Listen … with your whole body … LISTEN RESPECTFULLY

Aloha,

We are officially living from within our tiny, beautiful VardoForTwo. Life is a series of events, many comedic beyond imagination, tragic if not taken with humor. Pete and I have been a week in the woods with the company of frogs, fairies and the resident culture of Tahuya, Washington.

Life has become even more purposeful ... each decision affects the next. We sleep inside our safe cave and must consciously decide how to maintain a clean inside while cooking, washing, being with the weather and the woods. Washington is wet ... we learn to cover and clean everything outside. We learn that self-sufficiency is a full time job and it just doesn't get done ... it just is.

JOTS our kitty is loving the woods and has had adventures with the lake dogs, finds plenty to hunt and is finding she could easily be lunch. She and I do trail walks almost every day and I have discovered she loves to wrap around my shoulders and neck like a scarf and would climb into my hair if given permission.

Being in a vardo is like being on a boat ... it sways and moves on a sea of air and movement is ever present. I listen to my body as she feels the reassembling of a life. It's a good story. I write from the library for now, until internet becomes possible in the woods, take good care friends, followers and family.

From the ledge in the woods we send aloha! Mokihana and Pete

Do your best in all things … BELIEVE YOUR BEST IS ENOUGH.

My second cup of tea has filled me nicely. Breakfast of steamed millet and hard cooked eggs seem to be settling into my system with good effect. I feel nourished. My sewing machine is on the floor, the basket of rope piping I began the other day gets longer. I've found a real set of Sharps for hand-stitching and my mind is stepping through the process of making a padded wall for the back of the vardo. It doesn't look like we are going to be moving from The Kitchenette in less than a week ... our things are still as they have been for months. In fact, just prior to moving things get even more jumbled as we live the between-ness of get to the there, from here.

The cold that caught me last week seems to be wearing through me. The sniffles and drips are minimal, my voice still a half octave lower. In some ways the stuffiness creates temporary relief from the ever-on job of the proboscis with multiple chemical sensitivities. It's at this time when my prayer channels needs to be turned squarely in the tuned in position. Like turning over the keys to the gate, I surrender the job of sniffing to the Invisible Companions and do the best I can. Spontaneous napping happens and multiple re-plays of favorite escape films "A Good Year", "Stardust", "Babette's Feast" "Chocolat", and "Miss Potter" keep me company. I drift in and out of nap-land hear the voices of my film friends.

Pete has been out buying the poplar he'll use to make the bed frame. Through the glass door I watched him haul the two arms filled with wood. He caught the pot of millet steaming on the burner ... I'd hoped he would see ... breakfast was being kept for him. The things we do in a day fill most minutes from dawn to dark. Navigating our way through the choices, being honest and gentle as we discern truth that will be comfortable for us ... it takes a village. We are two old dears with a village of faith we sometimes lose track of. Then, the birds come to eat our millet, the moon lights a dark sky and healing dreams take me to all places and times at night.

I just do my best and that is good enough.

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

Believe in Ke Akua, for this higher power makes all life possible … WE ARE NEVER ALONE

Photo Credit: www.completedcircledrums.com/newMoon.html

TONIGHT IS THE NEW MOON ... The Hilo Moon Oopps.... I am early by a day or night. Today is only Wednesday and by the calendar New Moon is Thursday (goes to show just how much I need this :::smiling to my own dear self:::) ... well, the ritual is done and it felt WONDERFUL and the dream is loving the attention. xx00xx

"Into the darkness of the night, I am making my dreams coming true ..." This lyric is part of a song I was taught when Pete and I lived in Hilo on Hawaii Island. I had been wishing to sing more and within a few weeks after arriving on Hawaii Island I found (and heard) Oona M giving voice lessons in an office next door. My friend Alice had rented the space adjoining hers to a wonderful musician. Each time I sat to chat with Alice I could hear the different voices accompanying the piano Oona played. The voices were not exquisite, yet there would be one that was. Young and old voices simply sang and without doubt each voice was born of joy. It was fun to hear. My wish to sing and enjoy voice lessons came true in Hilo those five years past. The lyric "Into the darkness of the night ..." refreshes my experience with what it FEELS like to have a dream come true.

