As wildfires rage across the globe, here in the northern Colorado Rockies we’ve been blessed with lush green forests and meadows. We fall asleep every night to the murmur of Panhandle Creek, and feel a strong sense of reprieve. We’re grateful for the rain we’ve had this season.

Since moving into our mountain community, we’re learning about the importance of forest management and wildfire mitigation. Every year, we haul truckloads of deadwood to the slash depot and weed-wack the area around our cabin to reduce fuels in the Home Ignition Zone. Though we’re working with our neighbors to increase the fire resiliency of our community, we understand the need to prepare for the changes that will come with a warming planet.

The good news is there seem to be lots of options in nonflammable and fire-resistant building materials. We’ll use stone on the lower half of the cabin, but we’ve been pleased to learn about the options available in nonflammable concrete log siding. Those concrete sidings come in lots of varieties, ranging from the gorgeous hand-hewn log look to some that don’t look much better than the old vinyl siding. We’ve had several samples mailed to us, with more to come. Our first choice was extremely heavy and cost about twice as much as the second set of samples. On the plus side, those were light, much easier to work with, and filled with insulation. We have more research to do and more samples to come. Ultimately, we’ll be balancing affordability with a natural appearance that (like the beautiful hawk above) blends into our landscape.

Copyright © 2023 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.

It’s Election Day Eve morning. The temperature has risen to 34, and the snow is dripping off the metal roof faster than it’s accumulating. I find myself wondering if this unforecasted warmth is a sign of the much-discussed “blue wave.”

No way to know until we know.

Either way, change is on the horizon. So we wait.

I try to keep myself busy. There’s a lot to do. Still working on getting our house in Fort Collins ready to rent. Still sorting through 22 years lived in suburbia, separating what will go to the kids, be donated, or go to storage, from what will fit into the cabin with us.

When the snow started this morning, it quickly went from tiny swirls to thick heavy flakes blowing from the north. The layer of clouds over the south were thin enough that the snow was illuminated in sunlight, though no blue sky shown through. Knowing better, I search the sky for meaning, for signs or omens, and this well-lit blizzard seems hopeful to me, too.

When the blue finally appears, I watch the clouds go their separate ways, and scribble a poem.
 
On the Wind

The clouds swirl and churn
in westerly gusts,
translucent and opaque,
sunlit whites and rainbow tinged,
roiling across the deep static blue.
 
The clouds are story-tellers,
masters of the unspoken
spoken word.
Petroglyphs and cave drawings
in motion on blue lapis.
 
Dragons and horses and ravens,
hunters and warriors,
whirling dervishes, and wizened orators
dance and change places,
 
a choreography of lives and deaths,
real and imagined.
 

If you weren’t able to vote earlier, tomorrow is your day. Brace the lines and make your voice heard.

So much depends on it.

Copyright © 2018 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.

The female mosquito lives approximately 50 days, while her male counterpart only survives 10. The painted lady butterfly, who spends summers fluttering among the Rocky Mountain wild flowers, has a life cycle of one year. The blood-sucking Rocky Mountain wood tick lives up to three years in the wild, and can survive 600 days without feeding. The life span of the deer up here is two to three years, mountain lions and coyotes live about 10, moose can live 15 – 25, and bears up to 26 years.

All of these sentient beings take what they need to survive, and leave the rest. The larger animals also leave footprints, fertilize the landscape with their waste, crush grasses and break branches as they move through the dense underbrush or bed down for the night. They leave a narrow wake.

In contrast, the life expectancy for a woman in Colorado ranges from 67 to nearly 90 years. I’ve been known to eat more than I should, put another log on and open the windows to listen to Pan Handle Creek, and more than one head of lettuce has sadly wilted in my veggie crisper – a despicable carbon footprint. While I’m keenly aware of the impermanent nature of our time in the Rockies, I find myself driven to leave some kind of lasting mark. I want to clear the land of dead wood, stack cairns, and build a stone path from the river all the way up to Moon Temple. I dream of one day building a garage with a couple of guest rooms, and inviting guests to enjoy a hearty breakfast before they hit the trails or spend the day writing in this inspiring environment.

None of us are guaranteed our next heartbeat, but if statistics bear out for me, I have anywhere from 10.5 to 32 years to fulfill these dreams. And then the hill will be overgrown and covered with the skeletons of our now-standing aspens and lodgepoles, the stones will creep and tumble down to the river under the hooves of large mammals and the freeze and thaw of winter, and the foundation of our establishment will crumble to dust in not much longer than it took for me to make my minuscule mark.

The Rocky Mountains were created over the span of 25 million years, beginning 80 million years ago, rising up from tectonic plates that are over a billion years old. In that context, not only my little mark, but the mountains themselves, are nothing but “a moment’s sunlight, fading in the grass.”

I learned this week that the sciatic pain that has been dogging me since a fall on the ice last February is the result of six bulging discs, one of which is compressing the nerve. I haven’t spoken to a doctor yet (and that’s a for-profit healthcare story I may write about another time), but the diagnosis was devastating. Why? Because it may limit my tiny mark in this place I love. Oh, how we form attachments in this life. There is a possibility that my mobility will dramatically change within my lifetime. Or maybe not. I really don’t know.

Today, I am typing by the open window while raindrops hit the decking outside. I just put another log on the fire.

Copyright © 2018 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.

I started the fire this morning, and sat in the dark with my hands wrapped around my mug as pink light slowly defined the horizon. And then I threw on my coat and boots and stepped into the  snow to capture the colors with my camera, just as a bull moose strolled by.

