"What I love about your vardo metaphor is
it gives people like you and me that emotional outlet to feel connected
to a nomadic life, to the Earth, to feel our feet planted on the ground
while our soul travels the planet. It allows us to rise up and transcend
the prison – or cage as you say – of MCS and create something more
powerful for ourselves. Beautiful. This is why reading your blog made me
cry! It speaks to that part of me, on a very deep, deep level. This is
the power you have – anyone has – by following their truth and putting
it out there. You don’t know how many others you will affect, and in
what ways.." - Julie Genser
When Julie Genser, creator of the on-line community Planet Thrive interviewed Pete and me in 2009, life in a vardo was a new experience. Years in the making, the fact remains, we were new to what living in a vardo for two would be. I am an artist and writer and count those names as benefits, gifts, that I eat up and give up just as I am learning the trees and I give one another gifts. The Tall and The Small Ones (the forest) fill the island upon which we live with oxygen, lots of it. In turn, we inhale the gift, the oxygen, and give back carbon dioxide. They need it as we need oxygen. Now, the science of that exchange is not something I came up with myself. Research, that is the Tarot that feeds my knowledge. What does happen as we live a day a night, a season, a year in the forest from Vardo For Two is the experience of feeling how interconnected we are with all of it. My culture of Hawaii allows me to believe that in my every where within, and when the logic of the capitalist culture spins me for a loop I hold on to my metaphoric, mythic and real-life digging stick to ground me what I know beyond logic. We are five years in the practice and metaphor of living from a Gypsy-style home. We have grown older and the inconvenience of washing laundry by hand and being sensitive to the many smells of a product-heavy society wear on us, but so do the same product wear on the birds, the bugs, the ground, the water. What happens when the wear happens?
"In many shamanic societies, if you came
to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited,
or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: When did you stop
dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted
by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory
of silence?" - Gabrielle Roth
Earlier this year my response to the wear-and-tear was to make more magic, and myth of the life Pete and I live.
"Join Mokihana Calizar for the inauguration of the Safety Pin Cafe on
October 6 at the South Whidbey Tilth Farmers' Market. This two-hour
event begins at 11 a.m. with a haunting and healing Hawaiian chant,
followed by sharing stories, art and music--fold an origami cup as a
symbol of how we can support one another--enjoy cinnamon toast, a symbol
of safety and love. Mokihana has written about journey through illness
from chemicals ubiquitous in the modern world using myth, metaphor and
ancestral memory to create a tale and medicine story. She has found
safety on Whidbey Island and has turned a corner toward regaining her
health. She acknowledges the South Whidbey Tilth campus as a safe
space--fragrance and chemical free." - from South Whidbey Tilth Newsletter--August/September 2013"
The Medicine Wheel from The Safety Pin Cafe
The ups and downs of life in this human body is learned daily. Some practices are consistent, but not constant. Not even the moon upon which I count on consistently, is not constant; she changes from night to night. Some days I have a worldfull of energy, other days I am without spoons to serve a moth. One of the practices that has kept me grounded and able to travel in and out of spaces that I can't step into in 'the flesh' is the artist's practice suggested and taught by Julia Cameron. I've been reading and writing from her book ARTIST'S WAY Every Day. Today's reading for December 15th is this:
"As an artist so much of my life is determined by the size of my imagination. If I am making something big, and making it daily. I can perhaps live somewhere small. I can sit at a desk that faces a wall and tap words into space and my world is still large enough. I am more than my circumstances, more than the cage of my environment. There is a dignity inherent in making art, a filament of largesse and generosity, a connection to something better and brighter than myself. "You do not own me," I am able to say to the walls that enclose me. And yet, I must learn to love my walls."
Few people really know how we live here in the tiny spaces of vardo, quonset, and hale (wash house) but some do. I weave the myth, live the metaphor or switch it up and live the myth and weave the metaphor loving the walls and pushing from them sometimes to make something from them.
Preparing for Winter Solstice and the promise of more light
In the dear well of goodness there is a light that shares itself with all. The likelihood of that light being shared between a human egg and sperm is as unlikely as balancing a single grain of raw rice on the head of a needle ... or so I've heard tell when I have listened to stories told by old wizen grandmothers answering a child's questions.
