Acts of Connection

“It was through her actions of reciprocity, the give and take with the land, that the original immigrant became indigenous. For all of us, becoming indigenous to a place means living as if your children’s future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.”- Robin Wall Kimmerer

Summer is moving to fall. The deep dry of grasses are showing signs of greening; the infrequent rains and the moisture of Salish Sea air contribute. The Bunnies continue to mate, multiply and survive on the handouts from us campers and their search for grass roots. This clan hollows out any rise in the sandy ground to get at the barely succulent roots to keep them alive. Watchfulness is another of their stay alive predispositions. One resident feline hunter prowls the campground. We call her Devil Cat.

I sit at the large wagon window to observe the morning’s regularities and see the Bunnies on their hunches as D.C. makes her rounds along the gravel road across the campground. Her prowl is purposeful: she is out for breakfast and that means Bunny population control. Baby Bunnies. Not long before I sat to write I was walking down the kitchen area steps and spotted two bucks. Young male deer were also out for breakfast, too. The blackberries are at their peak. The bucks are tall, and when they rise on their hunches their long bodies and muscled necks reach where I would need a ladder. While I watched the bucks Raven chortled somewhere close but out of sight.

It calms me, reassures me of my connection to Wild to see and hear the Other than Human relatives here.

A short-stay camper in a VW van has been here the weekend. With a cup of tea in my hand I walked the short distance across the field and called out, “Good morning.”

He turned and returned a neighborly greeting. We chatted. I said, “Like your set-up.” His dark red van was topped at its tail with a green canopy. “For rain, just in case.”

I said, “Well I’m really glad you did that. I’m reassured because we just milk painted and need the rain to hold off for awhile to let it set up.”  Simple exchange got us talking about why he was here, and he asked about us and our tiny home. Turns out he was in town for a painting workshop and today was his last day.

Before he pulled out, we heard a knock on the metal siding of the kitchen. It was the camper. “I wondered if you might want some eggs.” He didn’t have time to cook them before his final painting session of the morning.

“Thank you,” I smiled my appreciation even though we don’t buy or eat eggs that aren’t from hens eating a soy-free feed. But this was a gift of reciprocity. Don’t spit in the eye of the Gods extending gifts.

It calms me, reassures me of my connection to the World when neighborly connection with Human relations happens.

This weekend one of the young campers had his generator stolen. The very coveted gas-powered tool allowed the young man to operate his power tools; he is converting a bus into his home. Pete and I had each observed the generator stored outside his bus over the past week. Cautionary lights flashed. But, we said nothing. We regret the loss, and Pete especially felt bad for not intervening. “Hard lesson, but it could be much harder.” Maybe he will learn from it and be better in the long run.

I walked over to the young camper Sunday morning.

“Sorry to hear about the generator.” The young man I had learned via the campground grapevine is recently graduated from high school, and this is his second conversion project. This is a human with goals and skills being put to the test of real-time life. Though he and I had never chatted before my morning walk toward his bus, he would regard me with a nod of his head whenever he saw me looking his way. Small and significant clue of character. Commiseration. Acknowledgment.

A small tabby poked its head out of the bus door, magnetized to safe ground inside yet so curious about the goings on. “We had a cat like that, she was called Spence.” Memories of our dear cat named for the neighbors’ under whose gate that Kuli’ou’ou cat was named. The young man told me his kitten was just two months old. “Nice company,” I said and knew that to be true.

Before I left I handed the man a post card that had been tucked into the door jam on our porch. “What’s this?” he asked. His pimpled face sweet and innocent in his engagement. “Snow geese.”

“Oh, we’re all in this together.”

“Yay, and sometimes the way gets tough and the leader falls back to let someone else lead.” As I turned to leave I turned back. “And maybe we should put a GPS on those generators.”

“Yay, a GPS.”

It enlivens me to share my humanness in simple acts of reciprocity. This connects me to the best forms of my nature.

We’re painting the golden wagon. One windowed-side of the vardo was sanded while we lived with Pushkara down on Scatchet Head. The rough, ‘distressed look’ was a temporary but necessary step in the labor of love involved in keeping our chemically accessible (free from toxic product) way of life. The walls of milk paint have held up remarkably. Milk Paint is one of the oldest form of human created wall treatments.

What is Milk Paint?

