Blessing of the Beans at Halloween

Well, it's here! My FAVE-orite time o year...and I am hyped to report that I am today's guest blogger over at Manbait, the foodblog run by my ol friend Kelly J. Please check her out and stop by today's post for my oldest and most heartened ritual, in honor of this New Years Weekend (aka, Halloween): The Blessing of the Beans. And thanks Kel for the oppurtunity to get to share.

Packing: 100% on the go

...and then, she begins to dance. She's practicing. A sense of mastery comes out of her, like a strong shiny shoot, because she's been watching carefully and she knows the shoot is going to flower. And she is going to dance, dance hungry, dance full, dance each cold astonishing moment, now when she is young and again when she is old. ~Anne Lamott

You're hard to get a hold of, he says. He's told me this before. And on cue, anticipating my coy defense, he continues: It's not a bad thing, you're out there on the firing line. Living life. 100% in the game.

I start to protest, to offer a rebuttal. To use my words somehow to make light of but still identify for him the 12 whole months of silence and alone, of nothing, doing nothing but sitting quiet, listening, crying dreaming writing screaming praying, alone. Way out there on the river, way out there with just Choptank, way out there with no TV and shoddy stolen Internet and often the ringer turned off on my phone. But he cuts me off again.

No no, I mean I know you go home and do your thing and find your silence and take your time to regroup and find your self, but you do it so you can get back out there to do your thing. To get back out there in the game. You like to go, you like to do you like to be. You dont want anybody who's gonna hold you back or down. It's awesome.

I am stopped, stilled a moment within which says a lot because we've been drinking coffee like the caffeine gods are about to go out on the picket line, I mean we've been slamming the stuff like shots all morning. And this is why I like him, why I've always liked him, cuz he's a witness--good at seeing people for what they are, for all of who and how they are. And he calls it like he sees them.

He's a bone collector. A gatherer strong inside and meant for good, deep things. He's always looking for food and women and song and money because he too is hungry, hungry as hell, like me.

We spent the day together while I should have been packing but sometimes that is the best thing you can do: shine the funny light on your otherwise darkened bones. Be with the people who breathe the life over you, whose air energizes your sinew and wraps you in muscle and makes you more whole.

When I got home I made kale pot and chicken broth which is like a chemical thing, or something, deep in the substance of me: it's what Teena fed me the first two months I was here. When I would come home cold and find hot liquid full of nutrient simmering on the stove. It was late when I was done and climbed in to bed, and early, and dark, when I found myself awake and up and ready to fill the boxes. Ready to pack. Ready to move.

I have this creative warehouse of stuff that's gone largely untouched throughout the year I've been at Chop: boxes with papers and card stock and markers and pencils and pastels and paints and canvas and fabrics and ribbons and stickers, brushes, sponges cardboard and glue. I have a filing cabinet and three bags, two boxes, and one shelf on my bookcase full of journals and writings and datebooks and research and facts. Archives. And six boxes of books. And these are the essentials, what survived after the farm. This is something I have always seen as my great problem: my inability to properly categorize and organize my creative "stuff." Thus, my inability to get up and go.

But I get it now, or at least for today. That that's just me, the unorganized which translates as that which is not meant to be contained. Same as the girl jetting over the bridge to Baltimore out late then up at 10 to kick it in Annapolis all day with a friend. Somehow, right now, one thing totally has to do with the other. Right now, they are one and the same.

I am laughing, smiling, quiet. Dancing. My life is spinning stillness, filled with song.

Starry Like Me: Meditation on the Final Harvest

Hoooooray!!!

Pagan New Year is here, or, at least that is according to me. And if you'll mind me just a while I'll explain (otherwise scroll all the way down!):

I was born a good Catholic girl from blue collar, solid working-class roots. We went to St. Rose of Lima in Baltimore with Grammy and the Mc's when I was a little little girl, and later, to St. Athanasius, literally the church at the end of Church Street where Grammy lived in Brooklyn Park. I still remember the hard concrete feel of the church steps out the side door when I would sit awaiting the adults and look out over the bay to the Key Bridge. And I remember the sound of Grammy, depressed from the loss of her husband, Pop, the Colonel, as she literally started crying with joy on the phone when I called to sheepishly tell her I got awarded one of the scholarships to Arthur Slade Catholic School in the fourth grade. I grew up in uniforms that showed my knees and thighs when I got too tall during pre-puberty growth spurts, and later in uniforms that I rolled at the hip to show the edge of my boxers or thigh-high socks.

