The Shaping of a Muse

In writing group last night our prompt was to give our muse form and substance in our minds, so we can draw them to us as we need. Here's how mine came out. The concept was based on Melissa R's discussion of Elizabeth Gilbert's TED Talk called How to Follow Your Muse. I've only heard about the talk from Melissa ... but I'm looking forward to it!

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O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention ...
That's what Shakespeare wrote, in Henry V.

My muse is more fluid than fiery, more embracing that the flickers of flames burning a soul or scorching it with a heat so intense that there is nothing left at the end. No, my muse is comforting like an embrace, and yet honest ... honest enough to tell me to get my ass to the computer, or away from surfing the web. Honest enough to give me deadlines and generous enough to help me meet them.

She is warm, yes, but she is like sunlight through the leaves, dappling the ground; there for a short time between rain showers, or while the sun sits between that roof peak and that treetop. She teaches through loss as quickly as she teaches by perseverance, for the inspiration-- in-spiration (en spiritus, with or to be filled with spirit) comes and quickly goes ... and the perfect phrase or word or image will not stay locked fast in the mind indefinitely. A half an hour at the most.

She's like a morning fog or a gossamer cloud, here then gone ... but always around the corner of my mind, coming if I take time for her, quietly sitting, tempting her out with ripe words and luscious syllables on a page made ready just for her. And then slowly, shyly she scoots from among the harsher gutturals to smile, to step with dainty tread, to give me a bit of magic, a bit of wonder, a transition between here and there, or even, rarely, something perfect.

But what does she look like? How does one describe spirit? I my mind she keeps company with Bear and Snake and my Ancestors; she is ephemeral and real; she is like the dryad with her tree ... though I suppose I am the tree. How does she have her voice heard if I will not write it? How will the world know of her cleverness, of her wonder and glory if I do not put pen to page or fingers to keyboard?

My ingenious genius! We are collaborators, she and I, and like any partnership, we have good moments, and moments when my hearing is impaired, when I am distracted. We have times apart, and always it takes us long hours spent in each others company to have the sweet rapport healed, to have the flow restored ... and then, bliss. Agony and bliss, as all my best writing is.

Oh, save your Muse of fire! My muse is part desire and part wild, and she wills my words into the world.

She is my ally, and the keeper of my sanity and joy. Without writing, without words, I am not Katherine. I am not whole.

Prayer for Kinship with All Life

Hear me, four quarters of the world--a relative am I!
Give me the strength to walk the soft earth,
a relative to all that is!
Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand
that I may be like you . . .
Great Spirit, Great Spirit, My Grandfather,
all over the earth the faces of living things are all alike.
With tenderness have these come up out of the ground.
Look upon these faces of children without number
and with children in their arms
that they may face the winds and walk the good road
to the day of quiet.

-- Black Elk

Autumnal Equinox

I've always been fond of Solstices and Equinoxes. They mark the seasons, the changes to the sunlight through the days and, sometimes, my birthday. This year, the autumnal equinox will be on Sept. 22nd (next year, it will be on the 23rd), and it marks the the time when the lengths of day and night are perfectly balanced.

Throughout the ages there have been many different ways to celebrate this particular equinox regardless of belief system. Most have to do with the celebration of the harvest, and cleaning up old issues that are outstanding, the rendering of accounts, readying the fields for the next cycle, life and death, unity, sacrifice and, of course, balance in all aspects of life.

All cultures take part in Equinox celebrations. Here are some examples, taken from You Grow, Girl:

• First Nations peoples have held harvest festivals in North American for thousands of years. In the States and Canada holidays like Thanksgiving came to the New World along with the first Europeans. European harvest festivals originated from pagan celebrations like Mabon, the pagan Celtic festival held on the Equinox.

• Fall fairs, another tradition in North America, began in Europe as trading meets held in the days after harvest.

• Todays' celebrations find a place for many crops that are historical symbols of autumn: sheaves of corn and wheat, grapes and wine, gourds, dried leaves, rattles, horns of plenty, seeds and nuts, apple cider, squash, pumpkins.

• The first jack-o-lanterns were hollowed out turnips with candles inside.
  

• According to the Smithsonian Institute, "Most of the credit for the establishment of an annual Thanksgiving holiday may be given to Sarah Josepha Hale. Editor of Ladies Magazine and Godey's Lady's Book, she began to agitate for such a day in 1827 by printing articles in the magazines. She also published stories and recipes, and wrote scores of letters to governors, senators and presidents." On October 3, 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed the new American holiday of Thanksgiving.

• In Japan, Autumn Equinox Day is a national holiday marking the change of seasons and paying respects to the dead.

• German peasants at one time broke the first straws of hay harvested and said "This is food for the dead."

• Buddists celebrate equality on the equinox, the time of the year when day and night are of equal length.

• Moon cakes are the traditional food of harvest and thanksgiving festivals held in Korea.

