Languages and holograms

"Just," the wind and clouds considered the sound and meaning of the human utterance. Against a blue sky in the middle of the rain season, the gentle wind and ambling clouds had time for a bit of philosophy.
"Does it mean there are better circumstances to embrace then. If a human says 'Just this much more, or just one minute there' does it mean something's missing?" The clouds weren't used to minutia.
The wind was in a tolerant mood and enjoyed the spaciousness of the questions. Having no particular destination at the moment Wind offered this, "Just" seems to be a human place holder.
"Place holder?" This would take some doing to make sense." Just ... here to there

Halloween, All Saints' or All Souls' Day has come and gone. October has come and gone. It is November, the time of settling into winter begins. The small iron table was set up with a feast of favorites for our Ancestors, the parents. We created homemade ritual, and welcomed them when the veil of time was thinnest. The bit of conversation between Wind and Clouds taps into that part of my imagination that speaks for larger explanations, not exactly grounded if you are persnickety but on the other hand it is the connection with the Elementals that make all the difference for me.

We have moved ourselves and the golden wagon onto the gravel parking lot the evening light on the porch signals, "Here, this is where we are. Just here." Picking apart the use of language sometimes there are such fascinating clues that make language a lazy practice for beings who have forgotten or never been taught 'in the word is power, life and death.' Since the move across the woods and into the gravel lot clearing we have settled in. Just this week alone I have received two parcels, truck deliveries, at our wagon door. No longer hidden around the corner, out of sight, we are instead fully public. Bonafided. Legal. Present.

I am reflecting on the language and the holograms, the projections we cast from the magic lantern of our selves. Recreating a grounded life after being diagnosed with MCS has been much like managing the reels on old time movie theaters or slides and peep shows on the even older version of Magic lanterns.

Lanterne magique

Photo credit

Hidden away beside the tall trunks and tree skins of Pine and the ever taller hedges of berries and salal the Wild ways fed us something we could not reckon in advance. Very early on when we researched the options for material to build a mobile living space we had to learn new language: VOC, inert material, NAET, MCS, Environmental Illness were just a few of the words to learn and integrate.

Juggling these new words and definitions meant experiencing them bodily, emotionally, and spiritually. To keep track of the steep learning curve I found blogging. I opened up a vein and poured the experiences onto blog after blog after blog. Each of the many blogs allowed a slight or grand variation of expression. I was trying to make sense of nonsense. I was learning what it was like to be humbled and ground into the reality of a very different life.

It would take two years from imagining the golden wagon to the first night of sleep in Vardo For Two. It would take another seven to grow the community where we were part of a valuable whole. We are at this stage now. Just here. The walls of the golden wagon are now wavy from the weight and dampness of a Salish Sea life. The milk paint and beeswaxed coating we chose to color and protect the oak hold up, but we must do major painting come the next long hot season.

Environmental Illness is a morphing and changeable condition that will not be contained or consistent. As the body experiences changes my responses, reactions, and immune system changes, too. When started learning about this condition I was still projecting old reels and slides from my internal magic lantern. There would be more lessons to learn about health, and illness, disability and incapacity. I have been studying the language of interpretation through my passion for astrology and the Hawaiian complementary practice of kilo; these two in particular make for a language of holograms. I apply them to the blogs, and medicine stories that make art of the inexplicable.

This space, this blog The Safety Pin Cafe is a hologram of language, bodily discovery, and art. In the background where you, the reader is not yet allowed access, I am plotting and weaving a space where all these holograms can be found. It's taking me longer than expected to craft the space what with the shift in seasons and the move just from there to here, or here to there. My energy is limited, but, my imagination seems as robust if not more so than ever.

We are grateful to time and the community of Wild and Human company that grows us into being with character and value. There is so much to learn, and so many ways to tell those stories.

~*~

I am reading:

Runeworks by Joanne Harris
Astrology and the Rising of Kundalini: The Transformative Power of Saturn, Chiron and Uranus by Barbara Hand Clow
Elsaelsa the first astrology blog ever
Aurora Levins Morales' website

I just finished reading:

Witches of Cambridge by Meena Van Praag
Kindling by Aurora Levins Morales

And reread:

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstein
Wood Wife by Terri Windling