A Wet Patina on a Rock Garden

mid-june and the monsoon has begun, again...

i've just come inside our home after digging by hand and shovel in my expanding rock (boulder) garden in the backyard. i take the soil from around these boulders by wheelbarrow up the small hillside to create our own personal mountain top.

this physical labor is a great balance to the ceaseless chores of life, managing a home, an annual summer vacation and the academic demands of three growing children, as well as the higher structural aspirations that my human rights work entails.

not to mention, of course, i half-expect to find a 7th c. licchavi dynasty stone temple buried under a later landslide while i'm shifting the soil below me.

we're told this budhanilkantha hillside was, centuries upon centuries ago, a profoundly sacred hindu religious pilgrimmage site in the early first millenium.

but, it's as much the child in me who still finds pleasure to dig in the dirt and yank out rocks who spends his extra hours out in the drizzle and sun getting much needed exercise while moulding his himalayan home.

now, inside, my shirt soaking wet, time for a much needed warm shower, i find ezi on his laptop preparing his courses for next year at nmh while leah independently creates her own childhood games. as i was in my backyard mediation, josh was off to silas's to meet his friends on the other side of our neighborhood hill.

as i write, van is on the imac speakers. 'everyday i want to be closer. i want to know how to get the feeling. down in your soul...'

outside the drizzle continues. an airy patina of wet on a lush, verdant background with rain clouds hovering on the 7,000' shivapuri hillside behind us.