Last great Adobe

 

In reference to the article in the Homes magazine Dec 7th instant ‘almost the Last of Great Adobes’ I wish to compliment the detailed and talented journalism displayed by  writer Devon Jackson.Who knew?    

     I was remiss in omitting in my interview with him however the important contributions of Thor Sigstedt,a local artist and builder who assisted me at the beginning in my efforts as an owner/builder.I was referred to Thor thru my neighbor and friend Cathie Sullivan on whose Solar adobe I had previously Labored.

    Thor guided the project out of the ground and provided the initial carpentry during the first phase and I regret to say I failed to relay to Devon his important,kind and critical support.It was Thor who connected me with the gifted stonemason John Morris and John who referred me to Kevin and Russel of Blue Raven which ultimately led to connection with Peter Lauritzen and partner Lyn.It was this Organic band of brothers and craftsmen from which the House arose that began with Thor.

The Cracks

 Thank you Mother Earth; for your powerful vegetal tenaciousness; Thou Hast Not Forsaken Me! The adventure for this Mother's Day; seemed tame enough; go up the back road to Aspen Meadows and eventually Hyde Park, park in the usual pull off area off this remote gravel road, step over the two low strands of rusty barbed wire, find the ancient road, go northwest across the extremely diverse natural display of many stones of wide disparity in color, shape, texture, this setting the stage for a truly fractured scree. It was Mother's Day and seemed like an adventure was appropriate. We crossed a few more rusted barbed wire, trapsed down a calm ancient trail to the valley floor below that was very narrow and graced with a small burbling, gurgling, susurrus creek with a trail heading up river.  We were hoping to venture to the top of the valley, which turned into a gorge, then some cascading waterfalls that  fell many feet and down to the base of the this crack of a place. After ducking limbs, brushing past stray chokecherry bushes in bloom; finally at the base of the falls.  Two drops were defined in the slit of this gorge, each drop being roughly 13 feet and looked like a pretty scary rock climb up the second step next to the top fall; the creek navigating a magnificent slit in the canyon hundreds of feet tall on both sides. It looked doable yet scary. I opted against it. Too much smooth rock scaling. Instead, we headed back, bushwacking through again. I saw a break in the cliff faces above and concieved that we could perhaps go up that way as an easy way out without backtracking through the valley.  We headed up through larger stones and boulders and, visually, to me, it seemed pretty doable.  The avalanche-ish area was strewn with loose stones, scree and various hazards. We progressed fairly well, noting loose and unstable stones and avoiding them. The way became increasingly more difficult and treacherous and yet we persevered,  me warning of hazards to Sunny a distance below.  Then the seemingly not too hard slope began to show signs of being scary and handholds more risky.  I worried about Sunny; being below me and in the line of anything I might dislodge as well as her skill level, which had not been tested by me.  I said I thought maybe we should quit and go down and she seemed to think not, perhaps correctly as descending is more dangerous than ascending, for a number of reasons, so we persisted. I had, amazingly and coincidentally, noticed when I  found a backpack in the car earlier; that it had a good length of strong but lightweight rope in one of the pockets and decided to leave it in there; first thinking it unnecessary and then just thought it somehow useful, maybe and, ‘why not’, so it stayed in.  As it turned out, i was so frightened of a slippage up there, I remembered the rope and took it out, figured a way to make a loop big enough to slip over Sunny's shoulders and around her waist so we did that and i just looped it randomly around my shoulder and held it with my hand, loosely.  We proceeded with me getting increasingly nervous and then, eventually fearful.  Sunny seemed composed and not as fearful as me, yet clearly alerted to the hazards.  We continued inching up until it looked more and more grim and scary. I had to stop just to rest my heart and find a place in my being that had more clarity and less fear.  It was quite the meditation. I was mostly afraid I would inadvertantly dislodge a stone that would crash down and injure Sunny. We continued slowly.  Very frightening.  I found a tenacious bush in the scree, the only one right there and wound the rope for an anchor and proceeded looking for safe stone outcrop handholds that were not like ‘loose teeth’.  Each step was carefully considered as if life and death. Sunny made it to the bush and painstakingly unwound it and we found a way to pull the slack up. I was very concerned.  The handholds became more uncertain and the scree was now more loose sand and gravel, loose stones.  I clawed and removed stones to create little hand and kneeholds and crept forward.  Saw three more smaller bushes, half dead, traumatized by the fickle years of drought, yet still clinging, as I was, them in slow slow almost geological time.  I scrutinized their strengths, testing each in turn and returned to each several times and decided which to try to trust and wrapped the rope again and Sunny followed using the rope again, never slipping, never faltering, never complaining. I was groaning and swearing some, yet continued up somehow, finally using another anchor shrub and then another, finally a strong, but thinish piñon tree root and we belayed her all the way to that point and then grabbed a solid juniper branch and … was up near the top and safe at last,  then Sunny the same. We were elated and amazed and talked about it on the trail, in the car,  at her house; mulling over the many facets, no pun intended. What I want to notice in the larger, poetic and very real details; in a way that brings the frightening details to face the immense realities we live with; is this: mother earth has many details and physical features that we have, as organs and aspects of nature ourselves; being an integral part if not continuous wholeness reality -  of life or ‘existence’ too; that we have certain features that bear witness to the powers involved and one of them is cracks and crevases. It comes to my mind powerfully that the iconic image of a person, having slipped or fallen off of a cliff and is clinging to a tree for dear life; the last thread of hope for survival is very very real; that the cracks and crevices created by the shifting of mother earth's skin as she tosses and turns in her bedding and clothing, each tiny defect being extremely unique in properties and that becomes the milieu of the planet itself as it soars through space at tremendous speeds; each attribute becomes a handhold for existence in this body, so the decomposing, fractured granite cracks along its certain matrix lines,  and the rains and snows seep into the cracks, also dissolving the stone into sands, then soil, like the ‘soul’ of the ‘earth’; the frozen nights and days expand as water does as it becomes ice and fractures the stone more, allowing soil to build and a seed to fall or some fugitive root to find refuge, as it tries to escape the dry air, germinates and/or survives to do what evolution dictates; to grow and cling in this crackiness, corroborating with the elements and, over time, becoming well anchored to support the ravages of time and the fickleness of weather and anchor itself, becoming, in turn an anchor for more than just it, harboring bacteria, creating shade and holding places for nests and the insects and butterflies and birds that  sip the nectar of its flowers, most all plants being ‘flowering’ and so it is with this ecosystem and system and organism and creature we are all a piece of; mother nature. So it is this shrub tenaciously anchored in a crack on a scree that becomes the cleat we clung to; for dear life, all happening, coincidentally on Mother's  Day 2024 and there it was, a sort of umbilical cord, poetically, too. And a powerful 68 year old mother clinging in love onto her 72 year old lover; both bewildered and in awe, observing all this. It has been suggested by some advanced thinking moderns, like Bayo Akomolafe, who also feed from the indigenous and their ancestors; that, perhaps, we find refuge in ‘the cracks’ and such as we find ways to survive our cultural follies and find some other places to be fugitives together, grasping for alternatives to activisms that may need other forms to cling to - to survive and plant some seeds in that new soil, heeding, always; the specific and stunningly unique natures of the materials we all are part of and need to understand, as ourselves, in fact; belonging here, sprung from the earth itself,  just as much as each other, as we are, in fact; integrated and fugitives in and from; the cracks and crookednesses, a refuge from the rectilinear paradigms. We cling on  the scary slopes, not always onto a bronze rod but living shrubs that are our saviors today, now and forever. Lovetangles.    

