Fashionably Late with Red Stained Hands

The new Strawberry Moon was yesterday. Yup. Missed it again.

I could argue that I am preoccupied. I could ask for pardon. I might imply that a day late is no big deal. After all, I am unsure of my readership...or if I have one at all...But I needed to take an extra day to determine what really resonated at my core. I owed us both that extra time.

There are wild strawberries growing profusely in a section of my acre of paradise in beautiful New Jersey.  No, there was no sarcasm in that last sentence. I love my property and I do love New Jersey. Perhaps New Jersey love is a topic I best keep to myself, but wild strawberries...now that is a topic everyone can enjoy.

My daughter would pick the weedy clumps of circular leaves when she was younger, bringing home a red stained bowl full of tiny berries with oversized seeds and red hands. She was proud of the harvest and we ate them with joy; wild strawberries are incredibly sweet and flavorful.  Yes, the seeds were a distraction, but not as much deterent as they initially appeared.  I recall the taste so vividly...heaven on your tongue.  It is a taste that compels one to be take note, be present.

I was mowing the lawn last Thursday, mulling words a shaman gave me. I thought I might blog about that, but it is still too new and shapeless...more like a lump of clay to analyze for the potential within. But back to mowing...with each mower pass, I noticed more and more berries; ripe, perfect, sitting among plants I refer to as weeds.  I noticed the blackberry thicket covered with blossoms and the few raspberry plants we actually had atttempted had spread, relocating themselves slowly to the southwest for a better harvest.

My yard was a garden. Full of bounty.  For the critters that live among the "wilds" of my acre in New Jersey. For the song birds. For the snakes. For the mice.  And for me, if I make the effort, see the value in red stained hands for a small taste of heaven.

How many other moments of joy are so easily obtained?  Why do we pass them up?  Do the seeds look too big? Is one moment of bliss so readily available elsewhere?

My truth is that I rarely see the little delights, my eye is always on some larger prize on the horizon.  Yet, there is no guarantee of any other second than now. This breath. These last ending words.

And my red stained key board as I type...

May I be blessed to find that small bliss again.

Rosewater Tea

The tea bowl steamed before me and warmed my core; Kali had poured the boiling water from her kettle into the small prepared bowl of rose petals and leaves and twigs.  I held it with both palms and let the smell and heat penetrate me. I lifted it gently and took a sip.  Something compelled me to keep sipping, gulping actually, and then it was empty.  I looked to Kali to refill it, but she was blatantly ignoring me.  Such is the love of Kali. More like a busy mother than Goddess...Kali is both terrifying and nurturing.  She gives a healing without hesitation, but then she is done with you and it is best if you move on.  
Go play outside, she seems to imply.

I have experienced Kali as both a quiet beauty in white gown and as the dark creature her appearance is mostly associated with.  Skulls as a belt, bones for a corset; yes, she references death most assuredly, but her weaponry also cuts through false consciousness and our binds that enslave our hearts. 

When I am fortunate enough to encounter Kali in shamanic work or in my dream realm, I am needy and childlike in her presence.  She has always offered me a healing of some form; most recently in a shamanic journey, she cut my body to pieces and threw it all on a smoldering fire.  It sounds kind of harsh, but in shamanic principles it is referred to as decomposition and reformation. It is a spiritual rite of passage that works to reconfigure our soul...to better re-position it to find its true path.

So, what is a true path? 


Wait...were you thinking I had the answer? Were you waiting for me to answer. Ha Ha. That's funny. No. I have no idea...that answer eludes me...

But that's not fair, you assert!  After all, I am the blogger lady...shouldn't I know the answers to the questions I pose?  WTH, you read my blog and all...shouldn't you get free knowledge?

No, true knowledge is never free. It comes with responsibility. It demands patience. It requires discipline. And the answer for me is not the answer for you.  The true path is an individual journey, the quest to find our soul's unique purpose in this life.  

And so, I drink rosewater tea in my conscious life hoping that the heady perfume elixir will open my eyes and unlock my ears. I sip and ponder. I don't know the answer, but I will keep striving until I do.

And with any luck, Kali will grace me with her presence once again...

