Footnotes

March 3, 2017

"You are one of life's true romantics, because your reality is the inner world of fantasy and imagination. The limitations of daily life can bore you, and you try at every available opportunity to inject into mundane situations a note of the mythic and the meaningful. However, your romanticism is constantly being challenged by another side of your personality: your fear of disruption to your material security. Although you dislike being tied to routines which seem inconsequential and stifling," - A snip of Liz Greene's Psychological Horoscope

While the story Banana Skin and Ginger brews in its place, the mundane situations, the life others see me living, unfolds rising and falling into the Way. I have just spent the morning going through stacks of old photographs looking for those that need to be sent along to family and friends who shared my history to this point. My nephew, Kawika, celebrates his thirty-second birthday next week I have promised something in snail mail for him. That was my original motivation to sort the photos. That is not an easy process for me, maybe it is easier for some? The stings of remorse and the sadness of missing loved ones ripple through, I keep the door open as the musty smell of history looks for any lingering feelings. The feelings that are best let go, but cling anyway ... the wind will take them with the pollen making room for forgiveness and a bigger view.

I came across the bit of "Psychological Horoscope" that begins this musing yesterday. It is surprisingly accurate, and perhaps, it is something I couldn't have accepted as 'A 'o ia! That's it! earlier on. When I clambered to fit, and earned a living trying to be haole in a capitalistic economy to tell stories was the road kapu. But, I love that Now, the description is just so. My inner world of fantasy and imagination is my reality. The practice that has grown during the past decade of writing 'medicine stories' and 'mythic memoir' is authentic. This is the way I carry out my kuleana my responsibility of expressing the challenges of my personality.

Looking at the photographs that are mainly from 1994 (when I packed up for a return trip to my place of birth after divorcing) until 2006 (just shortly after I married Pete), I see how I was creating my Way out of a corporate earning life, to this one fed on fantasy and imagination. 2017 is the twenty-fifth anniversary of Women Who Run With The Wolves. When I was packing up those cardboard boxes in 1994 my soon to be ex-sister-in-law was buying me drinks and handed me a copy of Clarissa Pinkola Estees handbook for wildness. I would not appreciate that threshold until much later, but the vital part? That I do appreciate that initiation and  now, and how lovely to recognize that I did name the character Clarissa in honor of Estees.

I think it very important to pass along the fomentation of a life in process. From google I found this definition, and both meanings to the word "foment" make such mythic and cultural sense.

fo·ment

ˌfōˈment,ˈfōˌment/

verb

1. 1.

   instigate or stir up (an undesirable or violent sentiment or course of action).

   
   

   "they accused him of fomenting political unrest"

   
   

   synonyms:

   instigate, incite, provoke, agitate, excite, stir up, whip up, encourage, urge, fan the flames of "they were accused of fomenting civil unrest"

2. 2.

   archaic

   bathe (a part of the body) with warm or medicated lotions.

Through writing, the creative flow and the juices that might otherwise fester locked in place by rules and structure with no imagination. The story and the characters in Banana Skin and Ginger create a world that quite exquisitely 'bathes the whole of the body', in particular the sexual and reproductive parts of the characters. Life does get stirred up. Both the main characters are in the second half of life, when intercourse is no longer an activity bent on making a (human) baby. As the character Clarissa sits or stands atop her surfboard heading for an as yet unseen shore her mate Alex has become invisible. His character is yet to be reconstituted, his hands yet to be renewed.

Where will this mythic memoir go? I am not sure but have great faith in its flow. For now, as the four Po 'ole the four moon phases approach the Full Moons this is a footnote I put it down to remember how I got here, and, where I might go next.

If you have discovered this new musing, and have some thoughts to share, please leave a comment.

March 15, 2017

The story continues to infuse, brewing stronger than tea, the word 'infuse' is making itself known to us at so many levels. Physically, Pete and I are learning the natures of the nourishing herbs Nettle, Comfrey, Oatstraw and Cornsilk. Quart jars fill with ounces of the dried plants infusing with boiling water over night. The Green Witch Susun Weed is mentoring us with her Wise Woman Ways and at this stage of (our) life the journey is very much like that of Alex Santiago and Camilia. What is her full, and proper name? Hmm. Isn't it enough to be known as Camilia?

The winter rains continue to pelt the Quonset's metal. The sound is not constant and is punctuated by an electric PING! that is as irregular as it is predictable. As the story steeps and the elemental faculties of Stinging Nettle make herself present: stinging us with unique hurts and helps, Mother Corn comforts my bladder and the area Down There, I am going through the spiral of another menopause (link to Susun Weed blogtalk 3/14/2017), the one I did not allow myself to feel in 1989 when my mother died on her back porch, and I stopped bleeding. I am now going through menopause with informed mentorship and it seems my mate is going through the change in his fashion as well.

The tale of Banana Skin and Ginger is both company and accompaniment. I pick up a navigational clue from astrology, and put it here to consider: Jupiter will be in Scorpio beginning October 10, 2017-November 8, 2018.   Jupiter was in Scorpio in 1993-1994, and in 2006-2007. Looking back at Jupiter's work in my chart I see very big purges: divorce in 1993 after twenty three years; unset and imploding of my health/diagnosis with MCS/EI. The pattern is not pretty, but looking back at them as I anticipate what my very Scorpio nature will uncover I see the potential in Camilia's journey on the back of that surfboard with her fluttering vagina (Scorpio is all about sex and sexuality) as a big clue!

I can't wait to read what this tale is cooking up, but I'll have to.