Elizabeth Anglin - Psychic

I haven't posted lately because my life has been so quiet, and unfortunately, some part of my ego likes to post when it thinks the post will be dramatic, interesting, a wiz, bang, pop! of a message. 

But, there haven't been many wizzes, bangs or pops around to write about lately.

Right now, two very different dogs are sleeping on the couch.  A black lab and a Tibetan mastiff.  The mastiff runs on a very quiet current of energy, nothing too extreme or overly enthusiastic, except for food left on the plate after dinner, or food being eaten as a snack in the middle of the day.  His gentle eyes look up to me so full of hope and expectancy.  "Your cracker is my cracker, right?"  "Your cookie will be shared with me, right?" "I love you for sharing your cookie with me in the future, you know... that moment when you finally do share your cookie with me... I love you for that." 

The black lab is more boisterous and less food motivated.  "It's morning! Wake up! Wake up! I'm so happy to see you! Happy day! Happy day!  Let's play tug of war! Come on! Come on!  I love you!  I't's so much fun to see you again today! Come on! Let's play!" 

After feeding the dogs and the cats "If you are feeding the dogs, you are going to feed us, so get on with it... where is it? Where's the wet food? Come on, we are waiting.  Well, finally!" 

I put on my muck boots and wade through the snow to the barn. I enter through the feed room door where TNT can see me first "Ahhh..." he says as he spies me in the feed room for the first time each morning. "It's breakfast.  It's so nice when you bring me my bucket of mash." he lets out a deep, resonant nicker and happy sigh as I open the door to the tack room where his soaked mash is waiting in the sink.  Otto throws his head up and down while I feed T.  "Come,,, On!  Come.. On!  No... Really!  I'm .... Hungry.  Come..... on!"   Once he gets his sweet feed, he attacks it, throws his ears back, and warns me "This is mine, don't even think about me sharing it with you!" "OK sweetheart." I say, and leave him to eat in peace by grabbing a snow shovel and heading out to clear the walkway and the pasture gate of snow.

The sky is blue, the aspens are a shade less white than the snow, but seem made to color coordinate.  The barn eaves are covered in icicles, some five feet long.  The icicles sing in a soft chorus. "Drip-drop. Drip-drop. Drip-drip-drop. Drip-drop."

As I said.  Not much happens around here.  It's pretty quiet.

I have decided that Chipmunks should be made the animal of the week.  "Why?"  You may ask.  I can only provide this initial answer, "Because there are just so darn many of them." 

Chipmunks in Western Colorado -  Tamias quadrivittatus - are not threatened.  They are listed on the IUCN Red List as a "species of least concern." 

I imagine the people who are least concerned with chipmunks are not trying to grow flowers on their back porch and haven't struck up a deal with the humingbirds to provide them lovely luscious nectar giving blooms throughout the summer and early fall.

Now, Yes.. I know I am complaining about chipmunks, and how can anyone, least of all an animal communicator, complain about chipmunks?  They are so darned cute! 

Well, its true, chipmunks are cute, and they do some very nice things for the environment.  They help spread tree seeds, establishing seedling trees by forgetting where they hide seeds when  they scatter hoard, or by abandoning their burrows when they larder hoard. They also help spread fungi, especially fungi that are important to forest ecology. Beneficial symbiotic tree fungi.   And truffles.  Where would we be without truffles?

Beyond all of their important jobs as members of the forest community, while on their eating and food hoarding mission that leads to the spread of trees and tree loving fungi - and beyond thier ability to completely decimate my porch flowers, what chipmunks really do phenomenally well is entertain Wyatt (my dog).

They entertain him by sitting on logs, taunting him with their warning chirps, and then hiding under the logs as he tries to catch them, taunting him further with more warning chirps.

He never catches them.  And he tries in earnest.

So far we have counted the number of chipmunk to dog skirmishes since midsummer, and the skirmish win record currently stands at Chipmunks - 192,  Wyatt - 0.

So, for their bravery (in tantalizing a very large dog) and audacity (in eating all of my porch flowers) and their important role in the forest eco-system., hereby award Chipmunks the "Animal of the Week" award. 

What does this award mean? 

It means that I won't kick the super fat, super glossy chipmunk who all eats the grain Otto spills in the morning,  out of the barn when I see him.  It means I won't let the cat chase and catch the chipmunks who live in the rocks around the patio.  It means I will appreciate all the chipmunks living around me this week, no matter how annoyed I am that my flowering plants are now just stalks... previously flowered stalks.

