A restlessness arrived around Lamas, and continued to build as the moon moved toward Full Harvest. Maybe a bit of remaining DNA from a time when my ancestors followed migrating herds. Perhaps a glowing ember of desire to dance at Samhain burns. Or this lifetime of memories and mementos anchored to the seasonal tilt of the planet.
Indeed, the heat of a high desert summer is past, with the Equinox just days away. It is time to be outside and exploring, far from the confines of air conditioning, national anxiety, and politics.
How do I reconcile the reality of being in an old woman’s crone body….with the delicious Moxie, and sense of anticipation, exploration, and excitement that Late Summer to Equinox offers?
With less weight in my backpack!
Bear Mountain, Sedona Arizona Photo; JoHanna Massey 2016
Woo Ranch Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Woo Ranch Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Woo Ranch Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Woo Ranch Pictographs Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Sweet Terry waits for me to catch up. Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Woo Ranch Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Woo Ranch Pictographs Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Woo Ranch Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Woo Ranch Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Everything is perspective Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Woo Ranch Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Woo Ranch Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Woo Ranch Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Inchworm
Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Woo Ranch Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Dawn Harvest Moon setting behind Mingus Mountains Photo: JoHanna Massey
Woo Ranch Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
Though this cedar was clean cut to the ground, it is growing back. Resilience!
Breadloaf Formation Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
“All Who Enter” Sedona Arizona Photo: JoHanna Massey
May you have an excellent week filled with calm, confidence and kindness all round.
“She belonged to a different age, but being so entire, so complete, would always stand up on the horizon, stone-white, eminent, like a lighthouse marking some past stage on this adventurous, long, long voyage, this interminable — this interminable life.” Author: Virginia Woolf
Historical View Yaquina LIghthouse Interpretive Center Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse- Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Oregon Coast Sunset Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Lightkeepers Books: Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head Lighthouse. Photo of mural in Interpretive Center
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
tide pools Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Yaquina Head LIghthouse Oregon USA Photo: JoHanna Massey
Traveling the Oregon Coast Highway three miles north of Newport Oregon is one of my favorite places, Yaquina Head. A coastal headland of hard basalt cliffs and coves, it has for an estimated 4,000 years been a place that beckons.
Native Americans, including the Alsea Tribe, came for the mile long access to open sea. An area abundant with game, marine animals, mussels, seals, fish, seaweeds, marine gardens, it was recognized to be a place of of both physical and spiritual renewal. It is said to have been named for the female Native American Chief, Yaquina.
Located at Yaquina Head is the charmer, Yaquina Head Lighthouse .Built 1871-1873, using 370,000 bricks from the Patent Brick Company in San Raphael California to create a ninety three foot, doubled walled, one hundred fourteen iron step spiral climb to the top beauty of a beacon.The tallest Lighthouse in Oregon, the light visible for 19 miles. Chief Lighthouse Keeper, Fayette Crosby first lit the wicks on August 20 of the lard burning fixed white light, with a change to using mineral oil in 1888.
Yaquina Head Lighthouse began to attract many new visitors during and following it’s construction, with the Lighthouse Keepers adding an extra duty in conducting scheduled tours in addition to their maintaining the Lighthouse round the clock.
The Yaquina Head uses its original 1868 French-made, 1st order, Fixed Fresnel lens,[1] Fully automated in 1966, Yaquina Head Lighthouse continues to guide sailors safely using it’s own flash pattern of light a pulsing 2 seconds on, 2 seconds off, 2 seconds on, 14 seconds off, 24 hours a day, a steady reliable method to recognize Yaquina Head from air or offshore. It is delightful to climb up the lighthouse stairs and be able to look at the mechanics of the light.
On clear days, Yaquina Head Lighthouse offers a recharge, stand up straight, realign your spine kind of view of the Pacific Ocean Coastline. It is absolutely the best place to watch Gray Whales. There are ‘summer resident’ who have chosen the Oregon Coast rather than the Berring Sea for summering, December thru January, Grays migrate from the Berring south to Baja Mexico to have sex and birth babies, then March and April they pass by Yaquina back to the Berring. I once was fortunate enough to spend an afternoon viewing twenty one passing Grays, simply a thrill…but so many others have told me of a hundred or more passing by during peak migration season.
Dramatic moods in coastal weather can just as easily offer a visit featuring gray green waves breaking on the lighthouse, with the wind and rain howling about as cathartic, eerie, exhilarating, introspective, sun sets unnoticed into night and the storm continues. Or the sky clears and the sunset dazzles, The Lighthouse steadfast throughout, a sense of safety and calm within.
Ghostly stories abound about Yaquina Head Lighthouse. Sweet Terry and I lived in Oregon for several years, and still have family there. A sentimental visit to Yaquina Head can create an echoing voice perhaps familiar, a glimpse of blonde curls, wrinkled hands grasping a hand sewn angel doll, shiny mary-jane shoes running down spiraling steps and gone to shadow before I can be sure. At play may be imagination, or a once familiar now unrecognized friend, perhaps a memory or glimpse of what is to come? I return to the present through the camera lens. I’m not scared of no ghost.
Along with the few dogs walking their people, familiar birds, lizards, a coyote, solitary power walkers, and a regular group of youthful women who jog together on Saturday mornings, I also see a particular sounder (herd) of collared peccary, during my early dawn walk abouts the neighborhood.
There are about twelve of the CollaredPeccaries, which is average for a group, the smallest a baby and always running very fast to keep his position just beneath the slower moving mother or nursemaid. They always give me a wide berth if in the open, or quickly hide if there is cover. The rest are of mix sizes and genders, with one, maybe two males topping sixty pounds. Locally we call them Javelina, but I’ve also heard them referred to as Quenk, Skunk Pig, B’quiro, or Sainos.
