Walking through the winter woods with L. The morning forest with drifting mist reflected in the rays of morning sunlight in shafts of warming light.
A bird flys through the forest canopy overhead. We could hear it's wing pump through the air.
"I hate the company. I hate what they do to people"
L's head bent down as if ramming though the air as we walked.

L's words; "hate", "they", "people"; "company", what was really the issue?

Looking around the forest. The word "forest" but what is behind that word? We are talking about a place filled with trees, but there is so much more to a forest.
L's words were about what was going on deep inside. L was talking about L.

"Raise your head, L, and look around you. What do you see?"

L's words and bent head let me know L was disconnected, was in pain, was not really present but deep inside thoughts and feelings yet unnamed, unrealized.

I wondered how many times we all been lost in our own forest when in reality we weren't lost at all; we are right here.

Halloween was the first rain.
Cold night drizzle not as resolute as a hardy downpour.

By Thanksgiving weekend a healthy rain has come and gone followed by crisp cold mornings but a warm trusty Sun peeking through the clouds. The seasonal stream behind the house has not yet begun to flow. A walk toward the lower pasture means crossing the stream bed.
Dry and covered with bleached smooth rocks, like old bones, that testify to last years torrent of life giving water.
The rain promises to fill the stream.
The dry stream is the history of a promise fulfilled.
But then this notion is just a play on words in the mind.
Promise is about an expectation.

In nature there is only, in the sublime and overt, Nature.
Promises are often the precursor to disappointment.
Petulant Human!
Bon mot!

Turkeys have had a bad rap.
Ben Franklin wanted to have a Turkey as the national bird since it was the smartest bird known at that time.

Anyone who has hunted wild turkey will tell you it isn't a cake walk; I say it is a turkey trot.
I would go turkey hunting and God forbid I shot one. What a mess and cleaning it, getting the shot out of it. Just an all around nasty business. Plus wild turkey is gamey tasting.
Nope, turkey hunting was my way of getting out of the house, and mending fence, stacking hay, cleaning tack, and working on the ranch truck.
Shotgun, jerky, couple of bags of peanuts, a sandwich, and a cold beer wrapped in newspaper and I was out in the woods for a little trot.

The guys in town would ask if I bagged my turkey and I would say yes. They would ask where and I would tell them the store.
Years ago I got a ribbing, But as time went on more of the guys were joining me on a chilly morning hunt where we talked, laughed, caught up on each other, and made enough noise no upstanding turkey would dare come within a hundred yards.
More of a reason for socializing was our yearly turkey trot.

May your Thanksgiving be more of a turkey trot with laughter, sharing, and socializing.

Happy Thanksgiving

Who was it that went into Hades to retrieve his true love?
Did she really want to come out of Hades. It is time to review myths and written history.
We all have our personal myths. Our beliefs about our history and about those around us. Like the fish that grows in length with each telling of the fish story, so our myths, and personal history changes.
Our first love, our first injury, our first accident, our fights, and frustrations. All lay in our mind as dreams of the past.

Where is the border of dreams, truth, reality, living history and remembered history? Is the border in our dreams? Or is the border between reality and unreality in the moment; in today?

Truth, and fiction tend to blend like roasted coffee of the mind.
We live in a time of blended truth unusual in history due to our access to media in all forms.
How do we seperate what is true and what is not?
It is not easy!
But wait! What if we just talk about what we really know.
What do you really know for sure?
It is what we can see, what we can smell, what we can hear, what we can touch and how we feel emotionally.
From that point on, we can only report what comes to us second hand.

My border is what I can sense and what I can say about my emotions.
Everything else,,,I cross the border. I cross the boundary of truth and reality to conjecture and second hand information, and speculation.
Sometimes the only way to know our borders is to cross them..I think that is called ___________________.

Thirty was not as bad as everyone said. Thirty-nine was edgy and then forty came along. Then 45 hit and so did denial. The big 50 came with thundering realizations. The body. Our temple of spirit seemed to be showing signs of slowing, and damage. The light at the end of the tunnel was no longer a figure of speech.

All the time the process was transpiring, there was inside a kid. A kid who could be serene, could be lost in the beauty of in single blade of grass, could be stung by a slight, could laugh with reckless abandon, a kid that found simple joys in running or pretending to be something other, and above all else, a kid who found the wonder in life.

The kid just told me it is time to go outside and play.
Hi Kids!