This is an official "S" request!

The Board of Directors patrol is happily preparing to go on a trip and is requesting "S"s! What is this "S"? There is a Little Notch tradition to send treats, poems, quotes, songs, words of inspiration, jokes, and other items to bolster the spirits of a tired trekker out on a long journey out of camp. The board retreat will be 2/24-26 and the S's should be sent/dropped off by Thursday, 2/23. Please remember to seal the contents to maintain the surprise until we get there! :)

Thank you very much!

P.S.... HEY LN historians: what is your definition of "S"? When did they start? Who started them? Leave a comment here!

New Poem from the Winter Work Weekend

January Snowshoe at Little Notch

Après means after.

The day started with chalky skies and bunnies

Absent from their tracks in the snow.

A ghostly deer ballet indented itself across the

Empty carpark, fringed with snowshoe tracks and snow angels.

Snowshoes removed, glasses steamed,

Boots off, grilled cheese hello spiced with hugs

In a cross- log pocket of warm.

Après, through dark trees suspended

Between milk sky and milk ground,

To gray rocks by a frosted lake,

Still as before a storm, I lit incense,

Placed a love-warm, whisperful pebble

Onto the pad of snow top the small memorial.

Après, the brief naked sun

Lifted white from the snow,

Spun it to veils of cloud,

And she danced, slowly, low to the ground,

Peeking through trees, making

Shadow bunnies to fill empty tracks,

And light sang as she step, step, step to the west my darling…..

Après, through horizontal bars of shadow,

As snow fell, and dusk fell, and my snowshoes

Went from shush to squeak as the clear sky

Went cornflower, slate, royal, navy, indigo, violet.

Behind me an owl called, just once.

Ahead of me Venus reclined against purple.

I leaned back on my cold, cold car as all

The other stars came out to play.

Tess Lecuyer

 

The view from Hojos' Porch

Countdown to summer camp!

Friends, this is really happening—after three years of passionate belief, dedication and hard work, we are getting ready to welcome campers to Camp Little Notch in exactly 155 days! Something that has seemed like a far-off dream is becoming very real. To be sure, the number of things on my to-do list gets more real every day!   

With that in mind, we thought you might like a glimpse of a couple of very concrete things that are happening right now in the very real world of opening a summer camp. Just yesterday we took delivery of 2500 of our gorgeous camp brochures. If you’re on the mailing list, you can expect one to show up in your mailbox very soon. If you know someone who might like one, let us know – you can use the handy brochure request form on the Friends of Camp Little Notch website. When I think back on all of the meetings, workshops, conference calls and Google docs that led up to this moment, I gotta say—it’s pretty wonderful. I hope that when you get your copy, you’ll be able to see a little bit of yourself, and a whole lot of the Little Notch you love, in its pages. I’m so excited to be able to tuck a handful of these beauties into my bag so that any time the subject comes up I can say, “Here – take a look at this incredible thing we’re doing! And tell every girl you know and everyone you know who knows a girl that we’re doing this!”

Another very real thing that’s happening right now is that our very own Kitty Cole, webmaster par excellence, is hard at work on our new Camp Little Notch website. A separate site from the Friends of CLN main site, the new site will be all about our girls’ summer program. It’s a work in progress—in fact right now it’s only one page—but there will soon be loads of helpful information for prospective campers, parents and staff! You can check it out at www.camplittlenotch.org, and watch it grow along with us.

And speaking of staff, and things that are becoming very real, the first things that will appear on the new website, (after the very fun and inviting home page and our nifty flip-book brochure) will be a whole section devoted to  staff and what to do if you think you’d like to work at camp this summer. To all of you who’ve been asking about the staff application process, this is for you—and we’re ready for you!

As you know, we are doing all of this in the midst of our Phase 2, “For the Love of Little Notch” fundraising drive. As I look at the long list of staff to hire, supplies to purchase, menus to plan, boats and tents and fairy wings to acquire, I think I can safely speak for all of us when I say that none of this—not one Hershey-covered marshmallow or tippy test or friendship bracelet (let alone the life-changing experiences that campers gain from going to camp) would be possible without the love and commitment from every single CLN supporter. Thank you for once again helping to make that possible.

