Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Weather

The Pineapple Express


Terri Windling has a beautiful blog post today on the way things change. The images of winter and the words that accompany them are particularly potent for me as I recover from recent exposure to chemicals that dis-assembled me. The journey of moving through this condition of sensitivity to chemicals and processes that are done without second-thought, is unique ... life is that way. I have become stronger and more able to step into these situations with more frequency, but then sometimes I am strong enough to stay but debilitated nonetheless.  Terri writes:
"Today's quotes go out to any of you who are walking through your own dark woods right now. May there be trees to befriend you, and foxes to guide you, and stories to light the way...
Each of the quotes Windling includes in her post are oitment for what ails you, but this touches me in just the right ways.

" We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay. I believe we have always done this, used images to stand and understand what otherwise would be intolerable.”  -  Lynda Barry (via Gail Arlene de Vos)
I began writing fantasy and fiction that created that place Lynda Barry describes: 'to be able to stay.' My life as writer started with the solid world of words to nail-down procedures and policies ... the manual writer of corporate binders that no one would read except to point out a breach, a right-way to do the thing. Great it is to move from that sort of environment, that kind of weather, to free form essays that simply described the condition or the state of being at the time of deadline. Life as a columnist birthed a place for thoughts and observations from a woman on a journey: Makua O'o.

Now, I am a newly rooting Gypsy woman living and learning to make peace with the parts of life that has no cure. There is no permanent fix to the issues of being sensitive. Astrologically, I find clues and avenues of transformation. Culturally, my connection to an intuitive funnel of dreams and signs give me access to story and there is where the weather is commodious. I fabricate myth, include language that is both real and yet-to-be. Characters and situations sort life out aid is offered. Solace is found, solutions soothe. In short, as Barry has said, I can create a place to remain when all around me logic would say: I'M OUTTA HERE.

Nearly out of cups of energy for now I close with an appreciation, renewed in its breath, for the capacity to conjure fairy tales. The Safety Pin Cafe is being edited behind the scenes. And in a partnership with my son, the value of the conjuring is made multiple in the process. Almost by accident, I invited my son to read and edit with his journalistic talent coupled with his ear for the culture we share, thanks to his grandmother. The fairy tale will change and become I think, more precious because of my willingness to allow other gifts to touch the words.

In the making of fairy tales the medicine is in both the hands of the provider and the soul of the receiver. It, the medicine, is not on a schedule really. So many visitations ... the wind, the sight of fairy wings, a memory recalled, a touch at just the right, or wrong moment. I weather the storm of dark and painful influence and plant a handful of fertile soil over the seed of a good story and water it just right.





Thursday, January 24, 2013

Floating Free


We took a day trip yesterday. The fog lifted for the occasion, Pete freed myself from his connections to gardens, food bank and general shoveling and sortings; I left the laptop and off we went. Our destination was north to Orcas Island, the largest of the San Juan Islands and three hours by car and ferry from the woods here in Langley.

It was a day of breaking free we both needed. A day of just for the fun of it, and time to visit an old friend on her pile of rocks. The travel time was nearly equal to the time we had to visit, eating (the Fried Egg Sandwich Pete had was amazing ... too bad for me I was so busy chatting he ate it all) in wonderful Mia's Cafe. Before it was time to drive from the town of East Sound our friend, and local "long-time reader" (of books far, wide and deep) Maurine walked us across the puddle strewn sidewalk into Darvill's Books. A completely charming bookstore with just the right amount of smatter and eclectic character real (in your hands) book lovers could call 'home.' It is our friend's second home, where she has worked for several years and is now there on occasion (or request) as I watched her step behind the coffee bar to make a latte while the barista on shift stepped out. Beautiful books, a sweet and intimate bookscape of shelves and accessories, cards, colorful socks, cds, and journals blank and inviting a story, a poem a muse-inspired sketch. There's a chance I will return to set up a storytelling event here at Darvill's. I talked briefly with the proprietress about The Safety Pin Cafe, excited about the potential for taking that story on the road, and onto islands here and there. Just a tiny bit of shameless self-promotion. (Just a reminder: One week left to read The Safety Pin Cafe.)

We made one last stop with Maurine before getting in the ferry line for Anacortes. Still book related, we pulled into the parking lot of the library. Maurine is a librarian. Could you ever call a librarian a 'former librarian'? Don't know for sure, but will guess that those skills don't retire or become a former life. Instead, they seem to spread out like ivy potent and opportunist, in the best possible ways. Walking with our Sag librarian friend was a tour of books on foot like I have never experienced, or perhaps have forgotten was possible remembering all my most favorite librarians ever ... Mrs. Petrie from elementary school. Oh my. M. volunteers in this library two hours a week. "Weeding" is what she does, weeding out titles and cleaning titles up so they're in the right category. She knows such things, and as she said since most folks who volunteer in the library don't, this library is lucky to have a mistress of categorization.

