Me' n Alice

Hard times require furious dancing ~~ Alice Walker

I danced last night for the first time in months. I mean, really danced ~~ an outside band, leaping flames and teepee shadows amidst a fair share of drunks and stoners. It was only a matter of time. I'd taken to getting into my truck, sliding my favorite cd into the player and heading down a gravel road, as if on a trial run. A fav tune hit and I pulled over, cranked it up, jumped from the truck and danced in the road. My girlfriends know this about me. They've joined me. Even in the rain.

I wonder if this jailbreak of energy is what forced the phone to ring at 6:00 a.m.; Sandra from Thailand. Renee emailed her new poem from Dolores, CO; Em departed from a Mexico beach, on her way home to AZ. I miss my spirit sisters.

I feel doily-delicate on this pewter gray day. I'm not sure why I'm in Montana. Wolves and owls. Retreat on the Fisher River. The nesting nuthatch outside the window. I grow as attached to landscape and wild critters as I do humans. May be more. My soul plopped down and here I am.

Meanwhile, girlfriend ghosts materialize through a ringing phone and my email inbox. Johanna in Boise. Babette in Cortez. Susan in Santa Fe. Carole in Kaslo. What does it mean when Facebook becomes the conduit for community? There's no replacement for flesh. I can not smoke a cigar and grin into the eyes of Babette.

I would hop into my truck and point south, except these days a thousand miles is exorbitantly expensive. Driving on a whim used to be easy. I sit, instead, in space of no answers, not lonely, but longing. The muse is lip-smacking giddy. I want to kick her in the shins.

Entering Owldom

It took several hours to drive from Libby to the Owl Research Institute near Charlo, MT. I was on my way to join Denver Holt and his seasoned assistants on the Long-eared Owl study. I relished the solo road trip down gravel roads along the swift-flowing Thompson River. I turned east onto Highway 200 and followed the impressive Clark Fork and Flathead Rivers; detoured across the Bison Range and arrived at his home and research center late afternoon. For a birder, paradise.

I was smack dab in the middle of thousands of waterbirds, raptors, songbirds and owls in the Nine Pipes Wildlife Refuge, so named for the Flathead Indian family. Birds on water, birds on wing, air exploding with calls and song. Denver had mentioned that I could stay in his writer's cabin. That, alone, was cause for excitement. I had no way of knowing, however, that this cabin was perched Thoreau-like, at the edge of a small pond. Across the pond were mature, newly-leafed willows and a tangle of tree snags. On those snags was a great horned owl family -- parents and two chicks -- who, according to Denver, spent the days and nights hopping around the branches, testing wings and balance.

There are 250 owl species in the world. There are 19 in Canada and US; of those, 15 are found in Montana. That's more than any other state. Great horned owls are ubiquitous across the North America, but to see them close, outside my window, was a game changer. One night I watched for four hours until darkness stole my view. So happens, that was the night the larger one learned to fly.

The mother had been hanging out with the chicks all day; the father showed up at dusk, whereupon mom departed and returned within minutes with a bloody body of a white feathered bird. She landed on a bare branch several feet from the chicks, making them come to her. She gave the bird to the larger chick for a few moments, then embarked on a tug-of-war to take it back. She then shredded it and fed the larger chick. The flesh disappeared down the gullet as Dad showed up with a vole. The larger chick quickly swallowed it, as the smaller chick looked on from a branch above. Then, mom showed up again, this time landing in a snag across the pond. The challenge was clear: fly to eat, and fly he did. Once the larger chick passed his flight test, the parents returned to the original tree and fed the smaller one. It was obviously not his time to fly yet.

I was witness to a flawlessly choreographed lesson. For the next two days I joined Denver and his team banding long-eared owls near Missoula, complete with its own set of miracles. Yet, I could not wait to return to watch 'my' family. By the second evening, both chicks flew tree to tree. For the first time ever, I witnessed chicks perched side by side, leaning, preening and playing with one another as mom looked on and stood watch from the tip of a high dead limb.

