In the Shuttle, Hurtling Through Space and Time

The task of getting everything done over the past few weeks has felt titanic--Doug's final weeks pushed me to be mindful of the work I want to do in my life related to growing food, weaving community, living in place on the land. Beginning with the morning of the day he died when Baci, Patrice and I went over to his and Sue's house to weed and turn over her garden, I spent an entire week really mostly meditating on life, his, mine, ours--and worked on creating the path in the woods for meditation and reflection. It centered me, kept me sane, gave me a space and time and place to grieve, connected me with my son, my daughter, my spiritual core and helped me gather strength for this journey. It also made me go very far into my "premodern" Green Man self--hours spent moving stones, looking deeply at the trees and the plants and the place; really seeing and feeling and hearing the place we are beginning to inhabit and create at Spiral Earth. All of this vital to my life and ability to be present in my placetime.

Then, the struggle to get things together for this trip--pulling me all the way through time into my "postmodern" self, which I am beginning to see as a kind of "techno-kokopelli" traveler (more about this later). Planning for the tools and technologies to bring--camera, sound recording, not just for interviews but also, I hope, for musical explorations. Deciding whether and which laptop to bring, because it will make my fieldwork richer to type notes and have the capabilities of this machine with me in the field. Rushing over to the UP for a short, lovely visit with the Belotes to plan for how to make this research trip focused and productive. Getting together gifts (had to bring the right kind of indigo this time--thanks Linda and Jackson!--else Mami Petro would be disappointed, as well as the right embroidery needles for Anita--I hope--and lots of good pictures of the family).

All of this going on while also trying to get the local foods grant Stacey Stark and David Abasz and I received up and off the ground so Kelsey and Sam could get started on their interviews of local growers. And I scheduled for my sister, Lori, to visit me for the first time ever in my life at my home so she could see community in action and rest a little from her two jobs (assembling electrical harness in a factory and cooking food for inmates at a county jail).

We pulled together a really nice 4^th of July party with lots of great people gathering for food and company at the farm--but lots of work this, all while also trying to get the last of the garden in and growing and fenced against dogs and other critters. Oh, and then there's the fact of organizing and decluttering our entire house in order to show it on the market to try to sell it to move to the farm full-time. It's a sheer wonder that Mitra didn't just walk out the door and keep on walking and never come back--but she rolled up her sleeves and worked her tail off and supported me in every possible way that a loving partner could (and more!)

Now I am hurtling down the highway in the Twin Cities, my last few miles of road travel on I-35 (the same road as Ecuador-35 that passes through central Ecuador and Saraguro!) with a dozen U.S. strangers all headed off on various plane journeys in their life adventures. I will be staying at a hotel  near the Mall of America tonight--one with a Native American "theme"--i.e. beadwork headdresses and such in display cases--should take photos of these to show the ladies in Saraguro. I'm going to go shop at the Mall for gifts, including beads to take to the cooperatives as gifts, and various cheap electronic toys made in China that I will take as presents to the children of Andean indigenous peasants (one of those post-modern ironies), because they love them, as the Belotes have noted from their many trips to Saraguro.

I'll do my best to post to this blog as Internet access and time is available so anyone interested can hear about what The Professor is up to.