The 'Ole Days and Night of the Moon have been full. Though no new projects is the practice we have learned there are many kinds of weeding and tending/patching and follow-up on the things already in the works. Different things need tending during the winter then in the spring. What has captured my attention during the three nights of the 'Ole Moon is the effect of the asteroid CHIRON ... the mythological wounded healer that has been making its way through the zodiac in very close company with the planets NEPTUNE and JUPITER.
The link above will take you to a beautifully crafted article by astrology and writer Joyce Mason. Discovering her work (thanks to Donna Cunningham, again for the navigational tip!) is a perfect example of the sort of nesting work that is perfect for 'Ole Moon weeding and winter time internal restoration.
Now, back to the combined effect of the Planet NEPTUNE (one who among other things dissolves boundaries) with the JUPITER (the quick change artist/bringer of lucky breaks) and tiny yet powerfully influential CHIRON (the wounded healer) in my life. After more than sixty cycles of life revolving around the Sun, a very deeply seeded wound is being given a chance to be healed. The ingredient of awareness comes at different times in a life-time, sometimes we're too young to recognize the nudge. As we age, the habit of avoiding or denying digs in hiding because like any familiar bit like dust, a virus, a habit simply becomes part of the fabric of the nest. Months ago, while Pete and I lived in the woods we began telling the story of our life 'On the Ledge.' Through the real-life experience of finally having a safe haven a.k.a. our VardoForTwo, my Muse came to find comfort in that safe haven. The Muse is my most powerful ally in the healing of wounds and has been for most of my later adults years. This Muse is CHIRON manifest ... my internal midwwife, healer and storyteller and wound-mender transforming a life of flight into something magic. The Muse fed me the story WOODCRAFTING, and I applied discipline and wrote. (Jupiter governs publishing I have learned) The fairy tale WOODCRAFTING is a dense thicket of plots and characters includingthe thread born from a tiny barnacle that becomes part of a larger beings beginning. Small, over-looked and unheralded, the barnacle transmits its characteristics into a grand species of creation causing unexpected thought forms, leading to boundary breaking actions and ultimately revolutionary changes to the status quo.
Winter has definitely made room for CHIRON, beginning shortly before the Solstice when the walls of a faulty foundation of old beliefs about "responsibility to others" just would not and could not sustain my world any longer. My undoing is leading me slowly forward, nest building for a spring to come. No longer keeping secrets about my vulnerability, I have a choice to heal old patterns of coping with the fear of never being safe, or never being able to make the 'right' choices. The season of in-dwelling and finding comfort can be just the thing I need to heal these old wounds more deeply. Pausing to think of my next sentence, aware that I might have simply rambled on the page and gotten nowhere, I find this: "this ain't no whine baby, who could know your real life if not you."
To be continued ...
Do you know where Chiron is in your chart? To find out go to free astrological chart sites like Astro.com , click on the side bar "FREE HOROSCOPE" and provide the birth information asked for.
Clipart Credit: The vintage Clipart is from Fairyclipart.blogspot.com. This free clipart site is yet another of those discoveries and yummy places to go when needing things to refresh and enchant.
Today is La'au Pau ... the twentieth night according to the Hawaiian Moon Calendar. Even though at times we are in swswishrl of confusion there are signs and messages to which we pay heed. The moon, mahina balances the activity of sun-driven motion. Today is the last of four nights of good planting and harvesting the medicines from the land and sea.
Tomorrow the three nights of 'ole begin and no new planting, projects, or moves happen. We are wrapping things up here, the medicine from the ledge in all its forms ... seen and unseen have been gathered. There will be time during the 'ole days and nights which start tomorrow (Thursday the 8th), to review, reflect and renew the commitment to Malama Aina (care for the place) and rid ourselves of the illusions.
Believing without seeing is the theme of the installment that follows. The fairy tale and myth-making that lives through Wood Crafting is a perfect reinforcement for Pete and me. We are taking steps to move to a place sight unseen...we have done that before in our journeys across Earth. It's easy to forget how faith-driven our life has been, blogging and putting the tale onto the cyberwalls leaves a tangible token.
We may not post for a bit of the while since our hitching up time will come after the 'ole moons have passed. Until next time,
Can you believe without seeing?
WOOD CRAFTING
Written by Mokihana Calizar
Copyright, 2009
Please enjoy the tale for your own pleasure,
but do not reprint it or copy it for any other purpose without permission from the author.
(see the sidebar for my contact info)
Believing without Seeing
Joshua Tree loved the land and trees that filled the deeply angled slopes surrounding the pond of Ever.Familiar to him since he was a boy, Josh knew everything about his trees.He worked in town and had little time on the trails for clearing downed limbs and rotted trees but his attentive eyes were always keen to the conditions on the glen.The sound of voices and laughter filled The Family’s mansion.Calliope and T.F. had promised to meet in the river bed mid-way between the lake and the pond of Ever.The river bed, now dry of run-off carved a shallow trail just below Josh and Anna’s porch.“Do you think he’s ever seen us?”Calliope asked as he slithered over the lichen-covered rock bed.“He’s a fully grown man with a love of the Tall Ones and yet he has reserved a connection between us that says something about his Grace.Is it easier you think, for some mortals to remain above water even when the pond of Ever draws everything and any being to the deepest parts?”The orange one was quite a philosopher with interests that always made Traveling Frog chuckle with delight.“Calliope, you of all beings ought to appreciate the changeable nature of a being.Orange in one season and slim green and tailed the next.It seems to me not all mortals care to invite, or perhaps lose memory of the grace to cant the dreams, we remain invisible to them.”“Doesn’t make Joshua any less a good man just because he can not see us,” Calliope was very fond of the keeper of these stretches of stony land.“No, he doesn’t need to see us to believe these are a special Wood and an even more special pond.There’s a season of unveilings beginning now that the Bird and her mate have pulled their wagon to The Ledge. What Joshua Tree does or does not see may be different before the cycle finishes.”Calliope quieted and followed T.F. to the leveled patch of stones not far from the lake’s shore.The two friends surveyed the route the clans would use to reach the lake before the pond morphed into her meadow-topped summer guise.Satisfied there were no dangers to obstruct the migration, Calliope turned to head back up the trail.A glint of shimmer caught Traveling Frog’s attention.
