Is that you?

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From under my hoodie I filled a bag with baby green spinach. "Is that you, Mokihana?" it was the voice I knew as my friend the Produce Lady.

"It's me."

"Haven't seen you for awhile," she said as I continued to fill the bag from some foggy place not quite here, or there.

I explained about the Scotch Broom, and my isolation from it. "Oh yeah, I think Peter told me about that."

"It's my first day out, whoa. Another world out here."

She laughed and commiserated. I felt heard. I laughed at myself as I tried to reorient myself to life outside the woods. Shopping for a meal wasn't going easily. Spinach wasn't quite enough for us. The choices and the stimulation: I was already running out of breath.

My short excursion out of the woods was an experience with the wantings: the impatience with the time necessary to heal and re-enter the world. Even now, this tidbit of post is a drive to prove (to myself, and to my unknown audience) that I am still here. You, I tell myself and my gods, 'It is me."

But, really, the me is changing and transforming. I push up against the limits my body says is too much. "But," I say, "I love the words so much. The story wanting to be offered up from this imperfect place." Writing this, and thrilling from the simple act of hitting the Publish key is part of the wantings in the immediate. The glamour of the blog. Different from my handwritten musings, and chapters to a medicine story.

"Is this enough for now?"

"Yes," I say to the Invisible Spark that dispenses Hope and Humor. "Enough just to see how my fingers love the exercise of pressing keys and expressing art."

"Is this ono (delicious) enough for the gods within me and in the channel of the cyber?" I ask myself, and speak the chant. I wait, a little, and listen. And then I am here at the keys with answers pouring out.

The image and link that begins this post was a gift sent to us from our son, Christopher Kawika. This inaugural podcast with Kapono Souza was such a perfectly timed message. The young feeding the Akua within others, and I was in just the space to receive. Kapono's mana'o (his story) was familiar to me: asthma as a young child, invisible friendship, and the journey to 'find wind.' From the edge of the woods of a Salish Sea a rootlet of sustaining health was uncovered, and I find a way to grow from there.

The words below are from Terri Windling, writer and blogger who has helped so many times, has an archive of writing and meaningful explorations about 'Illness and healing" on her space Myth and Moor. They are words that are reaching me across the threshold of a slowly transforming self.

~*~

"In the secular world of modern medicine," writes Kat Duff, "we try desperately to rescue ourselves from the grasp of the Unknowable. Doctors have supplanted the gods, deciding when life begins and ends, working miracles, and taking credit for their successes. This aura of divinity that surrounds the medical profession in our society, and the extraordinary expectations that come with it, is the source of much pain and frustration for doctor and patient alike, especially when cures are not forthcoming....
"The sense of diminishment we often experience in the grasp of the Unknoweable, the face of the uncurable, probably has something to offer us from a spiritual perspective, but in the secular world of [modern] America, it is without meaning and so intolerable. That is why the first commandment in illness is to get well. Sick people are under tremendous pressure, from themselves and from others, to overcome their ailments, and return to life as usual in our fast-paced, production-oriented world." -"Illness and Healing"

"Although powerful work can be born of hard life experience, there are also times when calamity silences us: when shock, or grief, or sheer emotional exhaustion serves to snuff out one's creativity altogether. For those of us used to moving through life by breathing in the world and breathing out art, this silence is an unsettling, even terrifying thing. It is not quite the same thing as depression; it's more like finding the inner room where we go to create is now shuttered and bolted against us. It's like trying to speak without language. It's like living without breathing. It's not living at all." - "Re-kindling the Fire Within"

Ka piko o wakea, Homemade ceremony for Equinox, celebrating Edges

Hover over the pictures to discover a few thoughts about making homemade ceremony.

The many weeks of illness has slowed me, and to a few friends I tell them I have a new name, a new identity. "Call me Wild Snail," I tell them. Slowed way way down, inspired by the writing of Elisabeth Tova Bailey's The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, Terri Windling's posts on illness and the border lands with its many definitions, and my own project writing and recording my medicine stories I find myself at the edges again. It's fitting to acknowledge the feel of the edges at this time of the Autumnal Equinox when light and dark are equal. My Ancestral stories fuel me practices to anchor me with ceremony. Though we are across the ocean from the Piko o Wakea at the equator, and on the islands of my birth, translations and homemade versions of respectful ceremony make their way to where we live.

One of my most respected teachers reaches me across the waves of the internet. She is Pualanai Kanaka'ole Kanahele. Again and again I find Pua's messages, and her passion for Hawaiian Culture and practices via the canoe of cybernetics. How wise are our Ancestors to embrace what is good and new and include these things in the calabash for surviving and thriving. My dear old friend Joan sent me a link to a TEDX talk with Pua last week. I assumed (wrongly) that I had already watched and listened this this lesson. When I click and watched I was treated to one more gift of connection. The connection in time to make the most of the Equinox. It was an opportunity to make homemade ceremony, and build meaningful connection. Below is the link to Dr. Pualani Kanaka'ole Kanahele speaking of Ha'ena the Intense Breath of Life/the Sun.

We give recognition and thanks from where we live. Into the water, I offered gifts of life, and asked for renewal as the time of peace (Makahiki) approaches. We are at the edge, the border between Summer and Fall and the Harvest. To acknowledge the value of a wild snail such as the role I find myself living I see and feel the power and the humility of it all.