It was a whirlwind day, and by the time we made our way down the familiar and dark driveway through the woods we were happy to be home. Not a bit ashamed to admit that at least one of us was homesick for the woods. The thing is about small breaks in the daily routine is how the resistance and oppositions that linger in our relating to others, our selves, or our settings can be freed up with a change. Back to the routine, Pete is working, I am writing, and our ferry fare has taken us off the island and back. Our brand new desk top computer is ready for us. We'll pick her up tomorrow. Life proceeds.

A few of my favorite quotes from people familiar to me via the floating world of the internet conclude this morning ramble. Hope something tickles you, or frees you in some way.


"Jupiter turns direct in Gemini on January 30th. Many will change their minds and/or their philosophies in February. I think it will be enormously (Jupiter) interesting (Gemini) to watch....Once Jupiter turns direct on January 30th, all the planets will be direct until February 18, 2013, when Saturn turns retrograde." - Elsa P.
 "An opposition challenges us to keep two sets of needs in balance." Donna Cunningham
"I don’t think people realize they can dig deeper and get beyond their complaint to point where they’re happy and deeply satisfied. They simply don’t know how to get ’round the bend, so they can see the blindingly brilliant magic in their partnerships..." Elsa P.
  “We keep each other alive with our stories. We need to share them, as much as we need to share food. We also require for our health the presence of good companions...-Barry Lopez





Sunday, January 20, 2013

Coming Soon: 7 Bodies(5 planets plus the Sun and Moon) in Pisces February 23- March 12, 2013



Woken early this morning it was time to wash some of the heavy energy I'm feeling from Saturn in Scorpio. Today is 'Ole Ku Kolu, so these are good moons to reflect upon what needs weeding, washing and otherwise maintaining.  I found something to help: transformative water energy of Neptune Pisces, a 7 body stellium coming soon.

"Turns out the Sun, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Chiron, Neptune will all be in Pisces between February 26, 2013 – March 11, 2013. The Moon will join the stellium on March 10th and 11th – this is something I’d mark on a calendar."

To get some insight into the potential of this energy I went searching. The huge stellium of 7 heavenly bodies in the sign of Pisces (Neptune) falls mainly in my 2nd house, with spillage (my Sun and Mars) into the 3rd house. Dana Gerhardt from Astro.com writes this about the 2nd house:

...Your 2nd house ground must be worked. [You have to transform what you find there.] As an infant, this house was a veritable Garden of Eden. Everything you needed—toes, food, and teddy bears--was magically supplied. Yet as you grew, you learned that gardens must be maintained. Vines need pruning, fruit trees must be planted, flowers have to be fertilized. Earth is a paradise, but it's also full of reality. Pests can destroy your garden, predators can steal your crops. If you don't learn how to increase your garden's yield, your needs won't be met, your desires can't be satisfied. If you wait for manna to drop from the heavens, you'll starve. In other words, you have to get real in this house. You must learn how to use, protect, and manage its resources, or you'll suffer a fall from grace. Anyone who has a problem with money is just plain naive about that... Read more

And, again from Dana Gerhardt I found this about the 3rd house and transits through this house:

... through the 3rd we collect a stream of information about the changing contours of our environment. Nothing-not even our familiar world-stands still. Lose interest in these changes and your mind will lose its potency. When you cease to wonder about what's strange in your day-to-day world, when you lose your willingness to taste new words and imitate without self-consciousness, [when you forego the thrill of acquiring new masteries, however small, you will lose the vast richness of this house.] The issue here is not what we learn so much ass that we learn. In the 3rd house we're performing the good work of keeping our minds alive and, in Bob Dylan's words, “forever young.”
The rest of this ramble continues below the break. Take a breath and carry on if you have the time ...I think it will entertain you, watch out for the winding tail.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Behind the scenes: the sound of clapping for Peter Pans


What better medicine then the fabrication of a cozy place, 
and company worth keeping.
- The Joy Weed Journal from my medicine story "The Safety Pin Cafe"

Not so long ago (2008), I walked the shore along the Salish Sea with an illness, a companion that would not give me its purpose nor offer lasting solutions. Oh how filled with pity I was, offended at the affects, and bitter. Oh my how embittered.

Bit or bite at a time, the gods, angels, 'aumakua and heavenly alignments conspired medicine that could homeo-practically change things for the better. Maybe at all started on a Sunday. Sunday, the day of turmeric, as The Mistress of Spice has said, "Each spice has a special day to it. For turmeric it is Sunday, when light drips fat and butter-colored into the bins to be soaked up glowing, when you pray to the nine planets for love and luck."

