Makawalu ... unfurling spring comes

The slender head of the dragon rises from the forest floor. Nearly invisible, we spot her and stop to revel in the cycle of birthing. This is MAKAWALU (click to listen and see this Hawaiian life process explained)

The sign, signatures, tattoos leave messages for those who notice. Etched into the pollen and dust rich wall there! Mo'o, the Dragon Mother climbed up to tell me "Awake. Winter dark times are pau. Birth the eggs. Give birth to your power!"

"These blossoms are beautiful such a contrast to everything around them." Max was noticing the salmon berries. The first berries of spring, the flowers would drop their petals and the plump flesh that followed promised me the taste of guavas.

"Salmon berries," I said as I sloshed into a puddle hiding under the moldy compost of alder leaves. It wasn't necessary to talk with Max; thoughts played equally with words in his world. But saying, naming things so my eyes heard from the outside in was fun.

"How hospitable of them." Max was laughing as he lifted the face of a bright fushia salmon berry blossom. Combining his facility to hear my words and thoughts I enjoyed the forest walks and practiced." - The Joy Weed Journal

I am reading The Healing Power of the Sacred Woman Health, Creativity, and Fertility for the Soul by Christine R. Page. Pete and I listened to an interview with her a few weeks ago on New Dimension radio. I loved the sound of her voice and the laughter that was ready more than a period, or an exclamation. The joy of that voice drew me to seek more of her. I found her book at our wonderful local library and at first skimmed the paperback; found topics that stuck to me like honey; and now dig into her informative mystical physician offerings. Christine Page is trained as a medical doctor, but it is her intuitive and reconnective awareness that is the honey for me. She reminds me of the natural cycle of life and death. "The ancients clearly understood that this is our covenant with the Great Mother. She promises to continually fill us with pure inspiration ... so that through creative manifestation we are fed and nourished. But this agreement is made on one condition: although we can enjoy and be expanded by our creations, we should never try to possess or become possessed by them. As with the dying sun and moon, there will come a time when we will be required to offer back to the Great Mother the seeds of our experiences, better know as wisdom, so she can grow in consciousness. Once the seeds are implanted in the womb of the Mother, then the experience itself dies, for it has fulfilled its purpose. Nothing is permanent; this is a Universal Law."

The process of creating, art, or life in its everyday magic, follows this Universal Law of seeding, growth and fulfillment. As the spring signals new growth or birthing I make the time to celebrate birth before moving quickly into new ventures or further ventures. In what Page names as The Harvesting Phase, I, a woman creating, goes through a shift in mood. "as a woman begins to turn her attention inward. She becomes more self-absorbed as she nurtures herself with the fruits of her endeavors from the past few weeks and is able to reflect on what she will take from her experience and what she will release during her moon time (new moon, dark moon). The Full Moon in Virgo has just passed, today and tonight is the first moon about the fullest light. I give myself the ritual of reflection now and that is a gift I have so often skipped, but not this time.

Yesterday I celebrated the medicine story's conclusion with this post, and final entry in The Joy Weed Journal. Pale the border witch has a conversation with her time-traveling godfather Max. He asks her how she feels about being eighty years old. Part of her reply is:

"After all the years of being on the border of cultures, my life in Salish has been my initiation into the deep comfort with my body, satisfying my soul's yearning, accepting my human mistakes. Most important though I have come to know the wisdom of Papa Hanau Moku -- Earth, and Mo'okiha,  dragon mother, my 'aumakua. The twins born decades after my monthly blood had ceased opened up the vastness of a woman's awesome power; her choice to embrace a loyal lover of any species. Who said the division of ancient values would cease because the conqueror made new rules? My mind was swimming with implications."

The border witch and her deep initiation becomes part of my harvest time, resting and reflecting before I push onward with the work of raising the story into performance. That part -- performance and storytelling, will be how we re-open the flaps, doors and windows to The Safety Pin Cafe. In the meantime the salmon berry blossoms spread their faces, the head of dragon fern heads reach up, and this old woman wiggles her toes and gives thanks for it all.