Mar11 >>POOF<< Where'd the week go?

Another Saturday night...
I've wanted to blog all week but didn't actually do it.
On the theme of Bringing it Home, I've been contemplating that a lot, and in the strict literal sense, I've now thrice shown my pix and assorted loot and described my experiences to people back home. Tomorrow again, at the potluck.

The tourism aspects are fairly easy to get across.
The deeper, spiritual, awareness and experiences are not so easy, but I poke away at it.

Picked up a hitchhiker out of the blowing snow on my way home. He was sure happy to get a ride. Took him for a walk to feed the goat. I brought him home and scrounged together some sheets etc. for the "guest bed". Tomorrow we'll catch a bus.
He's gotta be a messenger, right? So what's the message?
"Don't drink and drive or you'll lose your licence"?

So, what else did I actually do?
I feel really solid in my LUWs - I did them twice on Monday - morning and noon.
By Wed and Fri, I'm aware of a deep knowing that I can really do it - any anxiety/questioning has been about other stuff. My mind still puts up the "gonna choke this time" kinda chatter, but I don't.

I've been feeding the goat, and walking the labyrinth on the land - the journey inward.
Friday was a cool experience - I walked the entire perimeter of the land. With the weather
having warmed, then more snow, I knew better than to try to drive in with my car.
(Although somebody else, with a truck, drove in and made tracks all over the place. The thought to be upset at having been trespassed against came up, but I wasn't really into that.)
I parked by the bridge, and walked along the middle of the river, up and across the bridge, and refilled Billy Bob's feed pail from the sack in the fridge in the generator shack. I then walked along the edge of the garden to the labyrinth, and, seeking some connection to my deeper self, across the drifted-in snow. Somewhere along the way, the image of me physically performing a line integral in the complex plane came to me. I could see the textbook and remember enjoying that class. It was cool how one could circumnavigate singularities and effectively exclude them from the result of the landscape inventory.

At that point I chose to play along and complete the integral along the property boundary - retracing my steps back to the bridge and continuing along the river to the south fenceline, out to the road, along the road to the car. I noticed that the items that were "excluded" by circumnavigation were the goat feed sack and pail, the labyrinth altar stone, and the fireplace-screen, etc. , lying crumpled and discarded on the scrap metal pile. So, what meaning might I attach to that?

I remember clearly building the fireplace screen as a purposeful task intended to enhance K.'s "status" at her hosting of the book group out at "The Land" at a time when there was a burn-ban in place. With the screen, they could make a fire. That would be a good thing; my intention was loving, with no expectation (and no direct communication). The reality was that the kindling flared and burned through the aluminum (satellite dish scraps) mesh. Game over.

Went sledding again on the Monday. Went over to the kids' place to ask if anyone was game...
I tried to arrange for G. to come which would make it more likely that C. would go, but all that was not to be. The gang was going swimming. I decided to go to the land to fix up the tarp on the straw bales which had been blown half over and off. I bought a broom so I could sweep off the accumulated snow. The weather was beautiful. I finished the job of cleaning off the snow, repositioning the tarp and tying it down. That felt great.

I remembered vividly the time we built the stack. I recognize now that I was operating from a real sense of purpose. We were going to build a SB house and live out there. My first priority was to have the building bales ready so when we finished the planning, we'd be ready to go. I organized and pulled together the details to make it happen - before winter we had 1100 Perfect flaxstraw bales on pallets under tarps. I loved their smell. Over the years since then I often went by the stack just to smell that smell, which by now, has faded, though my dream of living out there hasn't.
I got off to a good start, but that was the easy part. I've been chipping away at various issues. Mustering the clarity and energy required to resolve all of the many details that lie between a pile of straw and a liveable house continues to elude me.

The work being done, I decided to go sledding, in the moonlight. It's cool negotiating the runs mostly by feel. I approach the uphill walks as contemplation, but find the roughness of the
terrain and the challenge of maintaining my balance real deterrents to staying focused.
I really enjoy the calm quiet, and the simplicity of being outside in that way.