Gifts of the Elders

Did they know it was a gift when they provided me with the tools to build this sanctuary? Did they know I would come to require this place? Of corse, they too needed sanctuary, but they seemed to choose places with only limited peace. Sanctuaries that were just as dangerous as the fields of pain we sought to escape. 

No, I don’t believe they truly knew. Does that make it any less precious a gift?

I don’t believe it does, because I see now that I am thriving where they did not. 

Am I? I am far better off than they were. I see the battlefield for what it was, and is. 

So many generations lost to this pain, drinking the poisons they believed were panaceas. 

Yet the gift came from the oldest ones amongst them.  It must have been intended as a way to break the curse-or at the vey least, to aid me in doing so. 

But I also see how it has trapped me. It always does. The security has been a balm, but it is lacking in vital stores. We are not meant to be alone.  

Alone is where we are our weakest. That is were the walls are breached.

Fear is a poor gatekeeper.

Alone is unnatural and unhealthy. I will drown in the waters of my own love if all I have is alone. I must release the the waters and provide this overflowing abundance to another.  I must mend my gardens. 

The gates must be opened, and vulnerable must be allowed. I must share all that is hidden within, and allow another into my innermost sanctuary, where I no longer wear the suffocating mask and armour. 

Did the old ones foresee this? Did they know this is what must be done?

Is that why I was encouraged to believe in a world I could not see?

It is the only world I have ever wanted. Is faith in that world the key?

My heart is weary, and no longer wishes to fortify. I no longer wishes to work with stone. 

My heart requires softness, rest; I must lower my defences, open the citadel, and allow vulnerability to stand bravely at my side. 

Pollyanna Has Been Doing Time

It has been some time since I have taken the time to sit and regurgitate my thoughts to the ether.
It is not that I do not have anything to state, just uncertain of the direction I wish to set my keys to sail.

In the vast world of blogging I believe it is important that one should have a clear voice with a goal.

Over the past couple of years I have been exploring my soul and its reactions to art, cuisine and life in general. Somewhere along the line my inner Pollyanna was locked up and gagged.

When did I become so stoic? I don’t believe in such a lack luster approch to viewing life.

How does one convey such musings in a way that it is worthy of reading by another? I will attempt a hand a less structured but still focused blog with a bit of everything within the Art and Cuisine world.  The world I find delightful.

A simple one woman perspective on culture while working on regaining all the wonder and positivity she had for life.

I hope a few of you like it and gain something from this. Even my little snapshots as they are my silver lining.  The beauty in our world as I see it.  I suppose this blog will become about my soul searching through the superficial to find the beauty of our world.  Freeing my inner Pollyanna.  

Why I Decided to Get a Tattoo

Guest post

A tattoo can serve any number of purposes between paying homage and looking sweet, but it is most remarkable in its potential to be emblematic of change.

It was Monday, March 11, 2013. I had an Organic Chemistry test that evening so I woke up early to head to work and study. Finding my ambitions taxed by the ordeal of lengthening my day by half an hour, I arrived and turned on my office computer to check Facebook. After two clicks of searching, I learned that Luke Stalker, a fraternity brother of mine studying abroad, had died the previous evening. He stepped out onto the balcony of his hotel room for a cigarette and something happened.

To rise and prepare for a Monday like any other and find that one of your fraternity brothers fell out of a building in Paris to his death. When my last fraternity brother passed…

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Sleeping at Granny’s

Late at night when the moon was high I would lie in my bed, unable to sleep because of the heat, watching the deep teal blue sky blanketed with stars.

The moon, stars and satellites filtered only by the old mesh screen as I listened to the sounds of the canal life just out the back.

Chirping, croaking, and that odd sound gators make with their throats. Now and then a splash or a rustle of reeds.

Hours I watched as the rest of the house slept. All quite and isolated until I heard, as I had many nights before, the alarming scream.

As the quietly swaying cabbage palms paid no heed, granny was waking the house! Calling us to franticly come out side.

