in a fog (literally), and sandplay

When I woke up this morning it was slightly cloudy and 59 degrees outside - the lowest low we've had this summer. It really felt like we'd entered a different season! I sat down at the computer to check email and when I next looked out, only twenty minutes or so later, the world had gone foggy.

So much so that I initially thought maybe it was smoke, and I went out to check. But it's a huge batch of fog that rolled in, silently:

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

-Carl Sandburg


I was going to take photos, but can't find my camera!

On other fronts, I've been working in my garret upstairs. My sandtrays are all set up, and I'm unpacking miniatures. Slowly, the garret is filling up with my collection, and it's hard to explain how it feels to have it here at home.

Each of the pieces is something I added because in some way I was drawn to it, or felt it would be important to a client to use in the sandplay work. Most of the pieces have, by this time, been used in many trays over the years. A number of the pieces were important to clients, and were used repeatedly in trays, and others were used in final trays, representing the shift to wholeness.

In some ways the unpacking process feels like handling those little bottles in the last Harry Potter movie - the ones that held memories. The miniatures carry a lot of energy, and it's almost irreverent to unpack them too quickly. I feel I need to handle each one with an open mind, before placing it on the shelf or surface in the garret. So it's taking awhile to do, but it's special time and a good way to let the garret stretch and absorb.

Once I have everything set up, I'll do a tray to initiate the new space.


Returned To Say


When I face north a lost Cree
on some new shore puts a moccasin down,
rock in the light and noon for seeing,
he in a hurry and I beside him

It will be a long trip; he will be a new chief;
we have drunk new water from an unnamed stream;
under little dark trees
he is to find a path
we both must travel because we have met.

Henceforth we gesture even by waiting;
there is a grain of sand on his knifeblade
so small he blows it and while his breathing
darkens the steel his become set

And start a new vision: the rest of his life.
We will mean what he does. Back of this page
the path turns north. We are looking for a sign.
Our moccasins do not mark the ground.

-William Stafford

dark skies, thunder, RAIN, and gorgeous geldings

When I went to bed last night there was a chance of rain, wind, and hail - we got lightning and thunder and maybe 24 drops of rain.

This morning, though, the weather radar showed a pretty intense storm band moving in, and the wind whipped up, the thunder boomed, and we finally, thankfully, got a steady, soaking rain that lasted several hours. Everyone around here needed it.

By the time my son and I went out to feed breakfast and get chores done, the intense weather had moved on and we were left with a light sprinkling.

It's been awhile since we had a rainy day like this, and I decided my son should take the geldings into the arena so they could get some exercise, clean their feet out, and give me room to get their stalls set up.

I was thrilled to see them immediately go into big, beautiful movement mode. Cody looked fabulous, Keil Bay was moving so well I wanted to stand up on the picnic table, put his saddle on, and sail onto his back during the extended trot sequences. (the bucking bits I could do without!)

The pony too was doing his fancy stuff, and they had a good time. Galloping, flying changes, big trots, rearing and bucking, head tossing. I don't think my son has experienced that in a long time, and he could barely keep the smile off his face.

Big, beautiful, exuberant horses offer JOY.

honest scrap award

Wendy over at HorseAdventures gave me this award - thanks, Wendy! Her blog is a daily read, and I hope you'll head over and see what she's up to.

Now for the 10 Honest Things:

1. I am in the middle of a fairly major indoor clean up. My garret has been neglected for half a year, and somehow moving to a new writing project lit a fire under me to get the garret cleaned and organized. Lest you think this is not a legitimate "honest thing," I'll add that I am dealing with some dried spots of cat pee, dead ladybugs, many cobwebs, and dust that has incorporated itself into the furniture.

2. The entire barn is a continuous cob web right now. I tell myself it is cheap, natural, fly control, but alas, I need to deal with it soon.

3. My favorite alcoholic drink used to be Pernod. I haven't had it in awhile, but I can taste the anise in my mouth just thinking about it. Surprisingly it's good mixed with either orange juice or cranberry juice.

