Why write? What is medicine? Why now?

 

 

The Tea Ceremony

" I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do -- the actual act of writing -- turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony..." - Ray Bradbury

↫ 

Dusk. Every cloud has gone somewhere else. Over the rectangles of our neighbors' rigs, the shape of the sky is big. The conditions? Clear. The Moon? She is just outside the door, midway in the clock face 11:30, and she is wearing her near-half-half gown of golden light. It is an 'Ole Moon. Midway between the New Moon and the Full Moon to come.

"Don't start anything new on the 'Ole (oh-lay with the accent on the 'oh') Moon. Time for weeding, repairing nets, reviewing what has been."

Five years ago, in November, I sat to write. It was a medicine story needing to be written, a story I'd begun to tell years before so in truth Nine is for endings was one of the examples of how I live. Fastening one piece of fabric (of life) to another is as vital to me as breathing. Fastening a safety pin of a story is the ceremony that keeps life vital. The story begins with the entry "The Tea Ceremony", and the quote from science fiction master Ray Bradbury.

That is why I write.

Feeling the energy of the 'Ole Moon led me to the stories I've already written. Between feeling deeply grieved and painfully relieved it seems Mahina, The Moon, is wanting me to look and read again a story I believed in when I sat to listen (for writing is so much about listening to what wants to be told) with my whole self.

↬
To leave a bit of explanation: 

"[Nine is for Endings"] continues where "Pine Needle Dances" left off. A theme catches my attention, my immune system might be asking for another option or 'back-up' and I sit down and out it comes. A remedy for a world needing a more robust version of reality, medicine beyond the reach of politics or prescription.

As with the rest [of the stories I write like blogs], Nine is for Endings is written fresh, unedited usually, and grows in serial-form one bit at a time. You know what is happening when I do.

Author's note: It is nearly the end of 2016, October 10, 2016 and I've just reread this medicine, needing it to infuse me with the art and the hope so easily flushed out by fear and oppression.

A good remedy is timeless, I see that this story will be used again and I am glad to know it. Look for these words again in some form or another." - from the sidebar of 'Nine is for endings'

That first paragraph about a theme catching my attention is just what happens to me again and again. Like my heroine of words and story Aurora Levins Morales, my job is to tell the same story again and again in as many ways as I can. Noticing a slightly different angle. A metaphor to open a window of fresh insight, or that smell missed on the last pass along a familiar shoreline.

I write because it gives me a kick like no other.

What is medicine? Medicine is a remedy that brings body, mind, spirit and other into a dance you could love over and over again. Why now? More than ever we all need a dance where Mahina, in her half-lit glow kicks off our old attachments, beckoning us into the half-light half-dark of magnetism and love over and over again. Grieving, for a while, in our personal and collective phases of reflecting light absorbing dark and then moving on. eventually.

I hope you spend time reading Nine is for endings, and start with The Tea Ceremony.* Get lost in the possibilities, the interstitial border crossings, the potential for what unfolds and what could be. Fiction, or memoir, the choice is really ours. In this time of The Virus it really does matter that we choose. And act as if we all love to care!

*NOTES FOR NAVIGATION:
Nine is for endings was written as a blog, the entries are top-side down. That means: to read the next installment? Go to the Sidebar and Click on the next 'post' from the bottom up. Clear? Confused? Try it and let the story season you. Lost? leave a message and I'll come find you:)

Look closely and see open safety pins & a message: 'Let's stick together"

Ola Kakou,
Mokihana

The two large photographs in this post were taken when Pete and I lived with our friend, Pushkara, on a knuckle of land at the edge of this Salish Island. It was a place that welcomed us. She is a friend who welcomes us. That is medicine. Mahalo Pushkara!

RELATED LINKS
"When I am a fossil"
"Then it's not miserable"
"The process of making story ..."