Road Trip Tomorrow

This trip has been months in the planning and we've been caught up in whirlwinds of re-scheduling several times, but at last we've arrived at the eve of our journey. I've decided to leave the computer behind for a week or so. 

Every trip is a new beginning. A new chance to re-evaluate what matters physically, what we absolutely need. I love taking things out of my pack and changing my focus. It is like going on a hunt, without knowing what is hunted.

But home still pulls me back with a magnetic power. I'm so grateful for what I've received in my life, and our home is one of my greatest pleasures. I am rooted and centered there.

In our yard

The practical arrangements have been almost overwhelming. Making sure everything is done beforehand has drained me to a little quivering husk. I have closed down my large Uncalendar for 2 weeks and thrown all my planning into the Franklin Covey Aurora binder, which is piteously stuffed. I haven't a photograph to share at the moment (late at night before falling into bed) but you wouldn't want to see it anyway. It bulges at the seams and I know this spells planner failure in big neon letters as I won't want to open it at this size.  

Rust, Ochre, Charcoal

Rust, Ocher, Charcoal: Paint on a cave wall. The rushing bison, the auroch turning his head in astonishment as the spear finds its mark. 

A rusty short sword unearthed in Akrotiri or Urfa. 

Life lived. Bodies used. The salt of sweat burning into your eyes. The taste of it on your lips.

I'm in love with the paleolithic age, and other artifacts of antiquity. I love to work, to feel my body working and moving, and to work hard, but the concept of a career befuddles me and always has, even now just 2 short years from retirement. I've never been able to fit my natural life into any pattern mandated by employment. 

The salt wind in my face, walking through shafts of sunlight in a forest, laying on my back in the desert watching the Milky Way glitter overhead - this is where I live. Seasons of want, seasons of work, seasons of plenty. My personality might be a chimera, smoke, fractured and fragmented, but it is my essential tool for living in this world and I can't do the Buddhist thing and write it off to seek a nirvana of constant detachment. My nirvana is meaning. Messages are written in clouds and on water, in plants and insects and rocks.

Time for a boar hunt, girl. Get the spears out.

Behold my mystery and magic!

Ah, suck the pollen darling. Bee fulfilled.

My nirvana is also organizing and planning. Notice how simple that cactus blossom is? See the waxy frill of petals and thick gold of pollen? I want to replicate that kind of simplicity and order (and beauty!) in my home.

Pan cabinet my husband made.  Yes he did the leaded glass. I picked the colors.

Rickety wonderful pie safe & so elegant choo choo.

And I want to replicate that natural, elegant order in managing my home and affairs. So I use notebooks, calendars and planners. (Obligatory caveat: I do have an iphone which is indispensable to my needs, but it just does not work to keep me organized and it cannot hold toothpicks, bandaids, my credit cards and cash, coupons or outgoing mail).

Also, I like to touch. I love touching natural things like paper and fabric and leather. I love to draw with a pencil and write with a pen. I don't love touching metal gadgets, though I appreciate them.

After many years self-knowledge has at last dawned, and I no longer expect myself to stay with any given planning system for an entire year. It seems natural to change with the seasons and I will write about whatever happens then, whether I go with a new system or just improve on what I'm using. 

Filofax pages & Mead Note Pages in a Franklin Covey Aurora Binder

Uncalendar and Notebook

Right now I am living in a very small family pod - my husband, our dog and cat, and Mom (who occupies our guest cottage). We live in a remote and rural area and have long drives in either direction to shop, so provisioning (and health care) is a major focus in our "homestead." I am a generation younger than my husband (who, along with my Mother, is in his 80s but so remarkably fit and good looking that nobody believes it).  

I hope there will be something in this blog to keep at least a few readers entertained: Comments on nature, ideas on decorating and maintaining a rural household, links and thoughts on keeping a home-based natural pharmacy and storing food, cooking and eating wonderful dishes, preparing for natural emergencies such as wildfires, storms and earthquakes, some ideas from my husband on auto maintenance and tool organization, and a lot of focus on making things happen through planning and organizing. Let's not forget gardening, and the huge project I'm undertaking next spring. 

Don't be surprised if I sneak some I Ching, Tarot and Astrology posts in here too. I've lived long enough to see their worth. 

And I will have lots of meltdowns and rants and immersion in all the juicy crap that we feel (and do) in private. You bet I have anxiety attacks about my primary companions all being in their 80s. Even my dog is going to be 10 soon.  

May the Sky God and Earth Mother bless you all!