Like Another Country

Saturday, October 30, 2004

The snow and wind of yesterday caused me to delay my departure one more day. I used the day to pack and prepare - hopefully the conditions I find today will spare the M-dog and me from any moments that are too scary.

So this morning I must leave this place; the Old West, Wyoming, Wheatland, the Double MD ranch. Being here at the ranch has been like going to your sister's, your mom's, your grandma's house all rolled into one. And the edge of the wilderness, full of vibrant wildlife.

You can't help but love this place.

Feeling a little off? How about a cup of mint tea from little pot brewed just for you. Maybe a few compassionate words that don't encourage you to wallow in the self-pity if that's what has you down.

Hungry? How about biscuits and gravy for breakfast with eggs from the girls out in the henhouse. And should we save that best-ever apple crisp for desert or indulge in that too breakfast with yoghurt or even ice cream? Of course, if we have it for desert after dinner, ice cream will be a must - only optional for breakfast. Dinner? Pot roast (beef and venison), venison chili, goose breast stew, pozole (AY, caliente!), tostadas with fresh tomato salsa, venison spaghetti, roast chicken, turkey with everything from Thanksgiving ('cause we won't be here), I forget some things from the dizzying array of wonderful things that made it to the little kitchen table.

A little sleepy? The extra bedroom gets nice warm sunlight right across the bed at nap prime time, and the sun flashes prismatically through the crystaline pieces hanging in the window. The bookshelves are lined with a collection of spritual inspiration worthy of any Boulder or Berkeley or Cambridge enlightenment book shop. Or volumes on gardening, or homesteading, or geography, or wildlife...

Getting a little chilly? Throw a log or two in the stove and open up the draft for a while.

For the M-dog, this is as good as it gets. No leash time, freedom to wander around, follow people, go for interesting rides. Maybe roll in something brown and fragrant occasionally. Lie by the woodstove, or sleep by the bed where a hand is usually extended to stroke tummy or back. Friends with cats, cows, chickens. Listen to coyotes.

And now what? First, the long drive to California through Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada. Then life in an overpriced rental house with a little postage stamp yard in a dense urban area. Probably work doing something not very rewarding. Some pleasant times with friends. Temporary stuff - but what then?

Since everything is temporary, I guess that will always be the question. Maybe if I start to really understand more of what I read I'll be OK with that. At some point though, decisions we make will determine what the next temporary thing is. I hope we have the courage to do it, whatever it is.

Text © 2003-2004 Stanley J. Wolf

Friday, October 29, 2004

You might not associate the picture above with a ranch in Wyoming, but even if you have been following my posts here in recent months, you may not know my sister well.

She is the embodiment of the aspiration for clear thinking, loving kindness, and compassion. She is on the forefront of where humankind is headed if it survives this rocky period. The Buddha just happens to be on board with her program.

Over time, if I am going to reduce my suffering as I sort out the balance of my life, I will have a large debt to her, as she has shared her wisdom and calmness. Pat and I came to the mountain states looking for a shift in our everyday lives, and it would be an understatement to say things did not go as we expected - but the joy we came to experience spending time at the ranch with Mona and Clark has eased the pain, and somehow I believe the experiences of the entire summer will in the end help us find the fulfilling lives and peace we are seeking.

It's hard not to be morose at the thought of leaving, and probably not having an opportunity to return and eat and laugh and relax in such a rich and nourishing atmosphere for some time. But I know Mona is right in her guidance to find joy in everything, and make something wonderful of whatever life brings us or wherever it leads us. I will try - spending time with Mona has made me more sure than ever that I am on the right path, which we are blessed to be sharing.

But I'll be back too. And after all the years she reached out to me and I was too busy and too self-centered to respond, I am finally with her in a way that the thousand miles or so can't diminish.

I won't be able to post on Monday - so happy birthday, Mona - we love you.

Text © 2003-2004 Stanley J. Wolf

Thursday, October 28, 2004

The day began with perfectly clear skies today, and as the full moon set and the sun came up, Mona and I got ready to go back up to a different area of the mountains to the West, along Tunnel Road. The road up was paved for quite a while, but as we climbed up through the Aspen treeline, it became graded dirt, but in good shape (we actually encountered the grading crew, just finishing a season's job).

There are a bunch of ranches along the way up to the high country, each with its sign by the road.

