On The Road

A few shots from the road trip to Seward with Annie...

I've been trying to do a bit of art and writing every day, and it feels really, really lovely.

In the City; a photoshoot

I was a pretty happy girl to spend the day in town with Megan yesterday, to take pictures with my new camera.

And there's a new face poking around the house (and jingling, with that little bell on his collar); this is Charlie, a Siamese my friend found on the side of the road in the rain, wet and starved and scraggly. She was so happy when I asked if I could watch him for the weekend, to see if he and Fly get along. I find he's perfectly happy curled up on my stomach, or feet, or...wherever, really. He kind of has an attitude, but he's a pretty sweet guy.

I call him Charles.

Hello.

It's been so long!

This is my breakfast. But more excitingly, this photo was taken with my new camera.

I think I am in love.

Loving Alaska. Loving mountains and the snow and the crispness.

Doing a lot of dreaming about cabins, dogs, herb gardens, wilderness, art studios, VW vans.

Planning on starting some kombucha, learning to make ricotta, and getting a job!

Hoping to volunteer at the college radio station and I've been peeking at buying a car.

Ira Glass comes to Alaska in April! I've been listening to This American Life every week.

I'm not totally done with the blog, but computer troubles for now...

hippies in the valley

Aron and I made our way South-via 3 cities in 3 days (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch). Out of Christchurch we caught a ride with the hostel owner as far as Hanmer Springs, and then managed to hitch-hike as far as this sign:
And we knew we had found the World Rainbow Gathering. Another hitched ride with a van full of Japanese and a 40-minute walk along a very, very muddy road, we started seeing more the tents, the dreadlocks, and the pots of chai warming over little fires.

The walk in was quite a trek. My new Tevas showed their worth! Although I got some pretty serious blisters.

Just as we were setting up our tent, a rainbow came out. It's been said that there's been a rainbow at every single World Rainbow Gathering. We got there just in time to see this one:

Twice a day there was Food Circle. A couple of times we helped out in the kitchen, rolling huge masses of chappatis, stirring vats of rice and polenta, tossing salads in storage-size plastic boxes. Before dinner was ready, there would be a "1-2-3.." and we'd all shout "FOOD CIRCLE!!" so people could start congregating. Then, once the meal was ready, everyone would stand in the circle, holding hands and singing songs like;

We are circling, circling together
we are singing, singing our heart-song
This is family, this is unity
this is celebration, this is sacred

and then an "omm" would start, and vibrations from everyone's voice would grow, and lift the whole circle up. It felt very special, and very unifying, it was a really awesome feeling. Then we'd lift our hands, bring them down namaste-style in front of us, and then all kneel and bow and give thanks.

The food was usually pretty good-staples were things like dal, red cabbage, chappatis, and soaked oats. Sometimes we got special chutneys, or rice pudding, or once even a dessert of stewed apples with seeds. Somehow there was always enough, with the servers running around yelling "First time chickpeas?" and people would respond "Chickpea connection??"
In between meals, there were workshops, things like meditation, laughter-yoga, energy channeling, baton-twirling, juggling, and discussions over the nature of the universe. I did laughter yoga, and it was a lot of silly but really hilarious exercises, we shouted things like "Very good, very good, YAY!!!!" and all giggle.

The valley was beautiful, 2 of the days we were there the sun was very hot, and we spent a lot of time lolling and reading and meeting people. I grew really fond of a girl named Tal, from Israel. But random people told me I was the sweetest person they'd met at Rainbow, or if I was ever in [their country] I could stay at their house for free, because they could see in my eyes that I was a good person. It's always nice to hear things like that.. :)

On our 3rd day, the rain started, and our little tent didn't hold up too well. We moved it a couple of times, but it was absolutely pouring, so our efforts were kind of in vain. We managed to warm ourselves by the fire before finding a communal teepee to spend the night in...


