Four Crones with a Hat Looking for Shoes

Four Crones with a Hat Looking for Shoes

          It could have been a dark and stormy night because it was what most folks might imagine when talking about crones, ghosts, witches and the extraordinary creatures that were mucking about after a glorious multicolored sunset on a short fall day. But it wasn’t.  Instead it was quiet, a nice and better than average night with the temperature cool but not cold and just a hint of a mild breeze.  It was perfect. Until you started listening in on a conversation that had just started which went something like this, “All that I am saying is that I feel that if you are the oldest, you should get to wear it longer,” this was said by a thin and reedy voice.

          A slightly younger voice piped in, “If we did that, the rest of us would be waiting until next week for a turn.”

          “I think that it should be based on how long your season is lasting,“ ventured  a bright cheerful voice.

          A voice that flowed like a sweet fresh breeze answered back, “That would hardly be fair as it varies so much from year to year.”

          The conversation would be enough to draw out a curious passerby to see just who was talking except this was All Hallows Eve and most sensible individuals would be home in front of roaring fire with all the doors and windows locked after checking to make sure that there was a good quantity of salt, garlic, wolf bane, and of course a good book of prayers just in case you forgot yours when you were about to be eaten.

          But if you were a foolhardy soul, you would see four figures sitting in a circle in a small clearing of trees.  The oldest one was currently tugging on the brim of an old black hat that was still somewhat pointy.  The hat was working itself off of the old woman’s head as if it had somewhere else to go for a hot cup of tea and a fresh scone.

          Another woman not quite the age of the first sat on a fallen log with its rough bark still attached to the trunk, she was dressed in the brilliant hues of fall, warm golden yellows, deep reds, cheerful oranges with a hint of fading green. Her head was bare and streaks of white ran in her hair of red.

          The third was slightly plump lady with a rainbow of colors surrounding her body.  She chewed absentmindedly upon what seemed to be a tasty fruit of some kind that was only identifiable by taking a bite, rolling in your mouth and humming loudly to grab the flavor before it walked out pass your teeth.

          The last figure was that of a young woman dressed in various light hues of greens, she seemed to be younger than the group that she was with. She wiggled her bare toes in the fallen leaves making them rustle softly and then louder. She was getting quite bored, longing to go somewhere to take a very long, long nap say until Spring time.  

          “Well, back to business, there is the matter of the shoes.  I say that we skip the barefoot tradition that both Spring and Summer have been following and find them some shoes.” This comment came from the woman dressed in the warm, cheerful colors as she gazed down at her sharply colored boots of red.

          “We have only tonight to shop before we fade from each other’s view.” This was grumbled by the oldest of the group.  She had continued to fight with the hat until finally she took it off of her head ,wagged her finger at it, scowling at it with an evil intent and then putting the hat firmly back on her head.  Needless to say, the hat seemed to have an decided air of contrition at this small battle, it gave a little shudder, resigning itself to sitting on the old woman’s head at which it then started to squeeze carefully about her head to complete a snug fit.

          “That is fair enough,” the other two agreed.

          “Give back the hat to Fall,” stated the one called Summer to the old woman.

          Winter thought to herself, it was just starting to fit but she reluctantly handed over the hat to Fall but not before suggesting that since they were shoe shopping that perhaps hats for all would be a good idea.

         

          I am a firm believer that if you want new shoes that you should get them but when I was faced with buying some new boots that might be waterproof, I hesitated.  I balked at the idea of getting them because the ones that I found were not just quite right.  I did buy them, I took them home and then the very next day, I returned them.  They just were not what I was looking for.  

          When I was just waking up the next day as I enjoyed the warmth of my bed, the feel of the sheets against my skin, I thought about the rainy weather that had finally arrived back here on the Oregon coast and I was not without regrets that I had thrown away a pair of very comfortable shoes that I had loved to death.  I had worn them out as I discovered when one of my feet was still very damp after a day in the shoes.  Shoes that had run out into the flooded parking lots, navigated around large puddles of water while we were out doing a public flu clinic. When I had went for a short walk with one of the nurses on a break to see the ocean between storms, my little foot got very wet. It was worth it as the ocean was tossing and churning and hitting the shoreline with great force throwing up foam to rest on the sand. 

