I had the best intentions of sending you this missive yesterday - on my actual birthday - but the day got away from me. For all the fellow Pisces readers out there - wishing you a happy solar return, and a blessed ride around the sun next year.
Today is my birthday. I woke up to the best gift on earth - RAIN. We’ve had so little of it. Big winds lulled me to sleep, knocked branches onto the tin roof, cracked trees, while I smiled, floating into the dreamworld, corners of my mouth lifted up into grateful relief.
These are strange days. My life is constricting into a smaller orbit of location, friends, travel. Somehow it feels just right. I wonder, Why didn’t I do this sooner? “This” means hunkering down closer to the land, growing more food, and waking up to the rooster’s crow at dawn. The first half of my life was spent striving - for a hit song, a record deal, bigger shows, accolades, a career. It was exhausting. Truly.
My life now is exhausting - make no mistake - but it’s the kind of body tired that lets you know you accomplished something real and are indeed alive. Last week’s work included shovel digging a foot-deep 10 x 16 hole in the ground and sinking wire for a chicken pen to deter rat bastards from eating all the chicken feed. Another day found me on my knees at the garden beds, tying on netting to keep squirrels from mowing the baby veggie plants, and yet another day hucking Doug Fir rounds into the truck for next winter’s warmth. Everything on Planet Earth is scraping for a meal or a dry place to lay the head. It takes a lot of work to stay alive here.
I’m a mess without lists, but it occurred to me recently that the list next to my writing chair titled Land, is not really a list at all. It’s a lifestyle. There is no getting to the bottom of that list. It will never have an end. Even when my body gives up this world and goes to the great nether-land beyond, there will still be things that need to be done around here.
But today is my birthday. My eyes scan my lifestyle for things uncrossed, unchecked, untended. There is plenty, to be sure. But instead, I take a nap, then stroll through the woods on the land looking for the tree I heard crack and crash to the forest floor last night in the storm. Everything is in some form of decay in this world. It behooves me to check for the widow makers that snapped and may be leaning at dangerous angles, tangled in the branches of their brethren. While I search for the dangers above, I breathe deep the petrichor perfume of damp pine and cedar oils below. Inhale the hallelujah exhaled by the swollen soil - yesterday's parched earth that finally drank from the sky. That's enough for today. That is enough.
These are strange days. It’s easy to wonder, What’s the point? There is so much to fear, so much suffering and sadness, stupidity and madness. The point is the Place. The Planet. The People. The Purpose. The Possibilities. The Love. The Space between the dashes on our epitaph.
Here we are, hurtling through space together on the only home we have. I’m amazed by that. When I take a moment to think about where we live in the universe, it blows my mind. An ocean of gratitude swells up in my chest and overflows my eyes. We are so vulnerable and so strong, a genius and stupid species. If we can survive ourselves, we might just surprise ourselves and course-correct in time.
I begin another wild ride around the sun, around the fire gathered with friends and family - people I love dearly. We laugh and reminisce and take a moment of silence at the absurdity of it all. In my mind, I hold a vision clear enough to see gold flecks at the bottom of the deep pool of wishes. It’s an old-fashioned, cliché kind of dream, but I don’t care. I want Peace and Love on Planet Earth. Go ahead and laugh, but I can dream whatever I want.
Today is my birthday.
of course you're a pisces... my soulful, sensitive artist friend. i'm getting ready to go on an epic road trip and i'm planning to visit all four OUTPOSTS... wherever they may be as some of us are wanderers.
brava to you, woman... and maybe i'll see you next spring!
<3<3<3
Happy Belated Birthday, Michelle! I wish you a wonderful year. Hug a madrone or manzanita for me as you walk through the beautiful woods in your special place.