The conspiracy of the Gods gave us opportunities:
Pictured above ...
The basement apartment where we lived in the kitchen, slept in the kitchen and learned to blog on the floor of the kitchenette. 
A wandering kitty native to the woods close by found us and made it clear she 'was sent' and not at all inclined to go away. That's JOTS in a cardboard box filled with blankets and Christmas tree lights.
Resources of imagination, a lifetime of skill, a place to rebuild our lives and build a tiny home on wheels led to the creation of The VardoForTwo, our first cozy home where the medicine renews itself one day, one night at a time. 


Today ...

All around me the evidence of Jack Frost remains firm. Crisp and crunchy walking paths between the vardo and the Quonset, the rain barrel filled with water frozen to the brim in geometric patterns and flows awesome in their beauty. Pete is in the 'Au Hale, the washing house doing laundry as he listens to a Sunday football game on the radio. My stockinged feet and bare shins toast next to the Radiant Heater as I blog. Some things have changed. Some things stay the same.

We have a home here in the woods of South Whidbey Island where even more than the evidence of seasonal realities like Jack Frost, Pete and I live with the evidence of imagination grounded in the skills of our life-times. Peter Pan so often is associated with the malignant character of 'not growing up.' From my vantage point it matters that I keep the spark of Peter Pan genes alive because oh my godness, harsh reality is ever where.

To close off this Sunday morning post, while the magic of turmeric fuels me, warming those Peter Pan genes here's something that keeps me inspired as I dare to be foolish about my "The Safety Pin Cafe" project. Inventing the Safety Pin

 The safety pin was invention and an improvement of a pin. Both improved and invented by a man named Walter Hunt in New York the year eighteen forty nine. The safety pin is made out of a small piece of metal. This metal in which the safety pin was made was a combination of copper, iron, aluminum, gold, silver, and platinum. These metal were heated and formed into a small piece of combined metals. It all started one afternoon.. Walter Hunt had to think of a way on how to pay back a fifteen dollar debt. He was sitting at his desk just twisting a piece of wire while trying to think of how to pay back his debt. He sat twisting wire for three full hours and realized what he had created. He called it the safety pin. He although did not invent the safety pin he just improved it.
All it took was a piece of wire, imagination, a little time and motivation ...

Here that clapping?  Thanks, J.M. Barrie 








Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Inspired ... the astrology of it

I've been very busy working on an idea, a story that has lit me from the inside out. I've been inspired. Elsa wrote about the 'spark' of love, or inspiration on her blog today. She says:
"...The thing is, if you do not act on that spark…if you do not go after that love, nothing will happen. The spark will die out.
You have to chase stuff like this. Love. But also an idea you might have, or some other kind of inspiration...
Elsa's blog post and questions got me thinking about what makes me do it; what makes me go after a love, or an inspiration? Answering through the astrological lens I've got to say it's that once maligned Uranus in the 6th House-Gemini that does it for me. 'Once maligned'? Yup, not too long ago I can remember bad-mouthing and whipping my self for not sticking with it: the corporation jobs that used to pay me a regular check with regular benefits; the neighborhood that I grew up in even when I was getting sicker and sicker living there; the old friendships that somehow under-mined my goofy, artsy writing. What I didn't appreciate about Uranus the Revolutionary is his lightning speed and red-hot poker primed for making sparks.

I think a sad and stultifying condition takes over when you let sparks die over and over again. I think through experience the condition flips a switch on the inside that is more and more difficult to reach even when you want to chase love, or inspiration. Over analyzing or weighing up the options can be good if you're a wild hair without much balance or good luck. At my most debilitated and overwhelmed with sensitivities the waters of Neptune saturated me. Too much exposure to the dousing waters was like having the 'Reset' button duck-taped in position . Time and Saturn (hard work) would need to recondition my ability and willingness to chase a spark. I had to relearn to trust.

Now, six years after the worse stretches of loss and illness ease and my trust muscles can hold a belief, I am chasing a spark of fantasy and taking the advice of my other astro-coach, Satori.On Monday, Satori wrote:

"Venus sextiles Neptune. Fantasies abound and in an aspect of opportunity this could serve as impetus for some of that action. It could also add an imaginative factor to a day that might get to feeling rather dry otherwise. Take that fantasy energy and use it on the field!"
Why do I babble on about this spark chase? Because like she said, if you don't the spark dies. Too many dying sparks and there you have it, lights out. I've been busy this week taking the story of The Safety Pin Cafe into my town and on the field, and I'm finding collaborators excited to play. (Read the sidebar to the right to catch up on what I'm doing with The Cafe). And the logo above? That's the logo of the professional women's basket team from L.A. California. I learned something today while chasing a spark. I learned there is a team named The L.A. Sparks. Pretty cool!

