Cortez has great murals

 

The far right of this mural, through the open car window

The middle and far left of the mural through the windshield...sorry.

Sorry, glare from the windshield kept the last one from being clear. I bet AC could figure out how to save it.

Thinking of AC, here's one with some scary folks in it...but not a coffee shop!

The next one is from FaceBook...not in Cortez!

Either staged or AI...but still funny!

Yes, the wealth of the Southwest has been in its minerals!

Sharing with Monday Murals!

Pueblo Seed and Feed

 

Visiting my son and his wife in Cortez CO, I was interested in finding a bakery. I'd seen some nice looking clips on FB about the Pueblo Seed and Feed...family owned, etc. And Kendra (daughter-in-law) also said it was a great place.

The messy job was roasting chili peppers out front. (That's my trusty 2008 Toyota across the street!)

No pastries, by the fluffy French persuasion! I would have loved the cuts of cinnamon bread...but there were 5 people in front of me in line, and a very slow clerk. So I just went on my way. The coffee was just in carafes on the far wall.

The displays were excellent. And there were a lot of seeds also on one whole aisle to grow your own grains.

But I'm stuck on love of butter, croissants, chocolate and almonds. Nope. Not there. If they'd had a loaf of sourdough I might have purchased it, but all that was available were specialty rye or other rough grain types. Not what my mornings want. When I go home I'll have to make something simple for myself!

Still looking for a coffee shop to replace the ones I love in North Carolina! That may not happen.

But oh the beauty of the scenery! It's hard to concentrate on writing a blog...I look up and just am enthralled!

--------------------------

On a more personal note: my son and wife went camping...taking everything but the kitchen sink! 

I'm glad they weren't feeling like hiking in to do back country camping. They'll be back this evening. I'm headed for Durango before it gets dark, so may not see them. I've had a delightful time staying with their cat (who didn't really need care).

--------------

But I came for the birthday dinner Friday, then the art opening.

I meant to go back Saturday and purchase some cards, all hand made by artists. But I got distracted by the murals all over town in Cortez.

Tai talking to one of the artists.

------------------------------

This is my cart, which carries everything I need when moving around. It has 2 wheels, and you tilt it and it's like a suitcase...and of course the handle retracts so it fits in the back seat of the car.

Rituals

Update to the blogger note which I wrote last night...fortunately it has been fixed!

"Dear blogger...it's really sad to have a whole program that lets us down, nobody is able to post comments anywhere suddenly on Friday morning, Sept. 4, 2026. I wonder how long before that will be fixed...or will it? Please, blog people, if there are any people still running any of it. Please make this work again!"

I'm sharing all of the following newsletter because I woke up this morning thinking of time as a spiral. And so was this author. There's really nothing new under the sun.

by Alan Ostmann

----------------

From the Earthaven Ecovillage newsletter published Sept. 1, 2026

Their beautiful photos didn't download as they were PNG files. 

Juncture: A Fall Equinox Ritual

The essence of autumn’s approach lives in the arch of elderberry branches as they hang heavy with fruits. We can feel it coming as the quality of early-morning light becomes richer and deeper. The lushness here shifts to a dankness, and the momentary mission of the plant world begins to move from growth toward decay.

 Sometimes the seasonal cycles are presented as a wheel that turns. It's a beautiful image, but without including the path upon which that wheel travels, or the space through which it spins, the metaphor is incomplete.

Natural cycles include an exquisite synergy of returning and revival, repetition and novelty.

The wheel turns: summer follows spring, autumn after that. And at the same time, each moment is new territory, a returning to something familiar but with new eyes and more mature comprehension.

 [The author likes] to think of time not as a bullet-train speeding ever forward (as modern life might suggest), or a perpetually spinning circle, but rather as a spiral. Each revolution brings us back to touchpoints that are familiar, giving us a chance to notice what about us and the world around us has changed and grown.  

The solstices and equinoxes are moments in time that align with the repeating rhythm of relationship between Earth and Sun.

