Cliff dwellers and south-facing slopes

This weekend, my good friend, Hillary came to visit me from Minnesota. She was surprised how cold it was. Lucky the dog was convinced she was there to see him and him alone. On Friday night, we took a picnic up to the crest of the Sandias to watch the sunset. Achingly beautiful and disablingly cold. My hands were THIS close to falling off. On Saturday morning, we ate breakfast burritos and sweet rolls at The Frontier before we headed up to the Jemez Mountains. Near the Walatowa visitor center are my favorite red rocks ever.

This is what they looked like exactly one week before. Rocks and trees. Two of the best things ever made.

From there, we climbed around the soda dam on Hwy. 4 and then drove up past the caldera: Finally we got to Bandelier, former home of Anasazi cliff dwellers.

Me in a cliff-dwelling. I know for sure I could not have survived this in real life. I have great admiration for the people who did. Hillary in a cliff dwelling.
The "long house". There are lots of masonry-built additions to the cliff along this section. There are also some well-preserved petroglyphs. What a mystery. The cliff that had all the dwellings was south-facing. The opposite wall of the canyon looked like another world - dark, full of trees, and covered in snow. I imagine that being on the south-facing slope would have been quite an advantage to the cliff dwellers.I leave you with Lucky the sleepy dog.

"God Loves You"

Read the praise prayers of St. Francis from beginning to end. All St. Francis needs to do is praise God. That takes care of everything else. Because he's letting God be God. He praises God for this, he praises God for that. Every situation, even though immediately it might look unhappy of difficult or absurd or impossible, he praises God. That becomes the transparency through which God is able to act through us and in us, when we trust God that much, when we believe that God is always loving us. There is no time, no place, no situation in which God is not loving you. There is no way God is not loving you. We have to be the continual "yes" for the love to come through. And then our lives become no more coincidence, but continuous providence!
- Richard Rohr, from The Great Themes of Scripture

"The Hole in the Soul"

"Do you realize with what difficulty surrender will come to a fixing, managing mentality? There's nothing in that psyche prepared to understand the spiritual wisdom of surrender. All of the great world religions reach surrender. Yet most of us, until we go through the hole in our soul - our weak spot in the middle - just don't think surrender is necessary. At least that's how it is for those of us in First World countries. The poor, on the other hand, seem to understand limitation at a very early age. The Third World faces its limitation through a breakdown in the social-economic system. But we have to face our limitation, it seems, in the interior world. That 's our liberation theology. We must recognize our own poor man, our own abused woman, the oppressed part of ourselves that we have, that we deny, that we're afraid of. That's the hole in our soul. It's the way through, maybe the only way, says the crucified Jesus. "
- Richard Rohr, from Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the 12 Steps

An apt thought for today. When we are weak, then Christ in us is strong. When we realize our weakness, then we can finally surrender to Him. For some of us (most especially me), that will have to be a daily process. Surrender is the only way to be free. I wish that would make sense to my heart, and not just my head.

26 Things

A while ago, I discovered this website on Flickr that encourages participants to take pictures of 26 things on a list that changes every month. It seemed cool and it is a good way to develop creativity. It helps me to look at the world differently and to take care with constructing my shots. It's late in January, but I started on the January list, and will try to get as many of the 26 things done by Feb. 1. If I do, great, and if I don't, I will just start earlier in February. The things on the list are interesting and allow for great variation between participants. Here's the list for January:

photography
soft
small spaces
light
dance
opposite
blur
fruit
travel
2
in the sky
mirror
keys
season
sports
remote
chocolate
in my bathroom
temptation
still life
round
everyday
water
red
newborn
a bridge

YOU SHOULD TRY IT, TOO!!!

The Sweetest Van

This is a work of art, people. When I get a sweet van, I am going to paint it too. Lucky would also like to say that he would appreciate your prayers and good wishes as he auditions for a spot in a Vegas dance troupe.

Top 5 Least Favorite words

I was thinking the other day how much I HATE certain words and I cringe every time I hear them. Here's the list so far:

1. Nice
2. Soiled
3. Moist
4. Tote
5. "hella" (not a real word, I know, but I think I will throw something at the next person who uses it).

Paisley lace shawl

In August of 2005, I started an ambitious project. Jeannie and I both bought Zephyr laceweight wool-silk yarn from Jaegerspun (sp?) in "deep purple", and we both started knitting the paisley lace shawl from Interweave Knits spring 05 issue. It looked like a good, but challenging, first big lace project. Little did I know that it would take me until January 07!!!! to finish it. Now obviously, that's not all I've knit since then, and I have taken several full months off and I mostly only knit it on Saturday mornings when I did knit it, so I don't feel too bad. But seriously, almost a YEAR AND A HALF!!! Anyway, let's take a look at the finished product (which, by the way, I have no idea how to wear).

Before blocking:

Being blocked. The color is somewhere between this:

And this:

Closeup of the paisleys and eyelets:

Closeup of the very messed up center that I was too impatient to do perfectly:

Now I just need ideas on how to wear it effectively. From now on I think I will just stick to socks, hats, mittens, and large-guage sweaters. I love lace, but not that much. I immediately started Pomatomus socks in Cherry Tree Hill yarn - it's kind of greenish blueish. Very pretty.