The Hilo Moon, the New Moon, is an auspicious and powerful time to give your dreams to the fullness of faith, and the darkness of rich potential. Rainbow Tree created a wonderful cleaning and affirming ritual using the egg. I enjoyed doing this ritual during the first new moon of 2009. I am preparing that Egg Ritual as I write this. There are dreams in the making, and the dream of a new location and a new home in VARDOFORTWO are our grandest dream. Being in sync with the energy and cycles of the natural bodies (earth, moon, planets, air, nature's creatures) means I must attend to what is happening with those natural bodies. The Moon is my particularly powerful Home ... it is to Hina I turn when the busy-ness of navigating in the physical body dis-orients and fragments me. My hard-cooked eggs(there are two) are cooled and ready for eating. My affirming dreams written on my egg shaped paper (cut from a brown paper bag) wait for me to be present. Once I have published this article, I will sit with and enjoy my dream-making egg ritual.

Here is an excerpt from Rainbow Tree's cleansing and clearing ritual for a new moon:

Cleansing your spirit or soul is just as important, even possibly more so than cleaning your home! There are things in your life that have been building up, clutter in the brain so to speak. It may even be affecting you by little illnesses, allergies, loss of sleep, irritability and/or a variety of other ways. You may not even realize that your soul/spirit needs cleansing... but it does!

Link to the entire article here. Thank you, Mahalo Rainbow Tree.

Blessed Hilo Moon Mahalo! Mokihana

Practice patience and endurance … TIMING IS DIVINE

DNA

I've been thinking about just how patient I am, and just what I expect of this life. There's a line in the movie Miss Potter. Beatrix is having a go with her father and mother. She is determined to marry Norman, the publisher of her books, and the man she loves. Mama and Papa will have none of that ... a tradesman! No Potter can marry a tradesman. Beatrix demands to know "Does that mean I cannot be happy?" That's the question I have for my own dear self this morning. The thing is probing before trusting is becoming impractical. It takes so much energy to probe and yet living with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities requires probing ... asking pointed questions or suspecting the worst until proven otherwise. Building the wee home on wheels has been a constant process of probing with few choices easily made, and many choices having to be reversed or begun again. We are close and yet we are not yet finished. I am waiting to hear from the Earth Pigment people about using their Natural Wax over the milk paint on the ceiling. I am losing patience, getting worn from enduring...and I'm fed-up.

The tests are constant. I set myself up to turn life into a test, why do this? I have a NAET vile with my name on it. Written across a tiny piece of masking tape is my name M O K I H A N A. Some people are 'allergic' to their own DNA. I would be one of them. I think I'll pull that vile out and give myself a little energy treatment and practice letting go.

Ever feel you're allergic to your own DNA?

Do your best in all things … BELIEVE YOUR BEST IS ENOUGH.

"Let's paint the stainless ..."

Playing with milk paint colors in the blender

Squash Seed Inspiration ...
no thought to WHETHER it will grow
(That's the squash on the left with a friend from the compost pile on the right.)

We are playing in VARDOFORTWO. The stainless steel walls are pieced and fitted, a fresh coat of milk paint covers the ceiling and I have been playing with colors. "Maybe we could just paint the steel," Pete said. An accident while painting the ceiling opened up one more option. `Aue ... alas, maybe. So I took the idea and played with the funky blue and ceiling color to come up with combination that is more like teal brushed it over two pieces of scrap stainless steel. The pieces are drying inside VARDOFORTWO.

The joy of things popped up quickly ... I nearly missed it as I headed to the sink to wash out the blender and squeeze the sponge brush clean. Fortune of fortune though, I did not miss the joy in the moment. It's that simple and small, in the midst of the struggle like squash seeds buried in compost, the tiny seed head BuRSTS through the dark dirt. That seed has no thought to whether it will grow, it knows. While mixing milk paint and making a color yet to be the seed of HAVING FUN JUST SHOWED UP FOR ME. We were just doing our best and the rest ... happens.

We have an idea planted for where we could milk paint steel...and more shall be revealed.

Engage in good health practices … CARE

We have more than our share of things to do here in the Kitchenette, and inside VARDOFORTWO. Among the things that need to be done are the taxes ... which was not a high priority during the months on the road. So, we've some catching up to be done. If you're reading our posts on VARDO ... you know what Pete's been doing, and then it's my turn to switch on the sewing machine and stitch up some island gypsy style coverings.

The thing that I forget, until my body and my spirit, pull me down to the mat, again ... is I live with MCS and my body gets tired even without lots of the 'honey do list.' CARE for me means I will be praying a lot more in the next few days, asking for the support I need to remain sensible about what I can and can not DO ... and gently remain myself to BE who I am.

Fewer posts may appear here while this project of building our home aims at a target date. I'm paying attention to my adrenal glands who are worn and tired more easily. I wish you a day or night of gentle times. Prayers of support and encouragement are always appreciated :)

A hui hou, Mokihana