Water, Part II

Dry Santa Fe River bed after a monsoon rain, 2018

Our most precious and once abundant resource on our planet, water, is in peril, as are so many of Mother Earth's other natural resources and nonhuman inhabitants, because of overpopulation by humans. Too many humans all vying for territory and resources is not a popular issue to discuss. Climate change seems to be a "safer" topic even though our inept President poo poos the idea that there is such an issue.

If the idea of using watersheds to draw state lines were in place, just imagine how different our lives and the valuing of water would BE. Here's a discussion of this idea, that makes perfect sense. Alas, our state lines were arbitrarily drawn, hence all the bickering over the flow of water and water rights. 

 500 gallon barrel + rocky depression 
for harvesting roof water via
 canales at 6798' MuRefuge. 
In the foreground Tufted Evening Primrose (Oenothera Caespitosa),
caterpillar food for a specific hawkmoth (Sphingidae family).
As the leaves are riveted with holes,
there are obviously caterpillars, although I have yet to find one.

This year, unlike last year, the Santa Fe River has been running since March. Abundant snow in the Sangre de Christo Mountains which has melted and filled the reservoirs supplying water to the city of Santa Fe has produced enough water to release from these catchments. It is delightful to see and hear running water making its way from the mountains to our East to the Rio Grande River to our West. 

Rabbits are plentiful in our area. And just the other morning returning from an early morning walk with  Shasta crossing the bridge into Frenchy's Field we saw a very scrawny coyote drinking from the river. The coyote was watchful of Shasta and Shasta was quite interested in her distant relative. 

Shasta amidst our culinary herbs with her favorite ball. 
Shasta is a blackWater Dragon baby and water soothes her Qi.
When she moved here, she asked Sandy, one of her
animal communicators, "what happened to all the water?"
In Northern California she was use to going to the ocean,
to Auntie T's whose property dropped to massive wetlands,
to Mono Lake, plus our backyard flooded when the
Winter rains came. Now she loves to walk across
the bridge over the Santa Fe River when the water
is running and look down at all the water.
She is never in a hurry to leave the bridge.

This Summer is much drier than last with the monsoon rains not as frequent nor delivering much rain when it does thunder and lightening. Already much of New Mexico is returning to "drought" conditions. Fortunately with all of the native vegetation planted here AND all the sheet mulching not much water is required by the plants on our property, except of course newly planted natives. 

Growing vegetables, of course, is a different story. These plants are hand watered deeply every other day with a hose filled with "city water". The 500 gallon barrel on the Northeast side of the house is essentially empty. The water was used mostly on the vegetables. Growing food here in New Mexico is not for the faint of heart. It is laborious work demanding daily attention. The soil needs much amending in spite of using compost. I imagine it is going to be quite a few years before signs of soil restoration occur.

Another stunning design "drawn" in the Santa Fe River bed after the 2018 monsoon rains.

As we are mindful of our water usage and remember from where our water that flows from our households taps originates, may we each

Autumnal Equinox

Center by Rose B. Simpson
now showing at the Wheelwright Museum
in Santa Fe, N.M., through early October.

SUN AND MOON

DAY AND NIGHT

ALL THINGS IN BALANCE

The autumnal equinox – when day and night are in balance – marks the beginning of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of spring in the Southern Hemisphere. 

Santa Fe Botanical Garden "Upcoming Events email"

The word equinox comes from the Latin for “equal night”. 
And that’s exactly what happens at 
the beginning of autumn and spring – 
the days are divided neatly into a 12-hour day and night 
for just two days a year, 
after which they start splitting apart.

Andrew Griffin, Independent 

From the Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, Earth is at the center this time of the year, Fall. It reminds us of the turning not only of our planet but of all that is natural. BEing in tune with the cycles is a way to maintain our balance

"Earth came to represent the time and space of transition from one stage to another, particularly the passage between the apex of Yang (Fire) and ascendance of Yin (Metal)...

Earth represents the still point, the balance between the polar movements, when neither one nor the other ascends...

Our Earth phase stabilizes us so that we can handle the gyrations of our oscillating process."

from Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine. 

by Harriet Beinfield and Efrem Korngold (1991)

At this time of another seasonal shift when day and night are in balance, may we too find our center and balance.  In our present day chaotic world, as we strive to do so, let us 

Responsibility

Responsibility is defined as "the state ... of having a duty to deal with something" and "(responsibility to/toward) a moral obligation to behave correctly toward or in respect of." As humans I believe we have a responsibility to fully deal with and heal our individual trauma and/or complete the "life lesson" that is solely ours as a human in our present lifetime. 