Here and there are snowfences, many of the old rough-hewn style.

Mona and I parked now and then to look at rocks or the trees and terrain.

We decided to have lunch at the old Grange hall at the highest plain along our way, because the wind was really starting to blow. The old hall was built in 1928, and has been the location of western dancing, christmas parties, voting, and other activities for the remote ranchers and their families. It is never locked, and has a supply of firewood laid in for the two wood stoves. A good place to hole up if caught in bad weather unexpectedly. There's a kitchen with a wood cook stove, a big hall with a piano and a wood heat stove, and a small bunk room. Out back is the old original outhouse, and the newer luxurious two-holer (with flip up seats!). We opened up the curtains a bit, and enjoyed our lunch there amid the brands burned into the wall, and the western art here and there. We spotted an old can of 'Dance Hall Wax' on the shelf in the kitchen, which sits behind a counter with a sign the sets the price of dance tickets at $2.00, or $1.00 for students. Those under 14 dance for free.

The Grange hall from up the road a bit. Nothing else around.

The Grange hall up close.

Dance hall girl (no, she doesn't rent with the bunk room)

The kitchen

M-dog in front of the wall with all the local brands burned in.

The new outhouse out back.

The original outhouse - now retired.

It was a lovely day. I'm glad I delayed my departure and we got to see and do all this. Hope my car will haul all the additional rocks I picked up...

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Even as fall is beginning to fade into an early winter, a few of Mona's flowers persist. Most of her garden has browned and sagged following two mornings of hard frost, and she has harvested most things by now. The basement if a maze of hanging tomato plants pulled up by the roots, the green fruit gradually ripeneing on the withering vines. Onions are spread on the deck when the sun shines, and pumpkins sit on the table outside by the front door. Drying herbs hang from the kitchen ceiling - some will make it back to the kitchen in Alameda with me.

Yesterday we were supposed to go up in the mountains again, in a different area off Tunnel Road. But I woke up dizzy and sick, and ended up laying around much of the day, finally feeling well enough to have dinner. I was going to leave tomorrow morning (Thursday) for the long drive back to California, but decided to postpone another day so we can still go up to the mountains one more time and see some new (to me) things.

Today Mona and I went to a neighboring ranch to pick apples off a big old tree - it was loaded with them, and we brought home a five gallon bucket full for Mona to stash away in the cellar. Before we went to pick apples, I was overcome with remorse again because Pat and I were unsuccessful in our efforts to settle down in Denver. Not that we have a great love for Denver now, but at least we could have owned a house there, and most of all, we would always have been only two and a half hours from Mona and the ranch. I wish I could just appreciate everything we have experienced here, including these last moments, but it seems I can't stop clinging to the all the things I associate with being here. I know that just detracts from my joy at being here and having been here, but it is very hard to let go and not feel bad for the long distance away we will be, and the very different lives that await us of in the Bay Area.

Tonight is a full moon, and a full lunar eclipse should arrive late into the evening. When I walked outside to watch the moon rise over the Eastern hills, a band of coyotes began howling off a distance to the South. As I paused to listen carefully to this, a much nearer pack began a wild yelping and howling cacaphony - it was startling in its proximity, clarity, and volume.

Monday, October 25, 2004

Mona took me out on a drive and walking tour of the hills and mountains to the Northwest of the ranch today. It made quite a difference for me after being so depressed and anxious yesterday around the ranch, where I spent too much time over the last week pondering my status in life recently past and to be dealt with soon.

As you often hear about 'home on the range', this is where the deer and the antelope play. We saw ample evidence of this today, with three encounters with good size herds of antelope. At one point, they raced along side us while we were driving and then turned and raced at top speed (about 60 mph I am told) across the road just a few dozen feet in front of the car. A truly thrilling sight. We also saw a flock of wild turkeys today. Oh, and we had the deer for dinner as pot roast.

We saw a lot of neat old artifacts of earlier days in the Wheatland area, including the cabin above and cast iron and wood hay baler below.

From up in the mountains, we could see the ranch area off in the distance. If you look to the right of the Fat Duck rock below, there are some little hills near the horizon - the ranch is just beyond the left side of those distant hills. These mountains we were in are the ones that are so magnificent in so many sunsets viewed across the pond from the back deck.

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Yesterday it looked like a great sunset was about to happen, when suddenly the sun shot out of a gap between the horizon and the cloud deck - and bathed everything in a golden glow. That was it - followed by gray into dark.

