Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Untangling from the sting

Know that wisdom is found in many places … SOFTEN THE GROUND OF YOUR BEING. 

This is one of the tools of the Makua O'o and it means something new to me today, this now.  Often without knowing how my thoughts wear grooves in my brain and my habits, I live from a maze of thoughts that harden around me.  Newly into this Gupta training yesterday was a groove too well worn:  habit lived.  I write to soften the ground of my being (forgiveness) and let the habit ease a bit.  TRYING too hard to stop, stop, stop the tangles tighten and that's the truth.  Not much room for trust, I get through, pray, cry, do all my former 'fixes' and finally fall to sleep and the dreams are filled with the former 'fixes' and in the morning Pete comes to kiss me awake.  My eyes are puffy from the neuro-transmitters on high and the whatevers on the left and right path scratching paths between the deep grooves and the embankments where the new thoughts slowly make their mark.

Soften the ground, after the day of the hornet's sting. That would be trust.  Let go.  That would be God's work.

From the writing piece called "Madrona" at Prime the Pump

"...Baby and mother rooted and the years of being a Northwest family feathered the earth beneath me.  I think the ground broke in bits in places that would remember me and him when I wasn't looking..."








Friday, October 21, 2011

Feeling death, celebrating life

My family back on O'ahu prepares for a celebration of life.  Jas' the youngest daughter of my first cousin and his wife died from cancer earlier this month.  She was younger than my own son.  She (her ashes, I think) will be transported in a double hulled wa'a from Kaneohe to Lanikai, and many people are involved in her celebration.  Pete and I get the emails including us in the jobs, the map of events, the additional details of pregnancy, wedding, aging aunty, and progressive computer literacy.  Pete and I will drive north on this island and go to Libby Beach which faces west toward O'ahu and join in the celebration across the ocean ... same ocean, same family, different beach.  Wish we were in Lanikai tomorrow.  Won't be, were there, but here now feeling death, celebrating life.

Crop rotation

I thought of Terri Windling on my way out the vardo door, and went to her blog to find her writing about "Writer's Block"  Among some writers' comments I found this one about "crop rotation" that really feels right for me.

Applied gardening.

Andrew Macrae: "This is what works for me: I practise crop rotation with my creative endeavours. I’ve found that when the nitrogen runs out in the soil in one field, it’s best to leave it fallow for a while and cultivate another. "


http://windling.typepad.com/blog/2011/10/on-creative-burnout.html
 
I feel that way.  Both my vegetable garden and my creative gardens are in need of crop rotation:  we won't plant beans or peas in the same place as this year's gardens though both crops were magnificent and abundant.  Other seed or a fallow plot.  Same with my writing.  From so many public blogs to blogging private, and picking up on writing that has been fallow for awhile.

Pluto working in Capricorn in my 12H

I had a large and scary panic attack last night, and could find no comfort as I felt the worst of it.  Pete lay beside me but could not 'reach' the pain or the scariness.  I finally sat up and realized it would be better to sleep electrically unplugged because there was just too much going on inside to manner.  It's been a long time since I've had a panic attack, and reliving the ones already experienced doesn't help! 

DREAM:  Standing in a cafeteria line looking for things to eat.  Noticing a boy with a large plate of iceberg lettuce and tomatoes and thinking "That's different."  The soup or chilli didn't appeal to me.  Thoughts of an old friend, Ermalinda came, and maybe she could make me a half sandwich (white bread?) and cold cuts.  Ultimately, I don't think I ate anything in the dream. 

I'm having difficulty knowing what I can eat.  Sensitive and over the top with foods that are not otherwise 'bland'.  I know that food has triggered other panics in the past. 

PLUTO transits my 12th House MOON and CAPRICORN, and will be deep and heavy for years.  That's what happening and getting deeper is the only direction Pluto goes when transiting.  Dark and deep stuff.  Rain is making things darker still here in the forest.  Isolated.  Yet, I have plans to go bowling on Tuesday, for fun, AND the new weekly Tickle Lines are posted and available to prime the writing pumps of pals who keep me company.

This link from PT about "Meaning as Medicine" was inspiring. http://planetthrive.com/2008/07/meaning-as-medicine-in-chronic-illness/.

Whew.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Targeting a Dream: Gupta on the Scorpio New Moon

Target Gupta Brain Re-training Program:  Wednesday, October 26, 2011

..." Be aware that Jupiter is exactly trine Pluto, energized by the new moon. People will make major investments under a sky like this, not just of their money but their energy in general which can take many forms. For example, one word from someone with a lot of power can change your life."
This is from Elsa, with the whole link and comments below.

http://www.elsaelsa.com/astrology/2011/10/18/new-moon-in-scorpio-october-26-2011/

"One word from someone with a lot of power can change your life."  I'm putting a lot of positive vibing with the Gupta program because I am making a change for the positive, incrementally and in leaps.  That's how I operate.  I know after lots of experience with it, that there are losses, lots of them in my life.  In one way or the other I've been working on trying to clean it up; believing I didn't do enough to clean it up; and take the spiritual highway and bi-pass to clean up what I really can.  12 Step Program has taught me to let go and let God; but the FOOTWORK, THAT is all mine.  Astrology has been awesome as a tool.  And timing is important for me.  Hina has helped by showing me through her phases.  I'm not always exactly on time, but then, I was premature, pulled out of the womb and all that.  So, with the "reality" of a life, this one, of surviving incredible losses, I step into the Abraham Groove and wait for my Gupta DVDs to show up.

Last night I had more Ma and clothes and closet and house dreams all wrapped into one night's dreamscape.  When I woke up I remembered nothing, but had a 'sick' feeling in my gut.  I stayed with it in the dark, and finally put my thumb into my mouth and sucked.  The suckling is helping me connect with feelings the way I did when I was a baby.  The baby who didn't get the suckling she needed.  It was the Ma dream, and have been the Ma dreams that give me more time with that Ma or another Ma.  The clothes, oh how I have loved clothes, and now have fewer of them; and a difficult, though doable process of getting them washed, dried and wearable.  Trying on lots of different outfits.  Saying to myself, "I didn't know I had these clothes.  Picking them up, and looking at what what coordinate with what.  (Oh how I have loved doing that!!) 

NO SPIRITUAL BY-PASSES!  That's part of the message.  Experience the material world, girl-woman:  it's a good place after all (of the losses).  But, I must physically experience the world.  MCS has done that, forcefully and very dramatically.  Now, I commit to the work of REGROOVING emotional experiences for a different physical world(mine).  The searching for a new place to live part of the dream with Pete and Ma in there somewhere, was again the compartments of my 'self' ... those HOUSE DREAMS.  This time, the two rooms with old carpet had me saying, "Old carpet.  I guess we could cover that up...(we've done it often in the past).  The old headboard and the closet of clothes ... not overly filled ... with men and women clothes. 

My North-South Node highway gives me messages that can help stay in a groove, and not in fantasy or spiritual escape.  The way home is to root, in a garden, in a real, safe, physical place.  The New Moon in Scorpio is a major positive time for investment and at least, a great time to plant a seed that will magnify my future IN A GOOD WAY. 

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

A South Node Experience

I wore a suit in a past life.
Amy and I were walking through town yesterday.  Two friends wearing masks, chatted and peeked into the shop windows 'like normies.'  We stopped and squealed at the puppets and the fun headbands of frivolity.  "I love that one," I said pointing at the green and blue headband that could have had two shiny eyes.  "Oh, you'd look good in that.  The colors,"  Amy said.  "I used to wear stuff like that.  I was a professional clown."  I said.  "You were?  A professional clown."  "Yeah, I went to clown college."  The conversation went on as we walked to the end of the block and before we got to the STOP sign, I had told her about my former career as corporate exec and found myself talking about a part of my life that I now describe as being re-lived as a sort of nightmare. 