4. We are battling fleas at the moment. Only two of the animals are sensitive, but I'm trying not to use Advantage and although the alternatives are much less expensive, they are incredibly time-consuming.

5. I have not ridden at all in the month of July. Sigh. But I am doing yoga almost every day.

6. Adorable little Redford kicked the dear husband 3x today! We are hitting that point of little donkey jack attitude, and will have to manage it wisely until cool weather returns. :)

7. I have all the fun blogging about horses and donkeys and cats and Corgis - BUT - I have a husband, son, and daughter who are involved on a daily basis with the care and feeding of all of the above. I am very lucky.

8. We have a luscious, organically raised beef barbecue slow-cooking in the oven. And organic green beans to go with it. But husband and I ate lunch from the Taco Bell drive-through and then headed off on our childless Sunday afternoon (they are at my mom's house) to explore a never-traveled road.

9. About every other month, during a certain time of said month, I indulge in Lay's potato chips and French onion dip made with Lipton's soup mix and full-fat sour cream.

10. I will almost always choose salty over sweet. (see above)


Nearly everyone imaginable has already received this award! If you want it, and you're visiting here, I hereby hand it over and invite you to share some things on YOUR blog. Don't forget to let me know so I can come congratulate you and read your 10 honest things.

Thanks again, Wendy!!

and the results are...

The numbers offered were:

7
58
72
51
22
4
38
9
46


Yesterday morning I wrote down:

pony book

nonfiction book

and then went to a random number generator site and requested two numbers between 1 and 100.

The numbers generated were:

3, which I assigned to the pony book

and

57, which I assigned to the nonfiction book.

I then collected your numbers until midnight.

It was a tie until Sheaffer came along and tipped the scale toward the nonfiction book!

The most interesting part of this is that if you add up all the numbers, including the randomly generated numbers I assigned, you get 367.

If you add those numbers you get 16, and if you add those you get...

my most favorite and lucky number!

7

Which is commonly considered to be a spiritual number, and the nonfiction book is spiritual in nature.

I love it when things connect up so well.

Thank you all for helping me make a decision. It's exciting to be moving on with the next project!

finished the novel edits! now need your help!

Yesterday afternoon I finally, FINALLY, finished the edits on my third novel manuscript. As usual, I felt a little sad that I had come to the end of it, and while printing it out (I always keep a hard copy of the final draft), I got caught up reading passages as I waited for the pages to emerge from the printer.

For anyone who writes and has completed a novel or other book-length project, you know this feeling. It's an odd mixture of glee and emptiness. And it can happen any number of times with any given ms because sometimes what we *think* is the final draft isn't.

This particular ms is going off to a very particular reader, so until I actually box the thing up and get it in the mail I'm not completely done with it. And when it comes back with feedback I'll certainly be taking it up again, but for now, emotionally, I'm done.

Also as usual, about 15 minutes after I put the entire stack of pages into their box, The Next Book began to screech at me, in this case, two of them.

One is a middle grade novel that has been sitting in my head for several years. I have about 4 chapters and a lot of notes and an idea of where it's going.

The other one is nonfiction, has also been sitting in my head for a good while, and for that one I have about 150 pages done and every chapter is at least named and blurbed.

My resolution for 2009 was to go through these books, one at a time, in the order they came to me. This is murky with these two, though, as I can't quite remember which one came first, and I'm eager to work on both again. The thing I don't want to do is vacillate between them, getting a little bit done on one, and then another bit done on the other.

So today is about making a decision and then moving on with it.

To that end I'd like to do a little experiment. I'm going to assign random numbers to each project. If you want to help me out, sit quiet for a moment, let a number between 1 and 100 pop into your head, and then leave it in a comment. I'll see which one has the most numbers closest to those I assigned. I'm curious to see which one gets the most psychic "votes." :)

ADDENDUM: It occurred to me that I should probably not put the comments through until I get them all in, so that no one is influenced by reading previous commenters' numbers. I'm going to collect comments and numbers until midnight tonight (Saturday July 11) and then I'll post the comments and do the calculating. Thanks to all who have already left numbers - hopefully more folks will so I get a good "sample." :)