...although I think most of you know that. Like seanthedruid, I've been on Facebook more often lately, for much the same reasons. Then on the same day we apparently have the same idea to check in here (cue "Twilight Zone" music). Anyway, I hope to post here more soon, as I'm trying to get back into gear of writing more. Stay tuned.

So I promise I will get around to writing about Eight Winds, but I'm just not quite up for it yet. So I'm going to skip ahead to the second part of my week-long trip to Washington: the teaching workshop in Tacoma.

For those of you who don't know, some colleagues and I wrote (and won!) a grant for self-directed professional development. We wanted to go to this series of workshops, and they just happened to be the week after Eight Winds, in Tacoma. I was pretty nervous about shifting back into professional stealth-pagan mode after all that, but was really not expecting it to loom over me quite so literally:




Here's a close-up in case you couldn't tell who that is:



Yeah. Suspended in the lobby of the fancy-pants hotel we stayed in for four days. He showed up in the public women's bathrooms, too:




This picture is actually next to the bathroom door, but there were prints inside as well. I couldn't really take pictures inside the bathroom because I didn't want to freak people out, and the hotel staff were already giving me the stink-eye.

Anyway, the hotel did have this one very cool feature, I thought:




And, not hotel-related, but my favorite of the public artwork that I saw:




Fire on the water! Most excellent.

I've been on an art binge for the past few days: frantically spinning yarn in hopes of actually finishing my brother's birthday gift in time for his birthday next month; a little sewing and a lot more cussing out the sewing machine; and, making this book!




The covers are made from upholstery samples that were being discarded. The bookboard is scavenged/reused as well. The tablet-woven band says "SMG" (for Sierra Madrone Grove) in ogham. The book is bound with Coptic stitch. I hadn't made a book in a very long time, so I pretty much had to reteach myself. The stitching is a little uneven and loose, But it should hold together.

So, I came back from Wellspring all fired up to get stuff done--finish all those art projects that have been languishing on the UFO shelf, actually get some of these darn essays written. Yeah. So here I am a week later...

...pestered by the Outdwellers, in the form of must-clean-the-bathroom-oh-let-me-knit-a- few-more-rows-oh-I'm-hungry-oh-the-mail-is-here-oh-I-should-take-out-the-recycling-dang-wasn't-I-going-to-write-that-Outdwellers-essay-today?

I finally, duh, made an Outdweller offering, and here's the essay.

( Outdwellers )

Spent the morning walking trails along the North Fork of the American River. Picked up: five cigarette butts, uncountable bits of broken bottles, two squished beer cans, one dented metal trash can, one nerf projectile, one plastic coffee cup lid, innumerable unidentifiable plastic bits, one battery, one broken plastic flower pot, three long metal brackets, and a shopping cart.

The wildflowers were nice, too.

May the keen minds of Connacht grant us good counsel;
With the warriors of Ulster may we stand strong;
Like the lush fields of Leinster may our gardens bloom bountiful;
May the music of Munster dance on our tongues.

...is pre-eminently an ontophany."

Thank you for clearing that up, Mr. Eliade.


(from _The Sacred and the Profane_)

Well, I'm back from a morning of physical labor on behalf of the nature spirits! What was originally planned as a tree-planting day with the Sacramento Tree Foundation, became a work day to tend to an existing planting of native oaks. The soil is too wet to plant trees right now, so instead we mulched, hoed, and cleared rocks out of the area. I was on rock duty, which meant I spent about 3 hours walking back and forth in the muddy weeds, finding large rocks and flinging them over the trench separating the tree-planting area from the vernal pools. Apparently they planted a bunch of trees last year, and lost about 90% of them to voles and other varmints living in the weeds. So this summer they want to mow down the weeds to discourage the critters, and have to clear out the rocks that could damage their mowing equipment. It probably sounds like a dreadful job, but I actually had a blast. It was a great opportunity to hone my ESRP skills (extra-sensory rock perception), which was far preferable to the stubbed-toe method of rockolocation. And let me tell you, by the end of it I felt more grounded than I think I ever have in my life! Great view of the Sierras, too. Amazing how much snow there is!

I definitely plan on volunteering with STF again. They do a lot of great work restoring native habitat to offset the urban sprawl of the Sacramento area. The work day leaders were very friendly and had a lot of knowledge about local ecosystems. All in all a great day!

Spent the weekend messing around with various silk preparations. I haven't used a wheel in a while, so it was a little weird getting used to that again, versus the drop spindle. While practicing spinning from the fold this morning, I had a thought about mudras...something to investigate. It seemed easier to maintain control with a relaxed hand if I pinched with the thumb and middle finger, rather than the thumb and index finger. It just felt better, and I really got into a meditative/borderline trance state, and I wonder if there could be a connection there.

Anyway, hanging out with a bunch of fiber fanatics is always fun, and working with the silk was just luscious. I'm totally excited to break out the silkworm eggs in a couple weeks...