Author: Karuna Poole
I am recently retired psychotherapist who now spends much of my time working as a forest and habitat restoration volunteer.
For decades, I have focused much of my attention on watching for and learning the lessons life sends my way. I share my stories and reflections, both past and present, in my blog Living, Learning and Letting Go.
An Afternoon Walk at Camp Casey
Last weekend, I attended a regional retreat of Amma’s northwest satsang members. The retreat was held at Camp Casey which is located on Whidbey Island. The island is in Puget Sound, 30 miles north of Seattle.
During the afternoon of the second day of the retreat, I decided to explore the area.
The sun was still very bright when I began the walk. I love how this photograph turned out.
One retreat participant had suggested I walk to the end of the road and then turn left. He said that path would take me to a lighthouse. I decided to take his advice. I snapped photos as I walked. I was intrigued by a tree I saw in the distance.
Once I passed the tree, I saw the lighthouse…
… and another interesting tree. I wondered what kind of trees these were. If you know, please tell me!
In this area, there were people who were not from the retreat center. I surmised that this part of the island must be a public park.
After I returned to Camp Casey, I decided to take a short walk on the beach. I was able to get close, but there was no clear path down to the beach. If I had brought a walking stick, I might have walked through the driftwood, but I hadn’t, so I took a couple of photos and then returned to the camp.
Before long, I was in the building where I was staying. I saw another retreat participant standing on the balcony with her camera. I went outside to see what she was looking at. It was an incredible sunset!
(To enlarge the photos, click on the gallery.)
The photos above don’t do the sunset justice, but at least they give you a glimpse of the glory I witnessed.
We Freed the Shrub!
Last week, I heard that a Greenbelt tree had fallen onto the Hanford Stairs. When I walked through the snow to that area, I could see that branches had fallen, but they didn’t cover the stairs. I didn’t feel safe walking any closer to the stairs than I was; the snow was too deep and slippery.
On Friday, February 15, the sidewalks were clear, for the most part, so I headed back to that area to take a closer look at the fallen branches.
The tree was one that had been cut away from power lines numerous times in the past. I soon discovered it wasn’t just a few small branches that had broken off, it was a BIG one.
I also noticed that the branch had fallen on top of a Pacific Ninebark shrub; one that had been planted by a neighborhood work group many years ago.
I called John, the neighbor who has helped with our reforestation project from the beginning, and asked him to come take a look.
Before long, he was sawing part of the big branch and I was using a lopper to remove smaller branches
Once John had sawed through the branch, we discovered it was too heavy for him to move alone and I couldn’t be of much help. At that moment, another neighbor walked up to us and offered to help. She and John were able to remove the branch, free the shrub, and carry the branch to the other side of the stairs. They put it on top of a pile I had created for the smaller branches.
There was still much more of the fallen tree branch to deal with but that could wait until another day. At least the shrub was free and safe!
More Good News
I just watched another good news story. Incredible. Inspiring.
In Support of a Two-Year Old
I just saw this video on the television. The story definitely touched me; tears are rolling down my cheeks. It is refreshing and heartening to hear some good news in the midst of all of the dark things that are happening..
Adventures in the Snow
While the amount of snow that has been occurring in Seattle will seem small compared to what most of the country is experiencing, it is not small to us. When I moved here in 1966, Seattle occasionally had big snow storms, but there have been many years when we had no snow, or almost no snow.
The last ten days have been quite an adventure. I have loved the beauty of the snow and the challenges, but I’m quite ready for the snow to go away, at least for now.
I have enjoyed writing this followup to my last two snow posts (It Snowed! and It’s Going to Snow Again).
Friday, February 8
I learned a new word! I had written a friend that lives in Bellevue and asked if it was snowing there. She wrote back that it was graupeling. I didn’t have any idea what that word meant so looked it up. Google kept changing the word to grueling. I was persistent and eventually tried graupel. That worked! Graupel is defined as soft hail or soft snow pellets.
Later that day, I walked outside and saw many graupels in my yard .
(Click on any photo gallery to enlarge the photos.)
I saw something else that made me curious. At first I didn’t know what it was, but soon realized it must be a thick icicle. It was more than an inch in diameter. There were many fallen icicles on the ground nearby.
Later that day, it began snowing in earnest.
Saturday, February 9
During our first big snow, I stayed inside for days because I was afraid to walk down the front steps. The steps were slippery and they don’t have a railing. This time I realized I could just walk out the basement door. Duhhh. Why didn’t I think of that before? I ventured outside much sooner and more often on these snowy days.
I knew that the little Greenbelt trees that were bent over from the weight of the snow would be bent over again so I walked into the Greenbelt from the Hanford Stairs. The weight of the snow on one of the shrubs created a canopied entrance to the site, I felt like I was entering a magical land.