It was around that time, high school Archbishop Spalding knee-high trouser socks and maryjane doc martens that the witchy sense kicked in. Mom had it all along, would beg me not to go out certain nights because of a feeling in her gut, only to have me come home escorted by the cops, you know, arrested or car-wrecked or in trouble for smoking weed or some such thing. When it started, that sense, to arise in me I took it for granted, blamed it on the weed or LSD. In general at a young age I thought it separate from me, outside of me--as I'd been taught God to be. Which, ultimately, is how you learn to fear something. If it is separate, other than, or outside of your self.

I was "over" the Catholic thing by puberty (I had no room at the time for a system with such harsh dictates. I was a riot grrrl, and doing lots of experimentation that was "sinful" then, tho it's clear now that what was actually happening was my aversion to anything dogma or stringent institution beginning to show form.) I was a firm and dedicated "aetheist". Which is a lie I was telling myself.... I mean my earliest memories are swept gold at the fringes: mystical marvelling in the basement at Grammy and Pop's, or at our townhouse before my brother was even born, in the backyard at New Cut Farms where we moved when he was an infant. Memories of being stilled from the inside, then revelling in wonder over a deep and boundless inside sense that I remember choosing to just call Jesus back then. At 16 I read Tom Robbins for the first time, this correlated with my teacher, Mr. Keisling, introducing to me Joe Campbell's work on mythological thinking and the Hero's Journey. Acid was making me want to believe in a world magical and within. And specifically Robbins rambled on in such delightful boundless and resonating ways about white people in the Western World, who settled over everything indigenous and natural with a conquering mentality because we were severed from our true roots: of agricultural, pagan ancestry. I really, really liked this!

So it makes at least a little sense that, at age 17, in late October, with little other information than a head full of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and Keisling's ditto run-offs on Joe Campbell and the purpose and necessity of myth, that I would get out of my car late one night, feel a sense of breathing or life coming out of the woods, and proceed to mark a four-cornered square off in the drive way by walking to and nodding to each corner, than placing myself within the square. I remember clearly daring myself--to trust what I was doing and to further trust that the woods, or presence of them, wouldn't make themselves known to me unless it were meant to be. And that is it, the one thing that as long as I can remember has been part of my make-up--what I used to call Jesus when I was little. An ever present line of peace and sweet that, tho not always available to me, is still somehow always there. A simple and real ground within that can only be described as I know.

I dont know when or how I fully surrendered to this path, but the thing is: it is mine. I take little bits of info from wherever I go, I take what fits, or what challenges me, because that too is a piece meant to fit--and leave the rest. I subscribe to no specific belief system other than the oneness of things at the base level--energy is neither created nor destroyed, only changes forms--and this is enough for me. I pray to Jesus because I believe archetypes are real, which is also why I find peace in the inner-realization exercises taught by the Buddha, and the reason I pray to the Mama and sit in the wisdom and light of her moon. Mostly I joy and revel and trust fully and wonder in the Great Unknown. I talk to trees and the earth and the wind and fire because of dakinis, or orishas, or elementals, but mostly because I believe archetypes are real. I worship the patterning of things, and at the end of the day beleive my only true Calling is the Hero's myth of my own and my own Divine Becoming as Joe Campbell teaches. The entelechy of potential. Being of service to others entelechal value through this. I believe in patterning, in entelechy, because as I said if I believe in the oneness than I believe archetypes are real. I believe in the power within and getting quiet to captivate and access this power. And I believe poor is the man who cant sit a while, or sees no value in doing so, amid the presence of his own self. The only thing he can know for sure...

