Notes from Mokihana
My wanderings have led me many places on this Planet. In years past, my wandering has been spurred by that Venus in Sagittarius in my natal chart...an awareness that I did not have early on. My mother called me 'auana' (one who wanders from the ancient ... as in, 'auana' style or modern style hula versus the 'kahiko' ancient form of hula). I have been called restless, impulsive and other things. Astrology had been an entertainment or a side-dish to my full course of meanderings as a younger woman. When MCS became both a diagnosed truth and an experiential reality for me, astrology began to seep into all facets of my philosophy. The old chart readings I paid for from unknown astrologers turned to cyber-connections with astrologers who spoke to the need for me to make sense of nonsense. Ruby, my former laptop of a decade allowed me access to the world of astrology that I needed. Real people made sense of things and used the prototypes and insights of stars, positions, angles, transits, and astrological houses. I was bewitched in the best of ways and my relationship with Hina, the Moon was at the core of my astrological spine.
cj Wright author of AUNTIE MOON is one of the astrologers who has become a friend and inspiration. I have been fueled and tickled with her wit, intelligence and skill at weaving astrology in practical broth for this old gal. I asked cj to contribute to the Canary Caravan Carnival as an ally and an angel. She does not live with MCS herself. What she does is offer universally tacit and funny views on the human condition. The piece that follows is an example of cj Wright's value as a human connected with source. I am thankful to have found her through another fine astrological site, ElsaElsa.com. Angels are in it for us, and "Entertaining Angels Unawares" is a precious reminder to treat all as angels. xo cj!
Aloha,
Mokihana and Pete
Entertaining Angels Unawares
© cjwright 2010
My mother passed away in 2006 which was ~ without a doubt ~ the worst year of my life. There was a Fixed Cross in the sky at that time which hit the MC/IC of my chart, sat right on my Moon/Jupiter, squared my Mercury/Pluto, and had great fun throwing grenades through my 7th house windows. If you're not familiar with astrology, let's just say it's one of those times when life seems to fall apart.
For most of my life I was a die-hard optimist. I firmly believed that something good always happens in our lives when things are at their worst. The Summer of '06 changed my mind about that. My personal life on all fronts was in shambles and my deeply beloved mother was in the last weeks of her life. When she passed away, I never felt more alone in my entire life. I grieved without ceasing and cried daily for more than a year ~ for my mother and for myself. While driving one day, I heard these words come out of my mouth, "There's not a reason in the world for me to be on the planet."
There I was, a woman blessed with the optimism of Jupiter on a comfortable Taurus Moon, feeling absolutely hopeless and defeated. The world was desperately dark, and the future was some alien force that I wished would just go away.
What I didn't sense during the overwhelming drama of that slice of time ~ and that took me quite a while to understand ~ was that I was never alone. Never. Maybe it was luck ~ my Jupiter still grinding away behind the scenes. Maybe it was a much needed blessing ~ Uranian Angels holding me up with the backward fanning of their wings. Whatever it was, I doubt I would have made it through that period without them. I didn't recognize them till they were gone ~ if they've gone at all.
It started with poetry. I was reading The Book of the Rotten Daughter by Alice Friman, a recognized and recently relocated poet who wound up in my neck of the woods. I had booked her for a reading into a little theatre I had at the time.
Funny how things break down,
like when wires cross in the phone
and the conversation you bargained for~
the one life you sunned
and watered like a petunia~
splits into two.
The Fall, Alice Friman
Two lives ~ the blessed and the broken, the shards of one overpowering the light of the other, my blurred beacon.
Several months before my mother passed, Angels entered my life. I never saw wings, there were no trumpets, no celestial music, no flowing robes. They entered my life as a bank teller at the drive-through who insisted I take the line of credit available to me for an unexpected emergency. "You don't have to use it, you know. But you'll have it when you do." My messenger.
There was the odd phone call from a stranger, a retired General who told me the story of how he was forced to push all his favorite belongings out the back of an airplane over the ocean so the plane wouldn't go down. "Life continued," he told me, "without the extra baggage. Sometimes we just have to let it go." My messenger.
Frank ~ dear, sweet, broken ~ who entered my life briefly with roses and soft eyes, assuring me through his new-found life that we can pull ourselves up from the very depths of despair and be all we never thought we could be. Beautiful messenger.
There was Alice, the poet, of course, whose book walked me through the last days of her own mother's life in a nursing home.
And then there was the letter from my Dad, who passed in 1989. It wasn't written to me. He wrote it to my mother on June 10, 1949 while he was on the road doing migrant farm work. A very important date.
Before my mother died, she had been admitted to emergency from the nursing home. Ninety-three and frail from a long struggle with Parkinsons, she wasn't expected to live for more than one or two days after she came for hospice care in my home. Yet she did, keeping one foot in this world and one in the next. She was a very practical woman who had planned and paid for her funeral many years earlier. She'd had her outfit picked out for almost 10 years, something soft and comfortable. The clothes, important papers, and the letter were in her traveling bag, ready to go when her final moment on earth arrived. She had other plans, as well, as yet unrevealed.
The morning of her death, I spent some time on the phone with my best friend who was a thousand miles away. She said, "Read her the letter." It didn't matter that she was between worlds, she would hear.
"Momma, it's June the 10th. Daddy wrote this letter to you fifty-seven years ago. I'm going to read it to you." And I started to read.The date of the letter was June 10, 1949.
She passed that evening, June 10, 2006, into the new world she had been striving toward for her entire life, a sweet smile and the joy of homecoming on her face. My messenger, dear father. Wise mother, wise messenger. She probably never knew how to tell me she had packed a ticket of sorts and that her departure was destined.
There was yet another blessing on the night of her passing. I stepped out into the dark and was greeted by a Full Sagittarius Moon which fell softly on my Part of Bereavement, a point of sorrow in our natal charts. With each Full Moon, I remember her sweet smile. Lady Luna, dear mother.
There's a beautiful scripture, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." We never know when they'll arrive or what stories they may bring. I could have ignored the bank teller, the retired General who had a story he needed to tell and that I needed to hear, the beautiful young man who got his life back and helped me regain mine, the poet's words, and the wise counsel of my dear friend. Listen, always listen. There's a message waiting just for you.
A fantastic interview by Lana Wooser with cj Wright links here ... learn more about cj.
No comments:
Post a Comment