          After I had gotten home, had taken off the old dogs, I was able to inspect the bottoms to find out that I now had holes in the soles that had allowed the water to leak in. I handed them to my husband and told him to throw them away.  Really, in our weather here on the coast in winter, what good is a pair of shoes that won’t keep the water out and your feet from becoming damp and wet while wearing them. 

          The good news that in the dark of the night when restless spirits can’t sleep I remembered that I had some good rubber boots sitting in the laundry room that just might be the ticket for dry feet after I checked them for spiders.  Once I was sure that no one had taken up residence in the boots, I tugged then on and out the door I went.  It did not rain all day.  Well, so much for that idea.  I am quite sure that I will have a great need for the boots in the days to come.  I, already have a plastic bag for my other shoes in which to carry them in order to have some shoes to wear in the office besides the boots.  I have given up on my hats and have taken to wearing my hood in the very blustery days of wind and rain that we are having but if I run across four crones with a hat looking for shoes, I might just give them this advice.  No matter how short the time that you think you might have, it is best not to settle for second best.

          Meanwhile, the four women in the woods were gazing at each other as they were now wearing the exact same black shade of clothing on their figures. Spring looked at the others and asked, “Now, can you tell me just why we are wearing these drab outfits and why my hair is stringy and black?”

          “It is called blending, dear,” answered Fall who was straightening her gown when attempting to balance the black hat on her head. “Everyone is dressing up and it just would not do to draw attention to ourselves not if you plan on getting a good bargain on the shoes and it is always about good shopping.”

          “Well, I don’t know why Spring is even included in our group,” complained Winter.  “She doesn’t really qualify as a crone at all, always giving birth, allowing new life to grow.  Summer is barely a crone with her fruiting, her ripening of the fields. Fall is barely a crone of sorts and well, that leaves me nearly all alone and hatless.” Winter glared at Fall as she worked on getting the black hat settled on her head with less difficulty than Winter had had.  

          “LADIES, ladies, “The woman called Summer raised her voice to gain attention. “Let’s go shopping.”

          Here is to shopping with friends who might disagree with some of the things we do but are still willing to shop especially for shoes.  Happy All Hallows Eve.

 

         

         

          

Sometimes a Fly on the Wall

Sometimes a Fly on the Wall

My eyes wander

My ears do not hear

Though the thundering

Of piano keys ring

in this sanctuary of no fear.

            You know how someone will come up to you while you are musing about deep philosophical questions, saying, “I wish I was a fly on the wall.” Always referring to a meeting, a room of potential zombies, or a coffee house filled with devotees clutching their steaming cups of lattes gossiping about just about anything. The meaning behind the saying is a crazy desire to share in the drama of someone’s joy, tragedies, or circumstances that probably has no real meaning to them. 

            I believe that we all have the ability or aptitude to be sometimes a fly on the wall in spirit but really why? As I sit here in this church sanctuary I am a fly on the wall as I sit quietly in a fairly comfortable folding chair listening to someone playing the grand piano just around the corner hidden from my view.  Earlier, I peeked to see a woman with long grey hair intent on her music, I remained hidden content to listen and watch the light play in concert through the stained glass windows as the rain storms come and go allowing a brief blending of light and music in the sanctuary.  I hold my breath and exhale softly as the notes gather strength in my spinal cord expanding my heart and soul. The hidden artist stops and goes on the piano keys seeking perfection in the phrases, the crescendos and various runs of her music. She stops, turning a page and I remain quiet unwilling to break the trance of the music, I am an unknown listener who chanced to stop by a door to enter a haven of notes floating on air that break on the walls, seeping out under the doors, and vibrating the windows while another rain storm beats on the same windows creating a accent to the music being played.

            She stops again, whistling, adjusting her sheets of music before resting her fingers upon the keyboard to begin playing again.  Crescendos, soft notes intermingle with strength despite the turning of a page. Once again when it is quiet I am here, sitting afraid to rustle my paper as I write attempting to remain the fly on the wall.  Silent, out of sight while my mind breaths with the music.  

            Perhaps that is why we seek to be a fly on the wall, to find our perfect music or what we imagine it to be.  I know that I am being more attentive to the vibrations of what keeps me happy sometimes it is simply being quiet.