The newsworthy part of my sojourn was the long-eared owls. But it was the writer's cabin on the pond that stole my heart, and the owls whooooo, I swear, recognized me and began to show off by the time I  departed four days later.

The truth about wolves is hard to find ...

I spent this winter in northwestern Montana close to the border of Idaho’s Panhandle, a place well known for its dense population of wolves. To hear hunters tell it, I should have seen a deer or elk skeleton every few feet on the forest floor, and a lurking wolf behind every tree. Game numbers have plummeted, they claim, as they affix SSS stickers ?-- standing for Shoot, Shovel, and Shut-up -- on pickups, and don baseball caps that urge, “Smoke a Pack a Day.” And they’re not talking about cigarettes.

I own guns. I support hunting, and the elk and deer meat from these forests is luscious. An avid naturalist, I’ve walked, skied and driven hundreds of miles over these mountains for eight months, including every day during bow and rifle season.

Yet it took three months before I spotted wolf tracks and scat. It was in November, the final week of rifle season. Three months later, I saw my first wolf. Wolf sign did not become common until late winter mating season, when scat and blood-laced urine appeared twice in one week in the high country along creek drainages.

What I saw on the ground never matched the stories I heard or read in the newspapers, which blamed wolves for killing off the game. My experience came closer to the claim of Kent Laudon, state wolf biologist, who estimates there’s one wolf for every 39 square miles of game terrain in the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks’ Region One in northwestern Montana. He estimates pack size at 6.7 animals.

Coming from Colorado, a state that manages elk herds with sharpshooters and silencers, I was unprepared for the vitriol toward wolves. When I listened to hunters gathered around camo-decorated crockpots, they seemed to enjoy trashing these animals. One line of attack went like this: “If we can’t eat game, we’ll be forced to move to town. It’s rural cleansing. Next, they’ll take away our guns.” Hunting guides complained that out-of-state clients were reluctant to come to wolf-infested woods. Some taxidermists said they had lost business, while ranchers claimed that wolf packs threatened their livelihoods. Yet the figures show that only 97 cows were killed by wolves in Montana in 2009. During that year, government statistics showed that 2.6 million cattle, including calves, lived in the state; therefore, the percentage of cattle killed by wolves was only 0.004 percent.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks cites a 15 percent increase in the wolf population from 2010 to 2011, to around 653, as the justification for increasing the quota for the 2012 wolf hunt. However, according to Jay Mallonee, an independent wolf researcher who writes for “Friends of Animals,” both figures are incorrect and impossible to substantiate (Nature and Science Magazine: wolfandwildlifestudies.com/downloads/natureandscience.pdf ).

By its own admission, Montana’s wildlife agency has oversold doe tags in the past. Laudon confirms that while a few deer herds are down in numbers, other herds are stable or increasing. A predation study is currently under way at the University of Montana. Early reports point to mountain lions, which are three times more numerous than wolves, according to Laudon, as the primary cause of elk calf deaths. Meanwhile, the state uses anecdotal sightings to help it determine wolf counts.

This May, wildlife commissioners will consider their options for the 2012- ‘13 wolf season and make a final decision in July. Will wolf kills be determined by the bully pulpit and defined by how many deer and elk show up in people’s backyards? Or will the commissioners consider a combination of factors and try to balance game-tag distribution, hunting pressure and poaching, game counts, herd movements and natural deaths?

