Earth Day ... Every Day

"What makes Earth so beautiful?"

The Birds know, and sing their knowing as I stepped onto the vardo porch. Clouds, dark and moving from the North east remind me of their heavenly presence. The unfurling green of Alder changes the view across Thompson Road; the Apple and Crab apple grafted as one show their individual nature, together; Maple blossoms dangle lanterns of potential in today's present; Elder sets her blossoms along with her five-finger leaf fans; traffic on the asphalt adds the presence of technology.

Later today we will join people in our community for an Earth Day Celebration and share ceremony and the following two 'oli.

Remembering to remember, to ask and listen to the answers for how we can contribute to the question, "What makes Earth so beautiful?"

Na 'Aumakua

Na ‘Aumakua or Pule Ho'uluulu
*Adapted from Hawaiian Antiquities by David Malo

Na ‘Aumakua mai ka la hiki a ka la kau!
Mai ka ho’oku’i a ka halawai
Na ‘Aumakua ia Kahinakua, ia Kahina’alo
Ia ka’a ‘akau i ka lani
‘O kiha i ka lani
‘Owe i ka lani
Nunulu i ka lani
Kaholo i ka lani
Eia pulapula a ‘oukou ‘o ka 'ohana Calizar ( insert your family name) 
E malama ‘oukou ia makou
E ulu i ka lani
E ulu i ka honua
*E ulu i ka pae’aina o Hawai’i a me ke'ia moku o Salish
E ho mai i ka ‘ike
E ho mai i ka ikaika
E ho mai i ke akamai
E ho mai i ka maopopo pono
E ho mai i ka ‘ike papalua
E ho mai i ka mana.
‘Amama ua noa.

Ancestors from the rising to the setting sun
From the zenith to the horizon
Ancestors who stand at our back and front
You who stand at our right hand
A breathing in the heavens
An utterance in the heavens
A clear, ringing voice in the heavens
A voice reverberating in the heavens
Here are your descendants, the (name of your family)
Safeguard us
That we may flourish in the heavens
That we may flourish on earth
That we may flourish in the Hawaiian islands and in this Salish island
Grant us knowledge
Grant us strength
Grant us intelligence
Grant us understanding
Grant us insight
Grant us power
The prayer is lifted, it is free.

LISTEN to the original 'oli.

When I have a terrible need ...

The wind and rain blow through the prairie, leaving us blown through. "Things are generally on track," wrote Satori adding, "On track does not mean pie in the sky or ideal." The second sentence  watercolors the message, muting the definition of things. I consider the journey we live making adjustments to the environment we live in now with the internal environment -- the values and beliefs --we carry. Do those values sustain us over time intact and unaltered, or have we culled most and reinvented ourselves with time?

"When I have a terrible need for -- shall I say the word -- religion,
 then I go and paint the stars." - Vincent Van Goph

Yesterday was a full-stay day on the Prairie Front. The heavy rains keep at it leaving steady streams across the entry at the gate. Once again, gratitude for red rubber boots is my morning prayer, right after giving thanks for being able to walk in them.

We have the company of hens again. A rotating gaggle of friends, Tilth members, come to check on the three girls to see they have food and water, and are rewarded with eggs. Pete and I are the invisible caretakers who open and close the coop door when we walk to the gate in the morning and evening. Unexpected things crop up on the way to the gate and coop detour: sparrows get themselves caught in the cage after a day of foraging on the hens' grain(we need to offer escape hatches); a handful of worms roused from the ground by the deluges add to the daily diet; deep holes at the wire fence require collateral damage control (rocks in place).

Between squalls Pete has been laying down sod to cover Earth where the hundred plus feet of filled-in trench carries a conduit of electricity to our vardo.  The physical and ceremonial work of settling in here on the Prairie Front has tapped our resources. The physical stamina to do the work at sixty eight challenges Pete, a man who has the many skills and experiences as a wizard spider or octopus. He is a man who can multi-task with a mind for what needs to be done seemingly without thinking. His instrument is not the guitar or his voice. But to see his hands and legs like string beans in action? Orchestral!

I've been absent from the keys while life refuels me with experience. 'Getting better' after the flu the pace of recovery and adapting to our latest transitions takes patience. The trench work and prayers of permission and guidance are part of the long term journey to learn to live as caretakers on/with the  Whidbey Tilth community. It's a first-time experience having people live full-time on this land, and a next chapter in our journey of sharing space. Negotiating the process and the changes that arise reminds me of the story of The Borrowers. 

