A skillful writer knows that he or she must tell two stories at once ...

"A skillful writer knows that he or she must tell two stories at once: the surface tale, and a deeper story encoded within the tale's symbolic language. The magical tropes of fantasy, rooted as they are in world mythology, come freighted with meaning on a metaphoric level. A responsible writer works with these symbols consciously and pays attention to both aspects of the story...I believe that those of us who use the magic of words professionally should remember how powerful stories can be -- for children especially, but also for adults -- and take responsibility for the tenor of whatever dreams or nightmares we're letting loose into the world. This is particularly true in fantasy, where the tools of our trade include the language, symbolism and archetypal energies of myth. These are ancient, subtle, potent things, and they work in mysterious way." -"Working with Words" Myth & Moor, Terri Windling 

"We, as Native Hawaiians, must continue to unveil the knowledge of our ancestors. Let us interpret for ourselves who our ancestors are, how they thought, and why they made certain decisions. In the process, we treat them with honor, dignity, love, and respect--whether they be akua, ali'i, or kanaka--because they are our 'ohana, our family...Entering the world of ancestral memory requires a certain mindset. Take time to enjoy and understand each phrase or line before going on. Remember, this gift took many lifetimes to wrap. Don't be in a hurry to unwrap it and become frustrated in doing so. The meaning and force of the ancestral knowledge will unfold precept upon precept, and each has a code to inspire you on to the next level."  Preface, Ka Honua Ola, Pualani Kanaka'ole Kanahele

""We are not in danger of exceeding the boundaries of language, nor are we prisoners of language in any dire way. I am much more concerned with my place within the context of my language. This, I think, must be a principle of storytelling. And the storyteller's place within the context of his language must include both a geographical and mythic frame of reference. Within that frame of reference is the freedom of infinite possibility. The place of infinite possibility is where the storyteller belongs." - an interview with N. Scott Momady

"Words are intrinsically powerful. And there is magic in that. Words come from nothing into being. They are created in the imagination and given life on the human voice. You know, we used to believe -- and I am talking about all of us, regardless of our ethnic backgrounds -- in the magic of words. The Anglo-Saxon who uttered spells over his field so that the seeds would come out of the ground on the sheer strength of his voice, knew a good deal about language, and he believed absolutely in the efficacy of language." -N. Scott Momady

The words are those of writers I admire, the photos are those I captured on our digital camera. Do we own these expressions? I wonder about that, the idea of 'owning.'

Making the most of it, seeing the story between the jagged edges

We've had our first snow. Early in the morning when I woke and walked the short distance between the vardo steps and the Quonset door the first of the white and frosty snow had topped the iron table and dressed the Huckleberry branches. Spider webs dangled and blew in a gentle breeze, like filigreed  earrings fragile in appearance tougher than they look. The year is coming close to an end, Winter Solstice is close; the promise of more light and longer days. In the meantime the daylight ends around four o'clock. Snow is as foreign to our chickens as it was to me at twenty-five years. This is the chickens' first snow and they found it too foreign for their pronged feet, and took flight from their coop steps thinking their wings would take them to familiar ground. Not today, or at least not yet.

I'm in the middle of writing the third of what I'm called my medicine stories. Hatched from the need to make sense of life and the twists and switch backs that occur -- the ones that show me how attached to one sort of journey, and not the possibilities of lots others, I am finding great joy and the efficient magic of common things. A few choices and my consistent and insistent habit of writing have led me along the way of an artful life:

