snakes, acclimation, practice, music

My kids love to rub my belly, and notice how it sticks out a little.  They are tender and sweet with it, like it’s a relative or a pet.  Sometimes I think it’s because my belly isn’t flat and its unflattness is calling attention to itself, But mostly I know they love to rub my belly because that is where they came from.  They don't know this is why they are rubbing my belly, although they do know this is where they grew their bodies.  They just know they are drawn to put their  little hands on this part of my body, over and over again.  A strange instinctive effusive hi to their first home.  I love my belly too.  It’s a seat of magic.  There’s a potency in there, a tenderness.  And a fierceness that roots me and lifts me at the same time.  

(not pregnant if that up there reads to make one wonder.  nope.  just pondering on my kids' sweet love of patting my stretchedoutbybabies belly.)
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we went to a music festival two weekends ago....rocky grass to be specific

zhi told me a few nights later she dreamt of blue grass, literally

she said it was growing near her school, and that i came to cut some, and it turned into snakes

she said i then started cutting snakes in half

she said it was scary


oh my lover


i've been through a lot these past few months, and there may be a few of you who didn't catch which train i got on when i paused this lightandmacaroni blog.  i went to a safe refuge, and there i did all i knew to do, i wrote the story.  i'm easing back into this old light space, my first web home (ha).  (is that like going backwards?  trying to climb back into the womb after having left it?)

(i am a fan of diving in)

you know, it was cold at first for sure here, nobody really here holding my hand, or waving hello.
and being alone reminds me to dig deep to remember, and then soon enough, i am acclimated.
yay acclimation.  i've been thinking on how being tough in our psyches or our personalities, or our hearts, isn't necessarily a hardening, in the closed off sense, it can be an acclimation.  like how plants harden off to the sun or the cold.  we toughen up too, over time.  i guess i'm interested in looking to see if i'm still open to receiving water and light, and love,  even through whatever toughened form i've taken.  am i open and tough or closed and tough?  aaack, vulnerability.  fear of true intimacy rises up, and i can stay open.  i can.  i can.  i don't always, but this is my blessed practice.

my tiny festivarian, on the way last saturday morning

we got some good spots, for our highback chairs

i find that sitting at a music festival for a while is slightly like sitting on an airplane, only in that it makes me want to french braid my hair.  this is weird, these two spaces are the only places i seem to get that urge.




olive went off with some friends for a while and i snuck a few photos




david is looking nice in his father's day hat i knit him
max is looking magical in the wizard hat he bought himself at the festival







(and here we have a small intermission to bring you the reconciliation ceremony of david and heather cohen...way back in februarty, after two solid months of being split up, a strange blessed turn brought us back to each other, wild hearts only can understand the ways of our splitting and rejoining.  it was immediately after reconciling that tickets for the summer music festivals went on sale.  i went on line and celebrated inside that we would go to our favorite festivals together yet again.  rocky grass sells out fast, so it's a plansixmonthsahead kind of thing.... timing and our musical hearts.)



okay..back to music festival photos...

these now are on sunday, just arriving, sitting in a different spot, right in front of the giant silo.  we thought that was handy because this is the first year we've let the kids walk on by themselves to get water or to look at the shops, to buy ice cream, or to chase each other.  'just find the silo if you get lost and then you'll be found.'  this was such a huge step, for max especially.  his sense of place, his personal way of orienting to where he is is unlike most people's.  he did really well though.  he didn't get scared which was also something i thought might happen if he looked around and felt lost.

we were listening to bluegrass gospel, sunday's first musicians blessed us all


and then the sky opened up, maybe becoming emotional at the beautiful sounds


the sun came out eventually, and
i painted olive's cute face.....





i got a new dress

and then the sun's descent began  and keller williams came out.  i'd never heard his music, and it had a gentle power that got me out of my seat.  the kids too.  it was uplifting music like i haven't experienced in a long time.  the kind that speaks to your body, bypasses your mind, and so begins dancing.  very simple.  i forgot glow sticks.   note to self: remember glow sticks at next festival.




what does dumbledore say about music in the first harry potter, as he is welcoming in the first years?


"Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes.  "A magic far beyond all we do here."

that line caught my eye recently as i've been reading the book to the kids.  yep.

and so we have begun piano lessons.  lots of the pink panther theme can be heard erking out of the windows of this house lately.

sigh.  summer.  love.

spinning

i am a fan of diving in

i am a fan of being fucked with and learning where my blindspots are (were) so that i am more and more and more and more aware

more and more

i am a fan of positive spins but they must be realistic, true, probable
i am a fan of giving positive feedback
i am not a fan of giving or getting negative feedback, but with a positive spin, negative feedback becomes positively positive
a positive times a negative is negative though, and my positive spin turned my negative feedback positively positive - this breaks all mathematical rules
if emotions and math abided by the same rules, if i give negative feedback a negative spin, i should get a positive, and that is not going to happen
if i say to myself, 'that guy telling me my piece was confusing and shallow was not helpful and it hurt my feelings,' then i am left with negativity
a negative times a negative is not positive according to the heart
math and emotions are not compatible
emotions are recalcitrant to math's limitations
a positive spin can totally make a negative emotion positive
i am positively a fan of spinning things


is clockwise or counter clockwise the direction for positivity?

from my own vantage point

positive from my vantage is negative from yours if you are facing me
if we look in the same direction, we see the same way

if i look at your negative, i see it as positive

the grass is always greener

my negative looks so positive to you too

we are amazing for each other

we would be so negative without the insights of the other

the other

is lover


so my positive is your negative
and your positive is my negative
fuck your roses, they made me bleed
fuck your freedom, it oppresses me

you take my music and call it noise
you take my day dream and call it fluff

come and sit with me, and look in the direction that i am
see how me dreaming of happiness is divine and that my intentions are awesome
show me how you looking for perfection is divine and and how your intentions are awesome

i can see your intention only when i look from your vantage point
it is so intimate to come sit next to you and look through your eyes
it makes me love you and want to kiss you
it makes me forgive all there is to forgive

i am a fan of giving a positive spin to a negative spin
what you see as negative is my positive when i look at you straight on
you don't love your scars
they made you magical to me
i don't love my artwork today
you look at it and feel freer

let's sit together and face the same direction
and look into a mirror
together

we get cut and heal, and we remember the pain when we see our own scars
the ones who look at us, at our scars, see how we healed after being hurt
look at how i healed i can say now, when i look at all the places i've been hurt
because your vantage spun me

i am a fan of being spun

what about where i haven't healed?
what do you see when you look at my sore that is yet to heal
you see my pain and you feel tender towards it, you care

if i look at myself the way you look at me, i love myself more

when i look at you and feel negatively toward you, my negative is your positive
i look at you yelling at our son and it is negative to me
your intentions - tell me your intentions so i can see the positive in you yelling at our son
and maybe so you can remember your intentions too
i will come sit beside you so i can see what you are seeing and make my negative positive

it is so intimate to spin around, to come sit next to you and look through your eyes
it turns my negative positive
it makes me want to kiss you
it makes me understand
it calms you down
it calms me down
keep calm and spin on
my love






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now then, now that i've got my personal emotional and mathematical research done for the day, i will leave planet strangethoughts and go on to planet letsexploredomesticity.



i got rid of our latest new-to-us couch last week.  done.  it's the one the cat peed on the week we brought it home, the one i spent many hours scrubbing and pouring gallons of solutions and potions on.  i know i blogged on the catpeecouch ordeal, but it must have been in one of my four (ha) transition blogs, where i've been exploring the dark underworld in for the past 8 months.  i'm not going to go through all of those right now to find the link.  anyhow, last week i put the couch on the patio and the fumes from the cosmic, epic, invincible smell of cat pee with a half life of a million years, was free, free to be heated up by the sun and it went wafting right into my face and i was sure on the decision to let the couch move on along to its next life.  ok this is gross, but i'm gonna share it (but first i want to remind that we lived with this couch for months with that smell, and it's really only noticeable when you snuggle down into it and try to nap with your face buried in the crack): the couch is now the new customer hang out sofa for our bakery in north boulder.  ha.  no one there will ever know.  it's a lovely thing to look at and sit on, just not snuggle or nap on.  ok.  win win.  so, we have this open space in the living room now, and i have great intentions of a new couch coming to fill it up before the year is over.  in the mean time, i am thinking a hammock could be perfect.  i have an extra one in my closet, i packed it up when we were breaking up, and i'm just beginning to unpack all the me stuff that's been stored away.  been taking my time with the way in which i lay out my roots again.  i want to give my roots lots of time and space to find their paths,  so their growing journeys, going further and deeper, feel rich and lush.  hopeful.  well thought out, as much as is possible.

