Making one's own map

Hover over the heap of Star Ladies for a sweet and playful message💚

Town was busy with shoppers. Visitors and local folks fill the parking lots. I find a space just outside the crowded streets and walk the short distance. I spot someone we know who lives rough standing on the sidewalk and see his cardboard sign. Instinctively I check my wallet, find receipts from the week's shopping but no cash. On my way into town to buy something to eat, and other things to cook for supper it's no small thing to recognize the luxury of a small, warm wagon and enough in the checkbook to pay for groceries; the complaints of a soggy cobbled-together kitchen are falsities that need to be recycled. 

I remember what my astrologer suggests and set an intention for Capricorn New Moon (just passed) in my 12th House: 

"Solar eclipse in the 12th: Ease your burden by helping others bear theirs."

It was easy to buy a bowl of warm chili, a couple oatmeal cookies and a packet of crackers to add to my purchase. On my way back up the street to my car, I called our friend by name. He looked surprised I knew his name. Pete is the one who usually engages him. I handed off the bag, "Eat it while it's hot," I said, pulled some cash from my pocket and left saying,"Take care, okay. We're all doing that."

Back in my car I spotted Ben, another person we know because we live in this town. Every day that he's working at the library Ben walks during his lunch hour. He's kind, personable and helpful. We depend upon his service.

Before driving back to the campground I had one more stop. I'd prepared for that stop before leaving for town. To Pete I said, "Pass me the red colander and the small scissors on the porch." There's a beautiful lush patch of Chickweed growing over the now dormant community garden not far from home. One of the the most important parts of living this life on the borders of contemporary society has been the rediscovery of 'People's Medicine': wildcrafting, and becoming familiar with the allies of the weed world. Thanks in great part to Susun Weed, our life which is not supported by Western Medicine or contemporary American systems, is nourished, accessible, and affordable by the Wise Woman Traditions, the oldest tradition of healing. Eating weeds is a big part of the practice. And Chickweed is now growing abundantly in the cool, damp environment that I find 'difficult' until I change my mind, and become willing to act differently.

"Chickweed is readily available and delicious optimum nutrition. Her ability to cool off those with fevers and infectionns is unsurpassed. In addition, chickweed contains steroidal saponins.

Saponins are soap-like; they emulsify and increase the permeability of all membrances. By creating permeability chickweed encourages the shifting of boundaries at all levels, from cellular to cosmic. Chickweed saponins increase the absorption of nutrients, especially minerals, from the digestive mucosa. Her saponins also gently dissolve thickened lung and throat membranes, emulsify and thus neutralize toxins, and weaken bacterial cell walls, making them vulnerable to disruption of their activities... Think of chickweed as increasing your permeability to solar, lunar, universal, and cosmic energies. what incredible nourishment awaits you." - Healing Wise, by Susun Weed

Earlier in the day a friend Pete and I have come to know because we are campers on the Bunny Campground engaged me in a conversation which eased my burden. She listened to my internal battles with myself and shared a version of compassion that could only come from outside my own wounds. She listened, she wept, she shared possibilities, boundaries melted. 

"... We were never perfect. Yet the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was once a star and made the same mistakes as humans. We might make the same mistakes again, she said. Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end. You must make your own map." - from Joy Harjo's How We Began Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001

There are so many fears that linger in my postcolonial body. Confusion keeps me captive if I let in too much information; so I attempt to coral the emotions and the errors I judge as mistakes. Am I carrying the burdens of my Ancestors, burdens not personal to me? Yet, in the culture of my past I am not separate from 'they.' We are one.

Boundaries are sneaky, and they leak. With the potential of art in every moment of life, I re-commit to my commitment to writing as a way to navigate and translate; making my own map. What will it look like when I am done with it and who will find it useful? I may never know, but that's no reason not to make the map. For those curious to see how I continue to stretch blogger for all its worth go here to read a story about how white chocolate and a Yama Bell plays in the life of a character born purple.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, HAUOLI MAKAHIKI HOU to all our friends and family and readers of Myth for my Tale Bone from Pete and me and the Wild Bunnies of Langley. And many mahalos for the gifts of seasonal cheer we received!! We are truly grateful.

xo Moki and Pete



P.S. This post is also a sly and sisterly nod to 'Tango', in Northern Ontario where Chickweed may be sleeping under a thick blanket of snow. Hope you stumble across this, Northern Ontario Sister. 💌