"Building the City of God"

"In the United States we don’t have anything even close to Europe’s great cities with fountains, cathedrals, promenades and parks. I know we’ve only had two hundred years to work at it, but the point is, Americans don’t dream of building a great city. The American dream is having one’s own house. In the United States, we have moved from the great Catholic consciousness of the community, of building the city of God, a great people, to taking care of our houses, protecting our neighborhoods, so that handicapped people and people of other skin colors don’t move into it and kill property values. We have got to call this what it is: narcissism. There’s a world bigger than our families. The only way we can ultimately protect our family is to create and protect the entire human family."
- Richard Rohr, from A Man’s Approach to God

Something I've never thought of before. Humbling and convicting. How can we begin to create more community-centered physical communities? Any ideas?

Edible pork blood

It's been a while.... This will be another short post.

New Years at Geckos in Nob Hill with Zarek and Than:

Two days of hiking in the Sandias with Lucky and Zarek:

Something interesting we saw at the Asian Grocery Store (we didn't buy it, don't worry!):

On Sunday I decided to learn how to sew from a pattern, so I went to Joann's and bought some rich red-orange corduroy and a wrap skirt pattern. Turns out the pattern is way too small, even though it is the size I wear ALL the time. I didn't realize that till all the pieces for the skirt were already cut. Here is my very first cut of fabric. Anyway, I am going to sew it this weekend and I will just add side panels to make it the right size. How hard can a wrap skirt be anyway? (famous last words).

Our walkies have been pretty contemplative recently. There has been a lot of looking at the stars and cracking the icy snow with my feet and wondering with all my heart how on earth to truly love God and know it and show it. I know I don't love everyone around me, and that just kills me inside, and it makes it very difficult to come honestly to God and say that I want to love Him. And yet, I do desperately want to love him. If only I knew how.

I leave you with the peacefulness and contentedness of the snow dog.

Slightly late snow pictures

While we were in Denver for Christmas, there was a HUGE snowstorm! We were shut in for a couple of days, and then it took the better part of one day to dig my truck out of the parking lot. Before the snow hit, we went to Belmar with Nate and saw some creative recycled art in roughly the shape of Christmas trees.

Road signs:Old cell phones:

We took advantage of the beautiful deep snow to play in, and Lucky got many walks. It turns out that Lucky was actually born for snow. He loves to eat it, sleep in it, sit in it, run in it.... well you get the picture.

Is this a sweet shot, or what? My truck (on the right), buried in snow!

Zarek, buried in snow: Lucky the snow dogThe park was beautiful. (what a lame caption)Zarek and Lucky kicking up some powder:
Lucky and his mom with gratuitous mountains

Zoom in to this one! Barreling through the snow at top speed is one of this dog's favorite activities.Cute camoflaged horseMy truck being pulled out of the snow. Notice that it couldn't make it out without being pulled. Silly truck!

Knitting finished projects

Over Christmas break, I finished three projects - all gifts. The first one is a hat I designed myself using a fair-isle motif in The Knitting Bible. It's knit in superwash 100% merino from Cleckheaton, an Australian company. It's one of my favorite things I've ever knit and the best yarn I've ever used. And a close up:

Here is another hat, a modified version of We Call Them Pirates. I used Dale of Norway daletta instead of Dale of Norway Hauk. I had to add a couple of rows and insert some stitches into the fair isle. I also lined it with stretch microfleece, instead of knitting a lining. It's super warm.

And a close up:

I also finished the Brea bag. I used handspun, hand dyed churro (I think) from a farm in northern New Mexico. I got the handles and button from Joann fabrics.

And a close up:

Love - a hard teaching

"Beginning to Live"
Love alone of all things is sufficient unto itself. It is its own end, its own merit, its own satisfaction. It seeks no cause beyond itself and needs no fruit outside of itself. Its fruit is its use. I love simply because I am love. That is my deepest identity, what I am created in and for. For me to love others “in God” is to love them for their own sake and not for what they do for me or because I am psychologically healed and capable. Our transformed consciousness sees another person as another self, as one who also is loved by Christ with me and not an object separate from myself on which I generously bestow my Christian favors. If I have not yet loved or if love wears me out, is it partly because other people are seen as tasks or threats instead of extensions of my own suffering and loneliness? Yet are they not in truth extensions of the suffering and loneliness of God? When I live out of this truth of the love-that-I-am, I will at last begin to live.
- Richard Rohr, from “Image and Likeness: The Restoration of the Divine Image”

When I first started reading this piece, I began congratulating myself smugly for loving others. Then I realized that I only love - in this way- those that I actually LIKE. The people who are most difficult to get along with or who annoy me are not easy to love, and this teaching is hard for that reason. It is precisely these, who are most difficult to love, in whom I must see "extensions of the suffering and loneliness of God". Furthermore, I need to see that love cannot come out of my own ego. I should not love because I am capable or because I might consider myself better than others, or because they might love me back, but only because God first loved me . Easy to say and very hard to do.