I am tripping more than you are. Battling razzberries

[SadLuckDame]

My friends had me whisked away for the whole of the day. Just getting home and off to sweet sleep, too. I hope the river gave you her stories today, mingo. Miss ya.

[the mingo]

I'm glad you were whisked away by friends. Friends are good for that & are better for us than we know. The rivers always give me stories, not only of themselves but also of the lands and the times they have flowed through. I don't know how to explain it since water is water but river stories are different in spirit than creek stories and lake stories are different than pond stories and the sea, well, the sea is the queen mother beast of them all and there is nothing else on the planet like her. I like the rivers & streams & creeks best. The waters that make & travel their own course through the landscape.

Got no plans for today. May tap Mad Wayne later and drop into some local water. We left the kayaks on Vera when we got home yesterday just in case. Going to work some more on the painting and generally just let the day come to me. People say I'm just lazy only because they don't realize I have a grand strategy about these kind of things.

[SadLuckDame]

A water song.
You made this great, mingo.

[the mingo]

Thx, Doll. Water is a song more to itself than anything else on the planet, even the wind. Went back up to the mouth of the Salmon again today. Had just as good a time as yesterday too. And just as wore out as yesterday. The Salmon breaks up into many channels where it empties into Lake Ontario and you can putter around for hours among them. This afternoon we made it far enough up against the current to see where the main river channel came out from the trees before it split up into it's branches but we were too slapped out to attempt a further ascent. We are going to try again week after next. Maybe sooner if we can fit it in. Saw a bald eagle up in there this afternoon & Caspian terns and kingfishers on the hunt. The most outstanding sighting though was of a green heron who made an appearance and posed on a tree branch for a few precious seconds. It's rare this bird lets you see it. It was a good time. Am getting to know the layout of the channels back in there well. When the next attempt is made I know how to get back in there now to save undue wear & tear on our bodies to save that for the main river herself. I heard the river coming out on a stretch of fast water as we were turning back, it's voice was all around me as it carried me swiftly to where the current slowed. It reminded me of a song I once heard when I was much younger :

water spirit springing springing
round my head
makes me feel glad
that I'm not dead

I'm not sure anymore who sang it.
That's all for now, Doll. Just going to relax into the evening. Maybe look in a bit on your painting. I really like the way it has come along. I have stalled out for a couple of days to let the thing set because it has reached a turning point
and has not given a clear voice on what is next. It has all come down to the small spirits now and I'm waiting for them to speak together - like the water on the river this afternoon.
'Nite, Doll.

[SadLuckDame]

She carries you to be able to carry her back and then you gift her to me
and it's as if I just went down the river today, heard her song, felt her lifting and beating. I love the birds she has up the stairs, in her little bough.
When she's feeding herons and showing them to you.

Thanks you.
I'm happy there when you bring it here.

[the mingo]

Thx, Annie B. That was a cool way to put it. Made a smile here. July has brought out her big guns here & it is hot. Told ya I'd be bitchin' 'bout the heat soon enough. Had something pop into my head this mornin' for your painting. I've been doin' dry runs with it in my sketchbook. It was something you said earlier somewhere in your posts about angels that sparked it out. Thing is I want to bring it on as more of a "presence" than an outright depiction. And the "presence" may be in animal form - damn thing is twirling in my head but I'm not letting it go 'til it blesses me or buggers the hell off.
Thx for letting me know you have enjoyed the kayak stories. I've enjoyed sharing them with you. Yeah, that.
...
And I don't want to cut either the painting or myself short because things are yet happening with it but I expect it to be finished before the end of July. Got some confidence 'bout that.
Later, Doll.

[SadLuckDame]

Just wait, I'll have a perfect spot for it...gonna start making an area ready.
I might hang some prisms around the window and have it reflect on a spot on the wall, I think. Might do some feather thing or mirrors. Cause I likes

Sweet dreams, u and your guys.

[the mingo]

shadows stretch across the grass
then disappear as clouds get between them
and the sun

Mornin', Doll. Couldn't get to sleep last night though tired & woke up late this morning. My routines have been knocked a bit off trail & off rhythm since the river on Sunday & ain't found their usual beat quite yet. Excitement will take you out of yourself and knock about all your little establishments & the body takes a bit to sort through the swirlings. I'll get a second dose of coffee in the blood and go up to paint. Ya know, something you said in your last 'bout making a special place, women do that, make special places I mean. Men do it too but usually it means a matter of utility with them - things in their place so they don't have to think of where they might be for the next time they want to use them but women make a special place more towards meaning a "sacred" place. Just saw a coyote pass across the lawn & disappear into the tall grass at the edge. Must still be around 'cause the crows are squawkin' about it. They really mean it too. Coyote won't find nothin' to eat with all that racket goin' on overhead.

Later, Doll, time to commune with the semi-liquid & the colorful.

[SadLuckDame]

To get us through the night.
I'm on my knees needing to plow through some sleepless, usually a Sunday for me too. What a challenge to get tuckered at times.

