Singing the Blues: Appropriating my suffering, mirroring my past

"... Settle your debts, not just to "the other person" but to the collective. 

Basically, if you're letting other people do all the heavy lifting, you realize you should pitch in.  Family (the Moon) may be involved with this as well.  Think also in terms of inheritance or your legacy.

...  Standing by, watching another person struggle when you could easily assist is a giant no-no...

Take the weekend to balance your "books", understanding you may have to dig deep to do so (Pluto).  You'll feel better as you get things sorted; but the real payoff is down the road when you don't have to pay the price for the things you failed to do when you knew you should have."

   "Heads Up Newsletter"

We have sunshine. After more than a week of dodging slash burn, (since original posting, the fires continue) filing smoke and fire complaints, keeping a running email thread with government agencies; having conversations to clear the relational air here on the Prairie Front; and searching for a place to live ...  Pete is now hauling out 'stuff.' Piles of tools, bags of framed photographs, oxygen tanks, old mementos,  a cross-cut saw that needs a splint to make it work again.

"There's more here than I thought." There always is.

Earlier today Pete cleared what was stored under the wagon, preparing the vardo to be moved out of her settled-in position of the past many months. Before we can hitch her up there are things to ready her and literally, Pete must dig her out of a hole. To level the trailer on this land, which though a prairie has very little flat ground, Pete dug us in. There's a slip of a metaphor going on with that but we won't dwell too long. The opportunity here is the karmic debts that have come due as we ready ourselves for a new next.

I've been chewing on what Elsa suggested in terms of settling the karmic books. For years now the hundreds of blog posts I've written have been stories of our current events. My comfort with so much disclosure is like a sound wave, not constant in its levels. The posts are as much a way for me to hear-by-heart as much, if not more, than finding the words to translate what's going on in my head.

What debts do I need to settle?

Pete's sister wrote a long and deeply informing email to me after she read the blog post 'Braiding and Making the Appreciation Rounds'. In part she said,

"I enjoyed reading  your thoughtful appreciation tribute to your life and Pete's at this time. I was stunned by the smoke crisis and the attitudes around it  that developed last week and realized how very difficult life can be for you every day. If I can help you more in any way please let me know. I've learned that money is really a form of energy.  It's alive and is always changing even if it's sitting in a bank and gaining interest. Even if it's not being spent money can give the person a feeling of  emotional safety which is essential when situations are hard. I've been there many times. Money can change lives as I have seen with my own family as they moved in  new directions."

Akua, the Creator, and all my Ancestors who light up the night sky give me the tools to dig into and dig up my debts. Watching another struggle when I could have helped? There is one very big regret I have. Rationalizing worked for years. But this winter, I see my past mirrored in the actions of others. Pete came up with the phrase, "appropriating my suffering" to explain the disappointments we've had when offers of help (sharing a place to live) were offered and then withdrawn with the added drama of tears, their tears. Tears because it was so hard to make the decision not to help. But not so hard that they would help.

Hah, Isn't that the stuff the Blues are made of?*

I watched my brother struggle with addiction, and struck an unfair deal with him when he was at a low point. I didn't give him what he wanted; instead I gave him what I could give. It wasn't fair, and in the end the karmic debt has hounded me because it was about money and 'property.' This was about settling on his part of the family inheritance of our family home. He wanted money. I was living in the family home; it was my emotional safety. Money cannot buy everything, but without it or its equivalent it's hard to ever feel safe enough. A rift split us apart for years and when I finally sold our family home, I paid my brother the remainder of what he asked for years earlier.

Before he died, my brother and I reached a point of ho'oponopono, setting things right between us. I asked for the reconciliation; I missed him in my life and asked 'Can we start again?' In a way the last few years of his life allowed us to progress in our relationship becoming more mutually communicative. I was given more time to talk and David did more listening.

What is the debt I feel in that relationship? 

This past weekend as my astrologer Elsa laid out the opportunities of heavenly bodies aligned to clean up a regret that could have longer lasting family legacy, I recognized my actions repeating themselves. Mirrored in the relationships with friends, I saw how betrayals snap trust between bites of warm and savory food.  I saw how unsuspecting set-ups appropriate my suffering. MCS is a tough illness to live with. Sharing and accepting the burden by others takes a special kind of person. Why offer only to be withdrawn?

