Posts Tagged ‘perception’
Bangs Up
Yesterday afternoon, Cyndie found the horses in the right mood to have their manes combed out right after they finished their servings of feed. That doesn’t happen all that often, so she stayed engaged with them and ultimately spent time with each mare.
Swings’ bangs usually cover her eyes because of the way they fall forward and grow so long. When I looked up, I found that Cyndie had combed the bangs up and back and hooked them behind Swings’ ear.
I hardly recognized her! It made me laugh out loud, though I was quick to assure Swings that it was a great look for her. She didn’t appear convinced.
A swift shake of her head poofed the mane bangs loose again, but they didn’t immediately lay back down over her eyes.
The different look takes years off her appearance. Swings carries herself impressively well for a 31-year-old horse.
It was a treat to watch all the horses be so soothed by Cyndie’s attention to their manes, and particularly with the repeated stroking of their bangs. It’s a mystery to me why they would suddenly show such obvious appreciation for this kind of care when their norm is to object to our requests to groom them.
It occurs to me as I write this that my sense of the passage of time might need to be extended for them. They may be gradually growing more accepting of our grooming attention, but at a pace much slower than seemed logical from my perspective. Years instead of weeks or months.
We’ve waited this long; I’m okay with letting them choose how much longer it will take for them to feel ready to regularly accept more hands-on attention from us.
This week, back-combing their bangs. Maybe next week, brushing out all their tails?
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Appreciating Imperfection
With autumn comes that classic transition from a range of greens to rainbows of yellow/orange/red/purple hues. It’s beautiful and a joy to watch day by day as it happens.
There is still a green path in the woods beyond the portion already being covered with fallen leaves.
Our romantic mental image of spectacular fall colors is an amalgamation of all the greatest scenes we’ve enjoyed in person or through photographs over a lifetime. It’s a legitimate picture even though reality can be less idyllic.
It’s still a little early in the season, but the version of fall colors that we are currently seeing at Wintervale is lacking in the splendor that truly inspires wonder and awe.
For now, our treasured autumn vistas are best experienced from a distance.
That’s not to say there aren’t still some dazzling colors to be found across our landscape. This hollyhock is displaying one last gasp of vibrancy.
I’m working on my appreciation for imperfection in the changing leaves that are unlikely to make the cover of fall publications this year.
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Fast Day
Another day flies by in a blink. One of the fastest ways time passes for me is in conversation with people at reunions. Yesterday was not part of Cyndie’s class reunion events, but we did host a couple of her classmates in a visit that swallowed hours of the day in one big gulp.
Thom and Paul joined Cyndie and her friends in a variety of activities as they were leaving high school and entering college. We laughed as Cyndie reminded Thom that he had planned a backpacking trip to the Grand Teton Mountains in Wyoming, which he ended up not being able to take with them. A short time later, Thom pointed at a picture and asked when it was taken because it looked like it was his sleeping bag in the image.
Cyndie: “Yeah, that’s the camping trip you planned but didn’t go on. You even gave us your sleeping bag to use.”
Too funny.
The pictures that Cyndie shared led to a few instances in which they all recognized what they were seeing, but without actual memories of the occasions. Witnessing mental files being rummaged through that probably hadn’t been accessed for decades was entertaining.
It was a wonderful day to be outside. Asher was on his best behavior and made sure everyone had a chance to pet him. Cyndie worked her incredible magic in the kitchen and served both breakfast and lunch for our guests. We walked some trails in the woods, visited the labyrinth, and spent quality time with the horses.
Thom took a picture of us with the horses. That was nice. We don’t have many pictures of ourselves together with the horses.
After our guests departed, Cyndie had to leave for an appointment, and suddenly it was just Asher and me. Time slowed down a little bit. We walked to the lookout spot on the first hill of the driveway to enjoy the nice breeze and watch the sun descend through some clouds.
Just like that, our fast day faded toward its end at a more logical pace.
We had a treasure of a day, at every speed.
