A Celestial Change A Comin.

 

The birds are flying high over the yard.  Floating on the uplift coming from the center.  Song birds swooping at the heights of Ravens and Vultures singing their songs down on the world below.  

Occasionally flying down to feed on raspberry seeds, and suck the nectar out of flowers that are abundant in the yard.  We have a plethora of birds that make the yard their home.  Sitting and watching the antics is similar to watching an old fashioned soap opera on television. 

I spied a squirrel crawl up on top of a rock in the neighbors yard, yawn a big yawn, stretch out the full length of his furry little body and plop belly flat on the rock putting his head in between his little forearms.  He remained motionless for about 5 minutes, a long time for a squirrel, then popped straight up landing on all fours and scampered up a nearby tree.  Naps in short spurts, the life of the Tree Rat.  

The back of the yard is still wet enough that mowing that part of the lawn isn't happening until the water dries up.  I must do that soon, I feel the threat of cockatoos and monkeys sitting on the horizon.  This has been the wettest and universally the most miserable summer in the past 20 years world wide.  If it's not an over abundance of rain and flooding, the temperatures are quickly soaring to heights where humans can't survive.  So our choices are drowning, or roasting.  I'm expecting to see a giant chef in the clouds soon.  Gordon Ramsey is a celestial spy, I just know it. 

Today, however has started out very nice.  Birds are happy, bugs are happy, fellows with larger than average feet are happy, and the energies are rising high over head.  There is a change on the horizon...

Peace and Balance,

John

The Wonders of Benadryl

 

I have strange allergies.  They come they go, they sneak up on me and strike when I least expect them.  Hidden in my stuff I even have one of them self injectors full of epinephrine.  I'm supposed to use that when I suspect an episode of swelling, the type that put me in the ER the last time I was in the hospital.  I couldn't breath, the tongue swelled up, and the throat was closing.  So, I put on a pair of pants and drove myself to the hospital.  They gave the appropriate medications and eventually sent me home with a script for the injector.  

I have been instructed to take a Benadryl as soon as I feel the onset of the swelling.  Benadryl works pretty darn good to detour the effects of my allergies.  It has a nasty side effect however, one that I really could do without.  

About an hour after I take the pill the mystical Benadryl gods come and suck my brain out of my left ear.  I begin to become extremely sleeping and loose the ability to have rational conversations.  What I can muster comes out in grunts and growls, and the occasional un-mentionable adjective.  After the effects start wearing off my head begins to go through several levels of expanding and contracting followed by incredible whistling sounds at different tones and volumes.  It's wonderful thing, really.  

I didn't have any of these problems until I reached the, "respectable" age.  For those of you who don't know, the respectable age begins at about 60 and goes through to the age of ultimate knowledge right around 80.  So we are respectable for about 20 years then we become the keepers of the worlds secrets.  We don't have to be respectable anymore and have earned the right to point our boney fingers at the youth of the world and command their attentions with that special glare, and the grimace of the ages.  I remember that look from my grandmother, it was terrifying. Until then I'll pretend to be Respectable as long as I can get away with it.  

The thing about my allergies is that I'm allergic to the trees of my home. Trees like Boxelder, Silver Pine, Ponderosa Pine, and Birch.  Birch is the only one that is indigenous to New England, the others have gotten here on the boots of travelers and have germinated.  So, every year at about this time I go through a few weeks, and into the summer, of torture, torment, and the need for Benadryl.  

Swelling, itching, complaining, and the effects of drugs aside, Spring is still my favorite time of year.  And as far as being Respectable goes, getting old Sucks...

Peace and Balance,

John

Spring

 

I wake pretty early in the morning.  Part of my morning ritual is to meander outside the house and gaze upon my yard and sky.  This morning, the beginning of the actual first full day of Spring, I heard some early spring sounds.  My big trees, I have a 150 foot White Pine, and an equally tall Black Silace, (Willow), were both slowly rocking and making those noises that only big trees make in Spring.  

If you listen real carefully you hear a creak that has a different pitch for each of the trees.  With a slight breeze the creak sounds almost like a barely audible sigh.  The type of sigh you get when you breath in deep some cool air and breath out in contented happiness.  My trees are waking up and singing to the sky.  

I watched the Sun peaking out from atop the ridge through the forest.  It is coming up at a slightly more North Easterly direction than it did a month ago, and the sky around it is taking on a lavender/purple hue.  A hue outlining the bright yellow of the rising sun.  This time of year is the only time of year for that color.  It too makes a sound of it's very own.  Barely perceptible, a low vibration can be felt and heard if your listening skills are honed.  That, and the trees are telling me the world is alive, the mother wakes.  

Being the good child of Mother Nature, I rejoice at the thought of the re-birth that is about to come upon us.  Regardless if you are prepared or not, this cycle will come and go as the World breaths itself in and out.  Spring has come.

Soon the weather will stabilize and the sun will be even higher in the sky.  It will take on a more orange hue and the glow will warm the land as it travels.  Spring in the valley transitions first, then the tops of the ridges wake.  Snows disappear and bears beginning wandering from their dens.   Cubs can be seen wrestling atop banks.  The season called Mud follows. 

This is my favorite time of year.  New life walks from East to West every day.  To look beyond is to look into the future.  Eagles fly and salmon spawn, the streams and lakes come to life.  The land breaths in and out preparing for the growth that will come.  

I notice to, that my own body starts to wake earlier and some of the aches and pains of age go away.  I love this time of year.  Spring...

Peace and Balance,

John

The Big Wind

 

When the North Wind blows there are few things that are spookier.  I expect snow living in the mountains, I expect rain, I even expect the occasional lack of both, but what I don't really expect is the kind of wind that I used to experience on the Northern Plains.  My memories are vague, but I can remember days when the Jet Stream came low close to the ground and would blow 60 MPH or faster.  That kind of wind can tear up crops, and lay down barns.  

Here in the valley between Mt. Forest, Jasper, and the Southern ridge of the Mahoosuks, one doesn't expect the kind of wind that makes the house squeak, and the trees grumble.  Generally we think protection from the mountains keeps the Big Wind away, but the North Wind finds ways of sliding down the valley to us little creatures below.  

It's not the snow, or the rain, it's not even the ice, I have a little four wheel drive pony that keeps me traveling from one place to the other.  It's the wind that gets my nerves twitching.  We have tall trees.  Tall trees and Big Wind usually make power outages plentiful, and home repair a must.  In my yard I have a couple large trees, both over 100 feet tall, both make me edgy when the wind blows hard.  If I talk to them, and I do, I get the feeling that all's well.  So the trees know better than I.  

The Big Wind will be gone soon, the rain will stop, the temperature will drop and things will freeze, and in two days it's Christmas.  So, to you the readers of Now and Zen, Merry Christmas and have faith that Santa will travel safely through the Weather.

Peace and Balance,

John