The Swallows return to the glen just as Frogs and Salamanders make their seasonal journey to the lake.A pair of the long-winged split tail ancestors of Wood Crafters was engaged in acrobatics high above T.F. and his companion.What caught Traveling Frog’s eye was the shiny object trailing from one of the sky-divers.The object was large, big enough to weigh down the normally agile birds.The sun was near setting, but the slightest bit of brightness lit up the potential nest-building material.Too heavy even for the tenacious swallow, the shiny ring fell within an inch of Calliope.“I knew it would be too much to carry, but oh how I love a challenge,” Shelela of the Swallows flittered in the sky above then followed her treasure to the ground below.Never a ground-feeder or lover of things on the ground Shelela was nevertheless driven by the pursuit of shiny things.Traveling Frog recognized Shelela of the Swallows by the white markings outlining her lower eyelids.Shelela’s focus shifted and her eyes spied the purple caped and violet capped Lord of the Gypsies.Shelela lit on a slender branch of wild cherry.Breathless the swallow sang to Traveling Frog, “Well, Lord of the Gypsies, you are a sight for my own wandering eyes.Am I glad my precious shiny ring did not damage your fine violet cap?”Shelela answered her own question and bobbed a gleeful reply.Calliope had reached the ring, silver wrought and pink of stone and set about exploring it with his under-belly.“I’ll be thanking you for not leaving your glimmer of slime on my treasure there.Far too pretty a thing to be covered with Salamander goop.”In times past the swallow’s insults would have made the spots on Calliope’s back rise as if the words were steam enough to change the Salamander’s temperament.But cycles had passed between the two and this evening Calliope simply continued to coil around the ring and using his body’s scent glands exclaimed as truth, “This is a gift from the Bird, the Bird from The Ledge.”Shelela looked puzzled, a look quite common to the young Wood Crafter.“A gift from the Bird?” she asked.Her curiosity stirred, Shelela circled the sky above the two travelers and within a heart beat she had traversed the expanse of sky between river bed and the sloping terrain of The Ledge.The soft tan dome of the vardo was subtle yet unmistakably new to the land.Satisfied that there was some connection of truth in Calliope’s exclamation, Shelela returned to the limb of the cherry tree.“I found that beauty caught in the wet marshes of cattails just off the lake’s edge.Until this moment, I knew nothing of a Bird who brought gifts.Now I see there is a new …” Shelela was not sure she had the vocabulary for what she saw in her aerial survey.Traveling Frog supplied the words.“The Bird is a mortal, a woman and she has arrived in a wheeled wagon much like my own though much larger.She is a Bird called Lokea and in the litany of song she would be part of your lineage, your coil Shelela of the Swallows.That silvery ring with stone of pink quartz would be a gift meant for you.”
Shelela of the Swallows was barely forty and five cycles old.Her experiences were young and yet her warming had included the history of her ancestors Shenia and Shelela Wood.Yes, young Shelela of the Swallows is my own kin, distant as the Islands were distant to the great Shemaladia of Osprey, her namesake my own blessed twin. Traveling Frog strained to see the expression on the young swallow’s face.Silent far longer than was usual, Shelela pondered the information she was given.Still perched on the cherry limb, Traveling Frog rose on his gossamer wings to sit beside her.“There are bits and pieces of destiny ripe for the hatching dear young swallow.Are you free to join the clans for a gathering at my own wagon just after sun’s dimming tonight?The Queen and her sisters are preparing batches of pine flour scones and the pond is still water enough for juicy morsels of fresh flies for supper as well.You and your mate are most welcomed.There are questions to answer and stories to be told tonight.The Ledge is alive with unfolding Shelela of the Swallows, your kin part of the unfolding to be sure of it!”“We will come,” she said and flew in widening circles to find her mate.
I have saved the sharing of Part 2 "The Ledge" until now. Soon, the Ledge will become a history that will be recalled with selective tinkerings. The vessel of authorship is a collaboration between the sources of knowing and the the dense network that might be called perceiving reality. The fairy tale of Wood Crafting wrote itself while the life we had known up till that Spring became part of Nature's cycles. Neither Pete nor I had ever experienced the deep quiet, deep dark and starry skies or the richness of life that teems in the woods.
My spiritual life has always been rich, and my imagination broad. Life on the Ledge took hold of me and truly began to reassemble my hold on what is important. This next installment describe the character Lokea Bird come to rest on the ledge in the woods.
WOOD CRAFTING
Written by Mokihana Calizar Copyright, 2009
Please enjoy the tale for your own pleasure, but do not reprint it or copy it for any other purpose without permission from the author.
(see the sidebar for my contact info)
Lokea Bird
Weariness wore her like wet wool, shoulders rounded into her full chest, Lokea was tired. The years of wandering had filled her with sights and sounds from dozens of places on the Great Planet. It was her destiny to seek and find the many ways in which mortal kind had used, or abused the treasures of Grace. The slightly sadistic humor of The Creators, as I view mortal destiny, lies in the erasures to coil memory The Creators leave when humans are born. Unlike the eggs and hatchlings of covey and warren where newly birthed Wood Crafters arrive fully aware and with total memory of their warming and their grace, human coil is braided with a miniscule space … a missing link. I have been taught to remember the space as an erasure and a place where mortal will resides. Remember Geoff the Grand? He was a Grey, a blend of mortal and more. His story of reassembling hints at the adventures to come for Lokea Bird during her days and nights on The Ledge.
A great sigh of relief dropped from Lokea’s heart. “Made it.”Lokea exclaimed. She held tight to her friend Briscoe and both did a jig of celebration on the hard driveway between The Ledge and The Family’s mansion. Briscoe and her mate Baines were part of the mini-caravan following the dandelion wagon from the city to the woods. Briscoe and Baines, like Anna and Joshua were friends of a life-time. These were loyal and unwavering friends who took Lokea and Pat into their homes when no safe harbor existed. Without question and with open-hearts Briscoe, Baines, Anna and Joshua embraced without judgment. The Creators and the Fairy Folk watch episodes such as this. Lokea hung back on The Ledge after Baines and Pat had secured the vardo into place. Tears filled her old eyes, still vibrant though less brilliant. “Thank you Ke Akua and all the residents of this place,” her prayers were silent, conned as she had been taught she filled the space with her acknowledgment.
