my best friend. ever.

 he seriously sleeps like this sometimes. there is a story about plucky duck. it's sad though. another time, maybe.

 halloween. cleopatra, if you didn't guess. no matter, the humiliation is the same.

 he loves the van. it is his real home. sometimes when i don't know where he is, i will find him sitting next to it, just waiting.

Mutt is so patient, so zen. he asks for so little, and gives everything. i posted once before about him, just waiting:


http://twokniveskatie.blogspot.com/2009/02/waiting-for-mike.html


and here:


http://twokniveskatie.blogspot.com/2009/02/waiting-for-brakes_27.html

and for those who missed it, here is how i lucked into the best dog in the whole wide world:


http://twokniveskatie.blogspot.com/2008/03/snownose.html

the value of empty

i get a daily meditation from the tao te ching. todays was especially meaningful because it speaks to me on so many levels.

"Thirty spokes are joined together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that allows the wheel to function.

We mold clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that makes the vessel useful.

We fashion wood for a house,
but it is the emptiness inside
that makes it livable.

We work with the substantial,
but the emptiness is what we use."

when i first read this, i thought of my van. on my first couple cross-country trips, i was proud of how much i could fit in all the nooks and crannies, and how many valuable, useful things i could haul along while remaining organized. on my last trip, though, i began to realize the value of emptiness.....of useable space. for many of us, downsizing is an ongoing project, a renewable goal. 

the last few months have been a downsizing in many other ways. i have been doing things more mindfully and with greater focus than i am usually capable of.   it is very hard for me, slowing down the inner turmoil and the cacophony of thoughts tumbling around in my head. even when those thoughts are positive or cheerful, as they often are, the are tiring. my mind does not always feel like my own..... it is crowded and busy and all to often self-absorbed. i said to a friend not long ago "i will really attain minimalism when i can downsize my brain".

i thought of that statement again after re-reading the above meditation a few times. "we work with the substantial but the emptiness is what we use". it hit me this evening how meaningful that is to me.  i don't think i have come close to understanding it....if anything, i don't want to overthink it, and miss the whole point. for now, i'm just going to let it be what it is.

i've been really scarce on the internet lately, been on a kind of digital diet. i have been practicing slow-down kind of things (i am reluctant to use the word "meditation" in the same blog post that references my thought processes!) and i have been having some success which delights me no end. i have fallen in love all over again with knitting and have taken up colorwork which involves counting and following charts.....mindful and purposeful and satisfying.  i am appreciating simple things in a way i haven't in a long time. i am grateful for the snippets of stillness that i stumble over, when i least expect it, and i have no doubt that there will be more........

the truth about truths

the other day i was looking for a cd case. i have two of them....a small blue round one, and a large grey square one. i keep them both in the rondyvan.
well, i wanted something in the small blue round one. i searched and searched and searched the whole van for the small GRAY round one. couldn't find it anywhere. note that i said gray. in my mind i had transposed the colors. once i had identified that i wanted the small gray cd holder, that became my "truth". i could not see anything else. the darn thing was right on the dashboard, and i couldn't see it.
just thought i'd share that experience.

one of my favorite sayings:

 "just because someone speaks the truth, does not mean he knows the truth"

something i have to remind myself of now and then!

hey!

happy winter solstice season, and all the holidays that occur during this time! my blog is nearing a year old, and what a year! i have been getting lots of nudges about the lack of posts, and i am going to alternately blog about current stuff, and flashback to some of the adventures of the last few months.

one of the most significant happenings was the acquisition of my first kayak. kayaking was something that fascinated me for the last few years, ever since Signe, my son's mentor in adventure school, told me i was born to be in a kayak. but finances were tight, what with a kid to raise and subsequent medical bills for cancer treatment........like many of my dreams, owning a kayak was shelved as "not possible in my lifetime".

well, one of the other significant happenings to me this year was meeting a new friend. an avid kayaker, he introduced me to the powerful zen of paddling on quiet waters, and helped make my dream a reality. the peace and centered-ness i feel on the water is one of the greatest gifts i have ever been given.....second only to the realization that the universe holds infinite possibilities, if we only just reach for them.