We make our decisions at the moment and for good or ill we live with the consequences. This experience I'm trying to describe is helping me to see that 'settling the books' is still a matter of interpretation. I've been on both sides of the story when it comes to watching another struggle. The consequences of my choices could easily be disassociated with the current challenges I have/we have to find community who will share their goodies with me/us.

I'm taking the position that my actions of the past have consequences today, and recognize that 'property' and 'money' play big into my progressed evolution. With that awareness I begin to settle my books by not repeating my actions, or silence when I see another struggle when I could easily help; or allowing others to repeat those actions with me.

The clues, the signs, the astrological alignments conspire on my behalf: learn this one they tell me. I, am an old woman with a Progressed Life that is now much, much fuller than it was when I was born 71 years ago. Settling my debts to my brother in both the specific and the collective sense means I can feel my heart's desires because I am more fully who I really am. I can act with decency, and not weigh so heavily on being efficient. There is such a big difference!

My struggles and suffering are many. They aren't just made up, but, then some of them are. The imagination can be a tool of fabrications. But there is a place for fiction especially when they serve a function of escape from the cruelty that is too often real. My brother and I grew in in a family and in a culture torn into shreds by a dominating White Colonizing power. Roots and cultural values laid low in my parents and inelegant but necessary coping techniques tampered with our senses. We survived and carry a legacy that is both powerful because we do survive, and challenged because to thrive we must adapt. Adapting does not mean forgetting; it means remembering. When suffering continues without recognizing systemic de-humanizing and episodes of 'entitlement' the dynamics repeat.

Who could have guessed that Pete and I would build a small wagon home together and I would write these blog posts to describe our lives. Those who read these stories, and those who know us as real folk are attracted (some repulsed) to the grit and repetitive challenges, but keep a distance lest their comforts be disturbed. Lyrics of the blues for our times. Mirroring our pasts we, Pete and I, learn in public. Over and over again this winter we have reached for that welcoming community we have imagined. Activating the change that we wish to see, we become the change, leaving marks for family and strangers to oogle at or cluck their tongues. What good is it? 

"they once told me
'Nah, you can't do that.' they clicked with their tongues & pursed up their lips. but now I really don't care."-from 'Mana'o of a makua o'o a bundle of simple words', by Yvonne Mokihana Calizar, Copyright, 1999

The good is that through our real life and the blogging there is an opportunity for progress in our collective evolution. We, humans, have so much to learn about being Native and of the Earth, not just on the Earth. My brother David continues to be with me, often and in many of my dreams. We have ongoing adventures and when I get messages from his son -- a small video of my brother's granddaughter whacking a baseball into the outfield -- I see the legacy is carried forward in many ways.

She's some kind of wonderful - Grand Funk Railroad

To be continued ...

How about you? Are there debts in your money or love commitments to be paid in your life, and how is that going? 



Singing the Blues:

*Billy Holiday sings it blue ... "Don't Explain."  (Link to an interview about Billy Holiday's rendering and lyrics of this song for insight into the depth of blues -- how "uncomfortable Billy Holiday makes us" for being so honest about her passion; raising the question of 'appropriating suffering' for me. )

Our son, Chris Kawika in the shared kitchen @ Christmas

Braiding and making the Rounds of Appreciation

"...It’s possible we go too far, talk too much, think too fast – we sense everything. It’s also possible to braid that all down into a powerful force for good. We can compress, destroy, or shed whatever doesn’t suit the plan...- Satori

The big snows are mostly melted here on Whidbey Island but pockets of the crystallized rain remain along the roadsides and on land that rarely gets the heat of the sun. Before, between and after the events of the week that challenges us to take a stand and activate that internal fire to be a force for good I've begun doing what can be called the Rounds of Appreciation. There are so many People to thank for all the gifts they have shared with Pete and me while living on this prairie.

Cedar Who Smells Like Herself is the person who has given us permission to be on this Prairie Front. It is this Cedar who does not have the same sharp tangy smell who is the one the Golden Wagon rubs against day in, night out. I thank this stout and protective cousin often, and as we experience our final moon rises here, I noticed how the Jays have come to call Cedar Who Smells Like Herself home, or playground.

My days on the Prairie Front include many walks on pathways and grassy meadows in snow times and not. On my way on one of those snow times quickly melting, I stopped to make note and give thanks for the reminder: Remember to remember. They are here, these People. They, these People do not come and go from this land. They are intimates of this land these People. I learn from them. How lucky I am. How lucky are we, Pete and me.

