Wandering: Desperate Circus

Twilight over the Cook Inlet.

With some trepidation I escorted my complicated companion to revisit the Place where Herne has made Himself recognized.

This was very much like a clown show or an early (or late) Trick or Treat: one behemoth of a Norseman "Pirate," one black hooded "Witch" & what might best be characterized as Professor Snape from the Harry Potter series.

Carrying three bottles of mead, a shillelagh, a very large Oath Ring (from a tug boat line) & a drinking horn, I confess that I felt a bit sheepish in the daylight as hikers & tourists looked upon us with complete confusion. As they should.

This was not the time for Herne-hunting. I knew this well enough, but sometimes people are so desperate for connection that you just hold their hand & do your best at the art of damage control.

Along the arduously disorganized & delayed trek, many trees were loved & libated. Many words exchanged that would soon be forgotten. Don Quixote himself may have been channeled.

This was a messy excursion by anyone's standards. 

As I squatted along the edge of the trail & listened to the one-eyed bear of a man extracting my slender, aching friend from the disappointingly vacant darkness of the forest, I could only say to myself, "This is not the Way..."

But what isn't one person's Best Night might be another's. Later, I found myself alone in the still silence, facing Twilight, admiring the expanse of Sea & Sky divided by the horizon, unsure which side was the real side. Really, it didn't matter.

And when I crept back through the dimming light to rejoin my party, I found them seated at the edge of the bluff, framed by sinewy trees & silhouetted against the golden horizon. From their deepest hearts & bellies they sang "Helvegen" in bittersweet harmony. I was enchanted -- it was just... breathtakingly beautiful. (Had it not been completely inappropriate, I would have secreted out my phone & filmed it.)  

I sat witness to this poignant scene until my legs cramped & my nose ran from the cold. I was finally relieved to see the Heathen's bulky shape rise & turn to me. Now would be the time to complete my own Work.

Down to the water we went, leaving the saddest member to wait on the bluff. He could never have managed the descent. The large man who followed me down the familiar trail was nothing graceful himself, sliding on the ice & crashing through the naked undergrowth. I could have managed very well alone, but we are trained as women in this society to distrust the condition of alone-in-the-dark (even when realistically, it might be the safer -- for everyone). 

The tide was high & the Ice ran right up to the water, dropping off abruptly. It made for awkward gyrations, but I did my cleansing & offerings as though atop an ice float at the edge of the smoothest Ocean surface imaginable. My dips made arcs which replicated across the water ad infinitum, playing the shadow against the last of the light. Nyx's starry cloak was surprisingly clear, in spite of the yellowing Anchorage glow. Perfect.

I was expedient, but not unceremonious. In general, I Work from the hip & this instance was no different.

In short time we returned to the bench on the bluff, only to find that our companion had disappeared, leaving the horn crushed, a bottle shattered & the Oath Ring cast aside. He was to have his own adventures, or misadventures, to which we (mercifully) would not be witness.

There is a very fine line between opening up & forcing the doors. Most of us have managed to err on the side of boorish & unproductive from time to time. Yet I find that the gods will still give us chances.

The trick is to learn from, not repeat, these mistakes & never to presume that we can force a "mystical experience." 

***

Today, idling in the chill winds of an incoming storm, I stood alone with my brooding friend in a different forest. In the aftermath, I recalled to him the events of the evening which had been hopelessly lost to him. As I mentioned his entreaty to Herne -- how he stopped at precisely the right place, poured his mead & entered his own lonely chaos -- he nudged me & said, "Do you see the moose?" Looking up, I spotted a long legged beauty, making her way around the Alder only a short distance from us. She watched us calmly, intently & we remained silent as she unhurriedly wandered around & away.

I looked up at him & said, "See, you just mention Herne & there you go."

The (sometimes desperate) path
of so many secrets.

Wandering: More Lessons in Seeing & Perspectivism

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

― Anaïs Nin, “Seduction of the Minotaur”

As the ice has begun breaking up so very early, we chose to resume our habit of wandering. This time, we ventured to Point Wornzoff & found an unexpected lesson in the art of seeing. Or is it understanding?

We descended the steep grade onto the beach & were taken aback by the number of people there -- it was uncharacteristically populated, crowded even. The voice of one of the Little Lad's friends chimed from below & a small hand waved about frantically from the relative throng. But a after a moment of focus, it became clear that more than half of the beach's population stood silent, unmoving & they spread far down the beach, away from where most humans choose to venture...

What I immediately noticed was that these frozen persons might have been more alive -- more real -- than most people that move & breathe.

And I found myself absolutely captivated by the beauty & horror of this collection of persons. Completely faceless, yet so expressive it pained me.

