Lemme tell ya 'bout a friend ah mine ...

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose

ourselves at the same time.

~ Thomas Merton

 

 

We're up early, warm toast and hot tea in my tummie and the screw gun next door is at it. I've been blog hopping and found the quote above over at Auntie Moon's ... something to chant along the way during the first three days of March (while the Sun is in Pisces/Moon in Libra).  Before the dust stirred my mind my heart went to the joy of friends who do this very thing Thomas Merton speaks of:  ART.

I have friends who are making this sort of ART in there everyday.  In and around the daily slog life can dish up, Joan and Lana have been mess'n in the mud and having a grand time with ceramic bowls and beads.  I have known these women over the while.  Our journeys have been intimate, and then not.  Time and circumstance can do that to friendships.  It is the art of everyday that does invite one to 'find and lose ... at the same time.' And, it's the internet that weaves mending magic that does not come on its own.

One of OCP's beautifully hand-designed, glazed and fired

beauties

Off Center Productions is the art my friends have crafted from their love of design.  A Ram and a Bull (an Aries and a Taurus) make ceramic beads and 'Mother Bowls' of porcelain. I see in the designs JT's love of global traditions and their love of dirt and growing things.   I have known these gals when we were all part of corporate jungle gymnastics. We are older now and look at what we have found to do with our lives

..."The tradition of forming beads out of clay is an ancient one and the magic of combining fine porcelain beads with crystals, silver, gold, and glass is ancient. Our pottery studio strives to create one of a kind, truly unique porcelain pendants and beads...

Joan and Lana's studio is in Lacey, Washington in the southern Puget Sound area near Olympia.  Their on-line shop is fun to browse and if you're shopping to buy, their new line of beads and doodahs are in stock.  Link to OFF CENTER PRODUCTIONS here.

Sending blessings for the maples who have given so much pleasure:  Aloha and Mahalo la'au maple.  Hugs 'round your stout trunks.

 

  

NEW MOON IN LIBRA: Amass the quality of nurturing not nuking

Before the new moon in Libra moves into Scorpio, I need to get the energy of empowerment and nurturing onto the wall. I felt the despair surrounding me and tried to sleep it off. After an NAET treatment to clear my kidneys and adrenal glands from exposure to a new environment, I started to itch all over. "Unmasking" maybe. Lately my muscle testing has been showing 'Herbicide' sensitivities nearly every day (not today though). I was exposed to DDT as a kid in Hawaii, and with multiple poisonings from Round-up in my adult life, the probability for more episodes of herbicides to unmask and reenter my blood streams (in an effort to detox) is high. And drinking two cups of coffee for the first time in years probably didn't help, either:/

I'm rambling to the point I hope will come soon and to get me there I'm linking to two posts written by my friend Leslie from the Oko Box. They are timely medicine for me, and such an affirmation: "We believe in the quality of nurturing our homes and our selves." On the night of a New Moon the potential to attract the energy you wish to grow in your life, is most potent when the moon appears darkest. A void (darkness) attracts light.

Here are the links to Leslie's two recent posts ... posts that inspire me to get this post on the walls.
Sustainable living
Girl in a (nature)bubble
Both of Leslie's posts ring with a voice of strength that is the other-side of her usually zany and light-hearted creative, elf self. Creative solutions will come from a combination of complex thinking and complexity comes from being able and willing to express a wide and deep understanding of the issues of being human and being human with environmentally induced illness. I celebrate your voice, Leslie. Celebrate your complexity (Libra and all!)

This afternoon Pete and I spent the day with our friends. We headed for a town called Sisters in the Oregon Cascades. Our goals were first, to meet a land owner who might be open to us gathering our three tiny MCS homes on a portion of her land ... to take the next step necessary to grow good community; and second, we were there in that pine forest to hike the land. It has been a very long time since Pete and I have gone on a long hike in clean air and new to us territory. I was prepared with my organic cotton and carbon filter insert mask. I hiked for two hours without it. The experience of being with scent-free friends, talking and imagining all manner of positive community while getting exercise and free high altitude (4,000 ft) air was totally different. The difference was so wonderful both Pete and I admitted tonight, we are afraid of it. Too long has it been since we have had two hours of blissful company and positive experiences. Is that a weird circumstance? To be so far from the experience of happiness that one becomes afraid of it? Fearing the shoe will drop/the rug pulled out.

Our life from VardoForTwo has been such a long string of struggles, the possibility for change is what we seek and yet the familiarity of struggle can wear too deep a rut and we fall too quickly into it. So, this post is a call to the void of Mahina (the moon) during this phase of darkness to commit to the lightness of positivity and possibilities. Teaming up/collaborating with friends who are equally and different motivated and intelligently focused on new solutions spreads the burden of a sustaining effort. Like I commented on Leslie's post on the Oko Box, teaming up allows for the reality that when one of us is down from an exposure or weakened spiritually from the effort, one of us will be less down or even up enough to take the next step or help shoulder the burden.

