Give Thanks to Pacha Mama

Castro Canyon, behind Deetjen's Inn, has long been known as home to faeries, magical spirits of the land. Hit hard by the fires this past summer, winter rains now threaten its pristine, gentle quality. Redwood logs are stacked and chained together to block mud flow, and sandbags fill the gaps between dam and canyon wall.

Fortunately, we have among us some inspired practitioners of shamanism, Peruvian-style. These gifted women work with the living energy all around us to do wondrous things. They have traveled to the source, and studied with the masters of the craft, cultivating a primal yet playful consciousness.

Devotees of Pacha-Mama, Mother Earth, two of these wise souls led a small group of neighbors in a “Despacho” last Friday afternoon in the canyon. This ceremony is a gift to Pacha Mama. We give her our love, our breath, our prayers and thanks, in the hope that in healing her, she will heal us in return. She likes pretty things, heartfelt words, and chocolate!

Painter Branham Rendlen leads us in blessing this medicine space with the ringing of bells, and the spraying of scented water. She calls in all the major and minor deities, from Allah to Krishna, from Mary to Inanna, as well as the divas of this land. The Kintu, or gift, to the Mother, is really the creation of a tiny universe, representing all of Life's elements, sending love to Her in grateful prayer.

The childlike nature of the offering lightens our hearts: Seashells at the center, representing the womb of the Sea, Candies for our relations, our masculine and feminine energies, seeds for our creative force. Llama fat for the life force, feathers for vision, rice for fertility, sugar and incense for sweetness. We dip white carnations and red carnations (for mountains, for earth) into wine and sprinkle drops across the gift. We each sip a bit of the wine, which oddly recalls the more formal communion of the catholic church.

Then, best of all, we add our prayers themselves, rose-petals wrapped in bay leaves, each tiny package sealed with discreet puffs of our breath, hopeful kisses of thanks. A Pacha is also a cross, indicating an intersection in space and time. Time and space converge powerfully in ritual, and intention (also known as faith, or belief) is everything. We're talking about the power of prayer, baby.

Next we clambered over the dam and up into the canyon itself, where Deetjen's General Manager Torrey Waag buried our gift beside the stream. At the end of our ritual, we all felt the its unique power: the gift, built ceremoniously, wrapped in fabric and passed over our bodies, generated a surge of positive healing energy, which flowed out of our eyes and our hearts. We are safe! We love and honor our Pacha Mama, and She loves us in return.

Magical Canyon waterfall
Flood preparations
Our offering—in progress, wrapped for delivery, in the earth
Petals in the stream

The Joy of Stuffed Animals

As the season of giving approaches, I find myself thinking of the most simple of gifts: a Stuffed Animal. There is something deep in the human soul that needs to hold, to touch, and sleeping all alone at night is just not really do-able, at any age, perhaps especially in early childhood.

For children, the acknowledged wisdom is that stuffed animals are an important part of healthy psychological development. Yes, you can make a real difference in the world, by donating a stuffed animal or two to your local holiday toy drive.

When I was little, I had a stuffed toy named Bully, with a plush body and a plastic bull's head. I also had a favorite blanket, a baby blue quilt-like number with pink tufts emerging from the center of each sewn square of fabric. Holding onto these things gave me comfort; I could talk to Bully, and bury myself in the softness of my blanky at nap-time.

Today, I sleep cuddled against the warm body of my Welshman husband. We curl and uncurl around each other all night long, holding hands, rubbing feet together, caressing hips, and planting kisses on the center of each other's backs. When he gets up in the middle of the night, I sense the sudden solitude, and wake up. Him too, when I sit up to read or tap on the laptop.

They say that healthy adult love includes elements of nurturing often missed in childhood, and still needed at a profound level. I have single friends who wrap themselves around large pillows, or invite their cats and dogs into bed with them. Most of us, as "grown-ups" are somewhat shy about being partial to a humble stuffed animal, except in times of extreme stress and loneliness.

However, I have a theory that if all the world had something to cuddle with, we'd be happier all around and wake up smiling every morning. Holding onto to anything while we slumber takes us back to less complicated times, when just giving love nourished us, with no expectation except a small dab of comfort. The great mystery here is, that by just loving, even an inanimate object, we feel loved in return.

Does love make our loved ones more real to us? Absolutely. And this concept has never been better expressed than in the wonderful childhood story, The Velveteen Rabbit. I dare anyone, especially during the winter holidays, to hear this story and not shed a tear.

