woods, meadows, dragonflies

I stumbled through the woods looking for my old camp site (circa 1986) on the Goddard College campus, and saw I was on the right track when I found this foot bridge.



Here's the path cutting through the camp site. It leads down to the Winooski River, so I'm not surprised it's still there. 



And this is a path that used to be a road that ran parallel to the campus, leading out to the library, etc. Still used, just not maintained for non-foot traffic.

Not pictured here - the meadow and the dragonfly. I took a lot of pictures of the meadow and the dragonfly, but the meadow pics were all flat and not soft and vetch-filled feeling like I actually experienced the place. And the dragonfly? I also tried many times to photograph it, but no dice. Either it was moving too fast, it was a figment of my imagination, or maybe some happy combination of both! I saw a dragonfly close up hanging onto my shorts, that were drying on the line, earlier this summer. They are so much bigger that I realized! The one I saw yesterday was just huge, maybe 8-10 inches long. Figment or no, I am riveted when I see them.

Listening to Grief and Praise

I've been studying Martin Prechtel's work this summer.

Right now I'm listening to a talk he gave sometime in the past decade titled "Grief and Praise".
So beautiful.

Earlier in the month I sent a request to Martin Prechtel's place in New Mexico http://floweringmountain.com/ for a couple of books - Long Life, Honey in the Heart & The Disabedience of the Daughter of the Sun and a tape and CD of the Grief and Praise talk.

About three weeks ago I called first and asked for both books and the tape and CD and a few days later I sent a request by mail asking for one of the books and the tape & CD, because I was impatient and went downtown and bought one of the books here. Also, I was nervous about e-mailing my debit card information, so I mailed a check. Then I e-mailed a few days ago because it was getting late and I hadn't heard anything and no books. Today I got both books, the tape & CD. The books are signed by Martin and he says beautiful things in both these books - I just cried when I read these things he wrote himself for me, even though he doesn't know me at all.

Besides that I've been moodling around out here in the world and the internet, facebook, making a few new friends and re-connecting with old friends and in a case or two repairing (or something) friendships I thought were broken forever.

It's been good and finally we've got some summer weather - over 80 degrees and the sun shining and I think it didn't rain yesterday. Pretty OK.