Ke Kuapa 'o Maxwelton Creek

  Pete and I gathered family and friends at a beautiful Honoka'a spot, on the Hamakua Coast of Hawaii Island to celebrate our wedding. We'd already 'signed the papers' to make it legal the week before but the party was September 11, 2004. That's my brother and me at the top, and in the photo below are our old friend Doug, my brother David, and my nephews Kawika and Kalani. Today Pete and I went for a celebration drive up Whidbey Island to one of our favorite beaches, Driftwood Park, at the shore of one beautiful west-facing harbor.  It is salmon season and the fisherfolk were there to do their best! Feels good to be in our familiar and loyal Subaru, talking story, and noticing how things have changed yet enjoying what we find to love.  And then to come back to the vardo, and our life, and to say "It's good to be back home ."  There are many reasons to remember dates, and events. We chose the date for our wedding celebration to challenge or balance the ...

One of the most seasoned laborer I know is sleeping on the job, exactly the place for him, on the morning once designated for folks who 'do the work.'  It's a gray-skied, drizzly morning a welcome change to the dry and parched summer. Yet the change in seasons brings with it the transitional responses of some bodies, like mine, that mount a response of protection to the damp and mold that forms quickly to the natural shift.  Our tiny home is cozy, dry and filled with the comforts of a warm place to rest, and sleep: a cotton futon bought more than a dozen years ago from Soaring Heart in Seattle the firm simple sleeping pad compacts with our weight and is more kin to sand or dirt than to cushy form-to-your-shape bedding like Purple.  How did I ever learn about such technology as Purple? The short version of the answer is I signed us up for Hulu (streaming entertainment) and brought us into the twenty-first century; brought present day tv into our cozy, dozy comfort station...

  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 ...

 All things considered, life is pretty darn amazing. Bamboo sticks of all kinds and states of being rise from pots all around us. Some of them used to be rooted in dirt and are now simply stuck in dirt to serve the twisting vines held in place with colored ribbon.  Other Bamboo People are growing out of pots filled with dirt and compost creating flexible arches and lacey borders. Shot with a bit of slant, they tell the story of our evolving life. I've told that story many times, from different angles and dabs of attitude that might have been an exaggeration or illusion. All things considered, the stories have been at least partially truth and now?  As the Sun glows eerily with a dab of wild smoke, and I sit to consider the moment there is progress to record: And first oli in the making from across the ocean and onto the wavelengths of a phone my Ma and Daddy coulda never imagined. But yet?  All things considered, life is pretty darned amazing. 

"Life is a story unfolding. The Progressed chart is one way to track your personal story. The idea is that a person develops over time. They “progress”... Your chart progresses slowly but when a shifts occur, they’re epic. If you’re satisfied with your progressed chart, you’ll be in no hurry for anything to change. If you’re in a jam, it can be excruciating as you can be “stuck” for many years...  It’s helpful to consider your progressed chart and also to realize that the people around you are also changing. So often people want to put it back the way it was, but this is not possible. Keeping an eye on progressed charts reminds us, we’re evolving." - Elsa writing about "What Is a Progressed Chart?" My pots of Motherwort, perched on piles of dirt surrounded by pots of tiny rocks. "Growing rocks," my neighbor asked? "Yup," I told him. "I've been playing with growing rocks since I was a kid." And it's true little stones and rocks h...

"...  The bigger story is still in flux, but we’re already at a point of need for making plans for our current path. This week the Cancer Sun makes its way into trine with Neptune and opposition to Pluto. All week we endeavor to connect our personal place in the universe with meaning and also with structures outside ourselves. Sometimes this is quiet and spiritual, but sometimes what is outside of us pushes back, exerts its power and we must respond..." - Satori writes about the Week of July 12-16, 2021 We celebrated Pete's birthday, with Zucchini Chocolate Cake with Raspberries, and Created a 'not-a-wind-sock' when our favorite wind sock place said they were out-of-stock for wind socks. Oh, the supply chain. That's the creation we came up with using copper wire from our dear friend Loretta, a fishing lure swivel, and three lengths of yard-long ribbon in Pete's favorite colors. The copper is wound into two spirals, the smaller dangles off the larger. The ...

 A bit of story about Bamboo People began here ...  A long time ago they were called Sam and Sally. Their story went like this .  "Things and people have been left behind time and again. Like land turtles Sally and Sam found that only what they could carry mattered. People –friends, family and society in the main have had to decide whether the things that matter to their multiple chemical sensitive friends mattered to them. For half a year our two elder dears slept in their car and parked their mobile bedroom in beach parking lots, driveways and lawns of friends and family. Living public lives with an illness unknown or misunderstood isolates, and that is what it was like. Public yet invisible, illness and homelessness are conditions that our society denies. Political mumble is just so much dank air. The sky is falling on thousands of us every day and every night. Life after dark is a time when the goblins of entitlement and gentrification screen out and isolate the fra...