Racing Toward Oblivion

"This now is it. This. Your deepest need and desire is satisfied by the moment's energy here in your hand."  Rumi

I often live ahead of the present.  I think that once X or Y is completed, fixed or otherwise behind me on the life trajectory, I will be happier, wiser, better, and finally ready to undertake the great things that I think my soul might be capable of.

Of course, this is folly.  There is always something ahead on the calendar that gives me pause and there always will be.  Whether it be landscaping projects, money matters, love quarrels or colonoscopies; I will never cease to have struggles.  That is life.  Struggles are how we learn and grow.  And really, I am so grateful that my list contains such minor things.

Part of my moon meditation for this new moon (the Flower Moon) will be to be present. First, for a moment, then for an hour, hopefully building into being present for a good chunk of each day.  After all, the moment is all I am promised.  To be so confident as to ignore all this time passing me while I wait for some idyllic future is just blind.  I have been assured of no time then now.  I have been assured of no better moment.

So, I shall breathe tonight under the dark black of the new moon, feel my lungs expand and focus on the beautiful gift I have been granted: LIFE.

Turn! Turn! Turn!, the Full Pink Moon

Saucer magnolia petals 4-24-13

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time to be born, a time to die

A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

The Byrds, Turn!Turn!Turn!

lyrics adapted by Pete Seeger from the Book of Ecclesiastes 

Are you ready for spring? The question was posed by my neighbor as we discussed our weekend plans.  I had to bite my tongue as to not point out that spring arrived over a month ago, but I managed silence as I knew exactly what she meant.  And the answer is an emphatic NO.  No, I am not ready for spring.  I'm dawdling and ill prepared; my yard work seems stalled as a part of our yard is in construction. Even the plants seem late.  

TURN! TURN! TURN!

That last sentence is a lie. The plants are never late.  They are timed quite intricately to the sun calendar and temperature.  Perhaps what I mean is that this spring feels more blustery than the norm.  Trees are leafing, the cherry and apple trees are about to turn the world pink.  Nature is on time.

TURN! TURN! TURN!

Time is moving whether we are ready or not...a particularly hard lesson I learned this past month.  Another dear family member has passed, our Aunt Sue, and I feel our house has been cloaked in mourning for so long.  Must we all return to dust?

TURN! TURN! TURN!

But everything has a season, has a time.  To bloom or to decay. We are powerless to stop it, best to just enjoy it.  And this month, the world is turning pink.

Froot Loops

"Froot Loops is a fun part of a complete breakfast, and is a good source of fiber", my husband reads to me from the small ready to eat cereal package.  I had picked up the package and put it back; it had been so long since I ate something so junky... so completely nutrition-less and to boot, it was one of my food addictions.  He had taken it back off the shelf and was discussing the lack of calories.  I put it back on the shelf and then, like a true junkie, snatched it back off in a move of uncontrolled desperation.  My face flushed liked a thief caught stealing and I couldn't look my husband in the eye.  I was being naughty. Food naughty.  It felt exhilarating...

I reassured myself that it was a single serving. I reasoned that we were camping.  Everyone knows food rules don't apply to camping...

And that is how I found myself sitting on a hard bunk in a dusty ancient cabin eating Froot Loops while watching my spouse sitting in meditation on a picnic table just outside.  Perhaps I was in my own meditation- mindlessness in spoon to mouth feeding.  The little donuts of color certainly looked tasty in a true sugar fix way; but something was off.  They tasted like nothing...

sweet

...but nothing. 

I wondered how it could be that I once ate a whole box in a cartoon daze on a Saturday morning while my elders were sleeping off their Friday night bowling orgy.  I took another bite; the milk was cold and I liked the interplay of crunchy wetness, but the taste was still so bland.  Could my taste buds have progressed so far?

I thought about my current favorite foods.  My friend Micha's delicious Béchamel sauce Mac n Cheese is a top runner. I am also a total sucker for Maria's Deviled Eggs.  (Please Maria, grace me with just one this summer...or a whole dozen...if you insist.)  I adore my husband's Filet and Brandy Peppercorn Sauce.  I love my daughter's Lasagna (no, not a recipe handed down through my Italian roots, but her own find.  Savory and oh so good!) I am also an immodest fan of my own Leftover Veggie Stir Fry, oozing with fresh ginger and garlic.  I try to find the common element and all I can see is that they are all fresh creations brimming with good ingredients, but more importantly, LOVE.  These recipes are not Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon; but there is the commitment of time to chop, stir, whisk, watch and coax. 

