Reconciling opposites, and a fondness for ambiguity

"My mother's punitive God was the enemy of Coyote. Prankish, lecherous, accident-prone Coyote and his cousins, the unpredictable creators of the world in Native American stories, brough me a vision of this realm as never perfect, made through collaboration and squabbling." So wrote Rebecca Solnit in her article "Coyote".I came across the December 22, 2014 New Yorker Magazine article, drawn to the page of a FREE magazine Pete had brought home from the library.

The wonderful drawing of a rough and lean coyote with the sharpened end of a #2 pencil in his teeth (which I cannot duplicate here) pulled me into the words about the creature we can hear sometimes late in the night, or early in the morning. While JOTS and I are out on our trounces through the woods on the other side of the driveway I see signs of Coyote, sometimes his scat, or the reminder that he or she has preened and the hairball shreds disguise themselves. Because I don't walk very fast, the leavings are something I spot. I make note. Rarely do I see his paw prints, but I keep aware.

Solnit's article continues to describe the stories of her mother's God's enemy, "Where I live, in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Ohlone people say that Coyote was the first being, and that the world was created by him, and by Eagle and by Hummingbird, who laughs at Coyote's attempts to determine just where to impregnate his wife[...] As the California poet Gary Synder once said, "Old Doctor Coyote ...is not inclined to make a distinction between good and evil." Instead, he's full of contagious exuberance and great creative force...."These supple stories, "continues Solnit, "unalarmed by improvisation, failure, and sex, remind me of jazz. The creator in the Old Testament, however, is a classical musician whose score can be performed only one right way."

When I sat to write this morning, I had just just opened, and read, an email from a good pal. She was forwarding me some astrology.

"Many modern astronomers are allergic to astrology, but from my perspective there is no inherent conflict between the two fields. In the spirit of finding reconciliation between apparent opposites, I'm happy to say that you are now a virtual virtuoso in your ability to reconcile both apparent opposites and actual opposites. I invite you to use this aptitude with flair and daring." 

I'm in total appreciation and agreement that astronomy and astrology are twins. I believe the conflicts are organic. Siblings fight. Most of the quibble about 'science' is just, short-sightedness. My ancestors the Kanaka embraced the ambiguity and creative tension with many points of view . Or as one of my favorite teachers and practitioner of Hawaiian epistemology, Manu Meyers answers her detractors who become impatient when her stories seems getting off point, "It's all points."

My friend knows I'm preparing the ground, digging with my o'o (that digging stick) and braiding the many stories that make for an interesting story. Many stories. So many stories, so little time (at least this lifetime:) Just as I finished reading that email, Hummingbird flew through my open kitchen window, lingering and making that incredible music her wings are blessed with. Have you heard your music? While I struck the keys on this board, I heard her, turned to greet her, stopped writing. She was asking for a conversation! When she backed up, and flew into the woods, I followed.

"Where are you?" I asked when I was on the path between the Quonset and the Bath house. Looking, listening, and then finally hearing her voice, her music somewhere nearby. I felt the blessing. The wild knowing that it's all points. Out side this barely sheltering enclosure the wild and many potential meanings run, walk, hover and soar. Between paragraphs as I take a short break from the keyboard, pick up my car keys and drive into town where there are merchants who package food, stack eggplants, and service hungry humans hunting for a sandwich, I stop for what I hoped would be a semi-wild adventure in our local thrift store. Something is happening here. My button nose tuned by the visits of hummingbirds' wings and spiders flinging themselves off my windows, I feel the oddness of order in an old favorite activity. "Is this what's happening to thrift?" I ask the store manager. "I can't find any thing in here without the funk."

Our town is being sterilized, and there doesn't seem to be much to change that, at least in the short run. Rummaging through bins and tall stacks of odd lot second-hand is no longer good enough. Selling old to look like new seems to be the ordering of today. Display the old to look new. Before getting into more mischief, I knew it was time for me to return to the woods, and the oddity of my ordinary and artful life. Reconciling opposites? That's about it, and improvisation? Oh I do love an unexpected zig where it ought to zag.


