July 12, 2020 8:53AM. East side of Lone Pine Rd, Crook County, Oregon. On the sidehill of a butte, at the top of a favorite trail.

My hair is loose today.  I feel witchy.  Witches were among the first of the wise women, connected directly to the land.  Men and fear turned the word into how it is perceived today.

The last quarter of the moon floats high in the southwest sky.  A sky-blue and alabaster white translucent pearl.

Above and behind me, the butte is a solid daub of earth and rock superimposed on impossible blue.  Feathered above are white wisps of cloud.

These colors.  Tawny gold.  Green.  Blue.  Brown-black of rock.  Grey blue-green sage.  My soul painted on parchment.

Tracks in the trail; chap books of nighttime journeys.

Birds and birdsong.  One, the tinkle of a silver spoon against a crystal goblet.  The soft musical burr of bluebird song.  Now I know what blue sounds like.  Dove-grey notes weave with the blue and the crystal.  

I check for snakes, sit on the ground.  Thank god rattlesnakes have rattles.  The only good thing I can say about them.  

Heads of grass tap my bare brown arm.  “Tell us.”

Tell us of you.  Me?  Tell us.  Tap, tap.  Tickles and insists.

Well.

Me.

I be-come.

I be-hold.

Tap.  Tap.

OK.

I am flayed by life.

You? (to the grasses)

Silence.

I thought so.

You, who live with your roots forever in the earth.  You know.

I walked uphill.  Through sun and shade.  Warm.  Cool.  Warm.  Cool.  Cool. Warm.  Dust.

Ants.  It is said they can follow their twisty, long ant trail back to their homes.  What happens, when I have walked down the trail and brush one off my arm?  Is it lost forever?  If a hand brushed me off this trail, would I be lost forever?

Bugs and crickets.  Who would have thought their songs are part of the birdsong tapestry, and strike so deep into my soul?

Today, the stitch has returned to my lower left side and back since I woke.

My left shoulder is tight, stiff, sore.  2 1/2 years of this, though better now.  Will this be with me always?  I had though after using my body hard and shoeing horses for 20 years that my lower back would be the first to go.  I never suspected my left shoulder to fail.

I breathe air.

I drink, from my Camelbak.

Air and water.  All I need.

Now, I read in the book with me today.  My body and spirit read the land, the sky, the trees and the rocks.  It breathes and drinks these things.  All it needs.

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Today:  Afterwards

the color of sage is really dusky turquoise

my legs are strong

grasses ask questions

lichens tell me how to write sentences  don’t f  ol  low therules

I love the breeze’s fingers in my hair.  As long as I face the breeze.

reading on a hillside is bliss

I love solitude  crave  hunger  seek  need  addiction

searches for dove nests are often unsuccessful and result in bits of vegetation in your socks

my heart-shape and deer tracks are the same

I am going to invite myself into the chair at the stock tank

bumble bees are plump and furry.  Mom says they are very disorganized housekeepers compared to honey bees.

the trail commands thought and contemplation

unfamiliar flowers do not call attention.  One notices them in delightful surprise.