"Did you wear suits?"  Amy asked.  Yup.  I did and can remember the way those suits were chosen, why, what color, the feel of the slippery silk-like lining and the shoulder pads on one suit that made my already broad shoulders line-backer like.  It was a very big leap that I took consciously and purposely welding all my 10th H power to make a career out of ... not nothing, but to make a career that was OUT THERE.  It had to be done.  (I could make money at it.  I could 'show 'em' I could BE some body.)  Over time the job took me away from home and my family (especially Christopher) and allowed me space from Roy who was not what I thought he was ... Whatever that means!  I made a public life separate from the rest of me. 

The result:  a divorce, emptying the resources that I made (401K) as I left the marriage, moved back to Hawaii; and started another relationship without having cleaned up the karma from the first.  Fourteen years later, Roy and I talk.  It's better, and I am aware of my mistakes, and see how I can easily repeat them with Pete.  I 'file that' away until something like yesterday's walk with a pal draws the puss from a wound not quite healed.  But, it is healing.  Long term (Saturn-Libra) healing and Chiron in the 10th H of public life. 

I am different.  I have a chronic illness borne of sensitivity and reactivity and worn into the grooves of my brain, my soul.  A chance to pay down the karmic debt is here ... one awareness and one new and better choice at a time.  Nearing the Season of Scorpio, the debt repayment options are more powerful.  I see them for what they are.  In the daily events of my life, a friend with a mask, walks with me past a window front with a joyfilled headband and conversation happens.  Real talk.  Unexpected avenue of healing.

Good,  this private space for this episode.

North Node in Taurus (mine)

Soul Purpose: serenity and stability, regaining a sense of the sacred in the ordinary, a sense of having earned and gained by one’s own efforts, honoring good traditions and preserving what is valuable for future generations.







Shadow: Looking to another for definition, self-confidence, or too much support. Taking things that aren’t yours. Collapsing into a felt sense of emotional pain from previous lives, and adapting an overly serious, gloomy attitude. Going to quickly into studying the occult and transpersonal realities, and thereby taking a spiritual bypass on your emotional life.
This reminder quote is from Elizabeth Spring.  I look at things (life) deeply, and can too easily slip into that "collapsing into a felt sense of emotional pain from previous lives."  Yesterday, I took myself out of the vardo and the woods after a couple days of flashing light from my right eye.  I suspected a pre-migraine ... maybe.  A Coke and a half later, I wonder still about the cause.  And, reach for a better feeling thought instead, remembering Abraham's insight and incentive to know that my feelings are the indicator of my well-being and to choose 'better' with determination.  HA~

Focusing on my needs and my feelings isn't as easy as it sounds.

But, I put my attention on it, and see how to do it.

OTHERS' influences are strong, and the pattern of being influenced a groove worn deep.  I see the strongly blossoming Aries North Node in Pete, his need to be powerful and independent.  That is so different than my need to be "serene and stable."  I worry about that, but feel how contradictory it is to worry and lose energy by being drawn by his needs.  He can be.  And, I can be.  Without drama both of us can become.  Pete needs to be freed of his pleasing all to his detriment.  I need that as well.  The difference is how we each 'get there.' 







Monday, October 17, 2011

'Ole moons working

A pile-up of negative energy, born from 'reactions and reactivity'.  Off track. 'Ole moons had already begun. Pete said this morning, "You're always a day off."  Oh, well.  I've been hiding behind my Maui Jim dark sunglasses to help me get through the pre-migraine symptoms of flashes and super sensitivity to light.

I walked over to Mary's and asked for a Coke.  She offered me one from the frig or not.  I took the not-in-the frig one.  Caffeine helps migaines.  I had my first one last winter, and didn't have another migraine or approach to one until yesterday.  Over the top with trespasses to my boundaries,  I 'knew' something else was necessary.

Private journaling is helping.  Then, finding some tools to work myself free of the reactivity I found somethings that I've gadgetted as MY PRIVATE BOAT.  Thanks Donna and Kachina.  Old 'friends' from 2008, the return to your links is divinely timed.

'Ole Moons working.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Written

This morning Pete and I lay next to each other and talked about the Gupta brain retraining program.  He is Gemini, and a talker.  I am Scorpio, and am secretive.  That's an oversimplification but it works sometimes for me to be overly simple.  Pete and I operate differently and operate at different speeds.  He likes to jump from bed and go do stuff.  I like to wake slowly and think my way into doing things.  The in bed conversation is somehow an equalizer, and like many of these conversations, we got to issues that are much more difficult when we're standing.  The fact that Pete is a foot taller than I might have a towering effect that pushes my threat button. 

Pete's reading about the Gupta program that is on its way.  I've been able to calm my anxiety about the new program and verbalized its likeness to 'travel anxiety'; too much time before the ETD.  Listening to the Abraham tapes is helping to calm me and get me closer to the right (fully okay, okay all the time me) or center.  Needing to 'over-protect' mode.  Like I said, Pete and I operate differently.  The practice of writing came up.  I said writing is a method of detaching for me:  a way to put distance between the emotions that are volatile, too hot is spoken from my throat and mouth.  It's an important awareness and I think he got it.

The thing is, blogging was a way for me to write FOR OTHERS TO SEE.  I wrote but was also always looking to see if, and who, how many, were reading my writing.  It was always still, the seeking of approval that motivated this kind of writing.  I think, it has been marvelous, and brought me to places I would otherwise have never been.  But, I feel a need to discover and heal privately, at least for a time and that is what is happening in this familiar, rooted to Akua, place that is Makua O'o.  I miss the connection of my place of birth/my culture.  But,  also the 'but' know detachment is necessary for me to evolve.  The amygdla retraining rings bells for me; exciting yet scary.  I put these thoughts here, and detach with prayer

E HO MAI, E HO MAI, E HO MAI. 

Saturday, October 15, 2011

E Ho`a`o no i paukuhihewa ... Try it, and rid yourself of illusions

The four full moons of Hina and the start of La'au Moons (today) have been brilliant in their illumination.  Writing behind-the-scenes I am freed in a way that shifts my perspective.  For example, the 'Olelo No'eau 'E Ho'a'no i paukuhihewa' has been part of this blog from the start three years ago. At different times it has meant different things.  I began to blog because there were so many things that made no sense to me.  My senses were out of whack, my definitions screwed and my sense of balance and safety less than zero.  "Try it, and rid yourself of illusions."  Try what?  What illusions?

Over the days, nights, weeks, months, and years the answers to those questions have been try everything, and notice that almost everything is an illusion.  Now, as the La'au Moons of Makahiki, and by the Gregorian Calendar, October 15, 2011, I prepare to use my o'o to rid myself of more illusions.  I have purchased the interactive DVD program created by Ashtok Gupta called the Gupta Brain Retraining Program.  Linking to the Gupta site will explain the program.  To commit to this program means I must make it a priority in my life for six months, or more.  Many people on healing journeys from MCS (and other illnesses including CFS) have recovered significant well-being and even feel cured of their illness because of this brain retraining program. 

