Closer to aligned

There was no trace of the salamanders this morning. Instead, under the bright sun there were butterflies and dragonflies and their flitting shadows dancing over the ground. I walked very slowly and stopped frequently to regard them. The internet tells me most butterflies live about a month, but Monarchs, of which there were many today, can live about nine. The average lifespan of a dragonfly is reportedly 42 days. A slim garter snake allowed me close. Its movement seemed labored. Darting tongue and bobbing head. I picked up trash along the way back - spent shotgun shells, crushed beer cans, plastic nip bottles, a brown beer bottle I haven't seen since the 1980's, cigarette butts, tissues. Gross. People. 

A man in the laundromat with shaved clean head and eyebrows this afternoon talked to me about DMT and about how it is imperative that we change our relationship to Mother Earth right now. This was a wonderful conversation to hold in a laundromat with a stranger. 

At home, I watched a raccoon scavenging around the bird feeders in the backyard in broad daylight. They usually come at night. It stayed for at least an hour. Watching it's gymnastics climbing the pole and finding a way to eat from the platform feeder without falling was incredible. When you must do, you just do,  it seemed to be teaching me.

I'd gone up on the hill this morning and brought the pipe and some tobacco with me. I offered it to the Earth, the Sky, the Four Directions and to the spirits of the land I was standing on. I'd left that pipe on a shelf bundled in sage and red felt for nearly 30 years for many reasons. None of the reasons were good ones. It felt right to hold it again and to let it fulfill its purpose.