Brief Updates
Friday, June 25th, 2010Greetings friends, on the very exciting occasion of our first Monsoon season storm, a lovely little thundershower that awakened every molecule of the canyon into its own featured brilliance. Last night I was up until after midnight helping friends get a huge truck out of the canyon… one that wasn’t running, requiring pushing with the jeep, pulling, winching and roping. That adventure was preceded by an afternoon of moving rocks to make new border around a jeep trail to the kitchen for grocery deliveries. I must truly be spending too much time on the laptop, judging by how much my legs hurt today. Thanks to the great responses and comments to my post on the Kane piece and herbal conformism, appreciated each. Please continue reposting it wherever you can. Thank you also to all of you offering to help put conference posters up, that is a huge help. I will get some in the mail including a signed one, and personally respond as soon as I get a chance. No staff means I am the poster packager too. Hugely busy with media outreach, article writing, and conference efforts, but wanting a moment to write others of you as well… Phil, it will be soon. David, Angel, everyone… my thoughts are with you even as I give myself to this herculean work of love. Tomorrow Resolute arrives, our sponsor, ally and friend, welcome back owl woman! Now time for a break out in the post rain sweetness, just as the sun goes down.
-Wolf
Hello on a SO lovely sunny Winter day, with the last of the snow quickly melting… it’s time to celebrate the second year of the Animá blog! When we started posting we imagined that it was only for the close friends, students and supporters who we otherwise wouldn’t have time to write regularly about our work and lives. It’s certainly filled that purpose, making it possible for us to share details that wouldn’t be possible without a blog, but it’s also surprised us by being subscribed to by people we have never met or talked to, who somehow share with us a sensibility or intent, and find inspiration and community here! You’ve watched as we expanded to include posts of new and never before published essays, recipes from my cookbook in progress, Wolf’s latest artwork, inspirational tales from our 8 yr. old daughter Rhiannon, and all kinds of things!
The Nick Morgan family have been Core Supporters, bedrock even, since the late 1980’s. Nick and Sloane are tickled-pink parents and community organizers, with Nick an early Greenpeace firebrand and concert promoter for bands like String Cheese Incident… a dear and sweet component of the Animá family, community, Sanctuary and mission. They live on the West Coast at the center of an intimate neighborhood and wide ranging circle of activists, artists, musicians and visionaries. As seldom as we get to see them, it has felt great to be an Uncle to the outstanding boys Paris, Jeremy and the hard rockin’ little Django. It was their loving need to give and be of service to the world that first made us feel okay about accepting the involvement and help of others in manifesting this vision. And we still can’t do this by ourselves, without them, and without all of you. Thank you from the core of our hearts, from this place and all those helped by what we offer. There is never anything “extra” to give, but we join you in giving our all.
We’d like to take this opportunity to formally welcome Lee Hurwit as a core Animá Supporter, after years of surprising us with enexpected periodic donations. Thank you, Lee, for your commitment to continue assistance, and letting us acknowledge and thank you here.
None of our supporters and allies are conventional in the sense of being average or uninteresting, but generally it would be easy to pick them out as the kind of people who might associate with us or seek us out, who would be likely to go out of their way to help this project out. Highly driven seekers, at the cusp of a major change in their lives. Bird watching, river running, tree climbing eccentrics. Activists seeking rest and replenishment, and herbalists deepening their understanding. Nature loving Buddhists, Franciscan monks, and students of teachers like Thomas Merton and Thomas Berry. Passion filled ecofeminists choosing to make a monthly cash tithe to further the work of Animá, and anachronistic old timer mountain men wanting to commit what they can out of their poke in order to further this old time way of living, and to protect this rare bit of unspoiled river canyon land. There are others, however, that we might not have thought of as potential allies and friends, who miraculously appear in times of celebration or times of need. This includes some rural conservatives who put “No Wolves” on the back bumpers of their trucks, but who refuse to take money for their garden produce, for welding a needed part or helping tow a broken rig for a guy they call “Wolf”. The woman who works at the courthouse, who arranged for me to speak at the local school board meeting. And now Marc and family, who first came into our lives by selling an offroad utilty vehicle meant for our use, and showing not only the highest degree of professional integrity, but also as much compassion and concern as we have seen in a man in awhile.
Our file with him was marked “7 river crossings” before he knew our names, but already he was going to extremes to get our original vehicle canyon-ready, adding a snorkel for deep water crossings, and now giant tires to handle the loose sand. Finding out that we host retreats, he suggested a trade for weekends here. The time was meant for rest, but the first trip he worked on the rig, and the second visit he and the mechanic he counts on showed up with 4 cords worth of fallen logs from a burn, spending their moring cutting them up to the exact size for Loba’s wood stove. On the same trailer with the wood was a special lightweight vehicle, left in trade for our blue jeep which could have been hard to sell since it came to us with no title. Not only did he ensure that we have a high mpg way to bring supplies into the Center until our other rig is ready, but he made sure we would love it by having it custom painted using real leaves and branches as stencils. Even Kiva, who is generally set against internal combustion contraptions of every imaginable kind, couldn’t help but be won over by the patterns of plant foliage gracing its once garish fenders. Last we spoke, he was researching solar powered freezers and no doubt scheming some way for it to happen for us. We have been looking for every way possible to give back to him, as part of the great cycle of reciprocity. Certainly the time here and Loba’s cooking, and whatever herbal or cooking instruction they and their employees might want. A portrait of their daughter, wood carving if he has anything he can stand having butchered for the sake of art and the joy of giving. Articles on their business, if they can work it out with any newspaper editors. He never asked for counsel, as males seldom do, but I can still give a few insights to make compromising his needs and dreams even harder. I’m not sure he knows “what to make of” all this, but we can’t help but believe that he knows he is helping more than an archaic backwoods family, that he is aiding not only a friend but also a way and a cause. Here’s to Marc and Diane, unconventional supporters of the proudly unconventional Animá project. My hat’s off to you… literally. Wear it well pard.
The colorful, earnest and motivated Silver initiated her support of the Center by showing up with a home raised turkey and thoughtful homesteader gifts. A down-to-earth woman long driven by a call to service, she had been searching for a project (or pack!) she could feel good about being involved with. A bright eyed Silver explained how after a series of disappointments, she had finally found the “real deal” here in Animá.
