Author Archives: CarolMartell

Wrapping Things Up

We are wrapping things up here in New Mex. It isn’t nearly as tight as this, or as small as this but it does have some sharp places and unexpected beauty! Going somewhere requires leaving as well. Certainly makes life more conscious and intentional when the destination is new at every sunrise. Becoming formally Nomadic is like wearing new shoes, they need to start out a bit tight in order to feel good “after a while.”
It’s raining !! Here in Santa Fe that is a blessing, a benediction on us all to move forward into what ever your heart desires.
So…let’s move on!

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Musings from New Mexico

Minetvastatue

Minerva is my antenna to the ethers of creative flow and collective connection. She or her owl are a flagellum of sorts; flowing forward and aft of our physical travels, looking for the common link between actions, circumstances, people and locations. Jungians might call this synchronicity. I think the pond we all swim in, is smaller than we think.

Recently I have become disconnected from my muse; my own right brain connection to the creative collective. I have been stationary and focused on deconstruction in it’s most constructive form; making space for something new.

“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” Joseph Campbell

Minerva is presently operating incognito in Thonotosassa Florida in a place of waiting and indecision we call Storage. This place of many doors is named Zephyr; as in wind from the west, representing an intercessor, or a place of passage between this life and the next. Funny how these ancients keep showing up in my modern story. I think there is some kind of Mythological gang that lingers just above our radar and they like to see their names in print.

For the last weeks and for a few to come, Minerva has been quietly lurking, modestly languishing in the shade of her two behemoth Class A neighbors. Class A being the Motor home designation for-

“I have a lot of stuff,

I need a lot of stuff

And I’m not leaving home without my stuff!”

We have been smugly operating under the delusion that we are not those folks. We come from a different tribe; the too late to be Hippies and too early for Yuppies, let’s try out this lifestyle via “RV lite.” The mythic names of these city buses in drag are unknown, but their sad stories were relied by the manager of the storage facility. 

“This one (pointing to the 15 Foot square face with the high forehead on Minerva’s left), it goes out once in a while, they go on short trips. But the other one…….Never goes……it hasn’t been out in years.”

Wow, how does one forget something this large? And the monthly storage bill? This forgetting must take great effort and great toll on the psyches of those who can remember its journeys. It would not be sitting here moldering under the Live Oaks if it didn’t hold significant emotional charge for those on the title. Or is it their survivors or their heirs that hold this door closed with both hands, a shoulder, and a lock. If it didn’t hold meaning, or memories, or unprocessed grief, it would have gone the way of last year’s pants when they no longer fit or flatter. 

This process of removing the “me, her, them, us,” from the physical stuff of life has been my quest since we asked Minerva to wait here. What is the human compulsion to imbue our belongings with pieces of our soul? Or worse yet, our loved one’s soul? Or even,… hang on and breathe for this one,… echoes of the souls of our precious ones who are gone and are not ever coming back in our lifetime.
It may not be Class A in size but I am not without “stuff.”
“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” Joseph Campbell

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We returned to New Mexico via Rapido air transportation to diminish a house full of belongings down to a container the size of a 10’x15″ cube. It looks really big when it’s empty. My attention these past weeks has been firmly rooted on my own oft ignored lily pad here in the gentle pond known as Santa Fe. It has been my focus to separate the meaningful from the meaningless, to weigh and examine our non-essential possessions. I set forth on this solitary journey to extract the soul parts wrapped around bits of glass and wood taped together with sticky human grief.
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This has been my process these weeks. This passage has been stormy, there has been weather; heavy weather. Typhoons of emotions spinning in the physical while in the ethers, my Spirit demands my soul pieces back from parts unknown. I imagined bits of my identity being held hostage by those who will wait entire lifetimes for one small girl, one woman, to demand wholeness and forgive mortality. The work of active grief is returning and releasing and allowing them to be free; keep the love, give the soul back. And it goes both ways. Grieving is too passive a word for this process.
The synchronicity of this tale is that on the dawn between Halloween and All Saint’s Day, a time celebrated for the thinness of the veil between the living and the dead we will end this chapter, close the door on this home for the last time and head into…the East!
“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” –Joseph Campbell

Family alphabet

In days past, visiting relatives was part of the education of self that was expected, anticipated, enjoyed and embraced. Conversations wove freely through slow moving days of food and naps, Shucking corn, clam scrubbing and clearing the table. Departed family spirits, like visiting dignitaries, joined us at long tables. Their presence gently flavoring the reminiscences with their attitudes and shadows. I have never lost the “OurTown” imagery of their continuing interest in our lives. They are real to me, if not palpable to most.