Cedar with the Long Limbs Hanging Down is someone I visit often when I walk the trails that Coyote and Deer travel as well. She, Cedar with the Long Limbs Hanging Down once cared for me when I was sure my heart would not survive a loss of such deep sorrow. Many, many times since I have wandered away from her and for a time I could not tolerate her clear, sharp tang. To reconnect with that power, I needed to find the lock that had so hidden itself from me.

This winter, I walked to Cedar with the Long Limbs Hanging Down, and remember it was she who brought me Pete. The lock opened for this man ... amazing Ancestor of the Stone Islands.

Chiron has just begun his transit through the astrological sign of Aries. It will be a long haul; 8-9 years long.

"... Chiron moves to Aries, onto the Aries point – the first degree of the zodiac. A fresh chapter in growth is opened. It’s no longer spiritual and hidden. This time our focus is tangible and visible, physical as well as theoretical or in metaphor. 

 Authenticity is a concept that has been buzzing. It’s about to go mainstream and bug the crap out of everyone. Chiron in Aries will direct focus toward simplifying our interface with others. Who am I? How do I make who I am agree with who I appear to be… and not be hurt in the process? The process will be painful, but oh so productive and beneficial.

It’s a new season in our development. We are budding." - Satori, continued

I sit to write this post to process how I feel about the reality of my relationships with others. Can I continue to be the person who lives in a vardo for two seeking community open and willing to share space with me and Pete? Who do I appear to be? Is this the right place to be? If this is just the beginning of this 'Authenticity transit' of Chiron the Wounded Healer making his way through Aries -- the me first house of the zodiac -- this is going to be long, hard work.

To make sense of the process that is too much to deal with only in the head, this exercise of blogging and setting down the Rounds of Appreciation turns my attention to my Elders, the Plant and Animal People who have been on Earth so much longer than I. Are they affected by the transiting bodies in the sky as well? Perhaps. And more than likely they have had more experience feeling those transits and adapting to the connection.


Are you feeling the transit of Chiron and the focus on authenticity in your life? What's it like for you?

And just because it's possible to attract luck (and authenticity) when you notice it singing to you. Pete brought this home this week, and I was reintroduced to Harry Dean Santon. From  his last movie LUCKY, at 90, Harry Dean Stanton singing "Volver, Volver."

Something We need to Do: Take back our right to breathe deeply

 Day Three: Sunday, February 17, 2019
Pictures taken from 2812 Thompson Road Langley, WA 98260

This weekend our neighbor, Les Gabelein, began burning the slash from logging on his property.

Pete called 911 yesterday. On Saturday morning, after we'd left our vardo to escape the smoke, Pete stopped in at the Fire Department in Freeland. He spoke with the dispatcher to report the problem. The dispatcher was about to leave (shift change) but she was aware of the burn (had seen it, too?) and said she would report the issue to the police. Did she do that? We're not sure

Back to yesterday (Monday, 2/18/19) An official called him and left a message that said in essence:He drove to the site. The burn is permitted. There is nothing be can do. He suggested talking to a state agency for environmental health/clean air, and the Planning Department in Coopeville, Washington.

The fire continues, and the smoke is still a hazard to my health.

 Day Four: Monday, February 18, 2019

The photos here above and below this description were taken up close on Monday morning. I was on Country Lane which led to the site of the slash burn, off of Bayview Road heading into Langley.

  Day Four: Monday, February 18, 2019

On my way to the burn a car was headed toward me. I stopped and asked the driver, "Is that your fire?" The driver said, "It's my brother's." This woman is Peggy Johnson, the sister of the man who is burning. Les Gabelein.

I drove up to the site of the burning, and introduced myself.

"Are you Les Gabelien?" I asked. The man extended his hand, and said he was.

I told him my name and told him why I was masked, and why I was here. I am a neighbor, and have chronic lung and breathing problems. Your burn is shortening my life. There was no sign Les Gabelein was going to stop. He was running out of time to get this cleared so he could put in more crops. My effort to see the face of the person who operated with no regard for his neighbors was something I needed to do.

The issue of burning and smoke is not new, to either Peggy Johnson, the neighbors around this permitted outdoor fire and Pete and myself. The issue is no one has protested loud enough or in effective ways to change these regulations and take back our right to breathe.


