foresthouse

My Lady's Forest-Home/nested inside and outside ...
the trees and stones live inside the house ... not just outside ...
transreconfigured/rebooted by human arts&hands

what gifts&crafts have woven the modern
world, the scale of our habitations
numbers in billions of this's
and that's.

Our Lady's Home, the Earth, a bit larger and more complex, although forests speak, &Sometime
the Language is Harsh and Full of Horns, Curses, Shoving, Fires Burning Brighter ...
As in CITY, like NYC<DC<Chi<Worcester/Paxton, a elemental rainbow of ... decreasing social chaos ...

Odd, isn't it. That the Titans of Industry build Towers Triumphant, the inside of which is so sterile they frequently need to retreat ...
to seasides, and glens, and mountain tops - wealth having The Fantasy, that the Mother, can be owned,
raped, pillaged, ignored, defied, and just look at the stone wall I am building.

The Fall of too Many suggests the many will fall as well.
An ill-portent is the rise of public shaming, an ill-portent indeed.
Stocks&Chains, and ripe fruit anyone?
Public Hanging Next?
Eros&Mother picking a fight now.

For example:

Linda is separated and divorcing when we meet. River House, along with the Grandmother Tree there, has to be sold to settle the financials, so Linda and I (now living together), and her mother, need a new place to live. Linda likes wandering the internet looking at houses, and from this wide ranging activity finds a place, with no stairs (Mom and I both not good at walking, due to weakness in kneeling-places. The new home/place has many virtues, so: We arrive

HERE

which is very purposefully meant: Not-to-be the Boston,NYC,DC, corridor, The Sprawl to William Gibson,
although family wealth and history won in those places. My Lady's father served in England,
on Ike's staff, becoming after ... the chief historian in the Department of Agriculture
Linda grew knowing Annandale Virginia, and when visiting DC, finding
surprising things like separate fountains, and bathrooms for coloreds.

The base-source rooted trunks leading to the Forest Canopy begins not 25 feet from my study window, at the rear of this most elaborate cave.

The Woods surround, but the house too is the Woods/transformed, a skeleton of wooden frames
steeped upon minerals that pour, and hold fast, nested via conduits with the city-surround,
electrical/cable/telephonic, input and output water courses throughout the house,
once fresh spring waters, on tap in three bathrooms and a kitchen, although
we after-filter, just to be safe, and also having been sold the need, ...
refrigerators/stoves/diswashers/tvs/phones - life convenient,
pasteurized, germ free, ... a personal castle we of the caste:
white-privileged,
enjoy.

So far we have not yet been Houstoned&Ward9ed, although a recent winter leaned five feet of snow
against the slider-door to the deck, in that part of the great room - giant fire
place and all - where we sit facing the big-screen TV, itself nested in wood.
There is also a bar, and group of places to sit facing the fire place,
and doors, ... four doors to rest of house, two to the outside deck,
and clearly not a tenement in Baltimore, during a riot
with bullets flying and children dying,

In the Garage, all at the ready, a gasoline generator, professionally wired into the house circuits.

although a November Wind visited, throwing ash from a paper fire all over,
the rug. My lady's mother use to sit there when family gatherings made
happy, although two Christmas's past, she passed at 96 ...

Linda faces a knee replacement or two, and I live on ganja for my knee-joint pains ...
She (Linda) Churches-about most of the week, being all vestry&such, otherwise
mostly occupied with needs of others, or sudoku, computer crosswords,
books on religion&stuff, she's currently reading: "Out of the Flames"

While I, get stoned every morning and dream in the dreaming.
taking occasional notes, to which some photographic arts are added.
After which I wonder wander toward the TV, and
the Two of us less and less watch the News,
although Vice News works, and serious drama,
like the last season of Longmire on Netflix Streaming.
Or the OA, Stranger Things, Ozark, or my current one to hate:
Big Little Lies.

We are also fans of the New England Patriots, Tom Brady&Company, under the aegis of wizard: Bill Belichick.

that five foot snow pile, several storms in a row, became
a kind of ant-farm vista, ... always on top the
occasional rabbit, a family-several of squirrels,
and of course the winter birds - my lady knows most their
official names. But, but ... the real treasure was
that as each new snow buried the outer seeds
that gathering did not use under another lean-to
of snow, ... a warren of mice arose ...
not minding the leftovers, and gracefully
using the glass wall of the sliding door as a help in the architecture of burrows.