This week we visited with the elders of my Paternal family in a state steeped in these traditions, the state of North Carolina. Our Matriarch; youthful and energetic, Patriarch; worldly and elegant, these are the holders of the family knowledge for their generation. They hold this position with…reluctance? Responsibility? Freedom? To understand what this feels like, one would have to be in this place where the ties that bind, bind less, and freedom walks with sadness.

In an afternoon reminiscent of generations prior, my Uncle and I dove into his childhood memories illustrated by a box of photos once held by his parents in the earlier part of the 1900s. My earliest impressions are 2 dimensional; photos and stories. The players are close and familiar, but they are still imaginary beings. I have never heard their voice or seen an expression. Our Patriarch has images, memories, observations, feelings, these folks are 3-D to him. When he speaks of them, they show up.

So this afternoon the four of us, no doubt escorted by countless ethereal beings, created ceremony. Without knowing the meaning at the time, we enacted the ancient ritual, the Hero’s Journey. Joseph Campbell would recognize our modern day escapes. We set intention: Find the Sacred Mollusk. We went on a journey: history, architecture, beauty and defeat. All necessary elements in a respectable Hero’s Journey. Homer has set the task, we did our part to make it ours.

We reveled in laughter and shared experiences in the heavy air of this place; oysters and Bloody Marys was our dance. Having secured the feast we settled into the shank of the day. The “blood tied” relatives delved into the “How come? and why did?” of the past, rattling our ancestors out of eternal peace by wondering, questioning the stories of their lives and actions. The other two, less enamored by these intriguing questions, but no less animated, stayed firmly rooted in the present. Their thoughts and opinions swirled around the Yankee game and politics, two generations engaged in the art of conversation in the “here and now.”

Finally here is the question and the musings:
what is this shared experience called family? Stretch it horizontally and there are Aunts and Cousins and strangers thrice removed. Shared genes and shared geography, and so rarely shared views. What is the vertical axis? Where do the ancestors end and we as individuals start?

FAMILY Alphabet, so many words!
ancestors, brood, clan, descendants, extraction, forerunners, generations, heirs and assigns, in-laws, kindred, kith and kin, line, lineage, ménage, network, parentage, progenitors, relatives, siblings, tribe-the Google version left off here, these are mine:

U causes us pause, like a thin finger reaching out to us from our progenitors, “As am I, so you will be…..” Judge gently or not at all.

V volition, as in we act of our own volition not thinking or caring about the heirs and assigns that will look at our pictures and our actions and ask in today’s vernacular ask WTF!?

W why…..why did they do that, think that, go there, marry, drink, leave or not leave, become hardened, get scared, keep going, create, dream and prosper?

X are the countless crossroads of our lives, seen better and more clearly in retrospect, and rarely at right angles.
There are clansmen and women who live on the interstates; moving fast, making time, clearing the obstacles with barely a look in the rearview mirror. Others take a Morning Glory’s path, curling for the sun, twisting around something interesting before moving on, only blooming when the light is gentle and the season warm and the support seems sure. Look to these pictures for confirmation.

Y. . .How about Yaw? definition of yaw
http://www.thefreedictionary.com

Nautical -To swerve off course momentarily or temporarily: “The ship yawed as the heavy wave struck abeam.” I am personally familiar with yaw, everyone has storms,and waves, and unexpected opportunities, what did you do with them?

2. To turn about the vertical axis. Axis Mundi? May Day tree? Sun Dance Tree? Is that vertical axis? Is it Fate, Family, genealogy, history, gene pools? Who says we need to stay close to the vertical, oblique and tangental is good too. What if you cut the lines altogether?

And Z, we will get back to Z

In one picture we have my Paternal Great Grandfather, immigrant from Germany with Cobbler’s tools. Much later in life, a man with money and property, but also widower who lived decades beyond his oldest son; a wonderful musician who died young. Here is a powerful businessman, head over heart. He is pictured here in his shoe store as a financial success. I wonder about this man, I am curious about his influence on the next generations.

The other photo is a poem written by my Mother for her daughters. Always documenting life’s “yaws”, be they symbolic or catastrophic, she left copious notes and poems and thoughts. So did her Mother, usually while traveling. There was another ancestress who “read the cards”. Her accuracy was tragic when she anticipated her own son’s death.

