Turkey medicine

Many years ago, when I was living for a time on a multi acre ranch on the coast, I reported my daily wildlife sightings to a friend who, in turn, divined their meaning for me. "Frog" or "Rat," or "Whale medicine," she'd murmur, when I told her about the amphibian who'd hopped across the floor, the rodent gnawing on the walls, or the cetaceans I'd see off the coast. Then she would leaf through her animal totem book or medicine cards, and tell me what it all meant.
The exercise was fun, and definitely helped me renegotiate my relationship with some of my less welcome sightings, but not something I've kept up.
Sunday was another lovely spring day in the East Bay, and has been the call of the last few weeks, we headed for the hills to go hiking for part of the day. On the way to Wildcat Canyon/Tilden Park, driving through a stretch of the Berkeley hills we happened upon a ...what is that...a Turkey? Not sure where this guy came from, but he evidently was feeling the season, mistaking (or hoping) each car that passed was his long awaited mate. We literally had to back up and go around the amorous fellow who made a display of his long lovely feathers as we attempted to get around him.
Turns out the wild turkeys of Berkeley aren't new (see "Wild Turkeys of Berkeley Out and About Again,")

But what else might seeing this turkey mean?
 Evidently Turkey Medicine is about 'giving away' in a good way:
"Let go and give away the past. Share your gifts with generosity. Feel the freedom gained."
Sounds like a good direction to me.

Read.Eat.Listen: Believer

For the first time in many years, I did not go to Austin for SXSW, the annual conference/mass party/whose who of music of the moment (or retro moments).  A part of me must of thought I was going, as the weekend was pretty open, which turned into a good opportunity to explore some new-to-me hiking areas, see Oz (so-so IMHO), and hear some local music. Nature stole the show, however: Springtime is busting out all over, as you can see from these photos of Coyote Hills Regional Park which straddles a ridge opening up on views of the Bay, Coyote Hills Slough as well as East Alameda Contra Cost Counties.

Meanwhile...Reading.Eating.Listening has occured:

Read: I got a lot of mileage out of Sharon Salzberg's 2003 release "Faith: Trusting Your Own Experience" last week. Detailing her early journey to India in the 1970s to study Buddhism as well as her life teaching mindfulness and lovingkindness practices — she cofounded the Insight Meditation Society and is a contemporary of Ram Dass —I took a lot of heart from her journey from ordinary broken to risk-taking seeker, dedicated practitioner and leading teacher: "In order to deepen our faith, we have to be able to try things out, to wonder, to doubt. In fact, faith is strengthened by doubt when doubt is a sincere, critical questioning combined with deep trust in our own right and ability to discern the truth."

Eat: I have a bit of an obsession with cardamom going. I've been putting the aromatic spice  in smoothies, and in...waffles. Breakfast in bed, baby! Buy the the green pods, grind them fresh when you want to add them to something, in this case gluten free waffle mix. I also used orange juice as a liquid and threw in chia seeds for good measure (and fiber). Yum.
Listen: If I had been in Austin this weekend, I would have gone down to the Continental Club or otherwise sought out the True Believers, who had reunited for the event: 

Santa Fe: Friends, food & deep time

I flew out to Santa Fe for a quick visit and to support my friend Liz as she shot her black & white bicycle ballet, Giselle. It was wonderful to be 7000 ft. above sea level breathing in the sage, pinon and desert air. Liz picked me up at the airport and promptly took me to a little trail head outside of town that led up a ridge and to some cool petroglyphs that decorated the volcanic rock strewn about. From whence did this volcanic rock come from? My question exactly. Some geologically savvy hikers we met on the trail informed us that the Valles Caldera, a ancient volcano now preserved in the Jemez Mountains, was the source. The Valles was 30 miles north of where we hiked hinting at the power of that historic volcano. Yowza. The petroglyphs, meanwhile, are attributable to Anasazi and Pueblo Indians and some were thought to date back as far back as 900 AD. After contemplating all that deep time, we were hungry, so we got dinner at another venerable, albeit more modern, Santa Fe institution: Cafe Pasquals. Stuffed acorn squash and pupusas, a bustling community table set us up for a fun shoot the next day, a bit of song-writing, trick-or-treating and another hike outside of Tesuque. Ole!