Transplanting . . . Again

“We who have lost our sense and our senses --

our touch, our smell, our vision of who we are, we who frantically force and press all things, without rest for body or spirit, hurting our earth and injuring ourselves: we call a halt.

We want to rest. We need to rest and allow the earth to rest. We need to reflect and to rediscover the mystery that lives in us, that is the ground of every unique expression of life, the source of the fascination that calls all things to communion.

We declare a Sabbath, a space of quiet: for simply being and letting be, for recovering the great, forgotten truths for learning how to live again.”

                     U.N. ENVIRONMENTAL SABBATH PROGRAM

This past year has been difficult, disrupting, problematic, disturbing and has drastically altered our lives. We were settling into our lives in "the best neighborhood", as one of the long time Santa Fe residents stated who was living in the house in which she grew up. We were enjoying getting to know and developing connections to all of the neighbors living on San Felipe Circle. Then BOOM Cathie had two visits to the ER. She had never been a patient in one before. Then followed an admonition from her acupuncturist that she would be so much better off healthwise at sea level. Shasta was so bummed to leave behind morning play time with Hobbes, her treasured Great Pyrenees friend and morning playmate at Lopez Park. Whenever either dog would pass by Lopez Park both would sit and say, "Shasta/Hobbes will soon come play with me."

Shasta and Hobbes playing in Lopez Park

Hobbes in a creek near Moah, Utah

So the packing and organizing for a move back to Sonoma County where our longtime friends live began. In March we drove back to California, staying in what would turn out to be an emotionally disastrous short term rental while we began our search for a house. Fortune would have it that both Shasta and Cathie felt so, so, so much better at sea level immediately upon arrival. Luckily we found our home on Page Street in Cotati and initiated a move into the 1950's bungalow. Now some seven months later with all the many necessary projects completed we all are so ready for a Sabbath filled with resting, hiking and generally enjoying all the beauty of the region.

So we are returning to what use to be our annual trek to the Mono Lake Basin. We will be staying at the longtime familiar Walker River Lodge that has a two bedroom apartment right on the Walker River. Whew! a Sabbath . . . finally!

While on our week long Sabbath we will have and enjoy a frequent