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Mid-January, Rain - January 13, 2012
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Saturday, Noonish, Sunny - November 05, 2011
October, White - October 31, 2011
October, 2011 - October 04, 2011


June 03, 2008

9:44 p.m.

Trail to Beaver Dam Marsh

I managed to cross a number of tasks off the list today, though I only got about halfway through it before the need to hike surfaced. It was after four-thirty and I didn't want to lose too much light. Wes had been going to accompany me, but he hadn't slept well last night and didn't have the energy. I went alone, wanting to explore more of the trails I'd found in Natchaug State Forest last week.

I wasn't disappointed! One dirt road led to another, and though I took my iPod and listened at low volume to a This American Life episode, I could still hear the birds and the rustlings in underbrush and the soft wind high in the treetops. A path marked with periodic blue blazes upon the trees took me along a swift little river, and finally across it on a nice, neat bridge. Flanking the bridge on each side were slightly crumbly walls of rock, but not like field walls. These were all flat stones piled on each other so their long horizontal edges face out. I saw a few likely little nooks for nature altars, here in the middle of nowhere where almost nobody goes, and thought I might bring a few trinkets to set up next time and leave for the wood spirits.

Over the river, then, and through more woods and finally out to a different section of the dirt road on which I'd parked. Across the road was a sign that said, "Beaver Dam Marsh." I'd driven past this before. I had maybe ten minutes before I'd need to turn back. I walked down the entrance to the Marsh and it opened onto a beautiful swath of grass, flecked with wildflowers, and a big body of water spotted with lilies, reeds and broken tree trunks.

I did not see a beaver dam in residence, but there was a stone dam at one end where the water rushed with a great noise down and into the woods -- I tried to get my bearings to know if this was the river I'd crossed before, and it seemed likely -- and a dark green turtle sat tucked near the bank, head in. I turned back then, and though another path into the foliage tempted me, I saved it for next time and returned the way I'd come.

Beaver Dam Marsh might be a good place for me to do a dawn ritual on the day of the Birthday Bash. It's about 16 miles away from my apartment, so I'd have to leave early enough to get there and set up before sunrise. But I think the view over that lake faces pretty much east. And I doubt anyone else would be around. Now I just have to think of what my little sunrise ceremony would entail.

Wildlife tally for today: Several head of horses, cows and sheep; one head of small toad, one head of turtle, two head of chipmunk, and numerous birds.

********

Had a short, lucid dream last night of flying, then discovering my own self (another me), dressed in black and walking in the opposite direction, ending in a brief sexual encounter with that self. There is certainly a part of me that is disinterested in sex and "walking away" from potential liaisons; I suppose that's the me I saw. I was just glad to be lucid for the first time since trying to come up with the dream ceremony, however banal the result of that revelation.


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