“Milk Paint is an ancient organic paint containing ingredients including milk protein (casein), limestone, clay and natural pigments. The result is a very durable paint …

When absorbed into the surface, Milk Paint will never chip or peel. Milk Paint is suitable for both interior and exterior applications and is naturally mold resistant. Milk paint provides a completely breathable coating and is ideal for painting plaster, drywall, straw bale houses and a variety of other surfaces.” - Homestead House Blog (the Canadian-based brand of Milk Paint we use) 

Milk paint ‘cements’ itself to a porous surface. And unless you have a sensitivity to milk, there are no harmful ingredients found in even the most ‘eco-paints’ on the market. That is the reason we chose Milk Paint for the inside and outside of the golden wagon.

Original Milk Paint on the wagon's back wall, 2008

Normally, Milk Paint used on exterior walls would be sealed with Tung Oil (as a toxic-free alternative) or a commercial sealant. Those choices don’t work for us; tung oil is too fragranced and a commerical sealant still too ‘toxic’ for me. We chose instead to use beeswax as a protective coat on the exterior walls. A warm day makes the wax flow smoothly, rather than dry too quickly and not absorb. The waxy excess needs to be wiped off.

We have found, through experience, repainting with Milk Paint over an existing waxed finish means sanding the old wax off as much as possible. Long story shorter … Pete did that sanding and we both spent a couple hours this weekend brushing on two coats of our unique blend of pigments to make ‘Golden Wagon’ Milk Paint.. Pete is uncovering the Gypsy’s Sails (no offense meant to the Romani!) which have protected the wall from predicted rain (didn’t happen). Containers of beeswax are warming up behind me in front of the heater getting it ready to hand-rub over the Milk Paint.

I love to do the work that feeds the value of care equivalent to ‘Malama ‘Aina’ – Like planting and tending a good lo’i kalo the taro patch will keep my family if I take care of the land growing the taro. I also appreciate being able to do my share of the work to Milk Paint the wall. Sometimes my body has been worn down and physically unable to help Pete with what needs to be done to maintain this simple, but not easy, way of life.

The taro does not grow itself. This golden wagon does not tend itself. Reciprocity. Hard work. Quality outcome.

Hele no ka’ala, hele no ka lima.
The rock goes, the hand goes.
To make good poi, the free hand must work in unison with the poi pounder.
Keep both hands going to do good work.
- ‘Olelo No’eau

I described our three wa’a (three canoe) lifestyle in my previous post. Hallowed out by the skilled adze worker of traditional times, the wa’a was a sacred and living being. Not every tree, even though of the regal and valued Koa family, was fit for wa’a. There were protocol and prayers to ask for the right la’au.

Here at the keyboard I use my technological tool – a laptop, that is not connected to the ocean of cybernetics. Instead I type into a Libre Office file and put my thoughts onto a transportable file for later. I will need to walk, or drive to the library and use space and technology there. Not unlike short voyages between island in the Pacific, my current voyage includes variations on navigational skills.

Convenience is handy, but it’s not always possible. Seeing the connectivity between what is available makes a pattern of transformation happen when you can imagine a workable alternative.

This wa’a of a home was blessed with enduring values. Her bones are strong and her coverings malleable if given the care she requires to morph. Taking a break from the labor of waxing the Milk Painted wall, I move from physical reality to stringing together story. I write as I would tell this story; I read it aloud and listen for the clunk, clunk, clunk of prose too full of holes or the resonant sound of the story saying, “Ah ha, this is the story I’m talking ‘bout!”

A beautiful mid-August day is laying herself out for us. The predicted rain has moved, at least temporarily, and perhaps will fall on Wednesday. We have the Akua … Lono, Kane, Kanaloa to thank for this breathable day, filled with a change of plan and no rain. (Click on this link to listen and watch Pualani Kanahele teach and speak about these elemental gods and more!) Pete is working the screw gun assembling yet another length of metal to hold pieces of the real Safety Pin Cafe in the place where we really live.

The sign the Safety Pin Cafe hangs from the inside wall of our four foot by eight foot detachable kitchen space. We have landed, again. The medicine stories that have been written and told under this sign, and in other places is now at home where we are. There is an element of magic with the raising of this banner. We welcome it, and celebrate the many twists and turns, the navigational feats involved in getting us here.

