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