Homecoming.

I drift between wake and sleep.

I am speeding along the highway at night.  At first all is dark, and I hear the dull white noise of the car. My eyes adjust.  Huge white peaks tower dimly to my left, lower brown peaks to my right.  Above my head a billion stars shimmer and dance, and the dark mountains delineate themselves against the stars, silent in their watchfulness.  I am tiny below, speeding in between the mountains as they rise higher and higher on either sides of me, wrapping me in sage-scented night breath.  They breathe out and embrace me, and I breathe in the smell of my home, the Owens Valley.  I am coming home.

I hiked 1,878 miles over five months on the Pacific Crest Trail this year.  It was an interesting experiment to re-hike one of the long national scenic trails from the Triple Crown, after a bunch of years of shorter, more intense trips.  At the end, I seemed to become slower and sleepier, physically and energetically.  Changing body, changing age, changing company.  With these physical changes, I felt myself to be ready to come home, to live in this small town again and return to the birthwork I love so much.   I feel ready again to search for new ways and places to find softness and love in myself, to lean into challenge, to accept vulnerability, to live my life fully on.

Light is low and golden throughout the day now here in the high desert, as we approach winter solstice.  And I ride this season with grace to the best of my ability, accepting myself here and now and those around me with love and connection as the season encourages.  My healing energy once again flows out of me in my work, for a season of giving.

I'll be back in the spring with new plans and new mountain dreams.