Like a river
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| Nettle infusion-steeped oats cooked with Granny Smith apples and a scoop of Astragalus root powder. Once cooked the mush swims in Nettle infusion with a sprinkle of dried Wakame (dried Kelp), a sprinkle of Slippery Elm Bark powder, a drizzle of Maple syrup and are topped with two freshly-picked Nasturtiums for a spicy finale! |
" Beautiful breakfast of river words and images. I ate them down while spooning my bowl of Nettle steeped oats with chunks of apples, a sprinkle of Slippery Elm to blend and weave ... like River ... in my internal river needing assistance in digesting o so many divergent thoughts and opinions. The stories here seep into those places where my Native instinct can tell what will satisfy me long run ... even as I age and brittle if not curious.
Below my bare feet and wheels of our vardo, the Stream and Pond that live even with the cover-up of past human enterprise, comes to life again with Clouds and Rains who have an agreement to keep at the wetness that is their livelihood. Like chanting words that connect the outside waters with my inside rivers, coming here I confirm how large yet complementary are the Rivers of your Myth & Moor with ours here. How comforting. " - a comment left with Terri Windling on her blog Myth & Moor post "To the river"
A fine mist has come to be with us on Ke Kuapa o Maxwelton Creek. My warm red robe keeps me warm enough to stand outside and mix a morning pot of oatmeal. Depending upon the weather both external and internal the oatmeal is cooked with liquid and added foods that will nourish us. Today, the oats were cooked in the last of the Nourishing Nettle Infusion Pete had made the day before. The mineral-rich drink is just what we need to weather both the shifts in season and the heavy traffic of information laden with life-sucking leaches.
" More than anything, what we are being made to fear is one another. This is a good way to get divided and conquered. The one thing humans need the most is their mutual presence. We need to converse, to trade stuff, to help one another, and to ask for help. We need to be busy with our projects and other pursuits. And we always have been, even through the most horrid times humanity has faced. What you may be noticing, though, is that to have people in your life means to have different people than last year or the year before. You are not someone who likes change, particularly when it goes to the level of your personal tribe or family. Yet we are all being pressured into one corner or another, and much is out of our hands. Yet you are still you. You have the privilege of being guided by your faith, not by threats of death. Those don’t mean much to a Scorpio anyway." - Eric Francis "Planet Waves" for Scorpio, August, 2021
A virus has been making the rounds through me. I don't give it a name, but attend to its character -- pay attention - to how I feel; how what I feel changes; and care for myself and those closest to me with the tools that have kept me afloat on this river that is my life. A water sign, Scorpio, is my birth signature. To know what that means has been a lifetime's work. I'm grateful to have loved words, and stories, and imagination's reality to keep me company these seventy-three years. (Click here to read the continuing story that began at The Safety Pin Cafe last March.)
It helps so much to befriend the darkness "pale i ka po" so goes the line in the Hawaiian chant, Kini a Ke Akua. Protect me from the night is one translate of the phrase. Another perspective is to be unafraid of what will come from being with the dark. Among other remedies, or tools I use to make my way through the experience of the virus is to chant (sometimes aloud or only in my head if I am too weak to express loudly) this oli when fever, or distraction would lead me away from my self.
On the other hand, living in the darkness, only, or focused only in the ashes of my life does nothing for tending the fire that burns warm and fuels my forward motion. I feel the cold, damp threshold of winter coming. We do after all, live on a pond. My body and my soul remembers the dampness of swamp -- history long and old, a memory of the water mo'o who may indeed be part of me. To continue it means I must fire up the internal river, ginger and hot water will help; and wool socks, long underwear and a hoodie. But, it's just August? Yes well, it is August by a paper calendar, yet Alder leaves fall. And it is cold. Story medicine helps because it is a version of chanting and my Hawaiian relations know when you chant the elements? They answer.
The invitation we received a year or more ago, "I'd like you two to come live with me," said our friend and medicine woman ... was a tentative, but real, offer. Words of hope. Words from Hope. We have been friends since I began using the internet to teach Hawaii life ways; my first Hawaiian Moon Calendar classes were a fledging attempt at sharing a navigational tool had was our first anchor after we could no longer live in a house. That was more than ten years ago. Hope has seen us move our wheel home here and there on Whidbey Island her home for many years. She is Dr. Hope to many people; we're grateful to call her sister and neighbor.
The warm wagon home we built, is a comforting spot. Tiny in its assurance, nonetheless, she is plenty enough and reliable.
"Cancer (June 21-July 22) — The present circumstances of your life remind me of the song “A Boy Named Sue” by Shel Silverstein (also author of Where the Sidewalk Ends). This is a tale about a man who must leave his family, and before he does, he names his son Sue, knowing he would have to “get tough or die.” Yes, you face what seems like many different species of adversity, and you may be discovering that you’re in an environment that bears little resemblance to who you are. However, the greater these differences, the more I suggest you stand in your truth, and your commitment to taking care of people. The world you are looking at in many ways has become a ridiculous place, where the obsession with greed, power and money have gone beyond any concept of sanity. Hypocrisy has become a drug, an end in itself, and an object of pleasure. As long as you maintain situational awareness, you can easily rise above all of this, and if you do, you will see how many options you have. It is essential that you have a moral framework, though unlike in the past, you will not have many others to use as examples. It is now the time in your life when you become the example, and in a sense, the arbiter of right and wrong. This is primarily in your own life, though your example counts for much; many are observing you, and you have not lost the respect even of those who may have turned a cold or ignorant shoulder to you the past year. This has laid what seems like a burden on you, though I suggest you put it down or return it from whence it came. The truth is not so complicated a matter, though it is not the usual stock of drug lords, money changers, or grand inquisitors."
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| Carter climbing his "Time Out" bench and fence ... check out the walking stick he uses for a leg up. This cracks his Tutu up!!! * |
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