Quit social media?

 I am feeling that old familiar pull to leave social media again, well, specifically Instagram and Facebook. The only hesitation for me is that I do come across a lot of inspiring and informative content on both platforms. But overall, it's a concern over what these types of social media do to the physical and metaphysical aspects of the brain/heart/mind. It has perplexed me to see various people who don't "post" often on social media still logging on constantly, just to look around I suppose. So I don't believe that how much we post has any correlation to how much of our time and attention these social media platforms can command. Couldn't that time be better used elsewhere, even if only in the realm of thought?

While I appreciate the convenience of having so many friends and family members in one place, especially since I live so far away from everyone, there is a large part of me that doesn't like the accessibility we so readily attach to ourselves these days through various technology. I'm also interested in checking in with myself about the kind of content I share. Is it to charm? To inform? For identity? 

This blog is my favorite place because I can be more fully myself- sharing interests and thoughts, and I suppose I could share more of the inspiring or beautiful aspects of daily life, as well.

Something to chew on a bit more.

Come with me for a stroll through an old Victorian village on the sea

 

Currently reading

 

I think I found Kincaid's Cave...

 ...but have run into Google Maps trickery.

In this video, an account from a contracted explorer for the Smithsonian Institute in 1909 tells a fascinating tale of what he found in a cave deep within the Grand Canyon, high on the banks (well, cliffsides) of the Colorado River:

G.E. Kincaid wrote:

So not only did this man find Egyptian artifacts, hieroglyphs, and mummies, but he also notes there were Vedic artifacts, such as a Buddha-like statue and lotus symbolism. 

The implications of this are large, if you study ancient history and have considered the blue-eyed Egyptian and Vedic society relationship, which is far too dense to go into here.

Anyway- I wanted to know where this "Kincaid's cave" is located, so I went on a little hunt. Judging by certain accounts of mile markers, directions of currents, and descriptions of landscape, I think I've honed in on the general area, within 5 miles at least of where this mythical cave opening could be found. Of course, it's almost impossible to get to, and exists in an area of the Grand Canyon where no visitors are allowed, apparently not even park officials--ya don't say!?--not to mention, it's bordered or even within Navajo territory.

But, as for where it is:

Head over to Google Maps and search for "Nankoweap Granaries" (North Rim, Arizona). Scroll down (southward) along the Colorado River there until you see the LCR Confluence Overlook on the right of the river.

Just north of that overlook, you'll notice that a strange artificial looking line seems to have been overlain on the aerial image, almost as if the true landscape is being covered or hidden from view by a similar, but false, image. 

I thought that was a little... odd.

The line just so happens to fall right around the area I estimate Kincaid's Cave is located, to the right, or eastern, side of the Colorado River there. 

Did you know that most of the monuments in the Grand Canyon have Egyptian names? Interesting, yes? Watch this video for more fun facts.

On Tiffany Mountain

On top of my mountain, at 8,254 feet. 

Truly

 

Keep building those inner fortresses

"What we achieve inwardly, will change outer reality." -- Plutarch


Yes, exactly. One person looks around and sees a pit of despair, of boredom, restlessness, and disgust, while the other touches transcendence and senses God in the simple movement of wind across their face, or light bouncing around the ground, though they both stand in the very same place.

Discerning between maya and atman (or- how I don't let much bother me)

When it comes to surfing the joys and tragedies of life, I have learned one very good parameter which has helped me numerous times not make a big thing out of something that is, to most, quite unfortunate. This is asking myself: who is suffering here? my lower self or my higher self? who is the reactor? 
Let me define what I mean by lower and higher self. The lower self is Tiffany, this material human form, incarnated here for specific purposes and goals. This is also called Maya, which means illusion. This self is finite, temporary, it will not always be, so it's important not to get too wrapped up in or identified with it's dramas and shenanigans. Then, there is the higher self. The blessed soul, or Atman, inside each of us. This is immaterial, eternal, infinite. My firm knowing, as I continue to practice Sanatana Dharma (not to be confused with modern Hinduism), is that this eternal higher self is truly me. I carry it with me into each incarnation, or- more accurately- it carries me. And it is that, in conjunction with my relationship and devotion to God, that matters more than any of the Maya-filters I can so easily fall prey to viewing life through.