Restoring wolves to Montana has affected everything. A game-changer in the literal sense, it takes some getting used to. Wolf packs have sharpened the wits of the ungulates, forcing them to alter the way they move through the forest. Hunters now have to deal with game that no longer behaves in traditional ways. Meanwhile, the anti-wolf contingent batters the public with relentless horror stories about wolves, hoping to convince people that all the game has disappeared. That is not true, of course, but is anybody getting the facts beyond the rhetoric?

~~~

To contact the fWP (Fish Wildlife and Parks) commissioners: fwpcomm@mt.gov 

Bob Ream, Chairman
(406) 461-3202

Blunt Force

Once monthly
at the dark of the moon
the Indian women gathered around the small fire in a teepee.

Within their protective circle 
shawls pulled tightly around their shoulders
the Sisters told their stories
spoke truth of relations
and incidents
divisive in their lives.

Here, the others listened, prayed, offered wise-dom and advice.

One moon.
Two moons.
They listened, prayed, offered wise-dome and advice.

If a Sister appeared on the third moon
with the same problem and complaints
the circle quietly rose
left her to the sound of her voice
and settled elsewhere.

Women Down the Rage Hole

"Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." Felice Dunas

I've noticed lots of angry friends lately. Women friends. Women who feel victimized; helpless before forces that scatter their energy.  While most can't shake the emotional hold of past relationships, for some it's present relationships that make them seethe. For most women this is reflected in their primary love relationship, but it also develops when she is caretaker of an elderly parent or someone who is bedridden.

Once in awhile I digress in this blog and don my therapist's cap. I'm going to do this now, because rage is so pervasive. I read it in blogs, I see it on Facebook, and at its worst it shows up in court appearances for restraining orders and even murders. I want to share a model for dysfunctional relationship. This model is called the "Rescue Triangle." This model comes from my work with the Bay Area Radical Psychiatry Collective. Draw a triangle. On the top point write, Rescue. On the bottom right point write, Victim. On the bottom left point write, Persecutor.

A rescue is defined as anytime you do something for someone that you really don't want to do ... over and over again, without saying how you feel about it. Enough rescues and we begin to lose touch with our true desires, even our sense of Self. Relationship balance becomes skewed because we put out more than we get back. There are legitimate rescues, of course. There are times in every adult relationship when we choose to give more to help someone in need. But if you continually rescue in an adult relationship, beware of the next phase: Victim.

As a victim you feel, "Poor me: here I am in this predicament and I don't want to be here." You may be physically and emotionally exhausted. Spiritual bearings weaken. Poor me, he isn't calling me. Poor me, I'm doing all the housework. Poor me, I have all the responsibility for (fill in the blank). Poor me, my best friend only calls when she needs something. You get the picture.

Enough time as victim and you progress to the next role: Persecutor. You're PISSED. "I'll show HIM/HER!" It's revenge time. The more one rescues over time, the more potent the punishment. It can get out of hand fast: tweets, road rage, angry threatening letters, stalking, using kids as weapons, lawyers. The danger is that anger can explode at those not involved, who happen to show up at the wrong time. The victim carries persecutor energy within them. They are a walking time bomb.

There are many off-shoots of this that are worked out in therapy. Suffice to say, that the key to stepping out of the Rescue Triangle of Dysfunctional Relationships is honest communication. To say what you feel when you find yourself repeatedly giving yourself away. Once one persecutes you begin the circle over again.  That triangle you drew? Now draw arrows from one point to the next. Because the bottom line is, you play one role you play them all, and you continue to go round and around.

Awareness of behavior (helped with a journal) is the first step. How one begins to cleanse of deep-seated rage is the next step. Having worked with women for years as a psychotherapist, I know too well that despairing feeling of, "if I let it begin to come out, I 'll go over some dangerous abyss and won't come back."  Fear of rage becomes worse than the rage itself. Over the years I've come up with some powerful rage rituals. Happy to share them and will do so in my next blog. I'm also happy to work with any of you out there who are stuck. You can contact me through my website: www.christinanealson.com.

