`Aha Update #16: One of these days (edited)*

The signs of seasonal change are happening: fallen maple leaves, undeniable coolness in the morning air, and a quickening in temperament. 

Our wish to 'head home to Hawaii' has been amended. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? It grieves us to feel the difficulty in experiencing the amended answer, but, it's better to know before we get there: I can't breathe when vog or wild fire smoke reigns. 

"Are you going? Are you really going?" They wonder. 

"Yes," said Turtle with a calm surety. "Matter of fact I am going now." Her movements are small and slow, and often her activity is all within that dome shell of hers. What does go on there inside that shell?

There are details galore yet to handle, and the pieces of our complex puzzle have been jostled. Like a kaleidoscope the little pieces of colored glass have made a different picture with the same number of pieces. It's kinda like that for me. I wonder if it's quite the same for Pete who was asleep in the vardo as I search for the story that is mine to express. Now that he is awake, the story includes one very small piece, more. You see the story is never over, until it's over.

That piece has been missing for years. Pete found it yesterday when he sorted the garage and touched everything in his tool box. There in the top shelf, upper right, was that small, missing bit of trim. Essential? Maybe.*

We have made our wishes public, and shared them with our community, and here on Vardo for Two. The process of transparency; we have nothing to hide:) It's a messy process this, but we try to keep our wits about us and not burn bridges or shoot ourselves in the foot as we process good byes. 

Just after we finished building Vardo for Two Julie Genser interviewed us. We were freshly reborn to a new version of life. Much of what we described in the interview is still true for us; but, somethings have changed.  The environment changes, we kilo we notice, and then innovate from the comfort of our own tiny front porch. That's something!

Something very special happens when all the former definitions of your self, your security, your entitlements change. If you live to tell the story that special something is REBIRTH. Our journey is that, a piecing or peacing together of many 1) thoughts and beliefs, 2) emotions and feelings and 3) intuitive knowing. – Mokihana from the July 10, 2009  Interview "A Gypsy Life: Notes from the Diaspora" with Julie Genser 

One of These Days
Written by Mathhew Herschler and John Cruz

(Listen to John Cruz singing "One of These Days" )

One of these days in my own front yard I'm gonna sit on my porch and rock Walk on by if you see me sitting there Or you can stop and talk One of these days Some folks think that living is sleeping in the city Bringing home buckets of cash Others, we're happy just sitting back Not thinking 'bout who's coming in last Me I just don't know where all the bustle's gonna lead Got a bunch of nothing happening fast But there's one thing I know, whether we go fast or slow One of these days in my own front yard Gonna sit on my porch and rock Walk on by if you see me sitting there Or you can stop and talk One of these days in my own front yard Gonna sit on my porch and rock Walk on by if you see me sitting there Or you can stop and talk One of these days Some folks think that living is sleeping in the city Bringing home buckets of cash Others, we're happy just sitting back Not thinking 'bout who's coming in last Me I just don't know where all the bustle's gonna lead Got a bunch of nothing happening fast But there's one thing I know, whether we go fast or slow One of these days One of these days in my own front yard Gonna sit on my porch and rock Walk on by if you see me sitting there Or you can stop and talk One of these days Can you relate? Thanks for following the updates, and being the strong rope (`aha) in our lives. xoxo Mokihana and Pete

`Aha Update #14: Living between, Interstitial Art

"Saturday afternoon/evening, Virgo Mercury pivots retrograde. It heads back into trine with retrograde Juno, rethinking our commitments. Communications may stumble, but never forget: Everything is information, informative. What may seem mundane can be very telling. Think less in terms of good or bad, and more to the tune of what you want to last. What would you like to correct going forward?" - Satori

Late yesterday, just before sunset Ao returned, REAL Clouds returned. I've told my husband Pete that it's my wish to come back in the next life as clouds. So the sighting above was such a sweet site! "What may seem mundane can be very telling," as Satori wrote in her weekend astrological forecast. The wild fire smoke is beginning to clear, the color of the sun and moon are more usual, more normal to our sensibilities and sensitivities. A mundane and telling bit of kilo to observe and mark: the clouds signal change to come. Have faith. And, make note of what is real at the same time. It's one thing to wish for something because we want it and another to note what is real because it is.