They have both left legacies for their heirs and assigns, one thoughtfully and with foresight and another with actions that will never be understood by those that personally felt the cold sting of oversight and abandonment. In the alphabet soup that is my unique set of genes these are two personas, mere echoes of the person, a thin transparency of their life.

Spirits still inform, still create thought, although I suspect they have moved on to other projects. I am beginning to recognize the purpose and meaning of legacy. Not the dusty piles of papers or dollar bills but the attitudinal legacy. When my great grandchildren look at my face what will they feel? What have I left behind…?

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Here we are and There we go…

For those who are keeping track:
Minnasota

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Wisconsin

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Michigan

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Ontario

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New York

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Rhode Island, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania

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That concludes the travelogue portion of this post. There are thousands of words to go with these cryptic images but they are as yet unprocessed and unsorted like a week’s camp laundry. Minerva is moving again after a two week hiatus. She was quite ignominiously left in a driveway while her compadres and the owl visited some geographic places not suited to her robust girth and stature. The gas swallowing mini mountains of the Berkshires, the tight lipped, tight turns of Connecticut intrastates, the unimaginable vista of 12 lanes of traffic flowing in both directions in a high speed merge onto the Garden State Parkway. Even with her best “Minerva-ing” this is not her world.
There are tree stories, ghost stories and owl stories and people we have met. There are the places under the places; like last night’s campsite that once held German POWs from WWII. These stories are waiting for the cool long shadows of tall trees hold the magic of things that move slowly gently and in their own time.

If Minerva ain’t happy, Nobody is happy

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This is a stern taskmaster. She takes herself seriously because she must, it’s her job. The Goddess business is about maintaining natural order. Creating containers for all manifested beings to create beauty or chaos; our choice. One might think it is randomness or the guile of a stranger or maybe fate. But I think we always choose, even if the choice is how to perceive each event.
We tried out chaos today.
Why? Couldn’t say, maybe it was too peaceful and we were missing the cues. Could be the larger view of what our journey could be is in conflict with our safety sized world. Best way to shut that down? Create chaos and work with that. Keeps the mind and body busy and foils the Spirit’s attempts to wake us up from countless incarnations of smallness.
Might be, if we give “it” enough breathing room “it” might breathe us right out there to the end of the branch hanging over the cliff where the dragon lives. Or it might breathe us into Freedom and Peace and Beauty.
But we tried chaos today.
Ask anyone who has used/ lived in an RV for any period of time; even a weekend, what the worst case scenario might be…..we all know. The potential for disorder lies at the end of a stout black pipe with a firm cap that sits under the bathroom. Humbleness follows the literally spilling of your most disliked products. There it is, on the ground and how fast can we clean it up? And even that was like chasing Mercury. So Minerva, we will listen and be patient and accept the difficulties as signposts. Thankfully we are mere mortals and expected to make messes.

Illusions and Detours

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Detour: noun
1. A roundabout or circuitous way or course, especially one used temporarily when the main route is closed.
2. An indirect or roundabout procedure, path, etc.

We planned our route and mapped it out with no less than three electronic devices; IPad, IPhone, and GPS, and yes, there was a Rand McNally book map too. It was a complex route, as most are when your intention is to eschew the interstates, while staying out of complex urban driving situations better handled by cars or professional large vehicle drivers. Neither of these describe our Minerva or our driving skills. At 11.8 feet tall, 8.5 feet wide and weighing in at over 10,000 lbs. driving spontaneity needs to be kept at a minimum.

We planned Our “approach” to the metropolitan areas of Minneapolis-St.Paul with respect and due diligence. We felt confident that the outer outer interstate ring at 8 am on a Sunday morning would be “quiet.” I recalled a time years ago that I came to that airport, rented a car and drove out of the city and across the state without navigator and without incident. It would be just that easy.

As we flew north on I-35, the rain stopped the sun came put, traffic was light and all was well. Then it began. Every quarter mile the large orange signs shouted “Road Work I35, Route 5 to Route 25.” Oh well, we thought, If you know this area then you could do something slick and efficient, but we don’t so we opted for the potential slow down. The orange barrels began, the lane closures and we felt confident that we were getting off soon anyway. Then the exit was closed! Or was it?  A quick skip across the zebra stripes, had they been there, was out of the question in this barge.