A new book for a new season

 I haven't finished the Bhagavad Gita yet, in fact I'm barely three-quarters of the way through, but I did finish Little House on the Prairie Volume 1, so a new "fiction" to pair with the Gita.

Sourdough

Here marks the beginning of my long-awaited sourdough experimenting! Thanks to a kind lady who was giving einkorn sourdough starter away at the local co-op last week, I brought some home and--so far!--have managed to keep it alive. Yesterday I experimented with my first loaf: a small rye loaf, no extra flours or ingredients, just straight old-fashioned dark rye with a little salt, water, and the starter. The result is a tangy, slightly nutty, ferment-y bread. I just had a piece with butter this morning and it's really good. I like knowing that if the proverbial poo ever hit the fan, as long as we had flour, salt, and water on hand, we'd be able to have fresh loaves of bread. Tip I learned: Put a baking sheet with water in the oven while baking, and your bread will have the perfect moistness to it.  Next, I want to master the Alaskan sourdough hotcake, the kind that Dick Proenneke made so often.

Portals capturing wave functions

Last night we watched the documentary Vanished, with Dave Paulides. It was really good. I know that speaking seriously of portals can be humorous to some people, but if someone taking portals seriously and truly believing in their existence makes you chuckle or discredit them, I would suggest delving deeper into the portal phenomenon yourself, and physics altogether. 

In the documentary, the McCabe scientists, a father and son team, were brought to one of the sites where a man disappeared seemingly into thin air some years ago. He wasn't remote, there were people around, he didn't fall or get attacked, zero remains of him were ever found in this highly tourist trafficked area. The site is in Mesa Verde, Colorado, a place with ancient cliff dwellings and petroglyphs that were once inhabited by Native Americans- not just any Natives, though, but the Anasazi people who disappeared suddenly about 900 years ago. To this day, no agreed upon reason is known for why these people disappeared altogether so abruptly. 

Included in this old site are circular rock formations, called kivas, which were sacred spaces for ceremony and other forms of ritual. But those areas weren't just chosen out of thin air, for no reason. The sacred sites were deemed sacred for already existing reasons (I think). 

In this case, the McCabe scientists performed experiments to determine if any factors could be pinpointed that would signify this area possibly having special features...

A time dilation experiment was performed, which measures the passage of time at two different locations. Time, as I'm sure you know, is impacted by the different laws of nature, such as bends in space, velocity, and gravity. What they found is that time actually moved differently between two of the kivas, which were only feet apart. There was a .6% change in time between the two points, which, frankly, is insane! Normal would be 0%. So a person standing in one kiva was aging faster than a person standing in the other, though they were only mere feet away from one another. Not only are these very credible scientists, but the experiments were ran again and reported the same exact results. 

Furthermore, the static electricity in the area around the kivas was measured and some areas of up to 40 volts per meter were recorded! The normal range is 0-10 volts/meter. Fluctuations like this can be caused by geological anomalies such as a high level in quartz in a rock. 

But what really intrigued me was the time difference in that specific little area and how this could relate to the mysterious disappearance of Dale Stehling. 

Just to be very direct: are some people who go missing, especially in national parks, perhaps passing into a kind of portal? Do I believe portals exist? Yes, 110%, but here are some questions I still have: are portals fixed or transient? I now believe it to be the latter, otherwise they could be observed and located and "found out." Do they just happen as a part of nature or are they created by some kind of intelligence? Right now, I think the latter. 

