"To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness."

Albert Einstein

The Merging of Spirit and Science

Silverton's Old Train Station Sign

I played art tourist in Silverton yesterday. Art was the "Theme" for my day off in Silverton. I went to as many of the gallery-type places that I could find and even found a cool exhibit inside of the Prudential Building. It was an artist who had taken pictures of graffiti murals in Mexico City. I would highly recommend seeing it if you're in Silverton. Artist's name in my backpack but I'll add it soon...

Window on Water Street

Prudential Stained Glass Window


Beautiful Windows on old building on the corner of Water and Main




Reflection in Stone Buddha 's window



Woman and Botanicals!!!
Antique Store Window
Main Street Silverton

Silverton is definitely "In Bloom"
This is a poster for an event but I love that there are gardens everywhere here.


Silver Creek Coffee Company Backporch
I am a lifelong cafe writer (well at least past 30 years anyway) and always love finding new cafes to sit in, drink coffee and write in my journal. My boss Vicki recommended this one here in Silverton and I Love it's backporch over the creek. Great Bagels and really good coffee, and it's cheap! Thanks Vicki!



First People section of THE OLD OAK Mural


Apparently there was a massive Old Oak tree that the original town of Silverton was built around. Then these (so -called ) progress- types
cut it down to make streets straight in a line. ( Reminds me of the ruin of Circleville, Ohio but I digress).
Up to that point it had been a gathering place for locals throughout many centuries (First People, Calapuyas, Molallas included). This mural is one of many of the beautiful murals here in Silverton. Now it's a "tie for favorite" for my favorite Silverton murals , with The Bobbie Mural in previous blog.
They have the original stump behind the train station in a gazebo. They recently painted a circle in the middle of Main Street to mark where the Old Oak had stood.

Beautiful flowers everywhere... I love Sky- blue Hydrangeas



This older gentleman "Elton" gave me a ride back to the park yesterday in his 1963 convertible. I felt like a movie star and he was truly a gentleman. He reminded me of a man I once knew in Pescadero, Oral Fluharty ,and had all the class too.

In case you were wondering, I am on a mission to bring back safe hitchhiking in this country.
I call it "commuting with strangers..or new friends".
It's common in Europe people!
Thanks Elton...He was a hoot!
If you see me standing down past the Silverton Police Station with my "Silver Falls " sign and yer going that way...pull over, we might just be come good friends!

So, after all that art tourism I went back to my little cabin in the woods and did some art of my own. I've been doing alot of Leaf Prints with kiddos again as part of the Junior Ranger program's (my) Nature Art Tuesday's, so I did some of those myself last night. I can't wait to gather more leaves for more groovy Silver Falls leaf printing examples. Here's another one....



Last night when I went for a short bike ride I looked up and this one tree in the entire forest in front of me was illuminated!
Funny sunshine around these parts...


Wildflowers in the canyon today. I now have officially seen all Ten of the Waterfalls on the Trail of Ten Falls. This is yet another flower that is new to me and I can't seem to find. It reminds me both of Skullcap and a Penstemon...

A Banana Slug at the base of Lower South Falls. This one is a brownish-greenish color, unlike the bright yellow Banana Slugs of (my Heart-land) The Santa Cruz Mountains. Those B-SLugs are camoflaged to look like a California Bay Laurel tree yellow leaf on the ground. These cousins blend in here to the green of the Oregon temperate rain forest! Banana Slugs are verrry important for the overall ecology of their forests. Everything is connected!!!

Later note:

I am doing my first powerpoint presentation in the SFSP campground tomorrow night and I am a little nervous. After seeing yet another of longtime SF Interpreter Dorothy's dynamo programs tonight, I ran back to the Google page and typed in "How to make Wildflowers exciting"...well that didn't bring up anything but I did find this cool Oregon Postcard and check out the postmark. Hmmm. My hometown.

I have no problem leading a group of kids teaching just about anything. I also am really at home leading folks on the trails...but an audience in an amphitheatre makes me very very nervous.

Nootka Rose

Window to the Meadow

Western Bleeding Heart

Yellow Monkey Flower

James (John) Johns
1812-1890

Thanks to my cousin Mary, I now have a face to put with my Cherokee ancestor.

My Mom is in the hospital. Trying to stay calm. I was already worried about losing both of my parents over them losing their youngest son.