I have noticed and followed the progress of several people including several internet friends who are better and better having completed, and practice the process included in the Gupta program.  My choice to begin this program comes now when several pieces of my life have reset my foundations.  I think these things have prepared me to take this next step:

  1. I have a home.  Slow and steady progress has created a place of stability.  Everything being relative, our tiny spaces life is a place where I know there is safety and comfort most of the time. More than twelve months of this new normal is a cornerstone of healing.
  2. Reconnecting with Mahina.  The years of reconnecting with Hina, and the ancient lunar calendar/universe of tracking time has assured me than somethings remain constant even when the human life appears to disintegrate.  Nothing completely disappears, instead, forms change, time changes.  Becoming aware and then becoming intimate with Hina's relationship with all that is has shored me up in deep ways.  My cultural inheritance, my tap root has been affirmed.  I don't look for others to affirm my worth, I look within and can believe in somethings sight unseen.
  3. We have the resources to pay.  This is a valuable lesson:  'pay your way.'  It may appear, and it has felt that way, that we have suffered immense loss.  We have.  And yet, the 'olelo "E Ho'a'o no i paukuhihewa"  beats even as I suffer/endure.  What is the illusion?  It seems the illusion is that without all our former comforts (a home, a family, a persona, our perceived entitlements, our health) we could not be happy-free-okay.  Now, our reset values has us living on two Social Security checks that total less than $2,000 a month, we have connection with a community that is knowing and including us and especially Pete in their circle.  Our priorities have changed.  We are able to live and can pay for the $199 Brain Retraining program.
  4. We have the technical equipment to view this DVD program.  A laptop or computer, or DVD player have not been a constant 'given' till now.  I needed one or another of these pieces of equipment before commiting. 
With those four cornerstones in place, and some time with the practice of 'Plan Be' ... Be Positive, Be Prepared, Believe, a positive shift in my attitude has been slowing becoming mine.  I have felt the benefit of a shift in attitude and then felt the benefit shift when recent events turned me upsidedown and awful.  'Awful' can happen and feels especially bad after feeling the opposite, even for a little while.  Mahina the moon is not only watched, she watches and that is what she has been doing for me.  She watched and while the Growing Moons of Anahulu Poepoe grew into "Hoku" and "Mahealani" I felt and heard her message to grow the belief of well-being from within.  So, Makua O'o is closed publicly, but grows within, behind-the-scenes.  Sight unseen, I prepare for a new year.  Perhaps with time, my private journaling will see the light of a cybernetic day. 

Friday, October 7, 2011

Makua O'o will close

Aloha Readers,

As the new anahulu, Anahulu Poepoe begins with Hua Moon today, I prepare to close the pages of this blog. My journey of blogging has allowed me to understand what it takes to reassemble my life after the on-set of devasting illness.  I have shared the journey in many forms, and here on Makua O'o, my cultural connection to the Kanaka Universe has served as a tap root of sustenance.  Now, it is time for me to move on, close more doors on the past, and discover in private who it is I have become.

Makua O'o will be inaccessible when Hina becomes full(today is Huna, there are four full moons of Hina that begin with Hua.  CHECK THE SIDEBAR for a visual). If there are links to resources, found on the sidebar, that have been useful to you note them for your personal navigation. Makua O'o will be here for a couple days and nights, and then become part of history.  Life as an elder in training, is evolutionary, it is unique for everyone, and based on the 'wiring' with which we are born, playing out individually because humans are given free will. I will use the time of this Makahiki (October through December) to refuel my life, and attune to the nature of my new year approaching; and pray for guidance and right action.

Mahalo for visiting over the past three years. This has been a place of comfort and expression for me, and I hope there have been insights to fuel you as well.

Aloha and good journey,
Mokihana





Friday, September 30, 2011

Soften the ground of your being and Connect the Dots


I was sitting on the futon last night.  Dinner was made and Pete was in the Quonset washing up from his day of soldering pipes for the bathhouse and generally filling his day with doings.  He would serve up the curried lamb and butternut squash soup and pour it over the fluffy red rice and together we would move into one of the simple pleasure routines of enjoying a movie on the DVD with the evening meal.  Sitting there in that midpoint of a day, I checked in with myself and thought to answer the question, "How or what are you feeling?"  Content was one of the answers, but there was more.  Something else was attempting to connect the dots within me.  Not sure of what puzzle was there for me.  I just sat and breathed.  Something about getting older; something about noticing the empty space; something about being where we are now blank spaces and dots with many lines connected yet other lines yet to be. 

Time passed, the curry was warm though a bit runny it was satisfying.  We watched the  movie THE OWL MAN, an odd and simple story about being human, and about friendships and being something that is human-animal-and angel.  The pace of the movie complemented the day including a talisman word, and name, that is popping up often:  Grace. Two characters in the movie are named Grace and the space between them ... the space between the connection between those characters is an elegant example of art in film and art in an ordinary and extraordinary life.  Some time during the evening before we went to sleep a conversation between Pete and me led to my earlier experiences during the morning.  My harvesting adventure and a brief meeting with another young and vibrant woman in our community finally connected the dots that tickled at me.  "I have been those young women," I told Pete.  "Been there done that,"  Pete added.  Yes, I have been that young energetic beautiful woman in the community innovative and inspiring the older among the town with new ideas.  Even as I write this morning, I can see that dark-haired young bodied me who was still called "Yvonne" making calls and playing with the energy of possibilities. 

Aging and connected with more dots than I could have imagined as a dark-haired, young bodied me, I feel the sorrow, note the missing parts of dreams that were illusions though not so at the time.  The softened parts of my being did not get that way without many episodes of hard-headedness and bumpy roads, but they do soften.  My joints call for something I never knew to name as a solution:  cod-liver oil.  The chemical injury and sensitivities to my system ask that I use both sides of my page tapping into my intuition when logic simply does not have enough dots to satisfy me.  Makua O'o ... this blog and my journey as elder in the making fills with dots that go off the page, often.  So many ways to connect, so many stories to tell.

Time for more tea.  A hui hou. 

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Rosh Hashanna and the Mango Stick

"... Last night the stars were loud, I was obviously excited about the prospect of my first (solo) harvesting outing. Pete and I made a fruit gathering stick, back in Hawaii we'd call it a Mango Stick for pulling down the mele mango high up in the tree. We used a long weathered bamboo pole that I used to stake up my generous fence filled with peas. Thanking the pole as we fashioned the wire clothes hanger into a hoop, the way to make such a humble yet efficient tool came from a place long forgotten: when was the last time I'd made a Mango Stick? When we were kids in the valley you knew when in the neighborhood would have a Mango Stick if you weren't the family that did. Aunty Lily, Mrs. Pung. They would have that tool or could help you make one. As I talked Pete through the process a part of me ageless or timeless saw the substitute for a flour sack to catch the fruit. The too-small-for-me tee shirt that is too nice to pass along was perfect. The neck of the tee shirt just the right side to circle the hoop made from the wire hanger. The plastic ties we use for all manner of fastenings found yet another useful engagement: they secure the tee shirt to the hoop and close off the sleeves to create a colorful and functional Fruit Stick..."