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Fast December
Does anyone else feel like the first week of December has passed in a blink? I’m going to need to start planning my decorations for Valentine’s Day soon. I’m not sure I can remember where my red hearts sweater is stashed. I’ll need to dig it out for all the Valentine’s Day celebrations people will be hosting.
Of course, I jest. February is too far over the horizon today. I’m busy getting ready for New Year’s Day. Meanwhile, Cyndie is getting a head start on some of her holiday treat-making for December festivities.
Cookies aren’t far behind.
I’m biding my time until the weekend bake-athon by working hard to stay awake while trying to finish reading a Bruce Springsteen biography, walking Asher through the snow –which he is absolutely loving– watching big matchups between NCAA & NFL teams in US football (Indiana winning the Big Ten Championship!), and taking photos of scenes that catch my eye.
How about those shadow patterns in the snow on the back deck? Cool, eh?
Today is primed to deliver a fresh batch of flakes if the predictions prove accurate.
…POTENTIAL FOR HEAVY, ACCUMULATING SNOW AND VERY GUSTY WINDS FROM CENTRAL MINNESOTA TO WESTERN WISCONSIN TUESDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT…
The forecast map last night placed us in a band indicating a span of possibilities from 1-5 inches. That’s a pretty safe range for them to predict without being wrong, but as they often add, advisory zones may shift as the system advances. We could get more, we could get less.
At least I’ve got the ATV plow finally set up correctly and ready to face the task at hand. If I end up spending a few days clearing snow, I expect to check the calendar and find we are suddenly just hours away from Christmas.
December is flying by in a flash! Make sure you are staying off the naughty list!
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Universal Consciousness
Once again, I refer you to the mind-expanding podcast, “The Telepathy Tapes,” which has significantly rekindled Cyndie’s and my frames of mind in recent weeks. In season one, the evidence of non-verbal autistic individuals picking up information telepathically is demonstrated. From there, additional fascinating happenings unfold, logical conclusions, really, given how they relate, but also continuing to push the boundaries of our modern-day perceptions of reality.
Season two just keeps on going. Once you wrap your mind around the idea that thoughts can be perceived, it’s not that hard to figure out how animals seem to behave as if they know what we are thinking. It’s a shame that the mechanisms of modern society have distanced the human race so far from a spiritual reverence for all living things and even the Earth, in its entirety –Mother Earth, to many Indigenous people.
Why wouldn’t we carve into the body of our mother to mine minerals that allow us to transmit electric signals and create pocket computers that enable us to doom scroll addictively for hours out of a day?
I suppose there might be a balance to be had in there somewhere, but I hope you get my point. There are energies in the world we can’t see without microscopes or electronic devices. At one time, people didn’t know bacteria were infecting us that were undetectable to the naked eye. Today, that is well understood as an obvious fact.
Maybe someday enough people will accept the mounting evidence of consciousness existing in a plane beyond what our eyes and ears perceive that it will be seen as a given by everyone to the same degree.
Despite Cyndie’s many “tricks” to hide the fact that we were planning to pack for a trip to the lake place, Asher always begins his clingy behavior at the time she begins thinking about what she needs to do in preparation. It is totally understandable to us now, given the verifying evidence presented in The Telepathy Tapes episodes.
As I’ve written before, we were already inclined to accept the incredible concepts of interspecies communication because Cyndie has experienced it with horses on multiple occasions. Just because we believe it doesn’t mean we totally understand it.
I shouldn’t be surprised, really. Why have most people lost their ability to detect and understand the universal consciousness that radiates throughout the world?
This morning, I wonder why deer don’t all pick up on the thoughts of hunters waiting in their stands and stay away. We heard plenty of gunshots around sunrise this morning. The horses are definitely on higher alert.
Throw out some extra love into the universal consciousness today. I guarantee there are living beings who are perceiving the energy and will welcome your contribution.
