Early Work Bundle Two

Journal Entry for Today, as I process this.

Drawing Three

Nana: ʻOleKūKahi: 2024

March 17, 2024

I observe, tension in my tongue, and jaw. I again, ask for support in releasing this, and see the pathway, the internal prompt, body work.

I observe my breath moving in and out and attempt to be mindful of all as I work this morning on this Swedish Death Cleaning process.

In the moment, I am archiving and organizing the visual art, and now that things are photographed, I am reconciling where physical files are organized with where they are stored digitally, on the website, on the smugmug gallery of images site, the thumbdrive location (I will get to that).

I am going through the flat bundle files, those loose sheets of paper a part of the healing journey.

I observe as I look at them, I feel shell shocked, I feel emotionaly raw, I feel tears and pain, but the tears are tears of joy, over this survival.

I observe when I look at these images, they also hold the neurological memory of where that is stored in my body, and I am curious, will this mapping always exist, in this choice to be awake and aware.

Is there a field of tears, that will always exist, just as someone perhaps who once went to war, and was interned, some making it out, others not, will that texture of pain always exist?

Yes something says, inside, it will always exist, but you are also building capacity for containing it in the web of awarenes of beauty. Knowing to  go out into the garden and marvel at the dew clinging to beach blossoms against a crystal clear blue sky.

The hush of wonder of the same dew on the fringes of the fresh daffodil framed against the spikes of green framed in the camera lense.

The adoration of the jays, a relationship 7 years old now, when she first arrived outside the garage studio, singing sweetly, when Leilani was here on a home visit, sweeping the garage, and singing a song to her, the two of you, singing together. 

She has a mate now, and they come back to gather worms, and you sit in the morning sun with your big broad rimmed straw hat in the rocker, feeding her worms from your hand, tracing the beauty of her feathers, the way she hops from your toes, to your knee, to the fleshy part of your palm, and gathers worms. Her mate, the male, protector, he waits for the worms that spill over and you toss some for him to the cement below. 

He places the claw over one worm, and daintly feeds, before gathering a beak full to hide for a future eating.

There is the comfort of a warm hot something, and back again, to the flow of morning work, the promise of Cherimoya land ahead, 2:00 pm, into nature, a trail where often we as two are alone. A place where we can gingerly and respectfully clamber down into the rush of spring creeks.

Asking permission first, and listening to the body, that interconnected place.

The pool will tell you, yes, or no, whether or not to enter.

An offering perhaps of tobacco, or water, or a bit of seed, or flower, or song.

The caress of cool rushing waters over boulders in pools.

The hands press firmly against the story of stone and the head is placed beneath the wailele (waterfall) with a primal scream reacting, a great gift of gratitude for the grace of beauty, integrity, honesty, 3 pillars in the sacred awe of wonder, reverence, joy that is the bosom of the mother we all share, we all come from, in this incarnation, this earth body, which is separate and interconnected, a part of the dance of the cosmos, and deeper yet, one soul even, the human soul.

Just as there is one wolf, one kangaroo, one turtle, one snake, one bear, one raptor, one worm, one armadillo, these totems of medicine.

What is your medicine human? 

How are you manifesting this?

To care for myself, I am going into the yard, to drink in beauty,

We have scheduled for today, a trip into beauty, yes.

And it is a beautiful moon for this in this moon month of Nana.

It is ʻolekūkahi, its poetry, I leave in intimate spaces and hope curiosity sparks in you the reader with a clue: ʻAno Lani: ʻAno Honua (a heavenly nature, an earthly nature)

I am amazed.

These images, that have no words, but only impressions.

A deep knowing of domestic violence, alcoholism, human trafficking, the roots of this, and the knowing that today even, the innocents are unprotected in the bomb shelters of homes, where they canʻt escape.

The parents I see connected to support, to help them.

I see communities aware, of this fact, that this exists, and action taken to provide safety nets of resilency.

I  know now, if I had a choice, of going through with what I lived through in life, while yes, I am so grateful, if I had a choice, between parents able to parent well, free from historical harm, free,completely free, and the chaos I would navigate, I would have chosen to not enter the womb.

I would have advised the parents, to not parent, to do as the Chumash did in time of drought, to not bring the child in, to use the herbs to bring back the monthly moon cycle, and to work with the shaman, to find your way, and heal.

To not pay the wounds forward, but pause, as did this womb.

No two-leggeds.

Nui nā hula

Nui nā kaha kiʻi

Nui ka hana noʻeau 

Nui nā huakaʻi ʻahiu

Wale nō

Just lots of dances, lots of drawings, lots of creative work, lots of wild adventures

Inner and outer