Tribute to Bonze and Cast Iron

 Especially to David as he Retires:

Around the turn of the century, I put some barkless, sun grayed, weathered twisting character sticks together into a rather amazing figure with a ‘walking stick’, that could be described as either walking one way or another; both sides compelling the eye to view it in either pose. It was remarkable enough to stimulate me to think of doing something to immortalize it. It was a break from my fine and custom furniture making 

business and other custom building, although I was veering more and more toward natural materials along with the hardwoods and the like.

Through a series of queries, my step-daughter, Corey Ponder, heard about my queries around and she had a student aid job of helping out the head of a college woodworking shop or some such at UNM and he knew a man named David Lobdell,who was the head of a foundry course at Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. He gave me a phone number, I called David and set up an appointment to meet him. He said I could make molds, then bronze cast them or even make them into cast iron. This led to me driving down as many as 3 days a week the first year and doing the course for two years or so, making rubber molds of the original 3 sticks, then, eventually, a few more for other ‘stick guys’ I made and then making waxes, then investing the wax with a high tech ceramic mold, then burning out the wax and making bronze bronze castings and then, eventually, joined in on pouring cast iron, then being a member of the ‘Iron Tribe’, then a member of the Western Cast Iron Art Alliance, traveling to Denver, Missoula, Laramie and Las Vegas. This became a big part of my life, leading to me setting up my own bronze foundry at my ‘ranch’, Adventure Trails Ranch in Spirit Valley, Lower Cañoncito, where I cast, with the help of Ben Remmers and others. Including generous gifts of a wonderful furnace and numerous materials and bronze from Harry Leippe, the retired former director and original person to set up and run the Highland's foundry many years ago.

He often said that he was amazed at my castings, which he did not think would ‘work’ or come out as successfully as they did. I then was in a gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe and also cast a rather amazing large project making a bronze balustrade for a helical staircase at a house known as the Crescent House on Santa Fe, also the reason for building a foundry. I even wrote a piece called ‘The 51 Steps to Make a Bronze’, the last step being lugging the piece back from the gallery. 

Years have gone by and I have, to my knowledge, been the ‘oldest’ person in these circles of men and women who learned to do cast iron, in particular, using no cranes; hand carrying and pouring ladles of molten Iron into multiple molds in large production settings. Needless to say; it is very dangerous work, requiring great attention to safety and protocol.

