Lives and Longings

At the end of March, a wild little whim grabbed hold, a whim that smelled of old maritime magic and fishy brine, a whim whose cold salty wind beat against our cheeks and froze the tips of our noses, a whim to head over to the coast, to our former home, that we loved a lot, and still do.

From our high dry highlands it's a 7-8 hour drive and a substantial chunk of change, but we decided it was worth it to quelch the longing (longings are like that, aren't they?- easy to justify). 

The whim took hold on a Wednesday afternoon, and by Thursday at midnight we were driving--a little cross-eyed--alongside the Hood Canal, almost to our destination, and to the promise of rest.

Something I think about a lot is this: that there are many, many lives worth living. I imagine all of them for myself, sometimes in the span of one week- I could live my life on a Greek island, my bare feet against the warm stone each day as I walk to the market; or back in my home state of Kentucky, in a little country house, caving in to the humidity and allergies, but being there; or I can see myself as a mother, loving so deeply and glowing with that self-sacrificing beauty that only mothers possess; or I could move to a city and put all my efforts into career, enjoying the city offerings such as dance classes, theatre, philosophy meetups, cafes...; I could forsake it all and become a nun in Montana, or Tibet; I could be a surfer on Tahiti or Hawaii, living in a little bungalow, my skin stained sunny gold; I could live happily in a little adobe casita in the desert southwest as an incense-maker; and then there is the vision of myself wandering the heathered Scottish highlands or the Yorkshire Dales, my little white stone cottage and farm in the distance à la Hannah Hauxwell or I could certainly be a lighthouse keeper except the era for that in earnest is really over; or, another one that I ponder very often: I could live a maritime life, on a boat or some stormy northern coast, pulling my food from the water, learning the ins and outs of my vessel and of marine navigation, rocking back and forth to sleep at night, swallowed up in that old brackish aroma, my mornings smelling, like Dylan Thomas wrote, "seaweed and breakfast." 

All of these, and more, I could do. But it is my nature that no matter which of the paths I went down, I would always find myself longing for parts of another.

So this particular trip was not only revisiting an old home, but immersing once again in that northern maritime sea-life imagining.

We hopped onto ferries and whale watching boats, our noses well-coated in salt and our eyes delighting in light waves of azure blue.

And when our feet were on solid ground again, we'd smile across the table at each other with tired but invigorated adventurers eyes and relish in some delicious fare before heading back to our little yurt for an evening of hot baths and reading.

Some afternoons we'd dip into a peculiar shop or two and hunt for unusual little treasures to take back home.

A drawerful of crosses

Himalayan marionettes!

And more than once, we walked to the lighthouse, a favorite spot from the past, and sat on the rock wall, gazing out across the mystery, imagining what we would do if a tsunami came (we'd fully embrace one another and surrender to our fate), and watching the full moon set over the North Cascades to the east.

And I started a new book, a fiction this time, a maritime classic, appropriately with the sea lashing the rocks beneath me.

(I finished this trilogy just last week, a little under two months later, and do heartily recommend it if you're in the mood for a good story that really transports).

And finally, we took our wobbly sea legs and coaxed them into navigating brake and gas pedals and getting us back over the mountains to our home in the blonde highlands.

Here in the high, dry Okanogan Highlands, Spring is waltzing in charming us all as usual. You can feel the buzzing energy everywhere, in everything.

Sometimes I sit beside a glacial erratic or a pine, and feel a love and warmth that is like family, and like belonging. I smell the Ponderosa Pine baking in the warm sunshine and am dizzied by the sensation of passing through another life that sometimes feels more real than this one. It is like I know this ground, like the mountains were my grandparents, and I've been steered back here by some unseen force, a formless path that I walk and turn to matter. 

Here it is rugged and difficult and right to the bone, like boulders the size of sheds that crash down onto roads you travel often, or like what happened on easter Sunday...the symbolic day of death and rebirth - when we came upon a young bull elk, still as large as an adult buck deer, lying on the side of the road with his foot tangled in a barbed wire fence. My husband and another man held him down and managed to get his foot out of the fence, much to our relief, but as we backed away expecting him to jump up and run off, he instead just continued to lay there. We thought maybe he was in shock and just needed some time, so we backed away and talked gently, giving him space to gather himself again. 