I will celebrate the chipmunks this week, and the stalks, and the tree seedlings, and the fungi, and the well challanged and tired out dog they leave in their wake. 

Viva La Chipmunk!

Hi All,

I have friends in Florence, Texas (outside of Austin) who are watching their town get ready to dry up and blow away. They are not just having drought, they are having really super duper incredibly unbelievable bad drought.

So, when you have a chance, please say a prayer for the folks living in Florence, Texas. 

They need rain.

Thanks,

Elizabeth

It's that time of year... kitties are escaping and playing "wild thing" wherever they live.  City or Mountain, they feel the call of the wild to mate, mate, mate. And hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt!  To add to the headache, like their wild counterparts, the Mountain Lion and the Lynx, they are so darn good at hiding, once they get out of the house they can be very hard to find.

So, please be very careful with your kitties at this time.  Make sure you watch carefully as you enter and exit your home.  Make sure your petsitters, friends and family members are also careful when entering and exiting your home. 

Though Animal Communication readings are my favorite thing to do, Lost Pet readings are absolutely not.  My heart always leaps in my throat when someone contacts me to ask for a lost cat reading. 

When the reading  information helps, I am ecstatic.   But I never know what the outcome will be.

I like happy endings after lost pet readings.

But I would rather the story never got written at all.

"Religion is something infinitely simple, ingenuous. It is not knowledge, not content of feeling (for all content is admitted from the start, where a man comes to terms with life), it is not duty and not renunciation, it is not restriction: but in the infinite extent of the universe it is a direction of the heart."

-Selected Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke

My guru is Dog.  

No. Seriously.  I mean it.

I have just had the realization that my Dog is my Guru.  Look at his picture...

Is that not the visage of a wise and loving being?  Is that not the epitome of a being that knows the importance of selfless, egoless, love and devotion?  When all other concepts and psycho-physical constituents and identifications with the fallacy of an independently arising self drop away... what will be left?

The wisdom of my Dog.  This is a being who has taught me that it is possible to think no thoughts for 4 seconds at a time.... continuously, until interrupted by an offer to go for a walk, play ball, swim in the pond or have a treat.    This is a being who can maintain intense single-pointed concentration on the cookie, the biscuit, the chewy, the bone, until it is magically transported into his mouth.   This is a being who can masticate the cookie, the biscuit, the chewy, the bone while fully absorbed in samadhi. 

What more can I say? 

This morning, as I exited the barn after feeding the horses, a loud, close elk bugle sounded from behind the barn.  Curious about why the bugle sounded so close, I turned the corner around the back side of the barn.  There ahead of me, cutting across the pasture on a diagonal track from southwest to northeast were two large elk chasing after a coyote. 

The elk each held a taught line in their bodies from front to back.  They were running but still managed to coil like snakes ready to strike.  Their heads were down just slightly below the horizontal plane, ears back, eyes intently focused on the coyote as it spun around in a circle in front of the pond to change directions back toward the southwest.  They both spun around to face it and continued the chase in circles by the pond until the coyote was again headed back on the northeast diagonal, away from the new young calf now lying somewhere in the upper southwest meadow.

Last summer was the first time I came in contact with the Semi-Truck Driving Angel. 

I was driving west on I-40 through Albuquerque, while contemplating, with anxiety, all of the appointments on my schedule for the day ahead and the traffic all around me.  There was construction on I-40 to widen the road, and this required slowing down and jostling through other cars and semi-trucks to make the I-25 exit after the construction zone.  I was in the third lane, and as I slowed to approach the construction zone, I realized that I suddenly began to feel better.  A calm came over me, body and soul.

Not understanding why approaching the construction zone would somehow make me feel better, I looked around for the source of the comfort.  Just ahead of me to my left, in the fourth lane of traffic, was a silver Federal Express Trailer that seemed to be brighter  than everything else on the road.  I adjusted my speed to stay just behind this curiously bright truck in the next lane over, and just out of the driver's blind spot.

As I drove in this position behind the bright truck and trailer, I began to feel better and better.  My stomach, which had been a bit upset over my anxiety over the days schedule, began to relax.  My shoulders and neck also relaxed.  I felt a sense of wellbeing and "rightness" about my place in the world, and the world, even though at the moment I was driving in some seriously hairy I-40 semi-truck laden traffic in a four lane wide construction zone.

