Seems this change of season is a fine time to post another group of thoughts. As my love Kelly made note of - this last full moon on Sept. 4th seemed to be a powerful one, perhaps signaling the changing of the seasons as well as a change in attitude. Sometimes it's easy to get stuck in a rut and it takes a little external push to send things reeling into a new direction. The moon helped me do this recently.
Now on to a story about intuition. As I may have mentioned in a previous post - we now live out in the woods, near the Bull Run river and resevoir. We're actually up on a ridge that looks out across the entire Bull Run watershed - and as Pounder says - the view doesn't suck. One of the other fringe benefits to living out here in the sticks is the awesome hiking and biking out our backdoor. Frequently after dinner, we hike out the back door down this overgrown forest road behind our house which dead-ends at a gravel road and drops quickly down to the Bull Run valley. Once you get about a quarter mile down - we are stopped by a big yellow gate. The kind with no trespassing signs and warnings posted on it. It is here that the property switches to the Portland Water Bureau - and they don't take kindly to folks crossing that line. Sure - when we first moved here - I bombed passed the gate several times on my mountain bike, surveying the land, getting to know my place in space. Since I had never seen any form of water bureau folks patrolling here at the gate, nor down on the pavement where it ends by the river - we figured it was okay for a kind family such as ours to be walking gently amongst the old growth once in a while. After all, we're treehuggers, this IS our neighborhood and we generally only walked another half mile or so into the old growth to make the most of our walks.
One evening a couple of weeks ago, our little 6-year old Sullivan commented, "I don't think we should cross the gate tonight Mommy". It's okay we said, dismissing her thoughts. "We're just going a little ways, and we'll turn back" we told her. As we continued passed the gate, she commented several times how she really felt like we shouldn't keep going this time. I actually had tuned her out at this point as I was more in tune with the big trees - and then - of course - I saw the coming headlights way down the twisty road. "Run!" I said. We turned around and started running back for the gate until I quickly realized we were not going to beat the truck back. It was uphill and little Sulli's legs can't quite keep up with my long legs. So... I stopped us and took it like a man. Behold - and VERY official... and VERY serious couple of youngsters in a Water Bureau patrol truck scolded us and threatened to lay a big ticket and fine on us. Being quick on my feet and with my tongue - I quickly explained how are dogs had rad passed the gate and we were only retrieving them. "We hike down here all the time" I exclaimed. "We never go passed the gate, the dogs saw a deer I think - and took off!". Well... they bought it! and let us off with a stern warning.
Three lessons learned that evening. 1. Never, EVER discount your children's intuition - it's often more powerful and raw than your own. 2. Do not fuck with the Portland Water Bureau. They are serious about protecting Portland's drinking water - as they should be - but shit... don't they chlorinate that water anyways? (another thought for another time). and 3. Be careful when and where you bend the truth - not only does a 6-year old have strong intuition - they also have bionic ears. At least our does. We had to do a lot more explaining about how it was okay to bend the truth in some circumstances than we did explaining why we were on the wrong side of the gate.
Last time I'll cross the gate? Probably. Last time I'll bend the truth? Probably not. :)
