February glimpses and guidance

Horoscope for February, 2014

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
Something is shifting for you on a deep inward level, which may feel like the healing of a kind of isolation or loneliness that has followed you around for a while. This has taken you a step closer to your soul, just when you were wondering if such a thing was even possible....
 
 Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
It’s essential for your well-being to sort out what influences in your life are nourishing and which are depleting...The most common reason I’ve seen people abandon their power is because it seems to offer liberation from the consequences of their own mistakes. That’s one form of liberation that will never serve you. - Eric Frances

My attention is focused on family and the showing of my new medicine story The Joy Weed Journal. Pete and JOTS and I are looking forward to some time with my son. He is in Washington sorting and addressing the paperwork and bureaucracy of American/France laws. His wife is French, and in France. He is not French, and is here. To be in the same place at the same time is the goal. We malama their process, and I thaw out oxtails for soup tomorrow.

Showing my new story to an intimate audience, as well as an anonymous group of readers is a different approach for this storyteller. I am enjoying the feedback from the audience and we both learn to exchange feelings and impressions using the internet as a stage: it's refreshing and a welcome next step in the art.

Astrology as a tool for navigating and creating offers me clues to process and progress. The snips of February horoscopes above, from Eric Frances, give me at least two angles to be with February. The Aquarius view feeds my Progressed Sun, now in Aquarius for just a year. I'm just getting used to the fit of Aquarius. Born a Scorpio, the horoscope from Frances makes sense because it touches the familiar journey of my life.

Family and story, good for the first week of the Year of the Horse. And for you?

Happy Lunar Year of the Wood Horse

'Ike aku, 'ike mai, kokua aku kokua mai; pela iho la ka nohona 'ohana.

Recognize and be recognized, help and be helped; such is family life.

The Year of the Horse begins today. This year according to Chinese interpretation is the year of the wooden horse. Several thoughts and feelings come up for me as I consider the meaning of that. Horses: I have little relationship with them personally but respect their beauty, speed and largeness. When I think of 'wooden horse' it's my history of Western mythology and story that reminds me of the wooden horse at the gates of Troy filled with soldiers destined to storm the barricades and take what they believe is theirs. Unexpected and quick changes! That's what's possible in the Year of the Horse. 

What was started long ago and what is now part of the legacy and history of family moves forward with each new generation. There is always room for change even with the knowledge of history. So many bits of history are hidden from each successive generation. Families keep secrets. As this new year begins Pete and I have had many conversations about what it feels like to be growing old. I learn more about my husband and his personal and genetic view of growing, aging, projecting into the future. We share today, have a past that is filled with adventure and the future? Well, we can't know that exactly. What I can do is to recognize and be recognized for who I am and write the story, tell the mythic journey. Weaving fact and hybrids of truth to make sense with a broad lens. Makua o'o, this blog and the practice of elder training is an application of that broad lens. My family include storytellers and upon their backs I ride forward over bridges known and unknown. Like the backbone of a strong and graceful horse, my ancestors give me the kuleana the personal responsibility to record the many journeys. The new forms of storytelling come with each day and night lived in this body -- aging border witch, sensitive woman, vulnerable being. 

There's a new medicine story written for this new lunar year. It's a work-in-progress being attended by an intimate audience of friends as the New Year of the Horse begins. If you'd like to read it, the story is here. It is called The Joy Weed Journal and at its core it is about family.

The Safety Pin Cafe ... a tale, a medicine story begins

 What better medicine for a winter cold then the fabrication of a cozy place, and company worth keeping.

- The Joy Weed Journal

It was a day a duck could love. For that matter the week was a duck's paradise. Dressed for the season in my long skirt, paisley wool shawl, and tea cozy hat with a red felt hibiscus over my left ear my feet splashed in puddles. The sensible shoes, black leather lace-ups answered the silly duck talk coming from the edges, "It makes no never-mind to me. For though I have no oily feathers to shed the rain, my sensible shoes are always game." I'm sure the ducks got even sillier as I twirled at the end of every city block but by then they were out of earshot. Most of the other walkers were tucked tight against the insides of their big black umbrellas, but from under my red felt hibiscus I thought I caught the glimmer of blue. Pale and translucent fairy wings. "They don't usually come out in downpours," my eyes scanned the pavement for their scent. Sometimes you can smell a fairy as sure as see one. The wind began to dance with me as I lifted my nose and sniffed from beneath the felt hat now much soaked through with rain. No fairies. But, a large copper pin about the size of a butterfly dropped from the cherry red awning above me and landed on my right boot. A pin. A safety pin. "My Ma,"besides being famous for carrying a flashlight my mother always wore at least one but more often a couple safety pins. Just in case. Long before it was punk fashion, safety pins were a talisman of security hard-wired in my DNA like knowing how to make something out of nothing. I fondled the pin and felt the distance of time between us compress. There. Here. Together.

A waterfall drained itself off the red awning. I side-stepped the cascade, opened the pin and ran it through the edge of my shawl. Twinkle lights brightened the windows under the awning where a woman smiled from behind pale blue eyes. A bright gold scarf wrapped round her neck seemed to smile, too. She pointed to the sign over the windows. In letters like liquid copper I read The Safety Pin Cafe. Ravens black and shiny as if dipped in wet ink sat in the panes of the windows out-lined and sparkling with fairy lights. "Against the seasonal darkness, the trick is to tickle the light from its hiding places," that was coming from the woman on the other side of the window panes. I smiled as I recognized my fairy, a Muse perhaps, reached for the crystal door knob and pushed the front door open. The smell of warm cinnamon toast and hot milk filled my nostrils.

The tale continues. Click here.
The Safety Pin Cafe and The Joy Weed Journal are Copyright Protected(c), 2012
Yvonne Mokihana Calizar