And maybe that is what has changed- I am used to food that has intrinsic energy. Energy in how the food is organically grown. Energy in how it is locally obtained. Most importantly, energy from the chefs who understand that to cook well is to offer love. No, let me correct myself...to cook well is to create love.

Sorry, Toucan Sam, but even your neon colors can't hide how dull your offering is in contrast to the harvest of well tilled earth and culinary competency. 

Virtue Steps Out: The Full Sap Moon

"Wait.  Read that again, please", I interject.  My thoughts float upward and flit about his words, like smoke, making visceral, barely visible patterns. Something is forming in my mind and the recognition of words that ring all too true echo in my ears. 

He is reading from The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff.  We have started this book many times, but have never managed to finish it.  The last starting was about two years ago; hence, the need to begin completely again.  He reads again, "Te is pronounced DEH, In classical Chinese, it is written two ways. The first joins the character for "upright" to the character for "heart". Its meaning is virtue. The second way adds the character for "left foot" which in Chinese signifies "stepping out". Its meaning is virtue in action."

I ask him to stop for a moment; there is a whiff of an idea and I need to let it take shape.  The words feel familiar but there is a very good chance that he read me this section just two years before.  Yet, the words have my attention and therefore, a lesson may root.

I try to articulate my thoughts. "Pete, I am thinking that perhaps I have a kind of 'virtue' and I just don't seem to be able or willing to "step out".  Remember how the Shaman called me the 'water buffalo with no village'? He was referring to my not knowing how to use my talents.  He said I wait in the rice paddies for someone to know how to harness my skills."  My husband acknowledges the conversation and adds that talent is not necessarily virtue.  True enough, but the concept is a seed and I can feel my mind nestle it gently into my craw.  

I can allow it to grow, leaf, and maybe bear fruit or I can choke it off before it ever breaks shell; such is the way with our ideas.  We give some space and sway while others are either too silly, or worse, too terrifying to be allowed to root.  Yet, under this moon, the Sap Moon, this notion of 'action' must be given space...even though it terrifies me.

The Sap Moon is a harbinger of Spring; its name refers to the thawing of trees.  As spring melts the frozen innards of the trees, so has my heart been melted these past few years by deliberate change. The time is right for me to "step out".  I feel spring in my step.  I feel spring in my heart.  If 'action' has a chance- it is under this moon of renewal.

And that is the promise of this moon for each of us.  Life begins...again. New. Rested. Fertile. Whether we can harness the moment for positive change depends on our mindset and our heart.  

Under this Sap Moon, I pledge to at least tend the garden.

Of Crows and Fools

This morning, I was leaving my driveway when I spotted a crow on my neighbor's unsightly stump of a Sandy victimized tree. I stopped my backwards progress, moved the car from reverse to park and watched for a moment.  I might mention here that crows fascinate me.  They are a tad blander and smaller than their more mysterious raven kin, but they do exhibit personality.  They are often overlooked because of their uniform dark coloring; but if you look close enough, their simple black feathers show iridescence. They are sizable, but not menacingly so...just a bit like a black football on spindly legs.  They also love to talk; squawking among themselves and in packs.

The crow in question was busying itself by pulling on the root of the overturned, sawed down tree. The crow would pull, and pull some more.  The root in question offered no indication that it wasn't firmly attached, yet this crow was determined.  Maybe that is why I watched so long...a fascination with its foolhardiness. To my eyes, there appeared to be plenty of perfect sized twigs lying just under this stump.  Why was this crow wasting so much energy on this one particular root?  Couldn't it see its own blunder?

And this is where I laughed outright...at the crow and at myself.  I smiled and bit my lip as I wondered how many activities I pursue that look equally inane from the outside.  How often have I tugged at roots when simpler, just as satisfactory solutions lay littered around my feet?

And I too love to talk; squawking alone and in packs.

In theory, my brain is larger and therefore more developed than my crow friend.
In theory...