I hold my nomadic skills in great esteem

From the passenger's seat of Scout our valued Subaru station wagon I watched the generous body relax into the collapsible chair. Snacking on the contents of a cellophane-wrapped bag he crunched most of it, yet saved one tidbit for the small black pup leased not more than a foot from his slippered feet. His vehicle, an older black pickup truck, is filled with the trappings of his everyday. A canvas sheet covered the bed, a bicycle perched over the covering. He, like us, is a modern day nomad, blood kin or not to the Romani, we are society's new culture whether favored or recognized makes little difference really. We know who we are, and as the mortgaged middle class quickly suffers the weight of promises too heavy to keep, our nomadic tribe will multiple.

The town we have made our home over the past six months is part of the Windward community of O'ahu. Kailua is smaller than urban Honolulu by what? tree or four-fold, with buildings lower to the ground and streets more easily navigated in a four-wheel vehicle or a foot-pedaled cycle. This place is a parking lot miniature of her Honolulu sister's high-rise/underground, cemented parking structure reality. Those of the Nomadics who live from and in our vehicles come to know parking lots intimately. I remember the humiliation I used to feel early in my nomadic life. The ego still unwilling to accept the changes to her place in the cycle of my everyday. A steep learning curve characterize the rituals of the new nomad, and though similar for most, each is probably more unique than I know.

Within a week one will recognize another. We seem to be very solitary rarely engaged by the eye and rarer yet in conversation. As I write, now at a favorite library table positioned over one of the only uncarpeted floors, I spot at least three of the tribe; familiar by sight or by trappings. If I were more courageous or maybe, it is detachment.  If I were more detached ... time will tell, I would be igniting my formerly useful interviewing skills from a recent past life to learn who my fellow nomadics are. What are their stories?

Nearly closing time. I hear, as well everyone else at this end of the library, the regular and even snore coming from a young brother. He has fallen into blissful sleep in the comfort of one of the dark blue upholstered reading chairs. Sleep. Glorious and restorative healing rest is not an every night given when you are nomadic. The first weeks are hardest when place and surroundings offer no reassurances. Society--societal regulation, the laws meant to keep genteel wall and roof dwellers safe and assure, view the Tribe as untouchables. The cast system in America is real.

Perhaps my journey as nomad is karmic, needing to experience first-hand, walk in the shoes of simplicity viewed and judged as I have judged. I have feared the people on the streets who wore faces like mine; brown or red-skinned in their flannel shirts looking to me for a hand (full of change, a common goodness). I crossed the street to avoid them. Now I watch as others avoid me when I roll from the back of my car where I have spent the night. Our car has become noticed...known in the neighborhood because we park on my cousins' lawn at night. No fence or wall shields our home/car from the dog walkers inches from my window. We live a public life. Ego? Recycled into informed doubter--I have new skills, nomadic skills which I have come to hold in great esteem.

This piece was written in 2007. The mostly handwritten musings were folded and tucked into a rose-covered box, a gift box that holds the notes and writing on coffee shop napkins during the months of living from our Subaru. I found the box and this writing when I pulled the wire basket out from its place beneath our vardo bed. I was cleaning house, a fitting task for the quarter moon cycle, or 'ole moons of the Hawaiian Moon Calendar ... times for weeding, repair nets, preparing ground for planting, and cleaning. These are skills  I have come to hold in great esteem. 

I am ever aware of how transient the quality of surety is. From these nomadic times on O'ahu, my place of birth, the medicine and magic of myth found a strong and enduring place in my heart. To make sense of nonsense deeply rooted qualities offered me the portable and simple magic of small joys, and my heart becomes more resilient, vulnerable and open; it becomes less afraid to be nomadic. Like the magic of a safety pin, I find the efficacy of a tool is in its being able to serve without being grand. For a time, the pin holds. Opened, there is the potential for something else. To read some of the myth that grew from these times go here.

