Wild Woman – Page 32 – Karen's New York Love Affair

It’s dark in the park in Berlin

$O\'Horten$ I approached the theatre and saw there were posters along the wall at street-level, with the movie theatre entrance up a flight of stairs and the theatre towering several stories above that. The posters showed Australia—a Nicole Kidman pic whose posters I’d seen everywhere, including Amsterdam, Prague, and Berlin. Very Hollywood! But look—an offbeat poster showing a man with a moustache holding a very large dog in his arms, with the the words “Cannes Selection something something.” The movie was called O’Horten, by Bent Hamer, the director of Kitchen Stories (a weird Norwegian movie which I’d seen and loved). My kind of movie! The other posters showed a selection of horror movies, action flicks, and kids films. I left satisfied, knowing there was something I would enjoy seeing, here in Berlin. This was comforting to me—the familiar world of movies still existed in this strange place.

I ran on through the rain and came to another corner, Danziger, where there was a Mobil station set off in the Volkspark Friedrichshain. This struck me as odd, but I noted the price—1.09 Euros per litre (about $1.80 Canadian) and continued along Danziger, always keeping the park at my right. It was 35 minutes into the run now, and I was sure I was coming near to the starting point. The next corner was Landsberger Allee, and it was more commercial. The park disappeared and there was a giant sports complex called SEZ on my right. I didn’t know if anyone used it, for it was dark (closed at this hour on Christmas Eve), and the building had a lot of graffitti on it. But I saw there was a blowling alley—10 Euros—ball sports, massage. After the end of the building there was a little street going right, back towards the park, so I followed it, through a desolate area with tram tracks carved into the pavement, between bleak-looking apartment buildings, and then came to a road with a T sign.

I followed this, passing a woman walking a small dog, and came back to the park. The way led into the park now—which I had hoped to avoid—but I also hoped it would lead straight back to the starting point. The paved path was lined with orange street lights, and I kept to the left whenever the walkway branched, so as to keep the bulk of the park to my right. There were some ominous-looking buildings looming in the darkness on my left, which I later learned was a Krankenhaus (krank means sick, and this was a hospital).

I seemed to have entered a very unfamiliar area that looked nothing like the brightly-lit boulevard I had started out on. At the next turn in the path the street lights changed to white globes. The path cut between wooded hills and as I descended between them I felt I had entered Narnia. After another minute or so my tolerance for the unknown reached its limit. It was 45 minutes into the run. With each step I was increasing the distance back to Kirsten’s apartment. I lost my trust in my sense of direction that this road would lead back to where I’d started. I was afraid I’d entered the twilight zone, and everything had changed and I’d never find my way back. So I turned around and went back the way I came.

Coming out of the park I was worried I’d lose my way and be lost running around the park all night, so I was very relieved to come back to the T sign and the tram tracks. I read all the street signs as I retraced my route, alarmed to discover an entire segment of road between Danziger and Friedrichshain that I’d failed to note. The rain had stopped now, and I noticed the cheer of the apartments along Friedrichshain, lit by strings of Christmas lights. On the ground floor was a restaurant, glowing orange, each table lit with candles, a server looking out the window. Not a single patron had come to eat there on Christmas Eve, but perhaps they’d just opened and were expecting a big reservation. People got into parked cars with packages, and suddenly there was a more festive holiday feeling in the air.

It’s amazing how much more quickly the second half of a run in a new place feels, when I am retracing the journey and some things feel familiar—the movie theatre, a brick paved half-circle park entrance, the steet sign at the corner of Friedrichshain and Friedenstrasse, the pink concession stand building. Without fear and uncertainty slowing my steps I made it back to Kirsten’s in just 31 minutes!

Later I checked her map and found that in another 200 meters or so the park path I was on rejoined Landsberger Allee and from there it was just a few hundred meters to the starting point. The side trip into the park was a loop that went into the park and rejoined Landsberger farther up. Fear had stopped me from completing the circuit—which was not an even rectangle but more like a diamond shape—but I finished it a few days later, in the daylight, when we returned from our Christmas excursion to Prague. The seond time it took 40 minutes to do the complete journey from Kirsten’s to the park, all the way around the park, and back to Kirsten’s.