My elderly friend Bob understood this intuitively, when I gave him a stuffed rabbit to hold during his hospital stay two years ago. He missed his cat, so the white bunny from the drugstore it was. He resisted holding it, but when he put it on his lap and stroked it, his face broke out in a smile of understanding. Connecting with his love for life by feeling love in the simplest of ways gave him strength, no doubt.

So, don't be shy. Share a story here of the joy you find in a soft, furry toy. Let's create a love-fest of happy moments, of that sense of contentment that only holding and loving can give. To kick it off, here's a priceless pic of the long-suffering Welshman himself, cuddled with his new favorite.

Winter Reading

When I was a little girl, my mother was the Librarian in our town. I loved to visit her after school at the romantic old library downtown, built in the 30's. I'd find a dog-eared copy of Jane Eyre or Anne of Green Gables in the stacks and curl up on the red velvet couch in front of the fireplace and read for hours. Those afternoons were a blessed escape from a childhood set in the midst of the godforsaken 1970's!

Later, I somehow discovered Anaïs Nin, and then, Erica Jong. Delta of Venus and Fear of Flying were harder to read in public, but I devoured them secretly, filled with delicious, guilty pleasure. At about this time I also read Philip Roth, Kurt Vonnegut, Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, as well as the usual trashy science fiction and historical romances bookish teenage girls always seem to find.

Reading has been my salvation—I've found some of my best teachers, healers and lovers in books. To disappear into the content of a story, any story, from fantasy to current events, makes me feel bigger than myself, connected to a community of human souls beyond my world.

When I'm troubled, I turn to books of poetry by the 13th century Sufi poet Rumi, the musings on love of psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, the compassionate detachment of Sogyal Rinpoche's Buddhist texts. While I can never fully assimilate all this wisdom (I often follow up a short read with a good cry and a cup of tea followed by hiding under the covers) I am constantly seeking more.

Perhaps it's not surprising then, that I would spend a few years working at the Henry Miller Library here in Big Sur, and consider it one of our community's transcendent places. Current Nympholibrarian Keely Richter reigns there now, in charge of archiving rare books. When I tell her of the secret union of Librarians she nods complicitly, hazel eyes laughing behind her glasses.

My latest book purchase? (From the Miller Library, of course.) The Portable Dorothy Parker, edited by Marion Meade. My favorite poem so far in this large tome of short stories, verse, and early New Yorker articles, is one which offers up these lines:
Yet this the need of woman, this her curse: / To range her little gifts, and give and give / Because the throb of giving's sweet to bear.

And it is.

Next on my winter reading list: MFK Fisher's The Gastronomical Me.

The Wrapped Road

I've been thinking about the globally known, innovative artist Christo lately, and that he should come and do a large scale environmental art project here in Big Sur, kind of like his 1.5 miles long, 1 million square feet of Wrapped Coast in 1969 in Little Bay, Australia. He also Surrounded Islands in Key Biscayne in 1983. Hey, it's only about 20 miles from from Lucia Lodge to the Nepenthe. It's worth exploring, don't you think?


A Christo coast would be an artsy rendering of Big Sur that could also prevent avalanches of earth and rock. The generally accepted viewpoint among experts and most locals is that we're (more or less) going to see Big Sur slide into the ocean with this winters's rains, shutting down the highway and trapping us here. Not so bad, you say, until supplies (and bank accounts) run dry.

This makes for an interesting quasi-PTSD experience to the Basin Complex Fire, which denuded the mountains of stabilizing flora, and promises to fill our rivers and springs with sediment from over 200,000 burned back-country acres.

I'm wondering how "erosion control fabric" (used in the Australian installation) fares against steel mesh in keeping the rocks at bay. I'm grateful for CPOA, our valiant non-profit community group that has worked tirelessly with an alphabet soup of government agencies to mitigate the upcoming hazards and educate our bilingual population about flood and landslide risks.

Also impressive are the construction teams who, among other things, are coordinating the massive project of helicopters hanging curtains of steel along the unstable cliffs, as if they're capturing some unpredictable animal beneath a net.

Yes, that's it, Christo needs to wrap our Big Sur coast in Cal-Trans orange, just in time for Halloween! The kind of saffron color he used in the Central Park Gates in 2006. (In the world of blogging fantasy, it can all be done by the end of the week.)


Think how beautiful the coastline would look at sunset, Big Sur dressed in flame-colored nylon, contrasting with the cobalt blue of the Pacific Ocean. We have a few years of potentially disastrous landslide scenarios. Let's get word to Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude about this. My bet is that they'll a) think we're bonkers and b) seriously consider helping out!

