Other loves:
Here at Angelfire...I hope to focus on current reading interests and other subjects dear to my heart. This page has a long way to go ...You can also visit me at Hotsprings (occasionally, servers may be busy and it will say I don't exist --but I really do exist:-) --just try again a little later)..but I'm especially looking forward to developing a little nook for myself at RainBlessed ...so please come back and visit me again!
As an Oregon native, I find the wet-washed landscape of the Willamette Valley familiar and reassuring. When other people complain about the rain, I have to smile ...I love waking up to a soft misting rain in the pre-dawn ...walking out into the softness of light rain on a gray morning soothes me. Snuggled under a warm blanket by a window, looking out on shifting sheets of water comforts me. Nothing lullabyes me to sleep like the sound of falling water ...whether hard rains, lapping lakeshore, singing waterfalls, or rushing Pacific waves.
When does the rain get me down? Only when I'm pushing my soul into a hurried little corner ...rushing around and trying to control everything in my world. It worries at my absorption with clocks and bus schedules and umbrellas. When I give in to the LifeEnergy of my watery world, the rain is a benediction on my skin ...blessed coolness on my face as I float in a steamy hotspring-fed pool...or pouring rivulets down my face as I work my garden in a laughing celebration of just plain MUD! It's a reminder that Life is not always tidy and there is a time to let go and just BE.
May the rain bless you with the energy of growth and life.
My NEWEST page is a whimsical little tale I promised a friend to recount: our recent trip to the Columbia Gorge Amphitheater in George Washington to experience the Bob Dylan concert.
Lit links, favorite Nature spots, and who knows what...
There's no room to list all my reading interests, but whether I'm fishing in the Pyrenee's with Hemingway, or doing the same with Aldo Leopold along the banks of Sand County ...contemplating the starry heavens with the Little Prince ...learning lessons from the Amish with midwife Penny Armstrong ...struggling to understand "Thou Mayest" with Steinbeck, breathlessly hurrying behind Piglet to Eeyore's birthday party, or wrapping my life experiences around me like a many colored shawl (with the inspiration of Zora Neale Hurston) ...books have always been my friends, teachers, and windows on the world through the eyes of another.
Go to my Beat Writers page to see many more links to Kerouac and others...especially On the Road, Dharma Bums, and Big Sur.
My HotSprings site for more Beat links & comments, including my rapturous introduction to the poetry and writing of Gary Snyder.
This is Marcel Mitran's Papa Page, biographical web work about Hemingway
Literary Chats for all kinds of readers ...
personally, I have an unreasoning fear of chat rooms, but maybe someday...
Here's lots more links and maps for Steinbeck country ...ah, the Salinas Valley, Monterey...
Take a quick little tour of beautiful, and often rainy, Oregon. Don't like it? As they say in the local beer commercial: Have a nice day...somewhere else:-)
Nature places of Power and Magic
Well, for one, Forest Park, shown at the top of this page. Walk out of busy streets of cafes and shops and galleries and pubs, walk into residential neighborhoods a century old, and keep walking ...and you find yourself in Forest Park. This is America's largest urban Wilderness Park. The city fades back behind the trees and hills and you feel much farther away from the city busy-ness than the short distance can explain. I used to work in an old building on the very edge of the park, actually tucked right back into it. On really tough days with some really tough clients, I'd take my break in the form of a short hike into the hills and find my balance again. Occasionally, I might look out an office window and see deer grazing on the lawn, or find a huge raccoon doing a little dumpster diving in the back of the building. Sometimes, it was the only way to catch my breath. Breitenbush Hotsprings
Breitenbush Hotsprings is Magic... a sacred place to me, and a source of deep spiritual healing.
It's hard to describe the power this place has for me, but I want to try and express my first impression: As I walked to my cabin under towering old growth trees, with the river singing nearby, I experienced the very sure and certain knowledge that I was on Sacred Ground. I could feel the energy of the Earth flow up into my body in greeting and my own body's energy flow back in joyous recognition ...and I felt Connected and Present in an entirely new way.
I first came to Breitenbush for a massage training retreat, I was completely unprepared for the powerful magic ...more than just hotsprings and forest and river and sky. I felt all the compressed sorrow and pain of my daily life in the city welling up and demanding release. It was a painful process to let it out, but I found myself drawn down to the Breitenbush river. Seated on the rocky shore, the rough stones smoothed by river changes, I found myself letting my own emotions wash up and swell and release ...and the pain seemed to gradually flow away.
My first entry in the Guestbook said this was "the most relentlessly healing place I have ever encountered!" I came back to the city relaxed and with an inner peace and stability I had never known before. May your journeys take you here, or to other places as extraordinary.
(click on the Breitenbush link to GO THERE or click on the picture of the majestic Breitenbush forest to go to their Forest Advocacy page)
Search Engines:
Search Oregon sites at Matilda or go to my Search Engines site
at Hotsprings.
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