Posts Tagged ‘labyrinth’
Taking Precautions
A few steps forward, and one giant leap back from spring. It is interesting how different 36° (F) can feel depending on whether arriving to it from above or below. When it has been below freezing for months, a day that reaches 36° can feel dramatically warm.
When it has recently been 70° outside, a dip down to 36° feels despicably cold. Same temperature, different perspective.
This morning feels despicable.
Up until now, I have been purposefully avoiding paying attention to the status of the tree we transplanted to the center of the labyrinth last fall. We’ve failed enough times before –three to be exact– that I’m attempting to avoid getting excited too soon.
A couple of days ago, Cyndie texted a picture of the many new leaves that have emerged. Time for my denial to end. With the threat of sub-freezing temperatures predicted, we felt it necessary to cover the sapling for protection from the cold.
It was a challenge, because the sprouts are so delicate that some dropped simply from the abuse of my clumsy attempt to get the sheet up and over the top.
Regardless, I feel better to have tried protecting it, than if we’d done nothing. I’ve watched too many of our other small trees with delicate early growth wither and die in the past two years when warm spring days were followed by hard freezes.
I’m hoping this tree turns out to be as robust as the ten chicks we ordered through the mail have proved to be.
I may be trying to protect myself from disappointment, but I won’t give up without doing everything I can to improve the odds of success. With the cold temperatures, the saturated wetness now, and the likely dry spells to come, we have our work cut out for us for many months ahead.
Here’s hope that our precautions pay off in every way.
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Labyrinth Love
Did you know there is a World Labyrinth Day? Maybe you didn’t even know there was such a thing as a Labyrinth Society. Well, there is, and Cyndie knows all about both. She has been a powerful force in guiding the creation of our precious Rowcliffe Forest Garden Labyrinth at Wintervale, and now she is sharing it with the world of labyrinth lovers around the globe.
Over the weekend she added our site to the Labyrinth Society’s locator database. You can look us up here.
In addition, Cyndie has written an article for Minnesota Women’s Press that was published in their April issue, to express the transformative power of walking the path of a labyrinth. If you follow that link to read her article, don’t be alarmed by the “Edina” address in her bio-line. She offered her parent’s address to align with their Minnesota focus, and that is the one they preferred. It’s not fake news, just an alternate fact.
At the end of that article, there is a paragraph describing World Labyrinth day. We are planning to participate in the “Walk as One at 1pm” wave of peace around the globe by inviting guests to join us at our labyrinth.
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If you are interested in joining us on May 6th, make sure to let us know in advance, so we can be properly prepared.
In the off-hand situation we get an overwhelming number of participants, I’ll just have Cyndie pull out the portable labyrinth she made with canvas and duct tape. I don’t recall if I posted a picture of the finished product already, but here it is on the day she and her LaLas (Labyrinth Ladies; see her article) finished it in the sanctuary of a church.
Come share the love of labyrinths and join in a global wave of peace. It will be transformative!
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Mobile Labyrinth
First off, let’s just get this out of the way. You are all welcome to be my valentine, but I need to ask you to hold off on the chocolate candy hearts. My will-power is hardly robust enough to withstand that amount of sweet gesturing of love. Happy Valentine’s Day! I offer plenty of my low-sugar love to all who happen to read here today.
On Sunday, before huddling in front of a rare MN Wild hockey game broadcast over the airwaves followed by a Grammy Awards broadcast that was entertaining to a degree, but failed —for me— to live up to the hyped level of “Music’s Greatest Night,” Cyndie and I braved a colder than expected morning to work on outlining a labyrinth on canvas.
Since our driveway was now clear of snow and ice up by the house, it became potential space where we could spread out this project that Cyndie has been planning.
Before we laid out the canvas, I used a push-broom to clear the loose grit away. If our neighbor still bothers to watch our every move, I can’t imagine what he must think about my obsession with cleaning the top of our driveway the last few days.
I had already done advance calculations to figure out how wide each lane could be, given the total area of canvas and the number of circuit loops in the design Cyndie chose. Our task of the day was simply to identify and mark the center point from which the rest of the circles will be referenced, and then place a few “tic” marks to place the lanes.
It is all pretty straight forward with a minor exception of the two lanes that become the routes to enter from the outside and the path that reaches the center.
We spent a fair amount of time laying out enough skeleton lines to define the potentially confusing part, leaving the finishing touch of just laying duct tape along the consistent circle of each lane for another time.
While Cyndie measured and ripped pieces of tape off the roll, I sat on the canvas absorbing the thorough cold of the pavement beneath while holding the tape measure dead center and calling out location metrics. I could see her hands slowing down from the cold as the minutes turned into hours.
There are a lot of tedious steps involved, but it was a labor of love. After each step we became inspired to go a little further to lock in the design for her to finish later with friends.
When we finally quit and hustled inside to warm up, we discovered the day hadn’t warmed up at all. The temperature was still in the 30s (F), and with the brisk wind, it became obvious why it felt so much colder than we were expecting.