"Who is driving that truck??"  I wondered. 

As the construction zone ended, I sped up to pass the truck and get a good look at the driver behind the wheel.  As I caught sight of the woman with gently layered wavy white hair, glasses, and a physical build that shouted "I am a Grandmother" who calmly, confidently, peacefully drove her big rig out of the construction zone and toward the I-25/I-40 interchange.... another usually frantic driving situation, I laughed  "Of course you are!" I thought mentally at the driver. "A Grandmother Angel!  You are Grandmother to everyone out here!"

My heart was filled with joy as I slowed down to catch my exit and watched the big semi spilling off waves of  calmness, clarity and love, slowly speed up to make it up the long West Mesa grade ahead.

Two days ago, as I drove into Ridgway, Colorado with my roommate Rob and came to the one stoplight in town at the juncture of Routes 62 and 550.  Rob looked up at the driver of the Semi-Truck that was turning onto Route 62. 

"Who IS that PERSON?!?"  he exclaimed excitedly as he sensed the love spilling over the road from the semi. 

It was her. Turning her big rig carefully, calmly, confidently, lovingly onto Route 62, with excess waves of love and clarity and relaxation tumbling off her huge truck and trailer, showering all below,  the Grandmother of every driver and passenger on the road -  the Semi-Truck Driving Angel.

I hear my grandfather laughing from spirit as start to write this blog post.  "Why?" You may ask. and at this point I can only answer, I think it has something to do with the rocky red clay soil  he was so familiar with in his own life.  A soil that forced him, with just a 40 acre homestead and a mule, to find unusual ways to make a living over and above what the land, cottonseed, and hard work were able to provide.

Today we walked a square around our place and a double track trail that skirts the neighbors place.  We know our place was the main dwelling area of an unsuccessful homestead from the early 20th century.  As such, much of it was cleared of trees, especially mighty Colorado Blue Spruce and Lodge Pole Pine, some that were probably over 500 years old when they were cut down and used for timber.  We have found the stumps of these trees dotted across the outer edges of the pasture, one stump so unevenly cut you can sit on it like a grand throne, with the remaining outer shell and bark providing a back rest that rises high above your head.

The other noticeable aspect of our place compaired to the neighbors is what appears to be some severe overgrazing on a little more than 35 acres which is divided into three pastures now largely treed with aspen and ponderosa pine.  The land has carried a sheep lease on it for at least three decades, and there are steep sections where the top soil seems to have washed down to rock, as well as less steep sections where there just isn't enough vegetation to prevent it from eventually wearing down to rock.  A few years back, the aspens caught what appears to be oyster shell canker and many of them died.  Their skeletons litter a section of the highest flattest meadow, preventing the ground there from becoming good pasture.  The remaining aspens look a bit thin, bent,  and diminutive compared to groves just to our west, which are growing tall and deep.

We have decided to provide extra grass seed and horse manure on the areas where the vegetation is thin.  I have also raised my hand and ask for a gaspowered chainsaw to make use of the many downed aspen in the highest meadow, I would like to build a guest hogan or platform for a teepee or yurt, since that is the same area where the Sneffles Range of the San Juan Mountains is most easily viewed.  But first, we have to figure out what sort of grass to plant. 

What grass is native and helpful?  What is not?

After several hours of websearching and review, I find that most of the pasture mixes available at the local garden and ranch stores are offering us a mixture of a couple of native grasses with a multitude of non-native grasses.  After more review I can only find information on five native grasses that belong where we are.  There could be more grasses, but I can only find this information on five as of this evening.  Sandberg's Bluegrass, Western and Blue Wheatgrass, Muttongrass, and Junegrass.  Of these five, the Bluegrass, the Wheatgrasses, and the Muttongrass are most nutritious and healthy for horses. 

 I think I am actually in love with the Muttongrass because it is healthy and nutritious for not just horses, but also deer, elk, sheep, and humans.  You can eat it in a salad, sautee it, collect the seeds and make a nutritious flour out of it.  It is like the dandelion of grass because it is so delicious  - but even better because it is a native plant, non-invasive, and everyone can be nourished by it.  At the same time it tolerates it's popularity well, growing more strongly and vigorously as it is eaten and trampled upon. 

Now, I was going to make a point about the whole process of manifesting a greener pasture... hmmm... what was it?  Let me see... oh yes, here it is. 

This process isn't easy, and we are not exactly sure we are going to go about it correctly, having never done it before. 

