I don't know about you but when I set out for the woods or a walk in nature, I try and get into my Zen brain and listen to my environment as if it were talking ...no, whispering, in my ears. Sometimes I'm just awake and my reception is sensitive after waking up from sleep. I always feel just a little softer and fuzzier around the edges with my dream images hovering just beyond my brain's ability to grasp them into conciousness. It's the tween times when the veil between worlds becomes thin and translucent...the time when rabbits dance and deer step out into a clearing...it's the time when spirits draw near and messages from ancesters can be heard...a magical, crepuscular time and it can come daily, weekly or quarterly. Tween times also happen at edges where one landscape feature changes into another...like a field that gives way to forest...or a lake to a mountain. The possible tween times can be tween places where a doorway to an altered reality opens and anything you imagine can happen. Call it a border...a door...a bridge...a portal or a pathway. Any opening into another state creates a tween time. This morning I woke up with Sadie perched atop my bladder looking furtively into my face with that obvious I want to go out look in her eyes. I don't know how they do it but our animals make themselves clear without language as humans know it and real communication happens. No words to trip over or misunderstand...no multiple meanings to complicate intention. My eyes popped open and I fled to the bathroom myself. She had put the pressure on my bladder and I just had to get up. I struggled into my clothes and gave up trying to catch a thread to my dreams to take her outside for her bathroom needs. It was about 6:45 with daylight well underway. Here in the mountains, daylight comes way before you actually get to see the sun. This morning it felt more like September and I walked up onto the hill to toss the ball and get her moving. A gorgeous morning. A blue cloudless sky and a breeze coming down the river and suddenly the sound of honking geese...a swarming gaggle...in fact it was a huge double V headed south honking up a storm. Even Sadie stopped and looked skyward. It was special. The sun was just coming up and was lighting the underside of the geese with dawns red light. They flew in formation colored red by the rising sun and I couldn't stop looking at the double V of red geese. All day I've pondered what to make of it. Was it a sign? Maybe. Maybe it was a simple reminder to pay attention to the power of a slight shift in the angle of light...how it changes everthing and turns the everyday thing you see a million times over into a life affirming miracle. It has always been the magic of light that whispers for me to capture it. Of course, I never really can. As an artist, I am no realist. I admire the talent of those that can render the real view to share with others but I just get frustrated. The beauty I want to communicate eludes me and my paintbrush. My only satisfaction has come from my point and shoot camera. When I get the setting right, I've hit the mark a few times and captured a beautiful light event to share...rare but doable.
I took my red camera with me on my walk with Sadie later in the day. I am slowly learning to cherish my freedom and to realize that the gift of my present moment includes the luxury of some free time for which I need not feel guilty. Even though unemployed, I work hard. But the garden has been put to sleep. All the fruits of my labors have been put up and the freezer is stocked for winter. The wood has been stacked and the plants brought in. Granted my house is filthy due to so many sunny days but I've been a busy productive little farm girl. I'm standing at a doorway...summer and fall are behind me and winter still lies in the future. This is the magic of the tween times...there is nothing well defined. I can walk with a light heart and there is no pressure to get to the next thing. The clock doesn't determine my agenda and for once, I can revel in unplanned moments. As Sadie and I walked up the Farwell Mountain Road at mid day today, there were deer prints everywhere...mostly does and young but their impressions were hard to miss. My eye fell on some black hair and I had to stop for some reason. I picked it up and smelled it. Mmmm. It's black bear hair...I can tell by the wild gamey smell...a faint hint of urine, probably something the bear rolled in. I kept it. I carried it home feeling a sense of spirit presence. Bears at the portal make me think of hibernating...going within and resting...and I feel reassured. I am currently finding myself in a very introspective place and I somehow feel supported in that by the smelly bear hair in my hand. I know. I sound ridiculous...I've always been told I make ridiculous connections. But in my ridiculous connections...in the red light V of honking geese and the strength of a hair of the bear..I find myself embedded in Nature...a part of my Mother earth and not at all apart from her. And tween you and me...my life is lit with meaning.
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