Full House in Capricorn: New Moon and Winter Solstice, December 21, 2014

Elsa P. my favorite astrologer writes, "The new moon in Capricorn takes place Sunday evening in the US.  Even a novice astrology can look at that stellium and see it’s profound.

 

With the five bodies [Moon, Sun, Pluto, Venus, Mercury ] so tightly conjunct, chances are, the entire stellium will fall in one house in your chart." Read Elsa's entire post for suggestions for setting your intentions for the new moon cycle.

I left this comment on Elsa's post:

"The New Moon will be in my 12th [House] along with my Natal Moon. Dig deep to release and be ‘with the bones’, my essential nature; call on the Ancestors to hold the light; be willing to hold that light as they pass the torch to me; be a participating adult.

Esoteric, invisible energy powerfully packed on the back of the Goat. Wheww!"

 

"Yule Goat" by John Baer

Our relationship with Mahina the Moon has deepened over time. My husband is governed by the Moon as a Cancer-born man he is conscious of the heavenly body, the goddess. I am drawn to her because I am a Scorpio-born woman and seek Mahina's mysteries. Attending to, or counting on the moon has made our lives more meaningful. It all became very real seven winters ago when we began our life living from our Subaru. That was the start of knowing what it was like to truly Count on the Moon. The link will take you to the on-line workshop we conducted in 2011 focused on the study and practice with the Hawaiian Moon Calendar.

We have learned as my ancestors the Kanaka (Hawaiian) learned about Mahina by observing and noticing what happens when the moon rises and sets; what plants or creatures are doing at different phases; the weather and temperature on different moon times; and the tidal conditions generated as a result of the moon's position. Our home in the Tall Ones the wooded trees that stand a hundred and fifty feet from forest floor to tip are thick and often prevent us from seeing Herself. If we are lucky on a winter night there is a leak of her shape that catches our eyes. But. The truth of it is the moon, Herself, is present not only during the dark of night. The first fifteen moon phases she rises during the day and sets at night. The second fifteen moon phases she rises at night and sets during the day.

The New Moon on Sunday, December 21, 2014 according to our Whidbey Island tide, sun and moon charts tells me:

Sunrise and sunset is: 7:57 am - 4:19 pm
Moonrise and moonset is: 7:13am  - 4:36 pm

So ... on New Moon and Winter Solstice this year Mahina, Herself, prevails as Goddess of the Sky occupying the Heavens longer than the Sun. We have an auspicious opportunity to make use of our Earthly (grounded position) to count on the moon. New Moon is a time to set intention(s) for the next month. Winter Solstice is a time for celebrating the end of long and dark nights with a promise of more light to come. Pete and I have had many deeply moving and meaningful conversations this winter. Among the latest dialogues I remember telling him "We are in the community we wished for. We are where we wanted to be." With the long picture rewound and stories about our past shared during the gloaming my partner and I reflect on the journey. We have been together for twenty years. Come together at the peak of adulthood, not yet o'o (fully matured) but individually we were primed to challenge and hone the definitions of partnership and character. Honing ourselves and our preferences means we have juggled, dodged, dredged and meddled in the business and the mystery of being human. The dark sides and the lit ones have made the journey incredible.

Not at all separate our experiences have made us ever more connected to each other and the collective/whole. When we lived in our car the essentials bared themselves; we learned to discern what and who was/is important. I in particular watched others in their treatment of the 'disposed and homeless.' Vulnerability is not a bad word though it's not something most of us would choose as a personal description. In 2008 I wrote the tale of Sam and Sally (The first of my medicine stories, though I would not tag them 'medicine' they were part of the original remedies)

"... Things and people have been left behind time and again. Like land turtles Sally and Sam found that only what they could carry mattered. People –friends, family and society in the main have had to decide whether the things that matter to their multiple chemical sensitive friends mattered to them. For half a year our two elder dears slept in their car and parked their mobile bedroom in beach parking lots, driveways and lawns of friends and family. Living public lives with an illness unknown or misunderstood isolates, and that is what it was like. Public yet invisible, illness and homelessness are conditions that our society denies. Political mumble is just so much dank air. The sky is falling on thousands of us every day and every night. Life after dark is a time when the goblins of entitlement and gentrification screen out and isolate the fragile and the sick."