Looking back from the safety and comfort of my home in Vancouver, where everything is quite familiar, it seems that runs in a new place are the most fun and exciting. Everything is unknown and fresh, and it is great when things get a little scary at times. I feel a curiousity and aliveness about discovering the new place, whether in a city or in the wilderness. And running allows me to cover a good distance fairly quickly, so I can really get a sense of the terrain, and learn the land with my feet. But let me tell you, when I was afraid I was lost, in the dark in a scary park in East Berlin, I felt like a fool, not a wild woman.

Returning home I also found out that what I expected to be a minor park, covering one city block, is the oldest and second-largest park in Berlin, covering 52 hectares, and built in 1840 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Frederick the Great’s accession to the Prussian throne. Although I couldn’t see this in the dark, it is filled with statuary, monuments, playgrounds, and delightful vistas. It is really true that we create our own reality, based on our history. And this might not always be such a bad thing—I guess I like the feeling of being afraid in the unknown, my imagination running away with me. I’m glad I hadn’t read all about the park on the web site first, and seen it on a map. It was good to discover it on my own, directly with my senses, even if I was viewing it through the filters of my history.

Wild women run in the dark in Berlin

I arrived in Berlin about 10 PM (after travelling 22 hours), and spent a lot of the next day sleeping. It was dark by the time I was ready for my first run, at about 5 PM. So my first run in Berlin was after dark, with the temperature around 0° C.

I knew there was a park at the end of my sister Kirsten’s street, about a 5-minute walk away, so I went in that direction, north along Friedenstrasse, and came to the Volkspark Friedrichshain. I decided not to go into the park but just to run around it, so I wouldn’t get lost. I headed to the left, and went about 100 yards when I remembered my wilderness training about staying found, and I back-tracked my steps to Friedenstrasse, memorizing landmarks including two round pods that I imagined were drop-off points for used clothing (but I later discovered are for recycling different colours of glass) and the cross-walk with four stretches, each with separate pedestrian signals, to traverse the busy wide street with three lanes in either direction and a tram line in the middle. On the side closest to the park there was a small pink building with a counter where someone was selling snacks, by the entrance to the park.

Satisfied that I would recognize this point when I came back around to it, I set out in a clockwise direction, around what I imagined was a square park of about one city block, like I’d seen in San Francisco and Vancouver. I could see lights through the trees where I thought the edges of the park were, and estimated that one circuit of the park would take about 9 minutes. I looked at my running watch and saw that at this point I was 9 minutes into the run.

The buildings along Friedenstrasse, in East Berlin, had seemed very massive, square and heavy—bleak and menacing. There was a massive brick church at the end of the graveyard, with a huge square tower that looked like a crematorium to me, and next to it an abandoned factory with a smokestack stretching several stories into the sky. The buildings across from the park also seemed to be very big, squat, and bleak, though they were apartment buildings. There was a lot of graffiti everywhere, which Kirsten told me was a big problem in Berlin. I wondered if it was a symptom of cultural trauma from World War II and the subsequent splitting of Berlin that had never been healed.

The park on my right reminded me of the landscape I’ve seen in Poland near Auschwitz—the bare trees with tangled branches and the low clouds overhead, as well as the feeling of bleakness. The broad sidewalk I was running on had two sections of concrete paving stones set in a diamond pattern, with a reddish cobble-stone path in between them. I imagined the smooth part was reserved for cyclists, but the walk was deserted at this time of day so I ran on the smooth section.

I came to the first corner in a few minutes, and went up to the street signs to read them, so I wouldn’t get lost. To my surprise the stretch of road I was on was called Friedenstrasse—peaceful street—Kirsten’s street had bent at a sharp angle when it met the park. The new street was Friedrichshain, which I later learned is the name of that district of Berlin—a more funky, fun, artistic, part of Berlin, with many restaurants, cafes, and boutiques. Even on this quiet residential street there was a different feeling, which I didn’t notice at first because it began to rain very heavily. I ran on, into the groove now (it usually takes me about 14 minutes to warm up.) I saw a neon sign across the street, Theatre am Friedrichshain; there were two people ahead at the bus stop. I ran to the intersection and crossed at the light, running through a wide river of rain water that had collected along the edge of the street; I wanted to see what was playing! To be continued…

Blessings for the winter solstice – pecan fudge pie!

