Marin Monday Day 4, Feb. 6, 2012

Full Moon
John and Peggy’s Nicassio Land

What a very, very delightful and adventuresome day.  The boys came with fun and readiness.  We began the day with singing a song to the Full Moon,picking stuffies, looking at the sky and wondering if the Cloud children would rain upon us and then off we went.  The ride to Nicassio is soooo beautiful so we looked as much as we could to the horses, the trees that had leaves and didn’t have leaves and the sky.  The scenery changed as we went. Some places got very dark and some light so when we got out of the bus, it was fun to look and see what we were now seeing.  When we did get there the weather was a bit foreboding so we got all the warm clothes we could to “be prepared”, as my Mother always taught me, and off we went. Then we looked in many different directions to see which way we wanted to find an adventure.

There was a lovely hill with great coverage which Purnat thought would be a good idea since he was feeling cold.  Aero and Bodhi found a couple great mounds right in front of us of rocks and dirt. Well, climbing that seemed most appropriate so, they did!!! And then, we came to the cattle crossing. How to get over this???!!!!  Bodhi took one way and Purnat and Aero were a bit stumped and didn’t think that they could cross it.  Much time was allowed to really look at this challenge and see what was possible.  Each one of them found their very own and unique way of crossing this obstacle and great pride was found after they accomplished the challenge!
As we walked along it seemed that there was no opening for us to climb the desired hill and I didn’t want to break any rules by climbing through the fence so, we were about to turn around and find another way in when a beautiful little trail showed itself to us.  Off we went, down the skinny trail.  There was a branch crossing over the trail and Bodhi wanted to hold it out of the way for everyone.  What a Great Guardian of the People!  A job he has in the Wednesday group.  He took care of us all, waited until we all passed and then gently let the branch go. On we went.  But then, Purnat, being the resident tracker for the day! noticed a beautiful track that we stopped and studied for awhile until Aero really wanted to travel on.  But until then, we noticed the ground it was in, the type of feeling that it had, we felt the ridges and made our guesses….Deer? Racoon?…..then we did not get very far when there was a mound of dirt noticed.  I thought it actually was a gopher mound but, lo and behold, it was a mushroom, a MIGHTY mushroom pushing up the Earth to peek out!  We explored this for a time and other mounds to see if there were mushrooms under them too.  Bodhi was “excavating” the earth in some other mounds.  We were about to go but we found this BEAUTIFUL worm right in front of us.  We spent time with this treasure and finally found a nice place for it.  Again, we didn’t go too far when there were more clues, tracks and treasures right at our feet but Aero had about enough of the looking at these things and wanted to move on.  We did and found another wonderful obstacle, a hill down to the water.  Should we, could we go down?   YES!  However, there was a lot of navigating and wondering if they could get down so more time allowed to “take your time” and find/see the way that is just right for getting down.  Each one made it in their own way and there we were.     But where actually were we?  Down by the water with LOT’S of deer and Raccoon tracks and a fallen tree with lot’s of broken and dead branches to climb over.  Aero really liked this!  We climbed over to another part of the creek and Purnat thought it would be a good time to eat.  They all agreed that eating there would be just fine so, sat down and eating we did.  I told them a story about How Robin got it’s Red breast and, while Purnat was still eating and Aero was finished, he sewed his pillow from a few weeks ago.  Purnat said he really liked watching and Bodhi was off exploring and Aero seemed quite happy to be sewing his pillow.    When it was done he wanted to drink water but, where was his water bottle?  I just put his things away and I didn’t see it any where. Oh dear, we would need to back track our steps to find it!

Off we went. Each one of us guiding us to go along the same path.  We looked saw lot’s of the things we remembered.  Going back up the hill presented a challenge  going up as it did when they came down so,  each one was encouraged to take their time, really noticing the best spot to put each foot step in order to get up the hill through the brambles.  They each made it.  We came across the mushroom mound and wondered where the worm was.  And then we saw a very, very , very teeny black slug that they thought must have just been born.  They wanted to know where it’s parents were to keep it company!  We couldnt’ find them so off we went.  We could not find the bottle either.  We then arrived at the Cattle Bridge and, they all made it over easy and Purnat said “Aero went my way!!” with such delight.  We went in the bus thinking the water bottle MAYBE fell out there, though I remember seeing it as we walked out.  I took Aero’s pack and opened it up and there it was, covered up in his lunch box by his napkin!!!! YEAH!!!!!  Purnat thought he didn’t have water but he found his and drinking water came happily to them both .

We still had time so we found another wonderful path that led to some Cattails.  The Cattails were low and the wind was blowing. When we stood up it was windy and cold, when we sat down the wind went away and we were warm. Wow and yeah! What a discovery.  For our last bit of time, we followed the trail, found mounds of dirt to play on and then a path that led us right around to Ganesh.  What a fine and fun day.