Restoration In Progress

I honestly have no idea how to catch up here and relay to you the glorious things I saw and did while up at Mammoth over the weekend through Tuesday.  I guess I'll just have to post some of my favorite photos -- these are a few of the ones I took on my iPhone, and none have any sort of editing or filter on them. I also used a Canon, but I have hundreds and hundreds of shots that I need to go through, so I'll leave you with these.

For all of you who say that "you'd miss the seasons" if you lived in California -- well -- we have the seasons.

Here's fall:

The shot below was taken just off the highway where we pulled over when we saw an enormous herd of sheep. Within moments, a real shepherd (I'm SERIOUS!) came whistling down a path with a real border collie who literally shepherded the sheep away from the fence and the highway and back into the field.

My favorite place was the aptly named "Convict Lake." I think the story goes that a group of convicts escaped from a Carson City prison and ran here. The lake is at well over 7,000 feet elevation and achingly beautiful. I hung out for a while while my photographer friends wandered about taking their spectacular pictures. I took off my socks and hiking boots at one point and waded into the icy water. I lay under the tallest trees and looked up to the end where the branches hit the sky. I have always loved to feel very, very small.

It rained hard and the winds howled one night and all the next day. That was exhilarating -- to feel the rain on my face, to feel chilled and wet and no longer parched.

I saw six rainbows, too.

I have a thing for trees that stand alone in vast empty spaces or along ridges. They speak of accommodation and a fierce loneliness.

It snowed, too, and while I'm not a fan of the white stuff, there was something exhilarating about moving from yellow to white in the space of an hour. The eastern Sierras are really just spectacular.

I could just post pictures all day, but really what I want to say is that I am so grateful to have the opportunity to travel in the great state of California, to be outside wandering around so many spectacular vistas and to be restored by friendship, love and the earth.

photographer: Carl Jackson

Beginning

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.   

The dark wheat listens. 

Be still. 

Now. 

There they are, the moon's young, trying 

Their wings. 

Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow 

Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone 

Wholly, into the air. 

I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe 

Or move. 

I listen. 

The wheat leans back toward its own darkness, 

And I lean toward mine.

James Wright

I'm up at Mammoth Mountain, checking out the fall colors and recovering from the past few weeks. I don't know -- I'm feeling drained in a way I haven't in the past which I guess is to be expected. Up here in the mountains, the air is clear and biting cold. It rained in sheets yesterday, all day, yet I lifted my face to the water in gratitude. Rainbows arched over cloudy skies, and the cottonwoods' leaves are yellow coins, hanging on.