The fight to regain the right to breathe, and change the regulations that allow outdoor burning to go on as they have is just beginning for me and Pete. We are in the process of moving from this Tilth Land, and the slash burning episode is adding (pun unexpected) fuel to the fire.

These two pictures were taken from Thompson Road (which runs perpendicular to Highway 525).

 Day Five, Tuesday 8:32 AM, February 19, 2019

The right to breathe and the fight to change the laws that deny us that right are as much a part of loving the Earth and all the People who live on her. More will be revealed here, or somewhere, as Pete and I do this life one day at a time. Pete has contacted the Air Quality Center Northwest.  so that is part of what we can do to be active in the change. That contact, 'Scott',  has just responded to Pete, and wants pictures. So that is what I'll do; send 'Scott' a link to this post.

We've posted to Drewslit this message "Vardo for Two Seeks New Home" have meeting with a friend who might be a next step in our search for a new home place. I'm finishing this post at the library keyboard.

The air filters are on "High" in both the vardo and the bathroom and we try to keep a civil thread of decency between us as we need to do to keep breathing.

Help us spread the words both about seeking place, and the right to breathe.

E Ola Mau! To Live Ungoing! This is what People Indigenous Now means in the present world. Want to be part of the P.I.N.? Check that growing intention here.

Mahalo nui,
Mokihana and Pete

We

The video that opens this post is a conversation with mother, teacher, writer, scholar, mentor to many, Robin Wall Kimmerer. When I was at a deep low point yesterday night, I came to the shared kitchen on the Prairie Front simmered a pot of oatmeal and nettles to help me adapt to the reality of the difficulty and found my Potawatomi sister speaking truth I needed to remember. It is about We, and has led me to a more hopeful place once again.

It has been a difficult time. The Elemental World has conspired to bring us a grand constriction -- challenges -- to test our flexibility and resiliency. We, I say with almost ironic, flippant inclusion, rankle with the limitations of snow binding us to our small spaces making it an even more time consuming activity to go from one place to another. But, these are small details, really. The fact I have warm socks, rubber boots, thick long underwear, mittens and a heavy coat are necessities; and I have them.

Earlier in the day when the sun was bright and the snow brilliant with the sparkle of crystals more than ankle deep, I walked the snow covered Prairie Front. One set of well-trod tracks led from the Golden Wagon where we sleep and hang out with one another, with our books, magazines, and electronics. The tracks led to the Chicken Coop. The tracks were Pete's, he cares for the three chickens; his name is not on the 'Chicken Care List.' His care is constant, simple, invisible, daily, common.

Under the warmth of the sun I took a beautiful and silent walk out to the entrance of the 11 acre stretch of land that has been the place we have come to know. The worn cedar gate was topped with a crest of white the slanted fences jaunty in their wintry angle.

"I've seen you before, and like that you wear lichen as well as snow so well." Truly that would have been an opening line if I had thought of it at the time. But I write it here, and imagine Cedar loving the compliment, nodding at how long a memory lasts teaching me in her constant, simple, invisible, daily, common ways.

I noticed the single delicate marks of a lean signature making its way across the covered gravel drive and out in front of Dorcas's hoop house. Deer has committed habits. Before I trek back to the kitchen and the wagon my head turns to check the high limbs of the apple tree. Four left. Still four. I hope Deer get them. But they must share with the Birds. There are far more Birds than Deer and the Winds or a stick we use to rattle the fruit loose are needed to turn the odds in the hoofed ones' favor.

 ****

Now there are two apples.

It has been a difficult time. Rattling inside my mind are the thoughts, and worries I promised to turn over to the Pig; the Pig whose Year it is. And me, being one of that Clan, ought to be resourceful and so in a ritual act I promised to turn worry over to the pig for 2019. Already, I have broken my promise to myself. I have been worrying.  I have been indulging in self-pity and resentments. We have yet to find a new home place, but the possibility that we could have a variety of places (more than one place and sources of reciprocity) has crossed my path ... leaving a lean signature ... an unexpected new next. A refashioned set of openings to the sound of our real and precious life.