• Learn from example. My mother was an artful being. She was fun and she was generous. She was also very good at making do with what she had. Safety Pins. Bake my own birthday cake. "Don't dwell on the past." "people come to visit me, not my things." The first medicine story "The Safety Pin Cafe" is my mythic memoir with my mother's memory at the core of things.
• Notice the big and small things. I've always been observant, and secretive. For most of my early years I observed silently, being called shy. I continue to be observant, and not so much secretive as selective or discerning. The condition I live with makes it necessary to be alone a lot. In a very real way I suppose, my condition has come from my astrology: I have a Capricorn Moon. To nurture and nourish a Capricorn Moon time alone is essential.
• Magic and tale telling is good. Before there was Disney, there were stories. Before there was television there was radio. Before radio there was talkstory, the everyday and common magic of stories told Island style, Hawaii kine. I was born to story tellers, and through my father's and mother's examples I listened to many tales. In the years since those story were first told, and the subsequent years of forgetting the details, I have not forgotten how I felt when I heard the story. Maya Angelo said “At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” That's what I hope to leave people with when I write; and especially hope that is true when they read the medicine stories. I hope I leave people feeling the magic.
• Practice, practice, practice.  When I retired from the corporate whirl and the community classrooms I thought my career could morph from those structured years of working for the man. I held to that belief far too long. Trying to replicate old habits, I simply created old habits. Life, Akua, and the Spirits of Life have taken me (sometimes kicking and screaming) to this new practice. Makua O'o and the blogging practice that has unfurled from the practice of training to be an elder is a funny life. All and everything before counts, and, it makes no never mind. Both and everything, all and nothing matters. Mostly, I just show up and write. Practice. Write. Mend. Practice. Write. Mend ...

This newest medicine story is about a magician and a juggler, brothers. And is tentatively being called "Mend, meddle, magic." These brothers are given a responsibility, with instructions from the characters Pale (the border witch) and the Silver-haired Raven the principle characters from The Safety Pin Cafe. The question is: how practiced are these brothers with instructions? I'll end this pre-solstice ramble by telling you that the two photos above, taken while I was on one of my Artist's Dates, was inspiration enough to put something down for the new story. I have to give many thanks to my on-line writers' group Prime the Pump for the space and the artistic mirrors (my writing friends) who encourage me to keep at it week after week. THANKS, you know who you are!!!

Here's a tiny bit to read from the medicine story in progress "Mend, meddle, magic." See how those two pieces of pencil inspired some magic.

"It might have been a spell or perhaps the gap that happens quickly, like the snap of a pencil broken in two. Jagged where the once whole instrument colored bright yellow allowed a thought to etch itself onto paper, the pencil shorter now. Yet one has a point, an original purpose. The other?

"Have we been that bright yellow pencil, snapped in two?" Alex wondered to himself, wishing there was an answer he might have over looked.

The Magician held the spinning egg only so long as his brother allowed it. It was always that way. Magic worked, really worked, when it was allowed. Once upon a time, a long, long, long time ago the two brothers were one pencil. They worked as one they may as well have been the same. Waiting for the egg to stop moving Alexander Santiago remembered the beginning. Time waited..."

Happy Solstice,
Mokihana

The second part of the journey and medicine story begun with "The Safety Pin Cafe", will be ready for readers on January 1st, 2014. Link here to find out about it, and buy it.

Annoying?

"Does anyone else find the common practice of stating an opinion and then going on to write "That said... blah blah blah" or "Having said that... blah blah blah," to be extremely redundant and poor stylistically? Whenever I see it I feel like I'm reading the writing of a first grader that is too lazy to craft decent writing, even though professional writers are sometimes guilty.

That said, it does seem to serve a useful purpose in informal writing, as a sort of disclaimer: a bash-you-over-the-head acknowledgment of apparent contradictions or counterarguments."

-From a forum on The Free Dictionary.com

That phrase is one of my pet itches. Until I began blogging and reading blogs I'd never heard it. Now, it's an invasive species; showing up in an otherwise fascinating read, Doc by Mary Doria Russell. The story is that of Doc Holliday, Russell's expertly researched and told revisionist history of an American West hero. When I came across "that said" in that fictionalized history I almost spit. Could "that said" fit in a saddle?

It's an uncommon thing for me to rant like this, but there you have it. Elders do.

Does this phrase bother you?

Making space for voice

This spring in the woods I am wearing electric blue boots (waterproof, winter boots) with fuzzy orange lining and trim of that same vibrant color. My feet are short and wide and my ankles need extra support so shoes are a challenge. When I find a style and brand that works I go for it! The first winter in the woods I found a pair in a size and width that suit me; I've worn them 24/7 for three years. The backs of the boots are frayed from the many ins and outs as I put the boots on, take the boots off. We don't wear shoes or boots inside and to get from one room to another in our world one must go out into the woods.

Those electric blue boots are getting their initiation during the first days of June. Strange time for initiating a pair of winter boots, but they work just fine for me and I say, "thank you." Back inside with my feet bare and my toes freed up I'm happy to be blogging again. The break has done me good and the little gray cells and my navigational tools for crossing borders of the imagination are ripe like the salmon berries. I gobble the ideas like hungry Robin Woman and pin the energy of salmon berry magic to the page to remember them, and pass them along here.