My own life is closing in on the tale end of a human's existence now and when one lives with a dark night of the soul, or worse even, a string of dark nights the end seems a blessing with the pressure to keep that precarious balance. There is no doubt a transcendent quality within the soul that draws the mortal angst toward the light. Challenged as so many women, men and children are on the Planet with illness and imbalances concocted by ill-placed motivations and an addiction to hording, Sensitives such as I seek to use Art as a vehicle ... a way to ride through the daunting losses. When Art is not enough, loving support from compassionate and skilled guides, healers and loved ones shore me while my inner fire is re-kindled. For that assistance I offer this story as a thank you.
My Art is story, and Wood Crafting the Tale is a piece of other-worldly telling for me to heal my way through the losses and grief of living with MCS. The Art speaks of voices unspoken yet more powerful than utterance; cosmic connection that is the thread of soul's food and the Everlasting; Nature's beauty and her unquestionably enduring quality. Though I never consciously planned the final installment to coincide with the release of a calendar of nearly naked women telling their truth after MCS; never planned to share the final installment of my healing fairy tale as a tonic for my very real and painful bout of depression and suicidal angst this is what is happening.
In time for the new moon that rises tomorrow morning (Wednesday, December 16th) I share the final installment of Wood Crafting the tale here at VardoForTwo where the story began in the Spring of 2009 when a golden wagon rolled onto a ledge in the woods. Through the sharing I embrace the dark and light of mortal existence balanced with the grounded NATURE of life from the Ever.
And now the final installment of WOOD CRAFTING the Tale
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)
Shelela and Shenia … She the little and the small
Our story draws closer to its destiny, dear ones. The journey broad, the telling savory, the lessons wrapped in filigree and sennit, bundled in cedar boughs and hidden on bits of driftwood from islands far south of the high mountains. The tale cannot be finished without knowing more about my own dear birthing, and that of my twin Shelela. If ever you will need the nectar of the place to taste the truth, it will be here as I braid the final hank into place. Have you kept the kettle hot for tea? If you have neglected the small ritual it would be a fine time to raise yourself to the burner and bring the spring water to a boil. A story always tastes the nectar of the place with tea.
We must return to the beginning and listen as my own dear mother and father consider the choice Kaimalama Noa has made.
Shemaladia of Osprey listened as her mate to be recounted Kaimalama’s disclosure. Both my parents were full-size Grey Wood Crafters. To see them now, their heights would surprise mortals for they were Giant in your vocabulary. Perhaps as large as twelve feet from ground to head feathers, Shemaladia and Freeilll were among the last of the Giants with coil of stardust and bird nearer fairy than human in spite of their size. My mother waited for my father’s final word, looked deeply with her eyes closed and sought any unspoken thought that might linger in his telling. When she found none there Shemaladia asked, “Are these mortals long in coming? Will it be within our cycles they be here on The Planet?” Freeilll Noa felt certain the mortals would come only when his name and that of Shemaladia of Osprey were as fairy tales or make-believe. “Do you see the lesson in our mating as a birth-place for our future coveys, a warming of a different sort to prepare our twins for change?” My father simply nodded, affirming Shemaladia’s intuition. “Kaimalama has opened a channel to the Ever of the future through his choice. What has been is reassembling, and though you and I have enjoyed the Grace of Grey and crossed the Cosmos with our gifts there comes a time for loving the small, birthing the value of reserve and it continues with our mating. We have been asked to value a concentrated version of ourselves, leaving behind that which no longer serves, embracing all that will likely flourish forward. My brother’s choice will reveal the nature of small when nurtured. He has lived one hundred cycles with a secret kept. Hording polyps, fish and the moving winds examples of secrecy and a grace ill-founded.”
