IN THE WORKS ... A Two-part Article about THE RELATIONSHIP

I wrote something flippant the other day about the meaning of the 'Ole Cycles in the Hawaiian Moon Calendar. 

" So basically in a 30 day period, 'Ole cycles give you 7 days and nights to chill-out and regroove."

The truth of things is that many of the 'Ole Cycles are rarely times of 'chill-out' and most definitely a time to regroove and reasses the conditions of our life.  Pete and I began the process of envisioning Vardo For Two in 2007.  That Christmas my son helped to design and create Kaulana Mahina (the Hawaiian Moon Calendar). That calendar was our Christmas gift, and a major source of balance, structure and reliability at a time when all three were non-existent.  When we were without a home, identity or comfort we turned to the healing regularity of Nature's cycles and began counting on the moon.

Change we experienced individually and as a couple in the years of being homeless and without safe shelter made its way onto pages of blogs.  Someone else must be living these times, yet the need to describe it was my own doing and Sam and Sally became the characters who'd save our lives for something yet to come.  Our life together now is different nearly four years later, better in many ways.  The effects of MCS change us in unique ways because we chose to rebuild a life in a tiny space that can be moved.

We lived in a car for six months, and while learning what EI (enviornmental illness) is including the triggers, symptoms and solutions might be for me (who lives with the more severe level of the illness) it is my partner, and the relationship, that also factor into the whole picture of survival, evolving and accepting the journey.  I'm calling this the "1 plus 1 = 3 The Relationship" because it's the relationship Pete and I create together that is what makes or breaks us as we go through the many hurdles, challenges, decisions, adjustments and movement in our daily life.  Separately we come together with our stengths, personality and ways of thinking and acting.  We also come with our legacies, our history and the secrets we don't even recognize.

Pete and I are working on a two-part article that summons the human and spiritual feel for life as journey, and not destination.:

Part One, The effects of Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) on intimate relationships sights the daily adjustments and (finally, sometimes) the adaptation that take place in an intimate partnership that grows from chronic illness, and specifically MCS. 

Part Two,  The astrological potential of the Composite Chart of partners who live with MCS offers another angle and navigational perspective based on the position of the sun, moon and planets at the time of their births as a "Composite".

Elsa Pannizon, author and creator of the astrology blog Elsa Elsa describes a Composite Chart this way, "As for calculating a composite chart, there are various ways but most common is to take the midpoint between the two Suns and that becomes the Composite Sun. The midpoint between the Moons becomes the Composite  Moon, etc.  I like this method probably due the Libra in my chart as the two individuals meet in the middle and this becomes the relationship. :)"

Come back later in the week for Part Two of "1 plus 1= 3 The Composite Report"  it might just give you something to talk about!

Finding the mean...ings.

This fir rises from the front window ... he shapes the view we see looking to the Pond. Like crusty bread he whets my appetite for Woods.

Every tree becomes a companion rooted to this place they sway even when it appears they are still. Unfretted by the inconvenience of a slope they find a way to live with it ... perhaps finding the mean or then again it may be the meaning they find that makes the difference.

VardoForTwo perches us on the Ledge and becomes cave, temple, sanctuary, love nest and oasis.

Care needs to be taken to keep toxic matter and meanderings outside ... offering them up to the Cosmos to recycle them for some better purpose. Weariness worn like wet wool slowly dries off and it too can be hung with our loyal leavings --our coats, hats and outside ware, on the neat pegs on the porch wall. For another day ... weariness can come another day.

A seat by the road to the garden, one of the few level spot on the ledge gives us rest from the edginess of ledge living. A simple thing a level seat ... could we have guessed the parcel of worth such a seat would have?

If I wished for an adjustment it might be: to live the 'mean' of a usual cycle of time ... that level ground, the space that is neither super-excited by stimulation from the outside or conjuring of my own. Life on the ledge is sublime in the most beautiful of fashions. We experience calm, clean, quiet and the racket of life in the wilds ... both from the clans of creatures who were here way before us, the trees,shrubs, flowers and grasses that blossom and the humans who stir the silence with their motors, guns and machinery that cuts/blows/mows.


It may be I think in too small an increment, measuring too often and looking to closely. Oh for the mean of life where the level seat be ever available and the choice I make because it is my preference. Or, maybe not.

Be well where you find yourself.
A hui hou, Mokihana

S A F E ... How do you count the ways?

A few years ago when Pete and I lived in the Puhala Rise cottage in Manoa Valley, we ventured into downtown Honolulu for First Friday ... a regular monthly arts and enertainment event. Blocks of China Town ---art galleries, theatres and clubs in the old Honolulu district become a bazzar of pedestrian art-lovers. The atmosphere is fun, the partying ... well, it is Friday night. My level of health at the time was different than it is today, to say "I was better" doesn't really describe it, and yet the number of people at any First Friday event was already a show-stopper on most days/nights. But there was a need to be out, so we did it and got out. Motivated by a primal need to be social, my duck and cover instincts still needed to be within easy reach. The perfumes, laundry soaps and hair product were thick but as I recall the night I believe the TradeWinds were blessing the night air because I remember the night with ease and a smile.



Two events at that First Friday stick with me and inspire me to write this: first, I met and talked story with a childhood friend I had not seen for many years. Grant. His daughter was running one of the tiny galleries and proud pop and his wife were there as behind the scenes back-up. We talked about small-kid-times in a sweet-nostalgia way that has always been with Grant and his family. The second experience that made that night important was the exhibit/inter-active show happening at MARK'S Garage. The multi-media show was about SHELTER, HOMELESSNESS, SAFE PLACES. Artists, children of all ages, artists of all ages filled the gallery with options for shelter, none of them looked anything like the condonimium/three-story million dollar/apartment with a view digs that litter the islands from mountain to seashore. The specifics of these creative shelter are blurry. I recall a recycled boat, a row-bow, wooden or maybe aluminum. A sail/roof for a place to sleep. What I saw was less memorable than the feeling that I got from seeing these sheltering homes. What I felt was: safe. As part of the exhibit a bulletin board of small notepad messages filled a wall nearly ceiling to floor. The notepad paper had a short question pre-printed on each page. The question read, "What makes you feel safe?" Wow, if there was ever a question in my mind about how god speaks to us here was an answer. God spoke through the art, Beethoven would say he spoke to him through music and then tricked him into 'hearing' by turning him deaf.


Pete and I now live in a safe place, an unlikely place we could never have imagined during those days on Puhala Rise. This morning my net surfing and connections with the MCS Tribe and communities throughout the world have fed me stories of the struggle to find, keep and sustain life in safe homes. The link here will take you to PEGGY MUNSON's blog where an eloquent post makes an ugly reality almost more than I can bear. What does matter to me as I begin one more incredible day is the question written at the top of that notepad from MARK'S Garage ...


WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL SAFE? I'm making a list, checking it twice. SAFE ... How do you count the ways?