Tutu and Traveling Frog listened. Traveling Frog turned to look into the sky, searching for Tutu’s face. He saw in the lines of the ancient fir a smile of recollection. He saw the prayers enter the deep crevices of the ancient fir’s thick skin as she absorbed the appreciation. “Ah,” T.F. sighed to himself. “Family.” A round brocade purse with a zipper for an enclosure held the small collection of jewels Lokea still called her own. A heavy circle of yellow metal, a bracelet, lengths of colored beads and several shiny stones hung from golden filigree. The narrow pathway cleared around the vardo did not disturb the seedlings that sprouted below Tutu. From the brocade purse Lokea drew four pieces. Two shiny orange stones dangling from gold filigree were hung from the tiny limbs of a seedling hemlock. Along with the stones Lokea hung a silver ring with an oval of pink quartz. “Hope you like them!” She said, this time using voice. Two other jewels, these long thin ovals made of mother of pearl were hung on the branches of a small pine. Other treasures, sea shells from her ocean home were offered as indicators of the places from which she had lived before. “To let you know my lineage,” she said continuing her ceremony. That done, Lokea Bird raised her arms with conscious memory of her linkage to All, flapped her outstretched arms and spun in circles before nearly losing her balance. “Almost too old and worn to do that,” she said to no one in particular, felt a grin bubble across her face and satisfied with her offering went to the celebration beginning inside the mansion.
We are gathering the chattels of our life, bundling up our stakes, and reassessing our store of energy for one more venture. We have a hitch-up date in mind ... within the week we will trundle ourselves south and east to the central region of Oregon state. The season on the Ledge draws to a close.
Pete is in high motion as he must be and has for all the time we have been together in the fall. PReparing for a move, he is focused on systematic progress. I count on his process and move through my own forms of preparation. Yesterday evening I took time with the 'AINA here ... the space that nurtures us. I said my prayers of thanks, and did my hula of appreciation, acknowledging all the beings for making space for us. Where Pete is in motion, I emote the full body of feelings that come each time it's time to say good-bye. For a wanderer, I am not easy with good-byes.
The fairy tale WOOD CRAFTING was written with my fingers and the mind of the Muse from the Ledge. She has helped me author the tale you read. Place is a sacred source of connection and I have always known it matters how place is treated. The installment that follows is more about connection between time and place and beings.
WOOD CRAFTING
Written by Mokihana Calizar
Copyright, 2009
Please enjoy the tale for your own pleasure,
but do not reprint it or copy it for any other purpose without permission from the author.
(see the sidebar for my contact info)
Shiny stones
So the spring of this great cycle had indeed begun with new beginnings and continuing destiny.Traveling Frog and Calliope Salamander were greeted on the trail-head beneath The Ledge with a cacophony of questions and the steel-blank stare of Traveling Frog’s Queen, Bernadette.“What ruckus stirred from The Ledge?Who camps there?Are more trees to be felled, warrens crumbled and more mansions raised?”The clans were filled with curiosity and though always a hospitable lot, they were not without a healthy sense of reserve considering the memories of Diaspora the wee folk lived with caution.“Come to the wagon for food and conversation tonight, just after the sun’s light is dimmed.Calliope and I will answer all your questions and then it will be time to prepare for the migration.”Lord Traveling Frog saved private conversation for his partner the Queen who watched and listened from the open hatch of the split front door of their home.
Bernadette’s steely eyes softened as Traveling Frog hopped to the porch of the lavender painted vardo that was indeed a near duplicate to the wheeled home now perched on The Ledge over looking the pond of Ever. Traveling Frog slipped off his outer footwear and hung them neatly on the tiny hooks pegged on the front wall before opening the door to step inside. He reached for his mate of destiny and embraced her with the same warmth he’d felt as a Rook. “It’s a fine evening, darlin’ a grand time for welcoming new family to the glen and to The Ledge.” Bernadette helped Traveling Frog with his cape and cap, hung both on the corner stand and sat at the table she had already laid out for tea. “What do you make of it my dear Froggie? Such large folk tucked into a wee wheelie home, and from the snips of gossip flying through the glen, these mortals are past the period of sapling and more aged than young. Family you say. Just what is it you know that secures you to that choice of word … family?” “Let me have a sip of that delicious tea you’ve been a brew’n bonnie bonnie Bernadette, and a taste of …?” Traveling Frog sniffed at the warmth of scone piled onto a platter in front of him, “It could only be the sweet young pine flour scone.” The sharply brewed dandelion tea and sweet pine flour scone flecked with dried huckleberries were a perfect contrast of tastes and to see his satisfaction with the late afternoon snack softened Bernadette’s impatience. She sat back, more at ease herself, and poured her froggie a second cup of dandelion tea. “The mortals on The Ledge are no strangers to the whole story of Ever my dear. These are the old ones we have been waiting for all these many cycles. Who among the many could or would find the small space on The Ledge a fit place to call ‘home?” Who among the many could or would at their stage of living mortal on the Great Planet choose to Reassemble in this fashion?” Traveling Frog gestured with a sweep of his arms and both his wings to amplify the significance of his description. “Wife oh wife of my own, the female come to live on the sloping space above is a Bird …” Traveling Frog’s eyes widened and his head rocked and again his wings lifted him off his seat and this time he spun in coiling circles that left a track of stardust lingering in the space beneath the arched roof. “This is the girl now grown nearly full-age, with the memory of Covey seeded deep in the braid of her now loosening coil.”
Traveling Frog lifted a shiny orange stone from the floor beneath the table. It took all his strength to bring it to the table. The stone dangled from a filigree of gold. “She has begun to leave gifts along the footpath they have made around their wee home. The woman called Bird comes with the memory of kin and kind and knows that in falling a part she makes room for us to join in. She is callin’ for the dreams, and brought with her a panther to help her through the in’s and out’s.” The talk about the glen already warned of a sleek black cat new to the land. “Heard you have already beckoned to the panther and made a promise of loyalty and protection.” The Queen’s talent for gleaning the sounds of her world, and beyond, was her grace. She had honed listening to an art. Bernadette reached for the shiny smooth stone and looked from Froggie to the stone with greatly softened eyes. She moved her fingers slowly over the stone and seemed to caress the little gem that was no bigger than a rain drop … but, it was very, very heavy. “She left gifts of shiny stones did she?” Traveling Frog nodded, “Yes, the Bird has left gifts of shiny stones.” “Did she leave a pair of shiny orange stones?” Bernadette turned to Froggie, knowing full well what the answer would be. Traveling Frog smiled, hopped to the stand where his cape hung and reached into the hidden pocket sewn on the under-side. The twin to the first shiny orange stone filled his hand.