Astrologically, Satori offers  a resource-filled outlook for the week which includes Valentine's Day on Thursday, February 14th:

"Monday the Taurus Moon sets the stage for a Valentine week with Moon trine Venus then Saturn, going on to sextile Neptune. Let belief and trust filter through tangible beauty and imagined ideals, simmering for satisfaction.

Tuesday the Moon trines Pluto and squares the Sun. It goes on to sextile Chiron. Faith and trust mean going deep here. Don’t let a little daily jangle undermine the good habits you’re laying down. “If you’re falling, dive.” Go with the earthy flow, slow and deep. Believe in the healing that’s happening below the surface...

 Wednesday, the Moon moves to Gemini and through a conjunction to Juno. From there it goes on to square the Mercury-Vesta conjunction in Pisces, all mutable. We need more options. We’re tied down and we’re feeling the need to branch out and investigate possible new additions to our sacred circle of self and connection to others. MORE! We’ve let our world get too small. If you’re feeling discomfort, consider more options. Don’t throw out the old, incorporate the new!.."

We are grateful, when we can lighten up and laugh at having to make adjustments, adapting to what is when the imagined doesn't fit, or doesn't come fast enough; or comes on a week of snowy waves. These are the 'Ole Moons, refining directions, making more adjustments, relaxing ... whew.

How goes your week just begun with a lovely Valentine waiting with your name on it real soon? Do you feel you're part of the We, or just apart?

xo Moki and Pete💝💝

New Moon in Aquarius and The Year of the Pig (Chinese New Year)

 " ... Reality is morphing, and the details are being flushed out into the open for all to see. The mood is subtle but contains a treasure trove of magic that we’ve amassed over time. It’s a pocket of real-life fairy dust. Our eyes are adjusting as Jupiter turns on the lights and puts the music on blast.. Saturday night into early Sunday, the Moon squares Uranus and sextiles Chiron. Venus in Sagittarius trines Uranus and squares Chiron. Learn from the discomfort and put it behind you. Feel forward into what you can make of it going into the future. Make the most of what it will mean in positive terms in the bigger picture. " - Satori 

 "February 4th’s new moon in Aquarius presents a fantastic opportunity to break free.  The Sun and Moon are conjunct Mercury. This stellium sextiles Mars in Aries and Jupiter in Sagittarius. If you want to be stupid at this time, you’re going have to actually work at it..." - Elsa

 

  Aunt Pettitoes feeding her piglets: duplicate of an illustration from The Tale of Pigling Bland. [1913]. Beatrix Potter © Frederick Warne & Co.

 "There's no set date for Chinese New Year. According to the Lunar calendar, the Spring Festival is on January 1st and lasts until the 15th (the full moon). Unlike western holidays such as Thanksgiving or Christmas, when you try to calculate it with the solar (Gregorian) calendar, the date is all over the place. Chinese New Year ranges from January 21 to February 20. In 2019, it occurs on February 5th. For a full list of dates and events check out our Chinese New Year calendar.

 " The Pig is the twelfth of all zodiac animals...The Pig is also associated with the Earthly Branch (地支—dì zhī) hài (亥), and the hours 9–11 in the night. In terms of yin and yang (阴阳—yīn yáng), the Pig is yin. In Chinese culture, pigs are the symbol of wealth.

Pigs might not stand out in a crowd. But they are very realistic. Others may be all talk and no action. Pigs are the opposite.

Though not wasteful spenders, they will let themselves enjoy life. They love entertainment and will occasionally treat themselves. They are a bit materialistic, but this is motivation for them to work hard. Being able to hold solid objects in their hands gives them security..." Year of the Pig

Beatrix Potter is one of my all-time heroines. For so many reasons I admire and aspire to be like Beatrix though her real-life could not have been more different than mine. Perhaps one of the only tangible similarities we share is that of being a girl born on an island, on this Island Earth. What conjuncts Beatrix to me is her art: her writing and her love of the natural world. Preservation of nature in as many ways as possible.

The other night we watched one of our favorite Beatrix Potter films, Miss Potter. It is that same film on a DVD which inspired me and infused me with the dream that Pete and I could build a new life from a small golden wagon.

While Pete measured, sawed, aligned, bolted and handled the physical creation of Vardo for Two, I imagined what inner resources (the spirit, the dream, the astrology, the prayers) we needed to move through the obstacles. The imagery and the dialogue captured in the grooves of plastic on a small circular disc was the company I needed to "Learn from the discomfort and put it behind you. Feel forward into what you can make of it going into the future. Make the most of what it will mean in positive terms in the bigger picture, " as Satori describes in her Weekend Forecast for this point in time.