Multiple people have gone missing in the same exact area at Mt. Shasta (which is not very precarious, has no ridges or crevasses, and in fact you can see for miles in any direction) and were never found, not even a single piece of clothing. A man and woman were driving forest service roads looking for a camping spot one night, I think it was in the Yosemite area, and the back of their truck began to spin around kind of slowly and when they turned to look, the back of the truck was warping out of its shape, stretching, as though being affected by some space-time irregularity. And this story really speaks to some high strangeness going on, especially as it relates to time being affected in a way we don't understand, even distance, memory (his phone had welcome messages from dozens of different countries within the same minute time stamp, which coincided with seeing this creature who was trying to jump up into something and the upper half of his body disappearing each time he jumped!).

Anywho- interesting things to think about and learn more about.

Oh, but an original thought of my own I had last night while listening to these physicists discuss portal theory is this: from a quantum perspective, matter doesn't really exist and instead everything we observe as solid and "real" is just a wave function, which collapses into totality to become a "thing" (a cup, your car, a building, your wife, etc.) only upon observation. Knowing that this is true of quantum mechanics, and therefore true in reality, I wondered if it's possible that somehow the quantum world is related to people getting absorbed into portals? Maybe when being observed, a person cannot enter into a portal, which is why it only happens when people are alone. There are no cases of someone watching another person disappear altogether into thin air, and my theory is that that's because a totality cannot go into a portal, only a wave function can. 

Does that make sense? I'm going to think on it a lot more.

Monday, August 30, 2021

This morning, I treated myself to a solitary breakfast at my favorite (and one of the only) breakfast places. There was only one other customer- Ralph, a long-time Republic resident. Ralph was probably in his 70's and wore rainbow-striped suspenders and sat alone, having obvious difficulty breathing, which he seemed to take in stride without much anxiety or fuss. 

The server's name was Tiffany, so there were two Tiffanys and one Ralph in the room. 

Ralph asked server-Tiffany if she had a boyfriend. Server-Tiffany laughingly said Yes, yes she did, while Tiffany-me looked down bashfully at her plate of food and chewed behind a wide grin. 

Then, Ralph saw Gracie (there's a little store attached to the restaurant, with people coming and going) and Gracie wondered if Ralph would be at the fair. Ralph wouldn't miss it.

Last of all was Harvey, who Ralph implored could he mooch a cigarette? Harvey was who cooked our breakfasts. Harvey handed over the cigarette with a "You bet!" to match Ralph's gratitude, and was on his way. 

By then, I had read several chapters of Little House on the Prairie and was full of hashbrowns, bacon, eggs, toast, and strawberry jam, so with a final swig of coffee, I made my way to the cashier. As I walked past Ralph, he told me that today's special was The Ralph. I told him I'd have to get it next time, he said he gets it every time.

Then, I got into my sun-warmed vehicle and drove off over the mountain pass to the nearest town with large department stores to stock up on some meats and vegetables for the freezer. It's possible that Season 2 of The Coof is incoming and we could get locked down again, so I figured better go on now rather than wait. 

We got an offer on our land today. I countered and they accepted that, so it looks like maybe we've sold the land! That road was going to be tens of thousands of dollars to repair, and without widening and working on the grade, access to the property in winter was going to be mostly impossible. 

Living off-grid and homesteading are not simple lifestyles like some people might imagine them to be. Especially in the mountains. I think most folks see people living in a small cabin or a house they built themselves, and imagine things must be so easy.

Here are some numbers to think about:

Our raw piece of land was $50,000. Road repair was going to be $10-20,000. Installing a well was quoted at $17,000 (and even then you aren't guaranteed to hit water!). A minimal solar array about $15,000. So you're already close to six figures and still have no house!

You could, of course, get land with power and water already on it, but that isn't "off-grid" and besides, your land cost would just increase. 

Maybe taking on a mortgage isn't such a terrible idea after all, as long as you work to pay it off as soon as possible. Stretching it out for 30 or even 15 years seems like a pretty big gamble to me. Life can change a lot over such a span of time. I don't like debt, I like freedom and the two do not go well together. A man who owes is not a free man. 

