Prayers rewritten

"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray to Earth, my soul to keep..."
(click here to read the rest of Terri Windling's version of this poem-prayer)   

I've been communicating with my family back in Hawaii. My uncle, the last of the elder generation -- our kupuna, and my mother's youngest brother, has passed into spirit at 96 years of age. Over the past couple of days I have had a chance to tell or email the following short story( in more or less this form): 

"The nightsky is dark here at not quite midnight on the prairie front of Whidbey Island. I woke from sleep, sad with the news of Uncle Bill's passing. It is very cool here at night, the season has shifted. It is Fall. So it took me some time to pull on long underwear tops and bottoms in the dark, not waking Pete. Out on the porch I reached up for the flashlight and found my stocking cap then slipped into my red rubber boots.

"With the flashlight ON I found my walking stick to make sure I'd be steady on my feet for the walk across the sloping land. Once pa'a with that o'o I turned upward and there they all were. A sky filled with stars and the Milky Way. All the 'Aumakua were present. I turned to greet them all and named the ones I knew were together tonight. The sadness I feel is real, I am human. So many feelings. The fulllness of tonight's sky makes for something in addition to the sadness. 

Bountiful is Ka Lani Nui

Richer this night"

With each share, I receive in return some gem of meaningful exchange. When first I shared this in email, I learned the Hawaiian name of my Aunty means 'pathway to the heavens.' Her husband, my uncle, was named Ko'omealani; I learned his name means 'pillars holding up the heavens.' Seeing the Milky Way befitted the reunion of these two lovers and long-time married ancestors. Another conversation raised the reality of what it takes for me to get ready to go outside; foreign to someone who doesn't need to relate to long underwear as a necessity.

Just before dusk last evening a friend we hadn't seen all spring and summer arrived with a beautiful tray carrying freshly-baked three apples pie. I haven't been doing pie lately, but that changed. For several years running, our friend has baked us apple pie as a seasonal and birthday thing. November is my birthday month. That tradition -- celebrate the birth malama (month), is something I'm looking forward to. When you haven't seen good friends for months that's so much to catch up on.

We talked of things of deep consequence, while Pete and I ate big slices of pie. Yum. Hot tea chased the cooling temperatures that come quickly when the sun drops into the trees. The moon in her 'Ole Holoku (Quarter Moon phase) was bright in the southern sky with Venus and Mars near-by. We spoke of our lives, hers and ours, and the activities of young and energetic people we know in common. The story of the Nightsky was told again with commentary to embellish and rewrite the original telling just as many storytellings do.

When the last of a generation of elders takes his last breath, we who remain exhale in a sort of collective response. Whew. What was that life all about? What indeed is a life lived all about. My sister-in-law and I talked, listened and laughed long and heartfully as we caught up yesterday. It has also been many months since our last phone conversation. Why do we wait so long to pause and exchange the ha, the breath of life. Is it doing so much that keeps us separated? Until one of the clan passes, taking the ha with him and there is time to reconsider priorities, at least for the moment.

The poem, or prayer link that begins this post is from Terri Windling's blog Myth & Moor. I found it just after finishing my delicious breakfast topped with a slice of three-apples pie and a second mug of tea. Windling's version of the prayer I have often said to myself on nights when my world was like a kapu being dismantled, is a much gentler version. I appreciate the difference. A prayer rewritten to suit my world now is such a kind way to make peace with a struggle or fear that needs to be set down, turned over to a power greater than myself. 

I have taken time to find my balance after the fall several weeks ago, and more time is need to know exactly what comes next. To be willing and able to hold that tension that hinges on balancing discipline with spontaneity, certainty with wildly open black holes different versions of a once commonly held truth takes something. Courage? Open-heartedness?

For now it seems fitting to share this brief essay/post in a mini-blast (a small hinged email) to reconnect with those who mean a lot to me. Blowing a kiss, a hug and an open-ended ? your way. 

xoxo ~~~ xoxo

Amama. Ua Noa.

How are you? Pehea 'oe?