When I was little one of the toys I relished as a girl was the phonograph. We didn't own one but my cousins did. My cousins would visit and sometimes spend the night while their mother worked. She worked at a record store, Thayer's Music in Honolulu. Along with a phonograph my cousins brought records, story records. Records, music and story easily transported me into worlds not yet known. I imagined and though it would be years before I found my own, I would learn that I had a voice. Those early records, and the time spent listening, really listening was priming me.

Writer Terry Tempest Williams said this about receiving her first voice lesson. In a talk given in Bellingham, Washington, Williams spoke about her parents and their influence on her (and her brother's) life. Williams was addressing the audience and speaking about her book When Women Were Birds. The link below takes you to the presentation. She says about her mother's influence as voice teacher "Mother had her own intensity but it was contained." Williams then describes how she and her brother sat in front of the phonograph and listened to the orchestra and narration of Peter and the Wolf. "We were introduced to the distinctive voice of each character...Within those 30 minutes I receized my first tutorial on voice. All of us has one, and each voice is distinct."

In a serendipitous connection with Terry Tempest Williams (whose books I admit to not yet reading) I inhaled the common influence of music ... making space for voice. Knowing how music can feed us the oxygen of inspiration. The mana necessary to grow where we are planted at the time to make use of space and transcend it, and time as well. Reopening my blog feels like freedom to me. Freedom opens up space in my lungs and fuels my heart to feed me 'ea ... sovereignty. The voices of fiction that tinker with my imagination love the feel of my feel in fuzzy orange lined electric boots. In those boots, my feet are ageless and agile. "Reality is what it is, but perception is King," my astrologer Satori wrote that the other day and I love repeating it. "However you frame reality creates your experience and the mind and senses are key."

And the electric blue and orange boots ... What you think?

Terry Tempest Williams http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suPndViGWko

Nimble Fingers, Fumbling Mind: an autobiography

"...The message is clear: if you want to know me, read my work." - From an interview with Barry Lopez.

There's a big outdoor fire just through the woods, up close fires are difficult for me these days. I grieve the luxury of being a Northwest type woman who used to chop, split and stack alder and fir for a season of wood burning. But, I have chosen a different sort of life and though old friends are bewildered by my limitations I cannot blame them. I've changed so in the years in between. So I close the door tight against the smoke, and sit to write behind the closed door.

The quote above from an interview with Barry Lopez shared with and reprinted by Terri Windling has me reflecting on the art, the work, the expressions that make for a hand-crafted life.This morning I sat with an open 'page' in the space of my on-line writers group. I felt something wanting to be said. Something of a hybrid between non-fictional truth telling and fantasy: myth.

Nimble Fingers, Fumbling Mind

"Mind you I know it is a blessing as well as a curse to own these nimble fingers attached to a fumbling mind," it was a disclaimer meant to put him off the scent. Rather than look up and confirm the smoke-screen I crossed the room and poured myself onto the piano bench. Half-written scores of melody lay in stacks, I pushed them aside to make room for my ass.

"Find center. Middle C. Start the scales from there. Go. Play."He wasn't buying my distraction. Poured more coffee into his china cup, added milk, two lumps of sugar, stirred slowly and sipped. Sun pulsed through the streaked windows as my fingers struck the smooth whites and blacks, tempting my mind with the bottle of vinegar ... should wash that window; the cat would love a walk before it rains again. My fingers struck the smooth whites and blacks. I'm really too old to get very good at this. My fingers strike the smooth whites and blacks.

A small mouse squeaked from the hearth rug at the far-end of the music room. My fingers loosened now the strikes on the smooth whites and blacks were quicker. The squeaking kept pace with the scales. I thought about stopping, but looked up and saw him wave me down.

"Keep playing."

I did that. My fingers were loosened enough to do the scales with less effort. Over the tops of my glasses I turned and saw the young piano teacher pull from his pocket a wad of fleecy wool. He tossed the wool into the fire. Before the wool was overly burnt, Mouse Woman rescued her prize and started making wonderful piles of mountain goat wool with her ravelly fingers. Mischief had been avoided. Music was being made. Balance was brought to a fumbling mind. A most satisfying end. Mouse Woman loves satisfying endings.

