Hello my friends. It has been over a year since I’ve posted a blog. WHAT? Yes, life got busy, I didn’t feel that I had anything new to say and I worked more and meandered a little less. But here we are in a new era of stay-at-home-for-my-own-good-and-the-rest-of-the-world. Being a director/teacher/actor makes me one of the horde that has been laid off until further notice. So now there is no excuse not to post and write. So we will call this the Meandering of the Mind series since “going out’ can really mean “going in” as John Muir says.

I went out for a solitary walk along a large pond. I marvel that there is always something new to discover. I have never seen the blooming of the skunk cabbage plant and I would not have guessed that they looked like this…

To see them bursting through the decaying leaves and swampy ground was better than any outdoor sculpture park I’ve seen. I am not a fan of modern, metal monstrosities in my woods, I like my trees and nature unadulterated and these growing skunk cabbages are the perfect illustration of why. You couldn’t ask for a better bit of sculpting to admire, with color, texture and medium perfectly suited to their surroundings. They are quite thick and sturdy right now, and remind me of the protea flowers that I first discovered in Hawaii with an almost woody strength.

I tripped over roots and danced over streams to come across more and more cabbage plants, this one perched by a standing clump of trees, that one by a fallen branch, some growing in a circle reminding me of a dreamcatcher or Native American Medicine Wheel ( see Lessons from a cattle drive…), each one uncurling in a shape their very own. 

I decided to make my own dreamcatcher using ingredients from the hike and hung it over my bed. I need my dreams caught right now. They are flitting about in confusion and unrest wondering if they will ever find a place to roost. My Dreams may be elusive but Certainty tends to a complacency I’d rather avoid anyway. Dream on friends…