Wrapped Coast near Sydney, Australia
Recently scraped Torre Canyon cliff
O yeah, that will hold it
Road worker Cory, who says he wonders daily "how he'll make his first million $"
Central Park Gates, New York City

The Twins, Arriba!

A lifetime ago I lived in Madrid. I wore polka-dotted short skirts, tiny heels, and drank like a Spaniard in the city's many bars and nightclubs. I learned to speak Spanish, a fondo, with a petite bearded Radio Nacional disc jockey named Javier. Boy, did we have fun. I still grin remembering it all, decades later.

This was about 5 years after dictator Franco's death, near the beginning of La Movida, a riotous time of social, sexual and pharmacological experimentation by Madrid's youth, artists and intellectuals. Naturally I considered myself all three, except my art form was more of the, um, intimate kind.

Feria in Sevilla captured my heart, but even more, the impromptu Flamenco dancing I saw among men and women in their street clothes at the smaller village fairs. Those proud hips, arms and shoulders, that unspoken and delicious conversation! Not to mention the mesmerizing music and song, which in part derives from Arabic culture, an intrinsic part of Spain for 700 years (711 - 1492, yes, some things I remember from college.)

Somehow, I now find myself, via the wonder of email to my humble cottage on the mountain, (and courtesy of Santa Cruz dance teacher and choreographer Janelle Rodriguez) at a beginning Flamenco class at Pleasure Point Fitness Studio in Soquel, California.

Fourth generation Brisas de España Flamenco dancer and master teacher Carolina Lugo and her extraordinary daughter Carolé Acuña greet us on Sunday afternoon, two dynamic beauties patiently teaching a room full of mostly belly dance students. We begin with floreos, those perfectly formed twirling hands, almost like mudras, our wrists spinning around as we raise and lower our arms (elbows up!) in different combinations.

We translated middle-eastern dance moves into their Flamenco variations, worked on some complex footwork and challenging spins, moving into intense combinations. Soon, those of us who dream of undulating in the desert to a swirling violin see ourselves instead in a candle-lit tavern in Andalucia, snapping our skirts to a dramatic guitar.

Flamenco feels staccato, strong, a study in contrasts, the powerful arms, the delicate handwork, the concentration in the footwork, the serious faces, all of the energy pulled in tight, close to the body, inward.

"Your back ribs meet your front ribs," says Carolina, "shoulder blades down and moving towards each other. And what does this do?" she continues, with a broad smile and thumbs up gesture, "Yes, the twins (our breasts) Arriba! (Up!) and proud." This is the only dance form where women, she adds, have balls. And with all that stomping, they hurt!

Attending a new dance class always takes me back to the first grade. Some amateur dancers are shy, hiding in the back of the class, working out the moves, eternally grateful for the teacher's guidance. Others with more experience help lead the class by example. We ask questions, smile sideways at each other, gasp with exasperation. There is courage here, and a deep desire for real beauty.

The community of dance never fails to make me happy. Carolina introduced students to perform the famous Sevillanas folk dances at the end of class, with a beautiful singer as well. Suddenly I was in the countryside outside Huelva, (where some of my Spanish friends lived and where Columbus, having recruited local sailors, departed from) watching teenagers in jeans dance perfect Flamenco. I can still see them, downing shots of local sherry and laughing in the sunshine.

Sleeping under the stars

These crisp fall nights are magical, with our cricket choir, and soft breezes tickling the wind chimes. “We should sleep outside tonight,” says my husband, and, since he has the soul of a weatherman, I listen, and we trundle outside in our fleece boots with our flashlights. Soon we'll be taking down our screen doors, building fires in the stove and putting warm blankets on our indoor bed. Summer nights outdoors become a memory.

One of the best things about sleeping outside under the stars is waking up in the morning, with the coral pink horizon fluffed out along the line of the slate blue ocean, paler blue sky above. It's kind of an inverse sunset. Instead of dramatic orange and magenta flames where the sea and sky meet, these gentle morning colors, seen through the floating veil of the mosquito net, give the day a calm beginning.

How many of us in our modern world are able to see the sunrise, flashing at the ridge-top, brightly transforming dawn into day? The theory that much of the human race’s alienation is a result of our lack of connection to the rhythms and beauty of the natural world makes perfect sense here in Big Sur. Humans naturally relax in nature, feeling a deep trust, born of a millennia of nurturing by this planet.

Waking up to songbirds' dawn chorus is pure delight. Sometimes flocks of doves swoop down from the ridge line above us, headed off for their morning meeting in the trees below. Or sleek crows sail by, powered by their melodious wing-beats. They always seem like they’re talking to each other. They’ll chase red-tail hawks away from their nests, two or three of them bird-dogging the larger bird, shrieking their disapproval.

