Imagining out loud

My astrologer posted a story about a first heart break. She asked whether we remember our first heartbreak. It got me thinking, and for the first time I put down the experience and found a pattern I may have been living over and over again. Different love, but similar attraction and I am 73. 

It reminds me of the theme of a recent movie we just watched, called Puzzle. 

One of the things I noticed, and love about the way this film was assembled is the portrayal of time through the phases of the moon. Too often the phase most shown in films is the Full Moon present at more than one moment or scene. The Moon in Puzzle is more authentic beginning with a waning phase, and proceeding to the fattening phases early in the Moon's progression. The character, Agnes, proceeds as the Moon proceeds. The patterns and the process she employs to put her puzzles together are 'different' and they move her life along as the real moon does. 

As this post sits and becomes soup, time has passed, a little bit but like the moon, my phases and stages have proceeded, too. Yesterday? Oh, yesterday was filled with the energy I have had in times past. Energy enough to hike a newly cleared wooded trail with my new boots. With shoelaces tightened up I climbed the trail that leads into the trees across the drive. We live at the top of a steep and winding hill, paved beautifully with a ridged and serpentine cement. Yesterday, I climbed down and up again; a second time for me in as many days. Pete spent the day clearing with a pile of four or five tools: his sickle, hand pruners, long-handled nippers, a ban saw and a recycled plastic tarp to hold the greenery as it piled up; easy to pull out of the woods when done. Now that we are living with people and land that welcome and encourage us to be the best we can be, the work and the pathways present themselves. 

Yesterday we both had energy and imagination to spare and we ate them up. Today, my energy is low, my body glad she could do those vigorous walks. The Moon is growing in fullness, a Blue Moon coming early Saturday morning. There were errands I hoped I could do with Pete, but those spoons (of energy) ran away with the Moon and so for today I must rest more (and I have). Still, this story of imagining out loud led me to one of my favorite creativity waterholes. Mister Finch was featured, and I love that man! 

"My name is Finch – it’s actually my surname… everyone calls me it and I like it.
I’ve called my business Mister Finch so its clear from the start that I’m a man and one that sews." - About Mister Finch

What’s the best lesson you’ve learnt along the way? No matter what stay positive, and to not really listen to other’s advice. Everybody has an opinion on what’s best for you, and quite often they are not creative. And they usually ask, “Aren’t you worried what your tattoos will look like when you get old”. Avoid these people. You know what’s best for you. Do that. Focus on everything that can go right, everything that could be amazing and all the places it could take you, not what if it goes wrong. The world is a beautiful place filled with endless possibilities - believe that and that’s the world that will present itself to you." - from an interview with Mister Finch

Hares by Mr. Finch

Mister Finch and one of his moths

Hares with sprouted bulbs by Mr. Finch

 As I consider the question and answer I gave to my astrologer's query of remembering my first broken heart, I hear Raven nearby ruckus in his midday conversation, know Pete is outside successful in getting the new plumping on our down-hill spigot in place and operating.

"Want to do the inaugural flush?" We've been waiting for a big repair on the water pump for the five people who live here on the land near Camp Bamboo. Community infrastructure, a present day, real-time example of caring and sharing. I say sure, pressed the foot pedal on the porch. The water went swoosh, I removed the old vinegar bottle we filled with water in place of running water and followed up with a baking soda and vinegar bowl cleaning to mark the re-established flow.

Patterns. Process. Connections. 

As Mahina, the Moon, moves through her newest cycle, I re-think and perhaps more or equally, feel, my first and earliest heartbreak was the moment I believed others' opinions about what I really truly wanted to be. I remember too clearly, that moment when my inaugural song-and-dance number of Shine on Harvest Moon was received with a loud nothing. It wasn't as dramatic as the first heartbreak I felt because I was sucked into a star-crossed love fueled by young hormones. As a very young girl, the disappointment, the heartbreak was primal and wordless; I was too young to put the emotion into words

But, it's one of those moments that linger in the dark passages flickering along side a dream not-quite a nightmare. A muddle in those patterns in the process of becoming whole and vitally alive with doing the thing that "tugs on those secret threads, evokes bright worlds half-glimpsed at the corner of our eyes...where the heart's desire lies just ahead, but always just ahead..." as Terri Windling puts it. 

Somehow my heart and the passionate and compassionate universe have conspired to keep me alive long enough to make a life that is a quirky and satisfying work of art lived every day, and every night. Staged more from the patchwork and soup-makings of everyday magic and mundane trimmings from scraps and drops of blood from clearing trails or imagining a world to love, and one which will love me back. 

That Blue Moon coming soon might just be the moon that re-tunes my heart's desire for words and movement, stitching in blogging side-steps that ripen now, late-blooming, because other things (like an internet and blogs) needed to be created to puzzle together something I've always wanted to read. 

Click here for Mr. Finch's website  to see more of Mr. Finch's sewing fairytale world. It's fabulous. 

If you can stand it, here's more retro flashback music. (1957)