning it is cold, and between this fire, my snoring daughter and pre-sunrise Nature, I don’t want to go far to find something to write on.
(Our daughter is really changing. She will be two years old in January and already her one leg is the length of her entire body at birth.)
((I am so grateful for these quiet early mornings, where I get to just be me.))
When I went outside this morning, I could still see the stars. One brilliant magical star was directly above the summit of Mt. Lamborn, directly in perfect alignment. In secret, I feel this mountain is a holy mountain and in even greater secret, I think it is connected to other worldly beings.
Last night, Amara’s papa brought in firewood, so we could build an early morning fire with ease. I find that if I build the fire a good while before sunrise, while the sky is still rich cobalt black and blue, then the fire has a stronger power to chase the cold away. If you build a fire when the sky is already gray and white, the cold has really set in and the fire needs more power to chase it away.
The seasons are changing. We are moving our livingness back inside. Scotty brought in one of our propane stoves, so we can make early morning coffee and tea without shivering in Nature’s shrugging off of summer. The outdoor kitchen is returning indoors, as the aspens turn from green to orange, and I am grateful for this firewood, our yurt and a propane stove.
These things you don’t really think about when you live in a seasonally-neutral home, where you can adjust the climate with the click of a button and roll out of bed still drooling, barefoot and half naked to cook up an egg while blissfully unaware of Nature.
I’m not judging anyone – I am too busy and tired to think about that world so much, except when it comes to hot running water… But I do remember being immersed and raised in that world, and I do see how it creates a different kind of Human being.
Here, my feet and the soil are connected through unspeakably deep interdependence. We don’t have the spacesuit of forgetting Nature, so we are always in communion with it, humbled by it, in reverence of it, making prayers and offerings towards it so that we might survive another winter.
Ah, winter.
We decided to cancel Family Camp this autumn so that our family can actually prepare for the coming winter, the long white purification, the crispy cold burrowing of Life. We are more prepared than last winter at least. For one, we are already here, with a dwelling and all our possessions. For another, we have two chainsaws, both solar powered and gas powered, for all manner of weather we might encounter. Also our goats are producing milk, which to me, feels like the best food/medicine we have. Wild mountain herb milk.
All these things really make a difference.
(Also, the Kogi’s are coming.)
I guess I am writing to you like this because I have started to wonder if my writing is sometimes “too” esoteric, “too” poetic, or “too” abstract. I mean, in my heart of hearts, I tend to the landscape of what moves and inspires me, but I want to stretch in simplicity too, that I am also a human being with all the putterings of mind and struggle and triumph. So this is a snippet of “normal”, while Amara still sleeps (thank god) and our family still yearns for the Village.
Speaking of the Village, I recently submitted a dream/vision/poem to a collaborative publication called the Weaving Wisdom Garden. My piece was inspired both by Rhiannon’s prompt “Vision Awakening” and also by a beautiful woman, friend and poet, named Elizabeth, who invited the local community to create their most dreamy imaginings of our North Fork Valley watershed, and to send them to her as she unites with others in visioning the regeneration of the Colorado River.
You can find that writing here:
My piece is entitled Waterwheel: I Am the Cosmic Dream.
And, while we silently wait for and vision into the Village, I begin to see how all my heaving of physical and mental endurance actually matters, through dimensions and time. As I carry my sweet little human on my back, cut wood, chase the goats, struggle, I feel how it all matters ~ how each breath in this direction is like a machete chopping away through the dense unknown, from one world to the next, and that maybe, when my daughter is my age, the world will make a little more sense, feel a bit more integral, wholesome and kind.
I am being stretched, continuously, and beyond my understanding.
The fire is dwindling now and the sky is turning pink. Our dog Zeus howls for some unknown reason and Scott is silently stalking in the wilderness. Our little brown dog, Prince, is snuggled up to sleeping Amara, and I am just here, gratefully sipping my highly caffeinated tea and watching the western mountains light up with pink and gold light. A new day is born.
I guess I can put the candles out now.
I am loving you as you are loving your life
mmm. changing so fast up there! and the first fires. the best time of year.