To ready the whole story CLICK here.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Playing with the Po of Mahina

"Woman in the Moon" Bruce Lennon
"Two seasons make up the Hawaiian Year, Kau is the dry season, Ho'oilo is the wet season.  As I write from the Quonset hut in the woods here in the Pacific Northwest it feels like Ho'oilo has begun.  It is Fall, the Fall Equinox celebrated a few days/po ago, marking Ho'oilo's beginning and the start of Makahiki preparations.  In my crisscrossing life where my Hawaiian roots ground me and the contemporary requirements spin me like a windchime, I have consciously commited to studying time via my Hawaiian roots though cyber-explorations of the Hawaiian Moon Calendar.  Six months of workshops concluded as the Muku the moon ended the month.  I have pulled the cyber-explorations called the "Wa'a Workshops" out of the water for Makahiki. Those were serious voyages with a few wahine (women) ready to engage a crisscrossing of time.  Now, I wish to play a bit with the knowledge gained and have some fun with the Po of Mahina..."
Link to the rest of here to see how an old woman (a makua o'o) keeps playing.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Fall Equinox and Po Mahina


Makali'i

Friday, September 23nd marks the Fall Equinox on the Planet.  I used to think the Equinox was always on the 21st day of September, but that is not the case.  Now that I am tracking time with Mahina, and try to integrate the practices, observation and ceremonies with Mahina in mind, there is more incentive to notice both the detail and the vagueness of time.  It's weird, I know, to say something is both detail and vagueness.  But then there's the example of looking up to find Makali'i (small eyes, or the constellation The Pleides).  To find Makali'i it really is easier if you blur your vision or look for the vagueness of the multiple cluster.  Like reading words based on their shape, some children will see the word as shape for example the word "Boy" has a shape ... like a shoe.  If a child is a shape reader, she will see the shape of the word 'Boy' and her body-mind will lassose in a memory of the sound and shape of the word, before she is able to say "B."  An intuitive learner, that reader's style was once as unacceptable as being a lefty. 

I've been taking my self on a mini sabattical of writing:  not writing for a day when it's not an 'ole day is a sabattical.  There was an absence of drive to write, and a lot of processing the emotional tide of a season in shift.  Fall is both a beautiful visual season and an emotional trigger for me, and I have had to re-tire, and re-train my mind and spirit to a newer version of the season.  A very real mini celebration has been in the making.  It's kinda like having time stretch in all directions at once and stretch as well the emotional restrictions I have applied to myself.  I think my study of tracking time via my ancestor's vessel of Papa Huli Lani (the foundation of viewing the turning of the heavens) at 63 years has softened the ground of my being as its meant to be softened as makua o'o.(see the sidebar for the basic tools of the Makua O'o).  On the workshop blog Wayfinding with Mahina, I wrote about the messiness of intuition and found my way through the softening ground of my being as it relates to time.  Here, with this blog, I note the way the Fall Equinox has seemed to move further away even as I think it ought to be closer.  It's that old control addiction that I have to try to nail things down so they don't leave me.  It has never worked, and I discover the Saturn the ruler of time, keeps giving me chances to learn about time in multiple ways.  Yes, paying a bill on time is best.  Yes, sometimes a full moon is full for more than one night. 

This Fall Equinox Pete and I have talked about making celebration(s) of gladness and thanks to the many who have helped in the harvests of our lives.  One person in particular is on our list.  He is Chef Charlie Snakelum, and is the Muckleshoot  tribal leader of one of the First People of Whidbey Island.  When I look around this community I see and feel the absence of the First Ones.  I see few names that ring with the sound of their culture, and the education available to the public regarding the culture of origin is still mournfully absent of reality.  A few weeks ago we did discover Chief Charlie Snakelum because we took a drive to Whidbey Island State Park and sat to listen to a free lecture on Ebey's Landing National Historiacal Reserve "past meets present in a working rural landscape."  We love to walk the stretch of beach on Ebey's Landing and I have found great comfort in those walks.  The woman who spoke at the lecture that night at the park could give me little information about where the tribes are today; who are the tribes.  She knew to identify and make note of the Block Houses found in the settlements and spent time telling the small mostly senior-aged audience that the Block House was a house of protection against the hostile 'Indians.'  I cringe when I first saw the Block House in Coupeville, and cringed as I heard her describe it that night.


Two other people at that lecture session were friends we know from the community.  Over the weeks, I have spoken with them about the tribal community on Whidbey and in particular have asked for guidance in finding where Chief Charlie Snakelum is buried.  Three times, I have attempted to find his burial site.  three times I have been vague in my approach.  Last time we got closer than ever, but a'ole.  I asked for a few more directions a week ago, and was told it took our friend thirty years to find the site.  This time I think we have enough information to get there.  With the Fall Equinox two days, two po away, the gathering of makana (gifts) appropriate for one chef of First People from this place we call home, become more within reach.  There must be pule, a prayer, Oli Mahalo.  A gift, that will come to me as well.  Like looking for Makali'i.  Focus broadly and there  they will be.  Fall Equinox is a time for celebration in many cultures.  In ChinaTown, moon cakes filled with the seeds of harvest will be (are) being baked and sold.  My mouth waters at the thought of them.  Makahiki Season starts after Fall Equinox. 

And for you, who and what will you honor and celebrate with prayer, and gifts on the Equinox?

Monday, September 12, 2011

Stories for the storyteller


Mahealani was brilliant in the early morning sky.  By the clock on the computer it was 3:30.  My internal moon calendar was as full as Hina was bright.  There were emotions that needed to be tended, and a shift in perspective required.  In addition to being minutely attuned to the effects of the Heavens in relation to planting, harvesting and fishing, the ancient and traditional practices of Na Po Mahina (the nights of the moon) are a personal tool of alignment and access the spiritual clockwork as surely as a sextant connects the dots for navigation.  This morning, I woke to old symptoms of physical and spiritual distress wanting to be realigned and released.  The seasons are shifting here in the woods in maritime Pacific Northwestern America.  The seasons are also shifting in Na Po Mahina, as Makahiki approaches.  For someone like me who crosses time to make sense of things, I must depend on my navigational skills to build time bridges back and forth, criss-crossing ke'ia and kela (here and there) for the stars that matter.  So many billions of lights out there, which are the meaningful ones, that's the key.

I woke to Mahina's bright reflection jittery but knowing I could find my grounding cord if I simply did not let the disarray of energy dramatize a signal.  JOTS my cat is often a messenger, and this morning she was just that.  Back from a night of hunting, the bright Mahealani moon is as much a spotlight on her movements as it is an aide to her pursuits.  She knows when it's time to settle in, curl up and enjoy the dark shelter of a warm pillow.  Each time she returns I give thanks that she made it through a time.  We chatted, cuddled and soon the ball of black furr was sound asleep.  Alone with the early morning Full Moon, I went to the sacred writing space where I go to write story with two others.  Seven months ago I wished for a space to write with others.  Slowly I put my wish into a bowl of intensions and nurtured the wish.  This morning, I reread the piece of writing I did over the week-end, read the responses to the writing, and also read the work of my two writing partners.  During the months of writing together we have created safe space to become lazer writers.  The kind of story-maker, story-teller that cuts through without marring the landscape of internal and external muscles; the muscles that sometimes pretty up a rendering.  What I needed was all there for me in that small and sacred space where story comforts the storyteller.

Each of us had written about the same 'tickle line' and crafted story that mended and criss-crossed time.  None of us are younger than 60 so we are a ripe-fruit bunch, all women.  I wrote about the gift of accepting the life that is the one I live, now.  The tools of stars, sky and moon found their way into the words that bridged my rebellion with this morning comfort.  Through the writing I find there are bits I miss or mis-read in my past and wish to amend with the Universe and my relations.  I wish for things that cannot be, but I wish them anyway.  The symptoms of feeling out-of-sorts, I accept as one more version of a story that might just want to be cast again:  throw the Runes again, and see what comes.  In safe spaces, even a grand ship, an ocean crossing wa'a can tether sails ripped by the winds and after repair the journey continues. 