Ultimately there were three detours, announced by large orange signs, bearing incomprehensible suggestions of alternate routes. Each road designed to keep traffic out of downtown offered a reprieve to the unthinkable RV driving experience. Each exit offered only another Detour sign.

I watched in horror on my IPAD as the small blue dot creeped still farther north past the airport and into the urban areas. After we had completed a perfect square; north, east, south, west we were released one exit beyond where the hellish experience began. Our ponytailed driver remained calm and collected the entire time. He propelled Minerva across some headwaters of the Mississippi and into Wisconsin without incident, where our white ponytailed driver took over for 25 peaceful bucolic miles amidst the Wisconsin countryside. I even maneuvered though a gas station to reach a kid in a parking lot sitting on a pick up truck bed full of corn.

What about the illusion in the title? If we give up the illusion of control, are there really any detours?

 

Mayo Magic Moments

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There are many interesting moments in this island of mortals meeting their mortality. Nationalities, tribes, races, ages; divisions are meaningless amongst the waiting rooms, rest rooms and consultation rooms, we are all just human beings.

This morning, ninth floor Gonda building, a dazzling view of the Plummer Building, subject of my infatuation in an earlier post and just across the street from my chair by the floor length window. A family of five comes from the bank of elevators, some in western dress, some in burkas. The daughter or grandaughter, looking as if she would be comfortable in any 6th grade suburban school clad in jeans and T- shirt, stops in her tracks at the sight of the buildings outside the window. Gazing at the Plummer Building she says, “That kingdom is very high! Is that the ruler’s kingdom?”

I was so taken by her language. The subtle understanding that this was indeed a kingdom of a different sort. A Camelot, where the past rulers decided to treat each being with respect and love and concern; where each of us is worthy of compassion fit for a “ruler.” The code of conduct on a wall in Rochester Methodist Hospital, part of the Mayo system said “Patient forward”. Here that means to staff, volunteers and residents of this “Med City” that your needs are more important than my ego. I will serve the need of compassion until 5 pm this evening.

We watched a Doctor who had been instrumental to our care leave the building at the end of the day. She who carries her own physical trials; an illness so exotic and physically taxing that I can only imagine the emotional, mental toll but it took up no space in our examining room.

And what about the women in burkas. Who are they? What does it feel like to be here among us that appear to have so much personal freedom? Today we passed through the Peace Plaza in the afternoon. In the summer, probably the shortest season here in Minnesota, there is a gathering on Thursdays. Street venders, food venders and wonderful music convene in this three sided place.

It is so unusual to see so many people of different places, so many people of different capacities. Wheelchairs, braces, hand holding, surgical scrubs and street clothes, all mingling and enjoying the smells and the sounds. As we passed the bandstand holding a Jazz quintet of “50’s” something musicians playing a “40’s” something ballad, there was a couple dancing. This couple in their 70’s was grinning, leaning into each other, and the music. They were both aware and oblivious of the others that were fed by their spontaneous remembrance of good times, and love, and each other.

As we moved through the bystanders, I saw her. She was dressed all in black from head to toe. She wore a burka and a batoola, a golden mask that covered her nose and mouth. What it didn’t cover was her eyes, they were lined and creased, older than me, smiling and wet with tears. Our eyes met as we passed, understanding of the joy of this moment for the dancing woman. The joy was shared between us too. We are the same as that woman dancing with the man that she loves, free from care….for this moment. For this moment is joyful, for this moment nothing else matters.

I learned something today. The joyfulness of women is universal. I wish you many more moments of joy, my friend in black. May we all work together to bring more of that into the world.

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The Mighty Mayo

The Mayo Clinic
From a New Mexico perspective Mayo Clinic seemed like a mythological place; holding everything the medical model currently has to offer; the best minds, machines and research, all available in a gentle small Midwestern city named Rochester.

Their preparation is so complete that by the time you meet your temporary assigned PCP he/she is already familiar with your problem, your records, and has a preliminary game plan in place. This itinerary is scheduled, yet by design is fluid and mutable, always responding to each new piece of information. Additions and deletions to your daily schedule are aimed at fully utilizing the patient’s time here. How can that work? I think it is because this is a Clinic. If this Doctor isn’t available, another one is, this system appears to be more hive than hierarchy.

“Could you come in at 7:45?” Need an MRI? Could you come now?” How long are you staying? I think I can get that appointment tomorrow.”  What does this feel like to the patient? Competent, caring and safe. This looks like, feels like a medical collective.

