Day 3, Friday, Leap Year Day, February 29

tonight i realized that from where i sit, i'm directly facing the tree we call our "grandmother pine." a constant companion from across the yard.

snow falling. very quiet. noticed a ringing in my ears. is it always there, like my mother's?

tonight i was attentive to the human community around me. watched my mother, visiting, walking through our house with my little son. the two of them alone together in the warm, lit house, an island of coziness in the big dark world. heard neighbors shout from down the street. heard my husband come home, watched him enter the house. and out in the yard, the edge of a small forest and a small field, was just the being of the world. no "activity", nothing "doing" anything, just snow falling and the trees and the earth, the sleeping animals and birds, the dormant insects and plants, the silent night creatures, and me out there to be with them.

thought of how many of the trees that live around our house are in the path of a road people are planning to dig into the land soon. my grief for the trees, my understanding of why the folks have planned their destruction. the empy skies that will be there in their absence. tonight i felt that all of that does not exist. right now, the trees live. right now, they stand there, the birds are taking refuge in them from tonight's new snow, the chickadees love their favorite seed-cracking branches in them, the trees hold their darkness against the city-lit clouds. right now, they stand there, where they chose to stand to live this life. what does it do for them, to them, when i sit and contemplate them being taken down? right now they stand.

Day 2, Thursday, February 28

Out in the morning today.
What a transformation of the world, from dark to light. Hidden, dark, world of sensations and sound. Bright, exposed, world of sight.
Goldfinches are singing already! They know spring is coming.
Chickadees, jay, crow, and two others I didn't recognize, down towards the river.
Lots of thinking today, held up to last night's transformative silent mind.

Day 1, Wednesday, February 27.

the idea for this blog started when i began the wilderness awareness school's "30 day sit spot challenge", an event designed to get people sitting out at one "sit spot" every day, at least 20 minutes a day, for 30 days. here is my journal of those sits, and of my continued sits.

Sat near our compost heap, under the big pine.
Coming and going, I heard the snow scratching across the snow as the wind blew it across the land, NE to SW.
Trees - what an explosion of life, straight up from the earth.
Pines - what an explosive shape of that life, all outwards from their center.
I wanted to kiss everything around me, the twigs of the blackberries, the wet bark of the trees, the snow, the space between me and everything. So grateful to have that empty space to be in.
Peaceful to be out alone in the dark, husband and child snuggled in bed together in the house.