Labyrinths have been integral to this year’s activities. Locations have spanned from the East Coast to the deep South, and from Alaska to Hawai’i. Catch up with Winding Pathways’ 2019 walks at 1080 Laughing Labyrinth website.
May you enjoy labyrinth walks in 2020. Join Veriditas Council for a Qualifying Workshop for those interested in learning more about labyrinths. For trained facilitators a Renewal Day in Rapid City, SD, April 25, 2020.
Solvitur Ambulando.
For many people, 2019 was a roller coaster year in some respects. A habit I have developed is writing down each day a gratitude on a sticky note and placing each in a jar on the counter. Then, at the end of the year (three years now) I read them and select a few to remember. These are randomly selected.
In General – * Several times throughout the year we enjoyed breakfast, coffee or dinner with neighbors and friends.
* Yoga classes are always an activity I am grateful for.
* Healing energy work at home and the Nassif Community Cancer Center.
* Computer help from Turner Web Marketing and Dustin at Kirkwood.
* Taking in displays at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art with a friend.
* The year-long Shaman class. Meeting new people, learning different techniques and having the similarities of techniques affirmed.
January – * Grateful we have a competent tax consultant to help with tax ins and outs.
* We found an important letter that had dropped in the snow at the mailbox.
February – * After bitter cold for weeks on end, we had a sparkly, mild winter day. Birds singing and the sun strong enough to melt snow and ice.
* The previous year I had investigated possible sites for Renewal Day 2020. One of the excellent sites, Outlaw Ranch in the Black Hills, contacted me for an update. They were gracious when I explained the Veriditas Council had chosen a different location. The Ranch is a great location. A concern is that late April we could have a “snowbound” event.
* We’ve done monthly Facebook Live shows with Hoover’s Hatchery featuring Winding Pathways chickens: what’s new, how to, humor and gratitude for the hens. And, I hammed it up for KCRG-TV doing a FB live at the Nassif Community Cancer Center promoting their wellness center.
* A friend fixed our water pipe going to the outside, so it would not freeze up.
March – * Nancy arranged flights for me back East when Claire Patterson died. The ZOOM meeting from The Lake went well. The remembrance time at “33” on a beautiful late winter day – snowdrops outside the kitchen door. Coffee with Nancy before we separated to our respective terminals for flights. Flights on time!
April – * Excellent support from the Interreligious Council of Linn County and Lisa R. for the Global Healing Response program.
May – * A quiet student in the Journey’s class opened up day three, smiled and shared. Wonderful!
June – * Jazz festival Elkhart, IN. NYC with D and A and her mom. B-day celebrations by Jack and Marie. Quite the antipasto feast. Fireworks as we came back to Denville on the bus! Fireflies when we returned home.
July – * Walk labyrinth in the early morning.
August – *Journeys with outstanding colleagues.
September – *Tour of the Elmcrest Country Club by JH, who was so gracious to my sister and brother-in-law who is quite the golf enthusiast.
* Alaska adventures with B and N.
* House re-roofed.
October – * Visit with friends in Ohio. Attending the simple Sunday evening service at a retirement home. Labyrinth walks at Cedar Lake and Parsippany.
* Veriditas Council meeting to plan Renewal Day and Qualifying Workshop 2020 in The Black Hills.
November – * Dan and Amy’s wedding in the East. Fun times. Music. Food. Relatives and friends.
* Cleaned the prairie after the wimpy burn. Goodness the ground is wet and the air humid this year.
* Thanksgiving with friends here.
December – * Re-connecting with a massage therapist I know from another venue.
* D. came to Scott Mansfield’s memorial service.
* Calls from and to families.
* Kopecky’s hosted us and a family far from home.
From the East Coast to the Upper Midwest and ranging to Alaska and Hawaii people interact with or encounter wildlife in rural and urban areas.
SF: Lots to Raven About. “I saw my first ever raven yesterday — sitting and cawing on the roof of a car in a parking lot in Milford! JEESH! Do you think it was a portent of anything?