• The first Thanksgiving service known to be held by Europeans in North America was in Newfoundland on May 27, 1578.

• In England, the last sheaf of corn harvested represented the 'spirit of the field'. It was made into a doll. Corn dolls were drenched with water representing rain or burned to represent the death of the grain spirit. At other times they were kept until the following spring.

• The Polish Feast of Greenery involves bringing bouquets and foods for blessing by a priest, then using them for medicine or keeping them until the following years harvest.

• The Roman celebration was dedicated to Pomona, goddess of fruits and growing things.

Do you celebrate the Equinox, and if so, how? I'd love to know!

Landscaping for Native Songbirds

Found THIS link about landscaping/gardening to increase and protect the native songbirds in the Greater Seattle area. Wanted to share.

Also, if you're interested in planting trees in your area, or learning which native species are needing a boost, the City of Seattle's re-Leaf program is a good place to start.

Feathers

My Circle has some avid feather collectors who actively seek them out, and some collectors who do so because of serendipity and happenstance more than any active desire to gather. Feathers fall at their feet, literally. I don't know that I'm avid or flowing with serendipity, I just know that I'm starting to have a collection, and I don't know much what to do with them.

The obvious answer, if you're in training to become a shaman, is to make a Medicine item with them. But ... how do you do that, and how do you protect the feathers themselves from degradation from time and use? Even birds ditch their feathers because of the time of year or because they need new ones, so how do we keep their tossed feathers or entire wings, clean and tidy? Where do you start?

Google, of course. Asking friends and allies and elders.

I did all of the above, and found tons of information that was completely contradictory (usually coming from oral references). What we need is, yes, another workshop from an authoritative source. Until that comes along ... Google it is.

One of the best sites I've found so far is HERE at nativetech.org They recommend getting rid of the mites that live on feathers with spray or mothballs, then washing the feathers with something like Woolite to restore the natural oils and keep them clean. Air-drying (or blow-drying on cool and low) while preening them helps the feathers' fletching to snap back to shape.

So that's care and feeding of the feathers ... but now, what to do with them? I plan on making a couple of smudging fans with the feathers I've collected from my chickens (there's some good Medicine for the home and comfort around chickens). But how? I have no idea yet. I'm not the best crafts person in the world, but I have all the tools i.e. hide, sinew, fabric, wood, a saw, scissors, padding if needed, etc. I just have to figure out the actual construction. Beyond that ... nope, I have no idea what to do with them, except, perhaps, put them in Medicine bags if they're small enough and Spirit moves me, or affixed to dream catchers (which I don't yet know how to make).

I'd love to hear what others are doing with their feathers garnered over time and distance. Do you create with them, or put them in a box, or put them on display or or or ...?

Words to the wise, if you are not a registered Native American who has a permit for such, it's illegal to possess any raptor feathers. See THIS link for more info on what is legal and what is not.

Also, identifying feathers is sometimes difficult if you're picking up one single feather from the ground. THIS site, while by no means extensive, gives you something to compare them to. It's fairly thorough with what they have, and they're adding to their database all the time.

The Burke Museum's Ornithology Department has some great info re birds in the Seattle area. THIS is their Q&A page.

Passages Within and Without

It has been just over a month since the initiation retreat, and I feel as if I am slowly settling into myself again. Rites of passage tend to stir up the depths in a soul, or so it has been the case for me, and while I've been aware of what's moving around in the top layers, I've been constantly surprised at what wants to be noticed from deeper down. Just as I think I've come into some sort of balance with one aspect, another rises to the top to be acknowledged and addressed.

Well, that's one of the reasons we go to these things, isn't it? To be cracked wide open and to become aware? To let some light and air into the places which need love and attention? To heal? To grow? To come into our power as individuals and as members of a much larger group? To support one another in the process of learning and living?

It was a long weekend. A challenging, wonderful, hard, exhausting, beautiful weekend full of some of the most beautiful-hearted, wondrous-spirited people in the world.

And the journey continues on. Just because we made it to the mile marker doesn't mean we are finished. Even those who will not be joining the Second Year Circle still received their new names, their new maps, their new challenges. The best part is, we don't have to journey alone. If there's nothing else we learned this year, it was this. No one is alone.

It's been a good year. I've been blessed.

Animal Parts Store Field Trip

Centralia Fur & Hide
2012 Gallagher Road
Centralia, WA 98531 USA
Phone# 877-736-2525
Fax# 360-330-5992
Email: info@furandhide.com




Directions:
Take the exit onto I-5 S (About 1 hour 10 mins) go 71.4 mi

Take exit 82 for Harrison Ave toward Factory Outlet Way go 0.3 mi

Turn right at Harrison Ave (About 2 mins) go 0.8 mi

Turn left at Galvin Rd (About 2 mins) go 0.8 mi

Turn right at Gallagher Rd go 0.2 mi