so the pic above is sorta like my christmas card to you all. now that the holidays are over and i can catch my breath, i need to decide my next direction. there are so many possibilities, and so many invitations, that deciding is difficult. i trust i'll know the right answer when i see it.....i can tell you it will involve a van, a dog, a kayak, and some of the many new friends i have made this year.......

later!

tribalfyber

turkey day 2007: a portion of our stand in the barn at a local farmers market where you can buy pasture raised meats, organic veggies, handmade soaps, and other sustainably grown or locally produced items. alot of the hats we sell are made from locally produced fiber and spun, dyed, and knitted by local artists. we had an amazing day here...excellent sales made even better by the chance to hang out with cool people who, like us, are trying to live more lightly on the earth.

catherine, one of tribalfyber's talented fiber artists, sent me this pic. she is back to doing her sorcery with the dyepot, and i am getting inspired to fool around with fiber again. we were on hiatus after several months of frantic knitting and spinning to stock up on warm woolen things for the fall and winter shows.

____________

i am going to spend some of my upcoming "down time" beginning to stock up for the next round of shows this fall and winter. i got a call recently from a library that holds a huge auction every summer and would like us to do spinning demos as one of the vendors. the crowd at this place would be the type that wouldn't pause at the notion of spending $30-$40 bucks for a hand-knitted hat, but i'm not certain how many people are gonna want to buy something woolen on a steamy july day. in october at the pumpkin festival, the crisp october air seemed to drive people to wildly shove money at us in order to get one of our hats, although i like to think that it was because they were smitten with our funky, one of a kind creations too.

____________

which brings me to another crossroads. i have to start booking the fall shows now, and reserving our spots. but my future is rather uncertain, and open to many new possibilities. i am itching to get on the road, and am reluctant to commit my time so far in the future. i need to explore the possibilty of taking this show on the road, or going exclusively internet with it. and i have to consider the fact that some aspects of my future are completely out of my control.

____________

and as always, the forests and the quiet places are out there, just waiting. i can choose to get as far away from civilization as possible, and enjoy the solitude, or maybe find a tribe of like-minded folks to hang out with.

____________

we'll see.

amnesty

i am a card carrying member of something. just thought you ought to know that, like it might lend some credibilty to my otherwise weirdness :-)

i am inclined to champion unpopular or obscure causes simply because someone's got to do it. i distrust corporate-type causes where a big portion of their funds go to fundraising yet more money, creating a vortex that sucks in any usefulness they might have aspired to. think black hole.

i think the most honorable thing you can do in life is to give voice to those who otherwise cannot be heard. i think one of the most horrid human conditions is imprisonment, whether it is as a prisoner of conscience, or of political agenda. (or of a culture run amok). amnesty international is the vehicle by which i can use my voice to make change, one letter at a time.

the thing i love most about amnesty is that you don't have to throw alot of money at them so they can hire someone to do the scutwork. we here at home, in front of our computer monitors, are the scut monkeys, telling powerful regimes in places we'll never see that we are watching, and we aren't looking away. we write our congressmen to let them know what we think of a government who looks the other way, and that we are watching for them to do the next right thing. we send cards to political prisoners and victims of torture, to let them know that we are watching, and they are not forgotten. and sometimes, we watch someone innocent go free.

pretty powerful stuff.

so please click on the link below and check out amnesty internationals website. there are alot of causes, and many ways to be of support. you could make a big difference in the life of someone whose voice has been silenced....whose hope has died. just one person can make a difference.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/

the first thing you see: part 2

when i am at an encampment, i usually wake up at first light. camp is silent save for the occasional nicker of a horse. on this morning, i stay in my blankets beneath the small square of oilskin that is my home for the week. i have water and jerky in my pack, and eat while i wait for the sun to rise.

