New Year ... more stories ... Book II of Wood Crafting

A new year begins, refreshed by the winds that rocked our vardo (I was asleep to it!) and the accompanying rains 2010 is here with ions new and what a blessing!

There is a new book begun in installments at Wood Crafting the Tale. This one, a second of maybe a trilogy, or more the muse will keep me posted. Inspired by the natural course of events in our VardoForTwo life, the fairy tales and full-length stories on Wood Crafting the tale are my stitchery, cross-stitching and knitting equivalents. I find comfort and solace in seeing the story unfold knowing only a bit of the plot to begin. Much like the recipes (or lack of one) that I use to cook the thousands of meals over the past sixty years, there is a general taste I'm after and then there is the rest of it.

It's a fun way to begin the new year. Tandalori the crone is quite the character, hybrid of many characters in and not of my own life. Click here to read the first installment of the chapter "The Nectar of Place."

WOOD CRAFTING Part 2 The Ledge, Installment # 2 "A place of complete unlikelihood"

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)

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 …

'Ole Days of the Moon: Monday through Thursday

Clouds over Hawaii Island ... one of my favorite things
Photo Credit: CKB

Aloha,

The 'ole days of the moon began Monday and will continue through the week until Thursday moon rise. We've had connection goofiness here on the Ledge finally resolving them last night. So as is our practice we will be back at the blog Friday or some while there after.

New viewers may like linking to the sites on the sidebar leading you to more about the Hawaiian Moon Calendar.

Or

... you might delight in this post from alchemist and joy-bringer India Flint relating to "Wabi Sabi" ... I did delight in it for sure.

...and, another link from India Flint to ZenHabits and letting things unfold

...still another bit of sourcery from Kathryn Cassidy about attracting magnetism

(post modified on Thursday)

...if it's a fairy tale you're craving perhaps snippets from the eco-tale Wood Crafting I've spun might satisfy you. Link to the installments thus far (3 of them in order and then one that lept ahead a bit).

Wela keia (it's hot here 94 degrees on the Ledge yesterday) and for you?

Be cool.

Because the Real seems Unreal ... let me tell you a story

I have written a fairy tale, a long story to escape the world of humanity that too often makes no sense at all. This story has two parts, I have finished the first part and envision it to be a teller's tale ... one spoken and listened to as all good fairy tales were told before there were tree skins marked with ink.

The story began when we arrived on The Ledge and poured through me like warm chocolate. It soothed me, transported me and gave me a place that did not poison me. I seek the story for refuge and the words come to me I do not seek them. Maybe, there is something here for your dear heart read as if there was a voice canting. ~

Wood Crafting
Copyright, Mokihana Calizar
2009

Foreword

Inspiration for story comes quickly when the world that is your Real seems Unreal or far harsher than you’re able to endure. Fairy tales have been a world into which I have escaped since a girl in bare feet found solace in the crook of a mango tree. Away from All there were other possibilities, and making believe made it possible to get beyond. Escape has meant many things to me in my sixty plus years, and with the on-set and persistence of the illness called MCS (multiple chemical sensitivities) the word has been my life. At first escape simply wore me down and yet as in most great adventures there are one or two talisman and guides who appear at just the right time for just the right purpose. Nomads and Travellers, Gypsies and Migrating Beings offer me the gift of alternative mind and reassembled prospective. To all of these guides and examples I give thanks. To make sense of the need to be on nearly constant alert to the choices of others, choices that will affect me ill, I have found comfort and resolution in the conjuring of modern day fairy tales. Fairy tales that do what they have done for time into memory: taught lessons, made sense out of bad things, explained the un-explainable and used language that all ages could understand.

Wood Crafting was born from an incident that happened while we lived in the industrial south-west area of Seattle. One day while on a beach walk I found a beautiful small piece of rusted metal. “Perfect rusty decoration for the vardo,” I said to myself. I was excited and without thinking I finished my walk, took the rusted treasure with me and drove home. Beach walks were and continue to be one of the things and places that restore my health and offer oxygen rich air. I treasure the walk and the air. What happened when I got home that night is the stuff of the Gods. It was late winter in Seattle, and the temperature still very cool … thirties at night. Excited to show my husband my treasure, I called him from the curved home he was completing. As I held it up to show him I spotted something I missed while on the beach … a tiny being, a barnacle just settling in. “Oh no,” I’ve got to get him back. By then it was dark and the barnacle would have to wait. I said my prayers, asking for forgiveness for the over-sight and knew the temperature would keep the creature from drying up. I tucked it into a bucket and hoped for the best. One excited mortal woman picks up a small piece of rusted metal with a creature in residence. It was enough to grow this story, this fairy tale. That is what happens when one notices, and gods willing, our noticing will be enough to stay on destiny’s good side. There’s a chance we’re not too late. Cross your fingers, boil the spring water for tea and join me for a story.