Please enjoy the tale for your own pleasure,
but do not reprint it or copy it for any other purpose without permission from the author.
(see the sidebar for my contact info)
A place of complete unlikelihood
The grand dame of the Wood and her royal fairy friend watched as Pat Nicely and his long time friend finally positioned the golden wagon into place.It was not an easy project, but given the duration of the process of building the wee home, this part of the journey was time most welcome. Pat Nicely and his mate Lokea Bird were in for the time of their lives.The Creators’ salt shaker had loosened the braid of these old people’s lives, and with The Ledge as their new home all that was in need of it, would certainly fall away.Compared to the gabled mansions that rose from the clearings throughout the Wood, Pat Nicely and Lokea Bird’s golden wagon on two wheels could fit easily into a single mansion’s bedroom.Once the wagon wheels were braced and anchored with stout steel pegs and the rear corners balanced upon broad fir stumps, the humans congregated inside the big house across the driveway for a celebratory feast and general merry-making.The Family lived in the big house and included Anna Paint, her mate Joshua Tree and their familiar Jane E. a charming middle-aged chiz-shu who had lost the use of her left eye to a matronly cat named Melissa who had scant tolerance for curious adolescent canine.Melissa had long since passed, and Jane E. is now unquestionably in charge of the household.
“T.F.”Traveling Frog hadn’t noticed his side-kick Calliope Salamander lying on the moist leaves at Tutu’s root croppings.Few among the clan would be so familiar with the regal leader of the Gypsies, but Calliope and Traveling Frog go way back.“Calliope!We have family come to be with us, family of the Other-side and what a beauty they have brought to add to our encampment.”“T.F.what say we get a closer look?”It was really not a question, the slippery one was on the front porch of Pat and Lokea’s vardo before Traveling Frog could shimmy the length of trunk to the ground below. Fortunately for both tiny folk, Pat Nicely and Lokea Bird’s familiar, a sleek young black panther of a cat, Jo was safely housed in her traveling carrier.“Visitors?”Jo asked.Seeing the predator safely locked behind the barred door, Calliope bravely answered.“Pardon me for the correction madame, but I believe it would be you who is visitor for we … Lord Traveling Frog of the Gypsy Fairy Clan and I, Calliope Salamander trace our being here on the Pond of Ever, to a time beyond your memory.”Jo’s golden eyes looked unblinkingly at what she would under normal circumstances consider lunch, or at least, toys.But Jo was also a cat of many lives on the Great Planet with standards and protocol well preserved.“I am honored,” the miniature panther purred, “It is obviously I who is the visitor and from the scents that fill my nostrils I am no longer in the city woods of my origin.There are scents that touch unfamiliar images within me.I suspect I could just as easily be lunch, as predator in your Wood.”Traveling Frog had known many feline in his long life, and had mourned the loss of close friends and kin to the unthinking instinct of cats.Though his kin would lose life or limb to a cat’s attack, the feline would be left with a very bad case of disorientation at the very least and at worst, death if the tiny but potent poison glands were crushed in the pursuit.“You know us by name dark panther, what is the name your people call you?”“My name is Jo, short for Josephine.”Traveling Frog was a stickler for formality and also loved the sound of the name “Josephine.”“If it’s all the same to you I will call you Josephine when we meet new friend, and give you my oath, you will be friend to our clan here on The Ledge.”
Jo knew by the garb of her tiny ‘friend’ he was indeed something special.Perhaps it was the velvet purple cape that covered his green mottled skin, or the iridescent violet crown, more likely though it was the gossamer wings that glistened like stars that ensured Jo’s loyalty.“Thank you Traveling Frog, and if it’s all the same to you I will call you ‘Lord’ whenever we chance to meet.Does that suit you?”Calliope would have blushed with embarrassment if a salamander was capable of blushing. The salamander’s bright orange skin would have concealed any emotion approaching embarrassment, and the truth of it?Calliope Salamander could not be embarrassed. As unlikely an occasion he could never have imagined though.But then, The Ledge was a place of complete unlikelihood …
Fairy tales. The promise of another way to view the world or a way to incise the heart with a different probability? Part 2 weaves another time, same place, more characters. As Pete and I prepare to leave The Ledge, here's what happened on the way to becoming part of that ledge.
(Part 1 of Wood Crafting is still on the side-bar if you'd like to catch-up)
WOOD CRAFTING
Written by Mokihana Calizar
Copyright, 2009
Please enjoy the tale for your own pleasure,
but do not reprint it or copy it for any other purpose without permission from the author.
(see the sidebar for my contact info)
Part 2
The Ledge
Gypsy Fairydom persists throughout the Cosmos, throughout time, throughout Ever.Unattached to the trappings of broad collections of wealth, the Gypsy Fairies travel light and depend upon the trails of stardust as markers and makers of destiny.Far from invisible the Gypsy Fairy is present in the life of those mortals who appear to have dreams falling down around them.To the Gypsy Fairy, collapsing dreams are simply the signs of Reassembling and an invitation to join in.The braid of mortal life on the Great Planet as this story begins is so far from the wee folk’s value of a destiny fully lived, the strands so tightly woven even the tiniest of fairies can find no foothold.Sprinkled like salt from the Creators salt shaker, the agent of change had begun its work on the lives of humans.