When we are born, as a baby we have no defenses. We are filled with innocence. We are open and connected to Tao, God or whatever we as an individual believes is THE Higher Power. Then in our human body we experience some kind of "rude awakening" from BEing connected to this Higher Power. In addition, as we are born into this world, we bring with us a lesson to learn while living this life. Some of us tackle that lesson, others are asleep to doing so. 

Rose Simpson's sculpture done while studying in Japan
and now on exhibit at the Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, N.M.
Photo taken by Michael Stoyka . . . thank you!

For me practicing BEing awake has been augmented by the dogs that have come to live with me. For Sun, the last of my four Siberian Huskies, her Work for her lifetime was merging the domesticated and the wild. I cut her life short, and thus her Work, when I had her euthanized prematurely. Her spirit hovered and did not leave her favorite spot at MuRefuge for over a year. Sun was the last dog I had euthanized.

Sun is pictured above standing in the snow wearing
in her sled dog harness that matched her eyes. She loved to
pull me on my skis in the Eastern Sierra snow.

After Star (who came to live with us when we knew we were getting a Siberian Husky puppy, Sun, who would need a grounding presence) experienced a natural death, at which time she morphed into a huge male wolf, I missed having a dog as the time passed. Months later as MuRefuge seemed so empty without a dog, I became obsessed with finding another dog! I spent hours on the internet searching for a young dog about the age Star was when she came to live with us. Then Dwight suggested perhaps searching for a puppy instead of looking for a 1 1/2 to 2 year old dog. Within moments of changing course so to speak, up came a litter of puppies for adoption in Lake County. We drove to see the puppies. Dwight picked up one of the puppies and as soon as I took her into my arms she nuzzled my neck: "Sun"! This puppy possessed Sun's soul. When this puppy was eight weeks old, we brought her home, Rose picking up where Sun left off so to speak. From the day she returned to her familiar home, she lived on the fast track as she seemed to deeply know that this life would be short. And indeed it was short: less than four years in spite of the left leg amputation for "bone cancer" which was done to hopefully extend her life.  For six months Rose ran with her usual lightening, agile speed of a sight hound as though she still had all four legs.

Pictures above and below of
Rose running along Picnic Grounds Road which is located
along the Western side of Mono Lake, California.

Once Rose realized she was without one hind left leg, she fell into a deep, deep place of grieving her loss. Less than eight months after her leg was amputated she succumbing to another cancerous growth in her remaining hind leg and she left her body. She was quite pleased with herself that she was able to complete the Work of merging the wild and the domesticated which Sun was unable to do.


Dwight was none too sure about bringing another dog into our lives since he was still reeling from the death of Rose only a few months prior. Me, I just wanted a healthy FOUR legged dog!

Shasta after her bath during her first full day with us.
As you can see she has a "shell shocked" look about her.

It comes as no surprise to me that our dog, Shasta, who came to live with us
when she was six months old, brought with her a trauma issue to deal with. Her first six months fraught with safety and survival issues. Yet to me there seemed to be more. I was fortunate to hear about Jen Ortman, a stellar animal communicator, who immediately upon seeing Shasta's picture, "saw" her soul was that of little gypsy girl two life times ago when she was used in satanic ritual. Luckily the Marin Humane Society adopter, who had previously placed her in an inappropriate home, chose me to adopt her even though there were almost a hundred people on "the wait list" to adopt her. "From the get go" Shasta was a handful with her guarding behavior she had developed in her previous brief home. Perhaps this behavior was a response to her little gypsy girl's life where she had so few possessions and little or no "control" of her life. It quickly became evident she did not realize she was a dog. With consistency in her now forever home and guidance from several animal communicators, Shasta's guarding behavior markedly decreased and she showed signs of dog behaviors like grooming and "marking." 

 


When we hit a rough spot in the road, this discomfort offers us a path to accepting responsibility to bring forth the trauma and all the emotions held in our bodies. Allowing the emotions to come up and discharging these emotions lays a new foundation to becoming a fully developed sentient BEing. Most abdicate their responsibility by taking what looks like the easy path. However, it is my belief that it takes tremendous energy to keep the memory of our initial trauma at bay thus affording imbalance in our physical form. This imbalance leads to illness and often a arduous death.

"Remember that you are always your own person.... 

never give up responsibility for you own life. 

No one lives your life for you."

Deng Ming-Dao

As we each accept responsibility to complete our life lesson, may we