In our haste to pack the project up and get inside, I failed to capture a photo of our final progress. I’ve informed Cyndie that she’s responsible now for getting a picture of her mobile labyrinth when it’s finally completed.
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Which Way
In the months following Cyndie’s knee replacement procedure at the end of November, I admittedly neglected the labyrinth. Contrary to previous winters, this year I haven’t bothered to walk the path each time it snowed. On Sunday, Cyndie mentioned that she wanted to use the labyrinth again. It was time to tread that pattern.
It wasn’t as easy to execute the proper turns as I had hoped. With the rocks mostly buried, I needed to start from both the outer entrance heading in, and then from the center, heading out, before I figured out precisely where I needed to be.
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Once I had figured out the correct route, as we walked the path and chatted I began to notice a lift in my spirits. Cyndie pointed out something I had completely overlooked: she was walking on the snowshoes with her new knee. It was a noteworthy achievement.
I also discovered something else that was occurring.
My neglect of the labyrinth for the previous months had been intentional, giving me one less thing to tend to during Cyndie’s convalescence. During those months, I felt a small sense of pleasure over not spending any energy on it. What I didn’t realize was, ignoring the labyrinth was contributing to my feelings of hopelessness.
There was this duality again. (See comments with Jim on my post “Being Me.”) I didn’t want to have the labyrinth, and I did want to have it. Both feelings were present at the same time.
It feels like having Cyndie and the labyrinth both functional again is helping me to find my way once more.
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Teamwork Challenged
Yesterday, I experienced a classic example of a frequent challenge Cyndie and I have been navigating to varying degrees over the 35+ years of our life together as husband and wife. Our minds sometimes tend to operate out of sync from one another, despite our best intentions.
It was a beautiful winter day outside, with a lot of blue sky and sunshine, a comfortable temperature, and minimal breezes. We headed out to give Delilah some exercise by letting her run loose in the pastures while throwing discs for her to chase. We walked right past the horses, cutting through their paddock to get out into the hay-field.
On our way back in, Cyndie said she wanted to pay a little visit to the horses. While milling around with them, Cyndie decided to scoop some of the fresh manure under foot. That inspired me to grab a pitch fork and clean the edges of the large pile we have been creating during the snow season.
When she was done cleaning up, Cyndie said she would take Delilah out for one last session of running loose in the back pasture. In a very short time, I was commenting on their quick return.
“Delilah’s tired and I’m getting cold, so we are going to head up.” she reported.
I told her I would finish what I was doing and then follow them shortly. Earlier, Cyndie had asked me what shovel I had used in the past to make a winter path through the labyrinth. I told her the trick is to just walk the route wearing snowshoes, implying we could do that later in the day, after lunch.
As I walked up to the barn to put away my pitch fork, Cayenne turned and approached me for some loving. I soaked up her attention and lingered for what seemed like a long time to me, staying engaged as long as she maintained interest. It’s funny how much hot breath, wet nose, and sloppy tongue seems perfectly acceptable when a horse is choosing to nuzzle and mingle. I searched for a sweet-spot of scratching for her, moving between her ears, neck and chest.
Eventually, what ended our little love fest was Legacy, coming over from the other side of the overhang. I don’t know what reason he had to finally interrupt, but I tried spending a little time with him to see if he was just hoping for similar attention. Since he’s not as accommodating to hands-on affection, it comes across more as though he just doesn’t want her to be getting all the fun.
I finally made my way up to the house, ready for a break and some lunch. Stepping inside, I found no one there. Cyndie must have gone down to the labyrinth already, I thought to myself. Looking out back, sure enough, I spotted Delilah moving around down there. I rallied my energy and decided to join her.
First, I looked in the garage for the snowshoes, but couldn’t find them anywhere. Did we leave the second pair at the lake? Oh well, I’ll grab the plastic shovel, just in case I can find a way to use that to help. The shovel wasn’t where I keep it, either. Frustrated that I couldn’t execute my plan, I walked down empty-handed.
I arrived just in time. Cyndie said she needed my help with figuring out where the turns should be.
Imagine this, it turned out she had brought down the second pair of snowshoes and the plastic shovel, in case I wandered past on my way up to the house.
Now, why didn’t I think of that?
Welcome to my world.
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Goal Achieved
I was wearing a short-sleeve tee-shirt and mowing grass in the warm afternoon sunshine on November 1st. Whaaaaat?
It’s for real. Of course, I also then went inside and watched some baseball on television afterward. It’s like a summer with no end. Something tells me it might make winter’s inevitable arrival come on with an abrupt switch when it finally hits.
So, my main motivation to get out on the lawn tractor was to test out my latest landscaping efforts and see how navigable the path around the southern fence lines is.
It worked! Not flawlessly, but it did work. I have wanted to accomplish this goal for a long time, so this was very satisfying.
There are two spots in particular where I needed to get off the tractor to lift it over a too-steep hazard where there are runoff trenches across the path. If I want to be able to drive across these, I’m going to need to modify them to create much more gradual sloping edges.
That can be done, but it’s not imperative that it happen right away. I’m kinda hoping our grass will stop growing and the snow season will arrive soon enough that I won’t need to be driving around there again until next spring.