I removed the snow from the tree I had freed before. I did the same with five other trees on that outing. In the process, I wondered if I was hurting them by freeing them when I knew they were just going to get buried again.
When I got back to my house, I wrote my supervisor at Green Seattle Partnership and asked her what she thought. She told me it would be best to leave them alone.
After leaving the Greenbelt, I saw a neighbor who was about to walk down the hill to the store. As we talked, we noticed that people were try drive down 25th Ave S where a tree had fallen across the road the night before. When they turned their cars around, they almost all discovered that they couldn’t get up the S. Hanford hill. Most couldn’t even make the jog in the road at 25th Ave. S and S. Hanford. We guided the motorists to a place where they could park their cars until the roads were drivable for a while.
When we stopped doing that, I walked down 25th Ave S and took a photo of the fallen tree.
Then I returned home and cleared the snow off of one side of the front steps and off of my car. I tried to clear the front sidewalk too but didn’t get very far with that endeavor; there was ice under the snow that I couldn’t break or get under.
At least I started the job. I was impressed that I accomplished as much as I did. And it felt so good to be out of the house.
Sunday, February 10
It was beautiful on Sunday morning. At 10 a.m. the sky was blue.
Sometime before 2 pm, the sky started to darken. Soon thereafter, it began to snow again.
Monday, February 11
The snow kept falling… and falling.
After the snow storm that started on February 3, I didn’t clean the snow off of the car until it had stopped snowing. That was probably on February 6. My car had been parked in the driveway. It took me much longer to be able to drive than the neighbors who had parked on the street.
When I did eventually try to get into my car, the front door was frozen shut. During the second series of snowstorms, I decided to park the car on the street and to remove the snow at least once a day.
One day, I noticed that brushing the snow off of the car had resulted in a pile of snow around the car that was at times had a height of two-feet. Being hemmed in by snow would would certainly make it difficult to drive. A day later, I noticed that snow was piled tight against the side of the front tire. I sure didn’t want it to freeze there so on Monday, I removed that snow.
Soon after finishing that process, I was surprised to see a woman ski down S. Hanford St. Moments later, her husband pulling a child carrier, or whatever that structure is called, turned the corner onto 25th Ave. S. There were two small children in the “vehicle”.
While I was talking to the family, I noticed a fire truck had gotten stuck going around the roundabout at the south end of the block. When looked that direction a few minutes later, it was gone.
When I checked my email later in the day, I discovered that neighbors had posted photos of “snow art” that they had seen on North Beacon Hill. I was impressed.
Seeing those objects made me think of the snow angels I used to make when I was a kid. I kept thinking of them throughout the day. Eventually, I decided I was going to do it! It was a lot easier to lie down than it was to get up. I thought it interesting that the size of the right wing reflects the trouble I am having with my shoulder.
I was surprised at how heavy the snow was. It took more effort to move it than I thought it would.
On Monday, I cleared the snow off the car .
That afternoon, it snowed heavier than any other day. It was so beautiful.
But before long, my car was again covered with 4-6 inches of snow!
Tuesday, February 12
A neighbor came over and let me know that she was going to clear my sidewalk for me. I was excited to have the help. I joined her so we worked on it together. The day before, another neighbor had told me he would help me get my car out of the snow when I was ready to drive. A third neighbor had picked up something for me at Lowe’s after the previous snow storm. My new roommate carried pellet bags into the house for me and one day, she cleaned the snow of of my car after cleaning it off of her own. I’m lucky to have neighbors who will help me when I need it. I need to remember these incidents when I’m feeling alone in the world.
Wednesday, February 13
I was supposed to teach a class about our forest restoration project to Environmental Science students from Seattle University on Tuesday and on Thursday the students were planning to work on our site. The university was closed on Tuesday so I will be teaching the class on Thursday. That meant I had to cancel the work party. I hope the students will come to a later one.
I have enjoyed the beauty of the snow and all of the adventures it has brought my way. I also appreciate that it has given me the opportunity to catch up on so many things on my “to do” list. But as I said at the beginning of this post, I’m ready for this to end; and it looks like it is going to. Hopefully by tomorrow I will be able to drive!
The Courage to Believe
In 1989 or 1990, a friend wrote a poem for me. It was written soon after I met Amma, but prior to the time I asked Amma for a name. So at that time my name was Carol. That name seems so unfamiliar to me now.
Her poem came into my mind the other day; for the first time in decades. I was able to find the booklet it was published in.
THE COURAGE TO BELIEVE, FOR CAROL POOLE
The pot looked empty. It was a clay pot, orange and cracked from the rain. On Mondays people came to fill it and the water, somewhat yellowed, seeped out at the bottom.
At first I wondered why they didn’t patch it. But looking closely, I saw their need to bend slightly to the right. Some called it agility, but really they were trying to keep their hands on the hole.
Now you choose a jug, and songs arise from its clay. And in the rhythms of drums from inside, the moon-roundness of it takes on the form of a woman with the courage to believe.