May the trees rest peacefully this winter, under their blanket of snow. May the earth continue her turning, gently nudging the darkness toward light. May all beings be happy, fed, and warm.

The winter solstice gathering at Monkey Valley was cancelled due to early snow and overworked snow plowers. I drove out of the valley last Saturday evening, through 7 inches of sparkling, light, fairy-dust snow. I was very proud of the Tracker, in 4WD low and with new winter tires, for driving out of there like a tank, over 12 KM of unplowed roads! It was -15° Celcius, and the snow was still falling. Truly a magical drive, with the roads completely drifted over, and the snow-laden boughs of the pine trees hanging low on either side, giving friendly wishes for my safe journey.

So instead of having a gathering on the land, I will have a small tea party in Vancouver, taking tea with my friends Geoff and Azusa Blake. In honour of the solstice, I am going to bake a pie (instead of the traditional bread). I’ve never baked a pie before, so this is quite momentous! I’ve been inspired by my expert pie-making friend, Devona Snook. And just today my friend Tim Kelly gave me a fantastic book for travelling vegetarians, called Vegan A Go-Go, by Sarah Kramer. I’m going to try her Fudge Pecan Pie. If it works out, I’ll let you know! Though if it doesn’t, I will probably blame it on pie babyhood, not the recipe.

So I invite you to take a moment to notice the deep darkness of the longest night. Feel that brief moment when the earth makes a tiny shift in rotation. Wish her blessings on her journey. And then celebrate with friends, with or without pie. Happy winter solstice.

Basic Flaky Pie Crust

1.25 c flour
.25 t salt
.5 c vegetable shortening
3 T very cold water

Stir together the flour and salt. Cut in the shortening until well mixed, then add the water. Mix until a dough forms. On lightly floured surface, knead for 1-2 minutes, then roll into a ball. Wrap dough in wax paper and chill for 30 minutes. Roll the dough into a pie crust with floured rolling pin.

Fudge Pecan Pie

.5 c water
.25 c vegan margarine
2 T unsweetened cocoa powder
.75 c chocolate chips
.33 c flour
1 c sugar
.175 t salt
.5 c soy or rice milk
1 T vanilla
1 c pecan halves
1 9″ prepared pie crust (see above)
2 t soy or rice milk

Preheat oven to 350° F (175° C). Bring water to a boil in a pot, then remove from heat. Stir in the marg, cocoa, and choc chips and whisk until melted. Add flour, sugar, salt, .5 c milk, and vanilla, and whisk until smooth. Stir in pecan halves and pour into pie crust. Bake for 55-60 minutes, until a toothpick or knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Brush top with 2 t milk. Let cool to room temperature before serving.

Easy-peasy! (As my old friend Bev Lytton used to say. I hope all’s well with you, Bev.)

Digging a hole

Here it is, December already. The time of the west is drawing to a close, enticing us to move around the wheel to the north. But sometimes, in our solitude, we can get stuck in the west. Especially for those of us who enjoy the introspection that the west evokes. Going inward for healing and to increase our self-understanding is a vital function that the west supports us to undertake. Yet the purpose of this growth and learning is to emerge renewed, strengthened in our resolve to bring our gifts to our people. That is, we do the work of the west in preparation for the turning of the wheel onward to the north, which is the direction where we take our place with our people, and contribute to our community.

Digging a hole is an excellent way to enjoy the energies of the west while turning, turning, to the north. It is a physical expression of digging down, earthing ourselves, but because it is work, a task, with a physical nature and clear results, it helps us embody our west nature and bring it into the north, into the place of contributing to our people. For someone who is feeling depressed (stuck in the darkness of the west), a concrete physical activity like digging a hole is a great way to use the element of the west—earth—to bring about a shift. The energy evoked by the hard physical work of digging charges us with the red of the south. While the task that the hole will serve to fulfill brings in the energy of work, service, and contribution of the north. It is not so hard to dig a hole—with enough effort, just about anyone can do it. But the fact of the doing it helps us feel confident in our capacities to function and contribute—evoking the confidence of the will aspect of our true nature, which is associated with the north.

