Musings on Life and Veteran's Day

I wrote this on Facebook and decided to repost it here so I don't lose track of it.

I just want to take a pause today. Trying to survive I have an iron in many a fire, and in a way I feel like I'm being drawn and quartered. Yesterday I sat in my zen garden so I could have a moment alone. A big black raven flew by and I could hear its wings beating against the air.

I have a few energy vampires in my life. One is innocent enough but for some reason she wants to wedge herself into my life. And the other is just a brat, demanding and whining until I can hardly bear him. What kind of person do I need to evolve into to attract the kind of people I want and need in my life? I think I need mentors, but I don't need micro-managers.

I also just unfriended someone who believes our country should be government and religion all melted into one big lump of glass. What happened to the separation of church and state? Is that no longer a valued truth? As we approach Veteran's Day, I ponder how they fought so we could have freedom, including freedom of religion. That means we can't meld our government into 'God and Country' when people have the freedom to believe in various forms of god or to not believe in god or to be undecided. Or to put it bluntly 'when government and religion are combined, people get burned at the stake.'

The foothills are glorious today. As soon as the chill is off the air, I plan to sit and gaze at the beauty of nature, and realize I belong to the Earth, not the other way around.

The Desert is my Front Yard

A few days ago when it started to cool off I went for a hike in the desert. My back hurt a lot, so it became a mosey instead, with frequent rest breaks. I got to take some beautiful photos though and thought I'd share them with you. I literally just have to walk across the street to get photos like this.

Cholla at sunset

Joshua tree at twilght

Family of Joshua Trees in Lucerne Valley CA

Sunlit cholla cactus

My favorite sunset photo from that day.

Striped rock

Through the creosote bushes.



Baby cholla

Sunset in August

Library Day

Today was library day. By tomorrow I should be able to turn my Broadband back on, but for today I need to use the library's DSL connection. I finished two vampire books today and turned in one of them and requested the next one in the series. I like to read things in order. So hopefully they'll get that one to me fairly quickly.

I have an SCA event on Sat. so I need to get all my garb together. The last event I went to was before Christmas so I hope I can find everything. We find things and then lose them again every time we unpack more boxes. And when I got home from my week long trek, my boyfriend had rearranged the kitchen and put up some shelves.  I'm glad he did it, but now I don't know where anything is again.

Then I tore apart more boxes today looking for some arrow making tools he lost. I also watered all the trees, since it is pretty hot out today. I refilled the hummingbird feeder and had two new hummingbirds show up just before sunset yesterday. I enjoy nature. It helps me relax.

Barbed wire abandoned in our yard.