Spring!!

An early spring has sprung and I am already looking for wild flowers.  Last year I tried to get my colleagues out searching by keeping a running list of the newest wild flower finds, but no one else added to it.  I hope I was entertaining at least in my nerdiness.

As new green shoots are emerging I am energized by two things in my life.  One, my constant companion, Mannetjies Roux, my wonderful two year old German Shepard and two, a new vocation that is emerging.  I am taking a course to be a life-cycle celebrant so that I can officiate weddings, funerals, baby welcomings, divorce celebrations.  A cradle to grave service if you will.

Mannetjies ("little man" in Afrikaans) continues to be a joy as we go hiking and exploring.  We are also learning how to do "nose work" which is a layperson's version of being a sniffer dog.  It is fun finding "hides" and he is very bold in going into places, knocking things over or going up on things to find the hide.  We are learning how to work as a team as he has to let me know what's going on.  We have a great trainer who has helped us improve our connection.

Mr Man, Ph.D. in coolness

My newest adventure also focuses on joy and connection.  I have started a program through the Celebrant Foundation to become a life-cycle celebrant.  I already have a wedding in August!!  It's a wonderful way to connect with people and I can bring in my theatrical background and do more writing!  All good!  I doubt anyone would want me to play the mandolin at their ceremony just yet, but I'm thinking the wine making hobby could fit in nicely as a wedding gift!  Haven't tasted my first batch.  I think I will wait a month or two.

No matter what, life keeps coming up with opportunities to say, YES!  I want to stay open to them!

Joyful Boys

 

JOYFUL NOISE

My friend Lydia is working on her own motivation issues by writing a blog she so aptly calls, CARROT:motivational mobilization.  I have been motivated to join her and hope this can get me back to more regular blogging.  For today, I am posting a little bit of creativity.  The stuff that keeps me going.  Lydia is calling for HEART AND MIND MONDAYS.

I have taken up the mandolin in the last few months, loving the plunkity-plunk and noticing I don't hit as many bad notes as time has gone on. Below is the main guy for mandolin lessons online.  Really nice and he doesn't get mad if I don't practice!

 

That's the noise part and some joy.

I have also made my first batch of wine.  Ooh, there's the JOY!!  Bottling the cabernet on Tuesday!

Longing

I awoke tonight from an unsettled sleep, perhaps worried about the day ahead or the day just passed.  What time was it in Africa where my beloved had flown.  Was it today, tomorrow?  In any case, caught up in the not-now.  As my senses slowly focused on the night breeze I heard a coyote barking and calling across the valley.  Its call was clear and insistent.  It might have been a pup since this was the first week of May.  I wondered, how many people could be witnessing this single event, an opera, an aria of intense feelings, perhaps longing, pride or joy.  This was a song of short phrases and weighty pauses, allowing the audience to take in each phrase, digest its emotions and wait for the next expression.

I know this pure expression of feeling.   Something I can simply express through streaming tears.  I want to sing my song, my aria of longing, pride and joy.  Perhaps like my friend tonight, I will remember a song does not have to have words, but can come from a heart filled, a stomach empty, a longing unnamed.  It is being with full feeling.  A heart aroused.  A reflection for a still night and sleeping people to dream with - simple experience of voice and night.

This past week I had been singing my own aria of longing, sweet and harsh.  When "always" is replaced by "not now", the void, the gap, the emptiness is without words, pure feeling.

(written May 2013)

Tap It!

Do you drink water from the tap?
At home, at work?
Do you filter, boil or chill it?
Cook with it or water plants with it?
Soften or alkalinize it?
Do you know where your tap water comes from or how far it travels to get there?
Do you know what is IN your tap water, what is okay and not okay to be in there?

Oh, do you have a tap?

Brita, the water filter company, known for its pitchers with filters, filters for your faucet, and the newest, filters for your water bottle, has put out a series of advertisements that are worth watching.  Search "Brita ad with native guy".  There are at least two.  The ad starts with a Native Alaskan drinking from a clear, fresh lake.  A woman in classic suburban gear comes eagerly toward him and offers him a blue Brita bottle, saying, "here, I just got this from the drinking fountain at the mall!"  He takes it, smiling, has a sip and nods his head.  There is a second one with a "native guy" in a Tropical Paradise setting as well.

I am very offended by the ad.  Is this racist?  I am also impressed, because wouldn't it be cool if everyone could be guaranteed their water was safe and refreshing too!  Dean Kamen, the guy who invented the Segway, was on the Colbert Report in 2008, demonstrating a filter he had invented that would filter anything out of water.  (The Segway is a two wheeled scooter that you stand upright on.  Very sci-fi)  Dean Kamen is known for fantastic inventions.  I am not sure where the water filter has gone from its moment of fame on the television.  I hope to rural villages around the globe.  The cost may be outrageous, however.

There is a big tap water movement.  There are even tap apps you can get for your phone.  Tap Buddy from Food and Water Watch lets you know where there are public drinking fountains in key cities.  It uses crowd sourcing, so you can find and share water fountains.  You can also pledge to drink tap water and track which college campuses are involved with reducing bottled water consumption.

Pee filter runs on poo, so they say

now for water...

