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contra dance
October 2009 
two days in Hope
Carla
Busy weekend. Saturday morning orgasmic shopping at the Farmer's Market, and afternoon messing around the house with laundry, email and I don't remember what. I worked in the garden and the woods, transplanting the eggplants, but first digging up another stone, as big as the heart stone, but this one decidedly masculine in energy. Not phallic but masculine all the same. Then wandering throughout my woods choosing sweat lodge saplings mostly alder and some young birch. One maple that insisted. Doing some magic. Doing. no just being out there works magic. and I stopped to smell the roses, literally. There is a wild white climbing rose that blooms clear to the top of a birch tree in the edge of the woods. I stood there till I was drunk.
Have you heard that Rose is the Fragrance of God? It is the highest vibration of any living thing on the planet. Do something with organic wild rose petal: rose tea: collect petals in a pitcher or jar and cover with water. Set in the sun. Blend with green tea or fresh lemonade! Rose oil infusion. Rose and red clover: no cancer ever.
I am going out later to harvest rose. I have rose essential oil. It is powerful and extremely expensive. I digress, but thanks for the reminder. I had forgotten than I can bring rose into the house.
Dance Saturday really great music and fun. I ate ants.
Crunchy.
My friend brought stirred fried, smoky bacon tasting homemade fried ants from Guatemala. They taste better than raw slugs, but I did feel my snout grow long and pointy and my tongue get skinny and capable of spiralling down holes... I think I'll stop now.
Sunday I went with friends to pick organic strawberries I have never had such good strawberries since child hood and organic hadn't been invented then.
Then I worked my computer job and went crazy from being inside the computer. I spend a couple hours in the woods, planning to build the sweat lodge, but hornets had taken over the space. I have to move the lodge. Some lovely hard labor in the fog working up a sweat and an appetite. I was out there till nearly full dark. Coyotes and wood thrush, a strange chorus.
I came home to the house and it was still dark. Power out.
I took advantage of the hot water tank for a quick shower: have to wash off the ticks.
Then I build a fire in an old wok. Set it up safely on the porch -- pouring rain -- and cooked a fish stew: stock already made, just add fresh fish and some curry seasoning. Watched fire in the pot, and fireflies in the trees, and ate satisfying hot food while the rain dripped.
Then I went to bed. Early for a change. I love it when the world goes dark and silent, for a little while.
Access: Public
Nice Carla. Sounds like a good weekend. Working up a sweat for the sweat lodge.
Last year Lauren and I harvested yarrow from the top of Mt. Chilco. We made a salve from it which is an anti-inflammatory and analgesic. I've been looking up at the mountain thinking we should get up there and harvest this year's supply. It's a hike and I'm wondering if I should plant some here for next year.
Lucky that you have water when the power is out. We don't. Too bad. Back when I was a hippie, when the power went out, we used to sit in the claw-foot bathtub by candlelight. It was a good way to show down.
I liked everything but the ticks
Greaaaaat weekend!
LOL, I had ants before too, I'm just not too sure it was really ants :-D Could've been anything fried up =)
The power out just tops off this wonderful weekend ;-)
I LOVE reading about your life. You make us want to be there (well maybe not all of us….but I want to be there.) You make it all sound so earthy, real, passionate, beautiful. Even the stirred fried, smoky bacon tasting homemade fried ants from Guatemala. How anyone can make that sound tasty! Yikes…. Thanks for being who you are there in the woods of Maine.
Oh Carla, yeah it sounds wonderful … and I'd love to be there and work, get sweaty, dig in the dirt, listen to your stories, pick and eat berries and then go back to your place and cook something sensuous and seasoned just right. Can we play with some clay too?
This time of year sounds perfect - maybe we can all gather on your side of the country next summer?
I'm there with you, sitting in your little home eating strawberries near the woodstove, then we can go out to the chamber and smudge and chant!
Hey Aley, you've been here, so you got the visual!
Peri, I am up for it. Yall come. I am not supposed to be keeping this magic to myself!
Hope this posts.
Well that was funny.. I just posted and got kicked off and lost my post.
The spirits of Gaia must be cranky today.
I was going to say, in my round about way, that I enjoyed you little walk in the strawberry patch.
I will be going out and picking some wild roses today and making a little bit of that potion.
Thank you for inviting me into your world.
~lars
Carla
I've long wanted to visit Maine. There is a rugged wilderness area called Arcadia National Park that has called to me. So, much of what you write could be Missouri, at least the wild part of Missouri where I live - including power failures and the adventure of rediscovering what to do with no lights, no plumbing and no computer especially.
There is some Missouri Primrose and Prairie Rose blooming at this time and my guide to Wild Edibles would seem to indicate I could make a Tea with them. Never thought of that. And oh yes, we have Red Clover. Thanks for stirring up some yummy creative ideas to eat natural (I love eating off the land - the wild Blueberries and Blackberries are beginning to ripen).
I love the woods and the fireflies, the Whippowills and the Coyotes calling. The ticks, well what can you say?, they live in the woods too. It is my understanding that if you get them off quickly, they are unlikely to transmit nasty things but my husband was very, very ill last summer with Erlichiosis, so yes - must bathe after spending time out there.
I especially understand that just being out in nature works magic.
Deborah
Deborah, when you come, we will go to Acadia. It is only an hour and a half from me, but I hardly ever go there.
I can tell you are a woman who knows woods magic.
Carla - Yes, I know of it intimately.
Some day I will get to Maine. It probably will not happen while my MIL lives as we need to stay close to home for her and Maine is weeks away from Missouri the way we travel.
Deborah
I've stopped by this blog a couple of times. The picture leaves an essence of strawberry in my mind. The lingering of real berries,the ones you pick yourself,the ones not 'forced' to grow.
I wonder at times why the real things sometimes become luxuries,and the forced stuff is well…forced and uncomfortable,almost in hindsight.
The blog itself organic,an essence of what life is when lived in focus.
When I was growing up,summers were filled with brooms to wipe off the sand after the beach,little white buckets to pick strawberries and raspberries,rhubarb pies whose smell lingered forever,and sleep that happened almost instantly as we laid our heads on pillows whose cases were cool like the sheets and smelt like clean laundry does when dried on lines in the country.
Thank you for this reminder
uuuhhmm, I nearly melted looking at those yummie strawberries & certainly did after reading. You live in a wonderful place, where I could spend weekends forever. I get the same kind of deep longing for being in the midst of nature, like I do when reading Farland's blog. I think it's a sign that I need to move again..soon… & aaahh, I do a great spongy kinda b-day cake with strawberries, chocolate & whipped cream, breathtaking 3-dimensional mouthorgasm big time! Do you like cake? I'll get you the recipe if you do.
…thanks for this tale, I love it! <3