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Emphatic Change
I don’t know if you will be able to tell the difference, but I am not writing from home this morning. Cyndie and I are in a completely different location on a lake in northern Wisconsin near a town with a Coop’s Pizza restaurant that serves one of our favorite crust/sauce/cheese combinations.
Okay, we are up at the lake place again. That shouldn’t be a surprise. I just felt a little mystery would be more interesting than the same old, same old this time around.
One thing is very different up here this visit, though, but it is not mysterious at all. The lodge has been reduced to a tiny shell of its old self.
We watched the beginning of the demolition as we left for home two weeks ago. I’m told they are waiting on some permits before new construction gets underway to replace the portion that was torn down. One of the first challenges will be leveling the floor of the remaining historic portion, aligning it with the fixed position of the fireplace and chimney.
There is a wild dynamic at play, as the massive change of the shared space vanishes so dramatically, yet it doesn’t feel like that big of a deal at this point. I believe this community of six families has grown accustomed to this kind of change over the years and understands how it will ultimately lead to positive outcomes in the long run.
I have a sense that the significance of these changes would have bothered me more when I was younger than I am experiencing today. Maybe not, though. I received an early lesson in this kind of change when the farmland where I lived as a kid was sold for development, stripped of its trees, and hills leveled so it could become an industrial park.
At this point in my life, I’m finding it surprisingly easier to accept “progress” that seems inevitable.
Change is always happening. Sometimes, just a little more emphatically than others.
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Twelve Years
Have you ever heard of a granuloma?
gran•u•lo•ma | granyə’lōmə |
a mass of granulation tissue, typically produced in response to infection, inflammation, or the presence of a foreign substance.
Twelve years ago, this happened to me:
“…I started to get careless and impatient. I stepped right into the needle-sharp point of a wood thorn on one tree branch. It punctured the side of my knee and left me in a lot of pain. I checked more than once to make sure the tip hadn’t broken off in there. It didn’t look like it, but it sure hurt like something was still in there.” – Relative Something: Day Off, July 23, 2013
The site of the puncture became reddened and eventually purple. On occasion, I was able to drain some pus or clear fluid. My doctor looked at it once and decided it didn’t look concerning. After a while, it calmed down and just remained a purple dot on the side of my knee that I lived with, unconcerned. I would have guessed maybe five years had passed. Possibly seven.
A couple of weeks ago, the site began to swell up anew. It became hard to ignore, and I picked at it a bit. The top dead layer of skin over the site would flake off. When I picked at the skin recently, it opened up and released clear fluid again. I told myself I would give it closer attention when I next had an opportunity.
That opportunity was Sunday evening. After I’d done some squeezing around the area, I noticed a dark spot. I grabbed a pair of tweezers and prepared to see what I could accomplish.
This was the result:
For twelve years, that thorn was poked straight into the side of my knee so deep it was not visible. Apparently, my cells had walled it off to isolate it, and the situation became a standoff. I am lucky that it didn’t interfere with the knee joint and became easy to ignore. The only reason I figured out it had been in there for twelve years was because I knew I had written about it in this blog when it happened, and found the post by searching for the words “thorn” and “puncture.”
As I attempted to grip it with the tweezers, I worried it would be mushy and break apart, but it was completely solid and hard enough to be easily grasped.
At almost 2 cm long, I could barely believe my eyes as it exited my knee in one long, smooth pull. I’ve been feeling giddy over having it out ever since. It’s kind of funny to me that I had grown indifferent to the purple spot for more than a decade, but now feel so overjoyed to have the cause of that dot extracted. I’m curious as to why my body decided it was finally time to push it to the surface. Maybe it was just so deep it took this long to do.
None of that matters now. It’s out! And I am incredibly happy that it is.
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Solitary Refinement
In the middle of my solo escape to the lake, I find myself thinking about how I can most fully absorb the pleasures of these agenda-less days. When I am tasked daily at home with duties, the dream of having nothing pressing me into an activity grows and grows. I long to have no reason to get out of bed and to pick and choose what comes next by whim instead of by the hour on the clock. An hour, by the way, that has once again shifted disorientingly forward to DST overnight. Ugh, I say, and I don’t even have any schedule that needs to be upheld today.