this is the first thing i see as the light grows. i slow my breathing in an effort to slow time.....i do not want this moment to end. sounds around camp pick up....wood being chopped, tent stakes being hammered, dog soldiers calling out to each other. smells of woodsmoke and bacon cooking drift on the air. barefoot children gather on the pond banks, then come to squat by my shelter to show me the frog they caught. i plead amnesty for the frog....they cheerfully grant it. the sun burns off the last of the mist, and i know where i am.


i am home.

staying out of jail

this mukluk contains many weapons. it makes a great arrow holder....

i had to go to the post office today. i went down pretty much directly from my morning hike with mutt. since i hike alot lately, pretty much anywhere i go is directly from the woods.

my neighbor and good friend works at the post office. she laughed when i asked her how much a stamp was, she thinks i'm from another century as it is. she says "if it's too high, are ya gonna shoot me?". that's when i remember that i've got a gun in my boot, tucked nicely between the moosehide and the felt liner. which is, like, a federal offense to have one in a post office.

now, i'm not worried about cindy, she's not about to freak, but i don't know about all the folks doodling around the lobby. the gun is tucked down snug, but the minute i turn from the wall, it is gonna be clear that it is a revolver sticking up there. this is not no little pocket gun, no sir. and come to think of it, i don't know how legal all the sharp things are that i'm sporting on my body. i may use them to peel my apples, but they don't know that.

so i say to cindy "cindy, i've got a gun in my boot, what should i do?"

she snickers and says "well, don't pull it out, for god's sake, you can have the stamps for free" which gets both of us a little hysterical , laughing. so if i had any hopes of not attracting attention, they were long gone.

ultimately, i dawdled by the counter while she waited on the other customers, until i could safely leave the building unobserved. we had a good laugh over the whole thing in our little country post-office, but it was sobering to think what trouble i could get into if i'm not more careful about disarming in civilization.

now, i normally wouldn't be sporting a gun in my boot, but i ordered a holster from Simply Rugged in Wasilla, Alaska. Rob Leahy makes the best leather stuff for guns on the planet. my holster came on saturday, but it was for a 5 shot, and mines a 7, so he shipped me out the right one today. so soon, i will have a georgeous sourdough pancake holster that will enable me to concealed carry in the proper manner.

but that doesn't change the fact that i have to actually think about my weapons before going into civilization. so i put the little sign that you see above in the picture, right where i'll see it when i exit the drivers door. i also made one for by the slider in the back. that will remind me to both disarm when the circumstances call for it, or get armed if i'm in a hinkey area. that oughta keep me out of trouble.

my other option is to stay in the woods permanently, which gets more attractive all the time.....

____________

post-script: tara, who always has my back, pointed out that the sign could attract unwelcome attention from police officers. i'll have to think of something better. thank-you, tara love....

monday morning

went out early this morning to shoot a little. what a gorgeous day! didn't sleep much last night, but the air and the cold and the sun made me feel wonderful. i brought a blanket so we can catch a nap when we hike out to our spot back in the woods. i don't have a quiver for my arrows, so i parked them in the stationary quiver at the archery range, but i don't shoot this far away......this is where the big boys with the compound bows shoot from.....so i figured out that a mukluk makes a fine place to park your arrows while you are shooting up close :-) i had one bulls-eye, and only one arrow missed the target, so i'm happy with that.

this is back in the woods, in our favorite spot. if you follow a path back from the dirt road, it opens up into a huge field surrounded by forest. mutt will usually go crazy running, but not today, as much. i forgot the paw balm again, and he's got compacted snow between his toes. he chews it out, then runs awhile, then stops to chew it out again. it makes for a mellow morning, these moments of stillness.

sleeping on snow is the best. the sun has given the snow a texture that mimics memory foam.... not too crunchy, not too soft.....and it molds to my body beneath the wool blanket. i drift in and out, warmed by the sun. i want to stay here, and never go back.

a helicopter approaches. the sun is in my eyes, and i can't see who it is. we are in the flight path between two trauma centers, and lifeflight goes over alot. but it could be the staties, or a news chopper. i realize that it might look a teeny bit odd, someone lying in the middle of a field in the snow. so i get up, and head toward the woods. i don't wave or anything, so as to avoid inadvertently signaling that i need assistance. i feel strangely violated, like my secret place has been revealed..... mutt is glad to be on the move.

