Beltane comes to Black Mountain

April 7, it snowed day and night for 24 hours...and the cherry blossoms were falling along with the snow.

This is the last picture of my little darling, who was named Keptain Panther of the USS Kitty-pride. He lived 19 years with me and my son, as well as numerous other cats. He was loved.

A bit more than a week after losing Keptain, I travelled with a friend, Carol W. back to Hooker Falls to see how the increased rain had added to its abundance.

The lovely cold water tumbled down the cliff.

Carol and I stopped and let some Okies (people from Oklahoma?) take our picture for us.

I asked the butterfly to come over and be still so I could take it's picture.

It landed very close to me and complied with my camera. I didn't ask for it to fan its wings out though.

At my house, the Azaleas have become their garish fuchsia selves. Light itself has changed color.

This is the path to my front door from the parking lot.

Looking back toward the parking lot.

I love velvety purple petunias.

Yesterday, Carol B. and Arline tried the sounds of the cello. Yes there were stained glass windows all over the Abby, where Linda Metzner led our "Bring Forth Your Soul's Voice" workshop.

Carol C. and I enjoyed the bliss of making rain forest sounds with rain sticks and rattles.

I'm a proud mom of my first tomatoes. This year I've got little cherry ones. Faster to ripen I hope...but only one biteful at a time!

I'm pottery making again, at the Black Mountain Clay Studio.

From the BMCA studio blog, I clipped this picture of Cassie's piece.

I'm even going to take a class in hand-building from a guest artist. Cassie Ryalls. I like her feeling of forms. And it will be different to work in red clay again.

I signed up at the studio because I had to get away from my house which is full of reminders of my recently departed cat friend. I'm now able to focus on creating. I've also worked at my job more lately, and spent a little time doing different things.

I've avoided more and more TV, and finally I've decided to disconnect from it...literally. The cable guy will keep my internet going, and turn off the TV. This should be an interesting experiment in a simple lifestyle.

But other attempts at distraction from the sense of loss have included reading, listening to all forms of music, either by the radio stations on the net, or live broadcast. I seldom turn on the local stations at home on my various radios...unfortunately when I'm in the car they are the only choices. Oops, I don't mean they aren't good stations, just in the car I frequently round a mountain pass and there's no more station there at all. I am fortunate to receive 2 stations with PBS on them here, one more classical, one more folk type music.

Yesterday however, I not only sang along with some music, then I discovered how bad my memory is when I tried to remember the name of the artist, or even the lyrics after repeatedly singing them for 3 mintues. A half hour later I had only the first name of the Conga player...and no idea of the singer. But fortunately a day later, searching playlists from the live-broadcast station on my computer, I was able to write myself a note on email to keep track of Daniel Sandownick, the song being "Steady" on the abulm "There will be a Day". It wasn't only "steady, my love," that caught my attention, but the phrase, "For you have already seen the face of god," that I loved.

Then I spent the rest of the day enjoying music in a way I never have before. Study, learning, and experimenting with instruments, sounds, modes and melodies. I even shared my little poem about the Cherry Blossoms in the snow, which is the most creative I've been able to channel into my grief so far. But I enjoyed my own "Butterfly by the waterfall" piece, which was a kind of fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants piece, just using a wood tonal drum with a couple of soft mallets. The drum was a box of special woods which are cut into different shaped pieces on the flat top, and each finger of wood gives a different note.

Right now my seedlings are demanding to get put into dirt. They are very old volunteer seeds from zennias and marigolds, so I started them in wet paper towels in a pan inside. Quite a few sprouted, but it's less than 25% in actuallity. I'm glad this way I can now put the good ones into pots. I still don't put seedlings into the ground where my friendly hungry moles and voles live.

I enjoyed dinner last night with my youngest son and a friend from Penland. We had good Mexican food and talk about all kinds of things from pottery, to travel, the grad schools which my son will be visiting soon, and some of my "ancient history" from the 70's. Well, that's when I started so many different pursuits...clay, yoga, Tai Chi, alternative healing arts...and so on. Some continue, some I've let go of.

Tai, my son, left seven of his latest sculptures here. I think I can call this his gallery for now. It's so awesome!

Today at church my friend, Byron Ballard gave a good program on Beltane...the coming of summer. And it's here for sure...with lots of warm sunshine for the last 2 days. Ah.

I'm quite sorry that this is a dis-jointed posting. I can't edit what I write by cutting and pasting...so the pictures are in one part, and the writing in another. I hope blogspot gets this fixed soon. It's frustrating as hell!

Now I must be off outside where it's 80 degrees! Whoo-wah!