It was a really beautiful experience, the amount of love and shared excitement for life was infectious, and you really couldn't help at smiling from all the good energy there. Of course, between the rain and the mice eating our food, we were pretty ready to head out, but it was sad to leave the friends we had made.

There are Rainbow Gatherings all over the world, sometimes just regional, so there's always one going on somewhere, it seems like. Some people just hop from gathering to gathering, following them and never really settling down. I don't think I could every do that, but I can understand how addictive it is to have a family like this.

"Another Beautiful Day in Paradise", Christmas in Tuateawa

After a few days of hostel life, we were picked up by Bexie's friend Jon, a conservationist who has a spot of land that he's been working on, planting native trees and creating a home for volunteers to come and work on it.

There's a shanty and some storage containers on the land, and Jon was still waiting for approval of his house to come through, so the first night we camped out. It's a beautiful place, right next to the river, surrounded by native bush.

The next day the deal came through, and he got the keys to this place. It's a cool house, an upstairs (the girls floor) for Bexie and I, and an open kitchen and communal space. Bexie and I were instantly excited to be able to "move in" somewhere. This will be the house the volunteers will be living at, when Jon's program starts in early January, and goes through the summer.


Our first dinner in the house--the quirkiness of this picture is fitting, as everything was still jumbled and packed, but we managed to cook anyway.


After working that day, we drove over the hill to Coromandel to pick up Aron the next evening. So good to see a familiar face in New Zealand--the first time since leaving in August! We were all smiles as we drove back, and captured this photo..
It didn't take us long to make ourselves at home, and to madly decorate for Christmas. Jon even went out and cut down a little pine tree (they're an invasive species here, and everyone hates them, so there's no grief about cutting them down. I still like them, but I'm not a native Kiwi..)


Here's our day trip into Thames, before Christmas. We spend a lot of time in the library there, because there was free internet, but we also managed to get a lot of grocery and Christmas shopping done too.Guys, this is a golden kiwi. I don't even know if you can get them in the U.S., because I had never heard of them before I got here. But they are waay good.

Bexie spoiled me again, and baked me a birthday-cake, and we had a combined house-warming/birthday/Aron's arrival celebration. And I got to blow out more candles :)This cake is so good, chock-full of seeds and fruit, it's a total treasure hunt to find everything in it.


Another lovely evening, I was popping popcorn to string on garlands, as we watched Star Wars and ate brownies.
Christmas day! Jon woke me up early in the morning, because I had volunteered to help him collect the fish from his net. I hung out on the beach for an hour as he paddled out and back, and then, before breakfast or festivities, we had to filet it. Goo and blood and bones later, I learned how to do it.I mean, who doesn't want to filet fish on Christmas morning?

Then we gathered around our Charlie Brown tree and opened the gifts. The package from my mom was packed with warm gear, lovely bits, and candies. Aron gave us each affirmation bracelets, and Bexie knitted me a headband, and Jon gave me socks and chocolate! Apparently, the goal of Christmas is how many things you can adorn yourself with. We played charades and drank champagne and had a lot of fun.

Bexie in the socks I knitted for her from the end-bits of the other socks:
On Boxing day the weather was fine, so Jon decided to take us all out for a paddle. It was beautiful, we hugged the coastline of cliffs and crumbly rock formations. The rocks were volcanic, and we called the "chocolate chip rocks", because they were made up of lots of light and dark little pieces.

We stopped in the middle at a little rocky cove to swim and sit in the sun and snack, then checked out a mussel farm, where Jon collected the ones growing on the edges, before we paddled back--and some penguins swam up to say hello! It turned out we were gone for 4 1/2 hours, but it didn't feel like that long!

In between working and adventures, there's been a lot of reading and knitting and playing games. There's been a few evenings of Settlers of Catan, a game of trading and building empires-those games can get pretty intense.


Spending a lot of time going to beaches too, to swim or just sit. This rocky beach at sunset had some great creatures in the tide pools.


These are called something like "cat-eye snails":Not a bad place to spend Christmas, not at all.