Patterns and potential repeat themselves, nature is like that. Operating more in spirals rather than in circles or straight lines, I've come to experience these spirals and reach for the many possibilities as I translate. Similar patterns and relationships show up as time passes, but, they, the patterns and people are not precisely the same. Instead they are familiar, and I am familiar ... but not the same. I have aged, evolved, lived more life. In countless ways, that is really what my writing is all about, translation.


Yesterday we took one of our classic road trips: spurred by inspiration bred of feeling it was right more than logically considering how much it would take for us to go somewhere ... north this time. One of our favorite ways to describe these trips is meandering, zigzagging, twisting, curving; not in any particular rush because really any place could do, and nowhere didn't enter the destination.

What we both agreed on was we needed space, breathing room, to deal with the latest revelations and morphing realities.We need to move from this Prairie Front, but the where is not yet clear. What is clear is that any clinging to damage, like dead wood on an otherwise vitally alive tree, is better cut away.

So Pete drove Scout the Subaru in a northerly direction and in the movement our clinging to the internal 'dead wood' made itself present in minor and exaggerated irritation.

"Which way do we go on Ft. Nugget Road?" We'd already taken the wrong way on at least two other roads which aren't our usual straight and familiar paths. So I held my tongue on a response and eventually we found our way to West Beach Road where our friends are remodeling their beach cottage.

The once very small kit home is now probably double in size, includes a wonderful man cave for Martin to see the wetlands in the east, as well as sunrise and moonrise. The slow and mindfully redesigned home is now a sweet and comforting blue with an undercoating of yellow that softened the tone like only water can.

We tooted the horn to let our friends know we were passing, and felt that old-school sense of connectivity that began for both Pete and me when we remember that signature sort of activity; cars were still a novelty and horns had very distinctive 'voices' played by unique characters.

It helps, I think, to touch on simple talismans of familiar as the new is yet to come. It helps also when I don't cling too desperately to those talismans, giving the magic breathing room of its own; just as I would like for myself.

While we meandered and lost our way temporarily on those crossroads, we happened upon a wonderful working farm with sheep, goats and pigs doing what they do. The pigs -- two of them, were big and beautiful and so much like those in the movie Miss Potter. A tiny serendipitous moment. An occasion of glee. A synapse of recognition.

Meandering allows for happening upon miracles. We love that!

Just before we reached our final stop on our meandering Saturday Ground Hog Day, we met up with a good friend in Mt. Vernon. Lizzie and I met a dozen years ago at one of those crossroad times. It was she who housed me (in her Anacortes home) when I became most aware that something was drastically changing in my body. From Lizzie's Anacortes home, Pete and I packed up the Subaru named Scout, and headed south for San Sebastapol, California to learn how to design and build the Golden Wagon.

We have stayed friends and grown as beings because of this friendship. Shared valuable insights over the years asking and chewing on questions like: What's a good neighbor? Is it possible and preferable to share space? Is a little enough? Doing service being of service ... what does it look like? So many ways to honor 'God'; There's a remedy for believing you need to be an individual... We trust one another, and build on that trust.

Both Pete and I have found such generosity of spirit and practical support from this friend. And reciprocate by being who we are. Yesterday's connection with Lizzie added to our well of being and it is with her that some form of PEOPLE LOOKING FOR PEOPLE AND PLACE (a flyer to be posted old-school style) will go on islands where she lives or on islands near to her... into her hands we'll start again to look for meaningful connection with people who are yet to be known to us.

Just before we left each other yesterday Liz said a friend of hers believes, "You have to have the dream first ... or you'll never know if you've found it." It reminded me of a character, named Bailey, from a favorite book of mine, Night Circus written by Erin Morgenstern . Bailey is a young boy -- not yet a teen -- torn with a very early parental (his father) mandate to carry on as a sheep herder and tender of the family apple orchard.

His grandmother tells him:

"a child should not have their choices dictated for them. I have listened to you read books aloud to my cats. When you were five years old you turned a laundry tub into a pirate ship and launched an attack against the hydrangeas in my garden. Do not try to convince me that you would choose that farm."

"I have a responsibility," Bailey says, repeating the word he has begun to hate.