It was hard to not buy bottled water in South Africa.  Rumor has it that in one city where my sister in law lives and close to the platinum mines the water had way too much radioactive uranium in it.  Up until she moved from Bloemfontein, my mother in law boiled the tap water everyday.  Some days it was more necessary than others.  So,...bottled water has taken a good hold on folks there.  I noticed that people who can afford it are filtering their municipal city water which was new to me.  There is a store in Welkom, in the heart of the gold reef, that sells filtered water right from a tap, as you wait.  Happy, healthy bartenders.  Step right up and get your very own glass of clean water right from the spigot.  Cool.  You could bring your own bottle, bottles, large or small and tank up.  Friendly folks too.  To me it was cheap relative to buying the stuff shipped from Fiji or pretend Maine, but it's all relative.  This is for all your water needs, not just a guzzle when you feel like it.  And, I have a car.  

Cautious and curious African Buffalo

We hired a guide to take us to see some Bushman/ San rock paintings when we were in the Drakens mountains.  There are pictures of some of the paintings in a previous post, Drakensberg History.  Steve of Steve King tours took us.  Fascinating man who lived and breathed the world of the San people.  He was Zulu and had an intense admiration for the San, just as his ancestors had.  He was very knowledgeable about the water politics of South Africa.  I will write more about that mess another time.  He lived in a township approximately 6 miles from the small town of Winterton.  In the township each household is allocated a certain amount of water, in this case quite a lot, according to Steve.  This is in the mountains and there is a lot of water.  Well, quite a lot if the pump works.  If not, as it wasn't when we talked to Steve, he had to borrow a car and haul 6 barrels off to the town to fill them then haul them back.  One week's worth.

Happy me

 It all seems simple to complain about water bottle pollution, water politics and fraudulent corporations' claims.  It feels real when I talk to Steve.  I really want to make an impact on this issue.  I hope writing about it helps. 

Thanks to my friend Cary who sent me this link to a gem of a video. think outside the bottle.
 http://www.upworthy.com/this-is-by-far-the-grossest-national-park-ive-ever-seen?c=ufb1
and then I found this...
http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-bottled-water/

Something's funny

I try to remember funny signs I have seen.  They are usually the picture not taken, remembered so clearly.  The funniest one I have ever seen until now said :

EARS PIERCED WHILE YOU WAIT

PANTS PRESSED WHILE YOU WAIT is a runner up.

When I first saw these road signs on my first trip to South Africa, I couldn't wait to see more.  Perhaps I have a weird sense of humor.

This is a picture of a Kudu

Exclamation points come in handy for all sorts of things.

Exclamation points accompany a picture of goats, NO FENCES, HAZARDOUS OBJECTS...

BUT...

SOMETIMES WORDS AND PICTURES ARE JUST TOO LIMITING...

These "tree signs" are all over the country on major highways.  The reality of even having a tree and a picnic table is 70/30 at best.  In the Free State, it looks like this 95% of the time.  Thanks Janita for posing! Percentages are of course highly subjective.

I am not sure I could ever find a sign better than this!!!  Unfortunately or fortunately, the crow was not around during our visit.

Drakensberg history

     We spent a relaxing twelve days in the Drakensberg Mountains.  They are called the Drakens (berg means mountain so it's kind of repetitive) because the craggy peaks look like the back of a dragon.  The birding was terrific.  I was able to slow down and be present with myself, follow a rhythm I rarely hear and again remember how I long to be out of the talking head mode.  I have thought that this physical and emotional state can only happen in surroundings like this, in contexts like this.  I am now wondering if that is not the case.  There are moments, daily I think, in which I can switch into this present mindedness.  Moments...that could evolve into minutes?  I want to make sure of it, take that certainty back to share with my clients who like most everyone else get caught in the "what ifs", "nevers" and "always" that are paralyzing.

  All over South Africa there are "bushman" paintings.  Paintings done by the San and Khoi peoples who were the original tribes in this region.  Some of them date from over 4000 years ago.  The San and Khoi were still in South Africa until the mid-1900's, struggling to maintain a culture and an existence.  Many of the Bushmen, the San and Khoi tribes joined together, now live in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia and Botswana. They took refuge there when the  Europeans  began a campaign to eradicate them starting in the mid-1800's because they were blamed for killing cattle and other livestock of the European farmers.  They are a  hunter/gatherer society that did not believe that people could "own" land.  Sounds oh so familiar, paralleling the history of native people of the US. They were intimately connected to the animals and plants and the weather.      

     According to our Zulu guide Stephen, the African tribes that migrated south centuries before Europeans arrived, had a relationship of respect with the San in the Eastern part of the country now called Kwazulu-Natal.  The San had a connection to the natural and spiritual world that sounds similar to the Native American cultures.  The Zulu and other tribes sought out their guidance and help with illnesses.  The San were also known to be able to call rain.   Stephen studied the San/Khoi in school and was greatly in awe of them.  He explained to us the meanings of the paintings.  They were only done by the spiritual healers in a trance.  We went to two sites in the mountains to view these paintings.

  There is a renewed interest in the San and Khoi  peoples of today.  They are one of the more marginalized ethnic groups in Southern Africa. For more info this article might be interesting.  guardian uk 2010 article

GIANTS CASTLE  ( copyright janita van der walt)

GIANTS CASTLE  ( copyright janita van der walt)

GIANTS CASTLE

GIANTS CASTLE

GIANTS CASTLE  ( copyright janita van der walt)

GIANTS CASTLE  ( copyright janita van der walt)