It's spring, and the junipers are in rut. Those
reddish junipers among the green ones? if you're looking in the right
place at the right time you'll see what looks like sudden big puffs of
smoke. Fire!?!?!? No. Some animal digging in the dust behind the tree??
No -- it's a male juniper's seasonal polination explosion. (That may
not be the official descriptive phrase.)
And on another scale, other flowerings.
This month the story's mostly about building. Matin has been working on the zikr hall project at Khankah Jemila Nur,
which
got a big funding boost from a successful yard sale engineered by
Mariam. Here Noorudin boosts a classic bead curtain while Mariam
and Sophia arrange the bake sale.
Donkeyhenge? On the land, these cement foundation posts are the beginnings of Rashad and Susanne's new home.
Hayra Nur is putting up some reed fencing.
Krishna
and Ishtar are making amazing progress on the maqbara meditation hut
foundation. Krishna milled this lumber down by the creek, then they
shovelled and shoved a road through the flood rubble to get a truck
across, and finally hauled the boards up the steep hill by hand.
The
month ended with Darvesha's Beatitudes Retreat. Nights and
mornings were chilly. These folks are all SSC Board members: Sophia
Shunny -- also our newest member donor! -- Michael Kothrade, Azima
Forest and Peter Lipa.
Days were warm and sunny, fine for time at Bear Creek, if not in it,
for dancing in the dome,
and, of course, for fabulous food.
Here's Michael, sitting in the sun in an 'uncovered eating area.' He's drawing up some plans for how to make a covered area to eat in if it rains.
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