The Robins are coming!

I step outside onto the soaking green grass this morning, the slate colored ocean and rain-bearing sky looming beyond me. It is the always changing backdrop here, subdued now in gray tones.

It’s late Winter, and a refreshingly wet one. This time around, we’re experiencing an unusual avian phenomenon: Robins — Thousands and thousands of them, massive flocks swooping down to the forest behind the house every evening.

Normally we see just a few of these plump red-breasted birds as our seasonal indicators, placidly plucking fat worms from the grass. But this year, we’re absolutely flooded with them. Robins anticipate wet weather (the "early bird" element) because saturated soil makes it easier to hunt for earthworms, who burrow up to the surface to avoid drowning.

Last week I hiked up above the house at dusk, and literally had to dodge hundreds of Robins as they careened down the hill to the forest. As night falls we hear them chirping and twittering up a storm as they settle down to sleep on the branches of the oak and bay trees. They’re not breeding yet, or nesting; they’ll nest when they migrate back home. This is their hunting party.

Mornings are best, as we listen to a luxuriant dawn symphony of bird song, alternating with the drumbeat of hundreds of wings as they fly off in groups, beginning their day with a clear sense of purpose. The moment that they take off, feathers rustling in unison, calms the soul.

What do they do each day? It seems they forage for berries, eat worms, sing flirtatious songs, fly around, then come home. Sounds familiar.

The Robin visitation is unique to this property (known as Lone Palm): we’ve checked with our neighbors on other ridges and up and down this mountain and it’s only happening here. I’m considering it a good sign.

Birds represent the healing cycle of life, our connection with the Divine. The multitudes of Robins visiting Partington during these weeks are part of our habitat’s regeneration after the ’08 fire. As my clever spouse points out, they poop out seeds, (hmmm, is this why their scientific name is turdus migratorius?) This process enriches the land, which means more plants, more insects, more small animals, and so on. Exponential growth.

So, may the blessings of the Lone Palm Robins be upon you. May they bring fruitful abundance and effusive joy to your current flight path!
Robin photo by Linda Sonrisa
Flight picture by Toby Rowland-Jones

Telling Fortunes

Humans are "meaning making" creatures, and I think about this a lot at New Year's, this time of interpreting the past and plotting the best possible future, which of course includes copious resolutions.

On the last evening of 2009, my songbird friend calls on her way to an all night dance party in the Big City. "Make a list of what you appreciate most about yourself this year," she counsels (Courage, risk-taking, trusting love, learning new skills). Add to that what you want to let go of in 2010, things you want to banish from your psychic landscape (Worry, angst, impatience). On New Year's Day, make a list of your intentions. Then, let's share, ok?" As I hear her musical laugh, I commit, as I always do. She is my sparkling, wise muse, after all.

I like to believe that what you do the first 24 hours of the year sets the tone for the next twelve months. So this morning we ended up (finally) replacing the seat to the loo. But the rest of the day? Housework? I think not. Hiking, dancing, and cuddling on the couch are in order. Sitting quietly watching the koi in the pond, I spy a bright yellow breasted bird, with black pirate stripes atop its head, taking a discreet bath amidst the water-lillies. Yes the first day of the new decade, so many things to do well, including doing nothing at all. Choose carefully!

"On Monday, I'm back to water and gruel," moans a friend who has, like so many of us, dined and drank liberally this past month. The perfect storm of winter inactivity, compounded with rich food, obstinate colds, and hot toddies...Oh well, perhaps we need a few extra pounds of blubber in case global warming causes the seas to rise and we evolve into seals. Blubber could also come in handy if you engage in a New Year's Day "Polar Bear Plunge" into the nearest body of freezing water. Brrrrrrrr.

Last night's full moon was a blue moon , (which won't happen on a New Year's Eve again until 2028) so we sang that silly song we all know as she rose above the ridgetop, veiled in swaths of gray cirrus cloud. Word of a lunar eclipse (in the eastern hemisphere of the world) gave us a feeling of astrological magic, auguring well for new, once-in-a-blue-moon type beginnings.

My evening included the company of happy, uninhibited souls, laughter, dancing, singing, with hugging and kissing at midnight. A grape for each stroke of twelve brings good luck. Noisemakers chase away evil spirits. Champagne bubbles carried us away, back up the mountain and home.