Shemaladia of Osprey remembered the moment she first saw Freeilll Noa. “What will our twins be like from our mating?” She had thought that then, and now she knew the answer was “different.” The lid of stars that poured stardust from the constellation of The Big Dipper would open within three moon rising. Time was still on the side of destiny. My mother had received many gifts of gratitude and thanks over her long life. Souls lost and found often gifted Shemaladia with tokens of their appreciation. Thinking of her pouch of brocade that held those gifts my mother conned in my father’s direction, “I believe a clue has been with me all these many cycles. A gift from a sister lost to herself gave me a circle of silver with stone of pink quartz. The ring was too small for my claw. Pink quartz is for the healing heart, perhaps the perfect size for reassembling the size of a Wood Crafter’s egg.” In the end the ring crafted of silver with stone of pink quartz was indeed the perfect size for twin eggs birthed by Freeilll Noa and his mate Shemaladia of Osprey. The lid of stars poured their stardust as it had for times back into memory, and as it has been for all those times, mates of destiny embraced their dance of bliss. One of those paired is said to have embraced with a small circle of silver held tight between their breasts. The ring of silver split between my mother and father. Each half was absorbed into their hearts creating two halves the size of perfectly reassembled eggs, twin girls named Shenia and Shelela Wood. In the scheme of destiny we were the first of the covey to be She the Little. My mother and father viewed the future knowing the new race called Mortals would grow with the spell of hording in their coil. Like my uncle the spell would be like a mask unconsciously worn unexpectedly risky business. My parents chose to value the small concentrated good that had until that point lived grand, large, and Giant. We sustain our Grace through that choice and look from our coveys and warrens at the mortals who are called Sensitives and Spell-binders and watch for one woman in particular who has memory of kin and kind. That mortal carriers the gift of Fantasy … a willingness to forget all and then, she will make room for us to join in. From the Ledge near the Pond of Ever a woman fitting that description has moved herself and her mate into a wee wheeled home. The fairies are keeping close watch on things on the Ledge, and warming on a branch is a pair of violet eggs the size of a mortal woman’s earrings.
This story is braided complete for the while. Mortal destiny lies tentatively on the balance between grand and small. Sensitive kin with dreams falling down around them are the clue to a reassembled beginning. Will the race who has been spell-bound by greed begin anew, release what no longer serves the original Creators’ song and step gently back where the nectar of place is sipped, shared and for goodness sake, never horded? Cross your fingers and make room in your dreams for fairies and Gypsy Frog kings to join in. Until the next wind gathers the dust of story ~ be gentle with your stepping and kind in your encounters.
When the real is too unreal
~ a walking stick in the helpful people corner becomes a magical o'o
I'm starting out my day this morning (now more than eight hours ago) with a glint of the positive in me. It's an early start to the day and we are preparing to go work with Claude the Greenman in his Shelton gardens. Another day of working for food is a great way to spend time. We collect our jugs of well water, take extra clothes just in case, pack our lunch, finish boiling up the organic eggs for nibbling on the way down, and make sure we take the freshly dehydrated buckwheat crackers for the Greenman. The drive is an hour and traffic is busy ... lots going on so we both pay attention. For whatever reason we get to the gardens ... no Claude. We didn't email him to confirm ... so we wait an hour and leave him a note, "Aloha Claude .....we're going to the Olympia Food Co-op and will swing by afterwards to see if you still need help. A hui hou (seeyoulater), M & P. No this part of the story is not one of the reasons I write fairy tales. The next part of the story is why I write fairy tales.
To get to Olympia Pete took Highway 101 South. The roadsides are drying up from all the dry summer weather, even though the morning was cool and overcast the green was definitely more straw than evergreen. The weeds and undesirable vegetation was already recycling itself into seeds. Here ... this is why I write fairy tales. Up ahead I see that there are Washington State trucks in driving slowly along the center divide between H-101 South and H-101 North. Tank trucks!! The tanker truck in front is spraying fan-sized liquid onto the already drying undesirable grasses...that would be herbicides. This is the stuff that makes my liver bloat with toxic overload, burns my skin and my eyes and adds to the unreality of the convenient yet warlike choices to keep poisoning without permission. Poisoning is poisoning, without warning or way to escape/take a different route ... THAT IS THE REASON I KEEP WRITING FAIRY TALES.
Here is the third installment of my full-length fairy tale WOOD CRAFTING written with inspiration from the beings and forms of nature that live here on the Ledge. In so many ways the experience of being human is alien to me: I just don't get way we allow the military, the corporations, the leadership of powerful conglomerates to tamper with 'clean and innocent.' Since I don't get it ... I open to the source of my imaginings and draw the ancient wisdoms of systems greater than greed to weave a tale of a re-assembled reality.
If you are new to VardoForTwo this is one form of expression that happens here... story telling and fairy tale conjuring is often the only way to make sense of the nonsense. Building a life from a wee wheelie home will do that. When you live small, the truths come knocking loudly. Catch up on the other installments of WOOD CRAFTING by linking below:
And when you're done there ... come back to here and read forward ... or, if you wish to just jump in here the story will take you where you need to go. In a fashion a fairy tale is meant to defy time and reason since this tale anyway is written because the real just seems too unreal anyway. This is a very long tale that will last a good many installments so enjoy them as you will and know that if you too have found your world unreal and unfit for the time that fits neatly on the face of a wristwatch there is time for you here ... look for it.