a friend, who i have never met in person, wrote a poem describing what they thought my woods walks must be like. it was such an accurate picture of this special place that it gave me a shiver. a nice shiver, i mean, to think that somehow my writing reflects my surroundings so well. or maybe he is just super intuitive, which is more likely the case.....either way, thank-you.....

another sort of weapon

i gotta have surgery in less than 3 weeks. that doesn't give me much time, and screws up all my spring plans. i have a ton of stuff to do beforehand....like spring cleaning the farmhouse, moving the last of the wood into the house, and making any changes to the rondyvan that involve lifting or straining.

i am calm enough about this now. but the last few days i've been evaluating what i do on a given day, to determine if i can do it after "major abdominal surgery". i don't think the surgery is really that major, but i think the doc is telling me that because i don't want to stay overnight in the hospital, and he figures i'll sign out AMA if he doesn't frighten me.

he's trying to frighten the wrong cowgirl.

scary was last year after throat surgery, when they sent me home a couple hours after surgery with a neck and throat too swollen to swallow my spit, let alone stay hydrated on a 100 degree day. i had the same surgery that some of my patients in icu had, except they had emergency tracheostomy trays at their bedsides. i love the health care system.

anyhow, i have determined that most of the things i do involve lifting, or other things that increase intra-abdominal pressure. chopping and carrying wood is out. so is hiking alone in the woods. no swords or longbows. gad, it's gonna be a long 6-8 weeks.

so, i made a list of stuff to get done. first on the list was camping :-) i got to fool around with my longbow some. i've never shot it in temps this cold. felt funny, like the draw was heavier, but i got some decent shots out of it. i definitely need a new string.

i posted a couple pics of my bow..... a sinew-backed hickory longbow. it's 59 1/2" long, with a draw length of 28" and a supposed draw weight of 38#. last year at rendezvous i attended some of the archery seminars, and was told the weight is alot heavier than 38#, which means it's likely legal for hunting, should i ever need to use it for that. when i got impatient waiting for the guy to ship me the bow, i called him, and he said "it takes alot of time to chew that much sinew"!!!! i knew i was getting a traditional bow, but this guy went all the way. i really love it.

so anyhow, i decided to stay home tonight and clean. get the chores out of the way as soon as possible, then i can play in what time is left. that, and plan my post-op exit strategy......

changes

screw blogger. i want to load a cool picture, and it won't let me. so i know i'm just not meant to have that picture, this minute, in this post. still aggravating. a little. :-)

a lot is going on right now in my life. i started iaido classes last week, and am really loving it. i wanted to take it for years, but didn't think chicks did it. well, half my class and one of my instructors are women. being in a room half full of women with swords is an empowering experience. i feel like i've come home.

over the last few months, i've been trying to build my upper body strength. chopping wood helps, and carrying it, and stacking it. i used to lift weights for awhile, and could bench my weight, which i guess is a good thing. but i'm not too big on "organized" exercise now. hiking and hoeing and working with wood seemed like good enough for me.

heh. was i wrong. in class on saturday, we had a different teacher named mike (i seem to have an overabundance of mike's in my life). we were doing cuts with the swords and he says "stop swinging like your chopping wood.....you're swordsmen, not axe muderers." well, so much for me, miss-heft-it-high-and-slam-it-down-kate. i've got a lot to relearn.

then there is the part where we kneel on the floor long enough for both legs to go to sleep, then leap nimbly to our feet and perform smooth movements with the sword. yeah. karen taught me a couple exercises to do over the next few weeks. don't worry, she says, your thighs will be like iron in no time. heh. they haven't stopped quivering since saturday.

tomorrow i start guitar lessons. i found an instructor who doesn't teach out of a book. i am self-taught, so i have an odd assortment of things i want to learn. like, tara asked me what key i was playing "angel" in. i had no idea. i know chords, but not much musical stuff. so greg is gonna teach me keys, and some other basics. me and tara, we're gonna jam :-)

i also hope, once and for all, to learn how to tune my B string.