I wish that I had been schooled firsthand in the traditional practices, but I was schooled in other things and they help me find my way anyway.  While fishing for a way to continue inspite of my lack, I found two old Maui storytellers with stories to tell.  I link to their mo'olelo below.  Uncle Charlie Maxwell, I had opportunity to meet and be with when Pete and I lived in Iao Valley.  Lyons Naone III, I don't know.  both have firsthand practices to share.  Maybe there's something worth your further exploration.

LINK TO "Uncle Charlie" Maxwell's website here:
http://www.moolelo.com/
LINK TO Lyons Naone III's reprinted articles here:
http://www.northbergen.k12.nj.us/1817201019173122493/lib/1817201019173122493/_files/Hawaiian_Moon_Calendar_and_Ways_of_the_Practitioners.pdf

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Vagueness of time

Vague = without clarity, akaaka 'ole

The subject of vagueness, and vagueness in terms of time comes up when I try to 'explain' the value of The Hawaiian Moon Calendar, or the Po Mahina, in my life.  The monthly wa'a workshops I teach have been happening for six months now and we are just beginning to scratch the surface of this spiritual practice with time.  Pete and I were introduced to Po Mahina four years ago, the lights went on when we were given our first Hawaiian Moon Calendar.  But, the practice and the spiritual connections are a daily and nightly experience and like the affect of Mahina on the tides, my understanding ebbs and flows. 

The subtle and powerful lessons of Po Mahina begin with the way time is 'divided.'  Depending upon where you are geographically (from the Hawaiian Islands and Kanaka Universe) these divisions change and so, the precision of the observation of time and the tracking of time is different.  Can a body of people, a culture make room for that vagueness?  Each who reads this will come up with a different answer and that is the bounty of it.  Let's try this.

Today is Sunday, September 11, 2011.  What does that mean to you?

Today is Mahealani, the second of four full moons in the Po Mahina.  What does that mean to you?

Today is the day seven years ago, Pete and I celebrated a wedding with family and friends.  What does that mean to me?

Depending upon how you remember things, dates, time the answers are different.  Some people will demand precision all the time (fixed signs?)  I have lots of fixed signs in my natal chart, but I have a lot of rascal in the sign of Leo, so there is a fiendishly unexpected cackle to me that will trigger pranks.  Today as we finished setting up at the Sunday Farmers' Market I talked with a couple folks about the short article I wrote for the newsletter.  It's a brief introduction to The Hawaiian Calendar.  It's difficult to introduce the calendar in a few words, and the concern about 'vagueness in time' came up.  I knew the idea of putting an article together like this might not be timely.  "How do you explain your spiritual practice?"  That question, rhetorical rather than simply  answered, it was a response to me saying it's a stretch to write in 300 words, a practice that requires a lifetime.

Po Mahina includes metaphor and spiritual practice in the 30 phases of a 3 week month.  Visitors and readers come to glean what makes sense to them, and I use the artform of story to make sense of my spiritual journey.  And you?

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

WELCOME BACK, PARSIPPANY Reader!

So glad to see you back on the Map.  Hope all is well with you and your people!

M & P

New anahulu, new view of an old issue ... laundry

The new anahulu, Anahulu Poepoe begins today and Pete and I are back from a short and sweet ferry ride across the Puget Sound.  Whidbey Island, where we live, is 60 miles long with a ferry landing on its south end and a bridge over Deception Pass at its north end.  Our wooded homestead is in Langley, on the south end of the island and just a short drive from the ferry landing.  We don't do this ferry ride, together, very often, but today was one of those times.  We had errands to do and worked in a brief visit with an old friend.  One of the things on the list of do's was checking on used washing machines.  That is a chore not easily managed considering juggling the chemical sensitivity to accumulated chemicals used in machines; and the long-off-gassing time involved in buying new and plastic parts in washers that are less than a year old or new.  The hurdles go on and on, and Pete was once again involved in the hurdling.  His discoveries led to several good-to-know tips to add to our new view of an old issue of doing laundry:

  1. Rubber and plastic parts.  The water-efficient front loading washers are loaded with rubber and plastic parts.  These parts are absorbant and will soak up the chemicals used by previous owners.  Decontaminating these parts is difficult (possible!) but also very time-consuming and/or expensive.  In addition to the chemicals sometimes these rubber parts (including hoses and the gaskets around the door) get moldy.  Decontaminating will need to be done, and there are no guarantees when you're done with the processes.
  2. Handling old machines.  BEWARE!  The scents remain in the rubber and that's what got to Pete when he was doing his washinging-machine hurdles.  We carry a decontamination first-aid spray called PUREAYRE for this sort of episode, and it helped to neutralize Pete's smelly hands (sorta).
  3. Cost.  One galvanized top-loading machine with less rubber and less gadgetry (non-computerized mechanism) was priced at $350 before tax.  It's a scratch-and-dent new washer so off-gassing would be an issue. 
  4. New Washers.  Start at $500. 
I don't often post about the details of our tiny space living, since I closed the door to VardoForTwo (our building the Gypsy wagon blog).  But this new week, and new experience with an issue that most folks consider an everyday 'usual' is just not 'usual' for us.  Seems we are  ... headed in the right and positive direction even with the discoveries made during the washing-machine hurdle event today.  That's always good news.  We may need to reconsider and explore a larger version of my hand-washing approach.  That would be fine, if the message move us that way.  There are options and we have a very cool sheltered space in the making where we can work these options through.  One of those options is called a JAMES WASHER.  It's pricey but maybe a version of it could work for us.  The other possibility is that a perfect-for-us electric top loading machine is out there and we just need to be where it is at the perfect time.  Here are a couple picture of the JAMES WASHER.


James Washer today, around $500 before shipping

Back in the day (date?) when a copper tub version was $150

Laundry Tales:  Any homesteaders or off-grid families with experience using a JAMES?  In the mean time, the sink and hand washing continues, and I am glad I can do the deed.  Know what I mean?  No sense of entitlement here, Alice.

I think it's time for tea? 
Right you are.
Black or herbal?

Saturday, September 3, 2011

The 'Ole Moons

More than any other topic on this blog, our readers are most curious about the 'Ole Moons.  Check on the side-bar for "Most Popular Posts" and several of my 'Ole Moon posts show up.  Tomorrow, Sunday, September 4, 2011 the 4 'Ole Moons of the Anahulu Ho'onui (the first 10 moon week) begin.  We spend a lot of time and exploration with the po of Mahina on our workshop-blogs and it always amazes me that there is more to know. 

'Ole moons are the elegant placement of rest and repair times built into the wisdom of a Lunar cycle of time.  The 'oihana kilokilo (the study of astronomy and the heavens) amassed practical and quantum wisdom into the culture of the kanaka.  From that point on the Earth where horizons allow the heavens to be visible if you only LOOK, there is such abundant information. 



Our readers include several Hawaiian Island locations, and each time I view our Visitor Map and see those Island location I wonder:

  • Who are you?
  • Do you look for Hina in the sky?
  • Do guavas grow near by?
  • What's the ocean like today?
  • Do you practice and live with Kaulana Mahina?
When I view the Visitor Map and see visitors and readers who come often, I ask and wonder:

  • Who are you?
  • Do you look for Hina in the sky?
  • When I know the ocean is not nearby I wonder do you miss it or find waterways like lakes or rivers to enjoy?
  • Do you practce and live with Kaulana Mahina?
Blogging allows fluid boundaries.  As the 'Ole moons begin tomorrow I just wonder about our readers, and send you thoughts of aloha. 


