Greetings 2008!
It’s been many years since we’ve managed
a holiday letter, and on this New Year’s Eve we feel
so blessed for all the amazing adventures this year, we wanted to share
the highlights. We’ve just returned from 3 weeks in China where we toured and studied Qi Gong (a
medical form of martial arts, like Tai Chi) and toured and visited amazing
temples, palaces, gardens, and climbed along the Great Wall. We toured
a week, studied a week and toured another week. My favorite experience
was being in the parks watching the retired people play. Groups gathered
around musical instruments with sheet music to sing along, couples ballroom
dancing to a boom box, guys playing cards, and all kinds of games, groups
doing Tai Chi artfully with big red fans and swords. There were badminton
games, and line dancing, and groups performing plays and singing opera. Lots
of individuals doing all kinds of stretching and exercises. It
was the most joyous gathering of adults I have ever seen - like
a children’s playground, with exuberance and pure delight! You could find
these activities every day, at every park in all the cities we visited.
Simple joyful fun!
All this just 2 ½ weeks after returning
from a photo safari in Africa! While we had planned
the China trip a year ago, the Africa trip came together late in the summer
with the opportunity to take Ken’s parents, 85 and 89 on Mom’s dream trip. It
was a magnificent experience, and so much fun to travel with Bill and Elsie.
They are real troopers and we all had the time of our lives! In Africa,
elders are revered, (how refreshing!) so Bill and Elsie were celebrities! Everyone we traveled
with enjoyed them. The animals, were of course,
spectacular, and the people warm, quick to smile, laugh, and ever so willing
to help us learn Swahili. It’s a fun language.
I finished two years of study with week
long trainings in Sonoita Arizona in January, April and May, resulting in my Instructor rating
for Equine Experiential Learning. in the Epona
Method Ken joined me for another week of horse massage training
We
have continued our esoteric studies, several weekend and weeklong workshops
studying Chi Lel Qi Gong, Voice Yoga, EFT, monthly
attendance in our 4th year of energy class, and participated
in the Oak Dance, in early June with Ken acting as Guardian Chief, responsible
for everyone’s well being and physical logistics. We are so enjoying
the company of the sincere people of spirit involved in these communities. There
is so much to learn from native traditions and other cultures and non-traditional
ways of understanding our world. We are grateful for the exposure to so
many different viewpoints.
Skiing! A thrill for us both, I got back
on my skis, and we carved turns and grinned, celebrating my full recovery
from the motorcycle adventure of 2004. It was fun to ski with Kevin and
Shawn and her husband, Gerard, too. In June The entire Koerwitz family,
all 33, gathered in Tahoe for a few days including a ropes course, floating
the Truckee, and multi generational games. 2008 will
see visits to the NW to visit and play with the Case clan.
I spent 4 days up in Yosemite with old friends at the first annual Chandelle Hang Gliding
reunion. It was as if 25 years really hadn’t passed. About half the group
is still flying hang gliders, and we launched them each morning off Glacier
Point. We spent days hiking together and evenings preparing great food
shared around the campfire with stories and catching up on what each of
us is doing in life, now. Many fly planes, and there was an interesting
connection to horses among us. I was struck so deeply by the depth and
soul-connection – as I had remembered, of this very special group of winged
friends. We’re looking forward to the 2nd Annual gathering.
We took the “new” 4WD Burgundy VW Vanagon on
a week-long camping adventure with Rose and Andrew & their dog, Ursa,
as they trailered their “condo” along the Central Coast from Pismo
Beach, Morro Bay, and north along the magnificent Big Sur coastline. We
just had to stop at Esalen to have a massage
and soak in the natural baths that hang on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. One
of those peak experiences. We hiked, and sought out magnificent
seafood, cooked favorites and drank good wine.
At the end of the summer I had another peak
experience, a 5-day horse packing trip in the Wilderness of Eastern Oregon
with two women friends, Judy and Patti, a wrangler named John, and his
amazing dog, Lucky. The terrain was spectacular, the horses sure-footed,
and the experience of the wilderness soul soothing and inspiring.
In between, these adventures we’ve been
making the” treehouse” in Walnut Creek home, furnishing it, and in our
travels, finding treasures that we never had room for on the boat. It
is great fun. Ken has attracted hundreds of hummingbirds and all kinds
of other happy feathered friends to smile at through our glass house with
feeders he fills twice a day in the summer. The day we returned from China a whole flock of hummingbirds showed up,
as if to say, “hi, where ya been?” and then being
December, it seems they flew south for warmer climes. Only a few of the
larger ones, and some very hardy little green guys with red helmets are
still around. They have provided hours of pleasure!
Throughout the year, Ken served as architect,
city planning liaison, gopher, electrician and problem solver for Kevin’s
tri-plex project on the waterfront in Alameda,
and electrician and general moral support on Gerard and Shawn’s Victorian
house that finally got the green light from the good city of Alameda
to do the third floor/attic renovation.. These
have been huge projects, and all the guys have really come to know the
meaning of “sweat equity”. Kevin completed the front house on his project
early in the Spring, and rented it right away
for top dollar. He’s done his own foundation and leveling work on the back
house. The guys are starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.
Ken spends time each evening and morning
that we have been home doing all sorts of computer projects… usually with
at least 2 or 3 running at once. And if all this wasn’t enough, we arrived
home from China on December first to an offer on JAZZ,
and an insurance requirement to haul the boat out. So Ken and our buyer,
Russ, spent 10 days in the yard repainting the bottom, and doing some minor
work. It was very rewarding to see what great shape the bottom of the boat
is in, after all the work during the 13 month boatyard experience and project
of ’97. This haul-out was the first in 5 years, and she is in amazing condition.
She begs to be sailing, and I’ve come to the understanding that you don’t
“own” a boat, you “love” a boat. It’s time JAZZ has new passionate, devoted
lovers as we were for the first 12 years while she was home and adventure
for us.
Our cruising buddies, Hope & Rich have
“swallowed the anchor”, too, and are transitioning back to land and staying
in our cottage. We have a wonderful community on our property with them
and 9-year tenant of the upper cottage, Gail. Gail and Hope did magic
in the vegetable garden this year, and Rich has taken the slack off Ken’s
“honey do” list. We are so blessed to have such good friends as close neighbors.
2008 promises to be another wonderful year. We
wish you precious moments with loved ones, deep connection to what you
believe in, and abundance in all that you value. We are so grateful for
friends and family, and this amazing life.
Love, Jan & Ken