“Crows, of course, are extremely common; nevertheless, I love to see them in the huge groups they tend to gather in. I don’t know who assigned the collective nouns for species, but “Murder of Crows” is a favorite.
“Every time I hear that “caw” I look up hoping to see a raven, but I’ve never seen one until yesterday. I heard a ruckus as I got out of my car in a parking lot in Milford, NH, and saw one — sitting on top of a car and making his presence known. It was huge and oddly majestic, but sadly, it was a single bird, not an ‘unkindness of ravens’.”
AS: Birding Resort. Happenings were just ducky at a Hawaiian resort. And, this cock had something to crow about following a skeptical tourist. Who won? “The rooster lives near the food truck so it wins this match off.”
JH: Eagle Encounter: Several years ago on my way to the Y swim class, I saw, to my total delight, a wondrous sight. As I approached my turn, I saw a huge bird just sitting on a fence post. I made the turn and slowly stopped my car, I recognized this critter as the American Bald Eagle. We each sat on our own perch eyeing one another. After carefully retrieving my camera, I snapped a couple of pictures.
The eagle kept an eye on me. Then, he spread his wings and laboriously lifted off, swinging to his left towards a telephone pole out in the pasture. As he landed, he tucked his wings into his sides and continued his watch. I suppose he was wondering what I was doing just as I was wondering what he had been doing as he sat on the fence post.
He had been just a couple of arm’s lengths from me. To be so close to him was awesome. I could only imagine what it would be like to stroke his beautiful feathers.
The eagle continued to eye me.
JA: Albino deer. I caught some photos of albino deer in Wisconsin.
DP: Surprise Dolphins. “While reporting from Charleston, South Carolina, during the 2012 presidential campaign my colleagues and I stopped to look at the ocean. The city is surrounded on three sides by water and we expected to see lots of boats and people enjoying the water. We didn’t expect to encounter a school of dolphins! They swam around us for a few minutes and seemed to be having a lot more fun than we were.”
NP&BO: Moose & Wolverines & Cats! Oh, my! Baby moose roaming an Anchorage neighborhood, munching on raspberry patches. Then, along comes mama and they stroll down the street. A lot of urban moose in Anchorage. Other parts of the city boast moose and black bears!
News from the North. Latest Anchorage crime as reported by the Anchorage Daily News: Yet Another Urban Wildlife encounter as cat survives wolverine attack near the Campbell Science Center.
MN: Wolf Encounter. “My friend and I were camping in the BWCA in January, several years ago. At the end of a long day of cutting/splitting wood, fishing, snowshoeing and cutting more wood, we sat next to a blazing fire as the early sunset arrived and we were soon enveloped in darkness. The stillness of the forest in winter is amazing because there are no insects or other nocturnal creatures that make noise. On this windless night, there was no sound besides the crackling fire. Suddenly and without warning, we both had the feeling that someone or something was watching us from not far away. I slowly turned, and the fire was just bright enough to illuminate the face of a large wolf, 10 feet away. We froze, not knowing what to do. Had it been a black bear in summer, we would have started shouting and waving our arms to scare it away. But we weren’t prepared for this and had no idea what to do. So we just sat and watched. The wolf didn’t seem aggressive, and it slowly moved directly toward me. I remained motionless. It came right up next to me and sniffed my arm. I wondered, what I should do? I was a little too unnerved to do anything. The wolf seemed satisfied with my scent and moved on to my friend and smelled his boot. And then, just as quietly as he arrived, he slowly walked off into the woods. We sat there motionless, except for our eyes, all four of which were now the size of half dollars. We threw some more wood on the fire and waited, but the wolf did not return.
Comfortable digs on a winter campout.