Do you have a fondness for improvisation?

Astrology by hand

Thanks to CJ Wright of Auntie Moon for this free Vintage chart.  Click here for the download.

I was flipping back and forth between websites and astrology charts yesterday reading a new solar return report for my blog Makua o'o (it will celebrate 5 years on January 5, 2014). My husband walked in and stood behind me, "Wow imagine doing all that by-hand!" Yeah, I thought about that. Astrologers (some) can and still do that. But not so much any longer with all the tools available on-line. I depend on astrologer to navigate my life with Sun in Scorpio, Moon in Capricorn, Mars and Saturn conjunct with Pluto all in Leo, with Uranus in Gemini for quick turns and Jupiter conjunct Venus for luck and expansion. Many of my readers on this blog come for the astrology posts, I am surprised by that, but glad to see how the charts, angles and insights of astrology pros must have something that continues to feed you. I am far from being a astro pro. What I love is the depth of study possible with a committed interest to the art; there's always more to discover and new insight on an old issue.

An elder in training is a lifetime journey, some believe it is lifetime after lifetime of labor, and not work.  I love what Lew Hyde writes when he distinguishes between "work" and "labor" in his book fittingly titled The Gift. This excerpt comes from the chapter The Labor of Gratitude.

..."Work is what we do by the hour. It begins and ends at a specific time and, if possible, we do it for money...Labor, on the other hand, sets its own pace. We may get paid for it, but it's harder to quantify." Hyde goes on to make the connection between labor and being in A.A. " "Getting the program" in AA is a labor...Writing a poem, raising a child, developing new calculus, resolving a neurosis, invention all forms--these are labors. When I speak of a labor I intend to refer to something dictated by the course of life rather than by society, something that is often urgent but that nevertheless has its own interior rhythm, something more bound up with feeling, more interior, than work...A gift that has the power to change us awakens a part of the soul. But we cannot receive the gift until we can meet it as an equal." Hyde's discussion includes his analysis of the fairy tale-fable of The Shoemaker and the Elves, an analysis that both recalls a story from a long ago familiar setting (as a girl reading the tale) and now at 66, an artist and elder in training who appreciates the labor of life, and art. I highly recommend reading the book and reading Hyde's artful way of using tale/fable to highlight his point of view. Hyde says, "We therefore submit ourselves to the labor of becoming like the gift. Giving a return gift is the final act in the labor of gratitude, and it is also, therefore, the true acceptance of the original gift."

"We can't predict the fruits of our labor; we can't even know if we'll really go through with it." Like astrology, the gift juggling and considering potential in your genetics or your natal chart point to the labor involved in our decision to become a human, on Earth. The gift, the labor persists in the daily and cyclical navigations and crossings of a life; seeing how the challenge of a secretive Scorpio might soften without dissolution; or, affirming the best use of a Capricorn moon is to feed it in solitude. A blank chart is beautiful to look at, but it is in the living that turns something beautiful into a gift.  

E ho'a'o no i pau kuhihewa. Try it and rid yourself of illusions. - 'Olelo No'eau

Joni Mitchell

Cooks, goals, dreams and service ... a ramble!

" The very best of cooks are sorcerers, wizards, shamans and tricksters. They must be, for they are capable of powerful acts of transformation. All manner of life, mammal, aquatic, vegetable, seeds and nuts pass through their hands and are transformed by spells — some secret, some written in books annotated with splashes of grease and broth."-Midori Synder from "In Praise of the Cooks"

"Self-criticism is a dream-killer — as is isolation, even of the mental variety. Neptune in Pisces opposite the Virgo Sun urges more fluidity in creative contact with others; it’s the collective dream (the human condition) that we’re all ultimately serving, after all."

– written by Amanda Painter

 "Declaring my intentions publicly seems to fortify my ability to complete them…or maybe it’s just the embarrassment of wimping out on my promises!" - Donna Cunningham

"Time and experiences stretch the makua o'o to see how resilient and adaptable she or he has become. As I age I am still challenged to make sense of reality and frame my experiences differently because I have changed and my understand of my culture has changed as well." - from "What is Makua O'o?"

