Rima and Tom and an incredible community of artisans and mythic creators have attracted the attention of dreamers-wanting-to-manifest HEDGESPOKEN. In the passed weeks the vision depicted above has become a world to be on wheels.
If you haven't contributed to this wildly wonderful venture of magic. Click and Contribute to something that is of grand value: magic and dreams really do come true. Be part of it if you can!!
When I was a young girl growing up in Kuli'ou'ou Valley in the 1950's and '60's, I listened to the radio. One of the voices that captivated my young and imaginative Scorpion nature was that of Kamokila Campbell. Her voice and her stories were a sound that embraced me when confused about my place and my nature, inspiring me to learn and be fed by listening to the power of voice.
In those days, and only until much later in life, I did not know of the great contradictions Alice Kamokila Campbell would represent. The daughter of James Campbell, and heiress to the grand fortune of sugar "... In the late 1930s and early 1940s, ‘Ewa was a sugar plantation with miles of swaying cane baking on the dry, flat plain. Kamokila Campbell’s father, James Campbell, pioneered the area years before, finding water and making the land prosper." Finding water really meant diverting fresh water from the Windward O'ahu wetlands of Waiahole and Waikane while spraying and applying chemical fertilizer and herbicides creating great strain on the natural environment and health of the people of the Island. Also included in the article Lessons of a Hawaiian Grandmother written by Kaui Goring, "Even though she was an heiress, whose family mingled with nobility of the time—Mary remembers her grandmother noting that King Kalakaua would play “poka” with her father at his Honouliuli ranch—Kamokila lived among the kiawe trees much of the time wearing a simple mu‘umu‘u made up of two pieces of fabric sewn together. She would even go into the water in the dress. At other times, done up in an elegant black holoku (that Mary still owns) wearing strands of lei reaching down to her knees, she would duck into her limousine, driven by her private driver, to an upscale function in town...For Judy, the youngest of the sisters, Lanikuhonua was a happy and spiritual place. She suffered from allergies at her Nu‘uanu Valley home and the dry climate of ‘Ewa suited her. From the very beginning of her time there, Judy felt the sacredness of the land. She suspects that the spot was a place her grandmother reconnected with the Hawaiian part of herself. For the most part, she threw off the lavish lifestyle she had enjoyed when she was younger and found peace and simplicity. Judy, too, remembers the simple mu‘umu‘u and her grandmother sitting at a picnic table just gazing at the ocean. She even drank her coffee made with brackish water, because fresh water had to be brought in large bottles. “I think the land grounded her,” says Judy, who sees the honor of her grandmother living between two worlds—yet in the end, tried to hone in on her Hawaiian nature."
The nature of being human is a balancing act that is not easily maintained. It is instead a daily and routine act that changes over time. Growing, changing, adapting. Listening, gathering, acting. I juggle the changes and ability to adapt with various degrees of agility. Age changes the speed at which I digest change. Softening the ground of my nature means distracting myself from being obsessed with perfection -- static, fixed perspective. Play a hand of cards, and laugh at how the game plays through. Notice how the wind makes the solid disappear. Today the wind brings rain. Tomorrow the weather man says 'expect snow.' If I were still a girl in Kuli'ou'ou I would not know how to expect snow. But. Now I am an old woman who lives with a man who was a boy who knew. He says "Today I'll wrap heat tape around the pipes." Contradiction. Complementary. Juggling. My taste for listening to voices continues to soothe and inspire. I give thanks for my large ears that can hear external voices, and listen, to the quieter, yet most powerful voice that is within. In hearing the stories from Kamokila Campbell's granddaughters I hear "e ho mai I ka maopopo pono" ... grant us understanding, e ho mai I ka 'ike papalua ... grant us insight still honing in on my Hawaiian nature.
Tomorrow, Thursday, November 27, 2014 many families in America will be gathering to celebrate and give thanks. There are many reasons to give thanks and equally as many ways to gather and celebrate. Thanksgiving is being celebrated and gatherings are being defined across Honua The Earth, as the crew(s) of the Polynesian Voyaging Society's wa'a (canoe) Hokule'a crosses the oceans of Honua with a message "Malama Honua" Care for Earth.