For more info on the 'Ole Moons click on the sidebars where 'Ole Moons show up.


Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Straight lines and Curves




The new cycle of thirty phases of Hina has started, a perfect example of how Kaulana Mahina, The Hawaiian Moon Calendar is a circle or curve in contrast to the wall calendars most of us use to remember what day it is-- time to pay the rent; pick up visitors at the airport this afternoon.  By the calendar on the wall it is Tuesday, August 30, 2011.  If you or I could look up today, during the daylight hours, the gracefully unfurling light of Hina in the shape of HOAKA (the Crescent Moon) would tell us that 'time' is newly drawing to full.  From the view of Hawaiian knowledge, the first anahulu draws light and life from a closed circle into a silver spoon, gradually filling from the curve or circle into the upright or nearly 'straight' line of the 'Ole phases.  The wonderful and full connection that comes when both 'calendars' integrate is the reason I have embraced the study and living with Mahina time as major navigator. No doubt my round body more plump and slower in speed than when I was able to run up the steep hill has aged.  But, my feminine nature is more at ease today, accepting of the curves that outline my physicality and as well, the curves that note my emotions and ability to balance the needs of the daily 'do' with the spiritual and transformative flow of imagining, creating and sacred storytelling.

The two images above are lovely examples of the circles and lines from my life.  The larger image is The Whale Wheel design created by Tsimshian Roger Purdue depicting 5 Orcas in the Northwest Native art style. Pete and I drove north to the summer Penn Cove Water Festival, in Coupeville, WA where we saw Purdue's design and the carved wheel which will be replaced because of wear and wobbling.  The design not only adorn[s] the 2011 Water Festival T-shirts, posters and fine art prints, but is also featured on the new Whale Wheel being carved by local Coupeville carver's under Roger's direction. The carved whale wheel will replace the salmon wheel, carved by Roger and unveiled at the 1995 Penn Cove Water Festival.


"Artist Roger Purdue wants to see whales honored, and he wants them to return to Penn Cove. He wonders if the whales remember that bad things happened to them in the Cove, and if they could be watching and waiting for us to do the right things, so they can return. All the right things happened to bring about the creation of the Whale Wheel. A magnificent piece of cedar was about to be reduced to kindling, and though Roger could no longer do it himself, a group of talented carvers was willing to do the work. The wheel shape reminds us of the Native American Circle of Life, and similar teachings by professor David Suzuki on the continuity of life. Just as all of the atoms in our bodies were part of other life forms before us, they will be dispersed to yet other living things after us; perhaps the salmon, the bear or the whale..."

The second image is one that I have used to draw on the intuitive feel of unfurling and coming into fullness.  It is that image of the Hapu'u fern and the collective wisdom of my ancestors the Kanaka, or Hawaiian, that inspired me to explore and share what Puanani Kanaka'ole Kanahele called "Papaku Makawalu."  I have included the link to Puanani Kanaka'ole Kanahele's "Methodology of Papapku Makawalu" to encourage any readers to explore the depth and breadth of the Kanaka Universe in its elegant and holistic character.  Slowly yet steadily, individuals, small and larger groups and especially those of us with the genetic memory to seek the missing links and segments of the circular wisdom, build stronger and fuller lives on resilient foundations.

One particular excerpt from Kanahele's "Methodology ..." struck me as a straight line, an up-right Ku connection and it is this:

 PapakU Makawalu is a way of learning a diminutive component while having some perspective of the full extent of the whole. Lines that separate specializations are traversed and voids of connectivity are filled because Papakü Makawalu is a natural process of Hawaiians that show their intuition of the world. The purpose of PapakU Makawalu is to return to this high level of known existence..." 
...PapakU Makawalu is the means to elevate, titillate and expand our native intelligence...
From my diminutive location, in a diminutive space -- a Quonset Hut sitting in the woods thousands of miles from my source of origin, I am able to draw on the knowledge of ancient ancestors who knew life on the curve and straight lines.  From this space in the woods, my journey is precisely TITILLATED by the timing of information that crosses and criss-crosses my journey as woman, as makua o'o, as Hawaiian.  It is that intuitive itch that fueled me to write, to heal, to cry and to find interconnected meaning in everything from learing to grow 11-foot high peavines and bean stalks to moving through the process of chemical injury and the trauma of being without.

Huge vistas and new ventures grow from connections at every imaginable and unimaginable level.  Can you feel that in your life?  Do you grasp on to the light of a Hoaka Moon, or feel it when you harvest fresh-picked beans?   
 
HERE'S THE LINK to "Methodology Of Papaku Makawalu"  http://ahujournal.org/MethodologyOfPapakuMakawalu.pdf 

Sunday, August 28, 2011

STILL TIME TO SIGN-UP for Wayfinding with Mahina

The newest of our month-long cyber wa'a workshops focused on the way we track time with The Hawaiian Moon Calendar just started this morning.  We will keep the wa'a open for new 'paddlers' to sample through today (Sunday, August 28, 2011).  After today, the workshop is a 'reader only' blog.  You can sign on and enjoy the eclectic mix of traditional teachings and contemporary story teller for modern day wayfinding.  Click here to try a seat in the wa'a WAYFINDING WITH MAHINA.

We welcome new paddlers,
Mokihana and Pete

Saturday, August 27, 2011

To our Parsippany Reader

Our wishes and good thoughts of safety for you and your community, as Hurricane Irene hits your township.

Take Care,
Mokihana

Friday, August 26, 2011

Malama your pono practices

If you try to define 'malama' it may squeeze through your fingers in any attempt to tightly define the essence of a culture of people, place and priorities based on life on tiny land masses -- islands, surrounded by tens of thousands of miles of ocean and the heavens visible in all directions.  Much of the writing I do has to do with crafting examples of this seed of protocol.  Malama means 'to care' and to care is to respectfully attend to whomever or whatever you encounter:  your family, your yard, the forest, the air, the ocean, the water, the everything. 

Yesterday I had a malama me day:  a holiday from electricity, the keyboard, the woods, my usual day.  A holy day of being with myself away from the work of maintaining our tiny space life.  I drove to my favorite places within short distances from home and knew I had a little money to spend of small things if I found them.  In Coupeville I found a $4.99 dryer to replace the electric dryer that will need to wait until the reserves fill up.  In the new-to-me thrift store I found a perfectly intact wooden drying rack that stands six feet and will fit in the corner of our bathhouse and laundry in the making.  While I was enjoying my holiday the cellphone rang 'PRIVATE NUMBER' printed across the screen.  I answered and knew it would be my brother calling from Waimanalo. 

"Hello."  I said
"It's me," the raspy voice of my kid brother answered.  I asked him to wait while I set down the things I had found and walked outside.
"How are you my bruddah?"
"Well ..."  he loves to draw out the suspect, always has.
"I got the 'all clear'!" 

My brother has been having cancer treatment for six months.  It's been a grueling journey of chemicals and radiation.  The news my brother shared with me yesterday came on a LONO Moon, one of the two kapu moons of Kaulana Mahina when prayers and acknowledgement for life giving and nourishment are given to the akua Kane and Lono.  I practice these kapu and paid special attention to malama the gods so they would in turn malama us.  In addition to these kapu, I have called upon a very special group of friends who come to the BOARDS of the only blog I visit regularly.  ElsaElsa.com  When the chemo and radiation began and throughout the months of treatment it was this group of Elsa Community that consistently responded to my request for prayers and good vibes for my family.  The Elsa blog, the author, the atmosphere, the protocol of respect have been a source of malama for me since the early days of building our Gypsy wagon nest. 