His grandmother makes a noise that may be a laugh or a cough or a combination of the two.

"Follow your dreams, Bailey," she says. "Be they Harvard or something else entirely. Know that what that father of yours says, or how loudly he might say it. He forgets that he was someone's dream once, himself."


How amazing to realize that someone could be another's dream. Of course. Or, equally as amazing to realize you must have dreams to follow them.

Do you dream as this New Moon presents her potential to you on the cusp of a New Year of the Pig? What is that dream? Do you tell it (to yourself or another) so you know it when it arrives?







 

The sound of silence, the languge of howls

 Howl's Moving Castle (the film)

Coyote stood at the top of the path leading to the Oak Forest place. Pete was helping me squeeze the heavy laundry into the cooler we use as a wash bucket. This was a sunny day and the morning after my Coyote Visitation. I pointed at the solitary wild dog and howled (softly) unsure of the reason for the visit, and honestly? Honestly shaky in my sense of safety. That is a strange and odd fear, that of the proximity of a wild creature obviously 'seeking me out.'

An old friend emailed me with her version of Coyotes's visit, "They were coming with their best regards." I wondered.

Days later ...

Coyote has not returned to howl outside the vardo window, and I have not seen him, or her, at the top of the trail. But what has happened is an inner recognition of the Initiation I have been gifted. Coyote, God's Dog, has come to keep me on my path.

"Coyote is a powerful teacher about perseverance, about flourishing and thriving against great odds. For many generations, humans have judged, harmed, and tried to eliminate coyotes. The coyotes didn’t accept this agenda for their lives. They didn’t give up or give in. Coyote continued going about being Coyote – genuinely, ingeniously, purposeful in their pursuits. Coyotes flourish and thrive in all kinds of climates and terrains." - JoAnne Dodgson

I was just finishing the last of the dishes when I heard a small call from outside the kitchen door.

"Hello," I called back, not sure if it was Pete or someone else. It was someone else.

It was a real life visitor, a Tilth member who had come to ask me something. We don't get many visitors, and since the Christmas Letter informing us of the Tilth's decision to ask us to move on, we have had even fewer communications.

This was a very surprising, and informing visit. Here was the woman I wrote about in a previous post, back from her December travels.  She was here to tell me of an upcoming activity. In March, she explained, there would be an educational demonstration involving burning. Aware of our sensitivity to smoke, she was here to ask which of the possible two days in late March would work better for us.

I listened closely to the explanation and breathed in the vital element of this surprising visit: there was a give-and-take and reciprocal nature of this call. All involved were being considered, and communication was open.

"Either date would work fine for us," I said. Then added, "You know we've been asked to leave the Tilth, so if we are still here at the end of March, just check with us and we can make arrangements to be gone on that day."

"What? I didn't know that." Her surprise and dismay was written on her face and in her body language. She was genuinely taken aback.

For several minutes, though I cannot be sure how long our conversation lasted, we engaged in opening up that loop so often referred to ... as in, "being in the loop." "I wasn't in the loop," she said at one point.

"You are now," as I put it. "The thing is no one is talking about this," we both agreed.

Rewind on the chronicle of events...

Back at that Christmas Party, no one there including the members of the Tilth Council who had made the decision to ask us to leave, approached us to talk about their decision or bring up a very tender topic. Why bring it up here as a topic for this post?

Because I believe the point of my blogging is to express the latest realities of life as I live it. Is it social media, this form of expression I create here? Not so much. Instead, my posts are a current reality of an old woman with Mars (action) Saturn (life lessons over time) and Pluto (deep commitment) in the Leo-area (creativity) of the sky at birth.

My life is a paradox and a pressure cooker, and to live with all that steam, I siphon off with words; I write. As our conversation wound down that day not long ago, this friend left me with these words:

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King

Coyote has imprinted me with the language beyond human words; they have left me howls. An unexpected visitor re-opened a slowly healing wound and left me with human words spoken by a man silenced by other humans. Paradox. That is why I put these words here.

 "Even without grammar or syntax, howls can convey intent, and if the shape of the howl changes enough while the intent remains constant, the foundations of distinctive culture can begin to appear." - "We learn more about our language by listening to wolves"

  “One does not get better but different and older and that is always a pleasure.” - Gertrude Stein


E Ola. To living. Are you part of the loud silence, or initiated with howls?