As I mentioned previously, my street sign for Starshine Way was STOLEN! So in the next few postings, I’m going to tell you the story of digging a hole for my new sign. To be continued…

Adventures of The Donald

Visitors to Monkey Valley usually enjoy the spirited character of The Donald. They might hear him galloping down the path to the Medicine Wheel, sounding like a horse, his tail puffed up and fierce. Or he might precede the group softly, with the tip of his upright tail bent at an angle as he walks. He often stops to roll on the ground, presenting his belly for rubs. Kim Ashley took the photos of Donald on this page, when she was up in BC co-guiding Monkey Valley’s first vision fast in August 2008.

He’s also a favourite in our Vancouver neighbourhood, where he is more well known than the author! Donald is an adventurer, and he goes into people’s houses and cars, and goes along for a walk with strangers. He has been photographed by snapawayoungman and has an international following on Flickr!

Recently he went missing for three days and nights. Concerned neighbours and friends helped print and distribute posters, checked the internet for found cat ads, checked under bushes, and generally contributed good wishes for finding him.

Less than an hour after I had put up “Donald is Missing” notices, I received a phone call. He followed a beautiful young woman named Elizabeth home on Sunday night around midnight. She took him in and fed him, and he stayed with her for three days! He was only three blocks away, and she let him go out whenever he wanted. Which implies that he could have come home but chose not to. So my personal belief is that he enjoyed the company of this younger, blonder woman, whose perfume still clings to his fur. And also, she fed him better! He was very unhappy to come home to me, and growled and hissed at me all night.

This was not Donald’s first adventure. He has been missing before, and was found over 15 blocks away and taken to the SPCA. My friends Geoff and Azusa put up a missing cat poster, and someone who had seen him at the SPCA saw the poster and called them! Another time I had a call that he was in someone’s house on First Avenue. He has been shut up for long periods in garages, basements, and the “cold room” at Monkey Valley, because he just goes where his curiosity takes him! And he has been chased by a coyote or two in his day, and lived to continue with his aloof philandering ways…

For those of you who are familiar with object relations theory, you might notice a thing or two about my relationship with my cat!

Ah, the luxury of hot running water!

It took two years from the time I bought Monkey Valley until there was hot running water to fill the beautiful claw foot bathtub in the upstairs bathroom. The bathtub was the first purchase I made after getting Monkey Valley. It weighs hundreds of pounds! Hugh and I brought it up in the ice blue Volvo station wagon I had at the time. With another friend helping, three of us managed to carry it up the stairs. Then it took two years for Hugh and I to install the solar power, the water pump, and get all systems going so that hot water was flowing through the veins of the house.

Plumbing has been one of the biggest challenges here, because it seems to be impossible to totally drain the house. I have a routine that takes about 1 ½ hours to do, to shut down the house when leaving it in winter time, which I have refined after various expensive mishaps involving small leaks, huge gushing leaks, expensive repairs, and even more expensive service calls:

turn off the power to the pump
open all the taps to drain the water
drain the line down at the pump house
open the screw under the Bosch flow-through propane hot water heater to drain the water in its pipes (failure to do this led to two very expensive repairs)
drain the water filter system (forgot to do this once and the whole thing busted)
drain the lowest line in the house
attach a hose and drain the line to the outside tap, which is even lower
drain the tap from the cold water tank
drain the washing machine, which has a tiny little tube at the bottom for this purpose
scoop remaining water out of toilet bowls (two)
put salt or environmentally-friendly anti-freeze in the p-traps (basically, down each drain), toilet bowls, and toilet tanks

Now that there is a solar hot water heating system added on to the original plumbing, Russ Hughes of Active Mechanical in Merritt (who installed the solar heating system, and is sadly now deceased—may your spirit be at peace, Russ) advised that I shut off the line to the new propane-heatable hot water tank, and leave the pilot burning. On sunny days, this gives the solar boiler a large body of water to use for heat exchange. Leaving the pilot burning is supposed to prevent the water in the tank from freezing during spells where there is no sun. This is a new element in the system, so I am not sure how well it will work, but this time around it worked fine.

