Welcome to The Year of the Green Goat/Sheep/Ram, Chinese New Year Celebration

Pete and I celebrated our community of South Whidbey Island and shared our version of Chinese New Year last Saturday, February 21st, 2015. A collage of photos and a few words are posted on my other blog, Makua O'o. (Our computer has a bug that does not allow me to load photos using this software ... so please forgive the indirect connection!)


To see the fun we had and read those few words about the celebration PLEASE LINK HERE.

"Hilo 'ia a pa'a" Braiding a tight cord of knowledge

"We hope you enjoy the journal to record the beauty, growth and cycles of Whidbey." - Love, Kaliko and 'ohana

My husband Pete and I are trackers of the moon, Mahina, in the Hawaiian culture. During the late spring and summer we gathered at moon watching places on the south end of Whidbey Island to watch Mahina rise from behind the peaks of the Cascade Mountain Range.  A pair of friends who also love the moon dubbed us 'The Lunatics' and we so do love to count of the moon. So, we giggle and point at one another when we bump into each other in the daily rounds of errands. Like the other morning when it was cold and required wrapping up with wooly hats and scarfs to the point of disguise. With one of us holding a stalk of rainbow chard grown and sent from somewhere far away (California?) and another reaching and squeezing lemons I looked at the neighboring shopper and said, "Lunatic?" And indeed it was my moon-watching friend Judy. We met at the organic produce section of one of the two larger grocers on the south end of Whidbey. With nothing green and growing in the local gardens in late December we depend upon the grocers to buy and sell the nourishing food Judy and my husband Pete plant, tend and harvest during the rest of the year. Seasonal changes are real, natural and in response we humans make adjustments. In this case, we shop.

The name of the post today "Hilo 'ia a pa'a" is a phrase used to entitle a small paper journal used to record observations of the moon  phases of your place. My niece Kaliko sent the hand-size journal-recorder to us with the note that starts this post above. Her note was a serendipitous connection, like meeting my pal Judy in the organic produce. She may or may not already know that we attune to the moon. We count on the moon to ground our emotions (fleeting as they are) recognizing the effect of the rising tides (internal as well as the oceans and ground water) when the dreams are especially potent or the dark nights rimmed with old cautions verging on fear. When the moon, the Goddess Mahina is potent and visible during the daylight hours as she is now, the balance of dark and light shifts. During the 'Ole Moon Phases we reflect on our choices, and our progress with life and wait until those phases have passed before making new choices or starting a new project. Those sorts of observations and awarenesses can wind into that tight cord of knowledge alluded to in the play on words "hilo 'ia 'a pa'a."

The journal's inside page begins with this:

"The title of this journal is a play on Hilo, the name of the crescent moon and the first night of a new malama (Hawaiian month). This is a time of great potential and new beginnings, as the energy of the mahina (moon/month) increases from Hilo till Mahealani. Hilo also means to twist or braid. As you begin the practice of recording observations for each lunar phase, you will start braiding a cord of knowledge about your 'aina that will eventually become pa'a ana'au, or fixed within your consciousness..."

The Moon Phase Project is an online forum designed to share with users everywhere. www.moonphaseproject.com will get you there. In the coming months I will be sharing and encouraging others on Whidbey Island to learn and observe the phases of the Hawaiian moon calendar. We are plotting and planning a Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year) Celebration in February, 2015 to welcome the "Year of the Goat/Sheep/Ram." It will be the next step in growing The Safety Pin Cafe's purpose for being a place where story(ies) and storytelling is valued, encouraged and based on the inseparable nature of all life. The Gregorian Calendar is the one most of us use to schedule and track time and our goings-on. January 1st begins 2015. Well and good. And, in addition to that solar generated time keeper, Mahina, the moon allows us to notice and record a different cord of knowledge "How can it help to guide our contemporary lifestyles?" Through first-hand observation of how Nature appears where you (we/I) live we connect with what grows when; how it grows; what the water/wind/birds-fish etc. are doing. We make note, and over time we braid life from personal experiences.

The findings will be unique for each of us. As 2015 unfolds, The Year of the Goat/Sheep/Ram will serve as my braiding year where I step into the community as Storyteller-in-Residence. The Safety Pin Cafe's medicine of story will pin together ancient stories with my personal journeys, observing and recording the potential of other stories ripe for telling. Stay tuned here, for how you can be involved, and where I will be sharing The Moon Phase Project Whidbey and The Safety Pin Cafe's Storyteller-in Residence as well.

Are you a lunatic? Would you be interested in joining a small group on Whidbey Island to learn and observe the Hawaiian moon phases? Please leave a comment, or email us if you are.

Weathering Weather on Whidbey

Justin Burnett, Editor of the South Whidbey Record wrote, "The December wind storm of 2014 won’t be forgotten anytime soon, not on South Whidbey anyway.

 

Beginning at about 7:30 p.m. Thursday (December 11, 2014) evening, the South End was slammed by winds that downed hundreds of trees, resulting in scores of power outages, an unknown number of blocked roads and driveways, and damaging private property from Clinton to Greenbank..." - Read the entire article here.