Do you chase sparks?


Sunday, January 6, 2013

NEW MOON in Capricorn: January 11, 2013Baffled landscape of nightmare and dream

"While our intellect chases its bright and lofty visions, our most original, powerful ideas tend to rise from muddy, murky depths below: from the clouded waters of the subconscious; from the baffling landscape of nightmare and dream; from the odd obssessions, weird fixations, and uncanny flashes of intuition that rise up from those strange parts of ourselves that we know and approve of least; from those places most likely to make us feel ridiculous, and exposed. The muse, if we follow her far enough, and honestly enough, demands that we bare it all: our angel wings and our asses' ears. It doesn't matter if we're writing genre fiction and not memoir; it doesn't matter if we're painting fairy tales and not self-portraits. "All art is autobiographical," said Federico Fellini; "the pearl is the oyster's autobiography." - from "Dare to be Foolish" Myth and Moor, Terri Windling

There's a lot going on at the deep and muddy depths with so much planetary action involving Pluto (deep) Saturn (responsibility) Capricorn (more responsibility and commitment). With the New Moon in Capricorn coming up on January 11, 2013 Elsa P. wrote

...The Sun and Moon meet at 21 degrees Capricorn, joining Venus, Mercury and Pluto in the sign.  Mars is in Aquarius, the other Saturn-ruled sign, so the emphasis on Saturn here is off the charts....
Elsa goes on in that post with some ideas about how to make use of this New Moon based on which house is affected for you personally. Click on the link above for those ideas. The New Moon in Capricorn will be in my 1st House so I'm going to need to take responsibility and lead. For me, this means taking care of how I appear as I 'lead' and manage. Capricorn spans my 12th house (deep emotions and secrets) and 1st house (how I appear, who I am). Thing is at this stage in my life, some of my emotions have been locked up and in many ways I've told a lot of lies I've come to believe. One of the most effective ways for me to come to terms with the depths of myself is through storytelling, and in particular the writing of fiction.

Here is an excerpt from my medicine story and fairy tale The Safety Pin Cafe: "Did you know humans are the only animals who deny their own metamorphosis?" I was ill-prepared for the question though Raven had not left my side since the old Gypsy woman finished with her reading, and that comforted me. Was it just a reading? "It was just that," The Lady answered and motioned to Raven as she pat the empty seat next to her. I felt his gloved hand on my right elbow but remained where I was. "I want to think about what you asked, Raven." It was the first time I'd addressed him directly and meaning no disrespect for The Lady, this was another of those inordinate questions; not common I believed. I thought of my hens who were molting, dropping feathers rather than eggs. They were not so much changing as the caterpillar became winged, but my hens knew their place and their timing...


At this stage of life, using the effective routes to metamorphosis or creativity is still a juggling act and it matters that I am gentle with my wishes. Because, like they say 'be careful what you wish for.' We, anyone of us, can and has been a faceless woman or man. Terri Windling's opening quotation from Dare to be foolish is the potent potion that I take to both allow me to scream when an offense is true for me and dare to write fiction as a way through the nightmare of being unseen, unheard, unknown.

Behind the scenes, and as I work on my New Moon in Capricorn project, I take my own medicine written in the form of The Safety Pin Cafe. Please note dear  Readers: The ten-doses of the medicine story The Safety Pin Cafe [go to the sidebar on the right, click on each dose to read] will remain here until the end of January, 2013. After that it will go to the backroom where I and my collaborators conjure the story's metamorphosis.

How will you be using the energy of the Capricorn New Moon?


Photo Credit: http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/10/29/1-34/

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

My year of French

Bonne Annee!

I've swept things clean, cooked up our first meal of the New Year(feta and spinach sausages and scrambled eggs) and painted the blog a soft sand with lots of brown to calm and relax. Accents of deep reds show up to focus on some worth while endeavor ... a project, something to manage. My son lives in France. I have a worthy endeavor to manage and keep myself entertained: learn French. I began writing email to my son's girlfriend and learned a lot about a lot of things, including French. This morning my son's email included a list of food in French, mainly seafood since he and his girlfriend live in Normandy. I have the internet to look up translations as I read the list; it still amazes me to be able to do this without a book dictionary.

Small wonder. Marvelous beginning to a new year's endeavor. So, I've started a list of words I learn. The beginnings are over there on the right--->>> on the Sidebar.

Learning something new this year? I'd love to know about it.