Tag Archives: solitude

It All Happened

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 5, 2024- Quite a deal, that New Jersey earthquake. It didn’t seem to bother any of my extended family, at least those on social media. It also didn’t seem to have inured anyone. Still, it was an earthquake, in New Jersey. What’s next? Snow in San Diego’s Gastown?

A lot happened here, also, but it was all related to making flight arrangements for autumn-and paying a huge bill for something else. The weather was rather wonky, so it didn’t bother me to stay in, most of the day and evening. I learned of another connection between my Baha’i friends and the local Red Cross team. A friend was helped and I got in a workout. Otherwise, it was me, my spirit guides and the keyboard.

As fulfilling as my full-on days are, I enjoy a day of relative solitude, now and then. So, even when it all happens, all at once or in short order, as long as there is a breather in there somewhere, I am good for another three or four decades-God willing.

As I write this, more snow is coming down. Maybe San Diego isn’t out of the woods yet.

The Team Option

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

January 3, 2022- I sit here in my living room, and think that a year ago I was in the company, of first a pack of coyotes, howling and warning me not to go any further east-then amongst a small family of cattle, who let me pass after I spoke to the bull, in a low and steady tone. I was then alone, wandering steadily south and west, through the night-until eventually I reached the highway-and by 9 a.m., the following morning, I was back here in Home Base.

That was one struggle made in solitude. I did not have the same experience today-as I was pitching in with the first day back, at our local middle school. Today, and tomorrow, my charge is a young man with whom I have worked on several occasions before. His inherent, and infectious, blithe spirit is coupled with an intense work ethic-so we got much accomplished today and will do so again tomorrow. Besides, the students collectively are glad that I am here, sharing their morning cold and gradual return to a structured environment-after the two weeks of time off, that brought varying degrees of happiness and cheer.

I also talk with my colleagues, and hear stories with a common thread-Stress, leading to burnout and the departures of many who started the academic year. I could, very easily, jump back in and be on the job more or less fulltime, thus chucking the messages I receive from my spirit guides- and the plans emanating from that counsel. I would then be one finger in the dike. Such false egotism is not the answer to the larger problem, however- and is barely a bandaid, no matter how much the kids and I love one another.

Classroom teaching, especially in the Special Needs classes, must be reworked. High stress situations-with much of the stress caused by Federal and state reporting requirements, and by the egos of those who enforce these mandates, call out for teaching to be accomplished by two certified instructors in EVERY class. There also need to be paraprofessionals, as there are now-but these individuals also deserve both continuous training opportunities and a serious upgrade in pay. Even when, as in this school, the students respond quite respectfully and consistently to a grounded, well-organized learning program, the team approach allows for due attention to be paid to extrapedagogical concerns-like record-keeping for the powers that be, without the least jeopardy to the students’ well-being.

For now, I will help out in certain schools and classrooms, in the months and days when I am called to stay close to Home Base. Enough other people are doing this, around the county, that most classrooms have one form of coverage or another, on most days. The long term, though, calls for a serious reworking of the classroom format.

The Healing Garden

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Posted by on in Community, Hiking and Nature, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual

September 13, 2021- With no agenda for today, other than a load of laundry and a look at the protocol for the Red Cross Blood Drive, in which I will assist on Wednesday, the morning rolled out blissfully quiet.

I revisited Crossroads Cafe, which is Prescott College’s eatery, and the place where I first connected with the Sustainability Club. The interior is still off-limits, but the patio is lovely and relaxing, so I enjoyed Breakfast Quesadilla as a few groups of students ruminated aloud, about everything from sexual identity to the stresses of just getting out of bed on a Monday morning.

Just past the patio lies a Healing and Meditation Garden, which in the future will be my favoured place to enjoy breakfast or lunch, on a Crossroads visit. Gardens have vied with the wilderness as places for me to recharge- so long as there are not loud and boisterous souls about, who don’t seem to realize what salubrious means.

Don’t get me wrong-the energy of youth, however noisome, is a major source of regeneration. Several of the most treasured, beloved young people in my life are effervescent enough to power a freight train, figuratively speaking. It is the balance of the calm and the hard-charging that has gotten me to this point in life.

The quiet, though, was much-needed, after two very intense days of service, with a cast of collaborators ranging from those who are elated at my presence to those for whom five minutes of that presence is about all they can handle. It may well be that solitude becomes ever more rare, in the coming months of Autumn and early Winter. Thus will the Healing Garden, along with Acker Park, a few select trails in Prescott National Forest and in Sedona, and the gurgling coolness of the Agua Fria, at Badger Springs, be ever more precious.

Each day and hour have their indelible places in my soul.

The Road to 65, Mile 57: Back Among the Saddled, Again

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Posted by on in Hiking and Nature

January 24, 2015, Bumble Bee, AZ- I found, late this morning, that I had previously reached the trail head of Antelope Springs- Hidden Treasure segment of the Black Canyon National Recreation Trail, which I am determined to complete, in segments, during this calendar year.  Gleefully, I headed out from the large water tank that marks Antelope Springs.

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The first mile, or so, of the trail is easy, flat and distinguished only by what is probably the northwesternmost sahuaro in Arizona.  All was quiet, too, which gave me the solitude I craved this noon, after a week of earnest service to a homeless veteran and a class of Special Needs students.

While the trail stayed sanguine, the rocks were the star attractions.  Smooth quartz, mostly milky white, was dispersed along the way- with a couple fields of shattered shards.  Other pieces were marbled with granite, or infused with iron.SAM_3766

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A surprise came, around the first mile point, in the form of a large boulder of blue granite.SAM_3772

Then there were lots more broken bits of silica.SAM_3785

The trail began to get more rugged around the area where Hidden Treasure Mine was supposed to be.  I found no indication of the mine, which is probably just as well.SAM_3787

I did find an ominous hooded figure, but it was merely a standing bit of granite.SAM_3793

In Government Canyon, where I took a brief rest, around Mile 4, I saw a marbled granite gem.SAM_3800

The trail kept on rising, then began to descend towards Bumble Bee and Bland Hill Road, around Mile 5.SAM_3805

Sahuaro are a bit more numerous in this area, and face the ravages of being approached by the occasional errant horse, or human.  There were plenty of both along the trail today.  It was a gorgeous day, and about two dozen horses, with both Western and English riders, happened along.  I picked up a shoe that one of the animals had lost, and the group later gave it to me as a souvenir.  About eight bicyclists also enjoyed the trail.SAM_3806

I took note of the next starting point, at mile 6.2, just a mile or so west of Bumble Bee, an old mining town that is now home to about two dozen intrepid families.SAM_3811

Off to the southeast, and up on a steep hill, I could see Sunset Point, the major highway rest area, on I-17, between Phoenix and the turnoff to Prescott.

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Heading back to the water tank, I spotted twoformations, in different light.

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This outcropping contained a marker for stockmen to keep their animals in single file, as if they needed any such cue, on this trail.SAM_3817

So it went, that I completed not one, but two, segments of this well-worn trail.  Next segment will take me from Bumble Bee to Black Canyon City, sometime in late February.