What to put where? Letting go and the process involved

The in between stage ... the 'ole moon phases ... that has just passed (four days of them) prove to be hard won times of reassembling life for me.  The broken bone in my arm is healing, I am writing this with both fingers on two hands.  Remedies and diagnosis helped:  noni fruit leather and ti leaf compresses eased the original pain, arnica montana a homeopathic blood thinner has helped with the pain too, and then a blend of comfrey and other botanicals concocted for tissue and bones soothes the aching joints and shock to the rest of my body due to the fall.  The sling given to me at the clinic is too stinky with dyes and petrochem smells to use, so it has been in milk and vinegar baths and now hangs outside on my bike handle airing out.  A thrift store table cloth bought and destinked last year serves as my sling.  And, after a week theNoni has turned my skin to rash...for just a while, and only for a time, the fruit did help.  Breaking bone and falling at 62 years is at best an inconvenience and a spiritual wakeup call ... at the other end of things as I mend physically and emotionally, I am met once again with old, old "hungry ghosts" who taunt me from places of long ago vulnerability.

Throughout my life, I have been a seeker.  Even now I am not always sure what I seek, I mainly know I seek.  Astrology has offered me the satisfaction of grand tools of explanation for things that I cannot undertand in the daily practicals.  For example, as I chatted with my friend Lois yesterday, about my progress with the fall, this old friend (Pisces) can lay out an explanation that would take me paragraphs to explain.  She is different than I, yet she can attune to me and to her self.  When we are chatting like this its primal nourishment ... I feel known and I know she 'sees' me.  The contradictory reality of our friendship (she uses many toxic cleaners and likes her fragrances) means being a self-regulating adult who can set limits and boundaries that are best for me .... I stay clear when the dryer is filled with bleached clothes and don't get near her when she's freshly from the salon or made-up.  Where do you put the differences between one and the other?  How does a person living with multiple chemical sensitivites learn to express needs and values while maintaining true support?  It's not a simple or one-dimensional answer.  What does matter though is the daily and real commitment to love one another.  There's no end to the things that one person does that is contrary to me.  I've lived more than fourteen years of trying to put distance of safety between others choices and the others I believed right for me.  Where has it led?

I think it important for me to describe the very real experiences that include facing and making peace, over and over again, if necessary, the hungry ghosts that are part of my life of origin.  Medical doctor, Gabor Mate of Vancouver, works with the addicts in the skidroad section of downtown Vancouver.  My life includes very early & genetic memory of addiction, so at low points I slide from grace and try again to change the unchangeable(the past/yesterday) and slip from the STEPS of a foundation of recovery that serves us who are family of addiction.  The links throughout this post will take you to more about Mate's work, and his recent book..  The first book I have attempted to read is his newest book In the Realm of  Hungry Ghosts.  Amy Goodman from Democracy Now (see our sidebar for a link) interviewed Dr. Mate on at least two ocassions and I listened to this man describe the interconnection of early adaptive behavior and on-going addiction in our culture today.  Astrology has other ways of spotting legacy or past life inheritance.  Among them, the nodes of the moon The South (the soul's baggage) and The North Node (where the soul seeks to evolve) offer clues and still I must act or think differently even after I am informed to evolve.  Anyway, flipping gingerly, since sensitivity to print and book binding limits my once obsessive love of books, through Dr. Mate's sizeable accounting of first-hand experiences with both his own addictive nature and that of his addict clients from the Downtown Eastside Vancouver clinic, I gleaned a bit of information to consider as part of my seeker's kit. 

More about the Moon

It's the Eve's Eve. The Blue Moon approaching is fueling me with energy to complete and fill-out the year. The moon is in the sign of Gemini today, and it was there yesterday as well. I am learning that the moon makes her way through the twelve signs of the zodiac every two days. This year of 2009 has been a time of becoming more and more in tune with the energy of Mahina. Two years ago we received our first Hawaiian Moon Calendar ... a gift from my son. We were struggling with finding our place on the Planet, bouncing like birds who have recently lost the use of one wing, we were without inner or outer compasses or flight plans. The calendar was given with one suggestion, "No new projects on the 'ole moons." At the time I knew it must mean something because the conveyor of the message is a man of few words. We soon came to see what a vital bit of sustainable info that message was. In the ancient times and with many farmers and fisherfolk yet today, the 'ole moons are times to rewind, review and retrograde. That calendar reminded us to go with the flow of the moon, and not insist on acting when all the energy that surrounded us suggested something different.

Given the condition of our lives at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, the structure or boundaries given by the celestial skyscape became a treasure chest of coping skills a source of adjusting without losing the essential best of selves. We learned to use the 'ole nights as a time to double-check our choices for building materials/slow down our pace to make sure we weren't setting ourselves up to shoot ourselves in the foot/re-connect our emotional committments/note the gifts/grieve the losses and relax. Throughout the life of our blogging here on VardoForTwo and the flock of other blogs I maintain, the 'ole days and nights are times for no new posts. Instead, I visit other sites, do writing of another kind, turn more inside and see how I'm doing keeping my promises (to myself and to any others).

Today I visited one of my recent favorite bloggers Donna Cunningham, continuing to mine the treasure of information this teacher, astrology and writer has amassed in her 40 years of service. There is plenty there at Skywriter, and today I found this:

"Using the moon sign to your advantage" This article confirmed the feelings, and the energy I have to communicate. Gemini governs communication. Yesterday this same sense of needing to write (two good long posts, a very meaningful phone conversation with my counselor) and now there's still plenty of writing primed to spill onto the blog and a new story is ready to continue.

In yesterday's posts I thread a common theme, a pet theme for me for many years: adjusting rather than adapting. In my experiences of moving into and out of new environments for more than forty years, it's a great place to be when a gal gets that she can still remain a tropical wahine at heart, and just layer up with long underwear when the temperatures dip into the teens. Or, as my experiences with the challenges of living with MCS teach me that my physical condition is caused by low (and large) levels of toxic chemicals and require ADJUSTMENTS not ADAPTATION it is so helpful to enlist every source available and affordable to me. Astrology is one of those sources. Combining our established routine of observing and being in sync with the Moon energy during the 'ole cycles with being in sync with the daily moon signs is a next step, a next adjustment and coping skill that just might get me in the flow.

Donna Cunningham's article (with the link above) ends with this paragraph:

... People sometimes wonder how I get so much accomplished and yet work so little. One way that happens is that for all the years I’ve been involved with astrology, I’ve consciously worked with the energies of the current Moon sign rather than try to force my work into rigid agendas and to do lists. When I flow with the Moon, the work flows.

Click here to listen to Ella Fitzgerald singing BLUE MOON ... classy!

Click here to read the story of Jacki who will marry on the BLUE MOON ... precious and empowered by love!

Flowing, classy, precious and empowered what a wonderful wish for the BLUE MOON.
Love to you all, aloha nui loa kakou,
Mokihana and Pete

Time with the sticks

I am spending time over at Makua O`o. I have a need to be 'home' with the o'o (the sticks) and have written a couple posts that might interest you kela (over there).

Click here to read a piece called "Sense your place."