Not Bali

I have alot of catching up to do. This is not Bali. This is Chiang Mai. It's the view from our new favorite place to stay in town. When this picture was taken the air was still pretty smokey. Chiang Mai has three seasons, hot, wet, and smokey but cool. The rains have started and the air has cleared up. The Frangiapani and Jasmine are in bloom.
Lately I have been enjoying the slow pace of life here. We have been distracted by a spider who moved in on our porch. Daniel took to catching bugs and feeding her in the evening by placing them in her web. It became a night time ritual with the flashlight. We anxiously awaited for her to lay her eggs. She was a very scary looking spider with a gigantic abdomen and black and white striped legs with bright orange on her underside. She became about one third her size after she layed her eggs. I really came to love this spider and now she has gone away and left behind her sweetie and her eggs.
The highlights of my week are the nights I go to yoga and most nights I am in bed asleep by ten. In the morning there is a dragonfly who sits on the same branch outside our bedroom window every day. The cicadas are back with their deafening cry and the fountain in front of school has a regular chorus of frogs at night. Our trip to Bali seems so distant.

Bali

Patchwork Quilt Billboard

What I miss right now

Cold rainy gray mornings and the warming up part. Assam tea with milk and sugar.
The beach in the wintertime. Collecting sticks and shells and interesting seaweed.
The steel colors of winter and the surprise of finding berries against a backdrop of white snow.
Blackbirds.
Baked goods.
Rosy cheeks on the face of someone I love.
Knitted things.
Flea markets and goodwill and garage sales- stacks of treasures in rows of like things.
Nice teacups.
Knowing where to go.
Clouds.

Jesse's passing

Our friend Jesse passed away ten days ago now. Jesse was an incredible unique individual. It was a great joy to watch him grow up and to know him. When we tell friends here in Thailand about his story Daniel leads with - "Jesse was the kind of person who transformed you when you met him" and it's true. We are honored and thankful to be a part of Jesse's community. We have been very homesick and sad these days and feel so very far away.

LOVE IS THE FUNERAL PYRE

Love is
The funeral pyre
Where I have laid my living body

All the false notions of myself
That once caused fear, pain

Have turned to ash
As I neared God.

What has risen
From the tangled web of thought and sinew

Now shines with jubilation
Through the eyes of angels

And screams from the guts of
Infinite existence
Itself.

Love is the funeral pyre
Where the heart must lay
Its body.

Hafiz

Jesse

Our dear friend Jesse, son of our beloved friend Lisa, needs all the help he can get right now. He is very sick with cancer. He and his family need all the love and light that you can send them. Please take a moment to hold Jesse and his family in your thoughts.