Setting up The Pin

 Today was a beautiful fall day. The sun was warm, a breeze became almost blustery and the Marigolds, late in coming, are grand. Giant orange. Giant yellow.

I’m slowly feeling a little better and stronger after a bout with virus and deep recovery work. Like giving birth my medicine woman pal says, you need a couple weeks to be cared for. 

I like that perspective.

So I’m setting up the space where care can be received and given. The sign originally read The Safety Pin Cafe. With the early and sudden rains, the sign got soaked and mildew set in before I noticed. 

To salvage the sign and keep mold free, I trim off the two ends of the sign, and moved the lettering around,

She’s now “the pin,”

Sometimes change can surprise you. 

I’ll keep you posted.

Opala man cometh

 A virus has come. 

The dreams have been stirring up so much opala garbage. “What? I lost Dikka.” In last night’s dreams I was carrying (literally) piles of old stuff, some containers I recognized from my day life. 

A friend was with me in the dream. Kind and calm. But I was having none of that. “ Stay here.” I told her as I walked off to find something… I didn’t remember what. 

Recognition struck me, in the dream. I didn’t know where I’d left my friend(the thing of value!)

Back in my day life in the hours just before dawn I called a trusted friend. She held me in her heart, listened deeply without interrupting. 

Then, we sorted things out. 

“You’re on the threshold.”

“Ha?”

“The threshold of receiving good. Good CAN follow good.”

Pause.

“Let all that garbage go.”

Oh.!

We ended our call and I sent myself to the bag of oatmeal and boiled water.

Outside where our stove is I set the oats to simmer and climbed the vardo steps to wait inside. A few minutes later I went back to check my breakfast, stirred and then saw two bright lights coming through the alder woods. 

Rrooom! 

The garbage man cometh! Friday morning. Garbage day.

I let the shut go and filled my blue pottery bowl with hot oatmeal, butter and a scoop of apricot preserves.

Good can come from good if I set out the garbage and let it go. 

Seems this is the flavor of the day. Our landlady forgot to wheel the garbage bin out. The universe has a sense of humor and I got to unload onto this blog post!!

Whew 😰 

Medicine Stories

 This blog began as a medicine story. Literacy has its benefits and stringing together imagination with the written word fills libraries. 

I’m experiencing one of those times when a good medicine story comes in very handy. My plant medicine is doing their job and I’m grateful! St Joan’s Wort ( also called St. John’s) along with Echinacea root tinctures ease the fever.

But it’s the rereading of 10 year old remedy that is so comforting. Dumpling Woman and her friends have been such delightful company in the duck bed.

http://cornsquashbean.blogspot.com/2015/07/dumpling-woman.html?m=0

If you link to that connection above and slip into one of my old blogs written as sequences of tale you might enjoy a sweet story. It may require finding your way through old school navigationals. Good luck, I think it may be worth it.

Three Sisters was fun to write and a practice of soulful remedy making that all storytellers hope catch you by the wrist and take you somewhere wonderful!!

Placeholders

 Pete and I have a county not far from where we live now which we can only name “placeholder.” Perhaps you have one of those on your personal life map?

What is a placeholder? Well, for me it starts with a faint but persistent math memory from grade school. Something about “0” holding a place in a subtraction lesson. Sound familiar?

The county we call our placeholder include a couple little towns in Skagit County in Washington state. These towns and the memories we each have marked months of separation: we lived apart during that time though in the same town. It was pivotal time in our relationship and over the past 18 years we revisit those places and find bits or chunks of of our individual selves that linger … holding a place in our memory or in the place’s themselves.

Yesterday’s experience with placeholder memories for me were more about being in the moment willing to savor a new recipe(for chicken pot pie specifically) after the surprise of its unexpected form!

Rather than living a metaphor I enjoyed a fresh version of now and I loved it! Yum. That’s progress. That old math problem takes on a nuanced meaning. Hmm. Zero can mean more than nothing.

Momona Makua

 My slippers are tucked beneath the table at my favorite library's computer. I am enjoying the air conditioned air on one of the last hot days of the season. It will be in the low 80's before the sun is pau with his daily work.

Years ago, in 1995, to be specific, I met an Aunty who would influence my life from that point forward. She became my kumu my teacher in a practice she called "Makua o'o" maturing adult, or elder-in-training. I was newly returned to the islands of my birth after twenty-five years in Mukilteo Washington. There was so much I had no idea I didn't know, though I knew I was home to begin again.

The practice of becoming kupuna or elder began when I followed Aunty Betty Kawohiokalani Ellis Jenkins to events and workshops she was facilitating. A retired elementary school teacher, "Aunty Betty" continued to teach after her years as a teacher of small children ended. 

Our initial meeting happened when we were doing training sessions with two different Ka'anapali Beach hotels, on the island of Maui. My cousin, also named Mokihana, sent me a message, "Maybe you should go meet this aunty. She's doing similiar work." The work was the sharing of the poi bowl, a contemporary version of a very traditional Hawaiian custom of setting aside any conflict or disagreements when the family came to the table to eat. Poi. The. Food. 

In more ways than one, the sharing and eating of poi is the sharing of values, connection, and genealogy. My journey of becoming an elder begun with Aunty Betty continues today.

In a few minutes I will be meeting with a friend and Executive Director of a non-profit organization committed to serving the needs of the BIPOC community of South Whidbey Island, where I live. My hope is to share that practice of becoming an elder. I am creating a ritual of new beginnings, and continuation ... a genealogy. 

This new practice will have a new name: a generous and plump name. MOMONA MAKUA. 

There is more to come, and conversations which will spread Aunty Betty's lineage with that of the BIPOC Community of Pamoja Place. 

Raspberry jam

 I’m sitting it out. Under the shade of Alder Leaf hula, I’m listening to a pot of water set to boil. 10 minutes of boil for 4 half pint jars of those raspberries we picked in July, mashed and stirred with low sugar pectin Pomona’s Universal Pectin and two cups of cane sugar.

I promised my grandson Carter and my son Christopher Kawika there’d be a batch of raspberry jam in their goodie box. 

Soon. Those goodies will board a plane snd cross from our island to theirs.

It’s been a long time between batches of homemade jams. Fingers crossed the kitchen goddess’s give their blessings!!❤️✔️💜

Lokahi

 My practice of ai aloha (eating aloha one day at a time) continues. Today is my Lokahi Day. I had a rough night with little sleep but a lot of art. My sketch book filleth!

“Saranam, Saranam…”

“Grief Gremlins”

“By any other name”

This quote parks on a blank page 

“It’s not easy to admit defeat and give in to that powerful foe, alcoholism, Yet that is absolutely necessary if we are to have sane, happy lives again.”

- Courage  to Change 9-2

Lokahi