A few minutes passed and we inspected further, piecing together marks in the road, a scuff on the neck, a puss-filled eye, and an inability to move, realizing he had been hit and knocked into that barbed wire fence. 

Something seemed to be wrong with his neck, causing him not to be able to rise despite an urge to try every few minutes. 

It was brutal for me to watch. 

We are hunters, but I've come to believe that a wild animal facing its end by a well-placed bullet is the most kind form of death available to them - the other options are being eaten alive by wolves or a cougar, a drawn out injury that slowly separates them from their herd and likely leads to the aforementioned scenario, or --as we witnessed with our young bull elk here--is hit by a vehicle and left to lay on the side of the road with something broken, unable to move. In that scenario, a bullet is a welcomed respite. But despite, it is still a difficult experience to handle. And on that particular day I was already feeling especially tender. 

The herd of about 40 or 50 had moved up to a far hillside, but when we started working with the injured elk, they rallied and ran back toward us- a sight to behold! Raw, intuitive, unspoken power. I could've taken pictures, but the moment felt so potent and real that I only wanted to show up in respect, not capturing, despite the cinematic scene all around us. 

At last they settled close-by, watching attentively and eventually easing into grazing and looking up toward us from time to time. After the young bull elk was freed from his suffering, they slowly began to move away again, as if they sensed the completion. I hope that we were able to bring comfort to the elk, despite his horrific situation. I do know that as I stroked his head, and talked softly to him, that he began to close his eyes and drift off, being rubbed at all by a hand was an altogether new sensation to this wild creature, and I hope comforted and eased his passage before my husband performed the inevitable dispatch. 

It is easy for me to read this and wonder if I'm being too soft, but when we can assist a helpless being, or any other being, shouldn't we? 

We could've just walked up and shot him and moved on, but as a firm walker on the spiritual path, the non-physical world that is always in concert around us, impacting and interacting with us constantly, is very real to me. I know that I can change the field around me, and I know that the spirit, or essence, or soul, of that creature could benefit from a hopeful peace being brought to him, prayers, comfort, and wishes for the after-journey. 

This is how I choose to live my life- with depth as much as possible, and with consideration for all that conducts reality, not just the five senses we perceive, and certainly not just the abrupt and rational American way where time is money, so don't waste any time comforting an elk, silly girl, just be done with him, butcher, and move on. Surely there is a middle ground, too, but on this day, I felt tender and had the time, and wanted to pass on whatever comfort and benefit I could. 

I'll never forget that little bull elk.

This feels like home on such a deep level for us, and we have endured and been patient for years attempting to build a certain kind of life here, but it feels like this phase of life might be coming to an end soon.

 

There is so much chest-heavy sadness in this realization, but with a new plan laid for the winter, we're focusing our vision on the future and opening again to the world, to engagement with others, and to service.

It is far too soon to speak publicly of this plan right now, but suffice to say our sadness in potentially having to leave this area is balanced with a forward-looking excitement of the possibilities ahead.

Until then, all we have is now anyway, so we submerge into the seasons and the place as always- pulling fish dinners from cold mountain lakes, dipping in the snow melt rapids of Sherman Creek, and soaking the sunshine back into our bones. 

No matter where the path of life leads, it's hard to imagine ever finding such a special place, one that feels like it is us and we are it, yet something in the breeze whispers that it's time for change.

It is a blessing and it is hard to love so many things, and so I circle back around to how I started this post, with different lives and longings, yet we must choose and go full in to that choice, otherwise we never show up intimately to any of it.

So here's to being able to love where we are--physically, mentally, emotionally--so completely, being ever present, and when the time comes to detach and fork off on a separate path, to then transfer and redirect that love and presence, taking it with us fully, not letting parts of ourselves linger. If we linger across too many paths, we become scattered and incomplete, deducting something from every place and interaction. We owe it to ourselves and to others and to every place to arrive whole.

A quick note amidst the dawn of the migration

"Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death." 

- Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims

In our region of the Inland Northwest grows a tree with a secret. Though it masquerades all year as one of the conifers, come October its true deciduous nature is revealed. What looks like an evergreen forest becomes adorned with streaks of gold, and when the sun shines through and you happen to be passing by underneath, it can move you to tears. It is the real golden wood like Tolkien told us about, physical of course, yet creates a feeling beyond physical that is maybe even more palpable, a liminal story-world where conifers turn gold and lose their needles. Majestic and divine and awe-inspiring are all the right words, but they're not enough. Getting to experience it feels like a pure blessing. It is the Western Larch and it enriches our autumn days with its cheery gold paintbrush strokes across the landscape. A harbinger of the seasonal shift from light to dark, and the last bolt of color of the year, its yellowing lets us know that winters snows are right at the doorstep.

That is how the landscape looked when we drove through it waving our good-byes, then flew up over it early one morning when there was barely enough light to see, me with quiet tears moistening my cheeks, and love for a place putting an ache in my chest- surely one of the most interesting and deep relationships of my life.

Now I write from Kentucky, where I was met by the usual illness upon arrival, though fortunately it was short-lived this time as I'm in a healthier state overall this year (and adorned with my BioGeometry ring and pendant!). I'm starting to think that the sickness I experience coming to Kentucky each winter has to do with electrosensitivity. We already know I'm extremely sensitive by nature- my husband lovingly nicknamed me sensi-tiffany several years ago, and his canary, and it's true: if something is damaging, rest assured I will be the first to feel it and respond. While this used to feel like a burden, I now see it as a hidden blessing. And it seems the longer I live in the remote area that I do, the more stark the contrast when I suddenly throw myself back into the electrosmog that engulfs modern civilization. 

Alas! Here I am! In Kentucky, my hometown, visiting loved ones for a few months. 

During the days I'm usually working, studying, walking under the oaks, or helping family, but at night I've structured a lovely evening routine for myself. It involves: a 30-minute sauna session, a cold shower, some stretching, a mug of hot cacao (you can use the code TIFFANY98397 to get 15% off your order) and then hot herbal tea, some reading (right now I'm finishing up Richard Schulze's "There Are No Incurable Diseases" in preparation for a cleanse I plan to do soon), and knitting. This evening routine is balancing, nourishing, and crucial. 

In other good news, I've found a wonderful massage therapist here in my hometown and am enjoying a bi-weekly full-body massage for lymphatic drainage complete with hot stones and cupping. I feel fortunate to have connected with such a skilled masseuse, who is a true artist of her craft, a healer indeed.

Usually I help with an interior design project of some kind while I'm here and this year we've decided it's to turn an old unused bedroom into my mother's office for her Ebay store. I plan to create work stations and systems that will help her streamline some processes and be better organized in general. So I'll probably begin working on that soon.

I'm also hoping to start pulling back the carpet in the "new" addition part of the house that I stay in when I visit, with hopes to see nice hardwood underneath! We shall see. In my mind, I see this room turning into something like this, folky and rustic. But that might be a project for the next visit.

For whatever reason, I've been drawn to fictional literature lately instead of my usual non-fiction in the genres of health and esoteric spiritual topics. Driving back from the park this evening at dusk, I noticed the cold bluish LED lights shining from the windows and it turned my thoughts to older times when lantern light warmed the windows and blessed the village with a coziness. So I thought: to conjure this feeling while I'm here, and during this holiday time especially, I'm going to read some Victorian-era books. I already had Jane Eyre here, so I'll probably begin there (though when it comes to the Bronte sisters, I'm more drawn to Emily, as a person anyway, but who's to say who I'll like most as a writer?). And earlier this evening I was in the basement of the town library printing something very large, and as it printed I poked around and ended up making my way through the first few pages of Charles Dickens' Bleak House and really feeling drawn to his writing style and the voice of that era. So I have a copy of his "Great Expectations" on it's way to me in the mail, too. I wonder if anyone reading this has any Victorian-era book recommendations for me?

A short post this, but it's late and now I'm off to get into the aforementioned evening routine. Wishing anyone reading this health, grace, clarity, and peace of mind. 

x

In Nighthawk just a few weeks ago; sometimes when I'm away, like now, I stop and imagine it just as it might be right this minute... with the lonesome coyote howl, the scuttling sage grouse, the slow underground heartbeat of hibernating creatures, the quiet spacious bigness all around, the air so pregnant with freedom.

Ambergold transformations

"You ask of my companions. 

Hills, sir, and the sundown..."
- Emily Dickinson, in a letter to Mr. Higginson

It is the first of October and my world is an Ivan Shishkin painting and a Luke Gibson song, who I listened to yesterday while driving through these highlands, with their ambergold light and crisp changed air.