I’m soaking up all this beauty like hot spring mineral waters. The last couple of weeks have left me feeling like many survivors – triggered, sad, and depleted. In the aftermath of Dr. Ford’s brave testimony, I’ve felt again the silent and helpless little girl within. I’ve been shocked and outraged by the corruption and cruelty of this administration, felt the gut-clenching response of my karate training as I watched a victim of sexual assault be mocked by the president of our United States. It’s not a self-defensive response to physical danger, and the adrenaline surge leaves me further drained. But I am grateful for that ingrained reaction. It is a reminder that I am not helpless, that powerlessness is an illusion.

Years ago, I became consumed with a situation in Iraq. A group of Kurdish men, women, and children, locals who had aided the U.S. during the first Gulf War, were hiding in a barn as Saddam’s troops rolled through the village in tanks looking for traitors. They had a limited supply of food and water, and mothers were covering the mouths of their babies in fear that their cries would give away their location. I couldn’t sleep for days, trying to rally the city’s church council to support a bipartisan effort to save these people. As the minutes ticked by, then hours and days, they were running out of food and water, waiting for help from a government that had deserted them, and I increasingly lost any sense of distance or perspective.

Most of the activists I know have suffered some degree of burnout. Empathy may be a gift that allows us to connect with others, motivate us to compassion and activism, and lead to a kinder, more peaceful world, but it takes a toll on our bodies and mental health.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, they say “don’t get too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired (HALT).” It’s a saying activists would also do well to remember. In order to maintain the energy levels needed to keep going in the face of what can seem at times hopeless, the body, brain, and soul must be nourished. It may be tempting to grab fast food on the way home from the protest, but what our bodies really need is healthy proteins and colorful foods rich in antioxidants and complex carbohydrates. Anger and despair lead to sleepless nights and loneliness (we’re not alone, we’re in this together), and all of these will deplete energy reserves, leading to depression and burnout.

For generations, nurses have told new mothers to sleep when their babies slept. While it might be tempting to use that quiet time to clean the kitchen and do the laundry, if we don’t take care of ourselves first, we won’t be able to take care of anyone else.

I learned something about myself and my limitations in that experience. Just as my grandmother used to say “garbage in, garbage out,” I had to examine where I was spending my energy. Instead of focusing entirely on the negative – war, famine, climate disaster, injustice – I needed to find a way to shift my energy toward solutions, developing the skills in myself and others to work effectively for peace and justice – writing for peace.

I’m not always successful, but shifting my focus towards positive change, away from the explosions and death cries, I am able to hear that still small voice warning me of low reserves. And that is when I stop and look around at this mountain where I live, or listen to snow-melt dripping off the roof, or Max’s quiet snoring.

Beauty and goodness and love are food for the soul, and they are all around us. We are not alone. We are not powerless. Far from it. So do what you need to do to replenish and stay strong. Eat your vegetables, get a good night’s sleep, meditate or pray, seek out your friends and loved ones, and find the beauty that is all around you. Moon mountain is a state of mind.

November is just around the corner. When and how will you get to the polls? Do you need to take the day off? Daycare? Do you or anyone else you know need a ride?

Take care of yourself, and start making plans.

Thanks for visiting me in my Moon Mountain home. I hope you’ll join me here regularly by subscribing to my Rocky Mountain blog. Wishing you strength and resilience… Carmel

Copyright © 2018 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.

Hiking back up the steep incline after dumping a load into the pick-up, I asked him what he thought we should name our hill.

Without hesitation, he said, “Moon Mountain,” grinning ear-to-ear with the kind of uninhibited confidence every child should have.

So now, we live on Moon Mountain in the Colorado Rockies. At the top of the hill, next to the ravine, is a granite outcropping where fissured boulders stand like Celtic ogham stones. Craig and I had already begun calling it the temple; Liam renamed it Moon Temple. I like it. If you were to nestle among those stones, you could see the moon rise, travel unfettered through the star-filled sky, never creeping below the dark forested horizon until it sets into the west. It’s a fitting name.

The aspens are turning. Many of the leaves have fallen, but the trees stand in communities, and when they shed their leaves they all do it together. Where a road separates an aspen community, you’ll see one side barren-branched, their shining bark fully exposed, while their neighbors across the road are still in full color. Do they retain memories of the time before the bulldozers came, tore apart their root systems, and created the winding dirt roads? Are they lonely? It’s possible. Scientists are increasingly finding evidence that the trees do communicate with each other.

But, while they have been cut off from the larger forest, they still have their close families. From the outside, they appear to thrive magnificently.

When I think about the children locked in our for-profit detention centers, I wonder what they have seen before they were torn from their mothers and fathers and other family members. As they crossed the miles, did they name the hills, trees, or rocks? Did they marvel over the beauty they passed, stockpile those memories so they could turn to them, hills and valleys, trees and rocks and flowers, during bleaker days? Or did they enter those walls and cages with only memories of the traumatic events that sent them fleeing to the hope of a safer future? If so, I pray that hope will sustain them.

Dear children, you can’t see it from where you are, but outside your walls the world hums with color. The trees cry out to each other. Leaves are falling. Not in sadness, but in the ongoing natural change of a beautiful globe rotating on its axis. If you have lost hope in a nation that once declared, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” then put your faith in this. Outside your walls, change is happening. We, the people, are working for justice – for you, for your mothers and fathers, and for all our families. Like the aspen communities, you deserve to thrive. Name your mountains and temples.

Cry out your truth, the world is listening.

And don’t give up hope.

Copyright © 2018 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.