On a global level, there's much to be enraged about these days, and every woman knows the power of well-placed anger when it's transformed into action. Legitimate rage, like legitimate rescue, is part of our lives. But if you find yourself red with rage in a disproportionate way, stop and ask yourself: is there somewhere along the line that I rescued when I shouldn't have and do I continue to do so? Give yourself permission to constructively express what you're feeling. And if you're with someone with whom you can't do this ... you're in the wrong place.

Onward,
In peace ... Christina

"Don’t let someone steal your tenderness. Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things."   Zooey Deschanel

Fast ... and Furious

Breakfast.

I'm breaking fast today.

It began on the spring equinox, March 20th with an unexpected urge to stymy winter-in-the-northlands habits. Pancakes and maple syrup. Quesadillas. My hand reaching out for a bite of whatever was on the counter. Bad, bad me. Out of the blue-(green forest), I added a fast to my equinox fire and drum. Spring clean from the inside out. Empty and see what drops in.

Perfect timing, to begin with the energy shift of spring and end on the new moon, three days later. I didn't force it. If I wanted to quit any given day I gave myself permission. I longed to taste will power again, a distant player since Saturn has had his foot on my neck for over a year. He lifts it October 4th. Be guaranteed, by then I'll know the exact moment he lifts leg and walks on.

I hadn't fasted in several years. I'd forgotten the diamond clarity that envelopes the brain. The way aches go away; swelling dissipates. The volcanic burst of energy. What I hadn't forgotten was how beautiful it felt, in this world of womb-robbing politicians and kill-club voices, to control something.

It was surprisingly easy to drink water with maple syrup and fresh lemons (with a dash of cayenne) for three days, which tells me how badly needed it was. As if my soul recognized a vital path; an escape hatch to another part of myself. A hibernating chunk of spirit that needed an elbow in the ribs.  

The final day of no food, yesterday, the new moon was in Aries. My moon is in Aries. I was furious with hope as I slugged through over a foot of new wet snow for a couple of miles, accompanied by bird songs of sex. I cleaned floors, did laundry, stretches and then I collapsed into my New Yorker magazine and John le Carre's final book.

I want to fly the coop. Wings are set and plop, a foot of white stuff. Plop again, another foot. This morning, 3 new inches. I'm editing an article set for July publication on "Watching the Wild." And, I'm figuring out what to eat this morning. I don't want to let go of this journey and it's crystalline balance; I like that my one-legged stretches are impeccable; my body doesn't teeter or totter.

Spring equinox marks the day the earth begins. The season of rebirth. I'm giving it all I've got, stretching to the limit.

Full Moon Mink

I sit at the break of day where I can see the opposite bank of the Fisher River. It's only twenty yards away, down a slight hill. Until yesterday my imagination was filled with a sighting of a bobcat on New Years Day. It's always the case. Once I see something in one particular spot my memory seeks to reproduce it. So I'm always looking over there, for one more glimpse of bobcat.

Yesterday had been edgy. The largest solar flare in years bombarded the earth. My body seethed with current. I closed down communication portals following a sweet talk with daughter Hope, took to the couch and switched on a 1946 Sherlock Holmes movie. Turned the house into a metaphorical cave. Darkness fell as I poured myself a glass of Riesling and caught movement out the window; a dark thin form made her way along the bank, west to east, weaving between crusty snow, tawny grass, fallen logs and the bulging river. An otter, I presumed. Because that was my context. Then I realized it didn't move with that familiar river otter hump. It was smaller, sable brown and sleek. Onto Google I went, checking out river otters, martens, fishers and minks. Minks?

She was doing what minks do, moving determinately, working the riverside. I watched for two minutes, which in the world of wildlife sightings, is stupendous. I didn't reach for my camera. I didn't want to take my eyes off the crepuscular creature ... to lose one precious moment of her essence. Almost out of sight, she slipped into the river and swam against the flow.

I'll make my way up that bank today. Check for tracks. A worthy task on this, Hope's birthday; the last full moon of winter. Depending on the culture, this moon is known as the Full Crust Moon, Moon When the Eyes are Sore from Bright Snow (Lakotah), and Moon of the Winds (Celtic). For myself, it will forever be the Mink Moon, linked in memory with the celebration of Hope's birth.

Binocs and camera at my side, my eyes scan the riverbank 'in hope' as I push the buttons on the phone; wait for her to answer that I might break out in one more gregarious birthday song.