Slow mo

Here's a peek at the golden wagon, Vardo for Two, our home in the woods of Langley in the late morning today. Click here for a nighttime view of the progress Pete has made moving her.

New Moon in Libra: Relationship Matters

Later this evening (in the US) the moon and sun will be conjunct (in the same place at the same time) both in the sign of Libra. Relationships and relating is highlighted. For most the summer I have been away from Makua o'o writing about moving elsewhere.  

So many possibilities, so many discoveries especially about how I relate one on one; how Pete and I together relate with the community we live with; how we present ourselves to a potential new community.

Later today Pete and I will begin moving our golden wagon inch-by-inch using a come along to position our home just yards away. After weeks of negotiating big and long distance moves, our goal today: to move out from under the trees (as safety for us) without cutting (the trees).

Elsa P. wrote about today's astrological community. She ends with this advice:

" I thought I’d pass this on because it’s so textbook as far as the astrology goes.
Jupiter is conjunct the Sun and Moon. Mars in Capricorn squares the triple conjunction.
Get out there and strive to generous and forgiving. It can’t hurt and it may help more than you might imagine."

She also posted a link on her ElsaElsa (the first astrology blog ever) site demonstrating that signature of generosity she's suggesting for her readers. It's a link to a resource of 10,000 blog posts she's written over the decade. I started reading Elsa when Pete and I were building our vardo, the golden wagon on wheels. She inspired me to expand my perceptions (thinking) using astrology and has consistently aided me; alerting me to the potential and the ramifications of acting or not acting.

If you're new to astrology, the link will be an incredible education, self-paced. If you're a student of astrology over time your depth of knowledge and application will be fleshed out in unexpected ways.

Oh, if you're wondering how the crab above relates to the New Moon in Libra I live with two crabs (Cancer sun signs). One of 'em will be hitching up my home to a chain. The other crab lives just across the orchard, and we pass her rent to live here. With the astrology of the day and weekend in mind the message  "Land crab on the defense" made a lot of sense to me. Good to know not to piss off crabs on the defense, even for a Scorpio with a stinger.

The Season of Lono

We pitched the tent and raised the banner as the season of Ku shifted to the season of Lono, and announced the arrival of The Safety Pin Cafe. A wonderful late September day opened up for us as we filled the air with story.

Click here to see a few photos of the event.

HAPPY KA PIKO O WAKEA

In Hawaii, the Autumnal Equinox is called Ka Piko O Wakea. It happens today. The message we received the other day, from Kalei Nuuhiwa, was a wish for all that is unbalanced in and around you to come into balance today. She asked for an 'Amama. An Amen. And many of us did just that.

Happy Ka Piko O Wakea!! Like Kalei said, and 'Amama.

Here's a link to a post we put up here, a year ago. We'll be going to the muliwai again tonight.

We're all connected in one big hei (net) 

Take a stand

Calvin Hoe playing the ohe hano ihu Hawaiian nose flute

When I was newly separated from my son's father in the early 90's I remember attending an ipu (gourd) making workshop in Tacoma, Washington. The workshop was at a Hawaiian couple's home and the man teaching was Calvin Hoe. At that point in my life first-hand connections with my Hawaiian roots were gasping for life. The divorce and this workshop were two events that would slowly solder those disintegrated linkages. It was a time of fire-making for sure, painful yet necessary to the journey of becoming makua o'o.

I remember seeing island-style snacks, see moi (preserved dried fruit) and Saloon Pilot Crackers and Jersey Cremes on the dining room table. I first met hula kumu Iwalani Christansen in that workshop as well as the very active Hawaiian Club members of the Tacoma area. But it was Calvin Hoe's hybrid style of speaking very heavy pidgin with unexpectedly slick school English that really stuck with me. Even then I realized that Hawaiian would not be contained. He is a storyteller, and proud to be one.

Today my son Christopher Kawika sent me the latest Hui Mauli Ola podcast. "Uncle Calvin Hoe" was the subject in the email. I immediately slid into homebase remembering Calvin, the Hawaiian who would not be contained. In the podcast that follows the musician, instrument maker, teacher, kalo farmer, father and activist speaks of his journey, his mo'olelo his story flavored as Calvin Hoe can. He talks about the 'small guy standing up to save da wata' and all that jazz, including story that folds in the lessons of learning, like coral learning how and where to grow ... that from the Kumulipo (the Hawaiian story of creation).

Click here: LEO KUPA: Podcast - Uncle Calvin Hoe 

Pluto's long transit through the 12th House

The sun rose, peeking through the trees. I stepped from the porch of the vardo, looked at the newly birthed light, stopped to chant E A LA E, welcoming Ka La. Another day. My voice crackled, I was congested and surprised with the halting sound I was making. Though by the calendar fall begins in eight sunrises, the kilo (observations) says "It's fall now." Autumn is beautiful, the sun is not as strong as summer's rays. Most of the Alder leaves are on the forest floor. We shiver outside when we leave the comfort of the covers.

