Dawn at Golden Rabbit Ranch and Redwoods

April 16, 2012
My awakening of Morning came before the sun, I gazed out the window of the yert that hangs off the side of a mountain, I can not remember how high Star said it was in altitude here, but we are pretty high up. What I saw was a Crescent Moon not long before dawn, it just felt as if I could step out the window and touch her, so beautiful. I must have fallen back to sleep and just as the sun reached to top of the mountains I jumped off the floor and ran up the hill, I saw it but did not get my camera out fast enough to catch what I saw. It took my breath away. I sat in the meadow and watched the sun bath the world as everything came awake. The bird song and rush of colder wind swept me into a place of gratitude to be on this sacred land, yet I felt the fragality and the strength of this place. Later as I stood on the porch, I asked Charles if he heard the music from the next hill over. He told me the only music he heard was the birds song. That is not what I heard, it was voices light and soft, singing in perfect harmony.

We ate oatmeal and I said my good-bys. I drove down the hill and by Star’s house to take a photo of her street sign when I saw a huge jack rabbit, it just stood there and stared at me, almost as if it was waiting for me. I moved to grab my camera and it jumped into the brush on to a trail leading to Star’s house. You know what I think, don’t you?
Off to the redwoods! I found the River road and got to Armstrong Woods state park right as they opened at 9am. I was the second car in the lot and it was almost full by the time I got on the trail. My first glimpse of the massive trees sent me into a state of trance and tears ran down my cold face as I walked the trail alone. It took me about a half hour before I could totally embrace where I was and what I was seeing and feeling. I found a place where two huge redwoods stood side by side and a natural curve between them. I stepped into the curve between the trees. I could feel the pulse of the earth and trees, I could feel the life I was seeing and feeling. I wept for a while. Not tears of sadness but of pure gratitude that I was allowed to be here in the grace of this place. That my life’s path has opened and lead me to such beauty and enlightenment. It was not just this moment in the redwoods but life as a whole. I felt lost as to how to return such honor but also knew I was welcomed here with my gifted sight, to see the true heart of these woods. I felt the woods whisper their message to me that I was welcome here. I felt the connection of family and the collectiveness of survival over the thousands of years these trees have stood. I felt the family of birds and furry ones that lived in these trees and those that walked the woods to admire their massive beauty. But I also felt the others that lived deep within the earth and heart of this place, the spirit of this land. I took my time and walked the trails. I chatted with other visitors and shared the awe of my experience there.
I could have just stayed there and never left. I thought of home and family, of my place in this world and why I had made this journey. I knew if I stayed much longer I would never leave.