Time is passing, summer, seemingly long and blissfully warm and dry, is changing to the damp and muting light of autumn. Harvest time. Our orchard has been abundant this year: beans, mache, tomatoes, a few peas and bags filled with tart Gravenstein apples. Pots of tart applesauce with sprinkles of cinnamon are now stored up in our freezer. Plump tiny green grapes are ripening on the vines that tangle themselves against the garage wall. And, our Welsummer chicks are now officially laying hens leaving us their first beautiful dark brown eggs in the straw. Gardens all over our neighborhood are providing feasts of good food to eat, and to cook up. I love to cook!

Cooks

In the space of the tiny rooms that we call home, the steam of cooking regular meals turns the Quonset from writing space to cooking things for the belly space. The border between cooking up words and images and making applesauce a thin if not invisible divide. That thin separation can sometimes become a hurdle too large to jump when either my attitude or my inventory of spoons is low. "I'm jugglin' a lot of balls here!" I declare into the space. Pete has seen me juggle many, many balls and seen me too when the balls have turned me into mush. "It's what you do, honey." He replied. "It's what you have always done." He's right. The Leo (drama) genes of me love a drama, but it's also the tight relationship of Saturn (restraints and delays) in my personality (natal chart) that continually challenges me to accept the internal struggles are part of the 'assignment.'

Is that dense material to digest? Someone told me the other day that what I write is 'dense' ... Oh. Well, metaphorically that would account for some of the recipes I've experimented with. But, on other days, the cook will come up with delightful conjurings. It's a balance of things and what's what happens when you have cowlicks.

Goals

This summer began our fourth year of living in the woods; living in one place. We have invested in the belief that we can feel safe enough to stay. That is a big investment that happens incrementally. The history of trauma and diaspora eases with practice, faith, and choices that support a new kind of conversation. The belief that life and the dynamics involved with being with others could be different than traumatic asks a person to start from scratch on the one hand, but keep in mind the things that are working. Sticking with this summer, in this space, the goals I set have to do with pushing at the limits of my capacity. Like I said, "I am jugglin' a lot of balls." Here in the Quonset I'm writing the Medicine Cards crafted from the story "The Safety Pin Cafe." Stretching my brain cells and priming the pump of creative juices that project is progressing beautifully. There are challenges and I deal with them as they surface: oh my god! Right, I am still sensitive to inks ... how to manage that while believing the cards are still a great way to be of service to the Goddess of Creativity? What about the issue of collaborators who wear clothing laundered with chemicals? Conversations. They need to be different. Soften the ground of my being. And rest.

Dreams
They are always there to give me something else, or someone else (my subconscious self) to play out a scene I might be too afraid to experience while 'awake.' I get messages and clues and fold them into the mix of things. Juggling becomes easier. I don't worry that I might drop a ball. Grace steps in. An email from my friend, fiber artist Pam Winstanley, who has taken the challenge to translate the symbols and metaphors for The Safety Pin Cafe came with the subject "magic." She is working on an art piece to depict the journey of Pale Wawae, the border witch. Her work began just as the lightning and thunder storm struck us here a couple days ago. She wrote to ask for my input on her work so far.

Hanging from the ceiling behind me is a print done by Rima Staines. The calligraphy was a gift from another friend given to me when I needed most to believe ... in magic. Rima's artistic hand wrote this (available on Rima's Etsy shop):

And ABOVE ALL WATCH WITH GLITTERING EYES
tHE WHOLE WORLD AROUND YOU
Because the greatest secrets
are always hidden
in the most unlikely
PLACES
Those who don't believe in MAGIC
will never find it

 Service

[I]t’s the collective dream (the human condition) that we’re all ultimately serving, after all."– written by Amanda Painter

New Moon in Leo, Tuesday, August 6, 2013 ... 'grounded creativty'

Pete and I were talking things over earlier this morning. Our cat was recouping from a boundary dispute with the neighboring feline and not at her morning best. I was still sleepy from the night, but I'd been across the orchard to let the chickens out and already having my first dose of astrology with Elsa P. Even before oatmeal, I check the sky with my internet astrology pair, Elsa Panizzon and 'Satori'.