“The next morning we got up and went out to fish. In the distance, on the other side of the lake, we saw someone doing the same. We decided to take a walk and share our wolf experience with this person. We greeted him and explained what happened and asked if perchance he had encountered the same wolf. He had indeed! And suddenly the wolf was bounding across the ice, coming straight for us. “Max, come on boy! Over here!” We were astounded that this guy was actually naming and calling wolves. “Do you know this wolf?”, we asked. He knew him all right. He owned this “wolf”, which was actually a mix – half-wolf, half-dog! We petted him and he licked our bare hands just as any dog would, especially since he was familiar with our scent after his visit to our campsite the previous night.”
LF: Erma Herman. Though not snuggly, ermine are quite lovely little critters. Their Winter coat seems more purely white because of their black tails, bright black eyes and button nose. For several Winters I’ve enjoyed watching one that has visited our platform feeder to gnaw on the chunk of suet I put out for the birds. I marvel at the rapid movement, dashing back and forth, here one second, gone in a flash.
I’m guessing it’s one, as I’ve never seen two at the same time.
Last Winter, during a freeze/thaw period, after we had some plumbing issues that involved the plumber working in the crawl space under the house, we were visited by ‘Erma Herman’ in the middle of the night. I awoke to an alarmingly loud, squeaking/squealing sound coming from the kitchen and the cat “tharumping” across the floor, coming to a halt in front of the dryer, where I could see a tiny black nose poking out from underneath.
It had found its way in through the smallest of openings left by the plumber, making its way up the hoses for the washing machine and into the kitchen where the scent of cat food was calling. It took several nights, a mousetrap, which is still somewhere in the understructure of the house, several packages of steel wool and a roll of duct tape (Red Green would be proud) before it stopped coming in.
My neighbour, who no longer tries to keep chickens, is not a big fan of ermine, Winter or Summer.
Greta Thunberg, the 16 year old Swedish girl, overcame challenges posed by autism to sail across the ocean and encourage people everywhere to work to reduce damage to the atmosphere and resulting climate change. She is inspiring, but is she wrong?
Greta’s commitment reminds us of the youthful energy of the late 1960s that led to great progress in environmental protection and civil rights. It is our hope that she’s energizing both young and older people to make our planet’s future safer and fairer.
After Greta spoke at the United Nations critics attacked her for advocating governmental action worldwide to reduce emissions yet didn’t say much about individual action.
Is she wrong? Absolutely not. This young woman crossed the ocean in a sailboat to avoid burning fossil fuel. She advocates government action while demonstrating personal actions to keep carbon out of the air.
Winding Pathways encourages homeowners to heed Greta and enhance the health of the atmosphere, water, and land by living lighter on resources. Here are a few steps we all can do to follow the inspiring actions she advocates:
Greta’s right. Governments should take action to reduce emissions. So should you and I in our everyday lives.
Spring and summer have been great for walking labyrinths. Catch up with what has happened at the Phoenix Harmony Labyrinth since snowmelt. On your travels check out The Labyrinth Locator to find labyrinths along your path. Read more on the wonderment tab of Winding Pathways.
Lights twinkled in the yard and labyrinth. The faint perfume of milkweed wafted up in the still, hot, early summer air. Calling. Calling.
We had arrived home at dusk after a long journey home from the East. Still in “travel mode” we unpacked the car and put away most of our trip supplies. As darkness wrapped around us, we let ourselves release the tension that builds up from high-speed driving through eight states and visiting with numerous family and friends in four different states.
So, in the dark, with stars guiding me, fireflies dancing around me and the soft aroma of milkweed calming me, I walked the Phoenix Harmony Labyrinth.
How can I explain the grounding, settling in and the sense of “coming home” that flowed into and through me? I kept saying over and over, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
To the rental car for its comfort. For safe travels by car, on foot, and in buses and subways. For great meals with friends and family. For respites in unexpected places. Fr color. For quiet. For seeing different parts of the land and meeting different people. For perspectives.
While my words are weak in conveying my experience that evening, I trust that some readers have had a similar experience the memory of which lingers in their soul. A memory they can return to time and again to calm, soothe, and refresh them.