A few minutes before the blast of low sun I scared up a flock of geese that had been grazing for weeds in the pond and swampy area around it.

Today Mona and I watched a flock of ducks gliding around the pond, and watched a bunch of blue jays squabble over bird feed on the porch.

M-dog usually occupies the spot right next to whoever is working on the kitchen. If we're eating, she lurks under the table. Otherwise she sleeps on her big bed or follows anyone who goes outside. For a while today, whe was out wandering around on her own. When she came back in she had some kind of poop smeared all along one side - from snout to tail. I don't know what kind of dung it was, but it was pretty powerful. She seemed pretty pleased with herself until I scooped her up for a trip to the bathtub - not her favorite place. After she was scrubbed, dried, and brushed, Mona was calling her Fluffy...seemed even more appropriate when you smelled her ladies' hair floral scent from Mona's shampoo. I didn't have any dog shampoo.

I'm almost finished with an Alan Watts book I heard about while reading some Buddhist stuff. I don't recall that he even mentions Buddhist beliefs in this book, but it dovetails into and complements everything I've been reading. While Watts is a respected Western authority on Zen Buddhism, it is in keeping with his disdain for doctrine and dogma that he expounds on the concepts without trying to link them to their Buddhist accents.

For me the value of reading and understanding this kind of material is incalculable. It is nothing less than the keys to a free and happy existence, and the ability to walk away from all the fear and separation from everything outside (or so I thought) myself. While that sounds dramatic, it's happening in a measured and gradual way - and with a long and incremental process still to unfold. But I can begin to see clearly now what the path looks like.

There are more Watts books to come, and a lot of others that keep popping up with reinforcing ideas. For anyone who is afraid, and unsatisfied, and suffering, I wish you the good fortune to find something to read that will help you as much.

Watts points out early and often that one can't separate the experience of life in the present moment from the point of view that you are experiencing this as a detatched observer, weighing things against know concepts and in the context of what you have known in the past. He calls this a split between "I" and "Me", or a conditioned ego and the natural self (OK, that's the best I can do in a paragraph). Here are a couple of passages from this book I am about to complete...

"So long as the mind is split, life is perpectual conflict, tension, frustration, and disillusion. Suffering is piled on suffering, fear on fear, and boredom on boredom. The more the fly struggles to get out of the honey, the faster he is stuck. Under the pressure of so much strain and futility, it is no wonder at all that men seek release in violence and sensationalism, and in the reckless exploit of their bodies, their appetites, the material world, and their fellow men. What this must add to the necessary and unavoidable pains of existence is incalculable.

But the undivided mind is free from this tension of trying always to stand outside oneself and to be elsewhere than here and now. Each moment is lived completely, and there is thus a sense of fulfillment and completeness."

and

"The whole problem of justifying nature, of trying to make life mean something in terms of its future, disappears utterly. Obiously, it exists for this moment. It is a dance, and when you are dancing, you are not intent on getting somewhere. You go round and round, but not under the illusion that you are pursuing something, or fleeing from the jaws of hell."

The Wisdom of Insecurity was written in 1951.

If you follow all of this to where it ultimately leads, it could be possible to find yourself at the end of your days on the planet accepting that end without fear or regret. I am beginning to understand that this pervasive fear is probably at the root for most of us of our behavior and attitudes that prevent us from making the most of what we have until that time. What we have is our experience the present moment - hopefully untainted by regrets and guilt for what lies in the past, or diminished by our hopes and fears about what looms ahead. One more passage from early in this book may illustrate better than I can...

"The power of memories and expectations is such that for most human beings the past and the future are not as real, but more real than the present. The present cannot be lived happily unless the past has been "cleared up" and the future is bright with promise."

"There can be no doubt that the power to remember and predict, to make an ordered sequence out of a helter-skelter chaos of disconnected moments, is a wonderful development of sensitivity. In a way it is the achievement of the human brain, giving man the most extraordinary powers of survival and adaptation to life. But the way in which we generally use this power is apt to destroy all its advantages. For it is of little use to us to be able to remember and predict if it makes us unable to live fully in in the present."

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Today at the ranch most of the activity revolved around turning the deer carcass hanging in the barn into a months-long supply of meat for the freezer.

M-dog provided close supervision as the skinning and quartering took place.