connected circles of life

this morning i am in a new place. these nice folks welcomed me to stay in their guest room with my very own comfortable bed. this morning they made us old fashioned oatmeal with fruit and yogurt. it felt nice to receive hospitality similar to that which is extended by the twelve tribes. i feel this is a very important demonstration of God's love through our lives. 

i got these pictures yesterday with the phone camera of Iris while at River School Farm. the ring had been left by someone in the community room where i have been sleeping for the past few weeks. the house i call the Lab. i felt like it had been left there for me, and started wearing it. it has felt really good, a comfort in a way. i have never seen a ring like this before and i find it beautiful. 

the hammock is in the little courtyard outside of the office, below the home apartment of Iris and Tom, who i visited and taught to make sourdough bread.

so this morning i decided to look into the meaning of the three rings and also the seed of life. i've been wanting to find out more about interpretations and history of the seed of life, and it is certainly closely related to this ring of three rings i have adopted. so here are two links i found that you might also find interesting:

http://www.liv.ac.uk/~spmr02/rings/

http://www.crystalinks.com/floweroflife.html

i noted in reading about the borromean rings that if one is removed the other two will fall apart. this is a very important aspect of the rings. another way of joining three rings is in the way that this ring on my finger is made. if one ring is removed the other two are still linked. this changes the symbolic meaning, and perhaps implies a shortcoming of the maker and wearer. or is it just different? it can be helpful in our current circumstances for two to be strong in unity while the other is separate. perhaps this is how we are meant to work. we can be strong as three united, and still strong as two, while the other works alone at times. i found here that this variation of the borromean rings is called 'torus link'. http://www.liv.ac.uk/~spmr02/rings/types.html

the seed of life is like these three rings, but with seven! from seven to infinity, we are all connected in relationship. just in different ways... it makes a difference how we are linked. this connects with a saying that came to me while on the hoop tour back in 2011-12:

everything is perfect as it is and there are so many different ways we can do things. 

following guidance

this is a picture of me in the living room/kitchen of the house i had as a home base for about three weeks during my Reno Visit. 

how i came to be invited to church one Sunday is one of many beautiful stories that unfolded because i chose to follow some impulse of the heart. this i sometimes call guidance, or intuition. 

story coming soon...

The Lab

the folks i stayed with the longest in Reno live two houses down from Kyle and Katie's Be the Change Project. i decided to call it the Lab (short for Labyrinth) because the house and land are a place where many experiments are going on, many works in progress, interesting combinations of things... and when i walk around inside the house it feels a little like a labyrinth with so many doors and hallways and small rooms.

two community meals were held out front of the house in this circle of chairs while i was at the Lab.

there is a lot of composting going on in the large back yard. the main bin system has eight spaces where the compost is turned from one space to another. there is a separate two bin system for the humanure in the back. wood chips, easily available in reno aparently, are the main carbon source.

i swaddles this one passive pile, which was being held within a metal cage, with chips and branches. i gave a demonstration of the method of depositing material that i learned from Joseph Jenkins. then we added the straw and dried out vegetable debris on top. my most recent compost sculpture!

i laid some of the deck boards with eric on one of the fine evenings recently. this is how it looks when wet after a rain.

i've been using the sun oven every day. sometimes just heating water for dishes and tea in the evening...

the garden...

don't forget to have fun!

Reno sings

my second day in reno toni took me to see Lost City Farm, which she started with lindsey in 2013. toni and i learned much of what we know about growing food from the same internship at Green String Farm. it was cool to see how she is applying the method on this previously vacant acre. this happened to be the day of an Art Town event hosted by the farm. many people who had never seen the farm, some who didn't even know about it before, came by to check it out.

 i did a short composting demonstration when i deposited the small bucket of food scraps from toni's house. afterwards i gave the bins a nice makeover, watering them thoroughly, shaping them evenly into the bin, piling the leaves stored in one bin on top of the one i had just deposited in, and placing leaves of straw from one bale to keep heat and moisture in the piles. one bin had a little finished compost in it with a lot of coarse woody material mixed in. toni told me they don't sift it, which i dug. no need to when applying it as a top dressing in row crops!