Photo Credit: "A Million Stars" from Wikimedia Commons

SHAREABLE.NET (an updatable post)

Something very interesting to investigate for a real life LUNCH topic. I'm putting the link here and publishing it as a POSTITNOTE for me (and Pete).

The link below includes readers' views and experiences with communal living. We're very interested in how others have lived this.

https://www.shareable.net/blog/shareable-readers-share-their-views-on-communal-living

Update 10/19/18

I'm excited to get a whiff of Jupiter's soon-to-transit through Sag coming November 9, 2018. Thanks Elsa, the post reminds me of Jupiter's most positive characteristics and the natal character that I have in myself. SEE IT. FEEL IT. BELIEVE IT. Whew.

With that information I went back to investigate (higher education is Jupiter in Sag world) and I'm finding so much potential and real-life examples in SHAREABLE.

lIKE WHAT?
Language change: Do ocracy? Yes, doocracy. 

Palomino: picking up the scent of magic

" The bumpy envelope with flowing script arrived today. OOOOH lala. The PostItNotes are portable magic, and the pencil ... Palomino. Oh my, it's been so long since I have received a pencil as smooth on the page as she is. All of this made such a difference in the tone of my day which was headed for the cliffs before the bumpy envelope arrived.

So thank you so much!! I love the magic and will make more LUNCH and stuff with my Palomino."

I sent the message above to a virtual friend, a person I met via the cyberworld years ago, and someone that is becoming more known, more real, to me as we communicate in a more old school sort of way. Messages sent in the post with chosen cards and fillings that have personal meanings and surprisingly magical connections feed us ... like LUNCH.

This is

what caused the 'bump' in my envelope. And truly, I had never received a pencil as smooth on the page as she. On the pencil was written: PALOMINO BLACKWING 1. After writing with my Palomino pencil, I sat at the keys and let the webs of connection take me here, where I discovered just what a piece of magic I had received.

WOW! AND WOW!

"some of the world’s most legendary Grammy, Emmy, Pulitzer and Academy Award winners have created with Blackwing pencils. The list of known users includes John Steinbeck, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein and Chuck Jones, who proudly used Blackwings to create Bugs Bunny and countless other Looney Tunes characters...

"Claimed by many to be the best writing utensil in the world, Blackwing pencils are famous for the quality of graphite, iconic shape, and the men and women whose works they’ve inspired throughout the years. Building upon the popularity of Blackwing pencils, Palomino recently released a unique line of luxury notebooks, sketchbooks and folios that help inspire your ideas from pencil to paper, from cultivation to culmination. - The Blackwing Story

The scent of magic and the possibilities for LUNCH unfold with glimmers of what will become solid in the future. I consider the forecast astrologicast for this weekend:

"... Communications, mind, and attitude are deep and gooey with a tangy intellectual underside. Desire and motive retread some rough ground with a taste for the power and taboo of something not easily spoken. Something is churned up. That’s not a bad thing. Something is brought up from the depths, something we didn’t have words for before. Now we can form those words, those concepts, those attitudes. Something old meets something new, and we glean some understanding that informs new motivation… eventually.

For now we churn it up, vomit it up perhaps. It depends on what’s under there. But we really need to look. Get it up and out where we can investigate...

Have you considered leaving that crap in the past and just working on a whole new model of doing business (or love or friendship or family…)?" - Satori

With my Palomino pencil already worn from her first ride across the Morning Pages of today's hand-written landscape, I am considering just that question. 

THURSDAY LUNCH with the Morning Sky & Venus-Neptune

It's the Moon and Stars, especially the Constellation Cancer and the Twins, Castor and Pollox that have been treating me to a sky that I love. A lot closer to me, and outside the window of the kitchen as I type are a field of birds. Flicker is out with his long, long bill working the old laundry tub (planted with succulents). It's his favorite position lately. Lucky me, he ddoesn't spot me behind the window and I get to see his self; beautiful face, breast plate feathers like a bib and the punctuated feathers in a full pattern of bird glory ... before he finally rises on those powerful wings and I see his white tail feathers soar.

Give me a way to transcend the mundane, or the painful, and I take off like Flicker.