In the the burrows of GoogleEarth maps, we orient to the picture above
as seen from on the right #, from the point of view of facing the "pin". I
had no idea what the picture would show, for I had never stood
across the street and looked ...

Late November, below, keep in mind that the dome is from a natural joining of different close growing tree "trunks".
That is not one tree, but more than a dozen, forming that Dome.
Do roots converse and make plans? Are they competing for
light? Or do they just faerie-dance in it?

we see then the edge of the Canopy of a wonderful Forest pictured above, although it opens up,
in a kind of surge, to the left, development having encroached considerably, ...
even so the Forest survives yet-Primeval, so as to harbor the next three images:
bear visit # 2

We are well nature/nurtured, allowed by Fate to abut a very large New England Forest, kind of middle class wizards castle,
but nobody really noticing the magic going on there, yet ... much ... My Lady abides, loves all the neighbors,
while/when i'nI look out my study window to this, in an early Spring ....

Been around before, maybe with?his mom? ... neighborhood had idea of bear and two cubs the year before, the first 0ne We Saw, prowled the deck on another very early spring, had her (the grapevine on alert, 'cause she very much wore a collar, tagged and noticed by local watchers) ... She had her way with the birds&squirrels-fighting-for-space seed&suet feeders, and such, dragging the whole knocked over mess off the deck and into the woods, to the cubs no doubt for sharing. My Lady heard the noises and went with small warrior dog Marco, who slipped out when Linda opened the slider-door, a half-foot or so, to the deck ... it was quite dark out ... --- Momma, having been standing right next to the door - in the dark - just pushes her noise inside our house, a few inches. Linda yells, Marco dashes back in, the door closes fast, and unknowable/unpredictable contact between species narrowly avoided. And folks think there is no extraterrestrial life out there. Of course, dear dufus's, here's one in my back yard, and as all wizards&shamans know, the oldest lore, the naming of the patterns in the sky, was done because the connections were not any more invisible than were we ... then, in the way-back, long-before, supposedly never was.

On the left we have the view from Linda's meditation room, through the sliding glass door of the Momma bear story,
while on the right is a view from inside my wizard's Ariel aerie ... November weather,
Paxton being on a kind of hilltop relative to Worcester, ...
I'd guess, when going Home, we car-climb 1000 feet higher than Worcester, which grew around a river,
while we Paxtonites are part of the surrounding Worcester Hills.

deck < from the great room , > aerie vistas times two <, and deck again > meditation room

sideways outside front door, toward neighbor's house .... <> deck, seen at an angle ... the local Grandmother Tree lurking in the right rear, neatly hidden

center piece of a pair in the dining room <> the backside of the neighbors yard, gazebo tucked lower left, where the WildCat was to walk one day

strange people live inside looking out, at the what is outside looking in

meet: Swamp Thing, she/he lives (see below) to Linda's left, your right, in the cube pond on the deck

There are four fireplaces, one in the basement/underworld/temple (pictured here-next), and
one each in: the great room (where sits above a fat old guy); the dining room: and the kitchen

shamanistic work-spaces have had to evolve

~!~ ~!~ ~!~

my Lady's meditation room, ... end of summer, ... bonsai brothers getting ready to winter inside

closeup of shaman's bulletin-board over altar/desk

from a shamanistic point of view, it is important, as regards a Mr. Trumppapa that variations ensue,
while poetry is fraught with amazement ...
a visage captured for reminder ...
liar, liar, hair on fire

view to my left, from facing the desk/altar, on days of wonder
who is looking in, at me looking out?

oh, and the usual visitors, besides the bears, squirrels, birds, flutterbyes et.al. ... if you get to meet my Lady, the Lore of the Visit of the Vulture is always fun,
and lets not forget that Momma Bear lolly-gaged all over the yard for 20 minutes, sniffing the buddha-in-a-cave, laying on her back
in the grass, while meanwhile ... us watching in amazement see a silver fox cross right to left a dozen yards behind Momma on
the last bit of yard ... before outdoor shed, and me still not seeing her: the local grandmother tree, ... there seeming to be a path there through which
deer flit in and out of the yard, as well as a red-tailed fox, ... AND a wildcat, ... he/she? who stalked one winter
along the backside of our's and a neighbor's houses, scoring the snow with fierceness,
dance/stalking and dominant - it was cold & bear was in den,
... time for WildCat to own both the Night and the Day.