Put the kettle on for tea, find that comfy blanket and join me for a bit of a story ...
WOOD CRAFTING Copyright, Mokihana Calizar
2009
by
Mokihana Calizar
Part I, continues
Freeilll Noa of the Islands
Cosmic islands existed in the stories of Wood Crafters for as long as wind was given air to breath.Spread across the skies the islands rode the winds in the southern hemisphere and in particular the Wood Crafters favored the air near the constellation of The Seven Sisters.My father’s covey fished the waters of The Seven Sisters for generations and was valued for their lore of tidal richness and sacred prayers.Unlike my mother’s branch of Crafters Freeilll Noa of the Islands was bred to a tradition of listening and except for the unproductive nights of the moon … when fishing waited and utterances of mending and maintenance filled their breaths, his was a silent covey.The Crafters of the Islands could hear a fish rise from the still evening pond a constellation away. Fish were not caught for sport, only for life.Prayers were exchanged at the moment of capture.Death and life replaced the other and no death went uncelebrated as life grew from the loss.
The keenly tuned sense of hearing tended well in a world that was gentle of sounds; on star dust a language of modulation matched the sounding bones within the ear of Island Crafters.Rarely did an Islander wander or be given need to travel to Woods where the song-tellers voices filled the skyways, and if such occasion arose there was always preparation for the assault.A lifetime of communication on star dust alone could be debilitating to a Novice who chanced upon Song or Story out loud.My father was no Novice when he heard the sound of his own name called across the archipelago on what felt to him like a tidal wave.It was an unusual time and a wave of volcanic proportion had been predicted by Honu the sea turtle with memories of time before silence.As my father sat on a stump he reserved for mending his nets and sharpening his bill, Honu surfaced in the shallows.“The day is malia for a day of rest.Unusual for the cycle would you say?”Honu conned his thoughts in my father’s direction.Freeilll had noticed the differences in the tides in recent cycles and nodded to Honu, “I have noticed this old friend.The winds are very gentle and seem almost to be asleep else where.Perhaps an anomaly … ought we be concerned?”The sea turtle had lived through many, many transformations in these cosmos and knew my father would not question if there were no need for concern.“Things are changing Freeilll, I notice how much warmer the oceans are for the season.Hatchings are early and the fry are small but have extremely large eyes and no protrusions for ears. I have felt the swell of a wave volcanic in size.Prepare the covey for the wave.Be ready for the calling.Listen for your name.”With that Honu dug into the sand with her flippers and turned to submerge her mountainous self into the deep.
The night of the full moon is excellent for fishing.My father was accustomed to carrying his small eyed net to the waters edge on the night of Mahealani.His fishing companion was a Crafter less than half my father’s size.Somaia of the South was a cunning man of nearly two hundred cycles with feathers once bright red like the prized fish of the deep seas.Now Somaia’s cape was a subtle salmon, mottled gray feathers alternated through this chest.Though age had softened the color of his cape, Somaia was still a listener unsurpassed.My father and his friend had just reached the marker stone off the southern- most island when the quiet of deep space crackled with the sound of my father’s name.“…Freeilll.”
The voice was clear, deep and captivating.In less than a moment of thought my father was tilted off-balance seized by his talon the voice drew him.The ride was swift and stardust swirled to keep up with him.Somaia’s shock did not last his instinct and loyalty snapped him into action.As his friend shot straight through the sky like a comet the finely woven net dropped from my father’s wings.Somaia dove for the unfolding sennit catching it with talons spread as if throwing it at shore’s edge the old fishermen reserved his motion, and rode the updraft.There was no time to conn between them the speed of the capture commanded both men’s attention.And then, as quickly as it had begun the ride ended.“Where have we come?And why now, Freeilll?” “Honu warned me of the call, prepared me for this.Where?I don’t know.Why?There will be time later.”
The songs of the warming were nearly spent.The seeping light of morning peeled back the glow of moon.My mother’s song completed the night of telling, and she was ready for sleep until she saw a most remarkable sight.A great Grey, a bird like herself, but different and a small reddish bird the size of which she had never actually seen yet had heard of from the crones.A web made of string clung to the small bird who seemed wind-burned.The sight that woke Shemaladia of the Osprey from her tiredness was the ears of the obvious strangers.No member of her covey had ears on the outside of their heads.
