earth sanctuary

This past saturday, i went to Earth Sanctuary: http://www.earthsanctuary.org/

it's a little hard to explain what it is; please see their site. i was there for a cancer survivor work-shop - but i went there to sneak in my mom, quiet-like, under my cloak. we sat in a circle and introduced ourselves, and i loved everyone of these women immediately - they were so lovely and vulnerable and honest. there was one woman, 10 days out from her first chemo. her long blonde hair came out in baby fistfulls, and she would, as she was talking, arrange these bundles of blonde hair in a figure-eight on her leg; like you would pull pills off your sweater and arrange them.

i shared my tattoos, which they thought were lovely, and i shared my mom and things i had thought about on my walk through the property. chances are i'll never see these women again but i don't think i'll be forgetting them and their stories. the picture above is one of the many places where people left things that meant something to them, things they wanted to leave in this sacred place - i left a chestnut from paris from when my mom and i went there - and this is what i wrote in my notebook: i leave her here, surrounded by stones, having seen other stones in other times - always here until we see each other again.