water, wood, rock, and light

Finally! We are finally home. It is difficult to fully express the thorough satisfaction, the deep comfort, the frission of excitement - the flash of lightning the rumbling of thunder and the smell of distant rain over the desert - that the word home holds for me when coupled with this place, the Mesas and Mountains of Northern New Mexico. And to be home with my Pal and my Dog - to close up the house at night, feeling the cool breeze of this high altitude shivering through the leaves of the elms, hearing the quiet of this sleepy town on the edge of the great meadow, sensing the wilderness opening extravagantly to the west and the wide desert to the east- oh how lovely my dreams have become.

Our emissary of place has revealed itself in the person of the Mourning Cloak Butterfly. This lovely being loves the sap from the Elm trees which surround us. They are one of the longest lived butterflies, close to a year. This one is probably a teenager. She/he has been following Al around the yard, landing on his shoulder and ultimately keeping track of him as he hung the clothes on the line:



We had a similar experience with the Luna Moth in Indiana, and so have come to recognize these beings when they appear.

Our response to this place, this particular place and her welcoming of us so beautifully home, is to create a shelter for the spirits in thanksgiving for our place here with them. Very much like the Thai do in their homeland, we understand that we are the tenants here, borrowing this little patch of ground, playacting at setting up house, pretending we have some endurance - when in fact we are just brief interlopers. Beauty attracts beauty, so we created our first intentional space in this new garden in honor of the real residents here.



Another first response, the other side of the coin so to speak, is our "deflector shield." From our front door one can look up the front path, through the front gate, and all the way directly up the street that "T's" at our front door. Very bothersome energetically. So, we quickly gathered the materials at hand from the garden and invoking the elemental powers of water, wood, rock, and light, created the first of what I am sure will be many manifestations of deflecting guardians for this space. The lost toys from the yard are happy to have a new job to do, and they are doing it very well.








Emma is happy to be home too!





























I'll try to post more regularly now that we are getting a little more settled. Las Vegas has so many stories to tell - like the very fat man with spurs on his boots eating bad Chinese food, or the Chevy and Maria drama that lasted from 1AM until 11AM, or the lady with the white moo moo, the big hair, and giant fuzzy slippers who just walked by.....