Makua O'o Update

I'm dealing with health issues. So, not much is going on here at Makua o'o for the next little while.

Here are a few readings and a podcast that you might find interesting:

My favorite mythic arts and writers' blog Myth & Moor, authored by mythic writer, editor and all-around dear woman Terri Windling has this to say about "Stories are medicine."

Terri Windling also has a series of posts on illness that are relevant to life on the other side of health and robust extroversion: They start here.

A fantastic essay written by Brandy Nalani McDougall ferrets the beautiful and rich genealogy of kaona. I am feasting on her words and the power of its sovereignty. To read "Putting feathers on our words ..." Google "brandy mcdougall + kaona", then download the pdf onto your system. If you are Hawaiian, or love the power of imagery and multi-layers of meaning in literature, McDougall's mana'o is worth your exploration!

My son thought I might enjoy listening to these podcasts with writers Sherman Alexis and Jess Walters. The episode about 'Grief' was very insightful. A Tiny Sense of Accomplishment might be of interest to our readers.

Take care.

Practicing the art of living (be flexible)

"This is a week of weather: all sorts of weather. On Friday a handful of friends came out to the South Whidbey Tilth to practice. What a day it was. BLUSTERY! The wind made itself present, and made some decisions about where and how to set the tents for The Safety Pin Cafe. Fiber Artist Pam Winstanley has helped with designs and support for this project since I first dreamed up the possibility of 'an event.' Jo Stevens, South Whidbey Tilth's Land Steward and Farmers' Market Manager was with us to choose a location for the setup and hold the tent down when the wind became bombastic. Pete made sure the chicken stew was hot and slices of whole wheat bread and butter were ready when we were too wind-blown to keep practicing. I cooked up the stew, made a batch of cinnamon toast and chanted a prayer of permission to be in this place...

Click here to read more about setting the table for The Safety Pin Cafe.

Pete in the Orchard ... practicing

Astrologically, Elsa P. my favorite astrologer said this about this week:

Her newsletter described the week as: "Why It's Not A Good Idea To Get Whipped Into A Frenzy This Week"

"We've got a potent week on tap. I know a lot of people are afraid of the new moon on Friday. I don't think this makes a lot of sense so I want to come in with another perspective. The week is dominated by a cardinal T-square involving the Sun, Uranus and Pluto... Is is hard-core?  Yes. 

 

But we are going to be dealing with a cardinal t-square well into 2014.  See Year-long Cardinal T-Square)

 

Considering this, a person would be well-advised to learn all they can about this energy, embrace it and learn to work with it. This week provides an excellent opportunity to do this, because there are so few distractions.

 

As an example of what I mean, my husband speaks a lot of languages. He says they are easy to learn if you're immersed in the culture where the particular language is spoken.  So this is like that. We're all going to be wrapped up with energy. Why not make it pay?

Practicing the art of living is all about (for me) learning to be flexible. The weather? I cannot do much about it, but I can attend to it, have Plan B, and immerse myself in the culture of where we live now. That place is the Pacific Northwest and the season is the beginning of the wet time. One of the many things living with MCS teaches us is to see life as art and make the best art possible. Rain or shine.

And your art of living?

New Moon in Aquarius, February 10, 2012 New Lunar Year Monday, February 11, 2013

The sun is making a grand appearance. Now that our computer has moved out of the vardo and into the Quonset, a sunny day ripples through the wavy panels of clear plastic. Looking through the waves onto the mix of sun-spotted green and pink gray tree skins I count the blessed in everyone of the Tall Ones. I'm still wavy myself as I ride through a cycle of restoring health, digging in when the deep dreaming brings old lovers, wise youngsters, and activity that has me spinning when I finally wake up. Living with health that is 'wavy' as I have for a number of years it is storytelling and writing-blogging that makes sense of the fluid nature of limited energy when nothing solid remains for long.

First let me define my terms. I'm going to refer to the limited energy one has when dealing with a chronic illness in terms of “spoons” -- so if you haven't yet read Christine Miserandino's very useful "Spoon Theory" essay, it might be helpful to do so. -Terri Windling

“Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of use is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.”

― Susan Sontag

Every day is a new one, and every 29-30 moons is a new one. The New Moon in Aquarius coming up this week end is another auspicious time to make the best out of where I find myself.

My favorite astrologer Elsa P. offers suggestions for making the best of this New Moon. Her ideas/suggestions are based on where the moon (which House) will be in the natal chart this coming Sunday. The Aquarius New Moon will be in my 2nd House. "New Moon in the 2nd house – Handle money in a new way. Experiment with self esteem."Good idea, good reminder for me.

Use this link to Elsa's blog post to see what the moon which leads to the Lunar New Year of The Water Snake.

Mystic Medusa writes ..."[T]he new CHINESE Year is the Year of the Water Snake and in Flying Star Feng Shui it is when all the ‘stars’ fly back to their original places...It’s the beginning of a new nine year cycle & actually an even longer one.."Click here to see an awesome drawing of the Water Snake and thoughts about the year to come.

All the best to all of You, readers, friends and family.

Gung Hee Fat Choy! Happy New Year,

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 ...