Cradled

He was still warm when Sing brought him to me. These kinds of deaths are such an odd tumble of emotions, but I don't mind sitting with death.  I'm proud of my 12 year old great white hunter of a house cat, for his instinct, agility and pride in bringing his accomplishments to me.  I'm tender and torn at the pointlessness of life lost in such a way.  I'm scientifically interested in examining the ways wings move, studying the shape of tail feathers and small talons.  But most of all, I want to do right by any creature who dies under my watch.  I laid him to rest in a safe nook under a tree, with a small bouquet of white morning glories, facing west to the setting sun.  It reminds me to love this life even harder because we are each so very mortal.

* * * 

I have tickets booked and a destination awaiting me at the end of the month, a cool 2000 miles away.  I've been hungry for new sights, new scents, new land to place my feet upon and "new" lives to witness.  I can't wait to pack that bag, because in the packing, there is always such a fresh thrill of excitement.

* * * 

Today, while BC and I sat outside eating sushi and talking passionately on speaking truth, existential guilt, old false self-beliefs and other heady subjects, a man and his partner walked by. "Well he has no inner peace, that's why" was the only phrase we caught before we both giggled at how ridiculously perfect this sliver of the country is for us.

* * * 

Watermelon, lime juice, fresh basil, a dash of agave if need be.  Blend, pour over ice, sip with tequila.  Whoa baby and you're welcome.  And be careful - those puppies go down smoooooooth.  

* * * 

The Making has been slow of late, nestled in short bursts between ice packs and baths as I nurse a mysterious and rather gnarly back injury.  Slow is a speed I reserve for hiking, looking, and beaching.  In daily truth, I am a flurry of activity, buzzing about and humming along.  I love to do, to create, to engage, to move this body, to swing hammers, to run hillsides, to dance with paintbrushes.  Moving slowly is a form of patience I've never mastered, and a lesson I'm struggling through, again.  If you have a moment to send a thought of healing, I'd deeply appreciate it.  For I could use some cradling myself.

* * * 

Have a glorious weekend you light-filled creatures! 

- U

Grace

I've been obsessing over scent.  You may not know this, but even full time artists need hobbies, and for the last year, mine has been playing with essential oils.  In the evening times, after the studio has been shut down, after the brushes washed and the torch extinguished, I often play with scent.  Mixing pure organic oils, dabbing them on wrists and spritzing them through the house.  There is something so clean and rich about using true essences that I always feel a little wild and fresh when they mingle in the air around me.   

Now you may already know this, but the trees are my church.  The lonely mountains, the untamed fields, the ocean shores, they are my sanctuary.  They are the places I feel the truest, the places I allow my feet to sink deeply into the earth while lifting my heart to the heavens.  They are the places I remember that I am whole.  And so for months now, I've been working on bottling the very essence of being in the wilds.  I mist the studio with this scent to transport the deep, pre-verbal recesses of my mind to the way I feel on the mountaintops.  I spritz it throughout the house to bring nature into this urban home.  I breathe and pause and feel myself becoming a little wilder.  And in case you need a dose of the same, I'm offering a limited number of bottles to you. 

These are pure essential oils, no synthetic anything, mixed with witch hazel and distilled water.  The blend is woodsy and bright, like the forest after a storm.  Notes of cedar and juniper, followed by the citrus tang of bergamot and the earthy sweetness of lavender mingle together in one long cool breath, wrapped up with my hand-carved Grace stamp.  It's my delight to offer them to you!

You can find a limited number of bottles in the etsy shop right now!   Breathe deep you beautiful souls!

- U

Breathing at 4000 Feet

Two nights ago I drove east, driving for space, for clarity, for silence and the sacrality of my own sanity.  On winding country highways and over narrow bridges I made the climb from my city home which sits a hair above sea level and drove up, up, for 4000 feet.  When I finally put the Jeep in park, I sent BC a message as is wise when traipsing the back country:

"I'm out of town tonight.  Drove up 2, turned on a forestry road.  Wanted you to know." 

His response?

"Breathe."

Good man.  The very best in fact.

The air truly is different there, high in the Cascade Mountains.  I pulled as much of it into my lungs as I could, gulping down that raw, wild space.  And when I arrived home later that night, all those particles of mountain air were still flooding through my system, oxygenating my blood, pumping along through my head and heart.

Breathing at 4000 Feet Ring

(sterling silver and prehnite) 

I can't tell you what that air smells like, but I can build you a window.  A portal into that mountain high, a small place to stop and breathe when the world becomes too loud.  A tiny place to rest and feel the tall trees lift you up.