Last, but not least, the Grandmother Tree at "Forest-Home"

If you picture Life making Altars all on His own, Graceful Art for Mommy Dearest - of the earthquakes&hurricanes - when
feeling a bit more putout than usual. Ungrateful children making messes all over the place.

a natural altar can be astounding, when finally noticed ...
we can see Her crowned in late afternoon sunlight, and rooted deep to the earth, but still a bit of sun noticing This ---
this is November, and the leaves of bushes have fallen to reveal a neighbor's house,
usually not visible in summer fullness.

She holds Court, relative to the house, in the East, from where behind her the rising divine-SunSon-home emerges daily,
after the repose of nights&stars&Moon.

To our right She gestures to a line of trees planted by humans,
a Wall of Arborvitae that Waves at those of us, who sit in the meditation room,
when winds aid their dancing in unison, a kind of living green can-can ...
although, apparently, they would like to be less sculpted,
given the coming times, got to get ready for the
wild, and you take away the top knot, and
keep us too far apart

to Her right, our left, assuming She is facing us, but I suspect Her
Roots know all Four Directions easily ...
anyway, ... to our left She gestures to the Forest Primeval,
providing a blessed balance between the Goddesses' Art&Crafts,
when forced to be next to human attempts ... at the least
the Arborvitae keeps the neighbors house out of sight,
a benefit for good neighbors when possible

Not as bad as thin walls, tin roofs, and all the depredations of
barely enough to live on, much less get out of the elements ---
more white-privilege, although mostly money privilege at root.

the stories of the four wands/wards
one of the four resides in each corner of my study

years ago, I made a magic staff, kind of for-fun ...
nice bit of straight tree-limb, peeled clean, sanded, and decorated
by my own hand, although I borrowed three images from the Case Tarot:
the fool (inner-self); the hermit (outer-self); and life-destiny: magician/juggler

A friend borrowed the staff, to take to a party at Ho Chi Min Park in Bizerkely, CA
It was stolen from him, although I did anticipate that, and was not surprised.
It was too powerful, and I hope the thief enjoyed the gift

~!~

When I was in Citrus Heights, CA, I turned an old closet rod into a staff,
carved on it, and hung some beads from its topmast.

That's my Lady's picture, underneath the Buddha mask, on the right.
On the TV screen, a movie I am studying for its remarkable
visionary message: "Moontrap Target Earth"

~!~

Prior, I had had the next, which was driftwood from Yosemite,
with a wonderful curve, on which I carved the word Love.
I'd forgotten it, until friend Chuck G. used it to marry my Jennifer, --
a strange gathering all around of Faire Folk all in costume.
After the wedding Chuck gave it back to me, neither of us
knowing precisely why it had traveled the way that it did.

the Northwestern Indian totem a gift from a friend,
the microscope under glass, a joining of two found objects

~!~

This one came from my visit to She of the Northwoods, and Savage Striving,
used experimentally by mad scientists, being as she was a half-breed, and
neither a citizen, or - apparently - a human being.
We had an internet flirt, gathered to marry, and she kicked me out
within a week, judging me to be too judgmental.
A friend of her's, anticipating my arrival, made it as a gift.

the door on the left is to the great room, on the right to our bedroom ...
on the wall, a clay flute in the form of a snake,
and a drawing of a grumpy old man hanging out by himself ...
both were also gifts

Finally, from Brei's visits among the Waldorfian Worlds,
a May-Staff, decorated with plastic flowers and ribbons,
it stands next (on the right) to a sand painting she made there,
of a Hopi Rain Kachina. The white/hunter kneeling (on the left),
a gift from First Wife: Tina, mother of Marc, Doren, and Jennifer

reflected in the window, a tetrahedron used as an experiment,
which is yet to be finished, but still resting as an addiction to a lamp

such powers of graceful beauty live in sentiment&memory ...
personal gifts and giving, talismantic evidence of love ...
that is all the Art we need in order to bless all our days,
freely made by our own hands, now by machines,
those too from our own hands and minds.

I owe a great deal to Circumstantial/Accidental/Coincidences/ ...
a weaving which has too much pain and order to be
renounced as empty of caring and loaded
with indifference. The Stars Care more
than we can imagine

She is the very opposite of Indifference.
Been watching the News lately?
Lady has been HerHere all along, although
right now Her main Tool is a Big Broom.
Will we whimper as Western Civilzation Falls to its Destiny?
Does there need to be a Ceremony, or just a good party?

Standing Rock was just a Beginning.