As promised in the beginning, the story of Wood Crafting included two trails … one of which has been sufficiently traveled and though not yet complete, the culture and ways of the Covey have begun to make a mark on your dear coil my friends.The journey from the city of industry was organic, years of slow and diligent work laid the foundation for the new dream the two old people fed with lessons from real life on the Great Planet and hope for something yet to be.Cycles pass differently for mortals, the density of both their bodies and the genetic expectation weighed heavily on the communion with their souls.Though the Grace of each new mortal being continued to be the portal through which stardust mixed with blood, the elevated value of accumulation left so little time to nourish grace. Time on the Planet was compressing, seen from the stars beyond the hold of gravity, the third planet from the sun was aging more rapidly than a planet with such abundance in ordinary times.The spark of imagination and freedom can conjure twists of fate and it seems the lesson of grace kept secret or a talent judged unworthy was tampering with The Great Planet’s destiny.This part of the tale began not so very long ago.I’m not quite sure how to explain so I will simply draw you onto the path leading to The Ledge, and introduce you to Patrick Nicely and Lokea Bird two old though not yet ancient humans in the early stages of a Reassembling Dream.
The sound of engines was now commonplace, though not their favorite sounds by any stretch of the imagination, the Gypsy Folk were adaptable types with a soul large enough to tolerate the roar of the human’s trucks.Life on the Ledge had been one of many adjustments during Traveling Frog’s long, long life.The wild sounds of the high mountains had always included the loudness of his kin in ruckus decibels that might pierce the ear drums of city mortals unprepared for night in the Wood.Gypsy Fairy Folk require very little space as far as a definition fits your lexicon.Seen from the fairy folk’s eyes all space was theirs.However, there came the sound of a truck and the sight of a wheeled human contraption that was not so very commonplace to the folk on the Ledge.The sound of laughter drew Traveling Frog and his family to the fallen stumps that leaned into the side of the Ledge.Two jovial human males with bellies round and faces filled with mirth were making quite a scene on the hard rock path of a driveway a short walk from the pond of Ever.The human with scant hair on his head and a deep voice was waving his hands in the direction of a wagon shaped exactly like the wagons Traveling Frog and his kinsfolk ride when it is time to migrate from the pond of Ever to the Lake several nights ride through the Wood.This replica of a Gypsy’s wagon was brightly painted the color of dandelions with the sky-curved roof line that is the marker for all traditional migratory clans.
With his front legs hitched onto his hips Traveling Frog let out a sound that could easily be mistaken for a hoot, “Hoot, hoot! Stars over easy …we have family come to be with us.”Never without something to say the leader of the Gypsy Fairy Folk stopped short his declaration, hopped nimbly up the length of the old stumps for a better look.The stumps weren’t high enough for his tiny body to see just exactly was happening on his encampment.Tutu the great-great-great grandmother fir grew inches from the humans’ activity that afternoon.She was a woman of easy humor, accepting of change as the wind is accepting of rain and when she saw Traveling Frog’s predicament she leaned casually in Frog’s direction giving her long time neighbor a perfect solution.From Tutu’s outstretched limb the view of the human’s caravan filled the driveway and the shouldering road above.
Traveling Frog and Tutu watched in silence as the human with scant hair on his head repeated directions to an old white haired man at the wheel of the truck.The dandelion colored wagon rocked atop the two black wheels and moved down the slope toward Tutu.Unlike the frog sized wagons that traversed the length of creek bed between the pond of Ever and the Lake, the human’s wagon required wheels.Gypsy Fairy Frog wagons moved with the assistance of creek rocks and stardust.Normally a wagon needed four small stones balanced under the miniature trailer and the dots of dust always visible to fairies, to move effortlessly on the well-worn trail.Traveling Frog considered the design of the wagon he watched being positioned that day:beautiful craftsmanship the builder of this wagon, the lean number of wheels might cause some adjustments; the latched door was beautiful a near replica of the door he had fashioned on his own home; the two sizes of windows on each side of the wee home caused a chuckle.Tutu turned her deeply etched gray-brown trunk and asked, “What causes you glee, Frog?”“I love that our new family has brought a sense of humor to The Ledge.The windows Tutu, they are different sizes.I cannot wait to discover the faces that peer from these windows.”Tutu smiled.She did not let on that the two old humans had come to The Ledge months earlier to ask her permission and offer prayers of introduction and thanks.Though she was the gatekeeper and elder of the Wood here, she respected the domain of the Gypsy Fairy Clan and would make space for the tiny folk to initiate and welcome the humans in their fashion.
The final installment of Part I "The Covey" follows. The characters and threads of connectivity have laid a net between whirls that seep from dreams or pour from the lips of stardust. These are the sorts of activities that fill the gap between 'here' and 'there.' Always there is a bit of space in the zipper of reality, a place where interpretation allows parallel or intersecting NEXTS or NOWS.
WOOD CRAFTING
Written by Mokihana Calizar
Copyright, 2009
Please enjoy the tale for your own pleasure,
but do not reprint it or copy it for any other purpose without permission from the author.
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Two parts the whole
Freeilll Noa found his brother surrounded by kin.In the middle of a good joke or a tall tale, Kaimalama Noa loved attention.My father waited till the laughter and con ended and approached his brother, “The day is bright, the sun warm and the winds seem to have returned to cool us again.”The rustle of palm fronds and the bend in the resilient trunk caught Kaimalama by surprise.“Makani?”My uncle recognized the feel of the wind that always accompanied the reef croppings.The two brothers fixed eyes and Kaimalama knew.“You have found the puka … the hole in the Cosmos?”“Yes.”“The fish, the polyps …”“All freed, returned and safe with family,” my father’s voice was even and without emotion.“You cannot know what it is like to keep secrets.How could you know how differently we grew when on the outside the covey saw nearly identical Grey?What grew so differently for me hides here.”Kaimalama Noa turned his back to his twin, raised his great wings and parted the feathers on his right side to reveal a ridge of calcified bone … a barnacle.“Grown since our warming, the barnacle replaces the right side of my filtration system.Where you breathe, ingest and release food, drink and grace I live with the additional need to hold tight … to grasp to survive.”Freeilll Noa wrestled with understanding and found it difficult.Kaimalama retained his bearing, though his breath was shallow and quick.“I live with conflict every moment of my life Freeill.A part of me must do what is completely wrong for the All.When we were younger the need was easy to ignore.It was easy to lie to myself, convincing my urges to be still.The urges have out-grown the promises I have made to them.They wait no longer.To survive I must collect and store things I value.”
Is it wrong to want?When does a personal desire for things of value tamper with the balance of All?What was the compromise and recipe for Reassemblage?How does a secret revealed change things?These questions and more tumbled through my father’s mind as he sought a solution.