My Inspiration: http://books.google.com/books/about/Mouse_Woman_And_The_Mischief_Makers.html?id=cbFMhIafXkEC

If you have never read the stories of Mouse Woman you are in for a serving of wonderful magic. I found Christie Harris' trilogy Mouse Woman and The Mischief Makers at my local library.

Can you relate to having nimble fingers and a fumbling mind?

Braiding stories

Spring is here. The wild winds have stirred pollens into the mix sending the message, "New birth, new birth, now." All that is wonderful and necessary but I have my challenges increase with the pollen season so it's a mixed bag spring is ... and so is life. Mixed. I'm spending time reviewing and making changes to two stories, and have created new birth to mark spring with a website-blog called Red Hibiscus and Dragon Wings. Grateful for these woods where we can plug into the 10cents-a-killowatt source of electricity while we manually wash our dirty clothes and wring them through with appliances it is a life of braiding; dexterity, practice and variable results all part of the process.

Years ago I began to use the imagery and the process of braiding to describe the nature of the writing I do. Braiding and writing are hand-work and in either work, thinking about it won't get it done. My own hair is now nearly to my waist and is threaded through with bands of white and silver along with the black. Sometimes it just falls, other times it tangles because I haven't washed it with filtered water and the mineral-hard Whidbey water loves to tangle. Other times, I will it into two long braids that hang behind my ears. And then there are days when I braid it into a single tail to dangle down my back.

When I was a younger woman a friend who had hair thick and black and long tried to teach me to French Braid my hair. Maybe most of you know that French Braiding happens when you don't simply braid the whole split into three hanks, but 'pick up hair as you go' to create a flatter braid. I have never gotten the hang of this braiding style. But, this morning when sorting through a subject to bring to the blog I found the YouTube included above and gleaned from it a bit of imagery that fits for what I am doing with my writing. [Check this: at 2:00 minutes into the video above the process of 'pick up hair as I go']

I am 'picking up hair as I go' with the fairy tale The Safety Pin Cafe and my novel-in-the-work Splinters. Each of these stories has been written on my blogs. I've laid hanks of the story in their first and unedited stages into blog posts, writing fluidly and automatically. Without much preparation or methodology, I braided simply with the Muse directing my hands and opening my heart for hearing the story. Weeks and months later (in the case of Splinters) I am loosening up those braids to rework them. Time and more life (more hair) open me to a new way of looking and hearing the story. A bit of hard water has been flushed through and I filter out some of the unnecessary and consider the editing advice once again. I pick up hair as I go.

In the case of my novel, the time traveling story that grew from my life of living in Hilo I am rewriting the opening chapter and think I have a way of tying things together at the end ... hopefully, braiding a better story. Here is a link and a bit from the original hank of the Introduction and opening chapter of Splinters

Introduction

Time is maleable, my ancestors would probably agree that time is a membrane rather than a wall with access to wa i mua o i hope.  This is a story of time travelers and values that travel as surely as the moon, in cycles and variation you can count on regular surprises particularly if you are paying attention.  One family and their extended 'ohana experience time travel on the illumination of match sticks, splinters tipped with sulphur, and discover how ancient and contemporary truth adapt to survive.  This is a journey of visits with old heroines who remain as tangible as basil and tomato red sauce for supper.  Polynesian and ancient earth culture season "Splinters" with language and protocol of permissions to invite comfort in any reader with a longing to connect with the feeling of being at home.  If you will allow me, I will spin for you a tale kissed with tradewinds. 

Welina make yourself comfortable,
Mokihana

That Introduction feels like a solid hank to the braid of the story. What is changing is how I look more closely at the details of the scene which I wrote a year ago. There are errors that show themselves, or details that will need explanation to make the story 'true.' Like this:

"A vase of purple cornflowers sat in the middle of the oval table.  El fished into the clear glass fishbowl, pulled up a moon snail shell that was only half there.  She rubbed at the inner spiral of the shell."

