Saturday, April 13, 2019

Toy Ponies (Updated)

"You should collect horses (or was it 'ponies'?)," Kamaiya told us. We have been here at the Langley Fairgrounds Campground a month today. Our young friend's voice is starting to fade, and it saddens me that a memory of much importance could do that. Treacherous mind, making room for some thing else?

In the short and amazing first weeks of adjusting to life on the campground, the innocent and truly magical joy of a child's friendship washed the debilitating vampires of doubt, judgment and small-mindedness off our backs. As I sat outside on the bright yellow metal folding chair to dip the washed dishes in boiling water, I was in the company of the toy horses left with us; gifts from a Muse, a child with heart and imagination freed of blood-letting voices.

Toy Ponies you left for us, Kamaiya.

The YouTube from the creativity workshop-musical Die Vampire, Die! was a gift* dropped into my lap after a literal blood-letting morning experience. (I had blood drawn to check the chemistry of the life's flow in me.) My veins are tiny, and an inexperienced blood-taker will not find easy access. "Are you right-handed or left?" the woman asked. "Right-handed." It was the left vein that allowed the let. "Does it usually work that way," I asked. "It does for you!"

*Pull the 'Pygmy vampire swarming around the head' reference out of the lyrics!!

So the irony and the magic of the musical gift was connection. I was whirling and conflicted by a message I received regarding new work I have begun. The YouTube clip was left as a comment by Ellen Kushner on writer-editor-artist Terri Windling's blog Myth & Moor. The post was "On fear of judgement (and pernicious perfectionism).

Windling's post includes practical and tender advice for artists. Here is something that fuels me:

"From the moment that our artwork, so tenderly constructed, leaves the desk/studio/rehearsal space and travels into the world at large I can guarantee you that it will encounter, somewhere, some or all of the things we dread the most: indifference, incomprehension, mockery, hostility, occasionally even downright hatred."

Before, during and after my morning at the clinic for the blood draw, I was dealing with fears of judgement and needed to hear Art and art chant and cant the vampires off my back and out of my head once again. The work I have begun builds on the medicine of fantasy-memoir -- medicine storytelling-- a kind of writing I do to dive into the real life that I live with the skin of a Water Being who is both totally afraid of what comes with the 'splash' of birthing and aware the splash is essential.

My most recent project is complex and tough speaking; but it is not just angry to be shocking. It is tough speaking because the nature of the pains are old and I am committed to letting air through the holes of my psyche and make a story rich with colors. Our/my colors. I am digging deeper, 'Eli 'eli kau mai say my Ancestors. Pualani Kanakaole Kanahele writes in her two hundred percent Hawaiian voice, a powerful edict for us/me, in the Preface of the book Ka Honua Ola (the living Earth) 'Eli'eli Kau Mai (descend, deepen the revelation),

" 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 ..." Entering the world of ancestral memory requires a certain mindset. Take time, to enjoy and understand each phrase or line before going on ... 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."
I reread and listen to Pualani because she speaks the language of my heart, the one I forget unless I read and hear it with that powerful mix of anger, justice, pono, fierceness. She clarifies me when I am being drawn on my vampires; I remember why my veins will not easily allow access.


Aurora Levins Morales describes herself on her website:

"I'm a writer, an artist, a historian, a teacher and mentor.  I'm also an activist, a healer, a revolutionary.  I tell stories with medicinal powers. Herbalists who collect wild  plants to make medicine call it wildcrafting. I wildcraft the details of the world, of history, of people's lives, and concentrate them through art in order to shift consciousness, to change how e think about ourselves, each other and the world. The stories we tell about our lives shape what we're able to imagine, and what we can imagine determines what we can do. My job is to change the stories we tell and help us imagine a world where greed has no power, the earth is cherished and all people get to live safe and satisfying lives. Because once we truly imagine it, the pull to create it becomes irresistible."
I go to Aurora Levins Morales to help me feel less alone in my beliefs that the life Pete and I are living is valuable, precious, exciting and filled with that "irresistible pull to keep living it." Mentors, artists, and people who know me and love the work I do with the real life I live, are my audience. These are the people I write for, and they are the ones who will not suck my blood.  It is a life-long discerning process to decolonize and ferret out the vampires and judges (both those outside and the ones with my own voice).

Aurora Levins Morales wrote the widely read and inspiring original volume of radical essays Medicine Stories in 1998. I have been eager to read the updated and revised edition, and again, another gift of connection led me to discover the book is soon to be available (April 19, 2019) from Duke University Press..

"In this revised and expanded edition of Medicine Stories, Aurora Levins Morales weaves together insights and lessons learned over a lifetime of activism to offer a new theory of social justice. Calling for a politics of integrity that recognizes the complicated wholeness of individual and collective lives, Levins Morales delves among the interwoven roots of multiple oppressions, exposing connections, crafting strategies, and uncovering the wellsprings of resilience and joy."

One of the most important pieces of activism and literary inspirations for me as an indigenous woman with so much to forget before I can remember who I really am comes from Levins Morales' essay The Historian as Curandera. The essay begins with this South African proverb:

Until lions write books, history will always glorify the hunter.
I have a much penciled in with lines and notes copy of this essay. From time to time I reread it, and draw on it to refuel my "complicated wholeness of individual and collectives lives." I am doing that refueling again as I write today.

"Tracing absences [of voices that speak my story] can balance a picture, even when you are unable to fill in the blanks. Lack of evidence doesn't mean you can't name and describe what is missing. Tracing the outlines of a woman shaped hole in the record ..., can be a powerful way of correcting imperial history."
Imperial History, colonized history, white privilege and other forms of oppression cover so much ground. Where is there 'common ground' or space for me to 'come to ground' with so many holes in my sould?

It matters that I am a diver, and I make my way through the water of potential through the bravery of my 'pen' or fingers on a keyboard; I dive and dig deep. The play and the work become potent gifts that are not meant to stay out of the way. They are meant to be expressed and this is what I do. Not to please, or make peace at any cost but 'so the moments of understandings do not flee without recognition'; it's my kuleana, my responsibility, my destiny.

The gift of expression and voicing truth for me, an indigenous elder in training, must not be frightened into paralytic thinking: 'this life is not being lived 'well enough' or evolved enough.' A'ole! No! My future, or my next life is fed by my Ancestors who chant for me to go deeper; and my Ancestors who offer me remedy in the form of toy ponies and abundant imagination create joyful todays and more tomorrows.

 
Toy Ponies
For Kamaiya


"You should collect horses."


Her beaming face,
Chatty dialogue
Always making room
For answers.
Flowing hair and curious hands
Dug into our past.

Our cardboard boxes
Filled with bits of so much
Seriousness
But also toys.
"I love that!"
"What's this?"

She will be nine in November.
A Scorpio.
Fully formed and richly-spirited.
"I found this," a rusty horseshoe.
"Gonna put this in my new bedroom!"
"It's for luck," she was without doubt.

"You should collect horses."
She offered us the remedy.
Toy ponies lean upon
The rusted wagon wheel-well.
Wild toy ponies for luck.
Luck and remedy from a child.
Leave no room for vampires.

This will be my last post for at least awhile. I've had a significant change of heart, and may need to attend to my heart and soul with more private care. Blogging to understand myself, and share the process, has been a very public expression with very little in return.

Diving in private now I hope to find the peace I need to ride and play with those wild ponies Kamaiya has left with us. Maybe without so much 'trying to fit' I can just fit where I am, inside.











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