Autumn is the season most reflective of my inner world. And it seems to me the most Celtic-feeling season of the year, most reflective of an old world quality, most liminal. 

Winter is lovely too--in places where the snow is plentiful--but winter can feel skeletal. In Fall there is still meat on the bone, but more matured than summer, and much more inward than summer- the chatty extrovert.

Still being in the summer of my life, maybe that is why I rarely feel at home or situated in it; since Fall is the season that resonates so deeply, I suppose I have much to look forward to for that season of life yet to come. 

Earlier in the summer, I was in Spokane for the day poking around a great little antique shop I had found. Back in the corner was a treasure trove of old photos and magazines. I spent at least an hour sitting cross-legged in the back corner perusing all of these old photos and assembling a big stack to take home with me. The images were mostly anonymous and usually timeless, except for the random note some of them would have scribbled on the back (e.g. "Bert's first deer, Oct 1932" or "Deception Pass, 1935"). I'm not sure why this sort of thing feels so fascinating to me, but it does! So, with the inspiration of the magazine clippings (most from the old "American West" magazines) and the photos, I've been piecing together little... collages, I guess you would call them. I'm not sure. But here are the ones I made this morning:

And here is another one in the works, though I haven't glued the photos in place yet and I plan to add some stitching later on...

When it comes to art and the handmade, I've also been spending time each day slowly building a scarf. It's an intricate pattern which is challenging my knitting skills in new ways. Certainly no beginners scarf, it is the Windy Scarf by Martin Storey, and I plan to gift it as a Christmas present (if I can complete it correctly and in time!).

And of course I always have a strange embroidery piece going. I started embroidering many years ago and my embroideries tend to involve esoteric symbolism which seem to grow more peculiar the deeper I go. This time, it is Rebis- the Great Work, the ultimate balance, the realized Self though still contained and corporeal, the male-female, the solar and lunar, these principles and more, in an inner balance and order. Certainly inspired by my reading of Eros and the Mysteries of Love earlier this year, and still a work in progress.

I am a seeker, if nothing else. Devoted to my spiritual quest. I love to take experiential approaches to wisdom which I think is a superior form of knowing, but I also wholeheartedly enjoy the intellectual seeking as well, though I'm aware it isn't an end in itself. Sometimes the intellectual seeking will open doors in my mind, through which I can then walk my feeling body. I especially love when I learn things intellectually that resonate strongly with my intuition, which happened multiple times this summer whilst reading "The Mystery of the Grail" and finally coming to understand this grail cycle, particularly the non-physical nature of it. But recently I have been getting all sorts of rapturous delights learning about this new topic I came across during one of my rabbit hole jaunts. It is called BioGeometry and it is a lovely marriage of two of my passions in this life: esoteric wisdom and health.

Upon first glance, to the untrained mind, BioGeometry might seem like a pseduoscience or airy-fairy woo-woo, but this is far from true. BioGeometry is qualitative physics, and it occupies a pristine frontier for understanding health, and reality, in the modern age. 

If you are interested, I'll explain it in this nutshell: BioGeometry is the science of space energy balancing, with it we can learn how to take disruptive energies--rather than trying to block or avoid them--and transform them (in this way, I suppose it's very tantric in nature). Because we are enveloped in a sea of invisible disruptive energies called electro-magnetic frequencies, which wreak havoc on our health from every angle, you can maybe begin to see how powerful the implications are both on a personal and very large scale, yes?

Here are some resources for anyone who would like to run down this rabbit hole with me:

• BioGeometry and Life Force with Dr. Ibrahim Karim (video)
  
  
• A great interview with Dr. Karim's daughter, Doreya (video)
  
  
• A playlist of lectures for the devoted student
  
  
• And Dr. Karim's book which I'm just beginning:
  
  
  
  
  

.::*::.

It is already that time of the year again. Soon, we make the eastward migration to spend time with family for a few months. I am always pulled in two directions with this, but there's no use going into all that. It is what it is, and it is a good idea for me in this life to accept what is as much as possible, while quietly working behind the scenes to make adjustments and optimizations. But something tells me this will be the last time I leave my home in the winter, certainly for so long.

I wish anyone reading this a lovely autumn.
Blessings to you all.