“Am I the only one, beside Honu, who knows this about you?”“I believe so,” my uncle answered.“Leyla?”“She has no thought of my need to collect, to keep.”“Would she not have heart enough to make a difference offering you understanding and perhaps a compromise?Your mating doubles your destiny.” My uncle interrupted, “She is not a Grey Freeilll.Her grace is beauty and she maintains it without effort, and charms her way through the most impossible of predicaments.”My father thought of beautiful Leyla and remembered the countless episodes of joy she had brought to the covey.Her laughter … “Is your love not enough to fill the void that you feel?”“It is large, the love we share but it is not enough to make me something that I am not.”
Freeilll Noa considered another approach, “What is it you value brother?”Simple enough a question would you not think dear listeners, and yet it was precisely the question never asked of Kaimalama Noa.“What is it I value?”Staring long into my father’s eyes Kaimalama Noa considered the many wants he had hidden throughout his long life and weighed them as if on a scale to determine their value.My father recognized the depth of his question, sought no easy resolve and instead offered his brother this:“This is an answer that will affect many.This answer reassembles the link between beings and sets to right the destiny of small and large.Take as much time as you need dear brother.I am not your judge.”Story tells me that my father remained where he spoke and watched his brother walk to the ocean’s edge.Like my father Kaimalama was graced with the coil of Honu and in fact his name means “Caretaker of the Ocean.”As the gentle surf wrapped around Kaimalama’s body the transformation was quick, and the dive silent.The journey downward was taken without forethought.Kaimalama knew the Leviathan waited.He felt unexpectedly calm as he neared the ancient birthing place.Palaoa and Honu swam from the channel that led from the Pond of Ever and greeted their kin.“The day is bright, the water cool and it is a day of greatness.It is good to share this day with you Kaimalama Noa.”Palaoa was especially fond on this twin though in all the cycles of Kaimalama Noa’s life their bond was never clear.The ancient Leviathan Palaoa was honored and respected for her long memory embracing time in the oceans that mirrored the huge cavern of Palaoa’s brain and body.Yet there was something small and nearly intangible between them.Today, the small became grand as Kaimalama approached the great whale he said, “Kupuna nui … great ancestor, between us we share the tiny being Barnacle as coil.I wear it now behind me and until this moment I have lived with its value hidden, a secret.What value does the Barnacle give me when it must cling to me … to you, to something in order to survive?I am well passed a hundred cycles, no novice to the flow of being and yet the journey to satisfaction for my soul seems just begun.”Palaoa conned to Kaimalama, “Come to ride with me.There … a step for you at my side will allow you to ride my back.Another barnacle clings to my opposite side both will serve you as I travel.I will move slowly, alas what is slow to me may seem a comet or tidal wave. Hold sure, the barnacles will remain fast.”
My uncle did as he understood the great Leviathan wished.The barnacles were massive, old calcified filters that must have lived hundreds of cycles over attached to the side of the cetacean.Kaimalama stretched his legs and claws to grip as best he could, his claws found clipped access to the barnacles on either side.“Ready?” Palaoa asked.“As I can be.”Kaimalama conned unsure of his circumstance he simply called for faith.The great whale propelled herself with a graceful heave of her tail fin, the movement was powerful water moved past rider and whale as Palaoa began to sing.If you have been privileged to hear whale song you will understand the ancient calm that fills your soul when a whale sings for you.Resonance that began with the vibration of Palaoa’s first chords swam through the clinging Wood Crafter.The song was beyond reason and words will fall short of description.From the depths of the great ancient birthing place Palaoa crossed the ocean passing the magnificence of variation that is ocean-life.Everywhere Kaimalama looked a surface was covered or clung to; no empty place existed, and no place was left without companion or occupation. “EVERy thing serves another … any WHERE my eyes turn I see the shared benefit of a space once empty.”Palaoa continued ending the ride at the placid surface of the pond of Ever.“You are here,” the whale said.“You have always been complete, graced with the grand nature of Grey and as well you have served a tiny creature whose nature is no less valuable.In the warming what could have been symbiotic between small and large turned parasitic.Today is a perfect day for reassembling the beliefs of ones life.Begin anew all that is unnecessary must first be reassembled.Start again Kaimalama and care for your self as you would care for the ocean.”“Mahalo, great mother.” My uncle was weak from the exertion of the ride and yet, clearer of spirit than he had ever known.He rested in the shallow fresh water pond, floating as he gathered his experiences to a space of calm within him.Sunset completed the day, and still Kaimalama rested, slept and when the moon rose in the darkened sky the dreams came to him.Wants, old regrets and wishes never expressed or acted upon visited my uncle throughout the night.The pond embraced him without expectation, soothing erasures and replacing lost spaces.In the morning Kaimalama spread his wings for the journey south.
My father heard the splash and turned to see his twin.The brothers faced each other, touched foreheads in greeting.Kaimalama wasted no effort as he offered the lesson learned.“I have traveled with Palaoa, listened with my whole body the song that is as old as water.With barnacles as big as abalone for stirrups I straddled the old mother and found the answer to your question, “What do I value?”Freeilll knew his brother as a comedian and easy joker, often unable to speak without making light of a request.Today, a kind of mask felt from Kaimalama as he conned clearly and without apology, “I value the right of reserve.”My father cocked his head as if a different angle might aid in his understanding of the comment.“Reserve, you value the right to reserve what?”“I value the right to keep somethings private … not secretive exactly.I simply know that my life of clinging and believing that I must horde … keep more than my share, came from not being able to be different from you.Replication is not what Creators’ purpose was.It was diversity, variation.Somehow our covey and our kin focused on the large and visible ‘GRACE’ that doubles our worth.The small and less visible, the nearly invisible graces are left to scramble in darkness with no access to light.This … lifting his right wing to reveal the barnacle … is a part of me left to long in darkness.It has value, I give it worth.Small grace can make big differences, or at the very least it will do no harm.Denied though, the tiny grace can become,” Kaimalama rewound Palaoa’s song and remembered the word.“Denied, the tiny grace can become parasitic.That is what I have lived with these one hundred cycles.”
Freeilll Noa … twin whose birthright and grace is to free the ill-gotten from a space where nothing but the same can occur came to understand the riddle.
