Summer in the North Lands

In early July, I went to northern Minnesota off of the Gunflint Trail to a cabin for a week. Part of the week is spent in solitude and the rest is spent communing with some of the wonderful women in my life. This year was the second annual retreat.

It is interesting to me why many women tend to wait to do this type of thing (be alone) until we are almost 40 or ARE 40 something or older. I guess for most of us, prior to this we are busy raising young children and/or getting our careers up and going. Both were the case for me.

I can't tell you how rejuvenating it is to get away from the city. There is no cell or phone service and no internet/wireless. It does have electricity and running water but I don't consider these things that I necessarily have to get away from. It does FEEL good to get away from computers which take up much daily life. It also feels good to live a simple life for a week. Believe me, once you do it, you will want another week and ANOTHER!

Having never lived alone in all of my life, I do appreciate the simplicity of the solitary life. I can cook if I want but don't have to. I can clean when I want and only have to clean up after myself. Since I don't have any bills or things to repair or money I have to make in this life, I don't have to do much at all. What I do do is sleep, read, walk, swim, run and think (or not).

The best part of this trip is knowing and seeing that beautiful, pristine and peaceful places exist in this world!

The Beese are here!

We've become bee keepers! We had always privately thought about bee keeping, the Professor and I. We did not even share this thought with each other for many years. Only recently, after seeing the documentary, "The Queen of the Sun", did we know that we HAD to keep bees- that we always knew we would.

(Please remember- you can click on the photos to enlarge.)

The Little Man and the Professor gaze in amazement at our box of Italian bees (via California).

Inside their traveling cage the intoxicated bees await their new home.

The Professor removes the feeder can and releases the first bee.

Emptying the traveling cage to their new home.

7,000 BEES!

The Queen in her cage.

Attaching the queen.

Taking flight.

Putting on the second Langstroth box.

The Little Man has made a friend for life.

Our furry friend.

Long Time Friends

Sometimes all you need is pictures.

If you seek all that is possible, then all that is possible will seek you.

Imagine you are a squirrel. You don't really know where the nut is that you buried last fall but you are pretty sure that you did a lot of work to get ready for the winter. The squirrel doesn't know how many nuts there are where she lives but she believes that there is an abundance and she goes about her business to find them. She finds many.



Now, imagine you are living in poverty in a land where there is little water or food. If you don't leave, you will surely die. You have heard of this place called "america". You have heard that in this land everyone has food, everyone has water, everyone has a place to live and there is this thing called "opportunity". You BELIEVE this to be true and decide to leave your native country and seek all that is possible in this place called America.

You cross the ocean by boat and they say you will know when you arrive when you see a lady. A proud, tall lady with a crown and a light, pointing the way towards all the possibilities. In the distance, you see her and you know now that it IS possible. ANYTHING that you need, want, desire is there, is here, with you, inside you. You just needed to seek it so that you could find each other.
photos by LupeLu

On the Road to Shambala

I came late to the "LOST" series. I started watching it, not on network TV, because I don't HAVE hook-up to either cable or even the "regular" stations, but via the internet on Netflix. I LOVE watching shows this way, no commercials AND if I want to watch 10 episodes a day...I CAN! If I had watched the show as it played on TV, I don't think I could have waited a WHOLE week for the next episode...it would have killed me!

Anyway, this post isn't about my addiction to LOST, it's about the themes that LOST uses and the themes that have been reoccurring in my life.

Connections and faith are portrayed in this clip from LOST.
About connections: People, as the humans we are, desire to be connected to other people. This is why blogs exist, this is why Facebook is such a hit. We are not creatures who feed off of isolation, that is uncommon AND I would argue, not healthy. We join groups, we belong to churches, synagogues, mosques. We join run clubs, adventure groups, bands, gangs, anything to be connected even if it is a negative influence. We want to be accepted, for who we are, not who we could become or what people want us to be. When we don't get that acceptance, we can become bitter, self-indulgent, depressed. Children, if not given positive attention, will go for negative attention (e.g. when you say "no", I'll do it again, just because I can and you are giving me attention).

I've found that my connections to people have lead me either one way or the other- good vs. evil. I guess, if I think about it, it all depended on how I felt about myself at the time. Insecurity lead to evil. Self love to good. Either way, it was the connection that I was longing for.

On faith. I truly believe that if you BELIEVE...it will become reality.

At age 6, I never doubted this. I could BE and DO anything! I WAS an actress, I was a world traveller. I was an awesome mom. The possibilities were endless. Faith has been challenged since then. As I grew older, I was told and believed that I COULDN'T do things. I was told there were limitations. I now think that this is the worse thing we do to our children.

So, now I am trying to get back my faith. Trying to be Hurley, driving down the hill at 60mph headed straight for the rocks with eyes closed saying, "there is no curse, there is no curse". Just like Hurley, I'm hoping that the VW will start and I'll go driving in the promise land with Three Dog Night singing Shambala in the background.

Wish me luck!

Refreshing the blog in NYC

I have decided to refresh the blog once again. It is time for me to park myself in this cyberspace place, I will be transient no more.

The inspiration came to me in NYC. A friend asked me if I still was blogging. I had to say "no, not for quite some time now". Facebook has been consuming my computer time. Not that I am against Facebook but it doesn't allow the creative muse to be satiated.

So - this will be short- just an introduction, a refresh of the blog. As I am a just traveler of of this blue planet, I wish you a Romani "sastipe" from NYC. Enjoy the video below from one of my favorite "gypsy" bands, Devotchka.

Winter Memories

The family went snow tubing this winter with the little man's school at a place we have never been to before.

This was snow tubing like no other snow tubing I have ever seen. No trudging back up the hill with your tube, a moving sidewalk carried you and your tube effortlessly up the hill to repeat the cycle again and again...swiftly down and effortlessly up. As you can see in the video, they even had snow banks on the side so that there was no worry about killing each other as you flew down the hill...very safe, LOVED IT!



The Professor relished this event (as you can see, he was deprived as a child)with multiple solo runs with the little "Flip" camera.

I wanted to go down together as I find these events more fun in groups but for my introvert husband, he found more joy in the solo adventure. Either way it was a beautiful day that I remember fondly.

We even got the sullen teenager to tube once or twice after sitting out for hours.