on the sixth day

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember
how you made it through, how you managed to survive.
You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over.
But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm,
you won’t be the same person who walked in.
That’s what this storm’s all about.”~Haruki Murakami

“As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. … That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life… Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.”
― Anthony de Mello

Spiritual awakening is about discovering what’s true. Anything that’s not about getting to the truth must be discarded. Truth isn’t about knowing things; you already know too much. It’s about unknowing. It’s not about becoming true; it’s about unbecoming false so that all that’s left is truth.
-Jed McKenna

I’ve loved New Mexico ever since Carbondale, Colorado . . . . where we trekked out to hot springs feeding a rock lined tub on a moonlit night . . . later passing Telluride and Durango; it was so many years back, just the two of us, Laughing Fox and I, no kids yet!  We visited cliff dwellings and went through Navajo Nation where we stopped on the roadside and chatted, drank water, and ate burgundy wine cherries with a woman and her son parked there with their truckload of fruit.  They both wore jeans rolled up and checkered shirts with cut off sleeves, she had on a straw hat and he a bandana around his brow: it caught the sweat and kept it out of his eyes.  They invited us to come back to where they lived, spend some time with them, somewhere over there (they waved to the vast expanse of desert scrub to show where there was); we declined as we’d miss the String Cheese Incident we were headed to.  It was in Santa Fe at an Indian School, Fourth of July, I don’t even remember the year but it was a firecracker of an Incident, thoroughly cheesy, and we drove around and over and under and across Paseo de Peralta so many times afterward trying to find our way back to the campground that it’s loops are etched into me forever!  Afterwards I wondered “what if we’d gone with them, gone there instead of dancing at the BIA School’s Amphitheatre, what would that have been like. .?”

Well this year there were seven of us and we met a couple at a gas station who we got talking with.  They were headed to a wedding at the San Xavier Mission, and the woman thought it would be alright if we came along and peeked at the ceremony quietly.  While we had a conference about this idea her partner must have thought about her suggestion, as after we thanked her and declined the opportunity to peek, he waved over there where he said he was from and asked if we’d like to visit his people, spend the afternoon with them? If so he’d give us directions, he seemed certain that we’d like it  . . . . we conferenced again and accepted, so we went:: there, where he sent us:: down and over and around some dirt roads many miles into the expanse to a serene pueblo, where we spent Anousheh’s 7th birthday on a mesa amidst 13 clans, soft chanting, and a peaceful breeze.

It was enchanted and enchanting to say the least:: butterflies were aflight in the light, while we ate and drank and watered plants and listened to the lore of the Sky Tribe, a matrilineal tribe, from a Bear Clan sister while The Biggest Woman I Ever Saw sat and watched with her ears from where she was seated on a mound of pillows and cushions, hands busy with a carving tool and a slab of clay; she was silent the whole time, yet it felt like she was completely aware: of everything all at once, even the heartbeats of the tiny birds that were coming and going . . .  I believe I could have stayed on forever!! However  . . .  we had a birth to attend, my sister awaiting our presence, and it was with a grateful humming excited heart that I headed back to the car with my clan and we drove the remaining roads to our engagement 🙂

It wasn’t long after we arrived that my nephew was born and we began our six day drive home, no route planned this time, no time for planning really as time just flew by in a heartbeat!  Ahmad and Layla had got the hang of map reading, adding miles, gauging distances and so on, so we had plenty of navigators in the car.  Once we returned I painted this that you see:::I was going to adjust her facial features after Layla and Isha drew my attention to the disproportions they were seeing, but then I had this bit of realization that if I painted over and ‘fixed’ them then they wouldn’t be ‘visible’ anymore and in a sense they’ve got more to offer seen than hidden . . . . might not be perfectly proportioned art but it’s in the oddity that the girls noticed what was ‘off’, so she remains looking the way she does::Butterfleyes, she asked for me to Let it Be.

Thanks to Woodland Gnome for tuning my attention to quotations as blogging resources, this has been fun!

Awaiting your presence in the forest is her post on Perseverance 🙂

Be freely welcome to engage in this ~three day three quotes~ blogging venture and if you do I hope you’ll leave a link in the comments so I can enjoy your post too, thanks!

“May you live a long life
Full of gladness and health,
With a pocket full of gold
As the least of your wealth.
May the dreams you hold dearest,
Be those which come true,
The kindness you spread,
Keep returning to you.”~Irish Blessings