A very small creature … the barnacle attached to his twin
A promise broken … grace be nurtured and embraced
A secret kept … grace hidden becomes twisted and ill-gotten … parasitic?
“Where does that leave us Kaimalama? How does a reassembling begin to make things right for the Cosmos?”Kaimalama Noa had considered a solution that would maintain its value into time yet to come.The flight south from the pond of Ever gave him time and access to the stardust that trailed from stars north to stars south.The ride upon Palaoa’s huge back filled my uncle with a knowing that sustains his vision of the future.“I will not be the last to carry the spell of clinging to the point of drawing off more life than I return.There will be a race, a kin that will cling to EVERYthing they see as shiny and delightful, because they believe it the only way they will … Kaimalama struggled to find the right words or imagines to share with his brother.”From his na`au his gut Kaimalama heard Palaoa’s song … each serves the other and there is balance.“They will collect more than is needed to have a full life and a satisfied soul.Here is what I have decided.I will become an example.For as long as my destiny within this body persists, I will spend one half of my life as barnacle.I will tend to the Grace of clinging and view life as a filter dependent upon something bigger than I to survive, and yet I will do no harm during this.My kin as Wood Crafter will not recognize me as barnacle, and my kin as barnacle will not know me as Wood Crafter.The coil of Honu that remains true for both of us will serve as our common link regardless of my cycle.”My father was not sure he understood.His brother reassured him, “Yes that is exactly what I mean.”
My father conned his queries in his brother’s direction, “You will live half of each cycle as a barnacle and the other half as Wood Crafter?”“Yes.”“You will take nothing of your separate lives to the life as barnacle or Wood Crafter?”“Yes.”“And yet, the coil of Honu, the transformative nature that is our shared Grace will be yours both as barnacle and Wood Crafter.”“Yes.The reassembling is significant and sings forward for generations to come … perhaps sixteen generations to come.Wood Crafter covey and the kin of barnacle and creatures small will be affected by the coming of these spell-carrying beings.My example will teach me things I have no guess as to what.What I do know is that a secret shared makes things different.”
Greys among the coveys of the Cosmos changed from that morning forward into memory, when the twin Noa brothers of the Islands parted that morning many, many, many mornings ago. Kaimalama Noa went to his beautiful Leyla and conned his revelation as truthfully as he had to his twin.The beautiful Leyla embraced the great handsome fisherman and asked simply, “When will it begin?”Kaimalama softened his posture and returned his mate’s question with the love of Ever and answered, “Soon, but not yet.”There were things the pair would need to do before the reassembling could continue.There were ninety days, and they would use them all.
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Secrets Revealed
Somaia thought he was the first to wake, but found Oona already tending to the business of food.The songstress and my mother had two large squirming trout in their crescent beaks.Oona made her offering of thanks to the fish and quickly pierced the flesh of its belly to feed the twins who were ready for the fresh meat.Shemaladia halved her trout and took the head and eyes for herself, leaving the sweet belly and tail for her love still asleep.Somaia relished the entrails of the trout, noting Freeilll was still worn from the evening’s doings he moved to Shemaladia’s side.“I am not unaware of how my size aids in the solving of our problem.In my covey I am a dwarf among the giant birds. Greys are often triple my height and children often cast a long shadow over me by their tenth cycle. If my warming had been one fraction less than it had been, my disposition and balance with the All could have been different. The journey to a satisfied soul is different for every being.I am blessed with the grace of patience just as spider is patient.The webs I spin are equally as fragile and easily swept away.My twins, two beautiful girls were poisoned by the yellow air of mortals at war with one another.The mustard air filled All with a wind that suffocated every pair of twin girls alive in the covey.The male babies weakened and some grew oddly shaped wings and tail feathers that dropped prematurely.Mates and elders were also made ill by the yellow air concocted we were told by mortals called ‘scientists and chemists’.Few of the mates and elders died, though many lost their souls.”Shemaladia listened to the small bird’s story.It was an infrequent telling she knew the preciousness of the tale and was honored to be witness.Her large eyes glistened with tears.She did not hide the tears that fell.She wept.“My mate was Toma.The deaths turned my beautiful Toma to stone. Graced with the tenderness of eternal child-like innocence Toma could not release the hold of sadness she felt.There were not enough tears to soothe her pain, and no stories calmed her grief.Within two cycles her soul had hardened, her grace went to the depths of the Pond of Ever, and her body became stone.”In the songs of our coveys throughout the Cosmos we know stone or in Somaia’s language pohaku to be ancestors.Shemaladia of Osprey rocked with the motion of wordless comfort as Somaia finished.“These two shiny orange stones carry the soul and the sorrow Toma could no longer bare in her physical self.When she left the body I drew from my own chest the gold filigree reserved for Reassemblage. From each stone I connected a length of golden filigree twice as long as the stone itself.When placed in the hands of a mortal, a woman graced as a Sensitive and worn from her ears, my Toma will finally be reunited with her soul.Satisfied and freed of her sorrow.” Somaia untied a satchel of sennit that hung across his chest.Two tiny bright orange stones dangled from golden filigree.Earrings a mortal woman might call ‘beautiful.’“Use them to set things right Shemaladia of Osprey.It is time.”
Shemaladia was a hunter of lost souls, and knew the countless ways a soul is lost.The stories of the journey never made her grace as hunter less painful.She was skilled at guarding her coil from leaks and prayed the prayers of compassion to surround the telling.“Let me feel.Let me not feel.”The cant was ancient and simple, profound and vital. All hunters were trained to care without becoming undone.Hooded as they were with the braid of Osprey, they were able to do the hunting and the healing.Still, the work was always a time of weeping.Shemaladia turned to the red-feathered Wood Craft and enveloped his small frame with her great wings.Somaia did not resist or expect any less from the huntress. He knew the power of her grace and knew too, the telling was too long untold.The embrace could have been an instant or a cycle of sunrise and sunset.When it ended the earrings were gone.