Anyway, as you can see, the whole thing is a goddam pain in the ass, and sometimes it makes me wonder why I bother living out here! This time coming home there were no leaks. But before I could turn on the water system I needed to:

close all taps (remembering the cold water tank tap, which I have forgotten to close in the past, resulting in a gushing flow when I turned the water back on)
put the screw back in the Bosch flow-through
open the valve in the line from the hot water tank
turn on the power to the pump, which uses a step-up transformer to convert the 110 volt house power to 220 for the well pump
light the pilot on the flow-through tank

Plus, always, light the pilots on the stove and fridge to get those running again.

This time around, it only took an hour to make the fire, get all systems going, and unload the car. Plus another half hour to unpack food, clothes, laptops, and so on…

And then it was time for a nice hot bath!

The mystery of the dead animal in my living room

$What can I say? It\'s a mouse turd$ I saw the first sign on top of the fridge: smaller than a grain of rice, and dark brown in colour: a mouse turd. But smaller than the average mouse turd. Which made me wonder if it might have been emitted from a shrew or vole… There was no question that some member of the rodent family had been in the house. Then I caught a whiff of putrid decay. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but trusted that all would be revealed in due time. Since I had a lot to do upon arrival at Monkey Valley, I let the matter lie… (but not the turd!).

Turd denial

That evening and the next day I discovered more turds, in the usual places: on the window sill by the kitchen sink, on the peach satiny loveseat (always an attractive place for rodents, and who can blame them), on the floor at the edges of the living room, on the window ledge in the upstairs bathroom. They varied in colour from reddish-brown to black. With one turd I could be in denial, and hope it might have just fallen out from a crack in the logs, and actually be an old turd. But with all these turds on places I had cleaned and swept only a week ago, there was no denying it was new rodent activity.

Then came further proof, in my footwear by the door. In one slipper was a small piece of rodent bait, carried and stored there by the enterprising creature. In the toe of my snowboot I found an almond, chewed by tiny teeth at either end. The little animal had been caching food for the winter. This is a little bit delightful, giving me a glimpse into the ways of the wild creature, while also annoying me because it’s not really possible to wash all my shoes every time I come home to Monkey Valley, and who wants to put her foot in a shoe where there has recently been mouse turds and rodent poison?

Still, I let the mystery continue to unravel. The second morning home, I had some phone calls to make, outside on the top balcony, in the -6 degree morning. So I put on my snow boots and parka, and spent almost an hour on the phone calls. When I went back downstairs to put my snow boots away under the shelf, I noticed a greyish shadow. Aha!, I thought. I bet that’s the little creature. And it was, a little grey mouse with brown fur on its back. Very desiccated. It must have eaten some of the poison. I was glad the mystery was solved, and that the mouse would no longer be leaving little turds all over the place.

Ahimsa: the practice of non-harming

(If this seems callous to you, dear reader, I hope it might improve your opinion of me if I tell you how I have struggled over the years with humane ways of catching mice in live traps, and releasing them into the wild, and crying when Donald catches and kills them. It is not something I take lightly, to kill a mouse, and in the end I decided that having a hygenic space was more important to me than the life of the mouse. This is the one exception I make to my practice of ahimsa or non-harming of other living creatures. It sounds like an excuse, and I know the Jains would do it better. But I do lay each little corpse under a tree outside and wish it blessings on its soul.)

Then I noticed something that almost made me throw up. There were white things, bigger than a grain of rice, all around the mouse. They weren’t moving. Luckily. But there was no doubting they were maggots. Yuck!!! One of the grossest, most disgusting things on earth, in my experience. I guess they must have frozen to death before they could spread very far. A point in favour of letting the house get cold while I am away…

So the immediate order of business was to get rid of the mouse and maggots, and clean up all around there. The universe has such nice ways of showing me I am not in control… I sometimes wonder (well, often, actually) what the hell I’m doing here! But then there’s silent snow falling through the trees, or a deep, starry black night, and I’m glad to be at Monkey Valley.

November 25 – Frosty homecoming

Each time I return to Monkey Valley it is an adventure. There’s no telling what I will find. This time I arrived about 7:15 pm, well after dark. The outside temperature was -4 degrees, and the inside temperature was 0 degrees! In the power room it was a bit warmer—4 degrees—due to the solar boiler keeping a tank of hot water warm.