I am now 72 years old and still climbing ladders (I have a 30’ tall water pumping windmill to maintain and welding, building things, operating my backhoe, dump truck and tractor, log splitter, etc., with some trepidation, cutting and pruning trees with only occasional ‘dread’; stopping me in my tracks). In short, I operate a 40 acre ranchito/homestead doing all that is necessary, despite my age. I am, though, taking more precautions because of my age.

The subject is on the table and so now I want to address it realistically based on my actual realities.  

Last spring, I guess it was, I went to Las Vegas for an Iron pour with the Iron Tribe. I had donated a large amount of cast iron earlier and came down to join in. I had often played my guitar and sang, etc , for parts of the Iron pours for all these years, becoming sort of a ‘thing’ for the pours; suited up, pouring (including my sometimes bizarre ‘outsider’ reactive molds with buffalo gourds.

The iron work, in particular, is great ‘therapy’ for such as me who has been married to a tape measure and more or less meticulous woodcraft and furniture; with the buffalo gourds and natural forms, I could throw away the tape, make very rough textured pieces with no endless sanding and finishing, so I grew to love that style, despite the obvious crudeness and bizarre aspects.

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/pasatiempo/art/from-buffalo-gourds-to-cast-iron-pours-artist-thor-sigstedt-finds-inspiration-in-nature/article_2495a29e-a64a-59d6-abb1-6e3f79e51806.html

then grabbing my guitar and sort of entertaining over or under the roars of the blowers and furnaces; sometimes acoustic, often electric. Not sure many really liked my country/folk/rock/blues; mostly folksy stuff, yet I played alone or with others who might want to join in or go solo, too, for a while. Anyway, I am known for it.  

This time, as I was decked out in my leathers and was wielding large steel breaking bars and sledges; busting the old cast iron heaters and other scraps, like sinks and tubs, etc; busting them up with great vigor and aplomb, David walked up and suggested that perhaps I shouldn't pour this time; just play music for us. I was floored, astonished and baffled, not that visibly angry, yet disturbed and managed to blurt out more or less calmly, “David, I am still viable!”.

This has stuck with me ever since and then there is an upcoming WCIAA pour and activities in El Cajon in a few weeks and I have a few more days to make up my mind to get a refund for my prepaid enrollment or bow out. I am also an incurable couples dancer and have this inability to just listen to music, a concert, etc and not being able to dance is a form of torture for me. It is a real thing 

So now I am thinking that just watching others pour, standing totally on the sidelines and …. watching…. could also be torture! Like the piece I got juried into the show in El Cajon, I am hands on and my piece of art is meant to be touched!

Now David may know something that I don't or have an age limit in mind and wants to be careful that he or he through me or me through him; do not endanger others. I respect that. Harry came to my foundry to help and we had to slowly realize it was best he not be a direct part of the pour; even operating the ‘buttons’. So, this is a real thing and, ironically, I am in the process of making molds and waxes; quite a few, and cranking up my own foundry right now, so this is all very interesting to me how things are evolving and the kinds of decisions this old man is faced with…..

In solidarity and with deep memories of staring into the twinkling unimaginably hot ladles of molten iron; like staring into a volcano and god and all the rest of the processes that we alone know as our profound experiences in working together as members of the ‘Iron Tribe’!

Hmmm…..   

Thor Sigstedt

82 Spirit Valley

Santa Fe, NM 87508

adventuretrails@gmail.com

Note:

I also wish to honor David Lobdell for his truly amazing many years of the work of teaching and supporting the efforts of students, including myself, and comrades; to do foundry work of all sorts. His impact on so many will ripple out into the future in an amazing way! I honor this man for that and his one of a kind personality that honors creation and art in his own powerful, special way which is, along with the other disciplines; hands on, hands on, hands on!! You are The Man!

Buffalo gourds

 

 

Buffalo Gourds; A Fresh Look at an Ancient Plant

 

If one sees a metate and the mono that goes with it, it is possibly 12,000 years old (plus the millions of years of age of the stone itself), give or take a few millennia.  If it was carried from Beringia (the strip of land that once connected Asia and what’s now Alaska), which is a colorfully absurd thought then it might be 25,000 years old because the Beringians lived there, possibly, for 10,000 years; waiting for the ice to melt and forcing them to mosey down to The Land of Enchantment, perhaps looking for and finding ‘greener pastures’.  As they did not yet invent fry bread or even have white or whole wheat flour (as the major grains were brought over by the Europeans by way of the Steppes) and corn was still in South America, then the question becomes: what did they eat?  And, especially, as the centuries wore on and droughts came and went, leaving ancient tree rings proving drought; what did they rely on during those times?  The piñon bumper harvest happens every now and then, so one can’t wait for that, really.  Amaranth wasn’t even around.  There were lots of grasses and because of that there were lots of ‘bison’, or what I think of as ‘buffalo”.  So there was meat.  What about tubers and seeds?  They had a metate and needed something to grind up with it.  I honestly (this time) think it was what scientists call Cucurbita foetidissima or Buffalo Gourd, the common name that mysteriously first appeared in print in 1948 and took.

