Clio on the road

Lots of lessons learned today, and little time to set them down adequately.

Lesson #1: As it gets colder, driving lovelips to her central MA meetings without having a place or a plan in mind will be less successful if Clio has to come along.

Lesson #2: Bring 4 liters of water; Clio will drink half a liter and spill one and a half liters. You must have water for yourself.

Lesson #3: Outdoor activities work better for an active, curious puppy than sitting in the car.

Lesson #4: Hot cars in hot parking lots are not good places for puppies, even for short periods of time.

Lesson #5: Lots of small, short activities for the puppy is better than several long activities for the puppy.

Lesson #6: Bring lunch along. You may not have a chance to go into a store on this trip.

Lesson #7: You might need a cellphone soon. You can’t very well leave the puppy in an emergency. (This may be mere justification)

Lesson #8: A puppy who sleeps in the car for two hours up and two hours back is never as exhausted as you think she is.

Lesson #9: Being dominant doesn’t just mean you give the orders. It means that you’re the one who has to think things through, because all the puppy is doing is following orders.

Lesson #10: Safety, with a puppy, goes beyond food and shelter as with a cat. It includes the threat/opportunity of small children, cars, trucks, passing trains, other dogs, mysterious things barked at in the woods, hot pavement, overbearing sunshine, cold mountain streams, and unusual and probably life-threatening bits of plastic picked up in the teeth on the sidewalk.

Lesson #11: Think things through, but learn greater flexibility.

That’s about it for now. I’ll review this list a little later tomorrow.

Ritual 2.0: Fire Inside

I’m starting up a new series of entries on my LiveJournal related to ritual. I’m calling this Ritual2.0

The last night at SpiritFire, we the participants were asked, “how will you take this fire circle home with you in your hearts, and keep it burning all the year?” That may not be how the question was phrased exactly, but it was the essence of it, and it’s been burning in me the last two weeks.

A lot of folks (OK, five) have suggested to me that they’d be interested in being part of a group that did relatively short but intense ritual work once a month for the coming year. The group would be gender-mixed, small (under 10 people), and would probably meet in at least two locations. It’s also possible that there would be two or more groups doing parallel work in multiple areas, including northeast Connecticut and central Massachusetts. I/we don’t know what this would look like yet.

What this is, is an RFC (Request For Comment):

1) would you be interested in such a group?

2) would you commit to participating in such a group for twelve sessions?

3) What ritual elements would need to be present in such a group?

4) what practical elements would need to be present in such a group?

If you can see this post, you are one of a small number of people who are being asked to contribute to the discussion on this particular post. I ask that you comment anonymously, if you do, so that your ideas can be considered separately from whatever drama may currently attach to your name or livejournal handle.

if you would like to be taken out of this particular filter and not included in future discussions related to what I’m calling here, Ritual 2.0, please let me know, as well, and I’ll leave you out of future posts on this subject.