Peace I Ask of Thee

After the forceful Christmastime flood, LaBarque Creek has radically changed its course through the property, eroding its banks, and moving tons of rocks pulverized into dunes of pure white sand. I will need to visit at different times of day in order to obtain just the single photo image that'll show you just how striking are the huge new creekside "beaches" where there were none, new "islands" made of broken fossil rocks, and full-grown trees uprooted and fallen, creating new directions and chutes for the creek water, and also new depths, and therefore new colors--because for the last several years the LaBarque, as it passes through the property, has been shallow everywhere, lacking a swimming hole (last swum in 2008) or worthwhile fishing hole.

What you see here is a tree growing sidewise now, horizontally, a few feet above the water, out of a bank that has just about completely eroded beneath it, and the newly green creek water, deeper now than when it used to run gold. For some reason it looked like a Japanese print to me.

Early spring, right now, is the best time of the year, freshest (like a new book), full of light (with the trees yet leafless) and most heartening and promising.

The Second Saturn Return

Astrology believes human life has "Saturn cycles." Every 29 years, slow-moving planet Saturn completes a journey around the zodiac and returns to where it was at your birth (in my case, at 11 degrees of Sagittarius). Our first Saturn Return, around age 29, typically has us rethinking what we've been doing, and many people at this time enter another stage of life or another line of work. At 29 I left the office world to go to grad school where I discovered a discipline and a career I'd never dreamed of.

Astrology says that at the second Saturn return, about age 58, one begins to detach from the worldly life and becomes -- ancient Indian astrology says --"a forest dweller" with an increasingly different set of values. I've watched friends go through this. Some are successful: They quit drinking, survive a layoff, sell a house and move, become a missionary, go back to college, parent their grandchildren, write a book. The transition isn't easy: It's two steps forward and one back. Others aren't successful. Their circumstances change, but they aren't willing to do or see anything differently. They decide the world owes them or that life's been disappointing. This leads to consuming bitterness. Maybe you know the type.

Saturn Returns mean change, and change means "out of the comfort zone," but 29 years is enough time in any comfort zone. It wasn't exactly peaches and cream, at 29, to cut my income by 75 percent and move hundreds of miles to a place I'd never been and where I knew no one -- but I ended up here, and how great is that? My second Saturn return is coming up. I feel its challenge already and intend to meet it. Happy and healthy 2015!

God Bless 2013

In the U.S. "prayer" has become the all-purpose substitute for actually doing anything. "Pray" for our soldiers -- don't, like, actually work at the USO or protest the war they shouldn't be fighting in the first place. "Pray" for the hungry or homeless -- but don't let them hang around here, and get those Salvation Army bell-ringers out of our face, and no, I don't want to volunteer once a week to drive for Meals on Wheels because there might be slippery roads. Prayer is powerful, and at least it doesn't kill anybody, but from looking at the Bible I think it's supposed to be a supplement for doing good, not the actual do-gooding itself.

In other news, 2013 is the first year since 1987 that a New Year has had 4 different numerals. Happy New Year!

Cress in Spring Water

At the end of a rocky 3-1/2-mile hike today, with patches of snow still on the ground, I came to a dark little spring with stepping stones across it, and its whole downstream was paved with fresh watercress. Stunned to see such green wealth amid the blue and gray I got excited, and wanted instinctively to grab some for salad but didn't have a bag or nothin', and wasn't sure if it was legal -- so all I took was a photo. And I thought about the people before me subsisting during the winters on dried corn, dried meat, and dried beans and how thrilled they must have been to see and get the first fresh greens: always watercress -- leaves both bitter and sweet.

A Toast to the New Year

Reeve, my close friend who has 100 head of cattle, is usually very busy, but he took time out during the holidays and he truly does wish us all a very happy new year on this little blue dot of a planet.

Raspberry Sunset

What December has going for it: Christmas cookies with friends and neighbors, and great sunsets. Here's a raspberry-colored one from night before last. Tonight's was purple and gold, just like high-school colors. This has been a snowless winter in eastern Missouri and in fact the whole Midwest so far except for a single "dusting" that didn't last the morning. This morning it was 55 degrees and I put a chair outside the kitchen door and enjoyed my morning tea there. Who knows what it means, but it saves lives when the roads and bridges aren't icy.

What 2011 had going for it: The world got rid of several murderous dictators. The U.S. has stopped warring on Iraq. That is plenty.

Selecting a new wall calendar for a new year is always fun. My 2012 finalist calendars were "Hunks" and "The Missouri House Rabbit Society Calendar." I will let you guess which one I chose. Happy New Year!

This Will Fry Your Brain

Burning the excess brush cut down on Christmas day (pictured), I thought, "a bonfire." Then I wondered, "What's the difference between a bonfire and a regular fire?" Looked it up.

bon-fire. Middle English bonefire, banefire, originally a fire of bones.
1. A fire for consuming bones, hence: a. (Obs.) A fire for burning corpses. b. A fire for burning heretics, or articles under proscription. c. A fire for burning brush or rubbish.
2. A large fire built in the open air (orig. on certain anniversaries, esp. the eves of St. Peter and St. John), as an expression of public joy, for sport, etc.

Quite a history. The fire here is definition 1.c. With the surrounding brush cleared and flattened, this spot suddenly became perfect for a permanent firebowl. Everyone liked this idea, and friends carried concrete blocks and helped me to establish it on Saturday (and stayed here half the night feeding and enjoying the fire). Happy New Year and stay warm.