Bounty

The oak trees on 8th Street between Independence and C are about to begin their grand fall. I always feel for the people who live on that block at this time of year because they are about to be virtually buried in oak leaves.

I scored like a big dog yesterday. In the mail I received not only the commemorative CD set from Hammer (a part of how he ended his blog) but also two pounds of cracked pecans from Ellen of the blog Ellen's Head. Wow!

You can't plan to receive two gifts from fellow bloggers - not ever - but what are the chances of receiving two gifts from fellow bloggers with no connection to each other on the same day??

This bounty is a crystal clear sign that it is not time for me to quit the blog even though I am restless and uninspired. Maybe the protein from the pecans, in combination with the music of Throwing Hammers, along with the launch of the Terra Cotta Warrior show at National Geographic this week, will kick my creative ass in just the right way, help re-enthuse me. You think?

All Things Must Pass Away

I worked long and hard today but even so, I could have squeezed in the time to post here if I'd really wanted to. I felt stalled out, unable to put any interesting words together. Actually I've felt like that a lot lately, as if the blog has been kind of on the skids for awhile. I'm sure I'm not the only blogger who has felt this way. Am I right?

The frosting on the cake was when Hammer concluded his blog yesterday. Throwing Hammers was one of my favorite blogs in the world. It was wildly unpredictable in terms of content, though the soul of the writer was fully infused into every post. Every post was SO creative including (of course) even the posts that I didn't understand. It was a work of art from the time I found it until its demise.

Pat of the venerable DC Blogs.com says that when people write articles for magazines, or stories or books, they know when they're finished. But bloggers never know. We can go on and on if we like.

Hammer told me once upon a time that blogs have a three year lifespan. That's interesting since I quit my old blog after three years almost to the day. The Gold Puppy is just a little over three years old, so maybe I'm suffering from three year blogger itch, do you think? Throwing Hammers lasted more than five years. It was a mighty blog!

That he knew exactly when Throwing Hammers had completed itself, so he could sign off gracefully, is awesome, isn't it? Tut of the blog Inside the Shell said it perfectly: "The fluid blog can actually have an end point, not dependent on outside (or inside) issues of the blogger." YES, and - how astonishing to have the moxie, as well as the timing, to understand, to make the ending as artful the blog's heyday. Hammer? Well done, you!



Wouldn't it be great if we all had more skill when it came to endings? When the lifecycle of relationships, jobs, living situations, friendships is over, and that situation must end - it's always so painful for one reason or another. If we were able to notice when things were winding down, maybe we could be brave enough to end them artfully, before everything goes completely to hell. Is that a crazy idea?

In order to be more graceful I guess we would have to first be willing to admit that nothing lasts forever, also that duration is not a measure of value. But - that's a tough pill to swallow, eh?

The Remnants of Ida

It was a slow hurricane season in the Atlantic this year. After the onslaught of storms a couple of years ago, many of us on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. hunkered down for the duration, assuming that global warming had fundamentally changed oceanic weather. As it turns out, we were wrong. Though there were many hurricanes in the Pacific, the Atlantic was oddly calm this year, almost like the sun which has also been very quiet for the past year. Everybody has an opinion about these grand patterns, but the truth is, no one really knows why some years are busier than others in terms of hurricanes and sunspots.

Yesterday and today we in Washington DC are receiving the steady rainfall from what was once a hurricane, then a tropical storm, then a tropical depression, and now no more than a humble low pressure circulation. Still, it has produced a lot of water.



The rain has pushed many leaves off the trees. Later today when it gets breezy or even windy, not only leaves but all the tiny little twigs and stems will be blown out, leaving only the broad strokes of the larger branches in place for the winter.

I'm studying my packet of information about the Terra Cotta warrior show today, and reading my book, making some chicken and rice soup, and hanging out. Today is my last free Thursday until the end of March when the show closes, so it's rather convenient that it's rainy and chilly outside. The weather is creating a situation of enforced relaxation, such a nice thing!

Thanks weather gods! Onwards & upwards, Ida.

*One of these days I will write about Reclaiming. I'm not feeling that post today. OK?

Lift and Separate

One of the best article titles I've seen in recent memory is from this week's New Yorker. Lift and Separate by Ariel Levy is a review of two books written about the history of feminism. The article is great and brought to mind the societal upheavals of that exciting, confusing time.

My own consciousness-raising wasn't focused on Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan - or Gail Collins - though those women were and are seriously mighty, and thank God for their brilliance. Or, thank Goddess, as we would have said.

Actually we didn't start using the term Goddess until the 1980's when suddenly the feminine divine became a central pillar of the evolving Women's Movement. That's what hooked me, the idea of a feminine divine. I didn't care to crawl my way to the top of the corporate ladder or (Goddess forbid) run for political office or even worse, be allowed to be a soldier, fighting shoulder to shoulder with men. Oh no. But the concept of worshipping something other than an old sociopathic dude with the long white beard, sitting on His throne up in Heaven - that really hooked me.

During the 1970's, the Movement was constellated around throwing off oppression, in other words, we were pissed off, hence the bra burning and other similar protests. Later, after the first ten years or so, we began to unwind the conventionally accepted "wisdom" around the nature of women. "The weaker sex?" Anyone who has ever attended a birth, and has witnessed women in the final stages of labor would never, not ever think of women as weak ever again.

One of my favorite books - still - is Barbara Ehrenreich's For Her Own Good, 150 Years of Experts' Advice to Women, a history of the way in which men turned the medical profession into an heroic old boys club, pushed out the midwives and herbalists who were women and therefore deemed not suitable to be a part of the brotherhood. Whoa! What a book.