            When I was in the bathtub this morning, I had a funny thought as I yelled for my husband for what I imagined to be a spider in the water.  Without my glasses, I really could not tell what it might be so I was yelling for my husband to come and dip the spider out of the tub for me.  It was a fuzzy, a toe fuzzy.  But here is the thought as I was thinking about being a fly on the wall. As the fly, I envisioned myself dashing into the water to get the spider out of the tub.  Okay, stop right there and think about just why this scenario would not work.  Fly in water? Fly can’t swim.  Fly will drown.  Plus, generally spiders kill and eat flies.  Unless, the fly is a mutant which leads us to a soon to be released show called Night and Day of the Fly.  

But as I was waiting for my husband to come and rescue me from the imagined spider, I realize how silly I was being for here I was a grown woman sitting in a tub of hot water waiting for her man to come fish the spider out of the tub.  I could have simply gotten out of the tub to fetch something to get the supposed spider out of the tub which incidentally was not moving but rather drifting aimlessly close to my anxious feet and toes.   It was definitely not a real threat here, right? So why, did I cry out to my husband to come and check out whatever was in the tub? Laziness, I suppose, after most of my body was still covered by the warm water and getting out and drying off to enable me to wander about the chilly house without clothes just did not seem to be worthwhile when a husband is at hand.  We are after all a partnership which includes the small things as well as the big things. 

I really don’t have a wish to be a fly on any wall.  I am afraid that I just might miss out what is really happening in my own life but just sometimes being a fly on the wall is just what we need to do to make ourselves stop and listen to the beating of our own heart.

         

In the Warm Suds with Aches and Pains

In the Warm Suds with Aches and Pains

            I like the feeling of the nothingness that water has when you are in it.  A gentle pressure in a large swimming pool or pond when you move your arms and legs about but there is not anything that matches the feeling of a hot tub with bubbles surrounding you as you play with the mountains of knees reaching out from the water, toes seeking air for no reason at all while you soak in the total bliss of comfort.  It is my reward for waking up in the morning and having the following conversation.

            “Why, do you hurt?” This is me asking whatever body part seems to be complaining at the moment.  

            “Come on, answer me.” Once again I am asking the offending part of my body a very simple question. 

            As always, there is dead silence except for an occasional creak or pop from another portion of my body which might possibly be a knee or finger or ankle.  Anymore I really can’t tell though my hearing is still excellent.  I am able to hear the birds outside trilling and chattering in the trees. I notice each separate raindrop as it hits the windows and the wooden shake roof of my house.  But when it comes to being able to pin-point the noise of the various cracks and creaks of my body, I will admit that perhaps my mind and hearing drift away without acknowledging the obvious.

            I met a woman the other day and somehow we got on the subject of our various aches and pains.  She told me that she knew someone that each morning did an inventory of just what part of their body was working. They checked each organ and everything else. I don’t know whether or not it was helping them, keeping them sane or simply just a ideal way of figuring out whether they were still alive or not.  It seems a very good reason for taking inventory if you are in doubt of getting up, getting dressed after standing in front of your closet with the impossible decisions of what to wear for the day and heading out to greet the day because one never knows with the coming possible zombie apocalypse. You just might want to roll back over and go back to sleep that is if you are able. 

            I have found that once I have discovered the pain or discomfort of a part of my body, I will toss and turn in my bed as I begin wondering not only what I might have done the day before, or weeks long past or years beyond memory or is it simply a matter of age?  Yes, I said it.  Age. Could it be that I am getting older?  Well, thank heavens for that.  Really, when you think about it, the chances of reaching any age beyond yesterday is a miracle.

            When I was younger, I had numerous falls out of several wonderful tall cottonwood trees that I had climbed just because I could. Trees that you could hide in among the branches covered with leaves reaching out to the blue sky of summer. There were large branches on which to perch myself enabling me to view the world below as well as the world in the tree I was in. I like the life on the tree, little black ants scurrying along the wooden ash toned bark of the branches, the leaves rustling and moving in the wind.  I never thought that my way of life would have consequences later in life.  To tell the truth, I really did not even think about the next moment or next day.  I was simply there, in the tree after all, where else did I need to be?