When I began writing Splinters I wrote as if the characters were here ... Washington. "Purple cornflowers and moon snail shells" are not usual in Hilo. But, maybe the cornflowers were found in the market or florist. Maybe the moon snail shell was picked up and brought back from the Salish Sea while some of the characters was on holiday? Braiding stories does include the journeys I make or have made and when I write or tell them initially they flow without regard for details. The story engages me and the keyboard allows the first telling. Sometimes, that is just right. And other times, rewrites and dropping a hank might be necessary. I'll make room for rereading and consider the sort of braiding to do today. I am blessed with the handwork of writing, and treasure the chance to learn that I could French Braid if I practiced.

Do you braid?

Speaking of editing ...

 My husband Pete loves to read comics. He thought I might like this. I do, I do.

http://news.yahoo.com/comics/doonesbury-slideshow/

Pinning things together while Saturn is in Scorpio

From something called The Learners Dictionary I found the drawings above and this ... " metal pin that is used for attaching things and that has a point at one end and a cover at the other into which the pointed end fits."

The wind is strong today, and a storm is forecast for tomorrow. With all the water piling up in the heavens it makes sense we would collectively experience storm. On a daily basis I learn things about being an Earthling and try to pin those lessons together to make a bridge over which I get from one place to another. More often than not my bridges take me back and forth to places I have passed before; reassessing my past relationship is something I do often.

Bridges are great inventions, evolving over time I'm sure the simplest of bridges was made by stretching ones legs across a stream, a gap in the valley. Into the arms of the stretchee perhaps a small child, a treasured tool or another such loved one went from one side to the other using the human bridge. I wonder about the metaphor of bridges as I finished reading a message telling us about the passing of a neighbor. Death is both bridge and form of passing from one side to the other. I am saddened by the news though I never met the man who passed; I chatted to his wife just the other day for the first time. Still death is universal and though this couple was in the middle of a divorce, the grief will probably be as full and real regardless.

Which brings me to the point of this post. With mortality and passings being as real as that message, I had begun to write about pinning, and unpinning stories. There are so many stories: some wait to be found again, others remain hidden because only a spider or lizard can tell it, and then there are stories which are only told by the young, or by the very old. Here at Makua O'o I tell stories that happen on my way to becoming an elder. With no guarantees I will be wise in the telling, I have simply told them from the heart. Earlier this week I have been coaxed from the caves into which I retreat when the world is too painful for me. Terri Windling and the writers, readers and artist who come to pin stories to tales, and tales to pictures and pictures to dragon wings on her blog, give me fuel to keep giving it ago ... my best is all that I can do ... and that is enough.

Mortality, and Saturn in Scorpio are messengers that urge living to the fullest in whatever form is possible from this side of the bridge. It's a deep crevasse over which my bridge and those of others transits. Travail and transformation equally possible in the crossing. Today I decided to take my next best shot at the journey and climbed aboard the dragon and urged her to spread those wings ...

Take me from the Red Hibiscus Hedge, Mo'o
Pin me with memories sepia and worn
No longer new but not nearly so old
To forget what purpose Dragon Wings serve
Is as likely as never having bridges
That need crossing

So to continue pinning stories I have returned to my culture where first I was dressed in the language of story. There are red hibiscus and dragon wings waiting, and if you forget the password to enter ...
JUST REMEMBER ... it's "thelanguageofstory."

Click to find Red Hibiscus and Dragon Wings

Dressed in the language of story ...

Yesterday the full flood of a Piscean-sky had me "playing with words and images, using corners of my brains I don't usually visit unless I am dressed in the language of story that wears me like a red hibiscus." If there is a verb that needs to live more comfortably in my life it is playing. Too often I am working hard at play, and that rather defeat the jolliness of the activity so there you have it. A path well-worn does not mean a new one cannot be slid upon from time to time, and then with practice slid upon more often.

Regular readers here know that I am in the fits and tangles of learning the language of 'being edited.' I'm not through the woods and out the other end, but I'm learning to play with it ... tricking the demon-mind from her obsession with being perfect. The opening paragraph of my fairy tale in the works includes this description "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." Now that is a description begging for play!
-long skirt
-paisley wool shawl
Sensible for the season
-tea cozy hat with red felt hibiscus 
-over my left ear
Well now, there's a pitch for playing and whimsy
-my feet splashed in puddles
Oh yeah, a child lives within

My friend JT offered me this about 'editing.'
"this business of editing...Making it all tidy and clear; making the plot arc etc;but I worry that in editing this magic we lose the magic. Now maybe it is true that few people will be able get the story or the magic if it is untamed but I wonder if it needs to suit everyone. Good luck. I love the snippets and flow and hidden parts of the story I like filling in the holes with my imagination and I carry some images around with me. In any case the writing is grand ..."

