Author Archives: Sagittarian Seeker

Lightness Is

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Posted by on in Community, Hiking and Nature, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Travel

January 12, 2019, Flagstaff-

I set out for this mountain community, which was my home in 1980-81, with a view towards determining the level of untended littering in one National Monument:  Sunset Crater, during the ever-longer government shutdown. As we’ll see, the amount was rather light.

The day started with my feeling weighted down, by what, I still have no idea.  My mood was lifted, though, by meeting a delightful little family from Dharma Farm, a place of which I’ve written in the past, whilst making my usual rounds  at Prescott Farmers Market.  I will re-visit Dharma more often, during the remainder of winter and into spring.  Their commitment to permaculture is something of which I want to learn more, prior to any post-retirement move I might make.  Permaculture will be described further, in subsequent posts, as well.

Back to Flagstaff, and Sunset Crater.  I found few other people visiting the park.  Three tourists did drive past the semi-porous barricades and further into the park.  As it happens, a Federal park ranger is on site and drove into the area, quickly sending the visitors back the way they came.  Only a Dineh man, with grandfathered visiting rights to any area of Sunset Crater and nearby Wupatki (some park lands were purchased, by eminent domain, from a handful of Dineh (Navajo) families), in the 1930’s), was allowed to drive his truck behind the barricades.

I  went on foot, for about a mile, into the park and found little trash along the road-and none on the trail I took.  There were some lovely views, though.

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After it was apparent that my mission did not warrant further exploration of the park, especially with the ranger working without pay, I headed back into town, and parked in a formerly free lot.  Flagstaff has taken a page from other tourist-dependent communities, and charges $1 per hour to park along downtown streets or in its off-street lots.  I find this reasonable, though some visitors grumbled that there are not “freshly-paved” streets that would “warrant” such a charge.  Go figure.

I found the usually congenial folks at Pizzicleta, an artisan thin-crust eatery, to be a bit grumpy and unusually reserved.  One of the servers mentioned how tired they were, though the place had barely been open for twenty minutes.  Maybe it is the preparation that is enervating.  The food was still great, though, which is what matters most.

Now, it’s time to head to Winslow, an hour to the east, and find a spot at my favourite motel there.  Tomorrow, I hope to head up to the Hopi Nation, to visit long-time friends.  The Bean Dance is coming.

 

This Week’s Learnings

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Posted by on in collaborating, Hiking and Nature, impediments, Service Activities, Spiritual, Striving

January 11, 2019-

With one day left to go, in the second week of 2019, I have learned (or re-learned):

  1. Youth of capacity are not impressed by kind behaviour or statements of support.  They need to see close attention to detail and consistent efforts at empowerment.
  2. A tight-knit group rises and fall together.  I knew this, whilst living in the Boston area, but there has been a lot of fragmentation in my life, since 1976, notwithstanding the tightness of my marriage.  Now, we on a professional team will stand as one-which is refreshing.
  3. Politics clouds good judgement, whilst demanding QUICK judgement, on the part of perceived adversaries.
  4. I made a commitment to helping clean up National Park properties, this weekend. Some of the parks closest to us are shut tight. Nonetheless, I am being watched, to see whether I keep my word.  So, tomorrow afternoon, I will be at Sunset Crater.

 

Facing Negative Energy

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Posted by on in Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

January 9, 2019-

The young boy reacted to a task that was beyond his scope of understanding,  in the only way he knew:  He threw a fit of self-harm and flailing rage.  Two women were able to guide him through the anger and calm him down, without any appreciable damage to himself or anyone else.  He spent the rest of the day in peace, and participated in afternoon activities.

The past forty-eight hours have seen a fair amount of negativity, in situations far and near:

A dear friend has seen the person closest to her have to be brought to hospital, in a life-threatening emergency.  My prayers, and those of dozens of others, have gone up, that he may survive the night and recover.  The spouse, or significant other, of a friend is as dear to my heart as the friend.

There was, yesterday, what turned out to be a minor hiccup, in my son’s and daughter-in-law’s planned ceremony to sanctify their civil wedding vows. We maintained patience and the right thing happened-hiccup cured.  Ceremony will proceed as planned, in two months’ time.

I had planned, with a group of co-workers and their friends/family, to conduct a clean-up of one of the National Park properties that is not far from here.  This morning, an alert, banning the public from said property during the current shutdown, was hastily posted on the park’s website.  While  I can see any number of concerns that would bring such a response to the offers of a clean-up, (Ours was not the only such offer.), the shutdown as a whole is extremely negative and counterproductive.  Our group could clean up any of the National Forest sites in this area, though the U.S. Forest Service is fully operational.  We could, as one person elsewhere told me, focus on local neighbourhoods and not worry about Federal land.   These two scenarios can, and should, be a regular part of civic life-above and beyond the present impasse. (More on “local vs. global”, in another post.)  Our point, though, in THIS situation, is that the National Park System is suffering, mightily, from  ongoing neglect during the present shutdown.  It needs its citizens to step up, more than ever.

