Feliz Navidad

Hi friends. Tomorrow I leave for a little trip into Mexico. I will take a bus for about 30 hours or so to Guanajuato and will stay there through Christmas. On the 26th I will go into Mexico City for 3-4 days. I hope to be able to check out the Zapatista demonsrtation... Then I am off to Valle de Bravo for New Years with my friend Piero.
Things are going rather well down here. It is strange to have a job with so many official responsibilities...like I'm all grown up or something :) The days are long and I crash as soon as I get home. It is nice to have a home. I think/hope that things will start to slow down soon. This holiday jaunt will be super fun and refreshing.
I wish you all warmth and love this holiday time filled with dear ones. You all will be with me and I with you in spirit. Paz

A new place to live

Hi friends. On Sunday Olive and I moved into our new apartment in Agua Prieta, Mx. I also got a cell phone 520-266-7972. I get free nights (9pm-7am) and weekends, so feel free to call. Monday is my first official day as the US Coordinator of the Migrant Resource Center :)
more to come...

At the base of the Chiracahuas

My friend Jade sent me this photo...I'm looking for Olive in the desert.

Ch Ch Ch Changes...

hello friends. as of saturday i will be living in agua prieta, sonora, mexico. i will be able to receive mail at the douglas office of frontera de cristo at 826 11th street
douglas, az 85607

i may be getting a cell phone for my new job within the next few weeks. i have mixed feelings about getting a phone again but i am looking forward to speaking with some of you as a result. much love and more to come (love, that is) Abrazos.

The Dragoons

The past two days I have been camping, climbing and hiking in these glorious rock formations. This area was holy land to the native people here and some of thier caves and paintings are still around. The place evokes a sense of calm and serenity I have never experienced before.

Return to the Borderlands Update

Early Sunday morning I will catch a flight from Philidelphia back to Phoenix after visiting mmy friend Nikki and her community at Cambria House. I have been offered a paid position as the US coordinator of the Migrant Resource Center in Agua Prieta and I am set to start mid-December. I will be provided with an apartment in Agua Prieta and a small piece of land to grow things. I am not sure how long this job will last, since my salary will be coming from donations from No Mas Muertes, but I am prepared to commit for a while. So, dear friends, if anyone is up for a trip down south you are welcome to stay with me. Mi casa es su casa. Abrazos.

Rural Pennsylvania

Since Monday I have been on a farm in rural Pennsylvania visiting a dear friend of mine. Yesterday I dug up carrots in the morning sun and today I spun some wool. I have never been in a place like this, with people living in community under shared values of living well and being well. It is a Camphill community ( a village of adults with special needs) founded on the principles of Rudolf Steiner and Biodynamics. There is so much life here.

To be a Mountain

Today came in heavy and soft
from under the door frame.
It is fall and the green glory of summer has faded
It is almost Halloween
almost an election
a wedding, a birth, a funeral
it is almost winter.

Today I will walk the dogs.
They will scurry up the hill leaving me behind
Then turn in a joyous return.

Today I will ride my bike
Water the plants, cook and eat,
Visit some friends.

Today I will be good.

Because today, this morning
I am facing the mountainside
outside my window,
honestly.
Fully aware of its incredible inconsistencies
which is what it is
and why it is so profound and poetic;

Because those tectonic plates would not stay put
but continued to shift and sway
to the rumbling rhythms and rancor
perpetually pulsating from Earth's center.

Beware of what those placid plains have to say about death and living.
When the heart receives the call to crash and collide with being,
become a mountain.

Heavy and soft,
rocky and rounded,
paradoxically perfect;
enduring of those today's almosts
watching them turn into yesterday's alreadys.
We will gaze up at your towering display of imperfection
and long for such bold sincerity.

Me and my dog Olive

Morning Meanderings..a work in progress

Rustling white bedsheets
fumbling through first thoughts
Recognizing
the silence
the sound of waking life.

Familiar functionings
cracklings of ankle-hinge
involuntary inflation of lungs.

It is today, again.

The truth of this
and the fallacy of all such time-bound truths
accelerate the movements.

Platelets and plasma
pursue their transformation
deep blue bright
red pounding

The Grand Drummer drones on
giving and taking
Time
turning and ticking away.

Works of my friend Peter

My apologies dear ones

As many of you may have noticed, I have been slacking in the letter writing/responding. I am very sorry. I have been thinking again about selling my soul for a cell phone (it sounds a lot more painful then it will actually be) so I may be able to speak with you all. This is a tough decision for me so I am open for any opinions, questions, comments, etc.

Soon to be home

I will be living in a small brick building behind this jailhouse come November....

Golden Box

Rae now has a little golden box and matching key to receive letters and things from you all.
Box 630

Bisbee, Az 85603

Back at it

So, I have not posted here in quite a while. I was negligent, true. I have been sharing a blog with my dear friend Lindsay, yes. But this morning while browsing through the Bisbee Copper Queen Library I have decided to start back up. I am without a phone or permanent address so I thoguth it would be good to return to this blog to let ya'll know what's happening in the life of Rae. (Ya'll has been adopted into my vocabulary). So here is the latest....

Two days ago I moved my life (hiking pack, two boxes of books, bike and dog) from Douglas to Bisbee, Arizona. I work in Bisbee at a natural food co-op and teach yoga. I have met some really great friends here and have been warmly welcomed into the community here. For the next three weeks I will be housesitting/dogsitting for this man named Andre on the side of a hill here in town. It is a beautiful quiet place with a veranda and clothesling outside my window.

When they return, I will go to Philly/Baltimore to go to Hannah Vail's wedding, see my pregnant Sarah and visit Jessica on the farm. Then I will return to Bisbee and move into an old brick building behind the old-time jailhouse-turned-travel agency. The building was once an ole wine shop and cellar owned by the Italians back in the 1920's. I will live near my two goo friends Jade and Peter who have a garden outside my front door. The Mexico border at Naco is 15 minutes away and I will be able to volunteer there at the resource center for migrants. I know nothing more of the future than this.

I hope to write more and share my writing, paint and draw and cook and hike in these mountains. I also want to learn to play harmonica. This may take some time, but for those of you in Seattle, I will be up there in the Springtime to visit and celebrate Abby and Jake's wedding.

Here is to new beginnings...

merging

Raeful blogs is moving to lindensea.blogspot.com to merge with the space of a dear friend of mine, so you can enjoy the postings of us both. peace and chicken grease.

digging

i will being things that are not intended to end. i will carve a vein in the earth with my fingernails. i will go down deep into warm darkness and not search for an out. in the musk of this circulation i will listen to the music of life emerging, descending and regenerating and i will learn from this love.