"Beneath the kitchen floor is the world of the Borrowers -- Pod and Homily Clock and their daughter, Arrietty. In their tiny home, matchboxes double as roomy dressers and postage stamps hang on the walls like paintings. Whatever the Clocks need they simply "borrow" from the "human beans" who live above them. "

Our life is not so much lived 'beneath the kitchen floor" but it is a life lived between the world of settled home ownership and that of the morphing definitions of homelessness. We shared the community kitchen, using it almost exclusively for the past six months. Turning the usually unused space into a place of adapted comfort. We built a spiders' web to shelter from the winter elements, use hot water and burn the electricity for cooking under the large roof of the open-sided Pavilion. Comfortable enough for us. Different by many standards.

Now that the season changes, and the Farmers' Market begins at the end of April, what we installed to warm up the kitchen through the winter, is cleared except for the copper wire web. People will be coming onto the Tilth campus and into the kitchen to prepare for the summer and fall activities. Pete and I will shift our activities with an amended version of cooking and sharing the space.

"We're resourceful," Pete said the other night as we gathered ourselves into the comfort of ninety square feet of vardo space.

"Thing is," I pondered, "how do you know to be resourceful if you don't know what a 'resource' is?"

Late in the afternoon, well before dark, while Pete neared the end of his day of sodding he told me that one of our friends and pea patch gardeners had her green house toppled by the gusts of wind Friday evening (around this time). I was surprised. "Where were we when that happened?" We each tried to account for our time on Friday. We must have been there. How could we not have noticed when we see everything out this front window?

As I considered this event: a toppled greenhouse in the pea patches, I was also tending a pot of chicken simmering in cumin seasoned tomato sauce with lots of diced yellow peppers, sliced mushrooms, diced garlic, onions and plenty of Italian seasoning. The pavilion sheltered me as I lifted the glass-topped lid to check dinner. Smelled wonderful. Looking out toward the pea patches I could see our friend working in her garden. The green house upright from my perspective.

Resourceful in community?

I found a small bowl and poured a mound of roasted and lightly sea salted cashews into the bowl. At the last minute I sliced up the remaining English cucumber and laid the lively crisp veg along side the cashews.

"Hi!" I called out as I neared the gardens.

Our friend was outside the fenced garden patches. I handed her the bowl.

"Is that for me?"

"Well it's the least we could do. Where were we? Pete told me about your greenhouse." The greenhouse was at this point upright and tethered.

"You must have been holed up!" She offered.

While she nibbled at the snack we talked of things. We talked about what mattered, what matters to each of us. The rain held off, and the winds were calmed for a time. We talked. We spoke of what it is like to garden on this land (soil is bad, filled with rocks), this prairie front. I spoke of what it's like to live here. We exchanged sensibilities for what is, this environment. I had an opportunity to extend small and considerate comfort. Cashews and cucumbers, a taste I would enjoy, I shared with someone I would like to know a little better. Conversation between squalls.

On Saturday this weekend we climbed into our Subaru and headed south. Our destination? The Puyallup Reservation. We headed for 'Aha Mele, a gathering of many Hawaiians (and Pacific Islanders) sharing Hawaiian music and dance, Hawaiian food, and the things that I miss more than words can say.

For two hours, I left America to be in the company of people who could give me language without words with the lift of an eyebrow and a subtle recognition with the head. "Where you from?" the greeter at the door asked me as Pete and I waited to get our wrist bands in place. "Kuliouou," I said. "Oh ... yeh," the familiar banter back and forth as if we were still on the home islands as easy as that. As easy as planning to drive in down pouring squalls without fear, and instead the call of soul to be where the resources could be filled.

We ate haupia and butter mochi, mingled for one hundred and twenty minutes in the gymnasium of the Chief Leschi Schools, seated on wooden bleachers, and engaged in aloha without boarding an airplane. This was a first time event for me, to be with hundreds of people at an indoors venue. The risk of exposures was outweighed by the need to be with my people.

While we had our Saturday field trip, the community kitchen on the Prairie Front was being used by others doing Tilth things. "We're cleared out most of the kitchen," I emailed, "and prepared it for you to use." I asked our friends to leave the door open to air out the kitchen from propane use so I could use the room later that evening.

Sharing space and being resourceful go together in the best of examples. Borrowing values, reinventing them if needed, the potential for watercolor as a working medium of reciprocity is doable. Paint the stars!

xo Moki and Pete

Sweet Tea and Brown-butter Mochi

This is a story written to inspire new life, Spring, creativity and re-birth. It's a fun one to read aloud with or without company. 

Oh, the most important part of this story is it began as a story written for Jade. We are the Auntie and Uncle of Jade who live so, so far away from her it makes our toes wrinkle wishing we were closer. Try as we might, we can't be much closer than we are right now (which is not very close at all). Writing this story helps us feel like we are closer. Story has that sort of magic. Always remember that, Jade. Story has that sort of magic to make people seem closer than they are. 

And since gifts are meant to be shared, we'll do that now, thanks to the Internet Gods and Goddesses, sending it to Jade and also sharing it with all who care to read it, too.