The crones felt the presence of the two strangers and were within fingertip of Shemaladia in an instant.Tandalori, the most ancient spoke first, “She, you have called two souls from the long distant archipelago do you recognize the strangers as friends?”Shemaladia was stunned, a condition of which was not usual for my mother.Mute, she simply shook her elegant feathered head from side to side.Aina stood at my mother’s side and laughed, the crones knew then that the strangers’ appearance was expected.Tandalori spoke again, this time her lightning blue eyes crinkled in Aina’s direction.“Are you the conjurer of this event?A Reassembling in the making seems to me.”Without answering the question or the speculation, the old owl nodded instead and assured her sisters that there was no need for upset the day was dawning, the young ones needed to be bedded and guests needed attention.“She, you have souls to attend and a place to prepare.Go and meet your mate, it was you who called him and he needs to know your name.”Still speechless my mother did as she was told.
Shemaladia of Osprey flew from the warming circle with her long time companion, Oona of the Song.They exchanged glances and though I cannot be certain, history records Oona winking at my mother with girl-like anticipation at what could only be called a great adventure.Freeilll and Somaia by this time had reconnoitered, they agreed they were in the Northern Hemisphere of Ever and between them the evidence of a hunter’s covey was without doubt.They heard my mother and Oona before they could see them.Somaia was not without shame as his bill slackened, talons still gripped on the sennit net he had rescued from the fall.He had never seen a Wood Crafter as beautiful as the two winged beings he watched circling above.From the air came noise, “Welcome, we come to bid you good tide and hospitality,” the golden feathered one sang first.Unaccustomed to hearing words both men winced at the sound and drew into their necks instinctively.The women landed inches from them and bowed their beautiful heads in a dance of welcome and then softened their song to a whisper, this time Shemaladia spoke.“I am Shemaladia of Osprey and this is Oona of the Song.You have come to the Land of Osprey, and are welcome.”My mother and her friend carried bundled cedar pouches filled with sweet pine nuts as signs of kindness.If Aina was correct, these travelers would have never eaten the sweet nut of the Sacred Pines as the salt water Islands would not sustain the pine.
Now it was my father’s turn to be stunned.After his ears had adjusted to the whispers of the Osprey, he too marveled at the graceful curve of my mother’s crescent beak, and the shimmer of her black feathered wings hypnotized him.Somaia prodded Freeilll from trance, and pressed a long-rested memory from just above mid-center in his friend’s breast.My father found his voice, “I am Freeilll Noa of the Islands and this is my companion Somaia of the South.We are from the archipelago of the Seven Sisters, fishermen of the reefs and oceans of the Southern Hemisphere and we came when my name was called across the skyways.”For a man of silence, the spoken introduction was clear to hear.Somaia’s pride was apparent as his normally salmon wing feathers glowed more brightly red than they had for decades.My mother was equally pleased with the sound of the silent fisherman and in response she called upon the memory of conning that was introduced to all Wood Crafters throughout Ever.With her eyes closed she saw the song in her and sent it without words, “I have been told that my story song has led you here and that you, Freeilll Noa of the Islands are to be my mate.What you know may be the same, is it so?”Straight talking, song-maker she has been, my mother was not a hunter of renown without being on the mark.She had hit her target and now the Reassembling could unfold with rapid course.
The four Wood Crafters sat in a circle with the bundles of sweet pine nuts in the center.Never to be without provisions, the two fishermen drew ropes of dried and salted fish from the warmth of their under wings.Laid open the bundles of cedar that carried the sweet nuts, made simple platters for both sweets and salted foods. I would have loved to be at that first dinner with polar opposites that morning.Witness to the first awkward nibbles on tiny nuts for the bill-faced men who had never eaten such tiny fare would have been fuel for cosmic comedy.What has been passed in translation is that both bills and beaks fumbled with the delicacies offered that morning.At first neither pair knew exactly how to approach the problem.It was Somaia who finally melted all pretenses and conned with pure honesty and hunger, “I will need some help to taste your sweet pine dear ladies.”With that the old fisherman, made a coil of his dried fish rope with his bill, moved a mound of sweet pine onto the fish with his talon and with one gulp swallowed both with gusto.His smile served as contentment.The observing trio laughed with relaxed ease, and with an eye to his hostesses, Somaia offered up a coil of dried fish rope and sweet pine nuts to my mother and Oona of the Song.