Things to think about. 

Sunday, August 29, 2021

Another Ayurveda-filled day. Body is achy from too much sitting! Nothing special to report- just lots of online school garnished with domestic chores, a quick trip to the gym mid-day, dinner just a bit ago, and now settling in with my evening cacao to read and knit. Finished another knit hat today and hung some of my embroideries and wall sconces with beeswax candles up, so the feeling inside is even cozier now. I need to finish handsewing curtains soon and get those hung, and I need to apply the second coat of paint to the cabinets, but already the camper has gone from standard camper aesthetic, which I abhor, to rustic and inspiring and forest-y. Generic neutrals have been replaced with mossy greens, deep burgundies, mustard, and terra cottas. 80's splash patterns are covered now with handwoven textures and William Morris prints. We're getting there. One day, when I don't live in this camper, but in a home built into the actual ground, rooted, I'll probably offer this camper as an AirBnB because it is just so snug and imaginative inside. Alrighty, I'm off to begin that cacao, reading, and knitting ritual now. Night, night.

Saturday, August 28, 2021

Our neighbor and her two kids ended up joining us for the hike yesterday afternoon. 

Our neighbor, Kerri, and her little girl, Revvie

Kerri, Eric, and Kerri's son, Rhett, leading the way.

Revvie, two years old, insisted the entire hike that I hold her- "I wanna hold Tiffy!" she would cry. To which I obliged, of course. It was a good workout, that's for sure. We hiked right past a cave that was accompanied by a very pungent odor in the general area- maybe a bear home. I've seen five bears in the last two weeks. Not sure if the inhabitant was inside, but after a couple of minutes observing, we went on our way so as not to try anybody's patience. 

The "bear cave" at Beth Lake, Okanogan National Forest

On the drive home, the light was heavenly, pouring across sections of the landscape, illuminating strips of forest and high blonde highlands.

Corkscrew Mountain, seen from Toroda Creek Rd.

This weekend is my once monthly 20-hour Ayurvedic intensive, so I've been indoors most of the day, attending that. Soon I'll be officially certified as an Ayurvedic Wellness Counselor.

I worked on some knitting- a hat for little Revvie. In a bit, I'll cast on my next project- a hat for Kerri. I plan to make the whole family a hat for their going away gifts, as they leave next week for Idaho. One hat down, three to go!

Revvie's hat, from Tiffy

Watching "Sourdough" tonight while bear backstrap (a gift from friends) cooks in the cast iron.

 

Friday, August 27, 2021

Having recently gotten back into Dick Proenneke, I've decided to give daily journaling a go for a few weeks and see if it's something I'd like to make a habit of.

I didn't get the best night of sleep last night, so it's a bit of a puffy-eyed glasses-wearing day, but I'm shaking it off hour by hour. Spoke with a gentleman this morning, in regard to becoming a volunteer EMT in the county here, and it was surprisingly refreshing when he said, "While I myself am pro-vaccine, I'm also pro-choice, so I don't need to know if you are or aren't [vaccinated]." It feels like such simple reason has largely left the stage on a societal level, so I appreciated his stance. 

This goes well along with a wonderful conversation I had with one of the local Deputy Sheriffs at the gym last week- not only was he into bizarre esoteric topics like myself, but he was very firm in his position about the nonsensical nature of all that is going on in the world at large right now. It made me feel better somehow just knowing that someone like him is in a position of law and order here in our small little mountain town. 

I'm heating a pot of water on the stove now, preparing to go for a hike with my husband when he gets in from work. We'll be going to an emerald green lake with a trail around it and a little cave right off the trail that we've been curious about. Hoping for the audacity to go up to the mouth of it to inspect the tracks leading inside and figure out who is calling that place home. 

