Operation Desert Dove

I have not in fact dropped off the face of the Earth. Well...not exactly. Here's what's happening...

I've got a foster Britt in the house who is supposed to move on and be adopted by someone. He's quite possibly the most amazing dog I've ever met. I only have to sigh and say, "Huh uh" and he ignores dishes on the coffee table, parrot cages, tasty bits on the counter top, clothing, shoes and things on the floor with uncertain origin (is that piece of plastic an important component to something?). I'm so tired and distracted I didn't realize for a while that I was conversing instead of training -- yet he seemed to understand my every word. "You should really sit and wait outside the kitchen while I cook." "Give me just a minute and I'll take you for a walk" "You're a little too close to the African grey. You should really step back a bit." Imagine the look on my face when I realized he had simply done as I had asked...

He pointed pigeons in the loft today. I keep reminding myself that I don't like male dogs. If he swims, I'm probably a goner.

Tao, the mini-macaw, also a foster is too afraid of the camera to pose just yet. In fact he's afraid of everything, most especially hands. He's a sweet little guy and says a few things in Mandarin. A multi-genus, multi-lingual home. Certainly this place is never boring.

A rescue parrot and a rescue dog. I find myself reaching out although my resources feel minimal right now. What the heck? It's better for the soul to be the rescuer than the the rescuee. Now about getting a ranch hand...

I think it would be safe to say that I've been depressed lately. Let me say though that there are some amazing things happening in my life right now and I hope that sometime in the future I will be sharing good news. However, grief is a thing that takes time...

I drove by Whitewater Ranch the other night on my way to a reading out in the desert. I glanced across the freeway as I passed the ranch to note what I thought was a dry hollow where my pond should be.

I thought I had let this go. I had told myself that if the tribe wanted to build a casino on it, I couldn't stop them. I don't want to do battle over this, make waves, be any kind of activist. It's not in my nature quite honestly. I am so done with this...stolen dogs and raped land.

But in that moment my heart seized and the tears were impossible to deny. I swerved across the freeway, barely making the exit to take a closer look. The newspapers have been full of articles about how they are trying to passs through a bill in the state senate the will expand gambling, a bill that will allow the Agua Caliente Band a third casino. I keep throwing the newspaper aside, but only after I have read the articles. My imagination though, was already erasing Whitewater Ranch.

I wiped my tears sheepishly when I found the pond still there. I looked around as if someone might have witnessed my hysterics. Then I tucked my head between my knees and asked myself the hard question..."You cannot pretend like you do not care. Yes, you are going to lose Whitewater, but you're a writer. Why aren't you writing about it?"

I dreamt last night that a woman knocked on my door with a dog in her arms. She told me she had found Jolie. I took the liver and white Brittany in my arms and squeezed her tight. When I let her lick my face, I looked into her eyes and knew it wasn't true, no matter how badly I wanted it to be. There was no smudge of brown on her muzzle, no hint of red in her cheeks and eyebrows. It wasn't my Jo.

The woman spun this incredible story about how it had to be my dog. It sounded so true, but I left her sitting on my couch, returning with Jolie's collar in my hand. "My dog is dead," I told her. "She isn't ever coming back. --But can I keep this Brittany? If you don't want her, I really do."

I dreamt too of a canvasback hen floating in my yard which had been flooded in a relentless downpour. I waded out into the water to feed the gorgeous duck cracked corn from my palm and admire the delicate filigree on her feathers. In my dream I spent hours waist-deep and communing.

I dream of water and hunting dogs, visions and totems given then taken away and somehow finding a way to return. I dream about these things because my heart hurts right now, but it still knows that some things are truer than a moment.

I'm working on my Whitewater article right now.

In a tarot deck the final card of the major arcana is the world card. This is the card where the snake is swallowing it's tail, where everything is ending and beginning all at once. The major acana tells a tale of the fool's journey. The thing is, that once it ends, it starts all over and where the slither of the road stops and begins is indistinguishable.

I find myself thinking about this card. Wondering about endings and beginnings. --Don't ask me to read your cards -- I do it well, but it always freaks me out. I don't think it's so much about the magic in the spread of tarot as it is about the fact the human journey is identical and timeless in a thousand ways. Whoever created the tarot could have made a fortune in those "Choose your own adventure books" we read when were children. Whoever created the tarot knew the hero's journey, knew life. And every time I see that world card pop up in a spread I wish I could kick that person in the shins. It's beginning....it's ending...I know. I know.

In my pigeon loft six squabs hatched in the last week. One didn't make it. The rest might not either. Soon there will be eyass red-tailed hawks to feed just in time for the pigeon fledging. The Red Queen is sitting on a clutch of eggs, avoiding the pummel and scream of Lady Kestrel who is about to nest across the way. I saw an oriole at my hummingbird feeder and the hen hummers, Anna's all, are heavy with eggs...every last one. My yard is innudated with American goldfinches and I saw an Audubon's yellow-rumped warbler the other day. I imagine the grosbeaks and lazuli buntings will be here soon. Is it the end of winter or the beginning of spring? Is it the birth of a new generation or the means to feed young predators? I don't know.

I think if I closed my eyes and drew a card from the dark deck in the moonlight I would find the world card balanced between my fingers. My life, my writing, my falconry... fire to ashes to flame. It's ending. It's beginning. I know. I know.