For information on the 2014 Tracking the Soul workshop (November 14-18 in Willow Springs, MO), please follow this link: http://joelandwehr.typepad.com/yggdrasil/tracking-the-soul.html

Oh, Ruth I love your artist's insight into these colours ... it reminded me of another icicle photo I have from the same place, this time not on a bluff but from the cabin roof: http://www.sulisminerva.org/2011/01/cut-word-poetry.html

That term 'botanical bully' made me smile Pamela and certainly it seems to apply mostly to plants that are displaced from their true homes, creating a rough toughness that human beings can display too! In this forest I've noticed that over time what ecologist call 'succession' happens in the areas that have been disturbed either by human action or storms. Plants come in for year then fade to make room for a different set of plants until very gradually the trees take over again ... I must write about this sometime as it is interesting and requires both patience and some cautious intervention (though that last part is more a matter of my own impatience I think). We might think of some kind of 'contrarian cultivation' you could employ in your urban situation ;)

I love this Ruth ... 'hearing winter silence' is speaking to the same thing as 'silent music', a kind of inner hearing. This reminds me that many body-workers (aquatic included) find that if outer music is provided for a session it can sometimes block any experience of inner music. I do have the book you mention and shall read more tonight.

It may be interesting to add here that in writing about the Sun Dance ritual in the book that accompanies the Sacred Path Cards, Jamie Sams describes how both women and men in Native American spirituality pay homage to the feminine (experienced as Mother Earth and as Water). This particular Sacred Path Card symbolizes Self-sacrifice and denotes acts of self-sacrifice that restore the sacred in life: 'The purpose of the Sun Dance is to allow young Warriors to share the blood of their bodies with the Earth Mother. It is understood that women do this through their Moontime, or menstrual cycle. Women give of their pain through childbirth and men through the Sun Dance, so the people may live.... 'During the last two days when the piercing ceremony and final dance take place, many women make small cuts on their forearms or pierce their biceps or wrists. They allow their blood to drip and touch the body of our Mother Earth to show respect for the dancers and to once again recommit their lives to the guardianship and the preservation of all living things. This is an act of self-sacrifice for the women as is the Warrior dancers' piercing of the flesh in the chest.... 'These Mothers of the Creative Force have acknowledged the fact that any liquid from our bodies is a female element as is the Water Clan Chief. Our tears, our urine, our blood and our saliva are water elements that when given back to the Earth Mother may be recycled as moisture for the fertilization of future growth. 'The Sun Dance acknowledges the female aspect, and the dancers honor both sides of their nature through this Sacred Rite. Just as the water elements travels to Father Sky to take the form of Cloud People, a Warrior's heart travels to Grandfather Sun to be illuminated during the Sun Dance as his blood nourishes the body of the Mother Earth.' Jamie Sams on The Sun Dance in 'Sacred Path Cards: The Discovery of Self through Native Teachings'