Coming home yet again...

          The fields were bright yellow with huge drifts of goldeneye daisies against the green as I drove out with the UHaul.  They were happy to remind me I can never really leave the mountain.  They are right, of course. And Larry called yesterday just to tell me that it was snowing, too, the first snowfall of the season. I can see in my mind’s eye the beautiful, soft flakes floating down the way snow does, outlining every branch and leaf.  He and the snow remind me, too.  I can never truly leave.

I ache to be there, but this time I ache to be here, too. My fellow explorers on this path greeted me, not with “Welcome back,” but with “Welcome home,” and indeed it has become home as well. Fall is in full swing, with yellows and reds intertwined throughout the meadows. The trails are full of deer, and this evening I saw a huge toad, spotted like one of our Apache trout, scampering out of my way. Its very beautiful. I could do a full meditation just on the yellow tree outside the Inn where we take our meals.

Where did the summer go?  I arrived home in the mountains to a contract in full swing, with twenty young men falling trees in the Wallow burn area; and afterward not just the mop-up of all the back office stuff, but the decision to move forward on a small sawmill project as well, providing we can talk the Tribe into the land to do so. We found providing good employment for these guys a joy, and wanted to keep going.

And that is what I did, right up to the time to throw stuff and cats into the car and leave.  I’ll continue to work for Larry here, as there is so much to be done on the computer and internet, everything from payroll to business plans, and I have the skills to do it. Not always the time – I’m carrying a full load, have nine papers to write and a retreat to do before December 8. In addition, there are an incredible number of extra-curricular things we are supposed to participate in, but I’m finding I’m ducking as many of those as I can simply to get work and school done and get some sleep.

It’s the beginning of a long journey, happy and sad, joyous and melancholy, scholastically demanding and peacefully prayerful. God accompanies me, both from within and at my elbow. Life is good.