It is this under-toe that sends me into waters where I cannot touch bottom as I wrestle with the words and tidy it up. The arc of the plot in my tale? No, it does not go from point a to point b and there are holes in it and secrets left untold. Purposeful omission on my part, as the tale was written in doses like homeopathic remedy for the writer, and the reader. The holes are meant to be filled in from the readers' end.

I fear the loss of the free roaming spirit that writes the story through my fingertips. That untamed dragon spirit that without the language of story is constantly on alert and in edit-mode. The middle road has long been one that I find difficult to tread. "Why be normal?" was a license plate I once wore on my sensible brown station wagon.

There are many fine writer's sites and editing blogs that give good and sound practical advice about learning this process. If it turns out this old girl is a dragon that won't be tamed, I do hope there are readers and myth lovers who can recognize me when I am dressed in the language story. Because one thing is for sure, dragons are happiest when in good company.

Source

 Any thoughts?

Preparing for Mercury in Retrograde (begins February 23, 2013): Learning to be edited

"The truth is you have to learn how to be edited just as much as you have to learn how to edit," he says. "And learning how to be edited teaches you a lot about writing, about distance and objectivity and humility, and ultimately about yourself."- Gary Kimata

I got a call from a dear pal. She was calling to check on me. "You haven't been blogging for awhile, are you all right?"

"Thanks," I said and meant it. I don't have many people checking up on me and this friend has been one (a friend) for a good long time. She checks when you doesn't see the evidence of 'writing' because writing is the knotted cord, the Rapunzel's locks that tells her I'm in the zone, in place, or at least writing my way through things.

Behind-the-scenes I am working on incorporating the critique and editing of my latest writing, a fairy tale. It's not easy, and I'm honestly not much practiced in being edited. Some people are of the opinion that if you're writing for yourself (and not writing to be 'published' and paid) blog. Somehow that made sense to me, but doesn't sit well with the many parts of me that are prideful and Leonine. As I've blogged, I've gotten better at the venue, and used it to chronicle the inexplicable, the darkness and the loss; but there has always been the vein of grace and hope and finally, a place for joy and lightness.

Being edited is a process I've avoided for decades. Moving from personal journals onto the immediately gratifying experience of the blog has allowed for much experimentation, and healing. Did I know the writing, and publishing of my medicine story would lead here: to editing? No, I did not. But, likened as editing has often been to being in the hands of a sharp knife, I can apply that comparison to my life during the recent past. I had a biopsy on an ugly growth. I feared the procedure because of my sensitivity to the chemicals common in a medical setting, and feared as well an outcome I could not afford. My fears were unfounded on the one hand, and justified on the other. The growth was benign, but the setting was toxic. Recovering from the chemicals took weeks, but I am better now.

The notes and suggestions for editing The Safety Pin Cafe sat for days and I considered the changes offered me. Was I so in love with the story that I could not allow for a tweak here, or a major rewrite there? During the past week, and now as the 'Ole Moon Phase of four completes itself today, I have rewritten the first "Act" of segment and it is a major shift. My first reader, Pete, my husband has read the rewrite, and re-read the original draft. We have talked about it. I'm mulling things over. I'm writing about the process here. My editor gave me a set of general questions to answer.

Who is your main character at the beginning?
What is her journey?
Why is she on it?
How does she get on it?
What contributes to and what detracts from it's success?
Who is your main character at the end?

My answers to those questions led to a fork in the road, a choice on my part. What would I do with that original story after I answered the questions? And, would I take all the advice to heart or only take what I like and leave the rest (a bit of 12-step advice I have pondered for decades). 