Sweet Tea and Brown-butter Mochi
By Yvonne Mokihana Calizar

"A dynasty of cats lived next door." Nanny's voice was fishing for some interest from the girl who was busy playing.

"I don't know what a dynasty means?" The girl kept tossing the boat-shaped bubbles to her imaginary friend.

"An essay is a raven." This was a bit of silliness Nanny hoped would loosen some of the girl's curiosity.

The short sentence did catch the girl's attention. She had heard about essays. "Isn't an essay a small story?" She stopped tossing the bubbles.

"You'd better write them stories down before they're forgotten." The bird's voice softened. "Or have them stolen by a black bird attracted by the glitter."

As it usually did, the Give-and-Go Game had captured the girl's attention just long enough to entice her onto the back of the purple and pink feathered, one-footed bird she called "Nanny." 

"Who would miss them if I don't write them down?" The girl wondered considering the words she could write, and when she got way beyond a hundred and ninety eight she kept going. The words drew themselves into clouds with no periods in sight. Clouds didn't need periods.

"You might never know, but that's not the point of it." Nanny bent her one scrawny, but very strong, banana-skin colored leg to allow the girl onto her back. Though the bird looked puny she was in fact among the most muscular of her kind and it was the plumage that deceived. It was a most clever disguise -- to appear one way while being another. Once the girl settled into the natural saddle of muscle between her wings Nanny continued.

"The point is Story does not call to everyone. You are one of the lucky ones. You have ears that listen. No, I take that back. You have ears that hear but can they listen?"

The girl was not selfish about possessing things or even an idea. She was taught to know gifts are meant to keep giving. An idea, could easily be a gift. So to have an idea taken back wasn't bad. Nanny had succeeded, again, to make the girl think ... and that was the best of gifts. Nanny knew this girl would grow best on ideas that made her think. 

"Why did you take that back? There's no difference between ears that hear and ears that listen." 

The girl was making a statement. You could always tell the difference between her questions and a statement. There was no wiggle room in the conversation when someone made a statement. But, a clever sorceress, like Nanny, knew how to wrangle another ending out a statement. And that is where this story is heading. 

"Are you settled well into the muscled saddle?" The question is as much for you, dear reader, as the girl. Our destination has something to do with the difference between ears that hear and ears that listen. 

"You might enjoy the journey with your eyes closed," Nanny said just before she pushed off with her strong banana-colored leg and flapped her brilliant purple and pink wings.

"Will that help me listen?" teased the girl with a bit of sass to her laugh.

"It might help, but more than that it will keep your eyes from being bothered by the waves of fairy moths that are heading this way in such a hurry. Oh, and keep your mouth closed as well. Whoops, too late." 

A mouthful of fairy moths is a bother, tasting a lot like peppermint chalk, but they will not harm you much. Unless of course you swallow. Better to spit them out as soon as possible and then ask for a cool drink of sweet tea and Brown- butter mochi, if they are available.

Fortunately, Nanny knew just where to go to find sweet tea and Brown-butter mochi. It wasn't far and she was always welcome to drop by with or without passengers on her back. 

The wind was cooperative, and since we are making up this adventure as we go, Nanny tipped her purple and pink plumage into a graceful dive. From her saddle seat the girl spied a small golden wagon. Its roof was curved, not pointed like most roofs. She said as much to Nanny, "That wagon has a roof shaped like the sky, except it's not sky-colored." The girl was right. The curved roof was pale brown, like the color of tea mixed with a lot of coconut milk. 

Four chairs were laid out in front of two of the wagon's windows trimmed in red. A table and a tall silver tea pot was set for company. 

A tall man with legs as long as string beans was waving as Nanny pulled out her wings to be the most delightful parachute, and landed "Ker-plunk". 

"Fairy moth emergency?" Laughed the tall man with legs as long as string beans and wild silvery-yellow hair. His face was covered with lines made deep from all the laughing he had done, and his large hands reached across the way to welcome the girl.

"I do like a gentleman," the girl said, repeating a comment she had heard. It was the first chance she'd had to try it out. The tall man with laugh lines on his lean face was lit with joy at the hearing of the compliment. He seemed to stand taller, if that was possible, and his smile? Well that was a smile as big as a poi bowl, and to see it made the girl's face lift into a poi bowl as well.

By the time the girl felt her feet on the ground beneath her, a small brown woman as round as a pumpkin was pouring sweet tea into big china cups. "Just made a fresh batch of Brown-butter mochi to help with any left over fairy moth chalk. Do come. Do sit. Do sit for tea and company."

Thanks, NY Times Cooking

The sweet tea was hot but not too hot. A couple gentle blows across the pink sea of Red Hibiscus tea with Blackberry honey made the drink perfect for drinking. The Brown-butter Mochi shaped in small muffin tins were a little sticky but oh of course mochi should be a little sticky! 