Orange organic Vog Mask 
Hover over the image for Vog Mask's Mission

Vog Mask on Utah mom and babe

This is an update, to a post I wrote in 2013 about the planet Pluto's long transit through the houses of an astrological chart. Thanks to you, my readers, I saw that the old post was being read often. I reread it myself. Part of what I wrote was:

"I woke from sleep shivering. Yes, it's cold outside but the cold was coming from inside. Coming from the deep sadness. So often, these captive feelings find their way into the fiction I write, the myth converts the unthinkable into truth. The story transforms. And, it will probably go there into the mythic page, but for now the dream wants me to put it down as chronicle. Like my astrologer, Elsa P. I have the planet Pluto transiting my 12th House. The transit began just about now, 5 years ago. December, 2008. Pete and I were living in the basement "Kitchenette". The years of digging deep, hiding when appropriate and surviving [and believing] we could thrive again had begun..."  

Now, I see that the Pluto transit through my 12th House began not 5 years earlier in December 2008, but did instead start in early 2004, when I sold my family home. What does that have to do with anything? Well, at this time Pluto is retrograde, giving all of us a final look at what secrets and systems need to 'die' be let go. Pluto is still in my 12th House where digging deep, discovering secrets, and hiding when appropriate to thrive another day are all still the orders of the day. The planet has progressed, and the work of the deep sadness and learning from these captive feelings has found its way into the fiction I write. The story does transform. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, at the cave's opening. Like the look and feel of a Fall Sunrise, it's not summer but it is fall, and there is hope I survive ... different, no doubt, and thriving possibly.

Yesterday I was communicating with a trusted friend about writing, astrology, and our saga of moving.

" I write these issues into the medicine stories, and call it mythic memoir and with Pluto still retrograde in my 12th House the truth of that is so deep. The blows have been so many and continue. I had to take a full time out yesterday, called my old therapist and as she suggested "allowed myself to feel the pain" rather than attempt one more solution, or another plan just yet.
My remedy for this long Pluto transit through the 12th has been to write my way through. Blog after blog since 2008 with the transit in the 12th starting in 2004 when I sold my family home. With Virgo's transit into Libra the attempts at moving and finding a new home are difficult, painful realizations for pirates like myself and Pete, who live outlaw lives because I am sick with an illness society would rather deny and the vardo we built is illegal according to code (as is homelessness inthis country) because it does not contribute to the economic machine."

My friend wrote: "That Pluto transit is so long, and the 12th house for sure is not for sissies.  You are one of the bravest Warriors I know, for you're not afraid to take a stand on our disintegrating society.  Or perhaps it's more that you are simply not constitutionally able to avoid doing that." Reading her message was an affirming moment, she had asked how life was with me/us and I rambled on about it warning her upfront in my email to stop there if you wasn't ready for 'Moki's Inferno." She proceeded, read the entire diatribe, and held my crazy as witness with no platitudes. I appreciate this very much! 

While Pluto hovers (now) over the final degrees of Capricorn in the 12th House (the ASCendent or horizon) in my astrological chart I take my friend's observations to heart and talk it through with Pete. We reconnoiter and consider our next steps. Do I take a stand because I am a warrior, or is it that I am simply not constitutionally (or astrologically) able to avoid doing that? It may be one of the final secrets to dig up and expose to the light of a fall and winter sun. Pluto will finally emerge from my 12th House in mid-January, 2017. I wonder what my stories will be like then, and, will I trade in my I Can Breathe Mask for a Vog Mask as I take a stand?

Doing the work of an elder in training

Fall is the season of harvest, time to pick and put-up the beans, shuck the ears of corn, eat the rest of the tomatoes, juice the apples, store the keeper apples through the winter, pick the winter squash and make delicious orange colored-spiced soups. All the yummy things that started with seed have ripened.

Pete and I have been busy harvesting our life that began when we built Vardo For Two eight years ago. The harvest and the work at this point is big, worthy of makua o'o who are seasoned with experience yet humble in knowing there is always the mystery and the mystery is not a pray-and-go easy payment plant. It's a "Pray to Allah. Tether your camel" kind of approach.

I'm writing about this season of harvest and readjustments on The Safety Pin Cafe. It's the place where the issues and reality of living with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, and the laws in this country (America) regarding legal definitions of "housing" can be thrashed out. I thrash through the issues as Pete and I clean up the physical surroundings and prepare to hitch-up. We built our sleeping hut on wheels with faith in a power greater than ourselves. Na Akua, our gods are good. But we have our part to do, too.

We're tying the camel, and doing the work. The makua o'o uses those Nine Tools again and again and like Pete reminds me choosing the right tool for the job is more than half the job.

The Informant Is the latest post on The Safety Pin Cafe, and connects a recently released documentary "Karl Marx City" with two Washington state news articles/posts dealing with laws about housing and homelessness. This all started with a dream I wasn't sure I could wake from.

The tools of the Makua o'o used: all nine

Venus enters Libra is one of those post I write with astrology framing a broadly applied picture. I had a dream that woke me up.

The tools of the Makua o'o used: In particular, #1. Notice and #4 Soften the ground of your being

Spider Bite was a way to acknowledge the guardian getting my attention.

Which tool or tools was/were used or using me you think?

There is some evidence of ripening 
This was a ramble of words and experiences that I specifically likened to Spider pulling silk to make her web. Pete and I had just been through a second negotiation for a safe place to be for the fall and winter. The prairie and the community were not the place. We thought they were not ready for us. But, perhaps we were not ready for them?

The tools of the Makua o'o used: All Nine

There are other posts on The Safety Pin Cafe chronicling our Fall of doing the work ... if you are curious about the ongoing, and seasonal work of an elder in training please take a look, I'll be there.

Aloha kakou,
Mokihana