"Every day, she's at it," Pete said in between spoonfuls of oatmeal. "For years!"
"Yup, for eleven years," I said remembering the first time I found ElsaElsa when we lived in the basement kitchenette in South Seattle. That was in 2008. What a time it was. I count that first discover of ElsaElsa as a safety pin of great importance. We were dazed and amazed by the changes brought on by illness and choices we made; and would need to sort out what we could (and can't) do about choices others made that affect us. That was five years ago, and a zillions decisions and experiences later. We have finished the process of building the vardo pictured below and still ... I am often amazed at 'what next' means.

I am in the midst of a creative project now that has been (it seems) a life-time in the making. The Safety Pin Cafe is a mythic memoir, mine. The story is written and the beat of the storytelling journey is out there keeping the rhythm going even while I am not quite sure how it will conclude. Slower than I'd like, I am teaching myself to format the story into a book. Learning new software and applying it is tedious stuff. I just keep at it. Some days less energy is available to me; I recoup like GJots our kitty. Astrology keeps me posted to the energy that is available, or angles that might assist or hinder. I pay attention. The New Moon in Leo coming soon is energy worth embracing. Elsa writes about the Leo New Moon,

"...Uranus will trine the Sun and Moon in Leo, blending independence with originality and creativity. Hard to complain about that!
Quirky will be in. Purple, red and gold in combination.

Here are some key phrases to keep in mind:

• Free your heart

• Daring creativity

• Shiny innovation

• Surprising talent"

  
  The New Moon in Leo will be in my 7th House of Relationships, and within a degree of my Pluto's position when I was born. The potential for deep and meaningful relationships will be highlighted. I'm excited in a positive way with that Leo New Moon coming up. The work of 'grounded creativity' is what I can feel today. I'm meeting with someone new on Monday, August 5th, the afternoon prior to that Leo New Moon. Annie Zeller Horton co-hosts an internet radio program on WhidbeyAIR  called "Isle of the Art." She's invited me to join her and talk about The Safety Pin Cafe from 1PM-2PM, on Monday, August 5, 2013.  Listen in, it ought to be a lot of fun!

•  "Free your heart" ... Leo is all about heart. I've been feeling for the freedom to my dear old Leo heart with tinctures of this and that.
• "Daring creativity" ... The Safety Pin Cafe journey has involved a daring to include people I have not met to join me in reading a quirky story about aging and changing face. The process is ...

• "Shiny innovation" ... not exactly understandable to all, but perhaps it is just right for those who do straddle the borderlands and wish for a cozy place to reckon their backbones to a new center.
• "Surprising talent" ... that might apply by some standard. I find it surprising myself to discover what does work today.
  Where will the Leo New Moon be in your chart? What independence and creativity will combine in your life?

"Hawaiians are notoriously adaptive"

The quote used to entitle this post comes from a TEDx presentation "Hawaii's Legacy of Literary" given by Puakea Nogelmeir, Hawaiian scholar and teacher of the Hawaiian language. Today is 'Ole Kukahi, the first of the three phases of the Hawaiian Moon Calendar where review, rest, restoration (along with weeding, repairing and editing) are worthy practices. I've done a little weeding, and yesterday pruned back my wildly advancing raspberries so the scarlet runner beans can get more sun. A wheel barrel is filled with weeds, and my hair is freshly washed and drying because it is a beautiful summer day in the Pacific Northwest. I have a story and a printed version of it in the making. The words are more finely tuned through editing, and now I have to learn to format it using new software. The story and book is a completely one-woman show ... I have a lot to learn, and every day I learn how my kupuna with their legacy of literary have been helping me all the way along. When I think I can't ... they come and show me how it was done before. And I keep at it.