A scene from yesterday's drive to the bank, which always turns into an adventure when you have to cover such distance just to get to the bank:

Remembering the end of the world

This was really interesting.

"One of the great intellectual surprises of this century will be the discovery that myth is our key to remembering." 

The implications of this...

 

Ads in space

Traveling, and leaving eastern America in particular, has exposed me to vast landscapes and made me realize how very very important it is to be able to look far out across to a horizon, full of mystery and potential. This simple pleasure imparts something into the mind and the spirit that is crucial. In many parts of the world, where we've built up and built up, the night sky is one of the only last frontiers of this kind that people can gaze into, and ponder. 

Vastness is salient. And while the night sky we look into could be a myriad of things: a cloak, a shield, a mirage--basically maybe the night sky we're looking into isn't what we think it is, what we've been told, or nearly as understood as we might think-- despite, I still firmly believe that putting ads there is one of the most degenerate notions imaginable.

The Cloud of Unknowing (link to full film)

Rodney Thompson lived as a hermit for thirty years in a small Connemara cottage [in Ireland], dedicating his life to silence, solitude and prayer.

"The Cloud of Unknowing" is the title of a Middle English anonymous manual on contemplative prayer. This practice dates back to the third century Desert Fathers (and Mothers) - Christian mystics who separated themselves from distractions in order to find God.

The film is constructed from the interplay of formal and thematic dualities: movement and stasis, speech and silence, portrait and landscape, the sky and the ground.

Filled with majestic vistas and robust Connemara weather, the film allows the viewer to step into the mind of a hermit, as the natural world unfolds at an unhurried pace.

“When I was introduced to Rodney I was struck by his graceful and calm benevolence. I wanted to communicate something of this in the film. He has followed an ancient mystical tradition, and his way of being in the world is a blissful respite from the ever increasing hectic pace of contemporary life. As a documentary film maker, I’m perhaps more motivated by questions of form than content. So the film that I made is not a conventional biography. Instead, it’s oriented towards the experience of the viewer. It tries to move beyond words and images, much like contemplative prayer itself.”

- Mike Hannon, director

The Cloud of Unknowing, link to full film: https://vimeo.com/201640633

Day of a Stranger

 Day of a Stranger is an intimate portrait of a world-renown mystic and author during his final years living in solitude from 1965 until his shocking death in 1968. As a Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton became a prolific writer and was in dialogue with some of the twentieth century’s most influential figures, luminaries such as D.T. Suzuki, Rachel Carson, Henry Miller, Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Dorothy Day. Interweaving meditative images of his hermitage nestled deep in the woods of Kentucky and rare audio recordings he made in isolation; the film pieces together a glimpse into the consciousness of one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant minds.

Full film here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/dayofastranger

A certain kind of aesthetic

 

Currently Reading

 

Currently reading:

Little House on the Prairie, Vol. 1

and still making my way through the Bhagavad Gita, translated by Prabhupada

Arctic home in the Vedas?

 Very interesting theory I've come upon in my research on origins of Indo-European peoples. Here is a full Youtube playlist on the topic:

Visiting the old home at Zen Forest

During my visit to Kentucky, I drove out to the cabin I used to live in during my early-mid twenties. Back then, it was landlocked in 300 acres belonging to a Zen monastery. We purchased 30 from them, plus the cabin. Some of my most fond memories are from that time period, with Vietnamese monks, Amish people, and Wendell Berry for neighbors, where I learned so much and moved through levels of consciousness, where I discovered philosophy and connected to higher ways of living, and I just wanted to go see what it felt like to me now. I was so happy to see that the person who owns it now is doing everything I dreamed of: they have a big vegetable garden, have dug out a lovely spring-fed pond, added on to the cabin, and otherwise just maintained everything and protected it as a nature preserve. Certain things broke my heart wide open, and I shed some tears on the drive in- that strange sensation of having lived many lives, most of which are put away to memory, then to have them intersect again in real life. A place from back then, which held the person you were then, you go meander over that same landscape now, with yourself now, but the place can never be revisited even when you go stand on that very ground, because so much has changed... 

