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Blog postThe rain-soaked hills must dry a bit before my steps return to their grassy, graceful fold.
The wait. Yes. For moisuture to dry. Rain. Tears.
Patience was never my forte'. I await clarity in a covid-changed world, but there is none. Even the most base beliefs have turned tentative. Like: "spirit puts me where I need to be." I mean, how do I reckon the daily, magic company of a raven with her apocolyptic goodbye? I named her Emma, for Emma Gold -
Blog postSolstice. Sol. Sistare. Latin root words that denote when the sun stands still. On last year's longest day I celebrated with a fire, drum circle, laughs and stories with dear women friends. The first day of summer marked the beginning of the third wettest monsoon season on record. Eighteen precious, wet inches fell upon Querencia Hill. The land turned excitedly verdant until September, then drought returned. Drought, in fact, became the metaphor for my pandemic reality, as writt
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Blog postA dream directed me here. Serengeti landscape kept me here.
I was preparing to depart Washington State when a dream awakened me with a snapshot image of an unfamiliar crag jutting into the air. The image returned in two more dreams, tickled my subconscious as I drove southeast, Arizona-bound. I had just gassed up in Tucson, headed to Patagonia for the winter, or so I thought. I was breezing down I-19 when that rock appeared out my driver's side window. Not one to ignore omens, I -
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Blog postIt was a few days before summer solstice. Daytime temps breached 110-degrees, forcing life into the cover of shade. The anticipated end of day took on a heavy significance. I did not step outside until the blistering sun was down. Once thankfully behind the mountains, the world in shadow, I ventured out to watch the remaining quail, doves and towhees vigorously scratch for overlooked seed. For several days, out of the proverbial corner of my eye, I had noticed something run across the
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Blog postDulce closing in on coiled, hooded rattlesnake (circled) seconds before shock
I was about to depart for Dulce's snake aversion class when I received word that a friend's dog was bitten by a rattlesnake. Twice. Once on the foot and once on the face. Her beloved Corgi was in the throws of emergency treatment, receiving doses of antivenom. She was hopeful for a full recovery and looked forward to bringing Dweezil home the next morning.
Snake tracks across the road The cl -
Blog postOh those wily Fates. After several failed attempts to purchase land, I wondered if the Serengeti landscape southwest of Tucson Arizona was meant to be my home. That's when a piece of land I had eyed for over a year, and even recommended to others, became for sale. Not formally, mind you. I'd been perusing the internet and saw mention that the owner had ten acres for sale. Was it THEE ten acres? I contacted her immediately. We met that week and shook on a deal. We finalized weeks later,
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Blog postThe soft transition from dawn to day was still in progress when Dulce's urgent bark propelled me from my chair. Barefoot on the frosty deck, I scanned hundreds of acres of tawny hills, a collage of sun and shadow against a cloudless sky. Dulce was insistent. I followed her stare to two anxious mule deer does twenty yards away, their eyes transfixed downslope. They took turns charging at a form I was yet to discern. They stomped and snorted their obvious upset. Within seconds two, three, th
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Blog postThere were two dozen of us. We travelled the ribbon highways from Arivaca to Sasabe Arizona, swung a left onto dirt, raised dust for another four miles and found ourselves at the WALL. We were one piece of five, a week long multi-faith spiritual resistance to witness the construction of one of the most destructive, ill-conceived and ignorant US presidential acts: the construction of a border wall at a time when border crossings were at their lowest in years, and the major drug portals were pr
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Blog postInto the Santa Rita Mountains I go ...
Oh Lordy, it was good to be back! It had been a couple years since I'd been in Madera Canyon. The last time, in fact, had been with Carole. We returned for a day hike along the lush sycamore-lined stream, one of many visits we shared to this land frequented by the jaguar. It was also the locale of Hope's first backpack some forty years ago. Yep, there were many memories in the Santa Rita mountains. This visit was spurred by June's triple digit h -
Blog postDay two.
She is gone.
Mind swirls with memories
calendars and journals at my side
I decipher scribbles of the final days
Carole dying into death the send off.
She had visited Arizona late Marchdays marked with unspoken wordslike final and last
we stepped naked into a hot tub
gorged on banana creme piemade our way up a hillabove Arivaca Lakejoined good friends to
drum the rise of the equinox full moon.
I photograp -
Blog post5 a.m. with my
journal and strong-as-I-can-stand-it-coffee
pajama-clad in
her pajamas
the ones she tossed me
when she opened the package to
discover eight nightgowns and pj's
she had ordered weeks ago.
It was two days before new moon.
Are you going to change every few hours? I joked.
She laughed
threw one set at me
and chose another for her final earth-bound moments
her deathbed outfit
to match her cor -
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Blog postThe phone call came at exactly 1:00 p.m. No accident. One, in numerology stands for new beginnings. Every zero after exaggerates its potency. The title has been transferred, said the voice on the other end. Congratulations. Tears streamed down my face. It was happening. After almost twenty years, I was a landowner again.
All the signs and omens portended this. Astrological messages were clear, with four to six planets in my 4th house of home, at any given time. I had been looking fo -
Blog postThe campfire crackles, sending flames into the dawn sky. Cream-laden espresso steams, a journal is by my side. This is the beginning of my day: the distant howl of a coyote as birds awaken. No traffic. No internet chatter. No daily news. I pick up my journal and begin to write.