            But now, I am older. I am discovering the errors of my youth.  Just perhaps, I should not have had attempted to place the little yellow chick back up into the loft with its mother hen. It earned me a nice backward fall off the ladder onto the dirt below.  I did manage to fling the chick into loft with the straw, the little brown hen and the rest of her brood of cute yellow fuzzy chicks.

            Perhaps, riding double on the horse with a friend was a bad idea since there had been some people hunting pheasants nearby. The guns they fired close to us spooked the horse causing it to buck. My friend ended taking me with her as she flew off the back of the horse. We tumbled to the hard dusty ground complete with cactus scattered here and there.  We missed the cactus but not the hospital. 

            There were a lot of choices that earned me many a serious fall, mostly from the trees that I just could not seem to avoid climbing.  I don’t climb a tree anymore but I do admit that I will go up to share its space, asking the guardian if I can hug it.  Meanwhile, I will hang out in the tub in the suds with my aches and pains.  I will worry about what will be aching on me on another day, leaving me to wonder if my knee, finger or ankle will be talking back.

     

  

"Not my Circus, Not my Monkeys"

“Not my Circus, Not my Monkeys”

          A friend, RM shared this on Facebook, “Not my Circus, Not my Monkeys”. It helped me a great deal as I found that I had been sharing too many circuses as well as way too many monkeys while most of them were definitely not mine.

          When we lived in the world, partake in the living, we often end up with much more than we think that we can handle and I for one was despairing from it, the constant influx of various woes, real or imagined from others and from myself kept hitting on my senses and mind until I had reached a limit and finally starting picking myself up from among the rubble, dusting the reminiscences from the outside  and inside of my soul and began unraveling the threads that had entwined themselves around my heart and had burrowed into the very core of my being.  Enough is enough.  Get over it, past it and walk back to the happy, optimist soul who believed in the divineness of everything and everyone.  That soul was interested in sharing, helping, relishing the days that unfolded in the miracles of the universe.

          But how, how to find the complete faith in miracles that had slipped through cracks that had eroded my being of divine energy. I started in the middle, in the heart, with uncertain steps while I sweep the webs of unquiet, disorderly pieces of chaos out the door, hopefully to never be seen, felt or heard from again.  Optimistic, I hoped so.

          But though it may not always be my circus, sometimes it is still my monkey.  At least that is what my husband and I discovered while our son was working on getting a new apartment with his girlfriend.  Having no job to speak of, he needed information from his parents to show that he was a good risk with his parents’ credit reports, etc to be faxed to the property management. Hence, not my circus but it was definitely my monkey.  Fortunately for both our son and his girlfriend they were able to move into the apartment they wanted without us signing our lives away which we were not willing to do.  Sending dollars his way on occasion was a commitment we were willing and able to do.  Who was it anyway that didn’t mention the lifetime contract between a child and their parents? It is not mentioned anywhere of the numerous circuses that one’s monkey might be in traveling in while winding through the growing process of  being an adult, an independent being who will somehow survive the walk of  life while living on this planet.

          Back to my particular thoughts of the circuses that I feel are revolving about me, how do you get rid of the ache from watching a young friend struggling to keep a happy face through the long days of waiting before facing another ordeal.  You don’t. You can’t if you have a heart with any compassion so you try to remember that their particular painful circus is not yours though in some way it seems that you have acquired another monkey.

          I guess it becomes a matter of stopping before walking out the door, taking a deep breath and setting our intention for the day.  We do have choices.  I am choosing to be happy. I am choosing to allow myself to love me. I am relishing the knowledge that I am a divine expression of God, my divine creator, the goddess or whatever name you might want to place in your mind while creating a healthy space for growing in peace.

          I am back to reading those things that help my frame of mind with positive gifts that anchored my heart, mind and soul in just the right spot for me. By turning off the fears that seems to be everywhere I am achieving high ground where I can sit watching the green blades of grass escaping the earth to carpet the world in my mind.  I can sit back, close my eyes and worship the fragrances of fresh blooming roses of protection that I have seen in visions. By allowing the beauty to flow into my mind and body, I find that I am once again becoming myself of years past.  I liked that woman, her smiles were radiant, her heart was purer and her belief was complete.  I think that I will stay here.  Wish me luck.