And of course, we had need to speculate on their origin, their stories, the meaning of this collection of personalities constructed of burlap, straw, concrete & rebar, lavishly strewn across the ice without explanation.

My husband felt they were post mortem sculptures of real people -- a most unusual memorial service.

I could not shake the feeling that I was standing among the crypts in the Tarot's Judgement card & felt a curious need to move among them with caution -- never to touch their cold yet very alive bodies.

Whatever they were, are, they made their indelible impression. They changed us.

***

It wasn't until later in the week when I learned what these sculptures "really mean," or rather, what the artist intended for them. Across a steamy hot tub a friend explained in her chirpy Moldovan voice that they are the Faces of Depression...

I can see that. I even understand that.

I can also see a memorial 

& a Last Judgement 

& even a memento mori. 

I see much more than that, but I will keep that close, without further elaboration, as I prefer to leave the seeing & the knowing & the understanding to each person & their Selfs.


So much of the Magic of Life lies in the perspective of our Be-ing.

cRaZy Fool. cRaZy Alive.

Consider the last event which called to your attention the basic reality of being ALIVE.

Moma Fauna, on Ice.

Was it an extreme sensory experience? One of great trauma or pleasure? What is it that brings us pause, muzzles the monkey-mind & reminds to treasure this basic gift?

Consider the most spectacular Sunrise on the Turnagain Arm, a sliver of Alaska's larger Cook Inlet. The temperature is 6º F/-14ºC, but the winds along the steep slopes & water-turned-ice make for a more chilling sense of cold. I am standing on the beautiful & very frozen ocean below the very bluffs from which we had such hopes of seeing the Northern Lights. I am here to take a photograph of myself with a book -- a book written by a woman I admire enough to perpetrate this act of sheer madness. 

I am wearing a crocheted dance halter, complete with beads, fringe & a full makeup & jewelry compliment. I am also wearing tall, baby-blue Sorrels, knit fingerless gloves & stocking hat complete with ear flaps.

It is nothing but cRaZy. 

If you think about it, it is the precise costume of The Fool -- dressed for adventure, yet painfully ill prepared. I am stepping off the bluff into the abyss...

This entire production lasted perhaps 30 minutes from beginning to end, my time of extreme exposure even less. But it was enough time for my large ring made from a bent silver spoon to freeze to my finger. It was enough time for me to have to ask my partner to press my phone screen for the last few shots because the phone no longer registered my touch as among the living.

No longer registering as among the living. How quickly, how easily this can happen.

Yet there was no terror about this -- it was in fact, exhilarating. Framed by the sweeping, impersonal majesty of this Landscape, bitten by the cruel, unyielding climate, I felt more alive than I usually do when I resister as living.

The Fool tells us to take the plunge, experience the consequences & ride the Arc of Zero anew, back around, full circle. Do it again. Again.

When did we fall off the Circle onto the straight line?

Sage Moon, Silly Me

Waxing Moon, January 2015.

Lessons come, whether we knowingly seek them or not.

I did not make offerings this month, primarily because I was annoyed. Annoyed at the Moon.


Moon: fixed, bewildered, "Where are the offerings?"

Me: petulant, accusatory, "Where are the Lights, Ms. Moon?"


We have been fruitlessly chasing the Northern Lights across Anchorage for the past couple years. With a sudden coldsnap came crytal clear skies & the promise of their spectacle. The Aurora Borealis; heavenly, spectral rains emitting galactic silence. They are among the most incomprehensibly surreal things I have ever seen & not heard. 

At the advisement of our Aurora Alert app (oh, those insipid smarty-pants phones...) we geared up & set off for the bluffs overlooking the mouth of the Turnagain Arm. Blustery as always are these bluffs -- this visit, their blustery waxed bittery thanks to the chafing, stinging cold. The children, such troopers, were driven onward by the promise of finally experiencing what they have only seen in pictures -- a sky filled with solar ribbon candy, sheets of sparkling, coloured stardust falling to meet them. 

But, THAT MOON.

Aurora chasing.

Standing on the bluff, tediously nipped by the winds, we could see the futility of our foray & everything else, thanks to THAT MOON. 

Moon-tans, maybe Moon-blindness in the making.

Gah! That Moon!


But the next morning She humbled us with Her gloriousness, so much so that Hubby felt compelled to drag me from bed in the darkness of the 8 or 9 o'clock hour to witness Her night's finale as She drifted behind the neighbor's house on the much-further-than-opposite side of the sky from which She rose...

And in Her descent, She was ferocious.

And yet the lesson was not yet over. (Over the years, I have realized this is how She works, yet I always seem to forget.)