Negative energy is always around, and as darkness is dispelled by light, it can be countered and neutralized by a stronger positive energy.  Fighting fire with fire, or mud with more mud, is a short-term strategy, which usually results in the perpetuation of the very iniquity that one seeks to remove.  I have found that either maintaining a stronger stance of love, in the face of hate, or cutting off the flow of negativity altogether, has brought the darkness to naught.

 

 

Seared into Community

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Education, Family, Hiking and Nature, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, School Gardens Project, Service Activities, Social, Striving

January 8, 2019-

The local Sears may well be closing soon, along with most others of that company’s sites.  That fact has nothing to do with the title of this post, though.

Prescott has taught me how to be fully part of a community-actually a lesson that Saugus, and later, the Hopi Nation, tried to teach me, years ago, with varying degrees of success.  I guess that now, in my advanced middle age, and with a few knockabouts under my belt, people are more easily understood by me, and vice versa.

There is a move afoot for several of us to go to a National Park Service property (to be determined), and engage in a clean-up, this weekend.  This is just the latest of examples of why this community has a commitment from my heart to stay and work for the next 2-2.5 years, before family, and the curiosity about the wider world, take primacy in my life, once again.  My Faith community, the Red Cross, a local school gardens group, various individual friends-and my co-workers at Prescott High School have kept me well-occupied and quite happily so, especially these past two academic years.

This evening, I went to a fundraiser for our school’s Future Business Leaders of America.  Wildflower Bakery, a regional chain, has a new restaurant, within the shopping mall where it has been a fixture for several years.  It is visible from the road, and draws a fair crowd.  FBLA thus decided to hold its event here.  I support as many of these “club dinners” as I can, just out of love. Teens, in my view, deserve all the support they can get, in finding their way to a solid and sustainable future.
I guess this is the impetus to having all these other elements of community take root in my heart.

Trolling, or Triage?

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Personal Values, Striving

January 7, 2019-

Last night, just before I signed off for the evening, I got a caustic response to a few suggestions I had made, to another blogger’s post.  This sort of thing is a risk that comes with being part of a public network.

While I took the liberty of “unfollowing” that person’s blog, as one should not intrude on another’s space without that person’s consent, I had to ponder her motivation for such an outburst.  She did, after all, ask for “ideas” about her particular dilemma.

There are a couple of possibilities-She may have been in the mood for a “game of gotcha”, though trolling, under the circumstances she described in the post to which I responded, seems rather far-fetched.  More likely, she is looking at the various suggestions made, and winnowing  them out, favouring those that are as close to her comfort zone as possible, while still entailing some effort on her part to solve the problem described therein.

That’s an understandable, human practice, and I daresay we all do that, with regard to some, if not most, issues in our lives.  She pointed out that I didn’t know her schedule, so how could my suggestions fit?  None of us can be inside another’s brain, or heart.  So, we do the best we can, when asked. If our ideas are wide of the mark, well, at least we made an effort.  I will continue to offer ideas to to others, when asked, and can only guarantee that I will be putting some thought and feeling into the process.

No pain, no gain.

Sleight of Hand

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Education, Personal Values, Spiritual, Striving

January 6, 2019, Prescott-

From today, I will not write the name of the town in my dateline, unless it is somewhere other than Home Base.  Otherwise, the reader may assume I’m writing in Prescott.  I am moving away from redundancy.

Today’s post is so titled, as the weather pattern was a mix of the predicted snow and rain, courtesy of a west wind and clear sky, courtesy of the normal Sonoran Desert dry air flow.  The call had been for rain, heavy at times.  Cosmic legerdemain is the way of the Southwest-even when the forecast is “100% precipitation”.

I try to keep my own sleight of hand to a dull roar.  If I say I am going to do something, I usually get it done.  Only once, since 2011, have I not followed through and that was in 2013, when it was prudent for me to put off a photo-journey to Newfoundland, in favour of joining my brother on a Sail Blind excursion.  I can’t think of anyone, though, who was offended by that.  Prior to that, my pledges were those that meant being met, even if heaven and earth had to be moved. Such is the realm of the caretaker.

We go back to work tomorrow, entering the period of time when interruptions in the learning process are at a minimum:  There are no big holiday pageants; the weather-related interruptions are almost always limited to a two-hour delay, in the start of school, if they happen at all.  So, our attention is on the elements of the students’ individual education plans.  We refrain from sleight of hand.,

Can and Will

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Posted by on in Entertainment, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Spiritual, Striving

January 5, 2019, Prescott-

I woke up this morning, my legs stiff from yesterday’s hike, and hit upon the idea of high stepping, as a way of loosening the joints.  It worked and my left knee feels mobile and, I dare say, good as new.  Many of our difficulties with aging come from disuse, or improper use, of our parts.  That’s not the whole shebang, but it does have a lot to do with quality of life, as the years roll on- and I fully intend to go for the maximum.