Listening to Puakea speak, and seeing the mountain of literary described in his presentations restores my energy. I need that. The layers of meaning that comes from a simple story is what excites me, though I wonder who will get the many meanings? Patiently, and sometimes not so patiently, I write the story and take the medicine that is a flow of consciousness ... the words don't rhyme but the meanings are metaphoric and literal and then I find more meaning because the rubble of hidden treasure is busting open. Here. There. A pin folding one end of the meaning to the sentence hungry for connection. 

It's an 'ole moon and rest brings restoration. Listen to the treasure of the notoriously adaptive Hawaiians.

New Moon in Gemini, June 8, 2013

Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills 

the cup in front of us: We taste only sacredness. -Rumi

The quote from Persian mystic and poet Rumi says it all for me. It's a beautiful day in my Pacific Northwest neighborhood, I'm excited to be alive and want to fill some cups, just like Rumi said. Timing is the secret to comedy, and the time seems right to spread the word and put the challenge out to my neighbors far and near. I'm hoping for viral.

The astrology prep work of the New Moon in Gemini from Elsa P. has me "brainstorming how to be effective" with the New Moon in Gemini conjuncting my natal Uranus.


Here's the back story ...

In 2000 I traveled to Hiroshima Japan to deliver 1,000 origami (Japanese paper folded) cranes to the Sadako Peace Park. My friends and I gathered at my home to fold paper cranes all year long; they folded cranes at work; they gave me cranes from their 1,000 wedding cranes. One of my friends who helped fold cranes was a flight attendant with Northwest Airlines she came through with a buddy pass. She and I made the trip and we were bumped into First Class to enjoy the trip.

Here's the thing that added sacredness to an already miraculous experience: a few days before we left I severely injured my lower back teaching yoga. There was a big lesson to learn with that, and I would learn it for years to come. See many someones filled my cup to get those cranes to the Sadako Peace Park. There was my ticket to Japan (first time in first class, first time Japan); then the heated massage pillow for easing the pain while I flew; the hospitality of the Japanese people, especially the owners of the Soba Shop who fed us wonderful noodles and had a secret oitment for my back.

Now, thirteen years later the injury to my back and the lesson about pushing from ego have mostly realigned me. I have had many people fill my cup since, and feel it is time to fold more paper. Maybe my current lesson is "Use it or lose it." Pass it on, pass it forward. Like attracts like. This time I would like to fold paper cups. A Thousand Paper Cups. Paper cranes are beautiful, but they're intricate to fold and honestly I have difficulty with them now. Paper Cups are breezy, easy and so cute!

Here's the challenge:
Would you like to join in, from where you are (any where you are!) and fold A Thousand Paper Cups?

Playing for change 2: Stand by me

Playing for change: Shelter

Seated at the window rain drips off the rain fly, makes a rhythm on the edges where the fly is not big enough. Inside, I am sheltered, warm enough and glad enough to recognize I have all I need. What I want? Somewhere at the edge there is a rhythm of rain ... what it say? "Playing for change," maybe that's what it say.

NEW : "These are mythic times" ... a myth maker workshop

"It is no measure of health to adjust to a profoundly sick society"
-Kristnamuti

Quirky photo credit

I've been doing a lot of deep thinking and diving into the muck of life as I find it. Sometimes the discoveries overwhelm me and there aren't enough covers on the futon to hide well enough. My astrologer put it to me straight “Pluto Retrograde: April 12th, 2013 – Don’t Bother Hiding Under The Bed.” Elsa P. my astrologer and the internet's first astrology blogger (she started in 2001) has just published her first novel Heaven, I Mean Circle K. It's a compilation of stories rolled into a 300+ book of her real life. It's not fiction, it's unembellished real life. I've just sampled the first page of the e-book and it promises to be a hoot! Why start this post about my new workshop with bits about my astrologer? Because the workshop is all about taking what you know is real to create stories that affirm: THESE ARE mythic times.