Suddenly during the mid-1980's, the idea of reclaiming the feminine divine went viral as we would say now. When God was a Woman by Merlin Stone, was one of the first books I remember about images of feminine divinity. After that, dozens, maybe hundreds of books appeared on bookstore shelves, all at once, it seemed. Of course my old colleague Starhawk's book, The Spiral Dance was among them, as were the works of Marija Gimbutas.

Some of the authors I mentioned in yesterday's post, Jack Zipes, Jane Yolen, Diane Wolkstein and Clarissa Pinkola-Estes (among many others) zoomed in on the old fairytales, revealing powerful heroines underneath the patriarchal veneer of helpless girls abused by their evil stepmothers. It was such a time of revelation, wow!

And so this is the long version of how it was that in Reclaiming we began using myths and fairytales as themes for our week-long summer intensives. I'll write about witch camp tomorrow, Rosaria, I promise!

Talking Myself Down

Though I love cleaning, I do not love it when I lapse into what I call a "cleaning frenzy." Yes indeed it's possible to overclean, I can attest to it from personal experience. Moderation is good in all things, even a humble activity like cleaning.

I'm just emerging, as I write, from a serious cleaning frenzy. I can feel the adrenaline still running in my veins, even though I've had a shower, and a nice tall glass of water, and have been sitting here looking at the computer for awhile. It was an intense frenzy, I tell you. Yikes!

Unhinging one of my personal folk tales, a.k.a. "I Hate the Holidays," got me all enthusiastic about working with other myths, ones that maybe aren't as good for me as they could be, plotlines that actually work against me. For instance, "Romance Isn't My Best Thing." Within that story there are tales of awful hook-ups as well as disastrous long term relationships, but somehow over the years, as I've told and retold this bedtime story in my mind, the parts of my romantic past that actually did work have disappeared, erased over time from negligence. The truth is, my romantic life has been hit AND miss - sometimes simulaneously! I have always been commitment averse, which might be why at certain times I headed straight for the relationship that would be the very worst thing for me. Those relationships were guaraneed not to work.

Commitment-phobic, non-monogamous, and lousy with hormones, coming of age in the late 1960's, I really wasn't built for solid, grounded, long-lasting partnerships. No wonder, once upon a time, I was so enamored with men I could never "have" - married men and such. Unwinding these core personal myths has been really potent, healing and illuminating. Wow.

As you can imagine, a lot of enthusiasm has attended these recent discoveries. I'm working hard on brand new interpretations, brand new translations, of my personal myths. The cleaning frenzy is a perfect symptom of my work recently, re-inventing my own history. I'm overcleaning because I'm thinking so hard.

One great piece of wisdom that comes from the heroines of fairytales is that when you've finished your chores, stop! Take a walk or rest or brush your hair, go get lost in a forest, meet a handsome prince. Enough is enough! Oh yeah!

Thanks Hans Christan Andersen, thanks Charles Perraultt and all those who wrote down the fairytales, even the Brothers Grimm! Thanks too, to Jack Zipes, Jane Yolen, Diane Volkstein, Clarissa Pinkola-Estes and other contemporary scholars who helped me see how complex these stories really are!

180 degree turn

East Capitol and 7th St. SE.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see. --T. Roethke

By the time I finish work these days, it's dark outside. So I'm taking pics at night, and enjoying them very much. The eerie orangeish streetlights reflected from the trees creates such interesting scenes. Some of the recent shots look like they were taken underwater, others appear otherworldly (both pics attached to this post are otherworldly, but I'll post an underwater shot sometime soon).

Only a couple of years ago at this time of year, my habit was to spiral downwards into the dark. I dreaded the early sunsets, tucked myself away in my inner sanctum and ... well ... felt sorry for myself. The holidays brought up in me a profound sadness and loneliness. Always a few chips short of a fish dinner in terms of being mainstream, the holidays, once upon a recent time, reminded me in no uncertain terms that I am a freak.

Something changed last year, though. I can't explain why, but I enjoyed the holidays last year, very much so. Externally the pattern was the same as in years past: the days were short and while everyone else gathered with family, children, partners and friends, I watched Hugh Grant movies while eating brown rice and steamed veggies (on Thanksgiving) and more Hugh Grant movies on Christmas. Unlike years past, I had fun, felt happy and got a kick out of the movies. Weird, eh?

The most profound transformations - for me at least - are always the result of a change of heart. Having an open mind helps a lot, but there's something about the human heart that can bring about miraculous healings, seemingly from out of the nowhere.

I find myself this year actually looking forward to the holidays. Whatever it was that happened last year was an enduring change of heart. Life is so amazing that way. You just never know what's going to happen. The early sunsets are providing me with new ways to look at the world, and some fun photos as well, and I'm looking forward to the holidays. All I can say is: wow.


N. Carolina, close to Eastern Market.

Disclaimer

Roses in bloom on November 7. Crazy.

I feel compelled to say, about yesterday's post, that I am not a neat freak. I don't try to keep my room neat as a pin, oh no! Cleaning an already clean room wouldn't be very satisfying, now would it? Living life is a messy project, so I live, and then I clean, and if it doesn't get done, I don't sweat it. Also I don't own much stuff and live most of my life in a small space which makes cleaning so much easier. If I had lots of furniture or doo-dads, or a huge living space, cleaning could be a nightmare, an impossible task.

OK. 'Nuff said about that one!

Have a wonderful Sunday!


Intersection of 8th, Independence and N. Carolina