So the first order of business was to turn on the power (let there be light!), then to make a fire. If any of you have experience with heating a house that is 0 degrees, you will know that by bedtime the house was still much too cold to go to bed! With constantly feeding the fire as soon as there was room to put more wood in, I managed to raise the temperature to 10 degrees by midnight. I tested the feeling of the bed upstairs, and it was way too icy to get in! So I brought the down comforters downstairs, pulled the couch close to the wood stove, and settled in there for a few hours. Around 4:00 am I went upstairs with the warm blankies and was able to stretch out full-length on my bed and get some comfortable sleep. In the morning it was 8 degrees in the living room, and time to get that fire going again!

By bedtime the second night the temperature in the house was up to a balmy 18 degrees downstairs, and 20 degrees upstairs in my bedroom. Heating is obviously very important! I have a backup propane heater, which is due to be repaired on Friday. So hopefully after that I will be able to keep the house a little warmer while I am away for short winter trips. For longer trips there’s nothing to do but drain the water, put anti-freeze in the p-traps, and hope for the best. If heating is the top priority, plumbing is also very important (second priority), and has been a continual struggle. So has pest control, which can become top priority in a flash… (to be continued)

More cowboys!

This morning when I was up on the roof for the daily conference call with my client, the wind brought men’s voices over the tree tops. I looked to the southwest, but couldn’t see anyone, and figured it must be hunters at the top of the ridge. After I was finished with the call I went down to the barn and circled around it, just in case they’d come down the hill from the ridge. I called out “Hey!” every now and then, so they wouldn’t accidentally shoot me if they caught a glimpse of movement.

I didn’t see anything, except to notice how the once-bare muddy ground is covered with a layer of moss and grass now. Eight years ago the ground was a diesel- and oil-soaked mess, on account of the previous owners’ carelessness in feeding their five 10KW generators. I had a lot of help to clean up the physical mess, and afterwards my mom and I did some energetic cleansing using Reiki. In fact, my mom gave me the master’s-level attunement out there one summer day while we were cleansing the land around the barn. I still recall the glorious green light shining through the plants as I knelt on the ground to offer healing to our dear earth mother.

Anyway, no sign of hunters, so I went back to the house to get a fire started. I was on the balcony by the master bedroom, when my eye caught the movement of a bird high above the field outside the gate, so I paused to watch it, listening for its call. Soon enough I heard the raven caw. Then I spotted two riders on horseback down in the field below the raven. I called out a greeting, and walked down to the gate.

Two riders were approaching, and the wind began to howl… Hey! Up came two young cowboys, Riley and Wacey, and their black-eye-patch cow dog, Pirate. We passed the time of day a little. Nice morning. They were looking for stray cows. November 12, and the range laws say all cows have to be in from the range on October 31. So they’ve got to find all the loose cows before they run amok!

It is a glorious sight to see cowboys doing cowboy things. They were wearing round-brimmed hats, and those long overcoats called dusters. The horses were brown, robust, and lively. Each cowboy had a rope coiled over the saddlehorn. Even though I’m a vegetarian, I like seeing these older ways of life continue. Ways of life that are close to the land and living things. May there always be cowboys, out on the range!

Bandit: more about the dog from Missezula Lake

A while back I told you the story of the New Year’s Eve visitor who resembled a wolf, and scared my friend Dorrie as she was sitting on the porch one evening. I recently went through some boxes and found a picture of the dog, and a thank-you card from his owners.

The dog’s name is Bandit. His people are named Chuck and Pat Krastel, and they all live in the community at the east end of Missezula Lake. Bandit is a favourite friend in the community, welcome at many homes. When he was missing, lots of his friends called Chuck and Pat to ask if they’d found him yet. He also has some kitty friends, Dancer (shown here), and Chico. It’s amazing how the feline and canine species can get along!

Missezula Lake is about a mile south of Monkey Valley. Shrimpton Creek flows down into the lake, and I’ve followed the creek down to the lake a few times with friends. The way is tangled with fallen trees in places, but it’s a fun outing to hike down to the lake for a skinny dip!

There’s a campground at the west end of the lake, and a few fishing cabins along the north shore, and then the Missezula Lake community over at the east end. It’s a popular community, fully serviced, with year-round residences and cottages.

Bandit doesn’t really look like a wolf, but remember it was dark when we first saw him. He was an emissary of love, who still reveals to me that part of my heart that is longing for the universe to bring me someone to love. Someone black and white and furry!