 

December 2014 Storm Damage
Photo Credit: Justin Burnett South Whidbey Record

 

Everybody has a storm story to tell as we, and our neighbors on the South End of Whidbey Island recoup from the intensity of winds that came with power. We listened to the snap and crash of tree limbs on and around us in the woods, grateful in the morning when the winds had passed to know no serious damage was done to our tiny homes nor that of our closest neighbors. Our landladies and we ran gasoline powered generators for hours to keep us warm, and allow me to cook. The loud sound of the engines and the petroleum emission the price we paid to be warm. It's a trade-off to the environment, something I chock up to accepting that can't be changed. We don't burn wood for heat. We need to stay warm. We wish to endure. We do what we can. Pete was out and about the neighborhood helping clean downed trees and checked on neighbors. There's an after shock that we all experience, and that's what's happened around here and at The Safety Pin Café. A slowing down and a psychic and physical release. WHEWW in capitals.

 

To help me with weathering winter I turn to the world of words and the medicine of story. You may want to read my latest Medicine Story that came from that storm. Pinned together as all my stories are, the real marries the myth and the partnership is a commitment to see life as a fiesta, a moveable feast, a fairy tale with or without fairy. The new story MoltenMadam sees Pale the Border Witch and heroine of The Safety Pin Café alive and well as she ages into her Wild Hare self "never too old for the mischief and the mystery."

 

Read MoltenMadam here.

Snow and ice report

Snow arrived Thursday night, and then the temperature dropped turning things colder and icy. I don't travel about in the snow and ice, and neither did our water that froze itself in pipes somewhere. So the dishes piled high, and only now have we got them washed and ready to cook up warm food and dirty up those pots, pans, bowls and spoons.

The snow bombs are falling as the sun warms the heavy blobs from the fir and pine up high.

It began on a day much like today ... a day a duck could love

"It was a day a duck could love. For that matter the week was a duck's paradise. Dressed for the season in my long skirt, paisley wool shawl, and tea cozy hat with the red hibiscus over my left ear my feet splashed in puddles. The sensible shoes--black leather lace-ups-- answered the silly duck talk coming from the edges, "It makes no never-mind to me. For though I have no oily feathers to shed the rain, my sensible shoes are always game." I'm sure the ducks got even sillier as I twirled at the end of every city block. But by then they were out of earshot."

Above me the rain today is splattering fat and abundant. The announcer on our local radio station said, "I could take a moment to tell you about the weather but if you look outside you can see it's RAINING, and will be raining until it doesn't rain anymore. And then it will either start snowing and stay that way for the next many days hear in the Great NorthRain." Aieyah.

When I wrote the medicine story, The Safety Pin Café a tale of remedy born in the imagination, it was the art of writing that turned a soggy attitude and sodden set of lungs into the bridge between. It's that place that accepts some of the reality and blows it into a bigger picture, turning skin and toes into the webbed feet of silly ducks who transport themselves through water and birth their babies on the solidity of earth. They are comfortable with both fluidity and solidity. On the radio behind me I listen to 'Aloha Friday' and the music of Hawaii. It transports, I become more fluent.

"I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding."

John O'Donohue
"Fluent" from Connemara Blues

 

December draws to conclusion in three days. The Safety Pin Café has unfolded and I continue to be surprised with it. My feet are wrapped in cotton socks, my head is covered with a favorite tea-cozy like hat, and I suspect the ducks, wherever they be, are getting sillier as I twirl weird words onto the cyber-cloud of words.

 

For a taste of more Weird Words check this out.

If you have not yet read the original medicine story The Safety Pin Café, it's only a click away.

 

 

Kamishibai: Japanese Paper Theatre

I was making dinner chopping onions, a thumb-sized glove of garlic and the stalks of red and yellow chard. Rice bubbled and steamed until I lifted the lid to let the angry rice sounds out. Just to be sure all the angry part of the rice went somewhere else I opened the window. Whoosh. Most cooks can multi-task, in a busy kitchen its a must. But, the skill of an excellent cook is to never lose track of one dish at the expense of the other two you might also be tending. Something like that happened today.

I'm not sure how it happened but I found KAMISHIBAI somewhere between steaming rice and chopping mushrooms. It's really quite a wonderful accidental meeting. Do you know kamishibai?

Now I do too and I love it.

New Moon means potent

Small, efficient, elegant and moveable

"Although more modern fasteners like velcro have been introduced in the 20^th century, the safety pin remains an everyday necessity throughout the world.
Its simplicity, elegance and household presence made it not only an item of utility, but also of culture and tradition. In some places in India, for example, safety pins and sewing needles are kept for generations and passed from mother to daughter. In the Ukraine it is still a practice today to pin safety pins to the inside of a child’s clothing, to ward off evil spirits. In many European countries, finding a safety pin is good luck, and a portent of good fortune." - A Visual History of the Safety Pin

Today the moon is NEW in Sagittarius. All potent. What began as a story, and a message from my Ma grows with the qualities of a safety pin. To affirm its potency to grow. Here's one of my latest favorite poster of the common magic.

Can you think of other forms of magic that are small, efficient, elegant and moveable? Tell me in the comments.