VardoForTwo is a tiny wagon parked now in a field surrounded by barbed wire. I wrote about that the other day. Metaphorically, the image has a 'concentration camp' vibe that I have just realized I don't like. I'm writing my way through that realization so I can enlist the support of the celestial bodies and maybe make enough sense to those who may read this. We are in this field because there was no other place to go ... for now. There are shortcomings to this arrangement, and yet this is not the final step. Like so many parts of this journey to a satisfied soul, the process is slow. We get tired, discouraged, sad, angry and add to that the looks of judgment that we get because we look different: brown not white, round not thin, dressed warmly not fashionable, and the grief could really start to stack up.

NASA sent United States rockets to the moon earlier this week, in search of water. Earth was a planet with water that could have been enough for all the right reasons and for season after season. Tonight, as the New Moon continues to affect Earth with her tidal magnetism, I leave this rambling post like a prayer flag saying, "This tiny wagon is enough to make a big difference. We are enough, just as we are. Bless us with what we need to make it so. Mahalo Ke Akua. Mahalo Mahina."

Good night, Moon.

THE DREAM CAME TRUE: On the road and in the woods!

Pete, Doug and Lois in the ferry line for Bremerton

VARDOFORTWO hitched to the rental truck (a heavy duty 250 GMC diesel works) It cost us less than $150 dollars for two days rental plus gas to move us. We consider this a wise was to spend money, and for the time being owning another vehicle is not the choice we make.

Pete is way out in front, after backing out of a Dead End. There was no stopping him and that sense of authority to be in charge of your life ... it was affirmed in this pic of him.

Doug and Pellet ... old time friends, doing what they have done for decades. Playing!
Waiting for Pete to back into the spot in the woods.

That's me, this morning looking through my Dutch Door listening to the frogs, and looking out across the trees to the pond. Anchored and totally blissed out!

Yesterday, Sunday, April 5, 2009 will be remembered as a gem of a day for dreamers. It is all worth it ... the imagining, the work, the steps forward and the steps back. Without dreams there is only someone else taking responsibility for the dear lives we do have. Pete said last night, "When you post ... tell 'em it's GO FOR IT time, no more just talking about it." The man was in heaven behind the wheel of that heavy duty pick up truck heading for the ferry, and then onto the roads for the woods.

There were moments of hesitation ... once off the ferry from Seattle the Bremerton, Pete was having so much fun the back roads he was having TOO MUCH FUN SHOWING OFF, he wanted everyone to see it~ It was the DEAD END sign that tripped an old memory living in me from a life long past ... the genes of a construction worker father who taught me and my brother to drive D-8 Caterpillar tractors; and the young wife who helped back up a trailer towing boats. The vardo and the driver was at the end of the 'back road' route ... it was time to get that wheelie home on the highway. My body language and confidence with directions to Pete in the rental truck was the kick in the okole for both of us. Time to get MOVIN' now, ... imua (forward).

From there it was no stopping the builder of VARDOFORTWO.

We have positioned and anchored our wee home in the woods of the Olympic Mountain foothills. It is beautiful there, and our friends Doug Lois were part of our caravan to the woods. Great fun and laughs along the way, with a bit of understandable anxiety, too.

Pellet and Turtle and Jane Dog were there to welcome us to our new home and a great feast of salmon, potato salad and brownies were shared by all. Our first night and morning in VARDORFORTWO was bliss. The tiny space is lovable and the ceramic heater works like a champion. Of course, the first 65 degree day of spring helped as well.

Dreams are the makings of any tomorrow. Thank the gods, the spirits and the friends visible and invisible for all the love and direction that has given our dreams .... mahalo, mahalo.

Thanks everyone for your good wishes. A hui hou!

Need a Pat on the Back?

Today that's just what I needed. Click here to visit our twin blog, Makua O`o where I wrote about finding some new friends, one of them was there to say, "You're going to be okay." Boy, did I need that!!!!

VARDOFORJOTS

This is JOTS ... Johnny On The Spot. Shortly after we settled into the Kitchenette a scrawny black kitty began showing up whenever we cooked chicken. Out of nowhere the little one was at my ankles and available for attention and chow. We weren't looking for a cat. In fact, our journey from O`ahu included a tragedy and loss of a very loved kitty friend, Spence ... and that is a chapter The Storyteller may have to tell ... in another place, another time. For now though, these pictures tell the story. In spite of my allergy to kitty dander JOTS has found a place in my heart where a special sort of filter allows me to find creative solutions to the problem.

ABOVE: Warm organic milk for the kitty. It's 18 degrees outside, and warm milk is the cat's meow.

ABOVE: JOTS SAFE AT HOME.

She would love to be cuddled up inside the Kitchenette with us, and she made her way into that inner sanctuary a couple times during the past week. Pete's elegant solution has been 'building' VARDFORJOTS ... one step at a time: First the old cardboard box that carried something (tools/books?) from O`ahu to White Center. Next, Pete's wool thrift store sweater lined the cardboard box. Temperatures dropped below 40, a piece of foam board insulation went into the box, the sweater went on top of the insulation. Temperatures dropped below 32, the string of white fairy lights that brighten the window and table outside is long enough to wind in a circle under the sweater in the box. It warms the sweater, isn't hot enough to burn any thing and is now JOTS personal electric blanket. Blowing snow shows up, and an old flannel blanket from Joel's storage room becomes the roof for VARDFORJOTS.

You may not be looking to love, ahh... love may just be looking for you.