Quiet and stillness are the essence of creating a space for the unknown to drop in, a central tenet of spiritual practice. Think of a womb, where germination takes place. This is where you want to be. One can -
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Blog postI resisted for a year. A friend kept insisting I would love an ebike but the price, in the thousands, was impossibly beyond my budget. Then the bike company made the changes he deemed necessary. I paid attention. He was an ebike wonk, afterall. He'd researched them for months and had a couple thousand ebike miles under his belt. The company he recommended sold direct. No middleman and much lower prices. As the saying goes, timing is everything. I was assisting my dying soul sister into the next
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Blog postDulce's DNA results are in. Who came the closest to her breed mix?
Her vet, right here in Arivaca. She nailed Dulce's three primary breeds.
Closer than the Humane Society, closer than friends, and waaaay closer than me. (I had the easy, Lab part right.)
Her parents were:
One parent was Labrador Retriever; the other was American Staffordshire Terrier w/minor Australian Shepherd. Lab and Staffie are the predominant breeds by high percentages. < -
Blog postEnergy shifts often arrive with an air of coyote...sneaky, outrageous and efficient, the tricksters also blindside their prey.
I met a fun-luvin' man in October, right before my birthday, at Faywood Hot Springs. I admit to asking the universe to fulfill a wish. Voila! We played well together: biked, soaked, explored and extended our reservations to fill a week. I'll call him Pinball for what I was soon to discover: his ability to propel himself from one place to another wi -
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Blog postIt was destined.It was almost a year since I had assisted my Lab, Teak, into the next world. Her cancer had spread beyond comfort and dignity, while at the same time my soul sister Carole was dying of bile duct cancer ... my closest friend in life and my dog companion of twelve years exited my life within weeks of one another. Both were interwoven with my essence ... travels, writing, my movement across wild landscapes. I'd lost two tethers and my sense of who I was in a world, They were my co-p
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Blog postIt’s a joke that garners a wild west guffaw: you’re sitting with friends taking a break and along glides a buzzard aka Turkey Vulture. Her featherless head points down as her slow, tippy flight circles ‘round, casting a shadow across dirt and rock. Better get moving … show signs of life! laughs the group.
Mercifully, we’re not the target of their fly-bys. Their chicken-like feet aren’t designed to carry food. Their preference is soft rotted skin that’s easy to tear with sharp talons and e -
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Blog postIt’s hunting season in Arivaca, a yearly ritual of anticipation, tags, fees and designated locales that bring hundreds of men and a few women into our village. The autumn wave of camouflage is a welcome economic boon to our few stores and campgrounds. Pick-up trucks multiply; rare lines form at the only two gas pumps.
Night comes. Men in camo head for La Gitana, the local cantina, entrance granted only to the gunless in a town that contends with borderland militias. They take a place at t -
Blog postWhite wild wings came a-callin' ...
Entrance to MONA
I felt assured, in the wake of the forest giants, that the revelations had run their course. I was wrong. We returned to Hobart for a rip-roaring 24 hours that included MONA art gallery -- a dip into the outrageous borders of the creative mind ---
Velocity of Death=Fate over Will
Women Thru Time
Travel and MONA converged into exhaustion. Too tired to eat out, we checked into our sweet hilltop co -
Blog postEclipses shake things up. The underpinnings begin to tremor a few days before and continue days and weeks after. Some might warn that to travel Tasmania in the midst of such energy was risky, but turbulence was my forte'. Unsettledness in nature brought unsuspecting wildlife closer, deepened the shadows for photography, moved energy into the unknown. Eclipses also reached deep into psyches, like a metaphorical rototiller; brought depths into sight. The stage was set for our journey to Styx
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Blog postWe had no pre-determined destination when we left Strahan. We weren't planning to drive far but wanted to get a head start on the next day's visit into old growth forests. Mario Andretti at the wheel (I joke, but I am so thankful it was him and not me), we were immediately into mountains and more slow-going hairpin curves. I gingerly staggered to the back of the van and stowed the traveling gladiolas more securely; made sure the one surviving wine glass was prone. Up we climbed toward
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Blog postMacquarie Harbor - heading toward Hells Gates
We dropped from the highlands into Strahan mid-afternoon. High energy enveloped the town which was positioned between saltwater and rainforest. I don't know what I expected of Strahan. As one of the few towns located on the wild western coast, I anticipated something beautiful and raw. It leaned more toward cutesy, but the impressive historic architecture showed through.
It was January 30th, the eve of the full super moon eclipse. -
Blog postOne day rolled into another and they passed way too fast. We bid the Tiger Pub goodbye and headed for the west coast town of Strahan. More specifically, we sought access into a World Heritage Rainforest. In addition, we were coming up on the January super full moon eclipse. We weren't sure where we would be for the event and didn't put energy into planning the perfect location since we would be in the land of clouds and moisture. See the eclipse or not, we would feel its propensity to intensify
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Blog postTasmanian Tiger, the marsupial that looks like a dog.
Marsupials don’t have a placenta, so they are born in a pouch, premature.
I rose before sunrise in search of the thus-far-elusive Tasmanian Devil. I was beginning to think I'd come halfway around the world and might not not see one. Once plentiful and considered a nuisance, the fatal Devil Facial Tumor Disease had infected 75% of the wild population and a cure eluded the scientists. Traffic killed many more: Devils were run
Titles By Christina Nealson