The Tarot card for 2010: Six of Cups, Pleasure.
From Angeles Arrien's interpretation:

• "This card represents emotional pleasure that is healing, like the copper cups, and revitalizing, like the orange lotus blossoms, and renewing and regenerating, like the snakes coiled within the cups. There is an emotional determination to bring pleasure into your life that is renewing, revitalizing and regenerating. The emotional nature is going through a healing process, a disappointment is being released, giving way to a feeling of pleasure. Out of this experience of pleasure, one can give pleasure to others."

Holiday Shrubbery

I follow Toby up the path on the side of the hill, turning to look at the panoramic view below and beyond to the gray, winter-day ocean. “Did you know this path used to be the Old Partington Road?” he reminds me. “Yep,” I reply automatically, as I watch our scruffy black and white dog, the neighbor’s chihuaha, and our orange kitten scamper up the hill beside us. The kitten is really scampering, hopping ahead, his fluffy tail waving proudly behind him.

Forgoing the $50 tree from the lot in town this holiday, we’re doing what we’ve said we’ll do for years: chain-sawing a non-native pine tree (well, bush, really) and taking it back down the hill to our living room. Christmas really begins with decorating the tree. Breaking into the box of last year’s goodies stored on a shelf, unwinding the strings of lights, seeing which of the ornaments have broken, or are just too terribly corny to use again.

The beautiful ones emerge to our delight from tissue and we remember, Oh yes, this is the tiny crystal globe that Margaret painted, with our dogs Kip and Mina looking at the Big Sur stars. Oh, here’s the blown glass Amanita mushroom! And the vermeil oak leaf from our trip to Yosemite a decade ago.

It’s our wild kitten Cricket's first Christmas, so the crinkly paper and shiny, sparkly, dangly things emerging from the holiday box are pounced on and purred over. The leaves are falling outside like snowflakes, and suddenly I see in my mind’s eye a 12 point buck walk past my bedroom window, but no, that was a winter day in the Oakland hills, almost 20 years ago.

The tide of the end of the year (and this time, of the first decade of our 21st century) draws us to contemplation, and a bittersweet sense of Time. The current we want to flow with, not getting stuck (for too long!) in the swirling eddies of life.

This morning I wrapped stocking gifts while listening to bluesy Christmas songs. Funny how so many of them are about Santa bringing “my baby” down the chimney, of rewarding good girls, of all I want is L-O-V-E for the holidays. As Ray Charles sings Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer I wonder, where did that red nose come from, again?

Since our home is more Pagan than Christian, we celebrate the ending of the year with deep breaths, kindness, winter naps, and the baking of many mincemeat pies. Then, a theme party with friends on the 25th—Champagne at sunset, good food, warm fires, dancing and laughter.

One year we wore 70’s outfits and danced to disco music late into the night, hanging mirrored balls on the tree. Another season was Spanish Christmas, with shawls, mantillas and our neighbor Jay in his running of the bulls costume from Pamplona. There was the Mad Hatter party, when we wore silly hats, drank lots of tea from mis-matched cups and changed places around the table during our feast. This time, it’s YO HO HO, a Pirate Christmas, with buckets of flaming rum punch…

After this year, and the end of a somewhat disastrous decade for the world, we all deserve a little Joy. While we’re at it, let’s hope and work for Peace on Earth—which, as Santa will tell you, begins at home, in our hearts.
Photos from Rowland-Jones' family archive

Hibernating with Rumi

I always know when I'm about to get sick: I start envisioning a nap (a long winter's nap, as the famous holiday poem goes.) This time it came on like a wave: chills, aches and tummy unease, dizziness and exhaustion. Boom! Instant winter cold.

Because we go inward at this time of year (conserving our energy to survive the elements, to renew our strength for the year to come) questions of contentment and belonging surface. Where are we happiest? Who makes up our community? (Even Mary and Joseph were looking for that as they traveled to their home town for the census. Remember they were told there was no room at the inn, perhaps the first documented case of holiday angst.)

Early Winter is a time when we should be hibernating, but instead we find ourselves going into a kind of surreal hyper-drive with the demands of the season. We cope with the stress of family expectations and excessive socializing by over-indulging ourselves, to top it off with dancing on tables at the office Christmas party. Oh, right, we should save that for New Year's Eve. The whole thing, while certainly enjoyable, strikes me as a massive, culture-wide anniversary reaction: each year is a touchstone, recalling all the holiday seasons of the past.