"All the better to catch any of the fairy moth dust that sometimes gets trapped here and there," said the round brown woman the shape of a pumpkin. She was a bit serious looking, but it was the words she said that made the girl really listen. 

She meant business, a good and caring sort of business with her serious eyes that glowed with something. "Very much like love," suggested Nanny. The girl nodded in agreement between sips of sweet Red Hibiscus tea as fairy moth dust tickled on its way down and through her belly. 

The tall man and Nanny sat just long enough to drink one cup of tea and eat three Brown-butter mochi a piece. Then Nanny pointed with her purple and pink wing tip and asked, "Why is there a long trench in the Earth leading to your wagon?"

"A whole lot of settling in, is what that trench is doing." He said and the girl noticed there wasn't much laughter in his voice. She listened more closely.

"Afraid of settling in are you?" Nanny was gentle with the question. The golden wagon was a home with wheels so it could move when it came time. Nanny knew all about moving, being a bird who was made to fly away when it came time. 

Instead of words, the tall man with legs as long as beans shrugged his narrow shoulders and kicked at the mounds of dirt. The girl felt sorry for the man but wasn't sure why. She knew grown-ups could be confused and afraid but wasn't sure what to do about that. She was still learning about things like that. And, she wasn't sure what it meant to be 'afraid of settling in'.

"Sometimes grown-ups get ourselves into a story we just don't know how it's gonna end. And then? And then, we forget the Story has an idea for an ending if only we'd just listen. Patience helps too. Know what I mean dearie?" The brown round woman was dunking a piece of Brown-butter mochi into the last of her sweet tea as she said what she said. 

The girl wasn't quite sure what that meant, but she kept that question to herself. 

When she had drained the last of her tea the brown round woman  smiled and said, "This tea party is helping Those-who-watch know we mean no harm to this place." The girl looked more closely at the long trench with its mounds of Earth piled along one side. 

The brown round woman continued, "It's a little like making Brown-butter mochi. A whole lot of somethings have to get heated, beaten and dropped to make something as delicious as those butterscotch sweets."

Women of magic remember to do things to balance one thing with another. The balance was to make sure Earth knew these people would take only what was needed, leave gifts and set things into the flow once again. The first and most important rule of magic: do no harm. 

"We cross borders without regard, ignorant or arrogant of the protocol native to the transitional spaces that take us from this place to that place. Traditions remembered and practiced would maintain and pass along the right things to do, at the right time, and in the right frame of mind. Have we all become wanderers with passports un-stamped with the memory of teachings from the Ancestors and Nature? There are rituals to remember and common magic to induce respect for the beings and places that share this planet." - The Safety Pin Cafe

This tea party was more than the girl could have imagined when she woke up this morning. Her toes were beginning to wrinkle thinking about growing up. Story was a big deal. She wondered whether she was ready for such things. And could she ever write all this down?

"It really doesn't need to be sorted out here and now," Nanny pulled the girl in snug, as she could feel the girl's confusion. "These are thoughts best chewed on over many cups of sweet tea and nibbles of mochi. Easy will do it, leave space in between thinking, play a lot and make room for the company of strangers."

It was time to continue with their journey. The girl could feel a nap coming on. The long trench needed full moon ceremonies to balance things up, and it would do Nanny good to work off some of those Brown-butter mochi by flapping her purple and pink wings. 

"Thank you so much for the tea and company," said the girl gratefully. "This was a very special day." It really was. A birthday ought to be one of the most special days in the whole year of days, and that is what this day was. Wonder-filled.

Happy  Spring, Happy April 1st (no fooling!) and Happy Birthday, Jade.

The End.

Love,
Moki

P.S. If any one tries making the recipe for Brown-butter Mochi please let us hear how it turns out. Until I get a bigger oven, or find small muffin tins I will have to imagine how ono these are (Fortunately, I'm good at imagining).

The many names we wear

These are challenging times, and aging gracefully is not an easy thing. The virulent bug persists though this morning I am grateful to have slept through the night with less disturbance from coughing. Like an invading entity with access to all my vulnerabilities -- one after another or all at once-- the virus re-triggers my sensitivities and allergies. I reached out in the deepest sorrowful times to a friend, waving the red flag of distress and my friend sent me a link to a poem by Joy Harjo called 'Don't bother the Earth spirit'.

"Don’t bother the earth spirit who lives here. She is working on a story. It is the oldest story in the world and it is delicate, changing. If she sees you watching she will invite you in for coffee, give you warm bread, and you will be obligated to stay and listen. But this is no ordinary story. You will have to endure earthquakes, lightning, the deaths of all those you love, the most blinding beauty. It’s a story so compelling you may never want to leave; this is how she traps you. See that stone finger over there? That is the only one who ever escaped..."

