Five Petals of the Rose

The afternoon breeze was late. Scanning the opaque sky for a promise of clouds from either mountain range there was neither wind nor chalk mark. Without saying, Percy disappeared between the fully visible notion of Rabbit and the in between place of ghosts and the universe's undulating hips of myth.  . . . . . "Somewhere before or after we make that promise to manifest solid, there is the waiting room, and so many corridors," Percy had many stories about where he went at these times and how all of us on Haumea find our place here. His favorite explanation always connected to trees. "It's really more like tapping into the roots than disappearing. All those tales you humans love to tell about our rabbits holes are only" -- he twitched his prominent nose -- searching for the words, "only so much truth. "To be a familial (as in familiar ) to you we have to be very good at patch-working. The Trees are excellent at patching and messaging need. Support an...

 What do you stand for? August 12, 2020 Slipping into the space between fiction and truth, a blog. This virtually real place has been my way of playing the cards dealt in a world that too often makes no sense. One after another, with sometimes, weeks or months in between, I have used a communal space to replace hand-written journals. Piecing together the specifics of my roving life, challenged by chronic illness, and chemical injury it is to fiction or the conjuring of medicine stories that make the battles life-affirming, fun, and full. While this medicine story is new, and yet to be eaten all the way through I stop here to learn how to use blogger's new software. I don't like it yet, but it works if I give it time.  If you are here to read, curious to learn what next happens in a safety pin kind of life there is something to make your life worth standing for.     "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" - Kristnamurti  The...

    Percy arrived quietly between the magical and more mundane moments of my early life and would have been a complication had it not been for this one fact: the moon wobbled. We're telling a story about life in all its multiplicities and mutations on a planet that is intimate with ONE orbiting ancestor. Mahina or Hina is the name my ancestors give to Earth's moon. My matriarchal ties favored my mother's language, so my stories reflect that lean. Percival, he hates it when I call him that, was slow showing up to keep me company. Four months can seem a long time for an infant human. While I waited, I found my thumbs and have grown guilt-free since in my dependence upon them ... either one. To soothe me when I'm confused, or confounded by too many options, or tummy tumbled because my Ma could not nurse, and cow's milk was far too off the genetic track for me.   "Research has shown a thumb sucker was either born premature, or, born into a family suffering setback,...

"Common sense would be handy in a situation like this," Percy had his fingers, such as they were, hovering over the golden orb of cookie. His job was to make sense of the thoughts that I had. The thoughts so grand and fantastical they needed a bit or a pinch of tether. Every witch I knew had a 'Percy', a special side-kick, familiar, guardian angel, spiritual advisor. And, every witch I knew of had a very different arrangement with her Percy. What made our relationship work all these years was its malleable nature. "If I eat this Butter Moon cookie, that will make ..." he had to recalibrate, honestly. "that would make?" "That would make it an even half dozen, P. You're stuffing yourself and it'll hurt." I hated bursting his balloon. He's Pisces after all and sometimes? Sometimes he likes a good fantasy and then we're both in trouble. So you see the fix we get into. In most cases a witch came with her Percy at birth. It was ...

This was a town with room to spare the broken and otherwise imperfect. My mind glittered at the small but telling signs of attitudes and memories collected in the space of ten years. There are no accidents, but Accidents ? That is another matter. The hand-written sign on the grocer's window read "Part-time Baker Wanted." I wasn't looking for the job, but was definitely open to the work. Time moved quickly once I tapped on the window, caught the eye of the man with silver-hair and matching beard. The wheels of my chair barely cleared the bakery door, 'that'll have to change' I thought while saying instead, "Saw your sign. I'd like to apply for the job." There wasn't much room for a wheelchair in the small but cozy building, but there weren't any customers either. Without pretense, the wrinkles on his face smoothed as the man looked deeply into my face. "I'd have to do something about the workspace," without a trace o...