  I have seen my donkeys occasionally eat the ‘disgusting smelling’ leaves (and then walk up to me and exhale on me, almost rendering me unconscious), so they and just a handful of people sort of like the smell; nonetheless it is called, roughly translated from the Latin, ‘stinking squash’.   Well, lots of plants are named ‘stinking’ this and ‘stinking ‘ that  but some observant person(s) decided on ‘Buffalo Gourds’;  a very powerful thing like a buffalo (…… I am not sure but curious about what a buffalo smells like….aren’t you?) and as the bison tended to roll around on the ground and on their backs and make huge semi-permanent ‘wallows’ of bare ground that, fascinatingly, almost nothing grows on after they are done….except, let’s say, the buffalo gourd which has a huge tuber for a root; sometimes the size and shape! of a human being and  is very capable of surviving almost anything, and I am wondering if, by chance, buffalos liked to roll in the stinking leaves for the special insect and fly repelling properties (one of the uses people are looking into as I write) and maybe the side benefit of it being a cow aphrodisiac or medication (think ‘zoopharmacology’; not my term but perhaps coined by my brother!);  they grew on afterwards, and as the gourds have a distinct resemblance to a bull buffalo piece of anatomy anyway  and so some observant person(s) back in the day decided to call this amazing plant “buffalo gourd”!

 I recently encountered a petroglyph that puzzled me until I ‘realized’ that I probably knew what it was:

 

 

   

The triangle shapes on the left side of the ‘gourd’ circles are the basic shape of the leaves; in fact the rock art clearly, in my mind, celebrates buffalo gourds….and why shouldn’t it because it was a main staple of the native diet; the seeds and hull ground up by the metate into a fine flour to make a tasty sun-baked-on-the back-of-a-rock (or metate) flat bread!

The point is that the buffalo gourd plant, what with its high protein/oil seeds, huge tuber, extreme drought tolerance, insect repellent and medicinal properties and its myriad other colorful aspects ( and great for batting practice!);  I bet a nickel it’ll save the world!

 

 

 

 

 

Controlled Burn Dude

Imagine a person who got up out of his bed that morning

With a slight hangover and late for work again

And he drives his wife’s car to the office, cause his broke down last week

He likes his job but hates his bosses and he is glad to get out in the fresh air

Today and loves the breeze that appears to be whipping up, cause it makes

Him feel alive and alert, like a horse in that cool spring air;

Ready for the world and to dance across the field

Today is a big day, cause it’s time for the controlled burn

And he gets to be the big star as he was chosen by the office

To be the one to light the match; well, lighter, then weed burning torch

He fumbles with the tank, forgetting that to attach the torch you have to turn it “leftie tightie”

And he looks around once through his sunglasses and hesitates

Feeling like something is wrong, but not sure, too vague a feeling

Oh well, what the hell; everything will be just fine and that coffee has got me crankin.

…in the old days, in the dream days, when the summer heat and the cottonwoods along the creek have dropped their leaves and the deer rustle the dry leaves and begin to browse on them, making little crunching sounds after having waited these months to feel that taste again that they love so much and there was no breeze at all today as if the great spirit were holding its breath and the insects had hidden some as the frosts had come and, today, there coating from past day’s snow gift was still on the moss side of the trees and under the leaves and the sky was rich with more snow….coming.  The sacred day had arrived at last when the elders had gathered and prayed and talked and chose him, a great honor, to strike the flint on the milkweek pod unravelings and the time is just right, we are sure, to light the fire that will bring health again to our beloved forest…….

It does matter whether we are in tune with the forest or not, as the art of tending the forest is just that; an art, pure and simple and no one who is not attuned to nature can do any good at all, ever.

lovetangles

 

SUSURRUS

 Susurrus soothing solidified solace 

Observing sound's romance with

Turgid agua creek banks and tall tremulous leaves, trees stretching yoga postures

Blue blue sky suggesting eternal value

To have and share vibrance ripples

Eddies upon Eddies upon Eddy's

Dancing rivulets of water/flow/times

Vortexian self-similarity like fractals

Doing the Schottisch one two three hop,one two three hop, hop,  hop,  hop,  hop…

Affectionate mental love making because

There is no comparison to being with this Mistress, except true love and one- ness;

Is no substitute but a great gratitudinous 

Ecstacy, kisses upon kisses

Deep intensity of sensitive chaos amidst

Forest glade and grass blade

The screenplay priceless photos

No fire other than the fire rushing pell mell

Along with multitudes of skirts up and no shame Anywhere.