"Venus is what we like, what we appreciate, what we want. It’s sweet and pretty and pleasant (as an ideal… your mileage may vary). Neptune is sometimes referenced as a higher octave of Venus, divine love, forgiveness, music, connection to a higher consciousness and dreaming. When you combine the two you get the ability to take enjoyment to another level. You can blot out the harsh and let go of the things that keep you from appreciating the joys of the moment. Or you can get drunk.

This is really any combination of Venus and Neptune. When they’re conjunct in a sign they share the same sign qualities and generally work together well. When they trine there’s an ease in slipping into transcendent states. *The square also holds the higher promise of pleasure but it can take some work to access in a positive way. Sometimes with the square there’s a propensity to bliss out instead of dealing with reality, or to prefer an illusion to what is actual. The opposition also can get you into trouble if there’s projection going on, casting the other as either deluded or perfect." - more Satori

* That's me, natally.

"Your surreal view of the world and artistic creativity favors work in the arts. You should have a lovely voice and possible a high vocal range. Think Ariana Grande who has Venus trine Neptune at under one degree orb. If you were to perform in front of others then you would have a magnetic screen presence, and such a career would suit your fairytale idealism." - Venus-Neptune Trine Natally, Astrology King

Pete and I were having a conversation just before bedtime. "There's not much convenient about this life style." Pete said. No, not much convenience. But from all this inconvenience there have been opportunities for transcendence.

As I put words onto this cyberpage, having spent my three-page 'sober quota' on my Morning Pages already, I'm have breakfast while putting words down here @ LUNCH. I pour new content into an old container. The image/metaphor/allegory (?) comes from my recent replacement purchase of a vile of Bach Flower Remedy Elm. The description (the short story) written on the bottles of Elm read differently; it surprised me when I was standing at the shelf in PCC in Seattle. I was expecting the old story. When I can walk across the field and into the vardo where both bottles are I will put both stories here, document. It will help me in my experiment:)

I've walked the field, opened the vardo door and found the viles. The description on the original vile of Elm reads:

"restores your normal strength and optimism when you are temporarily overwhelmed or burdened by responsibility."

The description on the newly purchased vile reads:

"Be Efficient" 

Which description/story would appeal to you? I decided to pour part of the tincture/remedy into the old vile and leave some of the newly purchased remedy in the vile I've just bought. One story may suite me on different ocassions while the other story might be more appealing on other days/nights.

They're the same tincture, the logical ones will chime.

No, they're not. I'm a storyteller and I like the mystery present because I noticed how the tale was told. It's the Venus-Neptune affect in application:)

The original vile was one I purchased several years ago, on the recommendation from a dear friend and astrologer, Donna Cunningham, who has since passed into spirit. But, at the time I bought that vile Donna had been following my life over the years via the Internet. Blogs brought us together originally, and then she joined my online writers' group created as a way to bring people into my very isolated MCS-limited world. The group named Prime the Pump did that for me, and Donna and our friendship grew from the stories we shared there. I write with appreciation for this memory, and an experience with a positive expression of Venus-Neptune to cultivate faith, and husband optimism.

"...is the remedy for people suffering a temporary loss of confidence due to the overwhelming amount of responsibility they have taken on. Genuine Elm types are people who are successful and carrying out work they believe in, but at times the burden brings them down and they feel will not be able to cope.

The remedy helps to dispel these feelings so that we can resume our lives without thought of failure..." - Elm

TUESDAY LUNCH

TUNE-UP Documentation
(Applying the astrology Satori offers here, I use LUNCH to document what I am finding in my personal 'Resources' Hope chest ... using the energy of Venus going retrograde come this Friday. I'm sensitive, so I use the energy even before it comes.)

"Retrograde planets retrace previously covered territory, allowing us to readdress the issues raised. It allows for mastery of the subject. If we go on and on collecting new experiences without stopping to reflect or consolidate, vital components could be lost. Retrograde periods give us a chance to capitalize on what we’ve amassed or even catch up on what we may have missed.