=======
well well well.  i just spent an hour hangin up the hammock.  it is up and i am hangin in it.


feeling like this hummer

yay, such a positive spin

i'm finishing this post, chillin in my old, new again, space.  my old hammock, my old blog.  ladidadi.



harry potter reading with the kids is going well.  i see brooms and think of quidditch.  this old broom is supporting some morning glories this summer.



this lover is wearing the dress i made for her birthday last week.  my little girl is nine.



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not to be trite about negative stuff, and i know there are not always silver linings

but really, going and looking at the world from another's vantage point can really transform my understanding of that person and the way i relate to them

kiss kiss

let go of the old , bring in the new ! cries magpie

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a little hello.

it's not easy (to understate it)

this path of utmost resistance,

but nature, she is embedded in me, in my bones and on my surface,

i can't escape her.



nature does follow the path of least resistance:  earth, water, wind and fire flow.  go.

stop.  wait.  time.


  an opening





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klamath weed or st john's wort

st johns has become a grand player in the garden over the past few years....it's decided to spread its wings and i have a lot of this lover to harvest, and still plenty to leave for the bees


it's time consuming to clip the flowers, i got this much in ten minutes, with the help of two little girls

a little st johns wort olive oil in the making now

i read it wants to sit in the sun (and moon) light for one month,  i can add flowers each day as they bloom.

i am interested in the oil to use for massage on the sacrum, all those nerve endings that seem to want some soothing  

intentions for stabilizing my first chakra: safety, roots, red (which this oil will turn), passion, kundalini goddess energy


thank you st johns wort faerie people for allowing the establishment of this sacred plant in my garden


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this little lover stopped by and spent the night by our backdoor one night a few weeks ago.  a baby magpie.


she woke up in the morning and began crying for her parents.  she hopped around the wagon and then a few hours later, she had rejoined her siblings in a bush.



we would not let our sweet huntresses out for almost a week while these magpie babies learned to fly.




there were five babies that we counted as we scouted around and observed them for a couple days.
i guess they look kind of big for babies, but these cuties could not fly yet.

they huddled in a pine tree and a bush, hopping and fluttering, and calling kind of incessantly to each other and their parents.

zhi and i did a lot of documenting



i've never had the opportunity to observe baby birds, fledglings i mean, learn to get their flight on.




they kind of just stayed put for these few days, while their parents made many stop ins, feeding them each time.  the world outside of the nest is a lot to take in.


they were raised in a pine tree, at the very top, just by our back door.  we heard their racket all spring.  noisy parents they are.  noisy babies.  noisy all around.  magpie.  i love you.


below is one of the parents, fifty yards or so away from the babies in the bush, going off to find the next feeding for the babes.

and here she is coming in to say hi, and to make sure zhi and i were not harming




a week of training, weening from the nest, and that was that.  those sweet noise makers are all moved on.  i am still digesting their visit.  i am grateful for the inspiration gleaned around parenting and the stretch, work, and diligence i witnessed in these magpie parents.  shifting their brood from the nest to their next phase as independents kind of rattled me.  a little homeopathic dose for me and my system in learning how nature does her thing,  and we, we are nature too.  it soothes me to remember just how natural we are.


ahem, speaking of natural:

my sweet noise makers decorated their hair last week for the last day of gymnastics camp which is crazy hair day.

yeah- we got a little into it.


ha!


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after our recent trip to new mexico, i got inspired to add a little turquoise vibe to the house

not done yet, but looking promising.


once the painting is done, i have a patchwork curtain being dreamed up in my imagination, made from some of these fabrics



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our little visit with courtney and maela, still reliving it here and there through the photos

courtney and the captain....they have true love



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a random image of me and olive and our colors



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the royal elderberry bush i have the luxury to pick from each year now...here it is in late june



i am an herb gardener, i have come to realize, herbs and me resonate

i love to eat vegetable and fruit, and occasionally i get lucky and some grow for me up in these mountains, but the herbs

the herbs are with me by and by

i love being in relationship with them


(david says i look like michael jackson so much in this picture---ha!)


here are the nettles, with their chains of seed

kind of gives me chills

boo

gonna maybe open this up again...

wow

rebirthing is happening