This evening, I went to watch a silly Transformers film, mainly because the story line was about a teenager in whom no one believed.  Such people have been my heart, for so long, that I wanted to see the predictable triumph over self and others, which doesn’t always happen in real time.  She fixed a car and made a friend-the rest falling into place, haphazardly, but nicely.

Other films coming up will feature women who stand tall and beat oppressors.  This has always been important to me, that both boys and girls know they can go the distance and reach whatever heights to which they aspire-so long as they take life’s setbacks and turn them into comebacks.

Five years ago, this June, I visited  the tower where Jeanne d’Arc was imprisoned and  stood on the spot where she was immolated.  Today, no one gives much thought to the fact that the leader of French resistance to foreign rule was a peasant woman.  She is seen as simply having been a leader.

No human, who stands for what is in the heart and does the work necessary to accomplish deeply-cherished goals, is doomed to failure.

Reaching Towards Cave Creek

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Posted by on in Hiking and Nature, impediments, Personal goals, Striving

January 4, 2019, Cave Creek-

I decided that my long exercise of my still-recovering left knee would best be achieved on the Maricopa Trail.  Thus came today’s 5.8 mile round trip from Andy Kunasek Trailhead, on the east side of New River to the edge of the Overton-Go John Loop, itself at the western end of Cave Creek.

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My walkabout took me through the above square, and over a few of the mountains in the background.  It was a moderate hike, through saguaro forests and past a few outlying housing units, as a Sonoran Desert jaunt always does.

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It’s said that saguaros will be endangered, should the current level of planet -wide heat and dryness continue to increase.  For now, though, the saguaros are glad to say hello.

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Every active wash in the Sonoran region seems to have at least one cave, of sorts. I spotted this shallow granite indentation, whilst waiting for two lovely ladies and their horses to pass.SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

These two lovely ladies are content to grace the side of the trail.

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I found myself in the same state of happy tiredness, at the end of this exhilarating hike, as I have been on other such jaunts- so I feel the winter desert hiking season will not be a wash, after all.  My knee, though still a bit stiff, is on the mend.

I will return to this area, in a week or two and relish the Overton-Go John Loop.

Going With The Ice and Snow Flow

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Posted by on in collaborating, Hiking and Nature, Social

January 3, 2019, Prescott-

A friend and I had planned on taking some local children to an ice skating rink today.  The kids got sick last night, so the two of us went on a hike in our local wonderland, Granite Dells, instead.   We chose Constellation Trail, on the west side of the Dells, and so named for a plane which crashed in the area, in 1959.

I have been on the Constellation Trail several times, but never in snow and ice.  As the snow was not deep, it was fairly easy to navigate-save for one small detail.  The snow and ice cover obscured the trail, in places, thus making it easy for us to be diverted to one side ravine after another.  I’ve done this before, elsewhere, when the trail has become smudged or eroded.

It was not a hard hike, otherwise, and though we did not get to the top of the ridge, 2.8 miles were walked, in a most serene setting.

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Afterwards, we went back to friend’s house, had lunch and I met her husband.  It pays to go with the flow, even that of ice and snow.  No, neither of us fell, thanks to the fiberglass poles and our own surefootedness.

The Realm of Caring

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Personal Values, Social, Striving

January 2, 2019, Prescott-

I sat in comfort, on New Year’s Eve, not knowing that a new friend was toughing it out, on snow shoes, of all things, headed to and from Courthouse Square.  When she finally shared this with me, this evening, I could only say:  “Next time, please call me and never mind the time.”

This is how I was raised and how the people in my circle of friends were for one another.  Even in the worst phases of my autism, I knew better than to ever leave a family member or friend in the lurch.  I wasn’t always so good at it, but I did make the effort.

A few minutes later, there came a post from another friend, elsewhere in the country, about a particularly nettlesome difficulty she was facing, due to other people’s inefficiency and lack of communication. I am furious on her behalf and could only say as much, whilst praying for resolution of the matter.

I have faced the harshest of communication and the most endearing that it can convey, over the past six decades and eight years.  I have also had good friends up and leave, without so much as a “Farewell”.  I will not chase after them, and if they come back, I will be as glad to see them, as if they never left.

Caring, in my view, does not mean patronizing or groveling.  In fact, it’s the opposite.  We are here to raise each other up, period.  Tomorrow, I will join my above-mentioned local friend in a leisurely activity, likely taking some children on an ice-skating venture.  This, from one who tried skating three times, as a child, and fell down each time I got up, should be interesting.