so that's what's new in my life. mutt and i are out alot more, hiking hills and tromping through snow. i am knitting tara's socks as fast as i can. there are books to read and songs to sing and wool to spin. doctors to disagee with, and procedures to decide on. and always a rondyvan in constant need of tweaking. it is good to be out of my recent slump.

which brings me to my love/hate relationship with the internet. i get pulled to it in fits and starts. i'm feeling pulled away right now, and feeling a need to focus down more. but i am really loving my blog, and some of the friendships i've made. like, i am hooked on my daily dose of johnny's quotes :-)

so i am backing off a bit, taking a little time to regroup. i won't be doing much emailing for awhile. i will be blogging, i just don't know how often. so if i don't respond to emails right off, be patient. check in here every couple days, i have alot more stories to tell.

it's a zen thing

dying
was never really the issue....
where do you find death
in the midst of so much motion?
slowing down to look and see
would be a death all it's own,
for if the motion stops
i'm not really certain of what
will be left-
are you?
it seems i have left
small pieces of me
along the way-
erosion was inevitable,
almost desirable,
like dropping ballast
to rise above the storm....
never really certain of
coming down again
after the thunder stilled.


i wrote this poem years ago, after one of several stints in detox. i knew then i was losing.....my way, my sanity, my life. my whole existence became centered down on one thing....going fast at any cost. i was trying to stay one step ahead of the darkness, and losing ground every day. betsy said to me "you want to die"..... it was a statement now, no longer a question.

i didn't die. at some point, i chose to live.

now, if there is any desperation in my life, it is simply to find the quiet places. i soak up silence like a sponge. i have dark days, but there is always, always light on the other side....... peace, after the thunder stills.

i have these moments now, split seconds where time stops, freezes in place, before moving on. they catch me unaware. i never expect them.

i get them chopping wood. when i take a second swing of the axe, and it lands precisely in the notch created by the first swing, there is one moment of perfect silence before the whole becomes two, and the log falls away.....energy from my arms, to the wood. connected.

sometimes they happen when i shoot my bow. i shoot instinctively, without aiming. i simply raise and draw my bow, softening my vision in an attempt to feel the target rather than see it. i miss alot, but more and more there are those shots that hit exactly where my heart saw, with a sharp sound of certainty, and not a quiver of the fletchings.....energy from my arms, to the arrow. connected.

i sometimes wonder at the miracle of these moments, and how i got here from that day so long ago, so lost.

living
is suddenly the issue
in that airless endless moment
of thunder rushing down
of prayer god please
let it stop
now.
a million shattered pieces
can still make up the whole.....
i cried save me
long ago.

i wrote this poem a few months after the first...... in rehab, finally, to stay. someone looked at the two poems together, and said "they aren't done. you need to finish them. there is more to this story".

it has taken a long time to find the ending to that story. it is better called a beginning though, because it is about promise, and progress, and pleasure in those single moments of time. i have come full circle.....

keeping warm

i love my little jotul stove. it's swedish. it is small, and will be perfect for a one room cabin, or a good sized wall tent. when i am in the house, this is what i look at all day. i sleep, cook, eat, write, and surf the net in this little corner of the house.

i have an excellent chimney, only needs cleaning once a year. but my stovepipe and the flue that runs through the wall to the chimney build up creosote something fierce. i have to shut down the stove once a week to clean it out really well. last week i had to shut it down over night. i couldn't stay warm even with a good sleeping bag and a dog, so i was up at 4:30 in the morning ripping it apart and cleaning it in the dark. what a pain that was. couldn't find my headlamp, and couldn't see down the pipe, so i stuck my arm down the pipe to clean it by feel. had to make a laundromat run that week....weren't no scrub board gonna clean the sleeve of that jacket :-)

it's pretty warm here today, but damp. the stove is drafting poorly today, so i'm gonna shut it down, and hope it cools before dark so i can restart it tonight. mutt got really muddy on our trek today, so no way he's getting in the sleeping bag tonight....it'll be the stove, or the shivers. :-)

january 31, 2008

this is my computer monitor on drugs. i am trying to read a post at vandwellers, but the image is blinking like....well, like neon in a tom waits song. it gives me a headache. what will really give me a headache is if i fall over backwards outta my chair and smack my head on the woodstove.

