As part of the mentorship I’m doing, a bunch of us and my teacher went to her mentor’s house in the hills of Anderson Valley on Saturday. It was an amazing day. We walked along the hills and then sketched with charcoal. When Sue Sellars was giving us a demonstration of finding patterns in nature and then ‘writing’ them onto the page, it was clear how much she loves the land and everything on it. She spoke about the clump of sedges as if they were a beloved sibling. It meant so much to me. I may not have the technical elements down and still need to work on drawing what I see, not what I think I see, but I have what I need to start: the ability to fall in love. My sketch was not great, but it was me and the affection was there. For just a moment, as I was listening and watching Sue, I saw how everything that is alive is signing its name constantly on the earth. I saw that the sedges are signatures. Sue is a trip. At one point she went and got a chainsaw and took down a big branch that was bothering her, as casually as I might brush a stray hair off my face. She’s 75 and could kick all of our asses, I’m sure.

At the end of the day, one of the women who is a pipe holder in a Native American tradition did a pipe ceremony with us. At the end, we were in a circle facing in and I felt my grandmothers behind me, arching over my head like a constellation: Ethel Minnie Mary Adah Mary Ruth. It was amazing.

The beast likes being part of a matriarchal tribe.