Granny in her commanding voice of the matriarch “UFO!!! Come quickly they are right above us!”

About every two months they would come, never in the same vessel.

Sometimes disguised as advertising planes sometimes as blimps, but she knew it was them.

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To Thine Own Self Be True

William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” has been one of my favorite plays from the moment I first read it and then later watched it performed.

While I often find Shakespeare’s work to be full of wisdom, I find Act 1, scene 3, where Polonius gives advice to his son Laertes to be dear to my own life philosophy.

A better state

There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before. ~ Henry David Thoreau

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Tempest in a Tea Cup

Accouterments of Time

It is really rather simple, all I have to do is gaze upon one, and the vivid emotion filled imagery comes flooding into my mind’s eye. One does not even need to physically hold one of these objet, although I sometimes do.

Some of these rare treasures I have found, some have found me and some have been passed down though my family as heirlooms.

They are precious time travel devices, to not only my past, but links to my elders and their life stories.

There are people who call these treasures, and those of use who curate them, by disrespectful names. (Tchotchke, bauble, Knick-knack, trinket, dust collector, and worst of all clutter or junk)

These stoics simply do not understand the power these beautiful time capsules possess for those of us who know how to connect with them.

With each one of these accouterments, I am taken back to the memory it possess’. Not only the moment acquired but the emotions and happenings of that bygone day.

For instance, when I was about 14, on a class trip one of my teachers offered to buy my group of students anything we wanted from the candy store. When I chose a porcelain figure instead of candy my teacher proclaimed I was silly to use the money to buy a dust collector. However, because of that little treasure I remember not only the purchase, I remember the who, the where, the light, the temperature and the joyous mood of a day filled with laughter.

It does not mater what they look like, or what they are made from, as they come in many different shapes sizes and materials. Some are even in the form of subsistence. (Science tells us the most powerful are the ones that contain scent. I quite agree.)

When ever I use a recipe of my grandmothers my kitchen smells like her kitchen and all the memories of that most love filled room.

No matter what the philistines and the minimalists say, I will protect them and hold them dear for as long as they are in my charge. Because when it comes to these cherished memory keeper’s “more is more”.

Tea Between The Posts

A dram or a cup

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On this gloomy and overcast Saint Patrick’s day eve, my mind travels to memories of lessons and adventures I had long ago in my childhood.

Primarily raised by the eccentric and nostalgic matriarchs of my family, my early childhood tutelage was that of generations past. As a result, my imagination was cultivated with superstitious stories, and a culture filled with earnest protocols.

As far back as I can remember, the subjects of these stories were spoken of as a matter fact. The elder women of my family would mention them several times a day. Perhaps it would not be a specific mention but one as simple as “knock on wood” and their presence was summoned.

Due to this vital education in survival, I know what to do if one needs to get rid of pixies or fairies from the pantry, if god forbid changeling is suspected, how to find a unicorn or a kelpie and to avoid Shellycoat so as not to loose my way.

Armed with this knowledge and a bravery stocked by the fire of determination I would joyfully venture into the forest in search of the beings I had been raised knowing but never seeing.

The reason for this other world, fairy guided walk down memory lane is the story that Saint Patrick (a Catholic) drove the snakes (the Druids) out of Ireland. I’ve always thought it ironic that poor St. Patrick shares his day with symbols of Druid mythology. The leprechaun being the main character.

But is this odd? My Nana, a good catholic woman, who later in life attended mass everyday, was one of my chief advisers on everything fairy, and the facts on what modern society calls superstition.

I see no reason why we cannot have saints and fairies. Superstitions tangled, and entwined serve to as a thread tying us to our past – To the culture of our ancestors.

I end this post with a proposal . Pour a cup of Barry’s tea or a glass of Jameson Irish Whiskey (Jameson was a Scotsman by birth) ponder on whomever you wish. God, saint or fairy.

Thanking our ancestors for the life they have given us.