Showing posts with label culture and translation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture and translation. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Consolidating and Investing

"Comings and goings

Many things have happened since I began blogging in 2008: blogs and bloggers have come and gone, I have a lot more gray hair today, and my love affair with blogging has grown to epic proportions. I've learned a lot about blogging and opened and shut dozens of them (really!) Vardo For Two was the first blog I started. It started as a way to chronicle the process of building a two wheeled moveable Gypsy-style home that was 'safe enough for us.' We needed to invest in the belief that we could rebuild our lives after I became increasingly ill from multiple chemical sensitivities and could no longer live, or be, in most enclosed spaces (houses were a no-go!) We, my husband Pete and I were part of the early stages of the Tiny Home enthusiasm thanks in part to Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed Tiny Homes fame. We drove to California in the fall of 2007, met and participated in one of Shafer's first workshops and as they say in the Twelve Step Rooms "took what we liked and left the rest." Vardo For Two did become the record-keeping journal of the process and the experiences of two old dears investing in a new beginning..." - read the rest of the story here.

Winter for a Border Witch and the Silver-haired Raven is a time of consolidating and investing our energy into that which sustains and does not deplete Earth. It's a harsh sky we're under, and everyone is feeling the pressure. What pressure one feels is unique, but without doubt what pains one affects the other. I juggle my options for life: aware of my limitations due my sensitivities and weave magic from those sensitivities because Earth is sensitive. Without a sense of entitlement to something or somewhere better, I can and do invest in being where I can be at my best while cracked.

The Safety Pin Cafe is young, a myth and a sit-at-the-table-and-have-pie place that needs time to be known and to know the whirl of locations. Where can we safely pop up and share the medicine and magic? Not just anywhere. Winter protocol requires more due diligence for me as the scents of the season tamper with me and weaken me. I consolidate after an exposure to some thing that sets me back. I go within, and open another door. Sometimes you need to dig deep or reopen a door that can reignite your mojo. Sometimes, like going over the river and through the snow/to grandmother's house we go ... I go back to my roots, and back to the genealogy of my writing mojo. That's what I'm doing now reopening my first blog and serving from there with the herstory that reminds me that I can live from a cracked bowl. Wonder what that means? Go here to follow the bread crumbs.




Monday, July 8, 2013

A hand stitch, language of birds, a safety pin: common magic, complex nature



"Common" ... western definitions
1. belonging equally to, or shared alike by, two or more or all in question: common property; common interests.
2. pertaining or belonging equally to an entire community, nation, or culture; public: a common language or history; a common water-supply system.
3. joint; united: a common defense.
4. widespread; general; ordinary: common knowledge.
5. of frequent occurrence; usual; familiar: a common event; a common mistake.

"Common" ... Hawaiian definitions
1. hana mau
2. ma'amau,
3. laha, laakea

"Commoner"
1. Maka'ainana
2. noa
3. 'ino
4. hua
5. noa'noa

“I have heard the Amish will place a small mistake or imperfection in a quilt or other handmade item. Why is this done?”
“We’ve heard that many years ago sometimes a scrap of fabric that didn’t quite match was used inconspicuously in a patchwork quilt to give it “identity.” We question whether this is true. We don’t know of any quilters who would do that today. Amish quilts are all band quilted; stitches are very small and uniform. But, no matter how hard one tries, the stitches are not all identical and perfect. A quilt may have an imperfection, but it wasn’t on purpose.” - The Amish People
The door to The Safety Pin Cafe has been open for a week, and oh how thrilled we are to have had so many visitors.  Less costly than investing in the creation of the boards and batten of a store-front and eatery, the cost as a writer and translator of words and history is instead kuleana ... personal responsibility. I am a happy woman sharing the story, the characters and the journey of culture for it is precisely, and imperfectly, that journey of culture evolving that fills the cup of those who walk through the cafe door.