Losar, Tibetan New Year

"...There’s going to be stability offered, available, something recognizable and reliable is there to catch on to and navigate by. Jealousy can flair when people are awash in emotion. Validate your connection to others and the same twinge can solidify into reassurance and connection. All creatures crave connection. When deprived they can lash out. So offer it freely. Touch base and renew that promise.

Sunday morning the Moon conjoins the Sun in Pisces at 8 degrees...The fire of the Leo full moon eclipse is quenched by the healing water of the Pisces new moon eclipse. Fire burned something out. This is a fresh, wet start that everyone is taking together. How together? How indeed. That’s what we’re just starting to find out. Take those first moments to acclimatize to something new, something different. How does it feel? Relax and let it simmer and flow.

In some ways, we’re all wiped clean… to reveal a great history that we share. Don’t look for what’s lost. Follow what shows up. Lost, gained, these are constructs that won’t necessarily apply at this juncture. Look for the side of the truth that feels like the active stream, the healthy stream. Get in that stream and flow with it. Don’t waste your energy fighting the current. Mars conjoins Uranus and moves into opposition with Jupiter. Push off into the flow and get somewhere NEW. Jump in! The water’s fine." - Satori

Normally Camilia and her family celebrated the Chinese New Year, cleaning their homes, cooking a meal of abundance to share with friends, having fun and finally walking the land banging pots and pans to clear out the rascals left from the old. This year had ended or begun quite differently. It was the harshest winter yet. With all the challenges of health and conflagration the Chinese Lunar New Year went without ritual or recognition. Camilia and Alex had stalled in their combined spirals until a certain mouse took up residency and familiarity with the old welder. A small thing, a being, unblocked the flow.

The tides in prelude to Losar, the Tibetan New Year offered two pair of highs and lows. Saddled loosely atop the small board Camilia breathed in the newness of her strengthened pelvic floor. The winking had stopped but her confidence with the blossoming was memory she would commit to in the coming new year. A New Moon finds both Sun and Moon in the sky and in the same astrological sign. All day long the Moon shares a close conjunction with the Sun. As Camilia parked herself both in between the dream and the threshold of the mundane world, she was conscious of the beginning of a fresh start.

When she was newly faceless decades earlier, it was the ending of a marriage to an old life she left in the Gypsy Woman's cauldron. Another lifetime now ... ginger blossoms and kelp thongs had a message of sovereignty for her at 70 years of age. "This is a great time! Great time to be old, and powerful." It was the last thing Shine Molina had said to her before you became part of the old color of love.

Thoughts of returning to Waipi'o Valley, home of her mother's mother's mother haunted Camilia. "Will I be truly ready, this time." When the girls were young she had left them with their father. What a mistake. She shivered at the memory. At the time, Camilia had returned to Hawaii hoping to find her hiapo her first-born, the son she had never held, the same son she knew as well as the palms of her hands.

"Always in dreams, we know each other without question," the tide was shifting from slack to rise.  She felt the sea move toward land.  Dangling free from the blue velvet nest between her breasts the narrow rope with a wish bone, hallow bone, funny bone and back bone titillated her. How funny to feel such pleasure when there was still nothing solid or sure. The sea was curling into a wave. Camilia instinctively lowered herself into a paddling position, securing the bones into their nest for this new adventure. A memory of a progression came to her as she pointed her surfboard toward land, a shore she could not yet see. The memory was a bit of astrology written for the Aquarian Sun-signs; the sign of her current progression.

"Take the time to put your feelings into words and share them. Size is not everything, though I suggest this be longer than a tweet. Reach into some of the unusual depths that you’ve been feeling, and that may be daunting. It is, however, the expression and sharing that will help you validate your experiences and keep your exploration going. If you keep silent, you won’t hear yourself as clearly. If you don’t write down your thoughts, you’re less likely to remember what ground you’re covering. It’s not just your arrival to a new place that counts (and such is inevitable). Rather, it’s how you got there that matters. "

- Planet Waves for February, 2017 by Eric Francis

How grand that I, the storyteller of this tale of Banana Skin and Ginger, have an arrangement with Camilia to 'put those feelings into words and share them...It's not just your arrival to a new place that counts...Rather, it's how you got there that matters."' As the wave crested strong and confidence Camilia with her backbone and roots born in Waipi'o Valley pulled herself into standing position and rode.

In her mind and heart, this music of Waipi'o accompanied her.

To read what happened next go here. 
To read Banana Skin and Ginger from the beginning go here.