Children running in almost mindless play

Glad tidings to all; happy to be right here

With a heart to feel the timeless joy and dances

Glance at the hand that so sublimely echos and mirrors the working man's hands and, oddly, the stones that speak of eons of effort

Don't really need a girlfriend cause this is Unconditional Love 

such lover we come back to over and over

Honey dripping from her mouth

Water pouring out of her and nothing else to  do but be naturally gorgeous and mysterious;

Susurrus is her name and flowing over rocks is her game;Nurturing the grassy banks and knolls

Frolic in the Forest Arroyo.

Volver Volver Volver , a tus Brazos otra  vez

Pebbles and  stones and boulders all cohabiting and each silently screaming,

Look at me on my billionth birthday today,

More or less.  Yes I've been around these parts. 

Volver a mis Brazos otra vez.

BARKITECTURE by Thor.

 

TO BE OR NOT TO BE; THAT IS THE QUESTION.

 When a woman loses a pregnancy there can be great grief and little support out there.

What do I mean?

A profound thing happens but often there are not clear reasons; mostly statistics for how often this happens; 25 per cent of the time, they say.  It is not considered all that important in some ways.

The body or some circumstance has somehow made a decision to abort.

The mother can grieve but there is not a body of deep understanding; like a strange little secret about the mystery being cast out somehow.

No religious ceremony.

No burial

No Grave

No poetry to read 

Few people to talk to…

No time off work

No money

No presents

Just no hopes anymore.

When a woman makes that decision,

In the situation of needing to do what

Nature does 25 per cent of the time;

Make a decision maybe once or twice in a lifetime 

Then still there is no poetry to read

No service

No support

No clean path.

So these women have a lot in common in one way and so does the slave woman who is impregnated or the girl on her first date or a women in a myriad of situations like this who might still wonder what the child might have looked like or acted like.

Natural curiosity.

Natural thoughts.

Like the pain of lost love

Or the pain of losing anything

Or the relief.

We need to control our bodies

Like how our hands make something.

How we decide to be ourselves.

Or see our lives like falling leafs 

And we learn to let other people just be themselves and not try to change them;

Turns out we pretty much can't anyway.

No matter how hard we try

Just almost impossible. 

So it appears that life is about

Choices; for all of us, even,

Sometimes really really impossibly 

Tough ones.

Still about probabilities and compromises,

Still about survival, just as our natural bodies seem to make tough decisions based on complicated calculus, so we, the owners of our bodies do the same and we attempt to Manage.

The unspeakable cruelty of a misogynist's 

Prying into their bodies and lives to ascertain that perhaps the woman ingested a pill is beyond reproach and yet, this is the world we find ourselves in;

Where a woman cowers while a man who needs a free vasectomy gloats about his concern for life.

Shame on them; those men and their patriarchal religions.

A woman should never ever ever be under the thumb of a man or have a man pry into their lives and bodies.

Period.

This must stop and most of the world knows it, except for the uneducated, fanatics.

Shame on them; hypocrites as they send their tender children off to war to die in their places.

They open up the grief and pain and stomp around by suggesting they will codify their dominance and intrusion.

 The pain 

Cowards and true murderers in fact!

Dogs in mangers.

You who have no tools to be a mother;

Back off!

The Longest Hug, another baffle.

The Falling Leaf and the Long Hug

Just why; don't know and so much seems baffling these days, 

That it is worth it to process this phenomenon As well as the attachments and detachments, the hellos and goodbyes, the falling of the 'la vida qual un hoja seca…" https://youtu.be/5j9u1hrkL8M. A waltz.

If you share a very long kiss, then you know that when to stop is a good question; is sooo long that it defies imagination and takes on a character and life unto itself wherein one feels,truly a part of the other person and sensitivity and exploration of the genre becomes part and parcel of the activity.  Not just a kiss but away and on a

 brink, cusp, edge, point, verge.

And the very very long hug on the threshold"  "I came to give you a hug."  As it turned out, I knocked on the door and he came to the door looking sad and I said ‘ “ I came to give you a hug”.  So we embraced for, perhaps, an hour or more right there on the threshold, straddling it..  The poetry does not escape me, as there were great questions being pursued non verbally at this precise location of the house: and the questions include: is this hug actually doing something important to make things better, in search of the wisdom of goodness; here is a hug as a kind and good way to pursue questions, enact safety as a care; as a way to break through; cross a threshold into something new and better.  The length of the hug also involves a rather complicated question: when to stop hugging!  This is similar to love and when to start kissing.  In conversation, when to start or stop talking.  When to go or stop anything.  The poetry of the door, whose highest energy component from the perspective of a builder, is:  Where is the threshold to be put; how high above the interior and exterior floors, how to connect these two major surfaces of the indoors and the outdoors, the inside and the outside ; how to connect with the actual door and make a good seal and sweep; to connect with the jamb and the screen, to be tough enough to withstand years of being tread upon, to be level and to stop wind and water from entering and to signify the very beginning of the home, in this case, where visitors cross over into a special space, not tripping, not slipping and smoothly as possible.  This is the threshold that a groom carries a bride across.  At my first wedding, I remember being drunk and trying to bring the bride and a large flowering plant gift, like a bougainvilla, into the house and tripping over the threshold with my new wife; both tumbling into the house, drunk and foolish and clumsy and fallen.  Hmmm; not the best beginning, but there it all was; on the threshold.