These ecological points of contact have been honored and celebrated by nearly every human culture from every corner of the earth, for thousands of years. Some say, and I agree, that they reflect key moments in the cycles of each breath, each day, and our whole lives.

We can all honor these touchpoints in the spiral of time with rituals, even if we didn’t grow up doing that, or don’t think we know how.

In the words of beloved Earthaven ancestor, Kaitlin, Priestess of Cycles, “Ritual is a human need. The more conscious we are with ritual and ceremony in our lives, the more grounded our lives become. Ritual is part of everyday life. Consciously ritualizing transitions and cycles can support us to be fully present and embodied in this world.”

How do you feel moved to ritualize the upcoming equinox and the changing of the season? Maybe something as simple as lighting a candle when the sun sets and greeting the coming darkness. Perhaps something more collective, like gathering friends around a fire to sing and share words of gratitude for what has grown and come to fruition in these past few months.

As the fruits ripen, the creatures build warm nests, and the fertile dreaming night grows to envelope more of our days, may you know peace and wellbeing.

of summer,

Rachel Fee, Member of Earthaven Ecovillage & Marketing Manager for SOIL

Chloe Leiberman, Co-facilitator of The Re-membering Retreat

Re-membering Retreat co-facilitator Chloe Lieberman will be leading an online ritual to mark the coming autumn on September 17 at 7:30 p.m. Eastern. 

If you feel called, join us for Juncture: A Fall Equinox Ritual. She will guide a simple process of grounding and reflection, and invite your heart and voice into the circle to honor where you’re at on the spiraling path.

-------------------

Earthaven Ecovillage is located near Black Mountain NC. I have visited several times, and some good friends live in this intentional community in their Earth Ship style home.

LET'S NOT FORGET THE GODDESSES!

What is the Warrior cult? It’s the stories, the philosophies and the ingrained assumptions that aggression equals strength and manliness, that caring and compassion are womanly and weak, that the glory of conquest is more important than life itself.

The Odyssey is this summer’s big movie. The Manosphere is obsessed with testosterone. Wars rage, driven by some strong man’s ego. Maybe it’s time to re-examine the cult of the Warrior, that Bronze-Age propaganda coup that has driven our myths, our religions and our conceptions of gender for thousands of years. The cult still shapes politics, entertainment and religion, in ways both obvious and unseen.  And it lives within us, constricting who we can be.

Yet there are other images of strength and courage. The ancient Goddesses long pre-date the rise of the Warrior, and in their imagery and stories, we can find alternative visions of power. And at this crucial time, when the world is literally burning and democracy itself may fall victim to the strongmen, we need both those ancient powers and our own creativity and vision to forge a new mythic ground.

Thank you Starhawk, who is teaching a course Magical Activism: Transforming the Warrior Cult.

------------------ 

 ARTEMIS EPHESIA

"From as early as the Bronze Age, and before, the great Mother Goddess whose worship was carried by the Amazons who founded the city of Ephesus (now Selcuk), was worshiped and venerated in the part of the world which is now Turkey. She seems to be a merged cosmic descendant of several Goddesses of the ancient Fertile Crescent: Kubala, Kybele, Ishtar, Astarte and Ashtoreth. These were worshiped in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Phrygia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Crete, Egypt, the Aegean Islands, Greece and Etruscan Italy. She was passionately venerated, and was the guardian Goddess of several cities of the Near East, Marsilia, Ephesus and Carthage.

"She was worshiped for long before Her first temple was built near Ephesus in 625 BCE, on a site which had already been sacred for centuries. The whole of nature is Her - the earth, the flowers and fruits and She rules the elements, sky, earth and sea. She governs the life of the animals, tames the wild beasts and protects the animals from extinction. She assists in birth and is invoked by all mothers, and would-be mothers. Although Her original name is not known, Her identity eventually merged with the Greek Goddess Artemis and She took on the name of Artemis, though She was clearly more than that name alone. She was accredited with the creation of all civilization, and as its ruler, wore a crown/headdress carved with city towers. Each year She was celebrated everywhere in these regions as the Mother, the fertility Goddess and the grantor of innumerable prayers. Her annual festival lasted a whole month. People from all these regions poured into Ephesus for rituals, entertainment, dances and markets. Her visage appeared on the coins of Ephesus - Sacred Mother, Her arms outstretched to embrace Her children.