A day at home, sick with a tummy bug, gives me me the unexpected peace of slowing down, of stopping. Surrendering to the land beneath the covers, slipping into the quiet depths of the sheets, finally stilling my busy mind as I try to give comfort to my body. Sipping peppermint tea with a mindfulness I rarely experience when I'm in full swing, reading until I surrender to the aches and slumber deeply, all day and into the night. Guilt-free enjoyment of total sloth.

Other things comfort me in these times too: my cat sprawled at the end of the bed, absorbing the heat from the wood-burning stove nearby, the neighbor's little dog looking up at me demurely from the sheepskin near the altar, my dog running up to the bedroom door, ears flapping and tail spinning, happy to come inside for a bit of bacon. Practicing the simplest of domestic arts: tending the home fires with the wood dutifully chopped (and hauled, and split, and stacked) by my husband.

After hours of delicious hibernation, medicated with pain pills and drinking lots of water, I emerge to another level of consciousness, which in my case, is always aided by a dose of Rumi's poetry. Something about being slightly broken lends itself to letting his words flow into my soul with a new, fuller understanding—

There's a path from me to you
I'm constantly looking for,
so I try to keep clear and still
as water does with the moon.

Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.
The only rule is: Suffer the pain.

Each moment you call me to you
and ask how I am, even though you know.
The love I answer you with
stirs like wind through cypress.

Your presence is a river
that refreshes everyone,
a rose-garden fragrance.

Don't worry about making doorways
between individual lovers when
this flow is so all around.

Some souls flow like clear water.
They pour into our veins and feel like wine.
I give in to that. I fall flat.
We can sail this boat lying down!

Humble living does not diminish. It fills.
Going back to a simple self gives wisdom.
When a man makes up a story for his child,
he becomes a father and a child
together, listening.

You don't win here with loud publicity.
Union comes of not being.
These birds do not learn to fly,
until they lose all their feathers.


--
Rumi's words are from Say I Am You, the John Moyne, Coleman Barks translation.
Photos by Linda Sonrisa

Ratatouille on the Roof

My eyes opened wide when I looked out the office window that morning: 48' of billboard plastic spread across the front lawn. Going outside, I see three cartoon characters bigger than myself in action, the skyline of Paris behind them. One, a mouse, well, OK, an enormous RAT, wields a huge soup spoon, while the other two, a boy and a girl in chef's uniforms, gaze at each other with goofy smiles.

Whoa, this is going on our roof? Can we put it face up so the low-flying planes and helicopters looking for ganja plantations can spot a bit of Hollywood á la Pixar razzle-dazzle here on top of the mountain? Sadly, the top secret agreement via our friend and the billboard supplier, is no, all that happy color must go face down, onto the shingles, no longer serving as advertising, but keeping us from using our pots and pans to gather rain-water indoors during the Big Sur winter.

Over coffee, we discuss the placement of the three heavy duty billboard tarps, which should last us 3-5 years, so our roof-tarping work parties will no longer be an annual event. Pity. The plan is to divide the roof in thirds, draping each sheet over the tippy top of the roof, like strips of wide pasta over and down, tucking them up under the eaves. Voilá, a leak-proof home! Now we sleep under the roofs of Paris, which will doubtless inspire our dinner parties and our dreams.

So far so good with our new roof, with tempest winds last night rattling the redwood strips (that help hold the tarps in place) just a little. Since I have a touch of vertigo, I was exempt from the actual labor (thanks to neighbors Aengus, Bill and John on that one) but did manage to climb the ladder this morning (had only a minor fainting spell afterwards) to take this snap of our neatly finished "Ratatouille Roof."
And here's the best part: we saved the billboard section featuring rat and spoon for use as a water slide at our next Easter Party...

A dream fulfilled

Last weekend marked the launch of the Big Sur Food and Wine Festival, brainchild of Toby Rowland-Jones, led to exquisite fulfillment by a local team of gifted and passionate food and wine professionals.

That's Rosalia Byrne, Matt Peterson, Toby, Aengus Wagner, Alicia Hahn and Adam Olthof, all happy as clams after their amazingly successful event. The weekend popped with sheer joy: Big Sur wore her warm, sparkling fall light, splashed across the mountains and ocean. Everyone present glowed with the pleasure that comes from good food, wine and communion with friends in a beautiful place.