From The Ledge in the Woods,

Mokihana Calizar June, 2009

Introduction

The journey to the satisfied soul is personal in length. I mean, what is long to a fairy is a step for the giant. The seasons on the Great Planet have begun to change for her inhabitants. Kings and Empires are quaking as their stores of riches seem to evaporate from the strong boxes of the enterprises they created called Banks and Markets. Imagined wealth conjured from what was once real goods took a chapter out of the book of greed and clung to much more than was necessary to live a full life. There are of course, many paths to re-distribution of energy and power. Some paths are gentle and easy, others more edgy and harsh. We Woods People have watched from our tiny warrens and coveys and wondered when the weight of that greed would topple the few. Seems the time is now. Before the tale grows any longer please allow me to introduce myself. I am called Shenia Wood and I am the keeper and teller of story from the high mountain woods. We are an old race of Great Planet beings, more fairy than animal and nearer human in look though our feathered ancestry is undeniable. In all ways we are yet so much closer to stardust than most humans remember. Our covey like birds are birthed from eggs with shells the color of violets. Warmed and parented by two Wood Craft, a pair of eggs is born to a couple once in their very long lives. The warming period lasts ninety sunsets and within that time, stories of connection and remembering are poured into the growing babes who listen from inside their porcelain shells. This is the story of wood crafting, the ninety sunsets of song and listening that pour all that has been as well as the knowing of yet to be, into the spirit of each growing egg. This story begins in the foothills of a great range of mountains just far enough away from the smog filled cities of industries where these song memories have been lost. The tall old ones in the high mountains breathe rich life-giving oxygen to the land, where a pair of once-young humans pulled a wheeled wee home onto a ledge overlooking the clear fresh water pond that is the source of Ever. They, the once-young humans have begun the Re-assembling and it is this process, and the warming period of a Wood Craft that lasts ninety sunsets that are the twin trails to our story. Snuggle into a comfy quilt, keep the kettle hot for tea and let us begin at the beginning.

'OLE Days on The Ledge

Fairies come
to those whose dreams seem to be falling down around them,
often embracing them with the love gone missing. A tiny house resting on the skinned and down stumps of trees once tall, I have made room for Fairies, left four, five and six leaf clovers, tiny bits of freshly baked organic (fairies don't eat things grown with pesticides)
barley bread and an origami game folded from my tea bag wrapper.

Sit by the side of the road,
surround your feet in clover and listen for the talisman in the wind. The real Anna Paint (inspiration for the character from my neWly completed ... just yesterday...fairy tale WOOD CRAFTING) did just that during the 'ole days. She sat and found four, five and six leaf clovers in a matter of minutes .... something she has been able to do because it is in her genes to do so. Her mommy taught her so!
I have placed chairs and old tables with clipped words and alphabets dangling from fine threads along our paths inviting friendly fragrance-free folk and fairy types to be with us.
Here is "Anna" sitting in Polly's Yellow Chair placed along the path, a honey bee wind chime dangling with the letters S I T keeps her company.

Our gardens grow.

Although the 'ole days and nights are not productive for planting, they are wonderful for tending all the delicious food that will feed us in the summer and fall. Broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini and at least a dozen volunteer squash plants from our compost-filled raised beds are having a great time. The triangle raised bed got transformed into a mini-way station for our tomato plant and a delightful out post for the robins.

The lupine that grows so beautifully between the beds turns out to carry blossoms with a heady-smelling incense like perfume that knocks me for a loop ... ironic? So, Pete trims the potent wild flowers and sends them off to others who can love their smells without ill.

We have an outhouse in the making.

There is enough room on the ledge for an outhouse. Using material left over from the building of the Big House on the land, purchasing metal studs, a wooden toilet seat and a few tiles from Habitat for Humanity for our floor we will have an outhouse on the ledge for our composting toilet. Still stepping as lightly as we can ... recognizing that even this disturbs some creatures who were here first (many apologies chipmunk and squirrel) Pete uses his large beautiful workman's hands to craft a place to sit, release and look out at the Pond.

Word Tree

One of the trails near The Ledge leads to the Lake. The Big House looks east toward the lake. While out on a walk a couple weeks ago a beautiful worn branch leaned on a fallen log. A beautiful branch perfect for a Word Tree.

One of the losses that has led to transformation has been my love of reading books and print on paper. In a way perhaps Destiny has led me to The Ledge to discover ... or remember, books require trees to give their lives. In the process of reassembling my loss into something different I have cut words off of boxes and wrappers we do buy and use and begun stringing them onto the beautiful worn branch from the trail. There's one of those beautiful words dangling off a fine thread.

Plenty happens during the cycle of 'ole when the moon cycle suggests nothing new be planted, nothing be taken from the seas and for us mortals a time of weeding, completion and rest a fine option. This cycle of 'ole was particularly filled with completions ... I got so filled with completions I took an extra day by accident. If the internet fairies free up enough speed for this dear laptop to do it we will have views and pictures to show you. Cross your fingers, say a prayer and let's see ... Thank you ALL. Mokihana