An early days Safety Pin Cafe storytelling event

Hulo!

The Safety Pin Cafe on the campground in Langley, Washington, 2019

One last event needs to string itself into this story of Acts of Connection. When the chosen and honored tree is identified as wa'a, the voyaging canoe, named and cut from his or her upright and physically connected place on ‘aina there is a moment I believe when what was before is let go. A sever takes place. Like the cutting of the cord from the piko.Though the remaining roots and the ancestry, the genealogy of the wa’a remains there is something that was released.

Permission was asked.
Prayers, chants are made.
If the Akua are satisfied?
Entrance, permission is given.
More transpires.

What Pete and I did late Friday afternoon just past was a release. In the hallow (in the back and in the seat) of that Big Ass Yellow Truck (I cannot stop from referring to him that way) Pete hauled out the boxes of our possessions. Less than a half dozen of them, these are the holdings of precious history: books, framed photographs, letters, handwritten journals.

Seated on the folding yellow metal chair I dug through my longest existing journals from 1971 and made the decision to pull the past out of its binding and tear that mana’o into pieces. A large box filled with my former life. Ritually many would burn that paper with etched what was true more than forty years ago. Since I don’t do well with smoke and because there remain Burn Bans in this part of our world, I did not burn. Instead, a very heavy (emotional and physical) parcel went into the campground trash.

I watched the campground host haul that parcel away later this weekend. Whew, history and the past can be a a weight and connection that needs to be let go before new life can flourish. Releasing makes room for now. What a gift!

We celebrated the significance of lightening with our new friend and sister camper. Standing with a fine bar of good chocolate with grated ginger in it, we talked and savored the chocolate as if we were seated around a fire blazing with the past needing to be released. 

Hulo!

I hoped for this kind of life, as storyteller but had no way of controlling exactly how that would unfold, or how my wa’a would navigate the familiar and uncharted territory. I am parked on a campground near a town we have come to know. The ocean is nearby, a gentle breeze plays with the Ulu curtain and the longing to be with people and place who welcome us and welcome our care? It lives within me.

My son gets texts from me when we Milk Paint a wagon home he has known because he visits us wherever his wandering people are. He sends us texts when he cooks up smoked belly pork from pua’a he has hunted. “Do you want FaceTime?” he asks, and like magic we are talking and seeing one another.

To live life with reciprocity begins with paying attention. I notice and am grateful to find ways to act as if I am connected. I wish for times when I could visit our island home of my birth. The Akua may have a plan for us that includes that wish; I hope for that. In the meantime, Pete is finishing the waxing the boards I could not reach. Now that? That is reciprocity.

To Ask
© Yvonne Mokihana Calizar, 2019

I am an indigenous woman 
Living in a home on wheels
The way and the rhythm

 Rock me like being 

In the womb.
The taste of salt
Tangy on my lips

From tears dropped between

Dreams and an inconvenient
Journey.

 I am an indigenous woman
With an internal tracking device

Needing to be

Turned Off, and then On again
Before loading
The Present.

Cleared of
A weighty
Past.

I am an indigenous woman
Certain of somethings
That cannot be proven.

In a straight line
Haumea laughs
When I 
Attempt Taking
Before Asking

I am
an 
Indigenous
Woman
Only
If I
Remember
to Ask

On the curve.

 

Thanks to the common space and resources made available to many people, the Langley Library has been my afternoon resource center. People have helped me sort technological questions so I can go from tool to tool, downloading photos and using the space of a cyberspace of magic; and finish this post-for-pay weaving a myth for our tale bones. 

What about you? Is reciprocity an active part of your life? Do you feed those acts of connection with the Human and Other than Human relations?

If this post makes you ponder, or appreciate how important a reciprocally respectful life is please consider sending me a tip or token. A gift of whatever amount you can manage can be sent to our snail mail address. Send me an email at mokihanacalizarATgmailDOTCOM saying you'd like to send me a tip. Hulo! I will reply to you and send you our snail mail address. Or, sharing this post with your people and spreading the story is another way of making Myth for your tale bone grow long and strong!

Here is the link to learn more about why I write these posts, and how your support is an act of reciprocity. 

Mahalo nui loa for reading Myth For My Tale Bone. E Ola Mau Mauli. Power to us people.

Mokihana