It’s not every day that you get to be a part of building something this wonderful, this special, and this worthy, and I really do wake up every day saying "Really? I get to go back to camp? Really?? Yippee!!!" Being a part of the rebirth of CLN is definitely a "pinch me so I know I'm not dreaming" sort of adventure. Getting to spend another summer there, and being a part of the magic-making—that is truly the all-organic icing on the gluten-free cake!

Counting down...

Jimi

Julie Schwartz

CLN Director

Letter to all . . .

To the community of Friends of Camp Little Notch,

It is with heartfelt thanks, respect, and appreciation that I am writing to notify you of a shift in my involvement with the organization.

I'm grateful and honored to have had the opportunity to serve the membership and community of past and new friends of Little Notch in the capacities of both vice president and member at large. It has been a joy getting to know and work with this vibrant, powerful, creative community as we build a new Little Notch together. However, due to current health related issues, it is now time to pass the board member torch, so to speak, and I am resigning from the Board of Directors.

While I am no longer able to fulfill obligations as a board member, I remain dedicated to the mission of FoCLN. I will be continuing my involvement with this project in other capacities and it is my intention to keep nurturing and developing newly formed relationships with the membership and other advisors, specifically regarding development of financially and culturally accessible programming and practices related to holistic health, spirituality, and wellness (yoga, meditation, music, drum and dance, recovery retreats, etc.) for both youth and adults.

I would also like to take this opportunity to remind all of you of the many rewards that giving service to such an amazing organization can bring. There are still many unfilled seats on the board and in various committees and plenty of work to be done! If interested, please email jo@friendsofcln.org.

Again, I thank you and look forward to all the adventures to come in our piney wood home.

Best,
Lisa (Clementine)

The Memorial in Green Cathedrals

I finished it yesterday, November 12, 2011. 

Suigee asked about it and I ended up writing a bit more than I had anticipated.

The memorial.

[photo posted 11/21/11]

I had been thinking about it all summer since Binker had suggested I do it. I had placed it - on the left as you go into Green Cathedrals, there is a clearing and an old, old fire circle, now overgrown and sprouting small pine trees. As you put the Green Cathedrals logs to your right and look at the small clearing, the old fire circle is on the left edge. The memorial is in the center.

I took a rock from each unit, some almost too big to carry and some smaller. It was an education in burdens.

I found 3 large flat rocks, one from the trail up by Tall Timbers and two way up the logging road. The 2 were hanging out on Hojo's porch for much of the summer. I had placed 4 rocks in the clearing as a start of the memorial in the middle of the summer and gathered rocks on other trips. 

I didn't have enough rocks. I knew I wanted to keep the old fire circle as it was. I poked around the edges of it yesterday, not wanting to scavenge it but not being able to build what I needed with what I had. 

You see, I needed to finish the memorial so I could use it.

When I showed Dave the 2 flat rocks I had gotten from way up the logging trail, he noted that they were rocks that had been blasted. At the time it was an interesting rock fact, but at the funeral home, it seemed to me to be the perfect metaphor for losing someone to death.

We talk about losing people we love. This is a given, and we will remember it because it hurts as the distance of death stretches the ties and love weighs more heavily. Mary hugged me for a long time and said, “She loved you.” Such a gift, to be loved!

And I didn’t have enough rocks.

But around the outside of that old fire circle, under about 4 inches of leaves and loam, were the rocks I needed. I dug each one out and I built as I dug, incorporating the unit rocks. Two stacked columns, one higher than the other, each topped with a flat stone, the higher stone overlapping the space of the lower by a little bit.  

I rolled 2 of the logs that were sitting behind the Pine Point latrine up the hill to the memorial and set them each on end to use as seats. I was going to do more but I suspected the amount of cussing I would have to do to get the things up the %$#^! hill would ruin the ceremonious aspect of the project. So someone else can do that.

I had found a tiny bit of green furnace rock at the waterfront. I had been carrying it around gathering memories and sadness and remembered joy. Also in my pocket was a bit of white quartz, for a man I knew who hadn’t died but was lost all the same. I placed them into the lower tier, sat & did some remembering.

So next time you go to Little Notch, pick up a pebble and think of someone you have lost. Walk and remember and breath the beauty of the place. Bring it to the memorial, and let it rest there. 

-Tarot