 later on in the day i took my first shopping trip to the Great Basin Food Coop! a couple friends of mine were part of the founding group a few years ago and still work there. the beautiful building with mural around the front door and demonstration vegetable gardens wrapping around really impressed and pleased me. i talked to the first employee i saw and it turned out he was aware of Lost City Farm. i told him they could really use more hands and he said he would be interested in coming out to volunteer. toni tells me that not many of the 215 folks on their volunteer mailing list ever show up to help. its a shame because the base for something really amazing to happen is already established there.

 after the visit to the coop i meandered down to the river. following my intuition and senses, i came to a stage in the park where people were gathered watching Sierra Nevada Master Works Chorale. it was a very patriotic and spiritual performance and i got really into it, singing along and resonating with the meaning. i stood with my bike next to this huge pine tree, the sun shining on my face. when i looked around me i connected and smiled with others in the audience. it was a great feeling of togetherness that i had missed on the night of the 4th when i stayed in by myself. one woman came up to me to tell me she had gotten a nice picture of me. it was a sweet expression of the spirit of connection that she would do that and let me know about it. she was appreciating the beauty all around her. after sending me that first image she decided to share these others too, which might give you a better idea of what i was seeing too.
thanks cindy!

i continued to ride the bike and headed towards the sunset. it felt so good to ride the bicycle around on nice roads without my gear weighing me down! i wanted to get out to the hills for a better view, but they were too far. i found a place on the edge of town where there was an open field that allowed a nice view of the sky. i ate a banana there and took a moment to be with the beauty in stillness. on the way back to toni's i harvested some sage that was growing by the road so i could make smudge bundles.

ashland and dunsmuir

i had the opportunity to go with someone making a trip to ashland so i took it spur of the moment on monday. the trip was full of beautiful interactions and good vibes. we went to the co-op there in ashland for lunch. my new friend Basking Roots was on the trip and craig drove. he was taking his brother to the airport in medford. we stopped by lythia park and drank some of that special water before heading back south. also on the way south we stopped at a reptile shop and communed with the snakes, lizards, frogs, and other creatures. i was stuck by the calm, slow, wise presence of a snapping turtle. right before leaving a chameleon who lives careless in the shop climbed onto me and said hello. Roots was enjoying holding a snake and craig found a companion of a bearded dragon, which is the kind of lizard his brother had had as a child. he bought it and it rode on his shoulder the rest of the day! after stopping back in shasta for a while we accepted craig's invitation to visit his home in dunsmuir, just south of shasta. it felt like a lush little forested valley to me and his house was very comfortable and spacious. he shared with me his electronic music and he recorded me singing a little so he can maybe incorporate it later in a track. that was fun to do with him. i had worked on a couple spoons while in the car and gave him one i finished. another creative burst was when i found a piece of chalk on the sidewalk in front of the house and drew the seed of life. there was more chalk sitting on a shelf by the front door of the folks who live below him and i decided to just go for it and use what colors i wanted. i felt like it would be alright to use them without asking, even though i knew that was sometimes not okay. after i was finished craig told me that the guy there had expressed to him that these were for everyone to use!

shasta song circle

the song circle at horse camp did not come together anything like i had imagined. nobody came, even the people who i'd met in the park that day. my friend sofia and her daughters got to be like a family, just us, for the trip up. she carried her younger daughter and the 5 and a half year luna hiked the 1.7 miles with us. she complained a lot, but did very well considering it was her first real hike. we got up just after dark and i set up the tent in the moon light. we sang a few bedtime songs around the hoop, with a single altar sofia made of rocks from the ground outside and a rose i had brought from below. we had no candle, so we sang in the dim moonlight coming through the window in the corner of the cabin. the next day we waited around for the time when i had told some others we might sing again, 11-1 before lunch. the kids played, we munched on simple foods, and i worked on a souped spoon. i got to meet the caretaker, who is there on weekends, and got a better sense of how a song circle might be respectfully held in this public cabin. by 11am nobody showed up to sing with us. around noon a bunch of kids arrived with their families though and it brought a new energy of special interest to the girls. while i was taking down the tent i heard singing back by the cabin. it was the Indian children of a large group with parents and grandparents who had come up to pray to the mountain. they were singing gleefully by the spring next to the cabin. when i got back over there the children had started back down the trail, but most of the adults were still there. i approached them, told them i had come up here to sing, and asked if they would teach me a song. they taught me a bajan for their guru sai baba. i grabbed the song book i carried from home of the group 'Bajans and Beyond' on Orcas Island. they recognized some of the bajans and were tickled that i knew of them. when  with their beautiful voices they recited a long prayer in sanskrit to the mountain i joined them in spirit and nearly cried at this unexpected way that my wish was being fulfilled. this is what i had come and waited patiently for. once i had let go of what i had tried to create it was given to me in a different way. these people also told me about their belief that Shiva lives in mt. shasta, and that connected with my feeling that this song circle i'd called was for healing, peace, and protection.