"In the image of Her standing in the plaza entrance to the Artemision, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Her tubular skirt is carved with birds, stags, goats, bees and winged beings we would recognize today as angels. This kind of skirt is not Greek, neither is the crown/headdress. It was obviously from another region and time before Classical Greece. She was referred to as the Bee Goddess, The Light Bearer, Artemis of the First Throne, Queen of the Cosmos, Savior, Heavenly Goddess, Greatest & Holiest, Mistress of the Animals. Her famous statue, of which many copies were made, though it does not survive today, had protuberances in rows around Her chest about which there has been much speculation and interpretation. They have been variously posited to be pendulous breasts (as though having fed many children), bull testicles (as bulls were often sacrificed to Her), the bodies of bees, the teats of animals, and even possibly the teeth of the red deer or elk (as red deer teeth had been sacred decorations for many thousands of years in a wide ranging and sweeping area from Siberia to Africa). Though any of these are possible given the ancientness of Her worship and the associations with Artemis Ephesia as Mistress of Animals and Great Mother of All, and although scholars now as a group reject the idea they are breasts, due to the fact that Greek sculptors never depicted breasts this way in any other sculpture, I feel intuitively that they are indeed breasts. This sculpture did not originate with the Greeks in its first form. The image is clearly from another earlier, more eastern culture. That they are breasts certainly makes more logical sense than any of the other possibilities.

Especially sacred to women, She presided over a woman’s passage from girl to married woman. She is a triple Goddess, though not in the way triple Goddesses are thought of now - Virgin/Girl, Wife, and Mother. The number 3 is especially sacred to Her. She also came to be related to death and the underworld - womb and tomb. She has the universal power to override both astrological influences and the Fates. This is symbolized in the yoke of the dress she wears (in the sculpture) that is adorned with all the yearly track of the zodiac across the night sky. She had priestesses who were Oracles, successively, and Artemis Ephesia’s oracle predated Apollo’s oracle at Delphi. Artemis played a central role in the life of the city of Ephesus, its identity, and civic pride. Many inscriptions record a strong belief in Her ability to answer prayers and petitions.

Although Christianity began to get a foothold in the region, it is recorded in the biblical book of Acts, that the apostle Paul’s preaching about the new god, Jesus, on the very steps of the Artemision, was met with strong and vocal opposition by the residents. There was a big public demonstration to drive Paul out of the city as many citizens shouted and chanted, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” Eventually Christianity gained prominence, but not until 600 CE did the worship of Artemis Ephesia become completely eclipsed. The Catholic Church, however, was not able to turn the hearts of the people away from Her and incorporated the image of the Goddess with Her arms outstretched into the image of Mary, who to this day is depicted with her arms outstretched to embrace. The Church even declared Ephesus the place where Mary, mother of Jesus, was entombed, though much, much later in the 19th century, there was a papal bull about Mary’s bodily ascension to heaven.

Now, in these modern times, there is a project in germination to restore and rebuild the great Temple of Artemis in Selcuk, Turkey on its original site. The first Artemision took 120 years to complete. It was designed by the famous Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes, and adorned by almost every famous sculptor of Greece in that time period. It was three times as large as the Parthenon at Athens, with 120 marble columns. With modern machinery and techniques, it should, hopefully, take not nearly as much time to complete. The original was financed by King Croesus of Lydia - one can only hope the rebuilt Artemision is financed as well as its predecessor, as it is estimated the completed project will cost $150 million dollars.

For myself, I echo the cry of the ancient populus of Ephesus:

**Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!**

c. Diane Horton

This copy of the original statue is in the Vatican.