To weave the tale and make use of this blog space, I braid some inspiration, and hank of hair from the fairy tale Rapunzel to make sense of the journey of learning to be edited here. A brief snip from Wikipedia about the original fairy tale Rapunzel describes the plot:

A lonely couple, who want a child, live next to a walled garden belonging to an enchantress. The wife, experiencing the cravings associated with the arrival of her long-awaited pregnancy, notices a rapunzel plant (or, in some versions^[7] of the story, rampion), growing in the garden and longs for it, desperate to the point of death. On each of two nights, the husband breaks into the garden to gather some for her; on a third night, as he scales the wall to return home, the enchantress, Dame Gothel, catches him and accuses him of theft. He begs for mercy, and the old woman agrees to be lenient, on condition that the then-unborn child be surrendered to her at birth. Desperate, the man agrees. When the baby girl is born, the enchantress takes the child to raise as her own, and names the baby Rapunzel. Rapunzel grows up to be the most beautiful child in the world with long golden hair. When Rapunzel reaches her twelfth year, the enchantress shuts her away in a tower in the middle of the woods, with neither stairs nor a door, and only one room and one window. When the witch visits Rapunzel, she stands beneath the tower and calls out:

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair.

I can relate to the opening of this tale, a version more true to the telling than Disney's. The craving of a woman "the wife, experiencing the cravings associated with the arrival of her long-awaited pregnancy, notices a rapunzel plant (or, in some versions^[7] of the story, rampion), growing in the garden and longs for it, desperate to the point of death." My own craving for stories that tell the truth of things through myth is powerful in me. The price for the craving is often more than I've bargained for. Fairy tales with their deep roots in magic and tendrils wound through human nature prickle at things that I would just as soon be kept secret. But ... part of my best good comes when the secrets are composted into story!



Astrologically, that pack of Pisces will be backing up soon, and this old Scorpio with antennae as sensitive as cat's whiskers feels things. So, I've been picking up Mercury in its own shadow thing. Here's part of what Elsa wrote about the Mercury Retrograde beginning February 23, 2012.

We’re talking about people who are angry and don’t know it. We’re talkin’ sneaky, misguided attacks, purposeful brainwashing / gaslighting and the like. It’s entirely possible that you mind (Mercury) fuck (Mars) yourself, so I highly recommend you find an positive outlet for this energy.

 For example, you can direct your imagination to serve others.   You can be driven (Mars) by compassion (Pisces).  You can communicate with sensitivity and you can pray.

You can also transcend your mental confusion. You can escape it, but this is rarely a strong suit for Mercurial types which is why I expect a soupy mess! Just remember that Pisces has the potential for self-undoing. If you find yourself indulging in this, head in the other direction! Also, remember the old adage, “Never try to reason with a drunk”! Odds are you’re going to run into a lot of them.

Astrology, like fairy tales, offer insight and application, warnings and opportunity. I read in Elsa P.'s advice this particular medicine "It’s entirely possible that you mind (Mercury) fuck (Mars) yourself, so I highly recommend you find an positive outlet for this energy." Learning to be edited may be the positive outlet if I am aware to side-step the mind fuck and be in charge of the length of my own hair.

How am I? Still braiding Jt. Still braiding.

From Tangled the Disney version of Rapunzel

December 30th: need a reason for a resolution?

The Sun conjuncts Pluto somewhere in the zodiac, once a year.  This year, the conjunction falls on December 30th.  The Sun Pluto conjunction only occurs at the first of the year, for about 3 years out of 240, so  if you were ever going to make a New Year’s resolution, this would be the year to do so... In whatever case, this is not a fluffy thing nor a fluffy time. You want to set a goal that will require a focused effort. Read the rest from Elsa P.

From Terri Windling's blog Myth and Moor this quote:  "You're an artist ... that means you see the world in ways that other people don't. It's your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn't make you crazy--just different. There's nothing wrong with being different."  - Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

Pete and I were up early. Pete finished off yesterday's dishes and I got oatmeal and raisins going on the small stove top burner. The oatmeal was cooked perfectly. I sprinkled each bowl with cinnamon and a dollop of coconut oil and a dose of sesame milk. We ate breakfast over lively conversation about art and resistance.


The topic led to Pete asking, "If there was something physical to [serve] as resistance to get around, over, through what would it be?"
At first I wasn't sure what he was asking. I had to think about it. I think best in silence. Pete likes to talk things through, have conversation. He's got Gemini. We got somewhere between spoonfuls of warm and comforting oatmeal.
"Cold. Cold and damp are physical resistance for me," I said finally.
"I've been dealing with cold all my life," my husband said.
"And, I haven't. Although damp and wet I know. It rains in Hawaii, too. Memories of damp winters and leaky roof." I chimed.
"Thing is with cold, you have to do something to make it better. Just can't sit there. One stone at a time, you have to warm the stone and bring it in. Ask me to warm up another ..." We use stones heated in water and wrapped in wool socks to get intense heat to ward off cold. I got the message he was offering.