Heading for home
The little river town near the woods called Guerneville was a classic hippy haven sitting on the Russina river, complete with gift shops, a few dinners and local old burnt out hippies playing checkers around the fountain in the park. I ate Pacific fish and chips, bought some tie dye and a few small trinkets. I found a Hemp shop that was closing and had a 75% off sale, some I bought myself some, since I don’t own any hemp clothing. It was the perfect opertunity for me to unload the rental car and repack all my bags to prepare for the flight home, that took me about 45 minutes to stuff everything back into some travel fashion. I made my way back to the airport just in time to return the rental car, check my bags and get on the plane. Alaska airlines runs the puddle jumpers out of Santa Rosa with twin engine prop planes, not a bad ride but a little bumpy. I had changed into a long skirt for travel and I guess they thought I looked suspious because the patted me down and went through my computer bag with swabs like I was carrying some explosives. I was kinds laughing at their seriousness but I guess better safe than sorry.
My seat mate on this plan was a delight, a young man from Africa now living in Seattle Washington, traveling to Australian on business. We chatted about everything from the high tech world of wireless mining (his business) to growing Kiwi trees in Washington state. One day he will be living on a farm doing permaculture because of the conversation we had in the short hour and a half. I was very curious about the landscape on our trip south to Los Angeles, there were desolete spaces of dry bare mountains bordered with farmland, then not far from Los Angelas there was a mountain range with snow tops. We were flying low due to the size of the plane so I could see a lot of what was below.
The lay over in Los Angeles went slow and when I checked my carry on I felt I needed to go back and get it, the flight was packed and there were a lot of roll ons going to Miami. Sure enough my carry on bag got lost and I had a nasty 5:30 am conversation with an attendent in MIA about my bag, when I got to Tallahassee neither one of my bags were on the plane. I was too tired to deal with it but was concerned, I let American Airlines deal with it my brain needed a rest.
I walk into my house and everything was different. I was not expecting to see the living room totally changed. I hated the light brown sectional couch Noah had found at Goodwill, mostly because I really like the old one and he didn’t. It is ugly and uncomfortable to me. He had also bought a rug for the floor which I do like. A new used coffee pot and a kirby vacuum cleaner. Oh, of course our income tax money was back….and I was gone so things got changed, duh. I just really felt unhappy in the moment, I was too tired to sleep. He did get ride of two horses and not bring any more home, that was positive.
So instead of sleeping Noah and I spent the day extracting honey. This was the first time we had done it all by ourselves with out David’s help or extractor, because now we have one of our own. It was a little awkward but we managed. We need to learn the set up a little better, but we got 6 gallons from the first harvest and it is rich and golden.
I went back to the airport and got my bags in the afternoon, bought feed and my schedule from Ace and finally fell a sleep watching the news, so Noah had to do the feeding alone. It will be good to have a full day to catch up and Leslie and the kids are coming this weekend. As usual when Noah cleans the spare bedroom gets trashed and there is no place for them to stay this weekend. I havemilk to pasturize and lots of things to do.
But all and all it was a WONDERFUL trip and I am looking forward to sharing new things I learned with my friends and class.

Last day of class

April 15, 2012
I could not down load the photos from the April 14^th post so I messed with it until I totally ran out of time. It is a lot of pressure to be trying to keep up with the daily post and down load the photos as well as keep up with the hours of class, and socialize with the students. I must say this has been one of the most pleasant workshops I have ever done. The subject has been Powerful and the students really rock. I have had a few moments where I just sat back and processed the energy or either laughed my ass off at something so silly, like Beth’s jokes. This morning I really got into the conflict around consensus process when the facilitator totally lost control of the meeting. She learned a lot!
Last days are always emotional when you totally rock with your affinity groups, the teachers and the class as a whole. This was no exception, but I did not cry as I have in the past because the content of this work and the connections we have made will be through out a lifetime. Each of us has made serious pledges to continue on with this work. That doesn’t mean we will be in contact with each other per say but taking these skills out into the world is more important than promises that we will stay in touch. Many of us will cross paths again in some way, we all felt that.
We spent our morning talking more about difficult people and in meetings with difficult people. More role playing. I had to ground and draw out something that attached it’s self to Kiki after the mornings exercise, we were late for lunch because this was pretty serious. I did have a chance to process this with Starhawk later in the evening. Our closing ceremony was very touching and as we sat around the fire we build with all the stuff we wanted to dumped. For me I chose a piece of bark that a worm had chewed the figure of a snake into the center. This meant shedding the skin of the physical and the past for transformation but the snake also means power and for me has a special magical identification. We dumped what energy we had left for dealing with difficult people and stuff we processed over the class and prepared ourselves to go back into the real world.
If I would change anything about the class I would not let this been the last subject, it is the hardest but also brings up stuff students need time to process before they leave their teachers. Several times I asked Kiki if she was Ok and she assured me it was gone, I wonder if anyone else had some lingering energy of the work that was working it’s self out through people?

　

After I was packed and helped Starhawk and Charles pack up the last of the stuff, I followed them back to Golden Rabbit Ranch for the evening. Stavo rode with me but insisted we put the top down on the Eclipse, it took three of us to figure out you pushed a button on the dash, who knew??? It was pretty cool to ride through the mountains up to Starhawk’s ranch in a convertible. When I first got there I took a walk around the land and sat with the energy. It was late and I was tired and after a while I went inside for wonderful conversation with Charles, Shakti Sara, Julie, Stavo, Aresh and Kate and I crashed on the floor of Charles’s Yert for the evening. Starhawk and Carla(?) came in right at dark and we shared a meal of leftovers. We talked for hours about life, some about the workshop, a lot about dogs and animals. Sleeping on the floor was OK with me but the busy little mouse that shared the Yert and the fact that I had to pee and really did not want to get up made a restless night for me.