Freeilll Noa woke to see his old friend emerge from the circle of Shemaladia’s silver wings.Shemaladia of Osprey’s large golden eyes still wet with tears bent to meet Somaia’s eyes.“Thank you Somaia of the South.Your story has been told, and it has been heard.”Glenda and Glennis were now fully awake, well-fed. To Somaia the twins sang, “Uncle is it time to ride the Makani, time to ride the winds?”The adults had been busy with things adults do while the twin girls notice all things at once.Glenda and Glennis seemed to be the only ones who remembered why they were here on the edge of the vast watery gorge.Freeilll looked curiously at the twins and then heard the sound … blowing winds. Makani rose from the gorge pulling with him a bulging long tail of stars encased with the net lost to Dontanea.Reef polyps of un-named colors, fish of blue, bright red and stripes of yellow all rode the current like rocketing comets.Shemaladia turned to look at my father.“Now it is your turn to use the power of words.Silent or out loud, it will not matter.Secrets revealed.
Please enjoy the tale for your own pleasure, but do not reprint it or copy it for any other purpose without permission from the author.
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The Kalahari Bushmen have said ...
"A story is like the wind. It comes from a far-off place, and we feel it."
A puzzle unravels
My father and mother released one another in the glow that rises from an embrace of destiny.The re-doubled grace of a pair of Grey from opposite ends of the Cosmology opened knowing neither being could contain separately.“Freeilll Noa,” my mother said, “Tell me about your twin.”It seemed a cycle since the two had begun their courtship.In truth no more than a fourth moon rise had passed.My father began but before the telling ended, the latest of unexpected sights filled my parents’ eyes.From the place they stood, the shore was several minutes’ flight away.What seemed like newly rising mountains rose in the waters just beyond the reef.Leviathan, dozens of them linked forehead to tail.There was great excitement and awe from the covey limbs.No one in memory of Wood Crafters had ever seen the whales in this count and so near the shore.Freeilll and Shemaladia were the first to meet the ancestors.“Great mother, great grand mother, great, great father.Welcome you are, welcome you are.”“And to you Freeilll Noa and Shemaladia of Osprey we are thankful for your greeting.There is a promise broken a secret kept that must be mending before it is too late for all coveys throughout Ever.Count the reef outcropping and feel the loss of wind on your feathers.Where both reef and wind be … there is the secret-place. No blame, no wrong.A destiny grown without knowing, two beings one a very small creature, the other grand now need understanding.Seek the twin of Freeilll Noa his agreement needs to be set right.”Without another word the sea filled with the whales and mountainous peaks disappeared as quickly as they had risen.
A very small creature …
A promise broken …
A secret kept …
Count the reef outcroppings
Secret-place…
Missing pieces …
Set to right…
No blame…
No wrong…
“Count the reef outcroppings” was the only clue with no riddle attached.Throughout the telling of Island memory the reef could be counted without error.Each cycle added twelve new outcroppings, one outcropping with each new moon.A thousand cycles could be recalled and throughout the constellation the Seven Sisters actually included 12,000 outcroppings or stars in your vocabulary.To count all the stars Shemaladia and Freeilll enlisted the help of their sidekicks and confidants, Oona of the Song and Somaia of the South.Oona and Somaia listened to the tale and knew they would include the twin fairies Glenda and Glennis in the counting.Among the six star-counters Glenda and Glennis were the only true fairies, they would begin at the stars farthest away leaving a trail of dust to mark the count.Oona and Somaia started mid-way between Northern tip and South Point, and counted away from each other.Freeilll Noa started at the beginning, the Northern tip.Shemaladia of Osprey circled high above hunting the cosmos for the scent of a lost soul.
The counting lasted until the first light of the sun.Physically exhausted from the maneuver, the small band met as agreed at the sands fronting the Black Pool where Honu quietly waited.All but Shemaladia arrived almost simultaneously.Oona served as recorder.The twins counted 3,444 stars.Oona and Somaia counted 4,000 combined.Freeill Noa also counted 4,000 stars.11,444 stars.556 reef outcroppings, 556 stars with polyps of times gone and yet to be were missing.The riddle suggested wind and polyps would be found together.Though a distance too far for Osprey to hear, both Freeilll and Somaia tuned to the shrill call from my mother Shemaladia.The two Islanders rose from the sand and followed the shrill call, “Kreeilll …..”In a pocket of the cosmos hidden from view of both Islander and Osprey, Shemaladia had followed a thin trail of darkness visible only to a hunter of lost souls.There in a hollow the size of a pit a giant might have gouged out Shemaladia hovered above a sight that once again stunned the Wood Crafters from North and South.Polyps of colors un-nameable danced in the current blown by the doting winds Makani.Among the stars and polyps were bits of wood embedded into the calcified walls of the reef.Life as tiny as pin tips grew invisible to most eyes.It was the fairies who noticed the very small creatures clinging silently to the bits of wood woven tightly into the calcified walls of the reef.Barnacles, the oceans filtration system destined to survive by clinging.“Could that be the piece missing from this whole adventure?”Freeilll Noa could only guess.
Honu had observed it all from birth to star-counting.From a lip under her shell she pulled bits of small ocean buffed stones, pohaku, bits of limu dried on the sandy shores of the ocean and a bit of wood with a small creature who once clung to it … a creature still living rather than dead.“These are the remains of your birth nest Freeilll, unknown to both your parents, that barnacle is now part of your twin.What could have been grace was a secret; a secret hides from the light and twists rather than soars.Reveal the secret and things change yet again. It is time to make it right.”The old turtle read the thoughts streaming from the team of beings assembled at the edge of the vast hole.“No, it is not my place to do the corrections.Among you the answers will unfold.Include all that each of you knows and dream a future that fills Ever.WHAT Ever is precisely the question.
Oona and her twins huddled against a smooth ledge, the girls tired from their night’s adventure.Somaia joined them and soon Glennis had climbed onto the old red bird’s chest where she fell soundly to sleep.Glenda tried blinking the sleepiness from her eyes until at last her eyes would blink no more.Somaia carefully tucked the little fairy asleep on his lap under one wing.With his free wing he pulled sennit from his chest.Nimble and practiced, his one wing’s feathers worked as fingers to weave net.When the net was hammock size, he found loose rocks large enough to anchor both ends of the net.The twins fit snuggly into the net and slept.Honu disappeared as she had appeared … without effort.Sleep was what all four Wood Crafters needed.Using the two large boulders as perches they tucked in their heads and sank into the deep sleep of weariness vacant of dreams.