In the atrium of the Gonda Building there is a tapestry of people and art and even music. Different musicians play the grand piano here in this glass space all day. http://www.mayoclinic.org/mayo-experience-360/landow-atrium-south-enlg.html
Women in black burqas, circled by family, Arab men, tall people with African faces, midwestern Executives and spouse in for their pricey “executive physicals” and, of course, our jean-clad ponytailed patient carting in 3 computers to spend the day waiting for a Muscular-skeletal consult. Opting to shorten our stay by utilizing a system, not un-like flying stand-by, makes for some extended observation opportunities!

So how did Mayo come to be so different? I think it’s the owls. I think owls bring everything out of the mudane; from profane to sacred. Notice the owl atop the original medical school? The man pouring over plans with the owl present is Dr. Plummer, one of the originals with the Mayo brothers. Most of the design of this medical system happened there, in his building. How about all those mythological beings right there at the front door? Dragon, griffon, phoenix? The powerful forces of mythology and ancient history. In a scientific place in the 1920’s they seem an unusual motif. I sure would like to know what those owls meant to Dr. Plummer.

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Creatures of the fields

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Here in the Cornhusker State of Nebraska there is a lot of corn. Hundreds of miles of corn fed by these huge creatures. Some of the fields are marked by signs like Pioneer or DeKalb; the branding and patented plants of the behemoths of Dupont and Monsanto.

Farming here looks highly industrialized and massive in scale. Could it be that the wonder product “high fructose corn syrup” is created here in these green fields?
Green rectangles of uniform corn plants, consistent size, shape; the sameness of these “natural forms” is numbing. Not so numbing to allow us to miss the Cargill plants. The smell, the smoke, the endless passing of empty cattle carriers. I am grateful not to have seen them on their path to the slaughterhouse. Even empty, the scent of something nameless hovers around these trailers like a swarm of flies. We all know Cargill as one of the several massive meat product processors who create “value added meat products” Think pink slime.

I noted on our diagonal trip across Nebraska that a line of evergreens denotes either a feedlot or a slaughterhouse. Avert you eyes as you pass, hold your nose. There is something so completely in opposition to a cow living his life in a field, being taken to slaughter by the family that raised it, or a hunter stalking and killing the creature that will feed his family. This practice of feedlot: mass slaughter, hormones and antibiotics, ( because the feedlot is a place for sick cows too) Is it really OK to eat an animal that we have so completely disrespected?

Oh Dam, it’s windy

Oh Dam, it's windy

First night out, here we are beneath a large dam built by the Army Corps of Engineers in Southeast Colorado. I wonder if they ever camp here, UNDER the dam? We have learned much today: items may have shifted in flight, cows do some strange things left to their own devices in miles of open range and….why does the antelope cross the road?
We learned that the GPS woman is probably correct and if you think you may be on the wrong road, check on that sooner rather than later. We learned that without irrigation green Colorado turns into brown Colorado and it blows dust around just like New Mexico.
I had my “blow the big RV across the road” wind storm initiation today. Glad that’s over with. Taking a shower in an RV is like trying to wash your body before you are born. Tomorrow is another day. Destination Mormon Island Nebraska!

Office visitor

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We bought this painting four years ago at the Indian Market in Santa Fe, just before I opened my first office. The painter is Wallace Begay, of the Navaho Nation. He told me that this is his image of this creation spirit in their pantheon. He comes in and out of manifestation as needed, was the way I understood him.

I thought this Osiris counterpart would be a great resource for a therapy office where epiphanies move through like thunderstorms in August. Huge great thunderings and flowing tears, then the sun comes back out. Sometimes the shadow side just slips in and winks at us before it disappears again. I always hung him where I could see him, as a reminder of what is possible. He stood behind the client, and they were mostly unaware of what and who they leaned into.

Right now He is “all wrapped up” with a painting of mine from the 90s of an Adirondack rock face. This is what the client saw from their “comfy” chair. The rocks and trees are comfortable concrete landmarks of the physical world. Clients have told me that there are caves to hide in, and cliffs to climb in that scene. Those two paintings; the manifest and the unmanifest, the tangible and intangible are both on their way to STORAGE this morning. Is my image of him perched on a six foot stack of boxes and furniture, legs crossed, smoking a pipe just an illusion? I believe It will all just wait.