　

Ckicken Run and Passion Show

April 14, 2012
Last full day of class and the subject is "Difficult People". It was a wonderful day, full of information and Permaculture. We proved as a class that we have learned a lot about the subjects as we once again did a lot of role playing and discussion about difficult people and situations we have had in groups of all sorts. Process and more process and then we went out and played another role as we built a chicken run. This detailed hauling lots and lots of wheel barrows of compost into an area that the monks here will use as a chicken yard for the summer months. Our role was to stay in teams and be the best worker with in that team. It was impossible to do what that asked of us in teams in 45 minutes. About 10 minutes into the exercise as I was shoveling compost into wheel barrow after wheel barrow that we were revolting and working together as a whole group. Starhawk had already called me an Anarchist and Charles confirmed that when he realized I was going against the rules of the game and organizing everyone to work together to get more work done. I was very happy they all followed in, it was a mutual dicission and when the exercise was over we accomplished a lot more work and were given a thumbs up from our teachers for going against the system to get the job done. It was what they hoped for.
I never really identified myself as an Anarchist but I guess I am… I kinds like it!

　
　
Then I took on the role as MC for the Passion Show for the evening. I had two other that were in my group that also volunteered and we share the stage. We had 16 wonderful acts from singing to poetry, as well as so dance and stories. We even played this really cool game with cups. It was a lot of fun. I took several photos and video. But it is very late and I have to pack up and leave after class tomorrow. I will try to post one more time before I head off to another adventure, not sure what but the big Redwoods are on my to do list.

Home and finishing my Blog

I got home almost a week ago and things have been moving fast as usual. Back to work, farm and life. This past weekend all the family was here and we had a wonderful time catching up and went to the music festival in Monticello.This is the first time I have turned on my computer so please forgive me for not finishing my blog from my trip. The internet connections there were just so sketchy that it was difficult to complete my post. I
Hope you have enjoyed my ramblings...

Friday the 13th Communication, Oh My!

April 13, 2012
Friday the 13^th was all about Communication and a powerful day of awakening. We cast our morning circle with total silence, I must say I am totally impressed with this class and what they can do in a moment with total silence. The synergy was rocking at the moment. We started our class by making the bio-char and then worked in class with the many forms of communication in groups and what works and does not work. Lots of games and role playing as well as discussion. Then we geared up and went into the garden to build a Key Hole garden… oh my what a mess. Our affinity group completely fell apart. We were given roles to play, most did NOT fit our personalities and we completely fell apart in a big way. One student was crying the others nurturing, one anger then another. The leader (in an assigned role) was totally clueless as to what was going on and I was running around building a key hole bed, in the cold windy rain. Wow!
Then we sat in our affinity group. I suggested the ground rules since most had never processed in affinity groups before, we agreed on the rules. It took us a while but we worked through it until we huddled together for a part of the afternoon class. It was an emotional exercise and really proved we could create total chaos and resolve it with the tools we have been given to communicate. It felt really good when the other affinity groups checked in that they too had an emotional experience trying to build a Key Hole in a small space while we were role playing really difficult roles.

　
The evening class was all about ancestors. We invoked our blood ancestors by naming our families as far back as we could. Then we broke up into small groups and talked about where our families came from and what they did for a living. Later we talked about groups that define who we are. This work was so very powerful and in communication it gave us more information about who is in our groups. I loved it, but I love ancestor work any way.