Last month I started writing about piecing this workshop together, " My intention for the New Moon made this morning is to make use of the life I have as Makua O'o and re-translate the definition. Re-define Makua O'o for modernity as Meyer's would say, taking it deeper and spreading it for these mythic times in which we live. I've started to conceive a new workshop called "These Mythic Times" ... coming in April to celebrate Earth Day, 2013. Interested? Stay tuned for more information."

If you are ready to buckle up and dive into the mythic world of story as medicine we will begin Monday, April 22, 2013.

Ode to joy

I woke, just barely, to the songs of birds. Bleary eyed it's a wonderful reminded to know they (the birds) don't need my attention to sing.

Even before oatmeal and raisins, I'm listening to the joy of music ... Beethoven in two venues. Then a lot of silence "The Concert of Silence" from the YouTube film The Green Beautiful. A film we ate supper to. Not something we do, but Christopher thought it was something to include with a bowl of chicken long rice. The film done in the 1990's sat well with the meal though it took a lot to read the subtitles of the fast-talking French.

What sounds bring you joy?

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?

Red Hibiscus and Dragon Wings

Red Hibiscus for our windows Kaimuki Dry Goods

"Final project, says Maple Head to her class...write down some things you believe in that don't make sense...but don't worry about coherence and shape and narrative style. Just make notes. Play with words and ideas...Try to use corners of your brains you don't usually visit...Write from the heart." - Brian Doyle Mink River

"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 the red hibiscus over my left ear, my feet splashed in puddles."- Yvonne Mokihana Calizar The Safety Pin Cafe

I am 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. Fragile. Lasting but a day that is all it takes to make space for magic. Spring is making promises today. The first magenta of salmon berry coaxes me from hiding. Sun and puffy clouds tell me "seasons are for reasons." The sly wind is back and turns the rain fly into a dragon dulled from so much rain but still ... its wings never forget what flight is.  Between the editing first drafts and re-writes  I lose the melody of the story and tears come because it is the song of story that like wet dragon wings knows what is at the heart. I was in need of reminders of magic that can come if I remember to include all corners in the folding of art.

From corners of my brain so rarely visited, drawings and watercolors wished for their moments of light. Drawn onto squares of white paper with black pen and filled in with water colors folded origami tea cups spill a story of silliness ...

 The tea cozy hat with bright red felt hibiscus over my left ear, and hints as to the color of paisley that would tickle the joy from the kitties.

 The tea cup unfolded reveals the fullness of paisley, a long shirt and hair no longer blue-black ...

while sensible black boots splash in puddles and twirl at the end of city blocks.

I am in need of more reminders of the best of times from my homeland of red hibiscus. I went searching yesterday, on the look-out for new lengths of cloth to soothe me. When I was a girl learning to sew there was a place I, and many other girls, women and grand-mothers would go. Back and forth I went as my life took me on planes to become mother, career traveler-trainer and wife. Away did I go and yet when I did return to Hibiscus Island there was that place where girls, women and grand-mothers still went to find lengths of cloth, notions and patterns and the chatter that comes when preparing to stitch.

The length of fabric I found to satisfy my craving for Hibiscus Island is from Kaimuki Dry Goods' Online Catalog. I wished it was possible, and made a call to the 808 phone number from my 808 cellphone. Connected and chit-chatting the sound of a familiar lilting voice, and conversation as easy as pie has me well on my way to ordering yards of cotton with large hibiscus and tropical company. In time for spring, my sensible black boots will take me to my sewing machine and stitch a story that I could love.

Strange that this should become a bit to offer at Terri Windling's Moveable Feast entitled "Desire for Dragons. It did not start that way, but nonetheless here it is and I am glad. Link to Terri's blog Myth and Moor for the answer to the question ...Faded dragons forget what their wings are for?

Behind the scenes: the sound of clapping for Peter Pans

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

- The Joy Weed Journal from my medicine story "The Safety Pin Cafe"

Not so long ago (2008), I walked the shore along the Salish Sea with an illness, a companion that would not give me its purpose nor offer lasting solutions. Oh how filled with pity I was, offended at the affects, and bitter. Oh my how embittered.