It helps so much to know I can reach out from my often vulnerable and isolated space and get something to tether my sorrow, or commiserate with that earth spirit to endure "the oldest story in the world."

With whatever name, or in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in these challenging times, the things that help me so much? It's Story. In Story I find other names I might call myself. In Story I find explanations that allow me to see death as inevitable. In Story I tap off the emotional venom that would keep me afraid of my shadow, and paralyzed by fear.

To help me, and maybe give you something too I've returned to one of the first of the medicine stories I wrote (2008) to make it through challenging times. It was a story that allowed me space to wear a different name while I considered who I was becoming.

For now ...

Sam and Sally

I don’t know how to explain so I will tell you a story…

Once upon a time there were two elderly dears who boxed along and lived quite simply in their cottage. Their names were Sam Tall and Sally Round. As you have probably guessed their names aptly describe our two dears. Sam was a tall lean silver-haired man with legs that stretched for yards. Sally was as round as a kabocha squash with skin the color of perfectly cooked sausages. As a young woman her hair shone black as fountain pen ink and fell well below her then slender waist. Now, Sally Round wore her generous mostly salty colored hair in a style reminiscent of Prince Valiant with plump toasted dumpling cheeks. Sam was a portrait of deeply rolling creases across his forehead with squint lines carved at the corners of his hazel eyes a template of a craftsman long a-work in the sun. His was a handsome face that still heated the juices of his dear wife after more than twenty years together.

A body wears different when you have lived as long as our two friends have lived. Sam’s shoulders bent a bit forward and his right hip ached with stiffness after climbing up and down his favorite ladder one too many times fixin’ this or that on the long days of summer. Sam’s people bred in him the energy of lightning—quick-witted, and fast in pace. Aging tempered Sam, but then can you really temper lightning? Sally wore her years with a bit more complexity. The round one was gifted, or cursed, depending upon your view with the ability to smell things that weren’t quite right. Once when she was a much younger woman she woke from deep sleep to smell a small but disturbing wisp of a smell that ought not to be there. That was what she was good at—knowing when a thing ought not to be there. As was her habit she followed her nose … a small and similarly round as her name nose … to the sleep-disturbing smell. Downstairs a far distance from the bed in which she slept, Sally Round found the smell coming from behind the ancient wall in the den. The fireman who came to put out the smoldering wall said, “Someone here’s got a lucky nose. Your house mice had made a cozy den of their own in your wall nibbled through the old wiring – a favorite food of mice for some reason, and added it to the paper and foil insulation for a grand nest. It’s lucky you were to smell that wisp of smoke.” But here I go rambling on about the old times when in fact the story of today’s telling is about the adventures our brave friends faced shortly before Sally celebrated sixty years on The Planet.

Sensitivity is a gift in some corners of time, but when Sally Round celebrated her sixtieth birthday her sensitive nose was more poisonous apple than welcomed guest. Poisonous apple indeed, the fabled fruit of jealousy and spite seemed to be the only way our gal Sal could explain her life. Surely there must have been a badly turned jot of fate that was causing such fright. Every day offered up one offending smell after smell another. An occasional wisp of something that ought not to be was one thing, but in the years leading up to Sally Round’s sixtieth birthday the work of sensing and defending became a full-time job. Now Sal had always been aware of her keen senses and learned in her fashion to create cozy nests of safety and security wherever she was, protecting her internal trust meter required these nests of comfort. Adventures and travel had always been a favorite pass-time for her, so frequent moves were looked on as a good thing in the early years. Guardian spirits traveled with our girl and she always made space for them to be near. Together with her lovely man Sam, Sally Round traveled back and forth between the place of her birth and the wide continent across the ocean. The two made many interesting friends who enjoyed their company and saved up little projects for Sam--a wee deck off the back door, leaking faucets, screen doors that no longer slid. Sal was a woman of grace and child-like humor with a heart that could keep a secret and a confidence. But something had begun to happen slowly yet progressively to Sally’s internal wires, until the summer when her trust meter became locked in the ‘off’ position. In the years of her fifth decade her nose became over-loaded with the multiple offending smells. Sal could not sort the good from the bad. Her brain became a gate-keeper who never rested. She eventually became very ill with a body that could not release the memory of smells that ought not to be.

Life on The Planet had changed so much since Sam was a boy milking cows on his Uncle Andy’s farm in Wisconsin. Once when a particularly fierce electrical storm shook the skies above his Uncle’s farm, a bolt of lightning found its way through a socket empty of its bulb. From that open socket the lightning rod traveled down to crackle into the cement floor below. Young Sam Tall sat milking the cow on that cement floor. The force of the lightning raised Sam Tall off his seat, into the air and across the barn. “Wow!” That was the extent of his Uncle’s reply as he watched young Sam stunned, his thin frame still shocked on the cold cement floor. Placid yet unrelenting awareness like this fashioned Sam Tall to see life as puzzles to solve, knots to loosen from a familiar length of rope usable again once the tangles are undone. I have heard him say on more than one occasion that a person stunned by lightning experiences things that can’t always be proven. How indeed do you account for those instances in a body’s life where energy enough to light up a city lights up your own dear self? Electricity isn’t a simple thing to understand, and yet it’s what makes every happen. The moving of energy vs. the blockage of same is all about being alive.