i got wood from the shed where it got split by the rental splitter. my friends mike and laura did that for me for a solstice present :-) the pile on my porch is almost used up, so i had to transport wood in the john deere over to the front yard, where i use my trusty axe to split it down smaller for the stove (my cooking splits i call them). it seems like alot of labor intensive steps sometimes. it would be so much easier to live in the shed.

i used to haul it back and forth in my wheelbarrow, but that got a flat tire. it was almost nicer that way....quieter. and i'm not so inclined to knock off parts of the porch as i have been known to do with the bucket loader.

i went to the post office to ship something to a friend, and a hat i sold yesterday (my first etsy sale YES!). while there, i asked them if i could have one of the extra phone books to use for firestarters. they have been shipping a bag of them a day to the landfill, so they had me back the rondyvan around the side and gave me all of them! they will make a lifetimes worth of firestarters.

internet blues

i am at the library. i am having internet access and monitor problems. i am switching service providers, and will then see what problems still remain. i've been using the cheapest, slowest isp, but now with needing reliable access for ebay and etsy to generate income, not to mention blogging, change is due.

i am a hot person. i don't even own a winter coat, i just layer long johns and some fleece zip t's depending on the weather. it's great for winter camping or living in alaska, but it limits me in social situations where people use heat. humans keep their buildings too warm...... 5 minutes in this place and i'm uncomfortable. i have removed as much clothing as i can and still be legal, so i'm not going to stay and try to do any blogging like i intended.

i will be back soon, with a blog about border crossings, and how tara came to be my hero. thanks to all of you for your comment love :-) and i will be having some responses to specific questions.

kate

p.s. can't do pictures at the library, so how about a song for the day......"man who sold the world" sung by jordis unga. she's got a voice that hurts my heart.

the first thing you see

"at some point in life, the world's beauty becomes enough." toni morrison

how true. how much of my life i squandered, looking for The Reason for Being. only to find out that the whole point, after all, was just to be here. now.

i have this thing, like a quirk. (okay, if you ask my therapist, he'll tell you that i have alot of them). but my big thing is what i see first thing every morning. i believe it sets the mood for the rest of the day. wake up in beauty, walk in beauty. that's one of the main reasons i prefer to sleep outside.

the top picture is the view out of the back of the van when it is parked across the road from the house. i sleep there alot, don't waste gas driving anywhere. i don't need to. i am fortunate to be surrounded by open spaces right where i am.

the bottom picture was taken one morning from underneath a leanto behind my house. you can see my breath clouding in the cold. i don't blame folks for thinking i'm nuts, sleeping outside at my age. but what a rush, opening my eyes and the first thing i see is that sky. it imprints in your brain, setting up a buffer for the garbage that assaults your spirit the rest of the day.

pretty cheap therapy, if you ask me.

well, here i am....where am i?

hey! this is my first visit to a blog. i came to check out tonyz's blog, and found i had to register to read it, so i ended up with a blog of my own.....unnerving, a bit. now that i have it, i feel like i should master it, so to speak....what happens if you leave an unattended blog on the net? could it grow and grow on it's own, into something awful?

it could well do that under my supervision, also........

!a perk.....another friend has a blog here, so i can keep up with her and her daughter.

the internet freaks me out....i don't know if i'll ever adjust. i gotta know something.....where IS the internet? like, where does it exist? in my computer, or your computer......in the wires? really, where? its mind boggling that all that information is floating around out there....

i asked my son richard this question......his answer:
"it's everywhere. it's an entire network of systems. it's just data going from one place to another. thats the web."

so, i couldn't get my mind around that. i tried again, and his response:
"it lives in small tiny seashells covered by a jedi forcefield, and guarded by fearsome seahorses with lasers attached to their forehead. because of high rent, the web will soon be moving into a small shoe instead."

hmmmmm......

i don't believe him.

so, where am i?