Tuesday, the Cancer Moon creates a grand trine in water with Venus and Neptune. It then goes on to oppose Pluto and square Mercury as Mercury squares Pluto exact. Venus is Libra Mercury’s sign ruler. Pluto is Scorpio Venus’ sign ruler. The Moon mitigates. Pay attention to how you feel… about what you think… about what you desire. The information may feel disturbing. You may not like or feel satisfied by what you hear from others.

But take it in. You may even benefit from documenting what you think, feel, and want. Jarring communications or thoughts that feel shameful don’t have to be that big a deal. They’re information. Don’t take them to heart, just pay attention to the meaning. The meaning is what will be important to gaining mastery."

The kitchen clock ticks loudly. Commuter traffic has started, cars are on the move for the Clinton Ferry. Yesterday we were on our way into that traffic in time to catch the 7:30 AM Kittatas for Mukilteo, and on to the roads and freeway leading to Seattle. We were headed for my appointment with my long-time practitioner and healer C.C. This is the woman who worked with me to 'test, clear' and provide me options for choosing materials to build a safe-for-us home; she was working with the issues of MCS using NAET. Sounds like code. Is code. This woman is a provider of options and a wizard with tune-ups.

Though this is rush hour, we made the commute in good time with thirty minutes to park in the neighborhood where C.C. has recently moved her practice. It's a home office setting. When Pete and I finally left the Subaru heading in separate directions I was thrilled and excited to see a HUGE Pine, maybe Ponderosa, guarding the entrance to the walk-up leading to the office. Foot long pine needle dancers piled into small mounds. Can you imagine the glee? I was ecstatic.

My ninety-minutes with C.C. was classic. We engage in a Chinese-fed pitch of give and take. My voice rises to match hers. The cadance is like being in China Town Honolulu. I am at home. I describe my current conditions of concern. The fall. I describe it with the outside story and inside story. C.C. scans my body and muscle tests me with her uniquely developed sense of intuition and science and add two areas: Liver and Neck/Shoulders/Back.

When I fell I hit a plastic bucket with my ribs, my ribs hit my liver. The ground caught my palms, knees and boot tops.

When I fell I was thinking about: our 'place' here where we live and the comfort or resistance of community members to our role here; and, there was an issue of cultural appropriation going on in the town were we live. Two deeply unsettling issues. "Aww, your liver is not happy. We'll clear for grief, and then check for what else is making your liver unhappy." Clearing grief using NAET based technique and meaningful conversation greatly reduced the pain. Then, C.C. sorted through chemicals or toxics that might have piled up in the liver. She found 'fumes' (auto exhaust); we live along the major highway on Whidbey Island. While the accupunture needles press on the places that create flow, I lie back and consider what I've learned and let go. Relax.

The neck and back of the head discomfort from falling, and the week's earlier whiplash from the broken back of the lawn chair has the fascia all knotted up after the initial spasms. C.C. calls out a word in Chinese, I can't spell but it translates to something like "skin scraping."

"Do you have Chinese soup spoons?"
"Not any more," I answer.
"Okay, I have some, I bought for 50cents. I'll show you what to do and you can do it on yourself, or Pete can do it for you."

C.C. leaves and returns with a freshly washed white porcelain soup spoon. Very familiar utensil I have always (until now) had but with the many moves, they have been lost, given away, no longer part of the daily life. Using the edge of the smooth soup spoon C.C. scrapes at the skin where I say I have tightness. The simple action of a spoon held close to the skin and easily angled to a muscle or tendon that is tight is 'worked' or 'scraped.' The action is simple. Very 'Chinese' ... from my perspective I can say that because I AM CHINESE and know Chinese when I see/feel it. Again, I come to see C.C. partly (a big part) because she is like me. I relate.

After the scraping C.C. muscle-tests me for strength and indeed my ability to withstand (hold) against her downward push is stronger than before the spoon action.

The integrated experiment of care and attentiveness I receive is just what I need. There is conversation to consider relating to both the issues that were on my mind before I fell over the low fence. I have information and I options. The options that were previously unknown to me are the most valuable part of the treatments with C.C.

