Hedgespoken "stitched with stories and adventure ..."

When Pete, my husband, and I began to build a life that would be wheeled, I found a woman, an artist, an alchemist of words and someone who had a heart that beat strongly when I was unsure of my own. She, this strong hearted woman created a blog where her life and her ways were pictured both with words and her hauntingly beautiful beings. She called this blog The Hermitage. Once I discovered her, and her world, I have followed and been inspired to hear my heart more courageously. 

Below is a small quote from a recent (May 1, 2016) post from Rima Staines' and Tom Hirons' Hedgespoken  site. The strong hearted woman and her family continue to build a life that is truly hand-made. The links to see for yourselves, dear readers, what this hand-made life story is will speak for itself. I leave my congratulations, and best wishes to Rima and Tom and their massively community-based dreams coming true. Thank you for the bright light of an example for a good and truly colorful life!

"... In this year and a half of building, our lives have also changed immeasurably with the birth of our son in February 2015. Over this epic year, we have lived in a yurt for 6 months, and with friends for a few more, whilst we waited for our home to be born. We have set out on the incomparable path of parenthood, our path made harder by the immense work that has been the birthing of Hedgespoken, but also with a sense of planting a flag in the ground ahead, making a life for our boy that is stitched with stories and adventure and the colourful stuff of dreams. This bit was bound to be hard, but the stretch has been more than we could have imagined, and we are not quite at the other side of it yet..." - Rima Staines (link to the entire blog post by clicking on 'Rima Staines')

Magic-makers live!

Once upon a time when the world was falling inside out a friend watched as step by step and then in halves and quarters .... we built a space from which to begin again. Early in the days and nights of mending and dreaming of the new life being re-created that friend sent special packages of magic and magic-makers, art from across a continent and an ocean created by a woman named Rima Staines.


'we built a space from which to begin again'

 

 

That magic-maker and artist became one of my life-lines and spider web connections as strong as Grace and alive with passion to live a life fully turned to ON. Rima was living in a moveable home, a Bedford StepVan at the time of our first meeting (thanks to the 'web'). We shared stories of wee home living, and magic that wayfarers understand to be life empassioned. Rima encouraged me when critics chastised our awkward new beginnings from a home no bigger than most peoples' walk-in closets.

 

It makes no nevermind, magic-makers are fueled with a spark and fire that will not be easily put out. We root, and we regain deep footings ... and today in Devon, across the continent and over the Atlantic waters Rima Staines and her husband Tom Hiron have launched a marvelous project ... A THEATRE AND TRAVELING CIRCUS FOR THE IMAGINATION --  HEDGESPOKEN

 



Rima and Tom have designed and created a crowd funding project to build a traveling circus decked to be their home as well. The life of traveling storyteller and artist is one I relate to and write about in my medicine stories; and wish to encourage and bless this in the real-time venture. So here is a serving of encouragement, with blessing entwined and mixed well. Click on the link above to discover the magic and real life being conjured in a town called Devon, and if you've the resources to contribute, please do.

 

Many good and lucky coppers to you Rima and Tom.

 

Terri Windling has a lovely post with lively pictures of HEDGESPOKEN rolled out in a field in Devon, UK.

 

Making cider poems

Apple ... There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples, resulting in a range of desired characteristics. Different cultivars are bred for various tastes and uses, including in cooking, fresh eating and cider production. Domestic apples are generally propagated by grafting, although wild apples grow readily from seed.-from Wikipedia

"Up the hill,
Up the hill not 
To the right,
Nor to the left"
We sought the party
Out of sight.

At last familiar truck
With bright kayak
Two bikes
Atop his rake
We made our way
On a perfect Fall day.

I wish there were
Photos to recall the day
The day of ruckus wind
Bending Alders
Chasing wildness
Through stands already topped.

Buckets of apples
Colors of yellow-greens,
Mottled almost marble reds,
Large as a boy's baseball mitt
Nibbled by hunger squirrels
Apples.

Unfettered  wasps
Sought some sweetness
In bags of fruit
They left one sting
We wash, chop, grind, press
Cider makers.

Chattering girls
Women in boots
A farmer in flipflops
City visitors
Island neighbors
Make juice.

At last the final
Apple cleaned
The quarters
Ground and pressed
Pink juice
And apple pie

Made for
Autumntime smiles
Cider in tiny
Glass apple jars,
Empty water jugs
Harvests of the year.


As I sorted through my dreams and waited for the oatmeal to cook I visited Rima Staines and found these words and photographs. Inspired by her autumntime renderings and photographs the scolding dreams lost their sting and so this blog made its way ... up the hill, not right nor left.

And, just for fun, rewound and snipped. A poem can be made twice by taking the tail off each stanza and making cider poems. Try it yourself, with friends, or after a dish of oatmeal or sip of cider.

Harvests of the year
And apple pie
Make juice
Cider makers
Apples
Through stands already topped
On a perfect Fall day
Out of sight.