*Today*; the two men clasped each others trunks and held on tightly for a very very long time; making a bond and connection that defies simple friendship and the one friend is purported to be very disturbed; so much that perhaps only a hug might be the activity of the day after an hour’s drive one way.  A pregnant moment right there on the threshold of hope of some soothing of some deep sadness, anxiety. We were on the: brink, verge, cusp, edge, point,

The detachment from the hug and the next thing to do and/or say.  

The falling leaf and Nicholaus’ casket:

Nicholaus died a large man and his dear large brother perhaps ordered up a large wooden dovetailed or finger jointed box coffin and after tapping down the lid with nails and with a little hammer. And the burial with the many mourners that seemed quintessentially black and the rain started pouring and the lightning was perceived to strike the freshly carved deep hole; deep enought for two (him and the woman he divorced!)

People were milling around the fake grass, the large pile of dirt, the fountain nearby and something was amiss and extreme specificity was called for; the very large coffin may not fit! Fractions of inches and perhaps afoot to the east, perhaps a quarter inch to the north,, perhaps if a large man (even me...but that is not my place here) to just stand on the coffin for ballast; and then the undertaker and the youngest son did just that. 

And sweet sweet sister Lydia from Alaska emerged from the crowd to muse with me about this falling leaf production and see the poetry and the humor of the situation,  like from Dostoevsky...and the merriment of this penultimate denouement stage and sweet Nick, kind, good, otherworldly, a personality that was wafted into life as a master of 'philo-kalia'...the search for and the study of the 'good'; his father's suggestion for a branch ot academic and spiritual pursuit..should be a branch paralleling philo-sophy!  

See what I mean by baffling!

The falling leaf is it in on the threshold of another dimension; like a leaf carried downstream in a flashflood after wafting down after having detached from the tree.    

The other bit is about what Ben asked me, breaking the ice by speaking, "have you been taking the ducks to the river?   This relates to a piece I  wrote, a poem of sorts that describes how taking the ducks to the creek can open up the heart and turn things around:.

Ducks On Creek

Sometimes;

I have a tightness in my throat, a slight vaguely debilitating

Queasiness in my gut; A dry feeling like something is missing

That I want to find to be whole,

Like hunger, like thirst, like boredom or dis-ease or fear and itchy clothes,

I sort of live with it.

Then:

When I take our ducks to the water, to the creek,

First out of their little prison home,

Where they have been saying “HA, HA, HA, HA, HA”

And we go wending, waddling our way, down the road, me prodding them

In the late afternoon sun, usually,

And I watch them immediately begin to play upon the bed, the creek bed

Splash, dive, splish, duck, tail wiggle, like happy dogs with bobs,

With utter abandon and no self-consciousness, busy at once, immediately,

Doing what they most certainly do best,

And I watch the water beads roll off their backs mercurially,

(and I think of all those “duck” expressions, thinking how great that

Words and reality can be so right on).

I watch them float and bob downstream between the rocks

Perfect little boatlets.

Then rapidly bill- poke the drink to garner little evasive edibles

And clean themselves all over, fluffing feathers, shaking, bill nipping and adjust,

Spreading riots of wetness all around them,

Great splashes and wing-flappings.  Busy, totally busy,

And skimming over the Galisteo with breeding force.

And all the while the creek seems to like the ducks, too,

Bubbling, free spilling, ponding; eddy and susurrus rill,

And I want to be a part of it; I prompt them with my stick, light and long,

To deeper climes and funner spots, them happy as clams about it all,

And, in that whole time as I watch, the tightness goes away,

And my own joie de vivre returns, like an answered, unspoken prayer.

And we, as the sun sets, walk home, them needing no direction, calmly, Cleanly.

I am thankful for the river and the ducks, for the time,

For this time, this special time when all’s right, somehow,

Things are just as they should be, everything is in its right place.

And I want others to know this feeling tooAnd take their ducks to their creek for a spell.

Something that pure is…. something worth saving.

( my grandmother told me that 'we' can be traced back to Alfred the Great, and somehow I thought he was French, but I  was being given a tour of the Stonehenge area some years ago and Uncle Michael was pointing out the barely visible spectre of the ancient Roman road to Bath from the car and then we drove a few more yards and he said , "this ditch is where Alfred the Great fought off the Danes and I  said, "put on the brakes" .  This falling leaf thing, the longest kiss, the longest hug and the biggest coffin all just baffles me.

I wonder if ducks wander and splish and trompse around, perhaps overly circumspect in the water like me on land or in a guy hug or a gal kiss, wonder if they are baffled too, at times. Ha, HA, ha,HA,, ha.