The jug is round and smooth, and the water is always full.
SHELLEY TUCKER
Thank you Shelley. Your poem means as much to me today as it did the first time I read it. I hope our paths cross again some time in the future.
More Greenbelt Mysteries- this time of the Grrrrrr variety
Last week, I wrote a post about an intriguing mystery that happened after a recent Greenbelt work party. While I experienced a myriad of emotions at that time, it was primarily a positive experience.
There were several other mysteries in process at that time. They were different than the one I had written about in that I was very irritated by each of them.
Soon after I came home from India in mid-January, I found that someone had cut down a large tree somewhere and then dumped it in a part of the Greenbelt that we had cleared. I believed it was done by a “professional” company because all the debris had been sorted by size and much of it had been banded before it was dumped.
(Click on the gallery to enlarge the photos.)
A week later, I noticed that someone had pruned a cedar tree and dumped the branches in front of the first stack. The new debris was neither sorted nor banded, so I assumed that this illegal dump was done by a different person than the previous one.
Shortly before our January 21 work party, I noticed that all of our buckets were missing from the site. Most of them were 5 gallon buckets. Many were bright orange or bright blue. How in the world had someone taken 30 buckets without being noticed? And why? We had used the buckets to hold wood chips, trash, glass and weeds.
Seattle Parks Department removed most of the dump and replaced most of the buckets. The buckets are now chained to the job box that holds our tools. I also placed three Another Future Healthy Forest signs in hopes that it would prevent people from dumping in the reforestation space.
The roads were finally clear and dry yesterday so I drove for the first time since the snow began last Sunday. When I passed the area where I put the three signs, I noticed that one of them was gone.
Grrrr. I guess these are all opportunities to practice equanimity and “putting in the effort and letting go of the results”, but I’m not there.
It’s Going to Snow Again
It started snowing during the Super Bowl last Sunday and by morning we had six inches of snow. The temperature has been in the 20’s and low 30’s ever since.
I live on the side of Beacon Hill so getting off the hill is a problem. The streets and sidewalks were so icy this week, I didn’t drive at all and I rarely left the house.
It warmed up to 37 degrees today. By noon, I was able to get my car door open. (I had tried to open it earlier in the day but discovered that it was frozen shut.) We are supposed to have way more snowfall tomorrow and Saturday than we did last weekend, so today was my day to run errands and get ready for the next storm. Thankfully the streets were free of ice and snow so I was able to do what I needed to do.
When I returned home, I also spent time walking in the Greenbelt. The snow was almost gone in one section.
As I walked in the other areas I saw the weight of the snow had pulled one of the little trees to the ground. The top of it was buried in the snow.
When I shook the snow off, the tree popped up. It wasn’t straight but hopefully it will straighten over time. It occurred to me that the same thing may happen tomorrow.
I noticed that the tops of two nearby trees were also buried in the snow.
I didn’t feel safe walking down the hill to free them, but later I walked up the hill and shook the snow off of them. They also straightened once they were free of the weight.
I’ve been worried that the snow will hurt the shrubs that are already leafing. I was relieved to see that this one looks fine.
I enjoyed walking through the rest of the site. The trees we planted in November of 2017 grew so much this year. I thought they looked very stately in the snow. I wish I had taken photos of more of them.
I’m supposed to teach a class about this restoration project at Seattle University next Tuesday. Then on Thursday, the students from that class are supposed to have an hour long work party at our site. I walked down the stairs to the area where I plan to have them work so I could see what it looks like.
The weather forecasts say that it is going to snow on and off all week. I’m preparing as if these two Seattle University events are going to take place but I wonder if that will happen. I am excited about both of them so I hope the weather forecasters are wrong.
***
Anyone is welcome to help with this forest restoration project. For more information write: hanfordstairsgreenbelt@gmail.com.
It Snowed!
While the rest of the country was suffering through devastating winter storms, Seattle’s temperatures were in the high 40’s and low 50’s. It felt like spring. Many of the plants were beginning to bud; some of the leaf buds had even opened.
Last night I was watching the Super Bowl at Al’s. Soon after I arrived, it began to snow. I stayed for the first three quarters but was very distracted. During the 4th quarter, I decided it was time for me to go home.
I don’t like to drive in the snow, plus I live on the side of a hill. It doesn’t take much to make my car slide and I hate that feeling. I have avoided driving in the snow since the year I slid down a steep hill near my house sideways, with a station wagon right behind me. That incident was probably in the late 70’s or early 80’s.
Last night, I made it home without incident. It was not snowing when I went to bed, but it snowed more during the night. This was the scene from inside my warm house this morning.
Later in the day, I decided to walk to the end of my property and take some photos of the Greenbelt.
The snow is really beautiful but I hope it goes away soon… and doesn’t damage all the new buds.