It's a lot like manifesting a different kind of life, or a new job, or a the metaphorical "greener pastures" that everyone talks about, whether they live in the city or in the country, or someplace in between.   We are not sure where this process will lead us - but I think we have made a good start by taking the following steps:

1) We have researched deeply into what we want. 

In this case native, non-invasive grass species that can support the local large grazing fauna (deer, elk, horses, sheep) and provide hardy ground cover to prevent further soil erosion and begin the process of building up more soil. 

2) We have taken stock of what work needs to be done to improve the situation and have made a committment to perform that work.

In this case moving and recycling old dead aspen trunks and using them for terracing or guest lodging where appropriate, while leaving the areas of downfall between meadows for small fauna habitat.

3) We recognize that this work will require some major personal effort on our part, and we don't expect someone else to do it for us.

4) We have visualized what our pasture will provide for the horses, deer, elk, sheep, us, and other creatures we care for living around us once this work is completed.

5) We recognize the work may not be completed quickly and will have to be done in stages.  We do not expect a quick fix.

7) We are open to finding out that we have proceeded to do the work in a way that will not work or be most beneficial for all the beings concerned, and we are willing to make adjustments as necessary.

8) We are trusting our guidance to lead us in this endeavor, so that we learn lessons that we can apply elsewhere, and do the best job we possibly can.

9) We do not expect to know everything about what we are doing in advance of doing it.

10) We look forward with anticipation to the days when the pasture is lush, green, and full of a multitude of living things who are supported by it.

I have been warned that spring here slowly creeps up and turns overnight into summer.  The aspen leaves are slowly opening this week, turning the trees to an interior decorator's dream pallet of silver and woodland green.

This morning I was greeted at the pond's edge by a very large and very unshy Del Norte Salamander (P. Elongatus.)  As the dog's Kong football landed at the edge of the pond and drifted to the shore, Mr. P. Elongatus rose out of the water and followed the wake of the football to the shore, where he scurried out for a moment to take a good look at me as I bent to pick up the yellow football to throw it again.  Once having made a judgement of the relative size of myself compared to him, he blinked, and I caught a brief thought from him "No. You are too big." as he quickly turned and slid back into the pond, dissappearing in the mucky deep.

Down the road at the rock formation that we mistakenly dubbed "the Mouse Condo" last fall while relocating extra unneeded deer mice from the cabin, two (so-far) Yellow Bellied Marmots have taken up residence.  I assume they were already there and hibernating when we arrived in the fall and that is why we did not see them while relocating deer mice to their home. 

Yellow Bellied Marmots are relatives of the eastern Woodchuck, but I have been told not to call them woodchucks to their face, or they are likely to become offended and fall into torpor, which they tend to do easily and for no apparent reason or at the first sign of cold weather.  These marmots have bushy red hair and tails, and become very fat over the summer. 

When we first came to look at the cabin we saw one waddling down the road, as large as a very fat beaver but without the beaver tail.  Moving was so difficult for this overstuffed marmot that as we slowed the jeep to look at it, it did not attempt to move any faster than it had been moving, and only briefly paused to look up at us with an attitude that seemed to say "Yeah, so... I'm FAT and I am not moving faster just because YOU are here."

Two evenings ago I received the same sort of attitude from the porcupine that Otto had his unfortunate run in with last fall.  As I opened the rear barn door to find Mr. Porcupine nuzzling the sweet dandelion shoots nestled against the aspen fence, he took one look at me and with a very resigned demeanor began moving as fast as he could go across the pasture to the grove of downed aspen.  As fast as he could go was extremely slow, and he labored through picking up each foot as high as possible in a rolly polly spikey critter slow motion camera high step that was reminiscent of someone trying to walk through a field of deep mud.

To sum up this blog post I want to thank my sister for mentioning that I now live in prime Mountain Lion country.  Not only is my sister psychic, she is also correct.  The south end of the Uncompaghre Plateau is the prime Mountain Lion country in Colorado, just as it is the prime Mule Deer and Elk country.  It is so prime for mountain lions that there is a mountain lion study underway here which prevents anyone from hunting lions here.

Last week we started hiking above Hanks Valley, an idyllic little known area where South Horsefly Creek creates a deep canyon full of tall pines surrounded by high rock walls.  Deer and Elk run ahead of us until they feel they are far enough away to stop and eat again. 

If I were a Mountain Lion I would live in Hanks Valley.

As a hiker I try not to think too much about that.