"Oh my god.  I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU!"  My brother and I talked a few more minutes, happy to be sharing the good news.  I told him how the Hawaiian Moon has been present in my healing journey and named the LONO moon as a day of health .  After we said our good-byes, we said our "I love you's."  I finished my holy day thrifting and drove to West Beach where I knew I would find the ocean breaking at the shore.  I pulled Scout into the one parking place at the edge of the road and walked with my walking stick to see long stretches of waves rolling across the point.  Unsure of whether the tide was coming in or going out, I stayed close to the entry and called my thank you to the ocean, the sky, the stars, Hina and all that is.  Above the roar of the waves, I dialed my son and gave him the good news.  Across the water and beyond the horizon are tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific.  I know my thank you's travel that great distance with no difficulty.

We surprise each other, my brother and I.  We have known each other all our lives and we are not the same.  But, we malama each other and as I age I open my journey to a few trusted folk who know what 'malama' means without sqeezing the definition.  "Malama pono" means care for the rightness, and with each day I live I see the practice is what gives meaning to the protocol.  Thanks again, Elsa and the Community at the Astrology Blog for all the malama you give.  My brother needn't know you to receive the power of prayers in a protocol of respect.  It's the best of protocol I think!

Mokihana and Family

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Thanks for the giving along the way

Hina is in the daytime sky, and this morning, late in the morning, I spotted her before a passing cloud hid her from us.  "There she is!"  I reached for her and said, "I needed to see you there, dear."  It was just what I needed to remember the po of Kane and Lono are coming up tomorrow and Thursday.  The elegance of the Hawaiian Moon Calendar includes the regular times of reverence, the times of giving back and giving thanks; or, refraining/resting from the harvest or fishing to give the land and sea their own period of replenishing. 

Three years ago, our lives were just beginning to move from complete chaos.  If you've ever skimmed bottom you know there's little time or energy to appreciate the people who helped us move off the bottom in small and mammoth ways.  The sun has moved into detail-oriented and earth-bound Virgo the one who serves.  A new moon in Virgo approaches this week-end and the Kane and Lono moons call for making the list, stringing the lei of rembrances ... remembering and thanking all who have helped Pete and JOTS and me to re-build a life of value and increasing well-being.  Beginning in 2007 when the illness became most acute we string this lei of thanksgiving




Lizzie ... thank you for the upstairs apartment
Doug and Lois ... thank you for the welcoming arms and place to be completely insane while you loved us anyway
Glenda ... thank you for helping me sight unseen
Gayle ... thank you for supporting us through the early stages of trauma
Dr B ... thank you for providing a diagnosis
Ralph ... thanks for taking us to the airport to return to O'ahu when winter set in and still, we were clueless and homeless
Peggy ... thank you for flying us back to O'ahu, accompanying us through the first airplane ride with an oxygen tank
Annette ... thank you taking us in, letting me sleep on your kitchen table and be in your house during the weeks first back on O'ahu; thanks for introducing us to the world of kolea
Cousins ... thank you for the months of shelter, parking space during the nights, tolerance for an illness that was so difficult to 'get.'
The Tide Pools ... thank you for the many nights of ocean guardianship and the connection with Hina when there was nothing familiar to which we could cling
Judy and Moksha ... thanks for the driveway parking space
Lorraine ... thank you for your kindness at the beach park and the limu and presents
Christopher ... thank you for the clothesline, the electrical hook-up for the nebulizer and the mid-night crisis visits, visits to wherever we were during the journey and prayers
Glenda and Glennis ... thank you for checking out the Kitchenette in West Seattle for us when we knew we could no longer live on O'ahu
Joel ... thanks for renting us the basement and making us your favorite homeless people
Andy ... thank you for not getting pissed when I turned you in for burning dirty garbage in your fireplace
Chulan ... thanks for all the NAET treatments and 'do-it-yourself' energy lessons that keep me cleared
Annie ... thank you for buying us the beautiful windows in the Gypsy wagon
Christopher ... thank you for the generous 'building fund' check at Christma
Elsa ... thanks for the astrology blog and community a la Internet that continues to offer life rafts
Susie ... thanks for the Canary Report
Julie ... thanks for Planet Thrive
Lizzie ... thank you for the composting toilet and ukulele company
Kay ... thank you for the weekly phone chats that kept me tethered and supported for years
Mel and Shirley ... thank you for being the first landing pad in our life on wheels; we were still so lolo and off center; it was a stretch for all of us to try to live together ...
Leslie and Tony ... thanks for offering us a place to be our first winter in the Gypsy wagon Vardo For Two; Bend wasn't for us, but we learned what was and kept at it
Doug and Lois ... once again, you offer us a place to be with a wagon that squeezed the limits on the settlement of Everett and our friendship ... we endured and rose above it ... thanks
MCS Seattle folks ... thanks for the friendship, picnics in the summer, and party at Christmas
Ron and Peggy ... thanks for allowing a negotiated rent of your house on Whidbey for a month when we had to get out of the Mill Town; it was the rest stop that would move us closer to a place of calma
Madir ... thanks for getting our search for a place to park the Gypsy wagon onto Drew's List
Joan and Lana ... thanks for the clothes and the frig, the cookie tin for the t.p. and the raspberry bush that is spreading
David and Jen ... thanks for the ceramic electric heater for the Quonset
Grace and Michael ... thanks for Abraham
Libby ... thanks for the model of moving beyond
Amy ... thanks for being my writing buddy
Prime the Pump ... thanks for the creative outlet
Blogging ... thanks for the cyber storytellers' heaven
Summer, 2010 Eileen and Mary ... thanks for your prayer that included us in it; we are here and it feels like home.
South Whidbey Tilth ... thanks for a place we can clean fragrance-free and enjoy as a hang-out on Sundays in the summer
Good Cheer Garden ... thanks for everything and everyone you grow
Bernadette ... thanks for being the 'workhorse'
Scout ... thanks for being our trusted transportation
JOTS ... thanks for finding us
Molly and Mary ... thanks for a great famlily reunion
Christopher ... thanks for visiting us again and again and again 


And, since I'm the one writing this list I include Pete my partner, husband, friend, for the partnership on this caterpillar ride.  Lastly, to all our friends and family who have hung in their while we struggled to stay afloat, confused and confounded, yet praying for us all the same ... thanks so much.  
The akua and nauamkua we give you thanks for the courage it takes when we have none. 
If we have forgotten someone for their kindness, forgive us. 

Mahalo nui loa kakou,
Mokihana and Pete




Monday, August 22, 2011

What people have said about our HAWAIIAN MOON WORKSHOPS

" The Hawaiian Moon Calendar workshops have helped me to become more in tune with the moon, the natural world and the kanaka maoli perspective.  I truly look forward to each posting.  It continues to be a joy to read the depth and thoughtfulness of Mokihana's writing.  These workshops also remind me to slow down within my fast paced modern life.  They have become a vital part of my "practice" to finding my way back to nature and the ways of our ancestors. 