 

 

 

Ducks On Creek

Sometimes;

I have a tightness in my throat, a slight vaguely debilitating

Queasiness in my gut; 

A dry feeling like something is missing

That I want to find to be whole,

Like hunger, like thirst, like boredom or dis-ease or fear and itchy clothes,

I sort of live with it.

Then:

When I take our ducks to the water, to the creek,

First out of their little prison home,

Where they have been saying “HA, HA, HA, HA, HA”

And we go wending, waddling our way, down the road, me prodding them

In the late afternoon sun, usually,

And I watch them immediately begin to play upon the bed, the creek bed

Splash, dive, splish, duck, tail wiggle, like happy dogs with bobs,

With utter abandon and no self-consciousness, busy at once, immediately,

Doing what they most certainly do best,

And I watch the water beads roll off their backs mercurially,

(and I think of all those “duck” expressions, thinking how great that

Words and reality can be so right on).

I watch them float and bob downstream between the rocks

Perfect little boatlets.

Then rapidly bill- poke the drink to garner little evasive edibles

And clean themselves all over, fluffing feathers, shaking, bill nipping and adjust,

Spreading riots of wetness all around them,

Great splashes and wing-flappings.  Busy, totally busy,

And skimming over the Galisteo with breeding force.

And all the while the creek seems to like the ducks, too,

Bubbling, free spilling, ponding; eddy and susurrus rill,

And I want to be a part of it; I prompt them with my stick, light and long,

To deeper climes and funner spots, them happy as clams about it all,

And, in that whole time as I watch, the tightness goes away,

And my own joie de vivre returns, like an answered, unspoken prayer.

And we, as the sun sets, walk home, them needing no direction, calmly, 

Cleanly.

I am thankful for the river and the ducks, for the time,

For this time, this special time when all’s right, somehow,

Things are just as they should be, everything is in its right place.

And I want others to know this feeling too

And take their ducks to their creek for a spell.

Something that pure is…. something worth saving.

                                                                                                                             -Thor Sigstedt

 

The Gatherer

Wasn't that old when I  started contemplating what I  might do when I  was. Been frequenting dumps and landfills since childhood when Jane, Robin's mom, drove us to the Idyllwild town dump in her old Model A Ford pickup truck, out on the Hemet side of the San Jacinto mountains, amidst great islands of majestic smooth as a baby's butt, deep dark red bark that defied the term bark, more like the skin of an exotic temptress; manzanita groves.  Jane always had a silver bell leather strip tied to one of her flesh side out round toed cowboy boots, jingling to scare off rattlesnakes, maybe or maybe just to be different.  We were the two poorest families in town and so scavenging was a survival skill.  More fun for me and Robin. Sometimes we even hiked down there through the manzanitas, unchaperoned. 

Later, in Palmer Lake and Colorado Springs, Colorado; Tesuque, Santa Fe and Eldorado, New Mexico , I continued that habit, building my first house around an old 30 foot trailer that I wrested out of a tight location where they kinda built their house blocking egress of the temporary shelter they called the 'Pink Palacio', gathering all kinds of scrap plywood,  pine boards and odds and ends from the Tesuque dump, commingling with Joe Blea and the Tesuque Pueblo governor, and also found other cull sources like old 2x10 fence rails and cottonwood short, round stove lengths for insulation. By the age of 24, had my own passive solar house for under $2000 and it even made it into a color glossy book on solar homes.

In those halcyon days, before transfer stations and the like, there were often old codgers, scarecrows that sort of were Mayor Domos of the pits and we helped them put out occasional spontaneous fires and the like, sort of like old geezer greeters who sat in their old pickup trucks while not conducting dump activities and directing people around.  I figured I might be suited to end up one of them in old age...or sell kindling on the side of the road; one or the other; if worse came to worst.

I am now approaching 70 and have a little ranch in the PJ/ ponderosa/gambrels oak/cottonwood bosque along the Galisteo creek and have scavenged all these years, creating a sizeable boneyard, hoarding boards and wire and trucks and what have you and making me feel like I overdid it all a little. I had also converted the cool custom donkey shed into a quintessentially funky casita made from repurposed and recycled materials from the boneyard and shop and shed; that was the design criteria; had to be repurposed or recycled; earthship style rammed tires, strawbale, cables and old steel, roots and sticks, paper and stones.

They don't have dumps any more and young ‘kid’ sit in air-conditioned guard houses at transfer stations so that leaves me out of a scarecrow job. 

