hills are alive

life and death

We feel we are the center of the universe, 

that the earth revolves around us, 

our day to day, our problems, and our lives, 

but we are a minuscule part.  

We are but a tiny piece in the big complex universe.

We tend to forget all those other players, big and small

 like bees, and plants who feed us. 

 Without them, there would be no us.

Food for thought there!

AND life moves around us even when we are not aware.  

The sun comes up, goes down even on those rainy days. 

Our hearts beat. 

Things sprout up and things return to the earth. 

 The worst sound I ever heard was one night in the middle of the night 

when I was out standing on the deck. 

 I heard the death scream of a rabbit? caught by an owl? fox? coyote?  

Doesn't matter really.  

It is a sound that to this day resonates in my soul.
They say plants scream when injured or killed.
I can not see why they wouldn't.

A bird the cats killed.  I placed it on the earth so it could go back to the earth
and still after months it is with us.
A reminder?

I is so cool

Hard as rock

We have two of these pieces of granite found buried in the cutting we did last winter. 

 There are two or three spots here where large rocks were cut way back.  

You can see the marks on them and on these pieces we have found.  

This may have been a piece of the original house or barn. 

 Most of the original foundations are gone and I believe were moved to the location

 of the house and barns out front after the original house burned down. 

No sense in wasting these.

Think of the work involved in making these initially, putting them into place

and later moving them to the other side of the property.

Yet here are some that didn't get moved.

 One wonders how they missed these.

 There are two this size and a huge piece 10 ft long

 and what looks to be the front step into the original house.  Not sure what we shall do with these.  Benches, steps? 

 They are not easy to move, but they sure are stunning.

little things

wet days

milkweed

What not to say

from LA Timies

When Susan had breast cancer, we heard a lot of lame remarks, but our favorite came from one of Susan's colleagues. She wanted, she needed, to visit Susan after the surgery, but Susan didn't feel like having visitors, and she said so. Her colleague's response? "This isn't just about you."

"It's not?" Susan wondered. "My breast cancer is not about me? It's about you?"

This woman loves Katie, and she said what she did because the sight of Katie in this condition moved her so deeply. But it was the wrong thing to say. And it was wrong in the same way Susan's colleague's remark was wrong.

The same theme came up again when our friend Katie had a brain aneurysm. She was in intensive care for a long time and finally got out and into a step-down unit. She was no longer covered with tubes and lines and monitors, but she was still in rough shape. A friend came and saw her and then stepped into the hall with Katie's husband, Pat. "I wasn't prepared for this," she told him. "I don't know if I can handle it."

2

Susan has since developed a simple technique to help people avoid this mistake. It works for all kinds of crises: medical, legal, financial, romantic, even existential. She calls it the Ring Theory.

Draw a circle. This is the center ring. In it, put the name of the person at the center of the current trauma. For Katie's aneurysm, that's Katie. Now draw a larger circle around the first one. In that ring put the name of the person next closest to the trauma. In the case of Katie's aneurysm, that was Katie's husband, Pat. Repeat the process as many times as you need to. In each larger ring put the next closest people. Parents and children before more distant relatives. Intimate friends in smaller rings, less intimate friends in larger ones. When you are done you have a Kvetching Order. One of Susan's patients found it useful to tape it to her refrigerator.

Here are the rules. The person in the center ring can say anything she wants to anyone, anywhere. She can kvetch and complain and whine and moan and curse the heavens and say, "Life is unfair" and "Why me?" That's the one payoff for being in the center ring.

Everyone else can say those things too, but only to people in larger rings.

When you are talking to a person in a ring smaller than yours, someone closer to the center of the crisis, the goal is to help. Listening is often more helpful than talking. But if you're going to open your mouth, ask yourself if what you are about to say is likely to provide comfort and support. If it isn't, don't say it. Don't, for example, give advice. People who are suffering from trauma don't need advice. They need comfort and support. So say, "I'm sorry" or "This must really be hard for you" or "Can I bring you a pot roast?" Don't say, "You should hear what happened to me" or "Here's what I would do if I were you." And don't say, "This is really bringing me down."

If you want to scream or cry or complain, if you want to tell someone how shocked you are or how icky you feel, or whine about how it reminds you of all the terrible things that have happened to you lately, that's fine. It's a perfectly normal response. Just do it to someone in a bigger ring.

Comfort IN, dump OUT.

There was nothing wrong with Katie's friend saying she was not prepared for how horrible Katie looked, or even that she didn't think she could handle it. The mistake was that she said those things to Pat. She dumped IN.

Complaining to someone in a smaller ring than yours doesn't do either of you any good. On the other hand, being supportive to her principal caregiver may be the best thing you can do for the patient.

Most of us know this. Almost nobody would complain to the patient about how rotten she looks. Almost no one would say that looking at her makes them think of the fragility of life and their own closeness to death. In other words, we know enough not to dump into the center ring. Ring Theory merely expands that intuition and makes it more concrete: Don't just avoid dumping into the center ring, avoid dumping into any ring smaller than your own.

Remember, you can say whatever you want if you just wait until you're talking to someone in a larger ring than yours.

And don't worry. You'll get your turn in the center ring. You can count on that.

Susan Silk is a clinical psychologist. Barry Goldman is an arbitrator and mediator and the author of "The Science of Settlement: Ideas for Negotiators."

gifting

There is much to be said for giving and for receiving.  

I find I enjoy it when I find the right something for someone. 

 Not so easy really....

that special something that appears and it says give me to ____.  

Cost is not a factor.  

Maybe that is why I find Christmas trying.

Hard to find a present for each that is special.

The other side of giving is receiving and over the years

I have received so many fun, great, interesting things

for which I am so thankful.

It is heartwarming that someone cares enought to

give me something!  

Without trying I found these things that

have been gifted to me.

A few of my favorite things ~

and the best gifts for giving and receiving are free ~