Bit or bite at a time, the gods, angels, 'aumakua and heavenly alignments conspired medicine that could homeo-practically change things for the better. Maybe at all started on a Sunday. Sunday, the day of turmeric, as The Mistress of Spice has said, "Each spice has a special day to it. For turmeric it is Sunday, when light drips fat and butter-colored into the bins to be soaked up glowing, when you pray to the nine planets for love and luck."

The conspiracy of the Gods gave us opportunities:

Pictured above ...

The basement apartment where we lived in the kitchen, slept in the kitchen and learned to blog on the floor of the kitchenette. 

A wandering kitty native to the woods close by found us and made it clear she 'was sent' and not at all inclined to go away. That's JOTS in a cardboard box filled with blankets and Christmas tree lights.

Resources of imagination, a lifetime of skill, a place to rebuild our lives and build a tiny home on wheels led to the creation of The VardoForTwo, our first cozy home where the medicine renews itself one day, one night at a time. 

Today ...

All around me the evidence of Jack Frost remains firm. Crisp and crunchy walking paths between the vardo and the Quonset, the rain barrel filled with water frozen to the brim in geometric patterns and flows awesome in their beauty. Pete is in the 'Au Hale, the washing house doing laundry as he listens to a Sunday football game on the radio. My stockinged feet and bare shins toast next to the Radiant Heater as I blog. Some things have changed. Some things stay the same.

We have a home here in the woods of South Whidbey Island where even more than the evidence of seasonal realities like Jack Frost, Pete and I live with the evidence of imagination grounded in the skills of our life-times. Peter Pan so often is associated with the malignant character of 'not growing up.' From my vantage point it matters that I keep the spark of Peter Pan genes alive because oh my godness, harsh reality is ever where.

To close off this Sunday morning post, while the magic of turmeric fuels me, warming those Peter Pan genes here's something that keeps me inspired as I dare to be foolish about my "The Safety Pin Cafe" project. Inventing the Safety Pin

 The safety pin was invention and an improvement of a pin. Both improved and invented by a man named Walter Hunt in New York the year eighteen forty nine. The safety pin is made out of a small piece of metal. This metal in which the safety pin was made was a combination of copper, iron, aluminum, gold, silver, and platinum. These metal were heated and formed into a small piece of combined metals. It all started one afternoon.. Walter Hunt had to think of a way on how to pay back a fifteen dollar debt. He was sitting at his desk just twisting a piece of wire while trying to think of how to pay back his debt. He sat twisting wire for three full hours and realized what he had created. He called it the safety pin. He although did not invent the safety pin he just improved it.

All it took was a piece of wire, imagination, a little time and motivation ...

Here that clapping?  Thanks, J.M. Barrie 

New Moon in expansive Sag, December 13, 2012

"...Your New Moon intention should correlate with Sagittarius, a buoyant, expansive sign. What would you do if the sky were the limit and the odds in your favor?  This is a wonderful time to make a Christmas wish!" - ElsaElsa (read more...)

The three-phases of 'Ole are done. My dreams have been vivid and filled with medicine of the metaphoric. Review and repair nets our elders suggest for the 'Ole moons. Listening to my family speak of their dreams, and considering those I experience confirms the kupuna mana'o (traditional advice). 

Life continues, moving forward as Mahina moves through the heavens, and through the astrological houses of those who watch the sky. The coming New Moon in Sagittarius is something I welcome with clapping hands and a jig. The moon will be in my 11th House of hopes and dreams and friendships-affiliations. At the other side of the sky Uranus is in my 3rd House of communication in Aries.

This morning after bowls of warm oatmeal and raisins I sat at my Quonset Kitchen table and played with ideas and wishes for the coming New Moon. My Christmas wish is to hand a safety pin out to every one we meet between now and Christmas. Why? Drumming up interest in The Safety Pin Cafe (the story, character and 'exchanges') with all its wishes, hopes and dreams for a sky's the limit outcome.

Look for the 10th Dose of The Safety Pin Cafe with the New Moon, December 13, 2012.

Where is the New Moon in your chart, and your Christmas wish?