Breathing it In

I know what brings me alive and recharges me.  I don’t always choose it, but I know it when I am submerged in it.  I also know when something drains me…I can feel it.  We arrived in North Carolina about a week ago with my mind haunted by the continuous flow of oil in the gulf.  How can every news story on NPR only talk about the loss of tourists and the financial loss to the fisheries?  How can it be that we humans still cannot widen our circle of caring to include the other animals in our family?  Like an adolescent caught up in their own world and unable to understand that everyone around them has their own desires and pain, the people of the USA focus only on their own puny troubles. Once again we show that we are unable to see the big picture and once again we are slow to see the misery our choices are causing.  I can guarantee you that most people in the USA are not thinking that they have anything to do with the oil spill.  They cannot see that their choices/actions and the demand for oil are part of the equation.  A present time aerial view of the people of the USA will show a large number of them shopping at Walmart, filling their cart with UPOs (Unnecessary Plastic Objects), purchasing their UPO’s, loading the UPO’s into their SUVs and driving the two blocks to their house.

The timing was perfect....with my head filled with haunting images of dead oil covered turtles, JC and I returned to one of our many homes....the beauty and healing of the mountains of North Carolina….I breath deep here and feel all the tension melt from my crazy worried human brain and body.  This is the beauty that reminds me why I do the work I do.  This is the kind of place that reminds me that all is not lost….

Here it is in pictures….much better than words (all of these were taken on one short walk in Celo):

Our sweet host and friend: Peggy

One of many pink lady slippers

Hasidic :) Yellow Lady Slippers

Spring bamboo shoots (these are about a foot tall and 5 inches across

JC and Bean in the pond

                                                                                                                                                                                          

View out our front door (Mt Mitchell is right there in those clouds)

Our little home on wheels

Becky's angelic art mixing with leaves

More of Becky's art

One of Celo's most talented artists and beautiful, inside and out, community members died last year......she was so loved in the community.  Here is her gravestone in the Celo burial spot in the woods...

And this gravestone says it all...