It is surreal, bizarre, heartbreaking, but beautiful too. 

Hue Nang Trail (pronounced 'way-nong')

Just behind this sign (which is new to me, though the tree I knew) is the lotus pond and it was all in bloom. Across the gravel road and down a small slope is our old cabin...

And there's the old cabin.

The new pond down to the left of the house. This used to be only forest.

Here is what little the web archive held onto from the blog I kept during my time at Zen Forest.

Today

 Kentucky - a katydid and cicada symphony.

Dad in the distance

Return

"In a revolutionary epoch, sometimes men taste every novelty, sicken of them all, and return to ancient principles so long disused that they seem refreshingly hearty when they are rediscovered."

Sanctify

We all generally want to feel "happy". But when you reflect on your life, when did your big spiritual growth spurts happen? Usually deep growth comes from hardship and strife, from those dark nights of the soul. I think many humans rob themselves of a rich life experience by succumbing to the assembly line of quick distractions and comforts- TV, gossip, scrolling social media, overeating, partying, alcohol, drugs, pornography... the multitude of balms we rub on ourselves, and they are plentiful. Left unaware, we become slaves to sense gratification.

I think it's crucial that we make ourselves present for life, all of it, rather than distract. We must understand why we're here in this human form, which is for spiritual realization, not just a happenstance universe explosion as Materialists would have you believe (and had me believe for a good portion of my life). In this way, you can reinterpret suffering and not be a captive to the finite material world, the body you're in, and what it's currently enduring. 

Hone your mind. Connect to the Divine through daily devotion. Build up a sanctuary in yourself. Fortify what is eternal in you.

Wildflower heaven at Washburn Lake

What I watched today on the elliptical at the gym

 

Dinner-cooking music

Track 3 is celestial.

 

Northwesterner

Sitting in my camper in the mountains, drinking coffee all day, listening to bigfoot stories as I work... really beginning to feel like one of those Northwesterners. A good [season 1-2] Twin Peaks cast member. Which I'm fine with. Just need to replace my wardrobe with corduroy, flannel, and hats only. And invest in a HAM radio setup. But seriously, have you listened to the Sierra Camp footage at the end of Missing 411: The Hunted?! * opens eyes really big * Have you!?

Sundown in the Okanogan Highlands

 

A yellow-headed blackbird

Eastern red-winged blackbird

Deer on the hillside

I could watch the interplay of sun and cloud dancing across the Okanogan Highlands for hours.

A yellow-headed blackbird sounding his distinct song.

A yellow-headed blackbird at Molson Lake.

Pflug Mansion - John Pflug had a dream of building a lovely German style home for his growing family. He began building in the summer of 1908. Money was scarce for all early homesteaders, so he hired no help and did all the work himself. He hauled all the materials from a sawmill about ten miles away with only a team and wagon. He never finished his dream house, but the family lived for several years in a part of the house that was finished. The house has been vacant since 1921.

An old homesteader's cabin from long ago.

A serene road through the Okanogan Highlands.

Another old homestead, from a whole 'nother time, still standing.

These three

These three should we mind ourselves closely over if we wish to draw closer to God: 

1. attachment
2. fear
3. anger.
   
   

I guess it all boils down to attachment, really. At the foundation, it is attachment that provokes fear and anger. 

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4, verse 10: Being freed from attachment, fear, and anger, becoming fully absorbed in Me, and taking refuge in Me, many persons in the past became purified by knowledge of Me, and thus they attained My divine love.