So now I was decluttering the kitchen after Belle 'passed' or died, actually, and, of course I kept her too and buried her out here, which is another story. In the process of decluttering, decided to unclutter the old antique chrome, cast iron and sheet metal wood cookstove still in the kitchen since the early days on the homestead and actually use it again...to cook with!  So I jolted and started and was amazed today as I  found myself casually and instinctively gathering sticks from everywhere on the ranch floor, for the woodstove which thrives on kindling, as I  poked around doing chores and trompsing about and around the boneyard and realized that I  had many lifetime's supply of kindling lying all around the ranch, just everywhere, in little shanks and branches, just begging to be garnered off the land,  fulfilling my first and second choice of geezer occupations,  except that I  was the scavenger, the employee,  the boneyard mayor and the recipient/ best customer for the kindling...and the cook!  What a success story; reducing the wildfire 'burden’ as they call it, and cutting down (love that term) on the electric bill and getting good body stretches and heart healthy exercise, for the rest of my life!  Come on over, sit by the warm kindling-fed fiery cookstove and drink Cota herbal tea, ('Indian tea', Hopi tea,Navajo tea, Zuni tea, Greenthread) that grows wild out here on the land. Happy Gatherings !!

When Marta Raised Her Hand

When Martha Raised Her Hand

Tonight I sat down to a tasty modified migas concoction, inspired by a Texas/Mexico bordertown friend who, I have come to see, is highly conscious of the colonization of  what she calls ‘The Divided States’, or, ‘Gringolandia’, putting out massive amounts of powerful information on indigenous and women's rights, abuse and attitude issues on social media, every day!  The protests that occurred recently regarding the not-having-really-disappeared, deep, entrenched and insidious racism that is “the air we breathe” and cuts off other’s breath as my very Anglo late wife, Belle, said, along with her tongue-in-cheek, “You know I just really don’t like white people very much!”.  We just don’t get it sometimes! The culture of colonization rationalization that continues with the corporate welfare system and invasion of our culture, has continued the collective dysfunctions and it takes mass protests to shift the consciousness, even a little.

Here is an example:  The other day, during national peaceful demonstrations, there was an outside dinner party of adult friends.  One mentioned that he had recently given his version of the civil war event where, at the base of Glorieta Pass, at Apache Canyon, the Union soldiers snuck over Rowe Mesa and clambered down the steep western side of that landform, surprising the sleepy supply train attendants (as it was so cold the previous night that they could not sleep well) and….well….kinda won the war for the Union side, the ‘Gettysburg of the West’, stopping the rebels from reaching the newly discovered gold fields, which were often on ancient First Settler land; one of the contributing factors to the Sand Creek Massacre; the Colorado Gold Rush encouraged thousands of people to move across the plains, seeking their fortunes in Colorado's gold fields; moving over Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal lands.and others.  

The orator mentioned that there were 200 people attending this history session in Albuquerque.  After the rendition, an historian said, “Well, that seems like a good version; raise your hands if you go for it.” He said they all did.  Well, my activist and aware friend ‘raised her hand’ , “Were there any Native Americans there?” ( ‘there’ being double entender; the war or the history lecture?)  He said, “They didn’t have anything to do with it”.  She said, “Were they invited”.  He said it did not involve them and that there were none there. Well this started some lively conversation and I said, “Why don’t you listen to her?  She is ‘of color’ and it's about time we just be quiet and listen to another perspective, even though we are ‘experts’.  She said, “Wasn’t this their land?....  Why did they not come...  This land was stolen from them, no?”   

So here is what unfolded in my mind:  This land was Native land, for thousands of years, and was stolen by the Spanish colonists and then the US government.  The location of the supply train was at Apache Canyon.  The Union leader of the surprise attack was none other than Colonel Chivington who led the Sand Creek Massacre, up in Colorado a little later, where is the site of the only national monument in this country entitled with the word ‘massacre’  because there was one; perhaps 200 defenseless Cheyenne men, women and children were killed, mutilated, raped, creating a storm of controversy at the time!  It turns out that the civil war and the war against the plains Indians was nearly concomitant!  This is when plains First Settlers were chased down, killed, rounded up; buffalo populations were being decimated so as to take away Native’s sustenance and culture!  These are the wars that the monument on the Santa Fe plaza commemorated and referred to the ‘savage’ Apaches! In the same breathe. During the National Indigenous Day holiday time frame, protestors literally pulled down the obelisk with ropes and chains to the dismay of the city government which was stalling on that action and the police pulled away, to their credit this time!  Arrests were made, though, and part of the ironic poetry is that there were claims that the Union soldiers used ropes etc to get off the mesa, but anyone from around here and other accounts at the time said differently; no need to repel; just makes for drama of the fairytale (my word).  

Now why would Native Americans go to a civil war history meeting celebrating the leader of a massive massacre and who led the war against plains Indians during the civil war; same soldiers?  Why would noone raise their hands and say, “ This was native land previously; it was stolen”. It is now incumbent on whites, especially experts, to shift and listen very carefully to people of color who raise their hands; there may be something they can learn even though they think they are being preached ‘to the choir’. History (or, as Belle used to quip ‘Her-story) needs to be rewritten and challenged daily, as the narrative angles are changing.  Just go to the plaza and see for yourself.  Great things are in store for all of us!  Happy Historia Revisiting!