"Yas" and Talking 37th Dream with Rainbow and Two Birds

The above photo and video were taken from my porch early in the morning this last Wednesday. We've had snow on the ground for about a week now.

Yesterday afternoon, despite another snow warning, I drove across town to visit a new friend who weaves story blankets.  When I arrived, she was sitting and talking with a friend of her husband.  I sat down at the kitchen table and joined in the conversation.  Her husband's friend is Navajo, and it turned out that he is a fluent speaker of the Navajo language.  My friend is a retired teacher of English to non-English speakers.  We were talking about the light snowfall, and the Navajo man told us the word for snow.  I asked him for the word for "stars" and "moon." I was moved by the beauty of the words but found it difficult to pronounce them correctly.  The Navajo man said that he had once known some of the Crow language, but that was long ago.  After a little while, the Navajo man left on his bike, and my friend and I continued to talk, and she showed me her beautiful story blankets.  Her husband arrived home some time later as it was snowing harder and getting dark.  He said that the roads were still clear.  The snow turned to rain sometime last night, but the air is still cold, and there is still snow on the ground.

Early this morning I found a splendid website with pronunciations of Navajo words and phrases.  I found this video about the Navajo word for "rainbow":

If you look closely at the photo above, taken from my porch this afternoon,  you will see at least two birds.  

Yoga with the Camera and the Birds

The photos were taken during my morning yoga practice a few days ago.  For the last few weeks, because I was not feeling well, I did not spend any time on my yoga mat.  It felt good to be back on my yoga mat. While I was performing the asanas, the sun was rising, and I was unable to resist interrupting the asana practice in order to grab my camera from the table and take some photographs while standing on the yoga mat. The second photo was taken through one of my windows, using the zoom function.  I resumed my yoga practice.  Then the moment came when I couldn't resist leaving the yoga mat and going out on my porch to take some black and white photos.  This is the best of those photos:

Again I returned to the yoga mat, but soon a flock of bushtits arrived, and their wings were illuminated by the rising sun.  Once again, I reached for my camera as I stood on the yoga mat:

If you turn the sound up, you will hear something from "Chants of India," by Ravi Shankar and George Harrison.  My camera is part of my yoga practice this time of year when it is light enough in the early morning to see outside.  There is more and more early morning birdsong as spring approaches.  

Gathered From Coincidence On A Snowy Day

The Invisible Peak from Gary Yost on Vimeo.

A few days ago, I watched Werner Herzog's Little Dieter Needs To Fly after Dominic Rivron had mentioned it in a comment here on my blog.  Dieter Dengler lived on Mt. Tamalpais.  This morning after reading Sabine's thoughtful post, I moved on to the Doonesbury website and came across a video about the Coastal Miwok and their sacred mountain, Mt. Tamalpais.  If you don't have time to watch the entire video, go to the end of the video and listen to Sky Road Webb drumming and singing on the top of Mt. Tamalpais.

If you watch the entire video, look for Sacheen Littlefeather.

"If we take care of the mountain, the mountain will take care of us."
(from the credits at the end of "The Invisible Peak")

Listening /Looking up and seeing crows in the cottonwood trees during the snowy days last week

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.

Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

The snow is gone for now. Snow never lasts very long in the lowlands of the Pacific Northwest. I'm grateful for that. I will walk four miles in the snow but that's all. When the snow is gone, I walk freely again, but it always takes a little time to get my sense of well-being back. Something about snow pulls the rug out from underneath my usually good spirits.