Is there a song, 'Take me to the River...' seems like I have one in my head, gonna google for it when I gets home today.

[the mingo]

Yeah there is, I remember some of it -

take me to the river
and wash me down
won't you cleanse my soul
put my feet on the ground
hold me, love me, please me, tease me
'til I can't, 'til I can't take no more
take me to the river

... o the heart is such a storm of stir ups & it never rests. It's always busy, even when we sleep.

There is a river in your painting. It runs along in front of some bluffs. There is a little guy in a kayak on that river. He's singing, "take me to the river"

[SadLuckDame]

Yes! That's the one.

[the mingo]

~~~~~~~~~~ yeah.

[the mingo]

Gonna be hectic for me through Sunday, Doll. Nancy's parents are gonna be up from Pennsylvania for yearly bash. Won't be much time for anything and I probably won't get much time to paint. No kayaking either probably. Anyways, I'll keep in touch when I can - be advised they will be haiku-like posts. Full size sailing replicas of the Nina & the Pinta are in down to Oswego harbor for the weekend. Was down there this morning to take a look from a hill. They've got the dock set up for ticket buyers & tours but tomorrow morning we are going to take the kayaks and drop in the lake a bit east of Fort Ontario and navigate down the shore to the river, then cross the river and come around to the dock where the ships are tied up and see them close-up from the water. Can you say pirate ?
I'll get pics. You have a "coyote angel" in your painting, Doll. Got it in there last night after work. See you later, Doll.

[SadLuckDame]

If I didn't freeze up behind the wheel
(after only an hour on the roads), I'd go to look at the boats or go cross country, road trip.

Logically I know how absurd it is that I get so anxious over things that are thought to be easy and natural (like driving). I can honestly understand that it is just ABA. But, it's the emotion that takes over and there's no talking sense to emotion, it doesn't care at all that I've this knowledge of the logic. It goes, 'So what, I'm still gonna make your chest squeeze tight, your heart flutter and get ya shaky.' It drives me crazy to have both things going on, prefer the one to the other, but the other is the strongest and I kinda lose control after battling it a bit.

Same thing with lots of logical stuffs, like riding in an airplane. I know it's the same situation as riding in a car, on a train, etc. all easy for me, but the pitter patter of my nerves goes to drive regardless. I know that logically I won't lose gravity, but the emotions get so big and wide on visioning it that I can't get it to be more T than F, even with the knowing it's not true

So behind the wheel after a while my mind works like this...a fight between the two informers. One is getting it's kicks imagining all sorts of sorts along the line of non-sense, such as that if the road starts to seem the same stretch of road, I might go into a mini panic wondering if I was stuck in broken record mode and that I'm just repeating the pattern over and over and over

or I might see stuffs start to blur up and I'll wonder if that might be the moment when a death-like awareness happens and all begins to fade to dream and the awareness that all was just staged, but not truly real happens. Then in such states of too much mind trippings, I begin the worries that I'm not a safe bet to put behind the wheel cause my mind has such a mind of it's own.

All the while I'll have the reality that I'm letting my imagination get the bests of me and that I'm doing nothing so much worth the goings on and that I'm only simply driving...

It's crazy to be in a frame of mind that's experiencing the environments colors, scenary and some abstract thoughts, but trying to keep it reeled in enough to use my normal serious sense for important tasks, like people's lives, driving a car is prolly similar to carrying a loaded weapon around. The two worlds are so clashing, and I keep in constant state of hesitancy. What a great difficulty to balance the two for lengthy periods of time. It's magic or tragic, could go either with a pendulum.

Anyway, sorries for the long ramble on myself.

You do so many fun exciting things. I bet it's gonna be beautiful and so worth it to be by the big boats, to be the pirate. Don't forget ya can talk to the waters and the waters will communicate your messaging onto more waters and eventually what you told it will get carried to where ya wanted it carried to.
You could tell water any sweet thing or get it a listen to such madness and it'll say, "Let me takes care of this messaging for you.' And it does, it takes it. Pretty cool stuffs.

Have a good times, mingo.
I'm happy that a coyote heart made it into it.

[SadLuckDame]

I just got the image of what I feel like on the road when driving, with so much over-load on the senses and thinking. I feel like a tambourine, not saying I sound like one, just that the rattle, the shakes of so many shakes, the chimes. All that, yes the shimmy on the inside. The one touches the other and the other is touching another and there's a lot of that going on in order for it to even work. Eeep.

P.S. after this ramble, I saw a small imp sized fairyish child dart through the woods out back, in a berry-wine colored shirt and then a plain brown bird hopped from his hiding spot to a visible branch and I'm wondering if it was the fairy-imp whom turned into a bird, which is a more acceptable vision for humans, because humans need limitation, therefore the earth is limited for what it is we can handle the doses of, too much more and we'll be brinked, only our imagination can take on any extra because it downsizes by using less energy in extra senses, etc.