After I completed a return trip along that fence line, I turned the corner and was headed toward the labyrinth garden. There, I discovered two deer casually grazing the variety of growing treats within. They looked up at me with mild curiosity, surveying my approach. It surprised me a bit that they didn’t act alarmed or run off.
So I just kept rolling toward them, pulling out my phone to see if I could capture them in a picture to share with Cyndie.
They’re there, but the natural concealment of their coloring is very noticeable, because they are mostly not!
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Four Years
I was reviewing the “Previous Somethings” archive for some posts that I published four years ago and came upon a picture that means so much to me. During our very first visit in 2012 to see this property with our realtor, I was so overwhelmed by the experience that I hardly took any pictures.
This is one of the few I had for remembering what we had seen, to help me describe the place to family and friends. We had walked a short loop of the trails and I dropped behind Cyndie and Patti while dizzily trying to comprehend what I was experiencing. The place was beyond my wildest imaginings for us.
I came to my senses for a moment and remembered my camera. I captured Cyndie and Patti walking in the distance on a mowed path through one of the fields.
They are walking in a spot that today is about where the entrance to the labyrinth garden is, on their left. The tall weeds on the right are now what we call the Back Pasture, surrounded by a fence.
These are some recent shots of how that spot looks now.
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I get a shiver thinking about that first impression and our visions of the possibilities, combined with the realization of all that has come to be in the four years since.
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Autumn Ambiance
I stepped outside to search for some fall scenery to photograph after I got home from work yesterday and was rewarded well beyond my expectations. It helps to never grow too accustomed to the beautiful surroundings we enjoy here.
It would be a shame to ever take this gorgeous place for granted.
The key factor yesterday was that it wasn’t raining. There was actually some blue sky visible. With a high pressure system moving in, we are hoping to for several dry days in a row. It is likely to deliver a dose of our best of autumn weather.
Many of our trails are developing a carpet of fallen leaves that provide a crunch when you walk. More importantly, they are filling the air with the unmistakable scent of the season. When I walk toward the pastures and pop out of the trees, the horses show signs of wondering what huge creature is making all that racket.
Just this huge creature, is all.
When I got down to our Rowcliffe Forest Garden Labyrinth, the sunlight was getting low. Cyndie had recently mowed and weeded the labyrinth, which gave it a well-tended glow anyway.
I walked to the far side and paused to stare at the beauty all around me. I was looking away from the entrance for the shortest of moments, and when I turned back around I was startled by the sudden silent presence of a lone young deer happily standing nearby.
It was as if it had magically materialized in the spot. I realized right away that it was totally unaware of me standing there. When it stepped through our fence and walked into the pasture to graze, I stealthily moved to a rock nearby and lifted my camera to capture the scene in video…
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Updated View
The satellite view I reference most often was finally updated to show our property after all our renovations. Back in early July, I posted about my surprise finding that the satellite view available on Apple devices was updated to 2015. I recently discovered that the view on Google maps has been updated to show our property as of this spring, 2016.
We are able to see the wild flower garden that Cyndie had started and the T-post fence we put up to sub-divide the back pasture, both of which happened in April. The trees look fully leafed out and I had obviously mowed the lawn, but the farm fields look bare.
I found particular pleasure in noticing that all 4 horses were again in view. This time they are somewhat evenly spread, grazing around the perimeter of the round pen.
We found one object that we haven’t been able to identify in the yard. The resolution stops just short of providing the necessary definition. If it were a different color, I’d guess it might be me mowing the lawn.
I may need to review my posts from that timeframe to see if there is anything that triggers a memory about something we had been up to in that spot.
I love having this overhead view to refer to. If satellite images weren’t available on the internet, I just might be inspired to get a drone, so I could take my own shots and have some control over when and how often they are done.
I’ll be interested to see how long this view is active on Google. Now that I have a good reference point, the next update will clearly reveal the duration between updates of this region.
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Cloudy Skies
The weather did not cooperate with our desires to see the predicted spectacle of the Perseid meteor shower outburst Thursday and Friday nights. Cyndie held a workshop over the last two days that had been intentionally timed to coincide with the opportunity.
Our views were blocked by cloudy skies both nights.
The good news about that outcome is that I got to sleep through the wee hours of the mornings, instead of being outside star gazing or watching the NASA live stream broadcast of the events.
Workshop participants still had plenty of opportunities to enjoy all that Wintervale provides. Thursday evening was beautiful for their walk in the labyrinth. The sky looked threatening on Friday during exercises with the horses, but those sessions were completed before raindrops started to fall. That timed well for the final indoor expressive arts integration projects.
In my role as staff photographer, I showed up at the round pen when they were learning with Legacy. He was being very attentive to the preparations of this exercise.
I particularly enjoyed seeing how differently he responds to each individual who interacts with him. Part of me tends to assume the horses are just responding to a routine to which they are familiar, and that may be true to a degree, but the specifics are definitely unique.
That is the reason the exercises work the way they do, and why the horses provide these amazing opportunities for us to experience valuable insights.
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Legacy was definitely present in this moment.
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Relative Something 