Samhuinn 2023

This is our second Axis Mundi cross-quarter update.  It’s been a hard and heavy quarter for us, as we lost a member of our pack, our mighty Lupa.  Lupa joined our family 9 years ago and it’s been an epic journey with her.  Her determination, intelligence and massive hunting drive made her a challenge to live with and be in charge of.  Her sheer love of us and all our friends and family made her an absolute joy.  She was clever and funny, regal and powerful. She soaked up our love and attention in a way that most dogs don’t.  As my dad says, “She’s the only dog who purrs (figuratively).”  Over the years, we all made compromises and figured out ways to meet each other’s needs. 

This equinox brought us back to our regular 4-corners haunts.  Lupa was alive and well on this journey, and engaged in lots of fabulous adventures off-leash, running wild.  We’re so grateful she had these wonderful experiences so soon before her sudden death.

One memory we’ve been remembering and laughing at is our first time out at Chimney Rock, Colorado.  We traveled out that way in 2015 for a lunar eclipse.  This was the beginning of some of the serious issues we had with Lupa and she was at a board and training program in Orem, so we didn’t have her with us.  During the lunar eclipse, we received a call (like so many before) from someone saying they had our dog.  We scrambled to contact the Board and Train program who got her back and then assessed the situation and figured out how she had escaped: 

     First, Lupa had to chew her way out of her kennel.  She was then loose in the warehouse, so tried to chew through a garage-style door.  When that didn’t work, she looked around for more options.  Seeing a window in another kennel, she managed to break INTO the kennel, open the window, and then was out of the building.  From there, it was a piece of cake to jump the 6-foot high fence to full freedom.  She did all that during the lunar eclipse!  We were in awe, and felt somewhat validated, too.  “See, she is an escape artist.  It’s not just us!”

We hope you enjoy seeing some pictures and footage of this valuable member of our team.  This video is mostly footage of Lupa, bookended by time lapse photography of that 2015 lunar eclipse and the recent annular eclipse. 

RIP Lupa.