Resting Weekend

I need to start writing my dreams down, lately I've been remembering more of them, at least in the mornings, and some of them feel like they could be stories, or at least like my dreaming brain is trying to come up with stories.

This weekend was a resting weekend.  I met with a critique group via Zoom, but I had not submitted a story for critique, so I only gave critique.  It was pleasant to visit with folks afterwards.  The closest piece I have in my inventory that is critique-ready (sort of) reads more like a first chapter than a complete story, and I spent some time earlier in the week writing the beginning of the next chapter.  

Mark and I worked on a birthday present for my dad--I have to say that Mark has done the lion's share of the work.  We'll see how well the gift goes over when we present it.  COVID has made celebrating with my folks a bit more awkward--we don't want to give them the omicron variant, which is currently being actively spread in the community, so we'll have to mask up in their house and not take a meal together.  It feels like a step backward after the easing of masking requirements in December.  Luckily, most of us are still within about two months of our boosters.  

We took Aiofe to Zumwalt Park, near Fern Ridge Reservoir.  It's a very large area, and dogs can be off-leash there.  Aiofe chased a ball for almost two solid hours.   

In the past, I've managed to photograph a bald eagle and other birds.  This time, the reservoir was drained so much we could walk to the places where ducks and geese had swum among water grasses.  (Some folks were in the news the previous day when they were detecting in the reservoir bed, got stuck in mud up to their hips, and had to be rescued by emergency services.)  Mark did spot a bald eagle, but it was too far away, even for my camera's zoom lens, to get a good photo of it.  

Back home, I trimmed away the sod and grass that had grown over the bricks in the back yard's ceremonial circle.  I think maybe the bricks might be set into the ground too deeply; it seems like I have to trim back overgrowth about every three months.  I guess maintaining the brick cirlce is like getting one's teeth cleaned.  Clearing them is easier when our ground, which is mostly clay, hasn't dried out with the summer's heat.  Working on the circle, my thoughts kept returning to The Day Jobbe, and I had to keep singing We Three's "Center of the Sun" and make an effort to stay focused on finding the brick's edges with my shovel.  

The Day Jobbe has been taking extra amounts of my concentration and vitality lately, and it I have to make an effort if I want to get any writing in in the evenings or weekends.  Or sleep.   One of the drawbacks of working remotely--which I otherwise appreciate in a COVID era--is that location ceases to be as great a cue to transition between work and not-work; when working from home becomes the routine, it becomes more difficult to put down the mental threads of work.

Once the bricks were cleared, I was pleased at how the circle was more prominent.  I didn't feel like holding a ritual right there and then, but I did get a stick of patchouli incense to burn, and after perambulating the circle three times with it, stuck it into the east, and sat down facing east to play my tongue drum.  I've been re-reading Dion Fortune before bed and have been reminded that two skills I should revisit are the ability to concentrate and the talent of imagination.  Bringing the music forth, I was struck with how playing an instrument improves both.

By now it was late afternoon; the setting sun was painting the clouds and eastern hills crimson, and the temperature was dropping.  I took the remains of the incense stick and discovered that I could use it to make smoke rings.