Well, this is quite possibly my last entry in this lovely little blog. By quite possibly I mean most likely. And by that I mean, there might be one tomorrow.

Thats what the woman who walks with wolves and grizzlies says. In Alaska, you've gotta be out of your element. And it must be humbling to coexist with creatures when you're in their world, and playing by their rules. Flesh to flesh you'd lose a battle almost instantly. But the bears aren't on the offensive. Neither are the wolves. They just exist with what they are. Why is it so difficult for us to do that? We could learn from them. On day we will.

Humans live such infinitely short lives.  When you look at the span of life, humans only live for a blink on an eye.  Yet we do the most during our life spans than any other being.  We think.  We create.  We expand.  Most of all, we feel more than any other creature.  Many people have experienced the intense feelings of grief.  Whether it was through a tragedy or going to sleep after a long full life.  Sometimes, it was with someone you knew very well.  Sometimes it was with a person you barely knew at all.  This has happened to me.  I wonder...  Is is possible to miss something you’ve never really known?        

It's week 10 and I keep forgetting to blog! 

 
Driving around the Island lately, I have been amazed at the amount of destruction caused by the wind a couple of weeks ago.  In true grownup fashion I initially saw only the negatives: trees destroyed, crews working through the night to restore power, the mess left behind.  But watching out my office window this past week, I was reminded that we can all stand to look at things from a child’s perspective now and then.  The scene that inspired this revelation was watching the children at the Center exploring a 40 foot spruce that now lies on its side in the ball field.  Fortunately the grownups haven’t yet had time to cut up the tree and clean up the mess.  Every time the children go out to play they want to go to the fallen tree.  They are methodically examining every inch of it, from the top with its crown of cones to the root mass that could no longer be held by the soggy soil.  The tree has much to offer these young scientists.  There have been discussions about the parts of the tree and why it fell.  Conversations about the weather have followed.  The children have pretended to cut the tree up, collected cones and "hidden" among its many branches.  One small broken branch was rescued and sits in a glass of water on the lunch table.  Who knows what explorations still lie ahead?

THE SNOW CAME SOFTLY AND GENTLY

Today, doing buildings and grounds didn't seem like work. We just had to pick up maple saplings in the sun with the radio turned up way too loud. I swear Terra and I are the two loudest people on campus when we're working, driving around in a big old truck with brush in the back. But I'm also pretty sure everyone we pass with the windows rolled down smiles back at us and they don't mind.

    I realized I haven't had a pattern on here for quite a while, and considering this is a knitting blog, I was horrified.

I don’t consider myself a spirit master.  I don’t think of myself as a shaman.  I’m just a person who loves nature, and has loved animals all her life.  I just see animals in people. It works better with someone I know well, because I don’t just match physical appearances; I match personalities as well.  In this way, it is easier with some people than others.  For some, as soon as I look at them, I can see what animal they represent.  For others, I have to analyze; I have to think and imagine.