Team Up and Inventory your Tools

Moon Time and Prayers

The old moon is in its final stages.  Yesterday and last night was 'Ole Pau.  I remembered to say my prayers of thanks to Akua Kanaloa and Kaloa, mindful of the gods as I went about my repairs (washing pillow cases and our futon cover by hand in a dishpan, and drying them over the heater; recovering from an exposure ). 

"Mahalo Ke Akua, I repeated over and over."  When the sun came up the light from Ka La shone bright through the tall standing trees.  I chanted "Ea La e, ea La e," over and over again.  If during the course of the moon I forget the deeply restorative nature of my ancestral roots, it is during the 'Ole Cycle when I am consciously slowed that I partner with intuition and attend to repairing and patching, reevaluating and giving thanks.

The  exposure during the 'Ole cycle was a self-imposed one.  We have had the distraction of a tiny television and a DVD player upon which we could watch favorite movies, over and over again!  The DVD player began sticking weeks ago.  Pete figured out how to make it work.  But, the 'fix' involved opening up the player and priming the disc like priming a pump or turning the handle on a Model T auto.  The innards of the player got warmer and warmer and finally the smell was toxifying, and my lungs and brain were frazzled.  Re-visiting your decisions and choices ... that's what 'Ole cycles are about for us.  Where is the TV and DVD?  Banished for the while under the tarp house. 

I am recovered with the help of my NAET practices of moving qui down my spine and out the bottoms of my feet; nebulizing glutithione, and using glutithione in a nasal spray.  In addition, we unplug the vardo of electricity at different times and slept for six hours last night without EMFs and it was a very different kind of sleep.

This final stage of the old moon, the Waning Crescent,  lasts for five days and nights until the New Moon on Tuesday, February when the Year of the Rabbit begins.  I fo:und the words from Rachel Carson over at The Canary Report during the 'Ole cycle.  I've added Carson's words to our sidebar because at the root of things is that reality ... how can this planet be fit for any life with the poisons that are more common than fresh air?

Team Up and Tools

VardoForTwo began in 2008 both as a blog and a building process, and a pretty good example of teaming up and using the tools Pete and I had as a couple.  We wrote about the value of Relationship and the energy that is generated when a couple creates a life. I'm thinking it's vital for all of us to know who you are teamed with and what tools you bring to the table. 

Living with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities is often a life where 'no control' is the standard.  Each of us with MCS treads a unique version of adjusting to the illness and find varying ways of adaptation to the conditions Rachel Carson wrote about in Silent Spring.  We built a tiny home on wheels thinking we could be safe because we would move that haven VardoForTwo wherever we needed to be safe.  Since all journeys weave and wobble, rarely remaining as we expect at the onset, We have found 'being safe'  to be a fleeting reality contingent on being able.

Able to ...

• financially fuel and maintain the truck and trailer to move about

We have learned to live frugally and creatively on a single social security check, part-time work and life within short distances from services.  This has been the first winter in three where our finance outlay did not include traveling hundreds of miles to find a space to park.  It has been a shift in attitude and the wet forest moss grows on the roof, making us part of here.

• physically pack up and move

Age and illness make for a heavier load when packing up and moving is required again and again.  Redirecting our energy, and for Pete particularly, this means he focuses on work to be had in the community, and around the land.  Packing and moving is difficult.  We are grateful to be settling, and our definition changes in the flow.

• mentally think through the process of moving and deciding how to ...

Our combined nature, and the nature of Multiple Chemical Sensitivities challenges us to remain mindful of our place.  Slowly, we are learning to live with less guarded-ness.  That is a relative condition, and with our changing life we still need to be coherent ... all present with the signals. 

• connect and be in a space with understanding and support others

Without a car to be in, for example, I am bound to movement on foot. That is a good thing, and a vulnerable thing if I focus on it that way. In a few minutes another MCS friend and I will visit in the woods. She will drive with her mask on, and I will walk out my long driveway and hope the air is clean and clear enough for us both. It's a major accomplishment, and we know it may be momentary. But, there you are ... the present is only in the moment.

• surrender to a power greater than myself or others choices

Most of the time I remember to turn the uncontrollable over to Akua before I spin in tight circles.  Sometimes I don't remember and find my way back, later. 

Dixie from Elsaelsa.com has a wonderful post about teaming up from the Tarot and Astrology angle.  Part of her thoughts are here  ...

The thing with plans, though, is it’s easy to freak out when they don’t work out the way you’ve slated them to go down. What then?



Old lady that I am, I’ve come to realize that the only way to stay in the flow is to stay flexible. Openness to new perspectives and insight is exactly where big leaps happen! If you’re not always ready to let go when you see something clearer in your sights, you stay exactly where you are. Where’s the good in that?

Link to the whole post here:  http://www.elsaelsa.com/astrology/2011/01/27/saturn-rx-tarot/

With the givens:

The Year of the Rabbit approaches
Saturn is in Retrograde now through June, 2011
What Rachel Carson said

It's time to 'stop squawk'n and start walking' and team up with people, attitudes and actions that will sustain you.  What does that mean for you?