Mahalo nui.

We take a few minutes today to pause and give thanks for the many blessings that make this life robust and worth living. In the comfort and shelter of our vardo and Quonset hut we give thanks for roofs that keep us dry, heaters to warm us, blankets and a bed for cozy sleep and restorative comfort, electricity to pulse currents to a cooktop for a hot meal, boil a kettle for tea and make it possible to stand beneath a hot shower at the end of the day. The skies open up with the seasonal deluge of rains and though we mutter about the inconvenience as we walk fifty paces under the roofless spaces between bedroom and kitchen it is the Elements – the rain and clean air and the solidity of a forest floor, that connects us to what is most Earth-bound. Without that water we are nothing, without clean air our lungs shivel like the last of Alder's leaves, and without the solid footing of Earth's surface we are rootless.

As my shoes dry and warm between treks in and out of sheltered spaces, I send greetings of thanks while the Wild Rice from Sister Margaret in Minneapolis simmered with onions to become dressing with turkey and butternut squash dinner.

The rain continues and the winds add to the day. We are grateful for life, and for the Elements, the Ravens, Crows, and smaller Feathered Ones who skitter and plow up the parking lot gravel looking for nibbles shaken from Hemlock and Doug Fir just for them it seems. And to our family and friends and readers we are most grateful for the connections. Take care of one another.

Mahalo nui. Thank you very much.

Akua Moon: a kapu time to remember to give thanks

The forest was lit with brilliant light late last night and early this morning. If we were down at the muliwai the waters salt with fresh would have blended and breached the artificial boundaries of private property confirming and still the waters rise. Mahina the Moon is fattening and yes the waters rise, all the water within and without rise reminding us how we are so inextricably connected.

Like one Earth meshed net my water is my neighbor's is her neighbor's is their neighbors and there are no boundaries when the water rises no barbed wire high enough nor secret deep enough when the waters rise.

Earlier in the week before the Hillary storm was trumped Pete and I were out at the prairie front, not far from the water's edge the estuary the muliwai. The day was pleasant the sky sharing its blue gown with the movement of clouds and sunshine was making us believe there was still some hope for a bright warm day a future led by progress, and potential for change.

 I walked the beautiful stretch of land that is the South Whidbey Tilth campus the grass wetter than expected my little brown leather shoes were soaked before long. But, it made no never mind the air was fresh, the land seemed content with the feedings absorbed with Sunday Farmers' Markets

 and one lone Dandelion was still courageous in her destiny to propagate. Such strength of heart!

 Put away were the sand box toys now lidded and secured against the surely coming sometime storms of a Salish Winter.

 Mostly naked theResident Tree Nation's limbs were nonetheless or maybe more because they were less sinuous with their arms so pointed and unadorned

 Mostly naked but for the dangling fruit still remembering how great the season has been.

 Mud, and crumbling leaves turn quickly to mold and rot but there is a memory of color and just how systematically Nature withdraws without any help from us and then there is only compost.

 A mound of rocks or stones, the common prairie rocks remind me of their beauty as I stopped for one last look out the driver's side window. Common stones. One more opportunity to remember the nourishment of eating the stones 

ʻAʻole mākou aʻe minamina I ka puʻukālā a ke aupuni Ua lawa mākou i ka pōhaku I ka ʻai kamahaʻo o ka ʻāina

We do not value The government's hills of money We are satisfied with the rocks The wondrous food of the land

- Kaulana Na Pua written by Eleanor Kekoaohiwaikalani Wright Prendergast in 1893 for members of the Royal Hawaiian Band.

Thank you to our friend Terri "Tita Wise' for the beautiful high tide photo from West Beach. All the other photos are mine.