'Lord Shiva is the most respected God in the Divine Trinity as per Hindu Mythology. His abode Kailasha is said to be the most peaceful place in the universe where he meditates for the wellness of the entire universe. Lord Shiva is also known as Mahadev means God of the Gods and hence, worshipping of Lord Shiva bestows a person with good Health, Happiness, Good Fortune, Name & Fame as well peace of mind. He is also the God of Love, Music & Beauty and his blessings are boundless and his forgiveness is endless. Hence, any person who worships Lord Shiva with full faith and dedication is blessed very easily and quickly since Lord Shiva is also known as "Baba Bholenath" means a God who is very innocent at his heart inspite of being the most powerful amongst Gods. '

the mountain Arunchala is in India, and said by some to be related closely to mt. shasta. they are approximately on the other side of the globe from each other! 

i think it would be great to gather some people on Mt. Shasta in the future to sing and pray to shiva, or in the spirit of shiva, for healing, peace, and protection. or maybe we all just go when we can at different times...

Davis Loop Rider

i found out the other day that there is a bicycle loop, or you might say hoop, around the city of Davis. my given name being Davis, i came here for my first time as Hoop Rider. this is a little line i came up with about it:

 Davis the Hoop Rider takes a ride around the Davis Loop with his hula hoop.

it's true. it really happens.

this morning was the morning i was going to depart back up to Mt. Shasta. i noticed before going to bed at 1am that someone on their way from Sacramento to Seattle (my home town) was leaving at 7am, so i got up early to check on that possibility. when i realized i was not ready to leave yet, i decided to take advantage of this relatively early start to my day and ride the Davis Loop while it was still cool. i was SO sleepy though and laid back down to doze for another hour or so.

 the Sunwise Co-op is right on the Loop at it's west end. i started out in the clockwise direction, as i had not ridden that way yet. i took a little detour before leaving Village Homes to one of their orchards, where the previous day i had discovered a mulberry tree with tons of dried berries on the ground beneath. i'd wanted to harvest some to bring with me. it felt good to ride on designated trail with no particular destination. just moving forward and focussing on the mechanics of riding helped ease my mind. i'd been getting anxious about my departure and all the things i had wanted to do before i left. all i had to do as i rode was enjoy the scenery, watch out for other trail users, and look for markings to tell me the way. the trail is mostly well marked, but some places are not so clear and i ended up getting off the loop. somehow i got down to the other side of the loop by crossing through near the center of Davis. the section i came to by the arboretum was nice, being shaded by tall oaks mostly. i went east and around in the other direction than i had started out, then when i got to the top of the loop again the trail was once again lost to me. i made some attempts, getting back on and loosing it again. then i decided to take 5th, a main street with a bike land, through the center of Davis. the changes of route i made led to me riding in more of a twisted hoop, an infinity symbol.

 the part of the loop that passed through the UC Davis campus was swarming with students on bikes! i liked riding through that. sometimes i really like the feeling of heavy traffic, where there is more interaction between us and we have to take more care to flow around each other. i stopped by the domes to get the sunglasses i left the night before. the folks who had gathered for a farewell reunion dinner were setting up the biggest wooden ladder i've ever seen to pick mulberries off the huge tree over the chicken run. i saw one of the firs taking pictures with her phone and asked her if she could get one of me. she was very nice and obliged.