Notes from Everland

Well we are officially into fall now and this morning was the chilliest this year so far...8 degrees! I was up at 4:45 raring to go again [its the steroids in my current med] and I am eating like a horse. And the last week of rain is clearing. The sun is out at 2:08 and we are showing lots of blue sky and sun dappled trees out my window and on the hills across the bay. I have been able to keep my heater off thanks to last night's wood fire that kept the creeping chill off. Chaya came home and prepared a 5 star lunch for the three of us. Dylan is in school but her friend Rick was here. There was chicken breast with craisins [cranberry raisins] some Saturna baked seedy sourdough bread [toasted] and a whopping salad with fresh garden lettuce, yellow and red peppers, onions, tomatoes and goat cheese. I feel so sated that I can barely stand but that could be because my feet and ankles are swelling again...the doctor says the steroids may be the culprit but we don't know. W

Ky is in Vancouver today on the homeward leg of his trip from NYC after a successful visit with us. He bought with him as a gift 3 boxes of fair trade organic coffee from Variety Coffee Roasters in New York; 2  boxes from Ethiopia [best growing conditions and quality he says] and one from El Salvador. While here for the last 5 days he was up before anyone else [except yours truly "Sleepless Joe" thanks to my steroid meds] busily preparing a big pot of coffee for everyone. I am still drinking caffeine free Rooibos [recommended by my sister Marilyn] due to restrictions on my current care med. I am still hoping the new pill  dexamethasone will eventually counteract the lymphoma though I have been told it will not heal me. It is a palliative care measure to help reduce the swelling in my neck and face. However I have noticed the last 2 days the swelling seems to have increased again. I can feel its presence in my mouth on the upper right of my throat, like a large rope re

Long ago and far away but just the other day, I was hiking up Mount Tzouhalem on southern Vancouver Island with my bamboo flute in hand. After several months struggling to find a single note, the flute had begun to respond to my breaths. The sound of it, echoing among the trees and hills was so natural and powerful than rather than sit in the confines of my little wooden cabin, I took it up to the mountaintop nearly every summer day. The flute, a Chinese folk instrument closely related to the Japanese shakuhachi, was a gift from a poet friend. Determined to learn it and to reproduce the haunting sounds that had first captured my attention, I battled with my tendency to give  up on it for days, weeks and months on end until at last it began to respond to my touch, thrilling me with the sound that emerged from it. I had been living in my cabin for about a year now, following the Zen tradition of sitting meditation coupled with chopping wood and hauling water and also working on my cr

Bettianne’s party was a thing of wonder…and it took place at Priscilla’s fantastical little Haggis Farm…a place out of a children’s fairy tale if there ever was one. The house itself is set back from the drive behind the bakery so you don’t see it when you drive in. It is another of those single wall California type structures…but tiny and in several connecting buildings. Rick helped me up the steps and we made our way through 3 different levels into the kitchen and on to the tiny flagstone patio where the party was underway. The wood frame of the house is visible on all levels and adds a touch of rustic charm to the structure because you see and sense natural wood all around  you. The kitchen table was set up with about 6 fancy cheeses none of them yet cut…but meant for the party goers. I was offered a chair facing away from the reclining sun facing Bettianne and her daughter Christianne (who looks like an aging flower child to me with her toe rings and long graying hair and I