I was up late reading Surfacing by Margaret Atwood, then rose at 3:30 to meditate, and then, finished it, so I have been carried in and out of a long canoe through the woods and along the lake.
It is important to read a book like this periodically, to dip down into nature and renew, and yes, Margaret Atwood's writing is strong enough that we are dipped in and out like a candle, a wick layered and burned.
I realized reading it how affected I was by sitting watching the tides go in and out of Tomales Bay, the climbing up a ladder to a bed that looked out on the bay, and the showering outdoors. It is important to do sometimes and then we come back, and sometimes the coming back takes time. I have felt a little adrift since I was there.
I also note that the orange juice with pectin is helping with the poison oak. The native peoples weren't bothered by poison oak, only we who are less in nature's tune, and who were not immunized with small doses of it when we were young.
One time I was hiking with two friends, and we decided to climb up a cliff from the beach and return by an alternate route. It seemed we would find our way easily. The sea was right there, but we bogged down with hill after hill and it was getting dark, so I said we needed to go back down and follow the creek. I was in shorts and short sleeves. We slogged through blackberry bushes which made cuts, so the poison oak juice and the stinging nettles went deep. When I got home, I was vibrating. I stood in the shower, alive and purified.
The book is like that.
The moon each morning is amazing. Perhaps it is why I awake early, to be with it. Moon friend is still there, in the sky. It seems so close, and I suppose I am like a tree, reaching up toward it, and so I bring it closer and ingest.
Thank you, Dave, for the recommendation of two books at just the right time for me. The moon is a step.