- hm, Oakland, CA

"..there are times in life when we are seeking more than other times. this is true for me. i look to nature, the celestial for insights, story, history and science.  Mahina, the Moon has always fascinated me. Through this workshop i have come to appreciate the storytelling of Moon, water and contemporary history as well as mythology from a Hawaiian rhythm. i have enjoyed and continue to enjoy delving into this world of inspiration and thought provoking reflection with Mokihana and the rest of the Wa'a crew. Mokihana's writing is beautiful, thoughtful and funny.

it is trippy in here, and thats my favorite part about it."
-RA, Mill Valley, CA

The next voyage in our cyber-wa'a 'WAYFINDING WITH MAHINA' begins this Sunday, August 28th, 2011.  Click here to preview the wa'a and sign-up for the workshop and newsletter.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Words in Woods ... connecting with the writer of Wood Wife

Do you believe coincidences are accidental?

Today has been a good day among the days and nights that have been mine for 60 plus years of days and nights.  Our nights of sleeping in the screened tent are over, at least for the while, and perhaps the season.  They were incredible nights of being with the night sky and the passage of Hina across the heavens.  This morning, Venus was so close to Hina I was shocked to hear Pete say neither Venus, nor Earth has it's own light, so of course, it was the Sun that shone so brightly on the planet.  Really?  Onto the pages of this virtual page, I put the thinking that goes through me and the passage of time seems to include these recordings as if to comfort me with the promise that these tiny moments matter ... even as they pass and maintain no light on their own. 

It was Market Sunday at the Tilth, our once a week morning jaunt into joint ventures with farmers and neighbors setting up their summer stock of Romano beans, round zucchini, bushels of beans, tiny sweet blue corn and purple cauliflower.  Garlic and chocolate chip cooks sell without prices on them, and the day's entertainment set up there microphone stands and gather under the awning for music-making.  We clean the two restrooms making them a safe and chemical-free place to do what humans do, and raise the bamboo poles with colorful flags to beckon Sunday shoppers. 

Before and after the Market, I am here to write, blogging at one or the other of the spots that catch the scent and rhythm of a life that is affected in sometimes large and often now, less debilitating measure.  When it all started -- blogging, it was mostly a life affected largely by the illness.  Somehow, the blogging has been a perfect form of medicine.  This evening after I had watered my row of gorgeous green Blue Lake Beans who are climbing up a newly-fashioned trellis made from twenty-foot fir saplings thinned from a friend's near-by forest, I came to check on a another piece of writing.  Writing that collaborates with spirit, and a willing adventureess.  There was no reply on her end, so I sought the blog space of a writer who has tapped the mythic in me.  That writer is Terri Windling, and the book which did tap me was Windling's first novel WOOD WIFE.  After more than 5 years of not being able to pick up and read books, I did and was treated to the glorious world of myth in the hands of an artist who spoke from the cauldron.  The book sat on the FOR SALE shelf in my local library.  It was $2.00, printed in large print, and marked Discarded from the San Jose Library. I bought it, toted it home, let it air on my Gypsy wagon porch shelf, and within weeks (a very short time in my world) I was reading WOOD WIFE.  It was the perfect fit for a writer and keeper of story the first novel of Terri Windling.  Seek it out if you are in that place where real is fiction and fiction not quite the escape for your taste.

Today, this very good day in my life, I visited Terri Windling's blog and was treated to the latest version of this writer-artist's life.  A version that is somehow, not unlikely, it is a version that embraces the many fragilities possible in a life where words, art, media and worlds of here and there come together.  Today, I read Terri Windling's post entitled "On Blogging" and even before completing it, I am here to pen a connection and will publish it even before I sit to finish Windling's essay.  Blogging has brought me comfort, healing, bridges of transport and understanding across time.  It's why I can imagine illness as part though not all of a self; a piece of what creates a day, a night, one life.

Windling's post "On Blogging" which also includes reference to one of my other favorite artist-blogger Rima Staines can be found by linking here:  ttp://windling.typepad.com/blog/2011/02/on-blogging.html

Blogging may not be a beautiful word, but without doubt it is a word of transformative power ...

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Moonlight Gardening

This is the final night of the La'au Po (the la'au moons).  Pete and I were chatting just before falling to sleep last night. 
"I forgot to water the garden," this was me talking. 
"Yeah, I'm not backing you up on that, sorry," Pete said nearly asleep already.  When he finally goes horizontal it's a short trip to snoreland.
"I better get up and do that (it was dark already). It was hot today."  I hadn't convinced myself and half wanted an excuse to stay put.
"In the morning.  They'll be alright until morning."

We let that conversation thin, closing out the busy day just ending.  A late afternoon phone chat with my family in Waimanalo put me at ease as I heard my brother's voice stronger than it's been for months.  The strain of cancer treatments is harsh journeying, but the support that musters to support him and the rest of us comes in visible and invisible forms.  From this distance our support comes through suggestions for sustaining nourishment he can manage.

"Drinking those 3 things everyday.  The green stuff?" 
"Wheatgrass," I tell my brother. 
"Yeah, wheatgrass.  Coconut water.  Poi." 
"You eat that through your feeding tube?" 
"Yup."
"You have all our prayers, too.  Everyday, all the time."  A silence on his end.
"Thank you."
"You got it, bruddah."

That conversation rewound in my mind and heart as I fell asleep.  Dreams of brothers and family and gardens needing watering swhirled in the dark space of the Gypsy wagon, and then there was sleep.
I woke when Mahina was bright in the sky above us.  Awake and doing my thanks for everything conversation with Akua, I was finally more awake than asleep.  I climbed over Pete, pulled the freshly washed violet cotton robe off its hook and slipped into it.  I took my scarf and hat and pair of socks to keep my f.resh from sleep warmth intact.  Mahina was brilliant in the clear and starry sky.  I greeted her with the childlike glee I have always had for a moonlight time in the garden.  Walking across the gravel pathway the small stones did their crunch, crinkle dance as my boots marked the way to the orchard gate.  JOTS was totally in agreement as to our moonlight walk as she waited for me to fiddle with the latch that is sticking from the summer's comings-and-goings. 



Inside the orchard was a landscape of shadows, big dark unmistakeable shapes of the single sunflower, the tipping stalks of the raspberries, collards leaning on their heartying stems leaves fanned in shades of green so different in moon light.  The hose, stiff from the cool night temperatures needed a bit of coaxing but once untangled the water welcomed release. 

"Hello, beans," I said on my way into the orchard even before the watering began.  The vining Blue Lakes are beautiful day and night, but at night the leaves fill space like roofs over tiny villages of flowers just beginning.  I tell them how beautiful they are, and tell them again as I start to sing a melody of notes unconsciously.  Not a whistle, for that would beckon to the wrong ones, I hum and sing softly as I give the carrots, collards, tomatoes, peas and beans an early morning watering.  Moonlight gardening like this one is a very special time when the darkness of the sky perches on the edge of the sun's eminent rising.  The stars and moon are dominant, but it is the shades and shadows of Earth's permanence -- the energy of la'au ... growing things, water-thirsty trees, blooming flowers and legged creatures that are refreshed and enlivened at this time.  When most of the two-legged creatures are tucked under covers there is a world of heightened potency available.  The La'au Moons are times for gathering the healing medicinals at their height of potency.  To be with my garden in the moonlight is to know that firsthand.  La'au PAU marks the end of the second week (anahulu Ho'o Nui) of the Hawaiian Moon Calendar.  A time of thanksgiving, a celebration of fullness a nice way of looking at being with the garden, and offering life-giving water to the life-givers.  Tomorrow the three 'Ole moons of rest, review, weed and reconnoiter begin.  The anahulu Ho'o Nui is a ten cycle period without 'ole, so these 'ole moons are a needed respite, and I am happy to have had time with moonlight and shadows, and watering the beans.

Do you moonlight garden?