* * * 

I wish you a weekend of heart-space friends!  Be well! 

- U

East of the City

- Last night, 4100 ft. elevation, on an unmarked forestry road -

The wind picked up, ushering in a swift and swirling end of day.  I now sit in the Jeep writing, marveling that not ten minutes earlier I had been walking, bare armed, in the last streaks of sunlight.  Now the trees around me sway and creak, the wild flowers bend double, and I'm fairly certain not a mosquito is left buzzing even though I still bear their presence in angry red dots on my forearms.

Earlier today I said to myself, "If I do not stand upon a mountain, feel the open wildness around me and the sheer room of heart, I will surely perish."  Dramatic words no doubt, but one of the joys and trials of being me is that such words hold a core of truth.  I was afraid of perishing, right there on the hardwood floor with the sounds of the city and worried dog tongues as my only witnesses of passing.    And so at the most unlikely time of afternoon to begin an adventure I filled two water bottles, a jar of granola, and the gas tank, then drove east.  No plan.  No destination.  Nothing other than "mountain" and 'solitude" and "I'll know it when I get there."

Now I drive in silence with the windows partly down, even after the rain starts.  I need to hear the rush of rivers under the bridges, to smell the air so green and ripe that it makes me aware I'm too clean, too well scrubbed, in laundered clothes and mascara.  The cold is creeping up the valley but I want to shed all my clothes and let this fierce wind perfume me in mountain air.   But instead I open the windows all the way and let the rain stain my sketchbook, my face, my hair.  I try so hard to remember scents, but a scent is so far removed from words that it is hopeless to try and explain it.

These evenings leave an imprint of an experience.  When I wake tomorrow I may remember the long whistle of the birds on the far side of the valley, the handful of salmonberries I crunched on, the stillness in the woods that let me know I was the largest mammal around, the fog that held 1500 feet below me. But I won't be able to recall that scent, for it only belongs in a place such as this.

* * * 

Tonight

I always bake bread in the evenings.  I suppose this applies to most baking in our household; scones, crisps, cookies and the rare batch of naan hardly make an appearance in the light of day.  I do wish I was a morning baker - there's something that seems so... quintessential about the yeasty aroma of bread wafting through the house alongside first light and bird song.  But for now the light is fading everything to gray and my house smells like heaven.

Tonight, while the loaves sat in the oven, I wandered barefoot through the property.  It's officially the height of the season wherein I declare to the pups "I adore Summer, it's my favorite season of all," knowing full well I say this four times a year, respective seasons substituted in.  The mish-mash of a garden I yearly create, spare pots filled so hopefully in the rainy spring, is turning towards full production.  With that comes the the wild overgrown I love far more than any tidy row.  I study every green thing at least twice a day - a privilege I know comes with working from home.   Right now that privilege extends towards a modest feeding of self: tomatoes have been regularly gracing my eggs for almost two weeks now, the whole kitchen is strung with bundles of drying herbs, and daily I whisper greedy encouragement to the cucumbers.

But tonight, rather than vegetables, I harvested sweetgrass, lavender, rosemary, white sage and cedar.  A friend is passing through town tomorrow with brunch on the agenda, while she and her family begin a new great adventure into the unknown far North.  I want to send her on her way with a smudge bundle from the Pacific Northwest. 

I was taught to create smudge bundles in the very modern version of the old ways; this is no grab and go process.  In the last cold days of winter I pre-ordered sweetgrass plugs for post-frost deliver, I began scooping up a number of lavender varieties, purchased one robust rosemary who now takes permanent residency on the front porch, and against all better judgement found myself a white sage, the most sacred of American sages, who truly has no business living in such a damp climate (even the tag came with the disclaimer: "this plant is difficult to keep alive in the PNW").  Every one of these I've planted, tended, fed aged kelp and bonemeal, and given my sweet love.  Every one of them has grown and bloomed, wafting scent to every bumble and honey bee in a 10 block radius.  When I harvest their leaves and blossoms, I sit with them for a moment and offer my gratitude.  For surely, the things that sustain our bodies and minds deserve our heartfelt thanks, even if they can not curtsy and reply in kind.  I like to think those thanks and all that love will be released into the immediate atmosphere of my friend's new home every time she lights a bundle and allows it to smolder.

But for now, the timer has rung, the beasts have finished dinner and are laying comatose on the rug, and a well buttered slice is calling my name.  Rest easy my friends, and remember to thank your plants.

- U -