Mutinous Thoughts in August

In the hot dry August weather, my favorite ponds and waterways are dwindling, and there are many places where one can walk across the Clyde and little Mississippi rivers - if one is so inclined that is. Water is still flowing in those splendid places however, and the soft ground nearby is clearly marked with the prints of the deer and bears and wild turkeys who come down to drink at sunrise and in evening twilight.

In the heat of the day yesterday, I wandered down to the winding creek below the eastern hill and its secluded pond among the trees, longing (quite simply) for a little shade and stillness and the gentle sound of water flowing downhill for good measure. The longing for those things was almost beyond expression - my silvery head is in a rather tumultuous state these days, restless and in something of a muddle as it always is at this time of the year.

Lately I find myself thinking of of making great sweeping changes of various kinds, of nuking this dear little blog home and starting over from scratch, of removing everything from the Cafe Press and Flickr sites and starting over there too. I consider shaving my head, learning to fly, running away to join the circus, or more likely in August, running off to camp on the northern shore of Lake Superior among the rocks and trees, with only the loons and bald eagles for company. In my dreams I can hear waves hitting the wild shore of Old Woman Bay, and I can hear loons calling to each other beyond the point.

One holds such mutinous thoughts at a reasonable distance by spending meditative time near quiet woodland waters in the graceful company of old trees and little green frogs - yesterday there were frogs in the pond everywhere I looked, and they brought me back to where I should be.