Looking back on the already vanished last two days of luxurious solo pursuits, I fear the benefits of getting what I so dearly wanted are disappearing without my fully appreciating the greatness of the moments. Today, I plan to see if I can improve on that perception.
There is a herd of deer wandering the grounds that I have enjoyed seeing each day. I counted seven yesterday in the middle of a sunny afternoon. From the obvious pattern of their heavily traveled hoof prints in the snow, it appears they have a much more set agenda than I do.
I made my way to our mini labyrinth in the woods and reclaimed the pathway with my own footprints. There was no sign of wildlife traffic in that area.
No, the deer have been walking right past the house along the ridge above the lake. One or two of them had approached the house to nibble on the branches of one of the landscape shrubs.
I took a few pictures on my walk yesterday morning when the temperature was still below freezing. There was a striking difference in the texture of the snow where shade had kept it all wonderfully powdery, as opposed to the hard crust more prominent everywhere else.
Later in the day, the clouds broke up, and the sun kicked up the amount of melting significantly.
My slow, aimless wandering was one of the divine pleasures I want to deeply appreciate in its contrast to strolling along with Asher, which is more my norm.
Oh, my. Look at the hour. How can it be this late already? Oh, yeah. That.
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Too Short
That all-too-brief taste of winter last week has left me wanting. It certainly isn’t all about me and what I want, but another 50°F day in February kind of made me sad yesterday, even as I luxuriated in an easy stroll down the driveway with the trash and recycle bins without wearing a coat.
I’m well aware of the break this offers to people who drive a lot or struggle to cope with cold and snow. I don’t begrudge the pleasure they must be feeling about the minimalist version of winter we are experiencing.
Scenes like these lasted too short for me…
I suppose if I would just pull out my bicycle and take advantage of the dry roads I might get over my mopey attitude.
I don’t know why, but I’m finding my mindset of longing for a more wintery winter is a difficult one to shift.
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Learning How
Every day I am learning how to do something. Some days it’s as simple as figuring out how to identify what I want to do next. Sorting out wants from needs and determining priorities. We do that our entire lives but I feel like I am still learning how to do it with each new day’s parameters.
None of us have been to January 19, 2024, until now, under today’s circumstances. It wouldn’t hurt to take a humble and inquisitive view of whatever tasks we face each day, whether they are familiar or not. We might learn something. For one example, we all need to learn to adapt to the ongoing changes of our warming planet.
Lately, I find a lot of my learning has to do with our dog, Asher. My life would be a heck of a lot easier if he spoke words in my language.
“Just tell me what you want!”
That usually gets me the tilted-head blank stare or just continued whining.
One thing that he seems very happy with is heavy physical play from me. I’m not always in the mood, but when I am, I try to give him a strong dose of roughhousing.
His foster mom told us he liked to play rough with their other dogs so I use my hands like a dog’s mouth and grab at his neck and ears when we do battle. Sometimes I push him away (he charges right back at me) and sometimes I pull him in to keep him guessing.
You can see in the pictures that Asher has a ball in his mouth. That is the object we are battling over for possession. If there is no toy to occupy his teeth, my head and hands become the next target for a grasp by his jaw.
The matches are no-holds-barred and I need to be sure to remove my glasses because I get punched a lot when he is trying to reach out and get a leg up on me.
The struggle I have with this game is that he never seems to get tired of it. I need to learn how to nurture a transition to a cool-down activity when I’m ready for a break in the action.
There is no tapping out, although he is sensitive enough to back off and check on me if he notices I got hurt.
The easiest way to switch his focus is to produce a dog treat for him to eat. Asher has learned an impressive level of command compliance indoors with training drills. I wish the offering of treats carried the same power in the great outdoors.
We both are learning more about each other every day.
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