Which brings me to pagan new years, or the last moon cycle of the harvest year. I doubt you'll find what I am about to share anywhere else, and that is because I have taken some generalized teachings from astrology, esoteria and paganism and applied them to my own personal experiences in life. I spit them back out know as much for you as for me because teaching/writing is how I better process and learn, how my path continues to open up before me. The New Moon is tomorrow and to me this is the most powerfull moon of the year. Traditional pagans celebrate Samhain, or New Years, at Halloween. It is the time when the "veil" is the thinnest.

In my own life this "veil" correlates to the waning amount of sunlight and the circadian effect it has on sleep and subconscious levels. Which for me, as an artist/writer/poet/shaman/witch is important, because the subconscious level is the place where my dreams happen. Where the details of life, especially that 90% that my brain is busy registering while I'm unaware and just doing my ol thing, get processed and integrated. This is also where Jung believes the reign of archetypes exists in full, our collective unconscious or memory. And so now we have greater access to this place. Likewise, new moon is when literally, the nighttime dark is darkest. So to me, and in my own life again and again, when the dark place comes it is the time of pure subconscious, a time to watch dreams AND especially what issues or joys, what fears or little nags surface in the day to day. Esoteric astrology teaches that a seed thought is dropped during the new moon--at the darkest part of the night the subconscious place aligns too with a archtype, or pattern, meant in an etelecholigical way to grow out of and become you. By the light of the following full moon your subconscious will have brought this seed or pattern more in to fruition in your day to day actions and expereince, and more to the light of your mental awareness.

Agricultural peasants of Europe took advantage of the extra light at October/November's final full moon to crop the last harvests and to put up the seeds that yielded from that year's produce. Rituals were actually harvest times in the field! This is why it is pagan new year: the end of the agricultural bounty for the year, thus time to look forward, to larder up the pantry and batten down the cellar with the bounty for the cold time to come, and as well anticipate next years harvest rounds. Also time to give thanks to the pantheon of Gods, or archetypes, that ruled the fertility cycles of the earth. I believe in our collective unconscious, as well as in the DNA memory of our cells, we still rise and fall according to the the tide of these old agricultural patternings. Later, we came to call this imprinted tradition Halloween.

Personally I have, again and again, experienced it to be true that the new moon preceding the Final Harvest Full Moon is that time during which I can glimpse the fruits of my entire upcoming year to come, because hints of them are so close to the surface of awareness within me. It is such a fabulous time to celebrate our yeild!!!!

So friends, take heart, take stock, be joyful and with gratitude and may you, this weekend, seek the quiet guidance of your Own.

As for me--my little bro's coming down the beach tonight with his beautiful fiance. We are having a fire for his bday--which, AUSPICIOUS auspicious hooray hooray--is also on the holy high day of last harvest new moon!!! What a year my bro must have to come, Woo hooooooo!!

And may you be blessed
and your blessings endings
that circle back to begin again
by this moon may your blessings enlarge
and circle for you this
holy cycle of samhain

harm to none &
blessed be!


O life. I love you.

Mix Tape 2009: Recap!

Sometimes, you put it on shuffle and every other song sucks.

Other times your whole with your self and it's almost like Magic, or, if your me,

it is.

1. Disintegration The Cure, Disintegration

2. Time to Pretend MGMT, Oracular Spectacular

3. Hypnotize The White Stripes, Elephant

4. In the Cold, Cold Night The White Stripes, Elephant

5. Sunset in Your Soul Mia and Jonah, Shine I

6. How the Poet Goes Po'Girl, Deer in the Night

7. Relief Next to Me Tegan and Sar, The Con

8. Leaves That Are Green Simon and Garfunkel, Live from New York

9. Chinese Handcuffs The New Year, The End is Near

10. Tiger Mountain Peasant Song Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes

PS

The Harvest Year's almost over (last moon cycle starts Fri)!

Do you know where you are??

The Impulse, Itself

Mom and I watched Grey Gardens last night, the one with Drew Barrymore that HBO did. I never knew about it, the two Edith Beale's their relationship to Jackie Bouvier or the 1970's documentary about them. The madness of a woman, or women, when dreams get deferred.

