The news is crazy with all sorts of stories today that it is making me dizzy. Lots of people seem to be getting behind Obama (Yea!), so maybe the US will have some courage to usher in something/someone that is different...

We've gotten so much snow this year...so much! It is a wonderful thing, but I am worried about the deer that live under the tree across the street from me. A crust is beginning to develop, so it is difficult for the deer to cut through to the grass. The DOW is feeding them over in the Gunnison Valley, and I am wondering if they will have to hear...but the snow is great since we have been in a horrible drought for so many years. We just got another two feet the day before yesterday. The snow is so high in the middle of the main street of Telluride that you can't turn left! You can't see the traffic, and many times there isn't a hole cut through it to allow traffic to go through.

I had to go cut kindling today. Not something too smart to do when your mind is on meeting with a surgeon and wondering how many thousands I will soon be in debt. I kept missing the wood with the axe...yikes...finally got it done though. There is something satisfying about walking through a bunch of snow to go and cut kindling...something that has been dones for thousands and thousands of years by my ancestors...and I walk in their footsteps...and it continues...

I am thinking that I will move to France if they don't come up with a health plan for this country some day. The thought of growing grapes not far from the coast while painting seems divine to me. Now if I can convince my boyfriend.

This painting I did...I rescued an owl, and I have told that story in a previous blog. I found the Great Horned Owl stuck on a barbed wire fence...we cut him loose, and I carried him on my lap for over 100 miles back to the vet. He only freaked out twice on the way back...but he never clawed me...he did cluck...they make the most unusual sound when they feel threatened...and their eyes! The yellow orbs are amazing. I took care of him for four days until he died from an infection...we tried everything the vet and I. I miss him so much, but I feel like he is with me all the time. I hear one across the street at night cooing away in the old windmill...:)

Back home on the Pine Ridge Rez, if you see an Owl, it is considered to be a very bad omen. If one appears to you in an odd way, in a vision or a dream, it is considered to be a message of death. You immediately go to a Holy Man to do a ceremony to reverse whatever it may be bringing. At least that is what happens in my family. I remember when my Uncle saw one in a vision, we were all told to go home immediately for a ceremony. The entire way back, in the sun light of summer, we kept seeing them on fence posts. My Uncle has many physical issues, and I think the Owl was simply trying to tell him to prepare for the transition to the Other Side....

I look at Owl as that...a sign of transformation. Yes, it could mean the death of something, but whenever something dies, it brings new life into the world. Energy never dies...just shifts, swirls, rises from the ashes to create some new life form...so I embrace the presence of Owl...and whenever I feel scared and lonely, I see myself leaning upon him...and so I painted this. It is time that we embrace change, so we can dream another dream...so we can allow changes to comes into this world...Whenever you feel scared about a transition, a transformation...just lean upon Owl and ask Owl to help you through it...He will.