Waiting…. without impatience, without the desire to know When, or even How is a highly refined and respected attribute of some people we have known, particularly Native people. The alignment of human actions and intentions with the workings of the universe is an ancient practice that requires that the ego play second fiddle to the intuition and the love of the divine.

Without preplanning or research our mini-exodus has all aligned on the most auspicious time. On Friday, when Sirius rises over the horizon in the early morning, magic will manifest. The Nile will begin its annual flood, eagle bone whistles will be heard someplace up north and two boys will be “adopted” by our family. Forever and always to be claimed as Matneys and Martells because their parents, Kelly and Luke, knew they were waiting for them, and they went in search of their children.

No fairytale has had more peril and potential heartbreak than this Hero’s Journey. But this is a happy ending. Not only have wandering members of our ancient tribe been returned to us, they have brought their joyful beautiful sister Allison Eva with them. Courage has its own rewards.

Intuition. Waiting. Alignment. Courage. Destiny. Divine intervention. = Manifesting?

Alignment makes it easy, alignment makes it work


July 22 – 28 (one week) (http://www.danfurst.com/prelude—july.html)
The ancient Greeks celebrate this week as the Panatheneia, or “All Athenes”, honoring the beloved Goddess of Athens in her roles as giver of wisdom and sender of inspiration.

And in her Roman manifestation, her name is Minerva. Why Roman and not Greek? Why are we packing Minerva and not Athene with clothes and books and enough technology to qualify for a stealth mission? As much as we might want to align to the beauty and perfection of the Greek thought, this trip and this time is really more Roman.

I was set up for this by the toss of the genes; I have the Lantz “Itchy feet.” This family name comes from Alsace, then French and now a German place; site of Roman invasion. One of those soldiers carried a Lance and so became Lantz. This tribe on Mom’s side are notorious travelers, wanderers, nomads. Nothing so compelling as the other side of the hill. There are some in Australia, California, even New Mexico. Three generations ago they packed up and tried North Dakota on a homestead until ” the cold and the grasshoppers drove them home to Pennsylvania.” Where I would add, one can actually GROW something!

And Larry….an Eastern European gene pool doesn’t explain this Bacchus affiliate. There are clearly gypsies among us! There is a card in the Tarot that is named Lust, as in a “lust for life.” All smiles aside it comes from Lustre, gold, the purest form, the product of Alchemy, a reflection of inner strength. This is a man in search of his true nature, and there is no higher calling.

So, it is a wise move to align with a giver of wisdom …Minerva…when we are embarking on an unknown path. Seems this timing was created by appointments and reservations, some made made months ago. But that is the human hubris that suggests that we even have a clue about what is really going on….

Warming up the lamp

“Warming up the lamp” entered our family’s lexicon sometime in the late 1990s.  Back in these ancient times, printers were large, slow and chatty. We stretched the meaning beyond the preparation to scan or print, into a familial expression for getting ready for the creation of something new. It was a 3 minute pause and a hopeful inhalation before experiencing the fruits of your labor.  Our at least the reality of your best intentions.

In our current manifestation we are “warming up the lamp” for our next chapter.  Packing things, sorting things, tossing things; we are sharply aware that these are only things.  They are however our sacred relics of people and homes now past, gone, and out of reach. The last box packed tonight; a heavy Cave rock from my Mother’s treasures, wrapped in a placemat made by our daughter, all nestled in a basket from an old friend. In my hand rests a tin protecting a carved wood dachshund from Pa, my beloved Grandpa, and a clay Puma from New Mexico. The former from my childhood, the latter a thrift store find purchased  to imbue my office space with keen senses, smart stealth and courage in dark places.

At the bottom of the box lies a beautiful tile of Jewish symbology from a shop on the Plaza in Santa Fe.  Five years ago we were excited to bring this to my Mother in law for Hanukah.   She lived in Florida then.  I recall how the vivid Southwestern colors looked exotic amidst the pale pastels and palm trees.  We wrapped it in Ft Lauderdale’s Sun Sentinel newspapers when she couldn’t live alone there anymore. The tile came back to us in her small pile of possessions when she died here in Santa Fe.

It’s all just a circle, lives that are so entwined that even the solid physical possessions flow freely through time.   Release it all, because it will come back in it’s own time.

We are blessed with great family and great friends, we will embark on this adventure/journey/quest knowing that you all are with us.  Blessings on you all.