As the Spindle Turns . . .

bad news for me--
the ground's too froze to dig, permissions need to be got for above-ground work.
i won't get to bury my hides in the bog this year. by the time the mountain is ready for human-holding for the season, it'll be time for me to go northward, to my own place.

this isn't the end.
maybe next spring, right?
if not, i can find a way up there myself some fall's precipice or another.
i don't need any human's permission for that.
does a raven need ask approval before barrel-rolling?

i have new eyes for kibi now.
having met another taiga, one who somehow mirrored nimyulk's form more or less closely..
i can let go of some of my attachment and clinging. i can revere the mountain, hold it in the most precious place of my memory, as the land who raised me up and spit me out.
my mother bear of a mountain.
she was never meant to be my forever home, now was she?
she doesn't hold purple-blooming azaleas, or much in the way of reindeer and their lichen.
i've been kicked out of the nest, told "go on, get."
change, with all things.

i will look to the western horizon, past earth,sea, sky. i felt what's meant. it doesn't make it so easy. 💔

found myself on the steppe,
in the taiga,
in the valley on the side of the stony riverbed.
little twin girls i fell in love with there. i suddenly could see myself a mother.
a sweet shy quiet man who tucked in my feet, tied the belt of my deel, and leaned against my leg as i sat on a stump by a fire and he sat in the moss. i don't know why, after seven long months, i thought of him again.
the reindeer herd.
the horse herd raised by his father. "the highest of horses"--i remember being landed in the softest way by the sure-footed moon-haired one, how they tromped us through bog and mountain both, and i agree.
his father adores me. his mother fussed over me. his sister is patient. his brother, the other guide, is a contrast. i was entrusted once with his 1,5 year old niece for a day.
they all nicknamed me mountain queen from day one. to be recognized like this by mongols feels pretty sweet.


i did more wanderings after that, too..
circlings-back..

i had an encounter with an ainu woodcarver. he came like a fate might, but time told another truth.
he named me a kamuy, gave me names, tried to play take-back. ah well. i'm still like the swan and the sable to myself.
he traveled to be near me when we spoke only crafting philosophy. didn't ask my permission, either. then he took care of me when i was sick. maybe i shouldn't have let him that time. i was naive.
problem was he rushed me, spoke way too heavy, before knowing any of my world.
in other words, sought to secure me, abate his loneliness, without center of his own.
i learned a whole lot from that one..at least i never let him touch me.
and my dear friend will led me astray. what's with all the romance i never asked for?
he spoke words of devotion, overtly. i didn't even realize it, clueless as i am, til later.
i did finally come to, then confronted him. he got scared.

everyone is scared of me, actually.
i got called selfish by so many different men for continually declaring that i am singularly wed to land.
let me make like a monk, i say. don't want me. i protected my solitude fiercely.
be a friend to me, let's be as kin from different shores of sky, or be nothing.
selfish, they say, and then they beg of me..

all's i can say is that i got sick of impositions. i became wiser and surer of myself.
my annual mountain hermitage always comes at ripe timing.

despite all this, i have been in a state of blissful inevitability and trusting certainty.
i studied bark cloth weaving. fiber crafts. mud building.
i thought that my bliss-state would leave at some point, but it's here to stay.
half a year and it remains, only growing. i'm so at peace with myself, under all the noise.
any distractions from it are temporary. solitude picks it right up again. it's my new default.
the landscape that remained wholly uncomplicated for me was, of course, that taiga.

and, oh, that taiga...
the moment i saw the azaleas, i knew i was done for.
just like that, i caught the scent-trail i was waiting this whole life for.
displacement's all it was, i figure. the wind blew away my spirit.
but my instinct's too strong. i have got a stronger inner compass than ever before.
i will return, certainly. outer and inner mongolia.

i went up the mountain this morning, but had to come back down because some wire's got to be dug up and buried again..
tons of hides, wild silkmoth cocoons, and i don't know what else.
hopefully i still get to do my bog burials.
haha.
what a bizarre little life.

i don't know why he tucked in my feet like that.
or cut me fabric to sew, only to find it was something for myself he wanted me to make.
helped me set up for smoking my reindeer calf hide, the calf bit and killed by a wolf.
i don't know why they let me into their home at all, telling me it wasn't appropriate i stay in the guesthouse with strangers, when that's all i had done thus far under their watch and care. tucked my feet in his family's tiny home. what even was that? i huffed shyly from under my blanket and he looked at me so softly.
i don't know why he had brought a single candle into the taiga with us, before that. we'd met a couple hours before we left by horseback. he made us dumplings that last night, and served it with candlelight. tended the tent's stove fire every night, and once when i woke he smiled and murmured softly at me. i gave $3000 to my friend who wants a cabin there, so i have a place to stay every fall through to winter. the money is actually going into his and his brother's hands, because they're doing the building. my friend told me "i'll see you every year to the village. [he] will take care of you."
he's the only one who never used his words but only tender, unimposing actions.
i swear i hardly heard him speak even mongolian.
for goodness sake....baby-faced horse boy. younger than me.
quiet, gentle man who looks for hidden flowers in taiga meadows. he's as shy as i am, isn't he?
sometimes, i think i never met a realer man before him.

i don't want this affliction..
the only reason i write any of this at all is, he's reverently and thoroughly of that place. i saw him match the song to the camp. all storying about a fateful place of meeting. that did not fall on deaf ears. not with me listening.
Энэ газрыг уу?
my yarrow stalks refuse to tell me anything but that he is careful, that he waits.
i must have drawn them a dozen times. the same hexagrams, over and over.
damn it. we have a total language barrier. i started studying mongolian weeks ago.
i'm sure it was nothing to him. or he drinks. or something else. maybe. probably.