Sally’s illness was very strange and difficult to understand. Healers approached her symptoms with herbs, adjustments and assurances aimed at releasing the trust button from its stubborn and persistence on-position. In truth most never believed Sally’s illness. Friends and family were at first sympathetic but with time more of them simply didn’t see why she just couldn’t get over it and on with a ‘normal life.’ Sam, every loyal to his sweet wife directed his lightning pace and quick responses to fend off the smells that were making Sally so ill. At first the smells were easy to address. A flowering bush that bloomed intensely could be trimmed the blossoms bundled and set out at the curb to be taken away. Open fires were another smell trigger. There were fixes to that too. Some of them easy, close all the windows. Escape was another fix. Others more involved. Those solutions meant learning to ask for the cooperation of others and we know how differently humans respond to being asked to change. Sam and Sally would have closed many windows, left more than a dozen homes, nests and apartments including their cottage in the valley and had traveled thousands of miles trying to out run the toxic smells. By the time our friends joined the small birthday celebrators for food and drink our brave Sam and Sal were living in their car as a last solution. Safe places alluded and offending smells had become life-threatening poisonous apples." Link here to read the whole short story of Sam and Sally.

The poisonous apple illness has a name.

In the days to come I'll keep telling the Story, because fragrances on people and in the air still make me very sick.

That Earth Spirit Story is powerful medicine, honor her by not using and wearing products that stink.

xo Sally Round

The Janitor and a Wattle Fence

Photo credit: Dirt Simple

"... Shining a light on the difficulties of the art-making process can be as important as noting the things that inspire us or help us progress --  including the particular challenges faced by artists with disabilities or medical conditions.

Most healthy people can understand, and empathize with, the disruptive nature of a large medical crisis; but the daily effects of life's random ups and downs on those of us with limits of strength are perhaps less obvious. These small things -- trivial and constant -- chip away at our work time, our output, our income, and sometimes even our self-esteem, as we watch healthier colleagues speed ahead of us, unencumbered by the weight that we carry.

The saving grace comes each and every time that a friend or colleague stops, looks back,  sees us struggling on, and extends a helping hand. That happens often too. The trials of illness are many; but so are the blessings, which shine bright as the moon."

'The small things, Terri Windling

Sorry to have been absent from the blog these weeks. The flu complicated with the effects of asthma is making life just that much more weighty. We built our Vardo for Two to be part of an envisioned community where our way of life and our disabilities and sensitivities become understood and embraced. This choice is not an easy one, "avoidance of all things that trigger the illness", was the 'medical recommendation' given me when I got (and paid for) the diagnosis of Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. 

Spiritually the Romani-influenced vardo comes with the awareness all travelers, people of the road, know in the marrow. The character Galway Gwen is a traveler, Gypsy, tinker who speaks so purely about life of travelers. "Being sure of a real welcome is a grand thing, we were always finding that here (with you and your family). Maybe the only place we did. There's a freedom in that." Kathleen Anne Kenney's lovely new novel Girl on the Leeside set in the hills of rural Ireland has been our winter remedy reading and what soul-enriching medicine it is. While we learn what this prairie land requires of us as caretakers it is our golden wagon that attracts the soul-medicine we might otherwise lose track of.

By befriending time, we have found how long it takes to give-and-take and create understanding and shared resources; change is slow. "Information does not make people change," as Robin Wall Kimmerer wisely put it; "relationships do that." Our first night in the golden wagon was in April, 2009. We are still in the process of building those relationships; there seems no end in site to that journey in the wagon.

Winter on the Prairie Front was challenging. We have so much to learn about this new place -- each season brings new characteristics-- and the place is still getting to know who we are, skeptical yet hopeful that yes, we are the ones who know the language of reciprocity and respect. The winds are fierce and unrelenting as they shift from south to north but there is a benefit to the north wind because it carries road noise away. A blowing south wind rich with rain batters the vardo wall, but on a day like today with the sun heating that same wall, buckled by the rain into wavy oak walls re-form and settle back into place. 

Like living life in general, the way Pete responds to illness is different from the way I respond;  but this virus and the lingering cough and lung infection wear us both down. Pete has used his body to work all his life; movement is his remedy. I am a hybrid border witch with roots of the Pacific Islands long separated from home but . My senses are basic spider, or Scorpio, old school (very old) of awareness that says 'If the messages aren't reaching me on all levels they probably aren't true." My problems stem from self-sabotaging beliefs that counter my best good; too fixed for my own good. It's so important for me to remain teachable in spite of the struggle.