This is when it's hard to be thousands of miles away.

Sometimes reading quotes calms me down. Here's one from another of my favorite books:

I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact — to borrow from the languages of the saints — to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible.~

Anne Morrow Lindbergh Gift from the Sea

and

"There is really nothing to be afraid of. Remember the instruction: Whatever you come across – go beyond."

~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

and this from www.gratefulness.org :

Wherever you find your vision, your uplift, your haven, we wish for you moments like Thomas Merton’s, when he came “barefoot and undisturbed” upon the Buddha statues of Polonnaruwa, Ceylon. “Looking at these figures,” he writes in his Asian Journal, “I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious…. All problems are resolved and everything is clear, simply because what matters is clear.” In such moments, we do not even need to worry about how to cope with change, because that which is changeless has embraced us.

An old fruit label that looks like it could be from around these parts where all plants and veggies, fruits are seemingly enormous!

One of my old leaf print/watercolors that reminds me of the rich diversity of my colorful

Irish-English-Welsh-Scottish-Dutch-Ukrainian-German-French-Cherokee-Mohawk

dna-family tree!

Linda Hogan

There are times when I just crave the writings of my favorite authors. I have been away from my books for a few months now and really haven't been able to buy any or check any out of any library. SO I went online to see what I could read of Linda Hogan's recent writings.

It is no great coincedence that I woke up this a.m. to find an 8 point buck right off the front of my cabin. I had gotten up around 6 , went outside and he was just right there. He watched me for a few moments and then non-chalantly sauntered away.

SO tonight looking for something good to read I came across this poem on her page.

Deer Dance

(from "Rounding the Human Corners")

This morning when the chill that rises up from the ground is warmed,

the snow is melted where the small deer slept.

See how the bodies leave their mark.

The snow reveals their paths on the hillsides,

the white overcrossing pathways into the upper meadows

where water comes forth and streams begin.

With a new snow the unseen becomes seen.

Rivers begin this way.

At the deer dance last year,after the clashing forces of human good and evil,

the men dressed in black,

the human women mourning for what was gone,

the evergreen sprigs carried in a circle

to show the return of spring.

That night, after everything human was resolved,

a young man, the chosen, became the deer.

In the white skin of its ancestors,wearing the head of the deer

above the human head with flowers in his antlers,

he danced,beautiful and tireless,until he was more than human,until he, too, was deer.

Of all those who were transformed into animals,the travelers

Circe turned into pigs,the woman who became the bear,

the girl who always remained the child of wolves,

none of them wanted to go back to being human.

And I would do it, too, leave off being human

and become what it was that slept outside my door last night.

One evening I hid in the bush south of here

and watched at the place where they shed their antlers

and where the deer danced, it was true,as my old grandmother said,

water came up from the ground

and I could hear them breathing at the crooked river.

The road there I know, I live here,and always when I walk it

they are not quite sure of me, looking back now and then to see that I am

still

far enough away, their gray-brown bodies,the scars of fences,the fur never quite straight,

as if they'd just stepped into it.

You too can read more of her writings and see her web page at :

http://www.lindahoganwriter.com/

Cesar Chavez

Frida and Diego








I have hitch-hiked back from Silverton twice now and both times I have had to endure a rant from a middle aged woman about how "The Mexicans" are ruining Oregon. Both times I have thought to myself " Am I in a twilight zone movie?"


But no, I am not and these bigoted attitudes are clearly prevalent in many places in the Good Ole USA!


I feel so very fortunate to have lived and worked in Austin, Texas and the Bay Areas ( both Monterey and San Francisco) of California where Chicano/Latino Culture is such a strong and beautiful element of the landscape. The Mexican colonization of Columbus, Ohio is the very best thing to have ever happened to "The Westside" of my hometown .



Strong families, beautiful art and music, amazing fortitude in the face of so much opposition from racists and bigots . I could quite honestly live on (authentic) Mexican food everyday of the week and be very happy.


I think back to the lives of Frida Kahlo and her friend and partner, Diego Rivera. How would they react to all of this? With Art and music I reckon. How would Jose Posada draw this particular cultural cartoon?

I think of all of the amazing Mexican-American folks I have known and loved.


I would much rather be surrounded by "a bunch of Mexicans" anyday. Viva Cesar Chavez! Thank the God/dess, Great Spirit, The Divine for Mexicans everywhere!