The planet Mercury begins his appearing backward movement over the next three weeks today, Saturday. By the Kaulana Mahina the Hawaiian Moon Calendar the three phases of 'Ole, those weed, rest, review 'no new projects' times begin today as well. The regular and cyclical pause times are here. Wheww, what a relief. These have been ruckus times. 

The process of heading home has been blown to shit, our aim is changing, but our faith in change remains intact; fluid like water rather than solid like asphalt. Yesterday before the clouds showed up I had spoons enough to wash a load of clothes. 

In our whirl, there is no washing machine with buttons to push and tumblers to slosh and rinse. Ours is a hands on, in the tub with water and baking soda soak before running through the hand wringer and hanging out to dry. It takes time and energy, and in my case, the energy of two to get a load of wash done. Moki + Pete = laundry done.

Slow. Deliberate. Low impact. Spoons required. 

While my sink of dirty duds soaked I asked Pete to haul out the two boxes of all the clothes I own. 

"Time to go through them all," I said mustering energy I didn't realize was there.

Stacked in cardboard boxes on his end of this metal and cement block building we call The Hale (pronounced ha-lay) Pete pulled out the contents only he could identify. There were all the clothes I own that aren't on me now.

I sorted fearlessly. Only two choices: keep or toss. No looking back. In the near future we need to store no more. This time we travel and stay lightened up. I think that's the point we're at right now --living between. I like the word "interstitial." Another way to look at it is Hawaiian; "mawaena" in between time.

"The word interstitial means "between spaces", and is commonly used to denote "in-betweenness" in several different cultural contexts. Architects refer to the leftover gaps between building walls as "interstitial space", being neither inside any room nor outside the building. Medical doctors have used the term for hundreds of years to refer to a space within the human body that lies in between blood vessels and organs, or in between individual cells. Television station programmers refer to any short piece of content that is neither a show nor a commercial, but is sandwiched between them, as "an interstitial".

The Wikipedia definition continues,

" How art can be interstitial? Take fiction as an example: If a librarian isn't sure where to shelve a book, that may be because the material is interstitial in some way, not fitting comfortably into a single, conventional literary category. For instance, when novelist Laurell K. Hamilton first began writing and publishing romances featuring vampires and fairies, bookstores faced a dilemma: How do you file these stories when you're working in a system that clearly labels one shelf for romances, a second shelf for fantasies, and a third shelf for tales of horror? There's no single, obvious answer, because such a novel is interstitial fiction, its essence residing somewhere in between the boundaries of these genres.
Or consider the performance artist Laurie Anderson: She might go onstage and sing, tell a spoken-word story, project shadow puppets on a screen, and play a hacked violin whose bow is strung with audio tape. Is she a singer, a monologist, a puppeteer, or some kind of tinkering instrumentalist? Classifying such an act as interstitial performance art would be imprecise but efficient and accurate..."

The weeks of real life with the vog-like smoke of hundreds, maybe thousands of acres of wild fire created a blow things up reality check for us. VOG is a present reality in Hawaii; we knew this but wanted so much to believe we could work again it. 'Aue, alas ... We cannot wish to be living on the Hawaiian Islands without having REAL SUPPORT-PEOPLE-LANDING. It is not enough to wish it true. We have different choices to make now.

I have tossed a box filled with clothes I will never use again. That was progress.

I have one more box to sort, and that will be more progress.

Today begins the three moon phases of 'Ole, more time to sort and toss and keep what we want going forward. We prime the pump with faith and tattoo this sign somewhere to see often:

We aim for that brilliant light that comes midday Monday, August 21, 2017 ... to shed more light. We are in between change. How goes it for you in your whirl? 

Hope these updates give you a look at our uniquely tortoise-like process of living and tinkering with Environmental Illness for real? It's art, interstitial art.

If the updates have you swirling, please be patient we're sorting laundry:)

Much aloha xoxo,

Mokihana and Pete