The video hereincludes some advertising for the public television network 'Oiwi TV, which is a little distracting. But. There are things to learn from watching it. Somewhere in our celebrating surely we must make room to Malama Honua.
Mahalo Ke Akua, Na Aumakua, e Honua ola Mahalo 'ohana nui Calizar a me Little
We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."
verb: weird; 3rd person present: weirds; past tense: weirded; past participle: weirded; gerund or present participle: weirding
1.
induce a sense of disbelief or alienation in someone.
While wandering this morning I found Dr. Seuss' quote about weird on the homepage where a very interesting poem was responding to this visual prompt ...
Weird is one of those exceptions to the rules. Like any art form there are rules but they are meant to be broken, bent, unpinned and assembled differently.
Weird is one of those words that is the exceptions to the rules in spelling : " i before e, except after c.
Writing and Mailing a letter might be 'old school' to many these days. But the W and M activity has a special place in my heart. It's the five-step-process captured above that took me from dreaming up the love of my life to the next level. I wrote a letter to the guy I'd dreamt up, sealed the envelope, took the envelope to the post office and let that letter fly to Green Bay, Wisconsin. A tall silver-haired man opened that letter, considered the consequences for writing back and the rest of the story is still in the making. I had written my first love letter and the rewards? Well, they fill the pages of my blogs, and the mythic tales inspired by that silver-haired raven man.
I'm a believer in all the 'old school' practices that make for a safety pinned, heart-poundingly enjoyable fully lived, kind and connectable life. I'm not such a rabid follower of Face-book, but I do have an account with that social network and because of it I found out about the World-wide day of healing through letter writing project. Here's an invitation to write something from the heart with your hand, a piece of paper, a pen or pencil. A collective and personal act of slowing down to put your whole self into communicating. One of the things I learned very early on as I watched and listened to my first storytellers was the importance of the pause -- the wait -- between one word and the next. The scene or the story halts just for a moment, the pregnant pause promises something brand new. That's the thing about the hand written and mailed in an envelope letter. The pause. WAIT FOR IT has such meaning when you think of it that way.
Do you have a letter aching to be written? Maybe tomorrow is the perfect day.
I found myself slipping on an old banana peel of a habit, but was reminded to reach for something to tickle me free from that old bugaboo. I found something to write myself out from behind those old blinders ... it helped a lot, and maybe it will do the same for you. Figuring this is my birthday gift, I'll leave behind a shriveled habit needing to be recycled and share this tickled story to all my readers with a special thanks to jt for reminding me where to find the light switch.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"How'd you two get together?" I suppose that's a common question for people
to ask a couple they're just getting to know. At least I've heard the question
often enough.
"I dreamed him up." That's what I tell most people, though sometimes I hold
my cards close to the chest and if Pete's around I give him the eye and
he unrolls his version of the story which usually starts with standing at a
kitchen sink in Mukilteo one Christmas time long before we were conscious of
Cupid's design for us. Not every one deserves to hear the pearls of a story like
me dreaming up the love of my life. When a crusty reptile like me shares the
product of her psyche she doesn't want the blank stare of dis-appreciation or
the eye roll of ... what does the eye roll signal?