Crafted as a fund-raiser for the Big Sur community last January, when we all wondered if a) the road would hold during winter storms and b) the economy would keep folks properly employed, the BSFWF brought together Central Coast winemakers, their many fans, generous business sponsors and a crew of indomitable volunteers.

Over the past year, I've discreetly observed these volunteers grow into themselves in new ways. Their strategic planning and communication skills soared, plus they managed to drink excellent wine at all their meetings, definitely an organizational plus. After the Saturday night auction at Ventana Inn, Rosalia and Alicia treated the crowd to a fire dance, Big Sur style.

While stress levels reached the stratosphere in the weeks right before the festival, in the end, everything worked beautifully: people dined in a variety of locales, experiencing the culinary richness and romance found here.

Under the 501c3 umbrella of the Big Sur Arts Initiative, funds were raised for community non-profits such as the Volunteer Fire Brigade and the Health Center, as well as for a culinary institute scholarship for local youth.

Last Sunday afternoon amid laughter and some tears, several of the planning committee members met beneath the small oak tree on the point that we call the "wedding tree". Here they re-affirmed their commitment to giving to their community in the way they know best: loving people by leading them in feasts and celebrations of the grape.

The Algerian singer Idir, from the Berber tradition of Kabylia, says this in his lyrics, "Sing, dance and make merry. This is the only time when God joins us here on earth. Offer up a plate of couscous, and put aside your problems. On with the music!" Please plan to join us at next year's Big Sur Food and Wine Festival, when we’ll call down the gods to play with us again on November 5, 6, and 7, 2010.


Group photo by Linda Sonrisa
Sunset group photo "Victory" by Rosie Kenworthy

Back to school

I've been a taciturn blogger this Fall, but I have an excuse: I'm studying, studying, studying, getting my mid-life brain into shape. My flabby neurons are huffing and puffing, jumping over synaptic paths long faded from disuse. I'm memorizing business practices, concepts and laws and re-acquainting myself with the horrors of formulas and charts. It's shocking to face the enormous mental challenge of actually remembering stuff after decades of living in the attention-span eroding school of hard knocks.

The subject: Human Resources Management. The setting: Brandman University in Monterey. The goal: Initials after my name! PHR. Professional in Human Resources. (I know there's some humor to be mined in that acronym.) The 4 hour, 225 multiple choice test is now just two months away. When stacked up in a neat (and terrifying) pile, the course materials measure 6 inches deep. I've befriended the campus coffee shop queen, Yvonne, at Cafe 316. I'm a regular, and she makes a killer double latté, with whipped cream of course.

I take comfort from what a fellow mature student shared with me after a mildly disastrous test, "Well, at least I'm learning!" There is the desire, as a colleague of mine has said, to simply "do it all with my heart" v. painstakingly reading and re-reading, creating flashcards, taking tests. Oh yeah, and did I mention, reading glasses? Let's not and say we did, please.

This morning we rang long-silent bells at Deetjen's Inn, where I'm known affectionately as "Ms. HR." ("Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings" says Zuzu in that masterpiece of Capra-corn, "It's a Wonderful Life.") We made a crown from the beautifully shaped vine cut out of the center of one of the bells, the beginning of a Halloween costume. The people at Deetjen's move my heart, every day. Yes, this is my chosen professional path, and I want to understand it completely, bringing all my wisdom to bear to make the experience of work (that four letter word) as fun, empowering and rewarding as possible.

As you might imagine, there's inertia lurking in the Big Sur landscape, as well as the powerful tranquility we wax poetic over. I remember a visitor who contributed nothing to the party, except his transfixed pose, seated on the grass, watching the ocean, all day long, all weekend. The bugaboo of procrastination stalks me every day now, as I try to move beyond the flight path of the normal working adult, and re-grow study habits.

My kitchen is cleaner, my closets more organized, fresh linens and clean laundry suddenly have a higher priority. I'm drawn away from my desk (which faces a wall) quite often by the compelling quality of light in the afternoon, the need to take a cat-nap, or make a snack. Yes, I'll take butter on that English muffin, then the peanut butter, please. Watching my kitten and our neighbor's chihuahua chase each other on the lawn is a passion.

But by far the best procrastination-excuse of all is blogging about studying v. actually hitting the books! "The way to start work is to start work," says James Tyrone Sr. in Eugene O'Neill's play, Long Day's Journey into Night. And so off I go.


Room photo courtesy of Deetjen's Inn
"The Chase" by Linda Sonrisa