Here on the Prairie Front Pete is the old janitor we all knew when the school janitor ran the joint. He cleaned shit up, he patched broken knees (not every school had a school nurse); and if stuff needed doing you looked for the janitor not the principal. When I was a kid the janitor lived on campus, with his family in a cottage not far from the rest of the school. That's Pete. Just call him the Janitor.

Together we weave a braid of a fence like those fences made from pruned limbs of trees from the land. The limbs thread between the wire in the fences leaving space for the wind and sound to travel through. It's funny how the architecture of such fences are such a great metaphor of being part of the whole. If that fence was solid the wind would build up strength, doubling as it climbed and knocked the crap out of you when it reached the other side. I learned these fences are called Wattle Fences. Don't you love it; not to be confused with 'waddle.'

Last night Pete attended the monthly Tilth Council meeting. He was there to listen to the latest issues and projects happening here on the land. He was also there to confirm our desire to upgrade the status of our connection (literally) with the electricity. We are on the wire now; Pete was at the meeting to say we would like to bring in a 30 amp service to operate Vardo for Two. This project would tap our former "Going to Hawaii" money with matching funds from the Tilth. We are heading in that direction. I can't attend his meetings, but always wait for the update when Pete finally drives up the road for the rehash and summary with a touch of janitor.

The last thing I heard him say about the meeting came just before I finally fell asleep after one of those coughing spells. He said the Land Steward for the Tilth told him privately at the end of the meetings, "I really appreciate all that you do!" Like Terri Windling wrote about the art-making of life with chronic illness and disability "The saving grace comes each and every time that a friend or colleague stops, looks back,  sees us struggling on, and extends a helping hand. That happens often too. The trials of illness are many; but so are the blessings, which shine bright as the moon."

This post may be a bit ragged, but I'm glad to send something off after working at it for days now.  Keep us in your best dancing remedies, wave as you go by on the highway; send us a bit of the shine that is you.

Thank you,
Moki and Pete

Welcoming the Ancestors with Ceremony

"Ceremony focuses attention so that attention becomes intention. Ceremonies transcend the boundaries of the individual and resonate beyond the human realm. These acts of reverence are powerfully pragmatic. These are ceremonies that magnify life.

In many indigenous communities, the hems of our ceremonial robes have been unraveled by time and history, but the fabric remains strong. In the dominant society, though, ceremony seems to have withered away." - 'Burning Cascade Head' from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

 ~*~

We received an email as February came to a close. A new door was opening; another clue to just how water flows.

"NWLA (Northwest Language Academy) is having a group visit from Uganda and I agreed to show them around the Tilth campus, on Saturday, Mar. 3 starting around 1 pm. Would anyone like to join us?  There are 10 kids 11 -17 and 4 adults..."

I replied to the email

" Aloha,

 Prescott, Pete and I will have a welcome of sesame and blue corn bread and hot nettle infusions with coconut milk and honey for drinks at 1 PM for our Ugandan visitors, and I will chant them onto the land with Hawaiian 'oli when you arrive.
See you tomorrow! Moki"

There are things to remember, and protocol to put in place when you welcome Ancestors. When I wrote the medicine story 'The Safety Pin Cafe' protocol of respect and hospitality in particular were essential in the telling. Characters of fiction and myth-- the Silver-haired Raven and a Fairy-- operating a cafe welcomed ducks as well as a human dressed in black leather lace-ups or a face that no longer fit. Story pulled on the rootlets of ancient knowings that could and did cross boundaries of time and culture.

"We cross borders without regard, ignorant or arrogant of the protocol native to the transitional spaces that take us from this place to that place. Traditions remembered and practiced would maintain and pass along the right things to do, at the right time, and in the right frame of mind. Have we all become wanderers with passports un-stamped with the memory of teachings from the Ancestors and Nature? There are rituals to remember and common magic to induce respect for the beings and places that share this planet." 

- Mission of The Safety Pin Cafe

That medicine story remains the heart and soul of the real life I live with Pete. Separation from Hawaii challenges me to keep my cultural roots alive. As Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote in the quote above my 'ceremonial robe' and facility -- my ability to speak Hawaiian, share traditional foods and engage with others in practice-- are limited. Observing the Elemental cycles -- Wind patterns, Moon cycles, Bird activity-- helps to keep me from completely unraveling. I do what can be done and adapt. The addition of myth in my writing leaves a crack for magic, or wrinkle for the unplanned or unexpected visit; opportunity to pass along the right things at the right time.

Here on The Prairie Front, which also wears the name "South Whidbey Tilth", I am always on the look out for opportunities to create rituals to remember common magic. Our visit with the Dance of Hope Team from Ugandan was one of those opportunities.