"Oh it's that too too serious horse-with-the-blinkers making a judgment on
people giving an opinion," from out of the blue and between the spaces comes the
Marmalade Madame. There is nothing subtle or compromising about the three foot
tall dame of fame, no, infamy, who has shown up to add her dollar bill. Ablaze
with a freshly tweaked version of orange hair my faery godmother shows up at the
most unexpected times. The orange-haired one continued, "It's your birthday
tomorrow. I'd have thought you were expecting me. What with all the others bound
to be here with their gifts, and their distractions before the next sunset. I
wanted to beat them to the punch." My faery godmother is so very different than
the tall, bronze and braided Max with the wool coat and bowler hat. As different
as sun and moon or summer and winter, the Marmalade Madame stands stoutly three
feet in her spikey leather boots, made especially for her remarkable frame. Her
feet are large -- broad and very long for the height of her. "The better for me
to stand the ground upon which I love to leap about on. See, the heels of this
particular model are fashioned with a spring." She stopped in her original
expository and demonstrated the incredible lift potential in the spikes. With a
downward thrust the heels drew into two long paddles and the flaming orange hair
was airborne the paddles serving as rudders on an airship from the pages
of Terry Pritchett's imagination. At that elevation her short and bejeweled
fingers become navigational buttons; ruby for right rudder and she will move
accordingly; emeralds (on both left and right thumbs) will level her off; the
diamond on her left pinkie is reserved for emergency Frappaccino stops at
Starbucks (She claims to be cutting back on coffee, but she lies.) To land
The Marm as I love to call her does the Dorothy gig, which can be
challenging in a brisk wind. And if ever an unsuspecting observer in the right
light seeing her attempting a landing will tell you, the sight is one that could
cause irreversible damage to your Serious Bone. That in short is really what my faery god mother was here for. I've already
seen her in action up high and in the sky.
Most of her charges, she has many,
are fixed of the Serious Habit after viewing her in that elevated state. But.
There are some like me who need regular Funny Bone maintenance. The Marmalade
Madame had come to do mine. I think she believes there's always room for
breaking out of the old boxes, and lubricating the Funny Bone can never be done
too often. She's laughing at me right this minute you know. She does it never to
mock me, but to join in. Right before the sun returns to the spot in the sky
when I came through the birth canal. "It's really alright to have born purple.
It's the reason you so prefer the color in your garments, makes you feel to
home."
The color of Marmalade to inspire the Marmalade Madam's freshly tweaked hair. CLICK for a recipe for Kumquat Marmalade just for the fun of it!
It's the gift I needed most from someone who has been watching for a very long
time. Probably been watching before I wore this face that was at first so
purple. Anyway, it's a winding tale to answer the question about how I dreamed
up the love of my life. But then, did you have anything better to do? No. Well
then, we have just had a bit of a romp and I'm glad of it.
We returned to the Home Place, Kuli'ou'ou Valley just before the turn of the century. With very short hair, and very very long hair and dreams that needed revisiting. The old(house numbers, paint and Ma's plant in the cement planter) and new (the red screen door, new porch and steps, a new beam to hold up the roof and Pahoa Valley bamboo railing) versions
of the family home at 319 Dalene Way can be seen in this picture
taken by dear old friend who was visiting from Washington. Thanks JT.
Pete and I began a life as a couple on the island of Maui. This is our Iao Valley cottage deck in 1995. The beautiful blue iron chair and the cedar furo that Pete built makes me swoon. What a tropical paradise that cottage was, cockroaches (big ones and lots of 'em) and all!
The photos were scanned with lots of extra space flopping behind the images. It makes no never-mind though. We all have a little extra flopping these days. There's room for that:)
One of the things I love about blogging over time is being able to see what old posts have captured your attention Dear Readers. (Thanks to the 'Popular Post' gadget on the side-bar) This image of Hawaiian kapa printed with the design of wana, sea urchins, is one of my life-long favorites. That visual taps into the poetry of genetics that is instinctual, cellular and timeless.
As makua o'o committed to a life of investigation and life-long learning, distilling or rendering down life into its essential and sustaining foundations can be a daily 'ah ... ha.' Like the shaft of light at dawn or wana ao. Like the sharp spear of light, or the sharp spike of the sea urchin. Metaphor and poetry in a veil. Read more about the process of distilling story here.
"...you will measure your progress in longer stretches of time than a day, a week, or even a month. When things seem difficult you must not allow yourself to lose your gumption or to choose what seem like easier options...In just a few weeks, Saturn will begin the process of moving from your sign to Sagittarius. Saturn has been a consistent guide and mentor to you, and in the remaining time that Saturn is in your sign, it’s necessary to internalize the Saturn principle, which translates to self-leadership."
