Feed the day dreamer

This is what I call an Aunty Lily sky ... "God taking his sheep home" she'd say to me.

Before and awhile ago ...

"There's not much to a sparrow is there dad?" The young boy whispered in his best quiet voice cupping his hands into a tiny megaphone to empty his words into his father's right ear.

Setting the binoculars aside David Courtney considered the best way to answer, "See for yourself. See how they spend time. Let's say a minute. Start with one minute." The boy with hair the color of wheat nearly-ready for harvest loved looking through the glasses. Small enough to fit his boy sized face the field glasses brought the tiny birds within reach. Though he knew -- through countless spying adventures with his father--never to get too close or move too fast the urge to do both itched the way mosquitoes bit.

Sandy Courtney waited til he heard the CLICK from his father's silver stop watch. When the man nodded the boy adjusted the lenses until the blur of a scene became four small brown sparrows.

What Sandy Courtney at age five-and-a-half was very, very good at was remembering what he saw by rendering. His depictions were skillful and included shadow and elements of proportion and perspective. He delighted in drawing! Whispering in bird chatter as the pencil stroked the page images coming as if from a prescribed map his small hand was privy to.

He narrated the sketches, "This sparrow has face feathers like mine. My face feathers -- under this face -- of course!" The boy giggled as he stopped for a moment to poke gently at toasty freckles splattered across his cheeks, under his nose, across his nose, above his pink-brown lips and cube of a chin." - A snip from the medicine story Ariel and I

The Silver-haired Raven from the original medicine of  The Safety Pin Cafe 

Pinning the wild and beautiful self

"Dressed for the season with her red hibiscus over her left ear, tea cozy hat, paisley wool shawl." - describing Pale the Border Witch

A rendering of the Gypsy Woman ... a gift sent to the wild patience within a dear friend
 who inspired the mythic characterization

Pete and I were awake early, grateful for good and restful sleep. My dreams were bold, startling me away as Pete stirred beside me in the futon. Recuperative is sleep. Pete is back in the vardo enjoying another serving of that medicine, sleep. I have fed myself breakfast and was given a rare and beautiful early morning (4 AMish) sighting of Mahina the Moon setting in the west. Through the trees I spied her light, waved to her, and prayed I see her again.

Terri Windling's blog Myth and Moor is a regular place of inspiration and discovery for me. Her gifts for words and story, and the storytellers who listen for the wildness of tales is a consistent one. This morning she offered food for the wild things. I was especially appreciative of this quote

"Storytellers ought not to be too tame,"  Ben Okri advises in his inspiring essay collection A Way of Being Free. "They ought to be wild creatures who function adequately in society, They are best in disguise.  If they lose all their wildness, they cannot give us the truest joys."

It got me to thinking and appreciating the wildness and the disguises that make for a border-crossing witch's regular, or irregular, feeding schedules. I remember one of my first teachers and guides to the wild, my Aunty, who made the skies a living and movable being with many faces.

On the table here in the Quonset a sketchbook fills with the pencil notes and renderings of a Moon Watcher. Inside the first page "Welcome Mahina Lovers" . My husband's moon observation journal. He said the images from the story Ariel and I, the snippet that begins this post, were so powerful and visual for him. I see how those wild words of a small boy and his father noticing sparrows has fed my moon-ruled Cancerian partner.

Some days I'm not sure how I manage to function in society. Surely, I am not facile with the process. Oh well, maybe it's that I function adequately and that is good enough. When the Moon rises later today it will be a Hua moon. The moon fattens. There's empty space in Pete's journal for the Hua moon. He sleeps and perchance he dreams.

"There must be more to life than having everything"

“There must be more to life than having everything.”
― Maurice Sendak

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

The sky is that soft flannel blanket blue and from my window in the vardo Mahina the moon is crisp against it present in her cap of white, her day hat for it is nearly the 'Ole Phases. Present for those who notice, our only moon reflects the sun's light so we can see the wild and wondrous things that are inside.This has been a wild, wild week. Astrologically the past seven days were described like this[subscribe to Elsa's weekly newsletter for a weekly plan that might help]: "This will be one of the most dynamic and challenging weeks we've seen this year.  We're two t-squares and a poorly aspected, explosive full moon in Aries. It makes sense you be armed with a plan so that's what I'll offer." I have been wrestling with issues folks like me at near age 65 are challenged to deal with: Medicare-- to pay for health insurance, or not to pay for health insurance. This post is NOT going to be a debate about health insurance. Instead here is a place where an elder in training picks up her digging stick once again and asks: What's best for her now? Saturn moves into Scorpio (where many planets and interactions take place for me) tomorrow, October 5, 2012. I attend to the heaven's pathways and here's something from Eric Francis I'm considering:

"You are approaching one of the boldest “get serious” moments of your life, a process spanning nearly three years... I’ve described Saturn in your Sun sign (or in your rising sign) as an extended phase of coming to terms with yourself. Said another way, this transit is about becoming your own inner authority, something that few people ever do—and which is much likelier with Saturn in your neighborhood. One sad story of our society is people refusing to grow up; other people continue to have authority over their choices and even their opinions. Saturn in your sign can feel like authority figures or seemingly more powerful people imposing themselves on you. This is a reminder to take authority over all of those aspects of your life, and many more where you anticipate this kind of involvement by others..."

Many "get serious" moments fill my life; internal conflict is tattooed into my astrological chart.The years of living seriously with multiple chemical sensitivities gifted me with an incredible remembering, or what I described in my mythic memoir Wood Craft (soon to be published!) as reassembling.

From Wood Craft this description, "Reassembling is  version of recycling beliefs and attitudes that no longer served the original design of Creation. Bits of the original belief or attitude might have sustaining value. Rather than throw the whole kit and caboodle out, to become part of the Cosmic Heap, the wise Creators gave us the inspiration to simply reassemble and start again without too harsh a melt-down, if at all possible."

From this beautiful place in the woods, my family and I continue reassembling a life that is built upon foundations that are less grand; built less on hubris and more with humility. The extended clear and dry season allows us to rebuild the 8x8 Quonset hut adding more space for two old dears and their cat to enjoy a comfortable winter, stretched out together on chairs around a sweet round table for hot food and lively conversation. Not too much to expect, and definitely a progression over the past five years. Our choices to build what we build has been influenced on all levels by our finely-tuned connection to how we build and why. No longer willing to believe that if we had everything we would be happy, we needed first to live within -- diving into the deep tunnels and hidden compartments of beliefs to make sure we know our contents, and own them. Last night Pete and I were glad to climb onto the futon after a hot shower toweled dry with a clean bath towel.

Pete had worked all day and into the early evening muscling the long sheets of weathered copper and red siding that will be our new Quonset. Steel is unforgiving in his tensile strength. Screwed in place against the curved frames there are slight wobbles to the shape of things, and the paint will need to off-gas more before my tender eyes do not weep from their volatility. Lengths of salvaged green canvas needs to be cut and sown into ribbons to hold our winter pouches of insulation in place. The wooden table under the apple tree waits for me to finish my ribbon-making; after a romp with words I tell the table and the green canvas ... soon back to you I'll come.

Settled onto the futon, under a jumble of cozy blankets we pushed into a movie and watched and listened to the story of Max and his wild rumpus with The Wild Things. Five years ago the reassembling process for these two old dears began in earnest. There was no turning back, only moving steadily forward down the stream, over the rapids and onto sand bars for rests and rejuvenation; then dive we do again as life awaits us.

“I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more...What I dread is the isolation. ... There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.”
― Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

And you?