 

Each night during these times we parked between the lines marked in parking lots. It was the in between hours; it was possible to be part of the collective, invisible, yet part of it. Like a blur from a fast moving car on the freeway. When one of the invisibles spots another there is a silent acknowledgement. Silent because it is not safe to be vulnerable together; there is no pay-off, no power in vulnerability together. We had money to buy our hot meal or cold drink. Money was not the problem. We were homeless but Grace and Herself (Mahina) were making her strength known to us. Day and night. Night and day. We were not sure, but we were learning to count of the moon and trust. 

 

Time and adventures have marked us with lines very different than the yellow ones that made space for SUVs, trucks and hybrid vehicles on asphalt. What has happened shows itself in the lines and creases that etch landscapes across our faces. Our bones bend and creak like the limbs of the Tall Ones who have given us a place beneath their canopy. Our hair has thinned, turned a color somewhere between yellow and white. The texture of my once ink black hair is wild, the cowlicks have joined and become a setting for storm fronts to meet. The high and low pressure systems tattoo themselves to me and the only way through a storm is to weather it, say your prayers, prepare as best you can, and accept the reality: 'vulnerable' applies to us all. And, when I go to my Hawaiian Dictionary to see how 'vulnerable' translates in Hawaiian, there is no exact equivalent. Instead, I dig for the value that says I (as human) know my place is no more nor less than all and I remain ha'a ha'a humble. Interesting ...

 

As the Solstice and New Moon approach and new intentions and letting go of what is no longer working for me, "I pray to embrace life in my community, humbled and grateful to share from the rim of darkness the light we know is true. Your stories are medicine. Pass them on."

 

Blessed Solstice and New Moon to all our readers and our 'ohana,

 

Mokihana, Pete and Jots

 

 



 

Time and Turnings: New Moon in Libra, Monday, October 15, 2012 and the start of Makahiki

Hawaiians observe[d] Twelve Lunar Months every year. Each month featured 29 or 30 lunar phases (the Mauli phase at times being omitted) and was divided into three anahulu called Ho'onui (rising or waxing), Poepoe (full or round) and 'Emi (diminishing).

The start of the new year was marked with the rise of Makali'i, the "little eyes" (Pleiades). The first lunar month of the year, Makali'i, is said to begin with the first New Moon following the rise of Pleiades on the Eastern sky..."

Source: http://www.wpcouncil.org/indigenous/Indigenous_Display-1.pdf

New Moon in Libra, October 15, 2012 is Monday approaching. New Moon, New Year the potential for something new (an idea, a cleaned floor, a washed window) all stack up as a focus as Earth rotates and revolves in the heavens. The astrology of this New Moon? Here's what my astrologer Elsa wrote:

...The new moon is  supported by Jupiter so this offers a great chance for a fresh start on a Monday morning. Jupiter’s energy is protective. It’s benevolent, visionary and expansive. Libra deals with love, money and sociability.  Try to incorporate these things when you set your intention.  More (Jupiter) love (Libra) for example. Try to get along (Libra) with a broader range (Jupiter) of people."