If there is a resolution I want to make it is about caring deeply about staying the [long-term] course of art and writing. I know I need to commit to being confident in the work, and open to being taught what I can not do. If I resist? I stay cold. If I stay cold? Well ... Here's what showed up in my writers' group yesterday as I considered the answer to that question.

The Mistress

"Another?" She asked.
"Well really, I'd rather not," I was using my most forthright voice even as my body was feeling more like the insides of the jelly doughnut. The light from the near-shortest day was already deepening the colors outside. Still, there was sun and a blue sky. She was asking whether another dose of practical medicine wasn't what I required. I was trying to assure ... who? I was trying to assure myself that I did not need yet another cold, a second one this season. I continued ...

 "More sleep is all I need, really," my internal edges sense change more thoroughly than many and after all I thought I'd just finished with 10 doses of remedy. The Mistress was patient, infinitely patient, but was not easily swayed when she spotted something out of place. Virgo. She had shared that bit of her birthmarks with me, and I rarely forget.

"Sleep is a good remedy any day of the week, Pale. I know the cold and damp are not your favorite combination. Let it be so, we will make no never-mind." Her voice was calm and reassuring. She cinched her pouch of herbs; the smell of ginger pungent in the air. The Mistress' bent yet still strong fingers rubbed the dry yellow powder between her thumb and fingers leaving the pinkie and ring finger free. "Back into bed then," she said pulling the bed covers back for me she left finger prints of ginger powder at the edges. "For clarity, and dreams that make room for tomorrow." Smiling I simply nodded knowing she had left me with a remedy nonetheless. I nestled against my pillow, pulled the covers against my chin, and slept.

Do you have reason for new year resolutions?

Listen … with your whole body … LISTEN RESPECTFULLY

R . E. S. P. E. C. T.

Sister Aretha is singing to me in The Kitchenette. R.E.S.P.E.C.T. I rock across the floor with her and dance in sock-covered feet glorious rhythm, the music takes me through the morning. My list of things to do gets done, and I have some fun. Pete's getting so close to hanging the two-piece Dutch front door. Adjustments need to be made; hanging a door is tricky. I am so lucky to live with an artist like this man. "Don't worry honey, things are going to be okay. Don't let these little things rattle you." A shim here, a shave there. He's right, I rattle a lot if left to my own devices. So, to get that rattle out I'm here at the keys taking a break from cleaning and clearing the kitchen part of the kitchenette. A nice nibble of 71% dark soy lecithin free chocolate is helping, too. I feel the welling of tears bubble and somehow they find a comfortable exit ... perhaps that is one of the exit strategies writers have always taken. Fingertips press to the shaft of the quill; then to the fountain pen; typewriter key; computer keyboard. R.E.S.P.E.C.T...

The process of moving is like hanging a door; it takes adjusting, a shim here, a shave there. We'll be moving into a smaller than The Kitchenette space and only the things we love and need will live inside VARDOFORTWO. I know those adjustments will be made, in time. Today, I focus on cleaning and clearing so I can move the table I use for sewing and cutting into the room. I clean the kitchen, sort through dishes, pots and my stack of clothes and make room. There's a progressive to this whole art project of vardo making and tiny space living. Taken out of place, or too far in advance, the art is rushed and perhaps like watercolor everything smears or become rattled. Living simply is an art project of an exquisite sort. I get to meet my old genetic memory of life with a clutter and stacker mother ... and decide if this isn't just one more of those adjustments that needs a little shim or shave. It's a journey and we love it.

We have shadow on the sidewalk so that means there's some sunshine out there. A batch of milk paint for the door can be mixed and a first coat applied to the raw oak door. It's part of the do list today, and now that I've done a bit of successful Fingertip Exit Strategy, there's room for a little more on the do list.

Hope your day is a little do, a little exit strategy that suites you and above it all, hope Sister Aretha sings a lot of R.E.S.P.E.C.T. into the day.

Aloha, Mokihana