Every vision has its price, of course. There are restless nights when we inadvertently open the net and mosquitoes bite our fingers and faces. Those ace pilots of the wee hours, strafing us, alerting us with their unmistakable high-pitched whine. Fortunately I find it humorous to smack myself repeatedly in the dark, with little or no success. Sometimes we turn on the flashlight and hunt them down against the netting.

A touch of insomnia is a good thing outdoors: we wake to watch the Milky Way, which stretches from the ocean below to the mountaintop behind us, slowly moving across the heavens during the night. Orion returns this month, emerging from the south flank of the Partington watershed, at I’d say around 2 am. We watch the phases of the moon for optimal sleep quality, a goose-down feather new moon is best, not the overpowering street-light full moon, though it can produce epic dreams.

Initially, sleeping outside by myself was a little scary. The bed is appealing— sturdy pine beams beneath a sheet of plywood, mattress topped by a cushy feather bed, soft jersey cotton bedding, yet it sits on the point of the hill, and feels exposed to, well, the entire universe.

It’s not that I fear wild animals, though barking coyotes can give one pause, and the stray rattlesnake on a hot summer night can give you a huge shot of adrenalin. It just feels so very solitary: me, millions of stars stretching out above, the huge mountain beneath and behind me, and the endless ocean, which sometimes sparkles with reflected starlight.

“Lord, your sea is so vast, my ship is so small,” as the old saying goes. Sleeping under the stars is glorious and daunting. And, then, there’s always the aliens who visit from the far reaches of the galaxy. (But that’s a subject for another post!)

Frida and Friends

There's nothing like a day with one's friends, doing something you never get to do together. Putting ourselves in a new environment, each of us taking our separate paths to arrive at the appointed time (more or less), with the twin goals of experiencing something new and appreciating the novelty of another way of life.

Two Big Sur bumpkins, one Santa Cruz gal and two City sophisticates (one of them 7 months pregnant) meet to enjoy a morning at San Francisco's MOMA, two days before the close of the fabulous Frida Kahlo exhibit.

Since I've left my laptop power cord in a San Francisco café, (there's a song there somewhere) there's been a bit of a delay in my sitting down to blog. I've also been basking in the joyous memories of such delicious friendships, pregnant bellies, soccer games, and cups of tea followed by glasses of champagne.

Our group contained two painters, a professional photographer, an entrepreneur and yours truly. Lots of stimulating commentary all around. I love the abundance of Mi Nana y Yo, My Nurse and I. Milk streams from the heavens as Frida nourishes herself at the breast of the great Mother. Her little body shimmers with power, lightning-like veins coursing through her dress. It bursts with erotic creativity and mystery.

The series of photographs of Frida's life—family, friends and events, was exceptional. One photograph, from her lover Julien Levy, is unforgettable. It's a small photo of a topless Frida, (the camera stops just above her nipples) with her hair down, wearing one of her signature heavy necklaces. Her right arm is bent upwards, hand resting on her head, she displays a bit of dark underarm hair. That faraway look in her eyes, which you see in so many of her paintings, transforms into something more dreamy than sad.

Each one of us shed tears at the film clip of Diego and Frida, the part where Diego turns Frida's sweet face to the camera, twice. She shyly tucks her cheek into his enormous paw, then takes his hand in her own and kisses it tenderly. Since we are all married ladies, we really get the authenticity of such domestic gestures, especially between battling, loving spouses.

One country bumpkin who will remain nameless was chastised by the rest of us for tugging on her underwear through her jeans while waiting for a table at the Samovar Tea Lounge. We can't take you anywhere, we cried, secretly delighted that she just didn't give a damn.

Before lunch, the non-pregnant city sophisticate proffered a special breath mint spray, given to her by another renegade mom. We dutifully sprayed the foul tasting green liquid (with the pretty hemp flower on the packaging) into our mouths. Results were disappointing, but the tea and delicious snacks at the Samovar were not.

I ordered the Russian Tea Platter, with the bottomless cup of black tea, which I filled many times from the enormous samovar inside the restaurant, both for myself and my luscious pals. We sat outside in the Yerba Buena Gardens, enjoying the bright sunshine and views of da big City. Later that day, we drank champagne and held our own salon on love, art, sex and death.

Frida would have approved!

Frida by Imogen Cunningham, 1931
Mi Nana y Yo. 1937
The Two Fridas, 1939