Thank you for the FaceBook post June 21, 2021

-----------------

Sharing with Sepia Saturday

If you want more about my Life in Durango, there's the new blog!

----------------------------

I was up early and made several comments, mostly because you readers who live east of me (England, Scotland, Ireland, North Carolina, Ontario!) are already busy with your days while the sun hasn't even thought of our horizon yet in Colorado...why am I saying this! NO COMMENTS ARE BEING POSTED FROM ME! I have my usually wise funny things to say, but they just freeze rather than publish. Sorry. Will work on it...somehow.

The good, the frazzled and the vibrating things (don't get your hopes up)

 

Today's art:

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Night Watch,

My vibrating vest machine...

I'm supposed to put this vest on at least 15 minutes a day, to help loosen up mucus. If only I could be more disciplined about it. It's loud, heavy, and uncomfortable...makes my whole body shake, and I just feel awful doing it. I don't usually cough much out either. I worry about my osteoporosis and shaking my bones. So...

 There's a cute little thing I can blow into (flutter valve) which also vibrates, and I do use it frequently and it triggers a few coughs. So I'm doing what the doctor wants, sort of. Bronchiectasis means coughing is good. I sure wish otherwise. 

I push myself to just do these routines. But I'm quite tired of them. Those others who deal with chronic conditions know what I'm talking about. I won't go into how frustrating and depressing it is. Just gotta do it one day at a time!

OK Sharing with Thankful Thursday...after all I'm still breathing!

Wordless Wednesday

 

Van Gogh, Stary Night, 1889

Van Gogh, Stary Night over the Rhone 1888

Life Lines (2024), self-portrait by British portrait painter Louise Bird

And speaking of families...

Queen Victoria photographed with 29 members of her family in Coburg, Germany, gathered for the marriage of her grandchildren, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, and Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on 21 April 1894. (I have no idea which grandchildren were getting married!)

If you haven't experienced trauma in your life, then you might consider that which your ancestors experienced. I've recently learned that un-healed trauma is passed down through the generations. I believe this, because my mother suffered from having an alcoholic mother, and then passed on her resulting addiction (religion for her) to my sister and myself, who made attempts to recover from codependency to the traumas.

Oops, there I go ruining another Wordless Wednesday!

Cornelia Konrads' installations

Tuesday's Treasures:

Nature and art:

Cornelia Konrads builds structures that look caught mid-collapse — logs, branches, doorways suspended between forming and dissolving. She calls it "a moment of catastrophe." A moment of wonder is more like it.

Thanks FB

--------------

Katharine Hayhoe brings this to our attention:

London's Ultra Low Emissions Zone... has helped that notoriously smoggy city clean up its air. Now, a new study shows the improvements in air quality have actually helped children's lungs grow larger.

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London found that both the size and health of London children's lungs improved following the introduction of the ULEZ in the city: proof that climate action is also a health solution.

------------------

Happy September! My favorite month, no, maybe that's October!

Maggie Vandewalle - Rabbit, Rabbit.

---------------

Sharing with Tom's Tuesday's Treasures

Miscellaneous Monday

 

Tributes to Dolly Parton grew under the mural in west Asheville NC following her death Aug. 25, 2026.

Actually the world is suffering from just one Donald.

Fond memories of driving up the Blue Ridge Parkway in NC to the Orchard at Altapass for home-made apple pie a la mode!

-------------------------

Just a few of Jess Craven's "Extra! Extra!" good news:

A judge struck down Texas’s ban on drag shows, telling people offended by them “just don’t go.” Bravo!

Under Mayor Mamdani, NYC is expanding its free doula program and will reach thousands more expectant mothers.

Meta will pay up to $17.1 billion in a landmark settlement over social media addiction claims.

For nearly a month, the key force standing in the way of Trump’s border wall project in southeast Arizona has been a person (not always the same one) sitting in a 200-year-old tree. So far, they’re succeeding.