They announce themselves with a swampy, too deep musk odor. Both male and female have glands that run the length of their backs, and each member of the herd ritualistically grooms with one another, mixing their individual scents into one, to create a distinctive stink for their herd.
Today’s Collared Peccaries are quite small compared to their predecessors 25 million years ago who left behind in the Agate Springs Quarry in Nebraska fossilized jaw and teeth that indicated a skull length of over three feet. These modern urban desert versions have dainty small feet, and fashionable slender legs to support a barrel shape body and big heads.
They can look fairly menacing with razor sharp tusks and a mouth full of teeth that they snap together loudly when distressed. But my experience for many years has been that any sudden charging on their part is more likely they have heard and smelled me and are coming closer in their very near sighted attempt to see what I am. While I have had many encounters with the Javelina, and have never been shown aggression, I would never consider feeding, touching, or cornering them, always mindful they are best as wild beasts. They grunt, snuffle, bark and woof their way through the neighborhood early to forage on the well maintained irrigated landscaping or remain ‘outside’ on the Nation Forest Trails where they take big bite-fuls of the toughest prickly pear cactus, seemingly without distress, getting not only food, but moisture during dry periods.
While certainly not fully nocturnal, they do tend to be most active at night, dusk, and dawn, taking their repose in hidden, secluded shady overhangs, ledges, arroyos during the bright heat of the daylight hours.
People have strong, often opposing opinions, ideas, or fears about the Wildlife in the neighborhoods. I’ve learned to never speak out loud in passing to anyone about seeing the Javelina. Even when the entire Javelina clan are silently hiding in plain sight, eavesdropping on the unsuspecting gathering of young women, finishing off their coffees with some Girl Talk before starting their Saturday morning jog.
“Let’s get going.” says the pretty brunette dressed in blue.”Something really stinks.”
I wish each and all a safe, calm, and peaceful weekend.
If you are interested in knowing more about the Collared Peccary this is a very interesting read: Habitat Use by Collared Peccaries in an Urban Environment Elizabeth S. Bellantoni and Paul R. Krausman The Southwestern Naturalist Vol. 38, No. 4 (Dec., 1993), pp. 345-351 Published by: Southwestern Association of Naturalists
“If freckles were lovely And day was night, And measles were nice And a lie warn’t a lie, Life would be delight,– But things
Couldn’t go right
For in such a sad plight I wouldn’t be I.
If earth was heaven And now was hence, And past was present And false was true, There might be Some sense But I’d be In suspense For on such a pretense You wouldn’t Be you.
If fear was plucky, And globes were square, And dirt was cleanly And tears were glee Things would seem Fair,– Yet they’d all Despair, For if here Was there We wouldn’t be we.” ― E.E. Cummings
Indeed Sweet Terry and I are opposites, In both obvious and subtle ways. Opposites attracting proven to be an excellent ingredient for a lifetime shared.
“There is something
Particularly special
And personal
About the circle
And how its curves
Comfortably rule
Every aspect
Of our lives.”
― Kat Lahr, Parallelism Of Cyclicality
Our President has posed this question before when speaking to the public in the aftermath of tragedy. Following the Aurora Colorado murders at the theater, after the murders at the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the December 2012 Sandy Hook Connecticut murder of twenty, five and six year old children, and six adult school employees. He spoke similarly with the statement following the Oregon murders at Umpqua Community college; “Our thoughts and prayers are not enough.” He is certainly right about that. But I will pray anyway.
I had originally taken the photos below to respond to WordPress Weekly Photo: Pure, but felt with so much sorrow about the news of yet more deaths and injuries following a mass shooting, I could not do so. How can I possibly show these pure slivers of peace I captured with the camera on a morning walk when there was yet another dreadful shooting? This time in Orlando Florida, United States of America. Killing young people out dancing on a Saturday night. Exactly what young people should be doing on a Saturday night. Families, friends, community, and all those individuals in caring supportive roles during this time are having the worst and most challenging kind of days in their lives.
“When is Enough, Enough?’ And what does “Enough” actually look like?
Judith Orloff says it well with her words suggesting we should be the very best we are capable of being if we are to bring wholeness to the broken parts of our world.
Hummingbird Photo: JoHanna Massey 2016
Photo: JoHanna Massey 2016
Baby Rabbit on the doorstep Photo: JoHanna Massey 2016
Hummingbird Photo: JoHanna Massey 2016
Yucca Photo: JoHanna Massey 2016
Patio Gardening: Tomato JoHanna Massey 2016
Hummingbird Photo: JoHanna Massey 2016
Bird of Paradise Verde Valley Arizona JoHanna Massey 2016
The Good Morning Finch on his favorite perch.
Earless lizard Photo: JoHanna Massey 2016
Hummingbird Photo: JoHanna Massey 2016
Banana Yucca Flowers Photo: JoHanna Massey
Raven rules Photo: JoHanna Massey 2016
Hummingbird Photo: JoHanna Massey 2016
Every morning I wake to the sound of this finch singing his heart out. Photo: JoHanna Massey 2016
Stardate 2371.4: Museum of Exploration: Laniakea Glactic Supercluster Exhibit.
” The primitive records, images, and carbon based artifacts in this exhibit (21st Century Earth) were thought to be the property of an individual of the species who called themselves ‘homo sapiens’, from a planet they named Earth. Acquired during 3rd exploration of the Laniakea Glactic Supercluster. “
If fear was plucky,