That last line "Try to get along (Libra) with a broader range (Jupiter) of people" rings the bells in me as I get closer to a solar return, a birthday coming in mid-November. The New Moon and the New Year of Makahiki give me cause to celebrate positive and amazing progress in a life that needed reassembling. October 15 marks a year's anniversary of committing to retraining my brain (the limbic system-the ancient brain) and in particular the almond-shaped amygdala. For nearly a year of daytimes and night-times I've taken the path less traveled to re-define ideas, images and feelings about big and wild things like: fear, threat, danger and safety. That less traveled path is the one not trodden by habit. If there is one big, big thing this journey of healing from MCS has taught me it's this: the choice is ultimately mine! Blaming others for the habits or choices they make that (might) affect me is my habit. Habits and expectations are locked in if left unquestioned and last October 15th I made a choice to choose differently. Changing is difficult mostly because I have to keep believing the change is worth the discomfort; the water is deep when you launch from solidity of shallow water. The muscles for swimming new and deeper water (change) are unused to the exercise. For me, one of the muscles that needed exercise is the muscle that make my mouth say, "NO. No. nO." No, this is not for me. No, I have had enough and I'm leaving now. No, you don't really know what's best for me."


We watched the 2009 movie The Soloist the other night. The film is based on a true story of Nathaniel Ayers, a musician who develops schizophrenia and becomes homeless. If we had not 'become homeless' and without a house for seven months ourselves, the film would have struck me differently. Since we have the memory and the experience of being without a house the drama played notes on my internal strings: notes in minor keys the haunting and lower notes that bring up grief and sorrow. The most potent lines of the film were spoken by the social worker-maybe the director of the homeless shelter LAMP, when he is dogged by the well-meaning journalist who 'discovered' the musical genius Nathaniel Ayers  in the Los Angeles' Skid Row. The journalist is sure that the solution or fix for Ayers is therapy and drugs. "You can do that, right! Diagnose him and treat him with drugs. (paraphrased).' The answer the journalist receives is something like this: "These people have diagnosis, upon diagnosis. They don't need or want one more diagnosis; and drugs? Which drug haven't they had. LAMP is a program based on the belief that names its goal: HOUSING FIRST.

"The approach we use, and helped to pioneer, is called Housing First or permanent supportive housing. Conventional wisdom has long said that homeless people with disabilities had to “straighten up” before they could obtain housing. But people with severe disabilities cannot access treatment, let alone make dramatic changes in their lives, while struggling to survive on the streets.

 " Housing First approaches are based on the concept that a homeless individual or household's first and primary need is to obtain stable housing, and that other issues that may affect the household can and should be addressed once housing is obtained. In contrast, many other programs operate from a model of "housing readiness" — that is, that an individual or household must address other issues that may have led to the episode of homelessness prior to entering housing...

Our Quonset is now fully enclosed and mostly sealed against the dampness that moves back into the woods for winter. The look of a Long House creates joy. Pete is off for a few hours of his away-from-home work, but as he prepared to leave he turned around. I was hugging him but he could still look over my head. "It's just where I wanted to be before it starts to rain." We have lived in many places, and many on-lookers would never call these places "home" as they look on: a front yard in a Windward O'ahu residence; a driveway for the night; a parking lot stall along the white sandy shores of a Hawaiian beach ...

Watching The Soloist rewound memories just enough to bring me to the crossroads of my road less traveled; the one where I understand to stay off the trodden path of an incited amygdala. To have a house that we call home ushered us into this space "a homeless individual or household's first and primary need is to obtain stable housing, and that other issues that may affect the household can and should be addressed once housing is obtained."As the New Moon and the Pleiades signal the beginning of a New Year approaching I write from the comfort of that housing obtained. Without housing my decision to begin retraining my ancient brain ... the one that is ignited and left in the fully-on position, the one that is probably living with most homeless, was not an option. Timing is divine, we have made sense of trauma and come to a new island, a place where we are housed and at home.

Home ... inside a well-built nest

Homelessness is an equal opportunity experience. Exemption is not guaranteed, and the fix? No easy solutions. But, there is a grace to the potency of a New Moon intention to "try to get along (Libra) with a broader range (Jupiter) of people." The gray skies mute the senses today. I think of the many new relationships I have experienced since committing to retraining my amygdala; practicing limits and exercising my mouth and mind to say "No" and mean it. A year of practice and I can feel how much more space I have in my heart for "Yes!" I'm just where I hoped to be before winter came.