This morning in the gloom of daybreak, She persisted even until the Sun's tendrils tentatively felt their way over the mountainous horizon. There She was, fat & sassy, slung low over the airport for everyone to see. 

Moon: Fat & sassy as seen from the hoarfrosted edge of Lake Hood.

And despite the insanity of trying to perpetrate photography in the mannerless cold, I felt an irrational desire to chase Her further.

Still dissatisfied, I parked in a government lot at the furthest point of the lake shore drive to get one last series of shots. But as I stepped out of the car I saw it.

Wonderland.

There was no way to capture the resplendence of this fleeting place with a lens made from inorganic matter. A row of hoarfrost laden Birch in the earliest dawn -- perhaps more akin to twilight -- illuminated by high pressure sodium lights anchored at the strangest angle. It was like being inside a hanging garden of ice-bound fractals. I felt dwarfed & lost among them. And I wished I could fly, not like a bird, but like a moth...

However, had I been a moth I would have frozen instantly.

I could have lingered indefinitely on the ground in the crunchy snow surrounded by that fantasy land, forgetting myself, save for the fact that the cold was seeping through my jeans into my knees. So I reluctantly made my way back to the car & there She was, bold & almost blood red, as if to emphasize that Her point had been made.

Shivering like mad, I set the camera on the roof of the car & willed my frozen fingers to push the button.

Yes, Lady Moon, you too are worth chasing.

Every damn time.

Wandering: The Sudden Return of the Sun (A Very Strange Light)

Someone's Late Winter Wand.
Oh, how this strange light & snow draw the eye to places unnoticed. 

10:45 pm, April 18. I am sorting images in bed. I find myself astonished at how light it is outside. When did this Sun-thing happen? The all-knowing, data-oozing, cyborg-phone tells me that the sunset was at 9:30, but had I been insane enough to sit in the cold, I could have easily read a book out of doors for an hour beyond that time. 

Assorted cues are telling me that Spring may actually be in the process of springing, although here I think it snaps. I don't know this Place in this season, so I cannot be certain. Abdicating my snowbird status & enduring this Winter from its early beginning to its painfully late end, I believe I am allowed to exchange my "Cheechako" badge for some kind of "Sourdough" status. As I do not care much for labels, I will be satisfied with direct Sunlight on my face every day & retiring my pillbox hat, thank you. 

So here is this Sun, returning with a vengeance. Rising before 6:30 am, it will set fifteen hours later. Already. But the snow persists, enough so that when I make the (admittedly repeated) mistake of straying from the security of the groomed trail surface I will sink to to above my knees, often to my crotch. It is moments like these, clumsily flopping & wading about, hoisting myself back upon the the trail, when I am reminded why the Moose have such long legs. If I had their legs, I would have some amazing photographs. But, I digress. The Sun, combined with the lingering snow creates this weird light & hypnotic shadows. Try as I might, I cannot effectively capture the atmosphere with the camera.

Strange light, strange lines I cannot capture.

This strange dance of light & shadow is particularly mesmerizing in the Ice. I am certain, were I to remain for more than a long moment, that these places would share visions -- spontaneous scrying surfaces of Place.

Late Winter lines & shadows, trees & Ice.

Late Winter scrying surfaces: what do the shadows reveal?

And although in my tending to small persons, I neglect the opportunity to stop for visions in this world of light & shadow, I do find that so many things gone unnoticed are suddenly revealed. The strange contrasts bring them to the forefront.

Frosty meanderings of critters rarely seen in the green months:

Small mammal tracks.
Did they make them in the Moonlight?

The steadfast snow-resistance of certain plants -- usually obscured in the dense summer foliage -- offers them a showcase:

Light & Shadow draw the eye...

"Weedy" charms of the undergrowth rise to prominence.

It all makes me regret not purchasing that book about Winter grass & weedy plant identification...

Cast it away, regret is a wasteful emotion. Besides, I have survived... & none too soon. In these last few weeks I have felt the Dogs of Depression nipping at my heels, raising both my bitch-factor & my aptitude for snark by several degrees. It is with hope & gratitude that I welcome back this strange & increasingly persistent Light. Seek, hunt, soar in pure freedom, in the warmth of this great Light -- that was the reminder offered by a bald eagle circling the house yesterday. "Turn your face to the Sun & the Shadows fall behind you." I have always loved that saying, despite its obfuscated origins (is it Maori, Chinese, Whitman, Whitton, or otherwise?), so this is what I shall do. Turn my face to this strange & emergent Light. I have nothing against the shadows, but enough is indisputably enough, thank you. 

Winter Wanes: Turning my face to a strange Light.
(Rose coloured glasses help too.) 

Time to make updates to the (Alaskan) Wheel of the Year.