Everyday magic, transformational tools

 "Enjoy the goat energy; maybe they can deafen out the ugly racist pre-election noise. I would rather have goat shit than his political shit.

Stay well and safe. Use all the tricks in your ditty bag to stay well and be one of the story tellers when ALL THIS is over." - my good pal

The season is changing. Fall fog, mixed to some degree with wild fire smoke, mutes the shape of trees and clarity of life in general. Maybe it's the character of Neptune (water) smudging the sharp and cutting edges of so much of the nonsense in the world's politics. 

The other day I wrote a personal email to a good, long-time friend; the checking-in sort of mail. Over the years we have gone from long, deep face-to-face girlfriend conversations over a mound of nachos, to hour-long phone calls prior to iphones, then short calls, and infrequent but delicious visits after the 'poisonous apple disease' came to stay. The brief quote above is from her and like so many of our conversations there is potency in the mix to fuel the journey.

Appreciating myth's and story's potency in my life has grown meaningfully thanks to the work of Terri Windling, and her blog Myth & Moor. Though she and I have no where near the sort of pilina I share with my long-time friend I am a loyal and open-minded student of Windling's wisdom; and share the experiences of chronic illness. She wrote this on her blog today:

"... Grief is a powerful thing, and especially so when it rumbles away, unexpressed, in the depth of our souls, the quiet but constant base note of our lives. Grief for landscapes paved over, ways of life that are gone, for whole species that are rapidly vanishing around us. Grief can indeed be a spur to art, leading us to "re-create or transfigure" our cherished lost worlds, or it can do the reverse: deaden and silence and paralyze us." - "On loss and transfiguration"

Windling ended her post encouraging thoughts from her reader. As that question has in the past I answered her with a comment to her post, and continue here with my own everyday magic. Pete and I packed up our vardo, cleared all evidence of having lived with the bunnies, rabbits, hares and the other travellers who make a life from a home on wheels. In so many ways we folks on wheels tote the myths and stories unexpressed as we rumble from place to place. I try to draw on the sextiles, the angles of easing into connection with my sister and brother traveler, but often the hinges and reasons for the traveler's life are held very fast. 

As Windling suggests in her essay, "Grief can indeed be a spur to art ... or (it can) deaden and silence and paralyze us." I have experienced both and many gradients of black or gray over a lifetime. But, always there is some undeadenable energy ... a spark of 'ike and perhaps the gut powerful ka po ula kinau I have been introduced to by Kumu Pualani Kanaka'ole Kanahele that reminds me I have a connection to maintain. I have a grandson to write story for.

So I do that. His newest story has begun. Five people, four goats, two hens, a cat and a dog have a story worth telling. A story worth living. When I, and other writers, write children's story, I write for the children of all ages. I write for me, too.

 

The photo above is a Moon full past full from Camp Bamboo last night.