Pete and I took a few pictures of our guests as they and our friend Linda walked up the gravel road to the small cedar fence where I waited to welcome them. Those pictures hide in the memory of our digital camera. I will have to ferret a way to access them. In the meantime use your imagination to enjoy a visit with those 10 kids and 4 adults. The video below shows them in full dance regalia.

Imagine our group of Uganda visitors, without regalia for dancing, clustered at the fence entry just on the other side of the grand pohaku (stone). I greeted them and welcomed them first in English, and then in 'olelo Hawaii (the language of my mother's people) pausing occasionally to expand the 'oli, explain here and there and involve the welcomed Ancestors.

The 'oli I chanted was Na 'Aumakua (the Ancestors)or Pule Houlu'ulu (Prayer to the Ancestors). Listen to the 'oli below.

The 'olelo Hawaii (Hawaiian language) and the English translation are here:

Na ‘Aumakua or Pule Ho'uluulu

*Adapted from Hawaiian Antiquities by David Malo

Na ‘Aumakua mai ka la hiki a ka la kau!
Mai ka ho’oku’i a ka halawai
Na ‘Aumakua ia Kahinakua, ia Kahina’alo
Ia ka’a ‘akau i ka lani
‘O kiha i ka lani
‘Owe i ka lani
Nunulu i ka lani
Kaholo i ka lani
Eia na pulapula a ‘oukou ‘o ka 'ohana Calizar ( insert your family name) 
E malama ‘oukou ia makou
E ulu i ka lani
E ulu i ka honua
*E ulu i ka pae’aina o Hawai’i a me ke'ia moku o Salish
E ho mai i ka ‘ike
E ho mai i ka ikaika
E ho mai i ke akamai
E ho mai i ka maopopo pono
E ho mai i ka ‘ike papalua
E ho mai i ka mana.
‘Amama ua noa.

Ancestors from the rising to the setting sun
From the zenith to the horizon
Ancestors who stand at our back and front
You who stand at our right hand
A breathing in the heavens
An utterance in the heavens
A clear, ringing voice in the heavens
A voice reverberating in the heavens
Here are your descendants, the (name of your family)
Safeguard us
That we may flourish in the heavens
That we may flourish on earth
That we may flourish in the Hawaiian islands and in this Salish island
Grant us knowledge
Grant us strength
Grant us intelligence
Grant us understanding
Grant us insight
Grant us power
The prayer is lifted, it is free

The Prairie Front was blessed with the presence of visitors on Saturday, March 3rd. For a few hours our Ugandan friends enlivened and expanded life here with their presence. They have come more than 8,000 miles by jet and travel in a big white van to spread their messages of hope across the U.S. These dancers did not come dressed in their dance regalia but they did come with an outlook for opportunity to move.

 A basketball lay quietly against the wall of the classroom all winter long. Pete has toted that ball hither and yon. This weekend the basketball became a soccer ball, passing between the agile feet of Ugandan dancers. A spontaneous game of pickup soccer. We watched the glee, the joy and the language of hope expressed as adults and children finally got warm enough to break a sweat. Movement is such a universal language of practical magic.

How fortunate we were to see the opportunity for ceremony in an email. Yes! We could be present. Yes! We could prepare a place of welcome. Yes! We could prepare warm drinks, and cook delicious food. Yes! We could create ceremony to remember to remember. Yes! We could connect ancestry. Yes! We could learn from one another.

This team of Ugandan dancers will be on Whidbey Island until March 9th when they present their final performance before heading to Minnesota. Click here for their Tour Dates.

 "Through music and dance, the Dance of Hope touring program allows children to connect with other children from different countries, to learn from each other and create a global community that allows them to reach a positive future without limitations. During this program, the power of music and dance goes beyond stage during outreach and residency activities, allowing children to deeply connect and make an impact on. Their performances leave everlasting memories in the lives of many people..." - Director's Note from the Dance of Hope Website

~*~

Lastly, a short interview with Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer caps this rambling post which began with Kimmerer's quote from Braiding Sweetgrass. I listen to her speak to acknowledge the strength of my well-worn ceremonial robe tattered and patched as it is from living with the changeable nature of Environmental Illness. Kimmerer ends the interview with this, "My job as a teacher and a writer is to help people fall in love with the world." Amama ua noa. The prayer is lifted. 

I second that. 

Friday poem

Memory

selectively, fingers

touch the smoothness

of Apple's skin

mouth

remembers 

juice 

reaching

places

deep

within,

ageless

Now you.

Join me in a bit of community poetry, or prose. Post your words -- in the 'comments' or email --inspired by the photo. It could be a lark of a Friday experiment or the start of something long-lasting and unexpected. At the very least it could be simply F.U.N.

Happy First Friday of March, poets and prose-makers xo
Moki