When Saturn, that consistent guide and mentor Eric Francis describes moved into Scorpio 2.5 years ago, another consistent presence was trying to get my attention. In October of 2012, I wrote this post "Inoculated by the Wild". The message and the guide was Grandmother Spider and she was doing her best to speak to me in a language I would understand. She kept biting me. The Wild's time is Nature's time, cycling around and through me I was being prepared for the medicine and healing salve of story to pull me into the ground of myself. Not, the cloudy airy domain of dreams without feet, but dreams that have substance. Dreams that are inoculated by something, something as tiny and powerful as the 8-legged one and her kin.
Soon after Spider took a bite out of me, on a day only a duck could love (much like this one!) I found a large safety pin on the floor of the post office. The medicine of the wild had begun to work in really and substantial ways. There was a story wanting to be told and the only way to tell it was to listen for it, write it down, give it a name, send it on the cyber surf board and keep doing my work. One installment at a time the story was told. The form of communication was unexpected. My island neighbors were intrigued as they read the installments, and wanted to know, "Where is it?" Some who read the mythical journey of an aging border witch and a silver-haired raven got the scent of magic and kept reading. Others just wanted to sit and have a cup of coffee and cinnamon toast already!
For two years I had to believe in the power of the story, and the potential to tell it both virtually via The Safety Pin Café blog and medicine stories, and eventually in person in a Fragrance Free Zone, safe enough for my Invisible Disabilities to be respected and acknowledged. In October, 2013 the first storytelling tent for The Safety Pin Café was raised, and people came to hear the story about the Border Witch and the Silver-haired Raven. Myth with feet wove the tale and playfulness allowed the audience to cross the border and into the 'doors' of the magical and moveable café. It was a reach, a stretch of my creative genes and it was worth the effort to see friends, neighbors and strangers from my community under the tent at South Whidbey Tilth Farmers' Market.
A second year, and two storytelling events this year built on the work of commitment to Story with a capital "S."
The stories told in 2014 were the stories that wanted to be told. I asked and the old stories came. I had to study and memorize the chants, then eat them like soup until they fed me a story that was fed by the three pikos (navels) of my cultural whole: past, present and future. These were the stories from ancient chants and elemental forces -- The gods and goddesses: Grandmother Spider and her sun Iktumi, the trickster who tells humans lies to tempt us from our kuleana (soul's path), Raven and 'Iole the rat. All of those voices wanted a place under the tent. We chanted. We asked permission. The Elements worked with us. We were granted clear skies and a brisk wind. Story loves wind! This time the storyteller's value amplified as I collaborated with our local food bank. All donations went directly into that bank. Coins, dollars and checks rewarded the work. Sticking to it made the story good, like soup.
Now, as the rain beats a rhythm as solid as a bass drum I consider the effect of old habits, and familiar roles and masks that I wore in an earlier life. When I created on demand for forty years deadlines were built in, and so was my regular paycheck. Life can throw you a curve when least prepared and it's those curves that have been teaching me to find the middle ground, or, accept all the notes (as above) ... the soft and low as well as the loud and high. Terri Windling has a wonderful conversation and post entitled "On Deadlines" on her blog today. It helps me to read and respond to the changing reality of what motivates, and drives creation. I hope you will link to Windling's blog post for something more to chew on. The diverse comments are worth reading. With Winter soon moving into the Salish Sea where I live, my dreams caution me to check my sources, and astrology suggests measuring success over the longer time. My body cautions me to love her at sixty-almost seven, even as I hear her say "I am a fiesta."
And finally, yesterday while I felt the muddle of too much water (that's analogous to the emotional pathways) from the heavy rains I discovered the short chick with a stick, Kris Harty. She can, and does speak for herself in this YouTube. It's a great place to end and maybe a good place to commit to sticking with it no matter what.
Where are you in your creative path as Saturn prepares to leave Scorpio around Christmas, 2014?