After months of public comment about data sharing and oversight, Asheville, NC’s City Council voted 5–2 in a packed, heated meeting to cancel the city’s contract with Flock Safety.

Arkansas Medicaid is now covering doula care, complying with a new law meant to improve maternal health.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library confirmed it would continue her legacy and send free books to millions of children around the world.

In Kansas, “bearded, burly” trans men are entering women’s restrooms to show the “absurdity” of bathroom bans.

After Olivia Rodrigo announced Friday that Daisy Chain Fields had raised $10 million for women-focused nonprofits, Melinda French Gates doubled that number, totaling the donation to $20 million.

A federal judge upheld Oregon’s plastic pollution and recycling program, the first court ruling on the legality of state laws designed to hold producers responsible for the cost of dealing with their waste.

Mapquest has joined the resistance.

------------------------

Go see the Aug 30 publication which ends with a video by teenager, Charlotte, in Valencia giving her opinion of Flock cameras to her local council. It's amazing!

------------------------

This is important to know...as well as saying Olorunnipa's name is kind of nice to do! From: Heather Cox Richardson Aug 30 "On Thursday, August 27, Tolouse Olorunnipa reported on the attempts of Republican lawmakers to restrict the ability of naturalized and dual citizens to run for office. In several states, Republican lawmakers have introduced measures to cut those Americans out of candidacy for elected positions, while in Congress, at least five Republicans have called for prohibiting them from federal judgeships, Cabinet posts, ambassadorships, and congressional seats. The push has come in the wake of the rise of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and other naturalized U.S. citizens whose policy positions those like South Carolina representative Nancy Mace consider un-American. These policies are, of course, the ones voters elected people like Mamdani to put into place. In her comments to Olorunnipa, Mace said: “This isn’t personal. It’s about what standard we want for the people entrusted with enormous power over the American people.” Her word choice was revealing. Our elected officials are entrusted with the enormous power of the American people, not over them." ---------------------------- Climate change anyone? In case you haven't looked at many of the details: "A horrific flash flood in the Himalayas has left more than 500 dead and thousands missing in Nepal and China – and it appears to have begun with collapsing ice. A huge chunk of glacier on the north face of Langtang Lirung sheared off and slid down the mountain, triggering a gigantic landslide of rock and ice that ultimately registered as a 5.2 magnitude earthquake when it reached the valley floor.    “When a glacier of that scale collapses, it generates a lot of water, and then there’s a cascading sequence of events… where the water and the sediment combine and bulks up and creates the flood," explained Andrew Mackintosh, a glaciologist at Monash University.    The resulting flood wave traveled down a nearby river valley, washing away a border crossing between Nepal and China, wiping out bridges, sweeping away homes and people, and caking the landscape with mud.   We know that climate change made this event more likely. Himalayan glaciers and, indeed, all over the world — are rapidly retreating. As Ashim Sattar, an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar who studies Himalayan glaciers, said: "there’s a very straight link between climate change and these types of disasters." And once again, those who contribute least to the climate crisis (per person carbon emissions in Nepal are 20 times less than those of a typical American or Canadian) are most affected." From Katharine Hayhoe -------------------- When I was a student at the University of Florida (Gainesville) in the 1980s, I lived in student housing with my youngest son. Upstairs were a couple and their little baby from Nepal. He was studying forestry and she knew almost no English. They were the most gentle loving people I knew, and I remember taking them to the Atlantic beach so she could see the ocean for the first time. I think of how they left America to return to Nepal where he was going to help plant trees and manage forests, and their son is now in his 40s (as is my son!) ------------------ And I can't postpone my ire over the murder of the beautiful cherry trees:

Launch of SpaceX hauling a new batch of Starlink v2-mini satellites for their second-generation high-speed low earth orbit internet satellite constellation.  Seen on 8.25.26 5.33 am Blue Ridge Parkway Bedford Cnty VA

-----------------

Sharing with Monday Murals