Working with Power and trip to Golden Rabbit Ranch

April 12, 2012
Rain and cold! We snuggled into a large room for our first day of real class with a good nights sleep I was ready. We started off working the Elements of the Talisman in the "Empowerment manual". We went outside is a moment of sunshine and called to the Elements, I chose fire since I really have felt a call to the power and my place in life right now. Our morning session was about "Power" with-in, with and power-over, leadership in groups and roles we play in groups of both collaborative and hierarchical structures. It was a great start to this class and I felt a kinship with many in this class. I am so happy to be here doing this work. A student beside me made the comment that we all seem to be connected since we read the book and are practicing the group process. I said to her, "This is just the first day of class". This is the first class of this kind ever and I know there will be very challenging moments. And that is what this work is about. We played lots of games and role playing to experience other sides of group process and power.

Trip to Golden Rabbit Ranch
Even though the afternoon was rainy and wet we took a field trip to Starhawk’s ranch. I was so excited to see things I had read about in her books and talked to her about over the years. Her land is steep and on a mountain top, lot of vertical slopes. We saw her hydroelectric system, her solar power, her gardens and Belgium fence. Her olive trees and rosemary, we saw Charles’s yert. We even took an adventure around her land and concocted stories about what we saw and found in the woods. It was a cold and challenging day, but we picked flowers and admired the beauty of the land.

By evening class we were totally wiped out. The evening class continued in deep discussions and exercises in power and leadership roles. We actually were going to make Bio-Char but ended up charging the barrel with things we wanted to rid the world of on paper marked and drawn with bio-char markers and went off to bed . it was poring down rain and very cold. I woke up with a screaming headache at 5:30am.
There are only 20 students in this class and the personalities and dynamics is starting to play out. This will be interesting, once again there is a nice mix of ages, back grounds races and ages. I am enjoying my affinity group. We have one woman from Ireland and another from Belgium, but she has lived all over the world and grew up in Australia. Also a really nice gay man I just adore and a crone that has many power dynamics to deal with. My roommate is half Japanese and I really adore her too. We actually moved into a room by ourselves and enjoy wispering late in the evening.
I am having some real issues getting on the internet but I am gong to keep trying to keep updated.

First view of the Pacific and Seals!

April 11, 2012
I am having a really hard time getting on the WiFi network here, too much stress to do so and so little time. But I will try!
When I am on the road and in workshops, I usually run a day behind so please pardon me while I catch up. These workshops are very intense and it takes tons of processing to do the work. As we start at 7:30 am for breakfast and if we are lucky crash by 10:30 pm with little down time.
My trip to the Pacific Ocean was one of those winding scenic routes where I followed the Russian River through the mountains at 25 mile an hour curves, I enjoyed it and thoughts of how many mountain county roads look the same, but for the huge massive redwood trees. The redwoods were not as huge as I thought but I have been told where to go to see the really big ones you read about.
About 10:00 am my curvy scenic route through the mountains ended at Jenner, California, which is also where the Russian river ends and flows in to the sea. I found the perfect spot to stop. Oh My Goddess! The cliff was 100 feet high, below me was where the river ran into the sea…the banks were lines with seals! It just took my breath away to see such beauty and seals, which I love, right there sunning themselves.

　
I found a road that took me down near the water, Goat Rock Beach, now how perfect is that? The weather was rainy, cold and windy but I made my way to the beach. I was met by a huge lone Raven. She watched me as I watched her, we sorta developed an agreement that we were alone on this beach but could support each other for the moment. Her words were private to me but completely understood.
I walked for maybe a hour and a half, climbed rocks and took lots of photos. The rocks that just stood as statements of power and yet felt so natural to this place, I was the guest and tourist here. I felt honored to be there. The wild flowers once again have caught my eye on my travels and I was just fascinated by how many things were in bloom despite the cold. The beach was so different and I played in the surf and collected lots of rocks. I asked some surfers to take my photo.. yes I am really here!

I drove a little farther down the coast but knew my time was short and I needed to make my way to the Black Mountain Preserve. The drive up the mountain seemed for ever and the winding road just went on and on, what seemed straight up. Looking down and wondering how people could live here. I finally arrived, cold and wet and very tired. Found a room with a heater and it took me a long time to warm up. Dinner was incredible, the food by far is the best I have ever had at a workshop intensive and the room and facilities are very cozy and comfortable. It was so good to see Starhawk and Charles and catch up before our class started at 7:30. Our first class was more about information and forming affinity groups.