Missing

On average, about 4 people per day go missing in America's national parks. But did you know that if a person goes missing on federal land, it's not counted? There's no complete federal database of people who have disappeared within these national parks, which makes it hard to spot any trends or commonalities from case to case. Some are reported, because some families push harder, but nowhere near all. [further reading]

This is where David Paulides' work comes in. I came across him last year and was immediately enthralled. But my fascination took me a little too deep and ended up messing with my wilderness adventures that I've cherished my whole life. Instead of enjoying being outdoors in wild nature, I was feeling a little hesitant and frankly scared. So- I backed off for a while.

"But how many of those disappear in the wild is unclear. Neither the Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, or the Department of Agriculture’s US Forest Service keeps track."National parks like Yosemite operate almost as sovereign states. When somebody goes missing in their territory, they’re not inclined to seek help from outside government agencies." [source]

In this strange case, Kara Moore wandered home weeks after her disappearance, but remembered very little of the experience. "A search-and-rescue effort doesn’t always make a difference. In 2017, a middle-aged woman named Kara Moore disappeared in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan’s Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Almost immediately, dozens of searchers with canines covered 73,000 acres and found nothing, only to have Moore wander home a week later on her own."

Here's another great article on the topic.

Then recently, David's work came back into my field of awareness and I watched the documentary Missing 411: The Hunted one night with my husband. You can watch it free on YouTube, by the way. And I recommend you do.

This film didn't focus as much on the national park relationship, instead it highlighted hunters who had gone missing, many of them in very strange ways, and often not a trace was ever found of them despite hundreds of search and rescue teams scouring the area for days, even weeks, and canine teams being employed. Nothing- not even their rifles or bows- were ever found in some cases.

This really intrigued me because hunters know the woods. They know the wildlife. They're equipped, armed, and attentive.

But it was toward the end of the documentary when I really got fascinated. The Sierra Camp story. In a nutshell, a large group of men sojourn high up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains once every year. They've been doing this since the 70's. Because they stay for a couple of weeks, in order to get all of their supplies up and out to this very remote location, they take a mule train. These men are professionals. Successful men. They aren't looking to get famous. In fact, they've kept their experiences quiet for a very long time, and David Paulides is the first to bring what they heard to public awareness. The recordings they made were analyzed by linguistic and electrical professionals and found to be non-human vocalizations.

For more in-depth details on this, you'll have to watch the documentary for yourself. 

Throughout the Vedic literature, the oldest written history that humanity has, there is mention not only of the history of Earth and other planets and realms, but also of other beings, some of which coexist here with us. Some are benevolent, and others malevolent. 
Let's also not forget that late last year, the former Israeli space security chief publicly stated that we have been in contact with "aliens" for some time now, and have asked the government agencies not to publish that they are here, as humanity is not ready yet. You can read more on that in this article. So I have my theories as to what could be going on.

And, sigh, of course I begin revisiting this a couple of weeks before we move back out to the rugged and remote mountains of the Inland Northwest, an area David coincidentally mentioned in a video I watched this morning. 

Saturday Intensive

 A strong wind blew through late in the night while we were sleeping, leaving a fresh--early Spring--dusting of snow on the high foothills, which I stood and admired out the window early this morning as I sipped coffee.

But I couldn't stand and sip coffee and coo over beauty for too long as this weekend is my Ayurvedic intensive. We have one each month. It's 20 hours of school in one weekend. Arduous as it is, because the school is done via Zoom these days, I usually manage to get some craft projects completed on intensive weekends.

There was a purple hat that needed finishing, so I tended to that.

Then I began knitting a scarf, but turned it into a cowl, deciding it would make a boring and stiff scarf. I think for this kind of wool, a scarf would look better if I held two strands together to create a looser knit. Or something to this effect. So, a cowl it was! And since chunky cowls are pretty quick going, I finished it in one sitting, working in a basket weave stitch.

Now, as the shadows stretch out and the end of the day grows nigh, I'm just going to finish my latest embroidery, which means stitching a piece of fabric on the back to hide all of the thread chaos. 

My brain is weary with so much new information, as it always is with these intensives, and to think I still have a full 10-hour day tomorrow... phew...wish me luck.