Creative madness. Genius. How it levels you, pummels you, brings you to your knees--your knees the only place, of course, and credit here to Erika for the reminder--that, so humbled, you may find your redemption?

The Impulse to me comes on in many different forms. Which is to say, despite the Muse or not, life shutters me sometimes it just does. Ahhh god and to feel that shutter. To feel for that shutter! In meditation It said that is true desire. Photos that capture the lines of distinct, but wordless. Longing or wonder, or boredom. Sacred human fucking boredom! Colors, no matter what form or aesthetic: clothing, a painting, a tree dropping leaves or the grand fall sky. Music that makes me feel like a bullseye by what, or how, it's said. (Right now in fact that would be Cant You Hear Me Knocking by the Stones) Certain people. Conversations. Late night fires. The way the air breathes. Kir and LDubb do it for me a lot of the time. For a long time it was this guy, his name is Josh, he still does it for me but it hurts to feel him gone so most times I just dont know what to do with that. I told my mom today that I remember being 15 in the Goodwill, the smell of the books and the way the little blue corduroy jumpers from the 70's made me feel Like I actually heard the little bells ringing, the spheres of heaven grind in unison on axis' gold in their tilt, I mean the soft moths of my heart fluttered aloft--the Goodwill closet!! I'd discovered myth! I found me! Being on my moon, that too is Muse, or sacred certain Impulse, to me. Being so fervently swelled when my Moontime is here. I mean there are times, like today, that I actually talk like that!

And more, I do things like I did tonight, with a vintage apron on that I found last week and a scarf around my neck that I bought today at an Antiques/Bookstore located on the dusty bottom floor of someone's old farmhome, I waltzed around the kitchen. The scarf is the most gorgeous shade of ivory that I have ever scene, it makes me feel royal, or sophisticated and that is because it is made of lace. It is from 1962. I got it for a ridiculous cheap price. And the paisley apron still had the original tag on it. Mom came in and there I was dancing with the arms of my scarf up off my chest and in the air in either hand. She grinned at me, me back at her. Then we were laughing our asses off cuz, my god, were like the two Edies? That cracked with the madness or the love?

No no, I've been there before. Cracked with the madness. But when it comes from disruption, fear. Repression. I mean I been there. It's like Joan Burroughs said Either you know now what I know (and dont ask me just what that is)...or you just dont. And that's the thing I hate how long it's taken me to trust what I know. I mean, for years creativity was struck up by madness to me, the bad, scary might not make it back kind. Period, it just was. That's what happens when you really follow that clean kissed line far, far out there. Sometimes, it's amazing, but you dont get all the way back. Or safely that is. And then, if like me you do make it back, you do get let down from that lone tree well ever-after you struggle: do you walk the clean Safe line rather than the kissed one? Cuz then like a stubborn ol asshole you still pride your self on your aesthetic, on your discipline, but at the end of the night unwittingly you court the madness anyway cuz you're not being true to yourself and besides no one wants to be a asshole. For me it was never so stable, I had to fight for it, have to. Just for the conviction of kissed. It's easier now, I trust it. Trust the conviction. Trust the moony witchy psychic thing, too, just as much. For me there's no separating either of it out. I can trace back to when I first came to the gate, face to face to claim my own conviction in a open-eyed way. Can look back to the fall of 2006 and a car ride to Baltimore with Patty who gave me the book that I studied on Christ and our conversation about Gandhi. A party in Philly. A night all night long with the poetry it was Fishing Rock still in those days and my friend Paul asleep in the next room all the way from Oregon. A conversation with Kelly Johnson and a prayer, specific, beseeching on my knees. The spiral way I've revisited that lesson of then, of conviction at the far side between the gaping space at the end of my hand, again and again since then.

And that's it. Miserable clean KISSED line. How very fucking hard I've fought to take the kissed, golden, one. How I'll fight for it, now that I'm actually starting to live it these three turns of years flick flick swish goes the page, these three years later. How I'll fight, and surrender, and fight again to surrender, just to keep up now, and maintain....

I'll fight, smiling, even. Gladly!