I write her a check that is a gift from Pete's sister. Thank C.C. and she says, "Call me whenever." And I pat her on the back in a sisterly, light-hearted way because that's what I feel. Margaret's gift covers the treatment, plus the ferry ride, and there is left over to have LUNCH. We sit in the car and consider our options. YES, OPTIONS FOR LUNCH.

We decide on Cedars. What a great choice!! Spicy Indian Food and Gracious Service. We don't do spicy enough, and gracious service?  That combo is such grease for the wheel that too often is filled with old habits.

Cedars Restaurant. Great place to lunch, obviously. When we arrived at 11:00 AM the lobby was piled with take out carriers ready for a driver to pack and deliver to workers at their desks. It was an awesome sight. The place was too freshly cleaned with icky-for-us stuff, but the manager was uber GRACIOUS. We choice to order take-out.

"Give us a couple minutes, please sit."
"We'll sit outside," I said matching his gracious manner. Calming myself from the smell of cleaners, I thought of the food and the nice man serving us inspite of the business he was busy with.

"Yes, please take these chairs. Nice weather here. And, how about chai. Chai on the house."

"No thank you," I didn't think I could manage it. But Pete did, and wow, how he did love it!

Graciousness. Graciousness is such a wonderful character to add to LUNCH.

The food was delicious. We drove a short distance to eat in Good Shepard Park, a Pesticide-free park we have picnicked at with our Seattle MCS friends. LUNCH was grand. The sound of Waldorf kids at recess was background music. Crows called for their share, and we left them naan bits.

TUESDAY LUNCH was a very good experience.

And, what did I see this morning (Wednesday)?

Fall's first frost and lots and lots of Spider Webs on the Earth and in the sky.
Magic in the making.

Thank you Akua! Publish

MONDAY LUNCH

To appreciate what LUNCH is, I'm starting the week and the month with 'Monday Lunch'. It feels like a good way to 'husband optimism' as Julia Cameron suggests.

I learned something today. There's so much to learn. How lucky. I still can:) Thanks Kalei Nu'uhiwa for the link to the video about "Analemma".

And then there's this week's Satori Horoscope, with these two lines that are the delicious part.

"Gravity is a boundary. We’re so used to working with gravity as a beneficial boundary that we forget."

It's really something (what an understatement) to fall. The humbling and the physicality of falling is brining up all kinds of old feelings about myself, about how I relate to the world and the people in my world. The slow day to day and moment to moment stages of healing is not new to me; but this fall is new. I give it due respect and sit at the keys for LUNCH.

Three months ago I made a commitment to step away from sugar. To do it I began eating using the Abascal Way.  Quieting inflammation is at the core of this eating plan. It's working for me. I've lost a few pounds, am not eating sugars and am feeling quiet(er) on the inside as my relationship to food works one day at a time. It's funny. I come to the keys, and to the way I eat differently because of the Abascal principles and practices. I come for lunch differently. Clever Gods.

And, three weeks ago I picked up an old habit and practice I had let slip; a good one to return to. Morning Pages. The link to Julia Cameron's website is here, and over the next little while I may return to these blog pages to document what I'm learning; how it feels; what comes up; and what goes down. Cameron says often and in many different ways that the pages siphon off negativity when we write as soon as we get up. Without the pages to receive the hand-written words (3 pages-worth) the negativity is like a slow, but constant, drip drip drip. An IV of the worse sort for someone like me (and Cameron) who really does need to be emotionally sober one day at a time, all the time.

Yesterday, two very dear friends drove a very long way to visit us during the Farmers' Market. We have known each other since the early 90's and been through so much together over the years. A VISIT, a spontaneous and surprising gift. That's optimism in the works. Thank you so much JT and Lana!

Glad to be here as October begins. With Raven and all the Winged Ones having such a ruckus time in the strong Autumn winds, I am grateful. I experiment with 'husbanding optimism'. The Birds are a terrific role model. Exhuberant. Now there's optimism and a beautiful flavor for LUNCH.

In for optimism for LUNCH?

xo Moki