Gaia Knocks

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

Gaia knocks at the window.

I sit at my desk and stare into a screen of

chicken scratch letters on a snowy field. 

The keys feel like river pebbles rubbed smooth from eons of erosion. 

Beside me is a maple bowl turned by a local craftsman which holds my crystals —

Tree agate, Bloodstone, Selenite, Snowflake Obsidian,

Labradorite, Carnelian, Sodalite —

the vibrations of a million years of terrestrial pressure collecting dust while I

focus on work that will be forgotten tomorrow. 

I rub my hand across the laminated desk top and yearn for wood. 

I will get no splinters tonight. 

I have not seen the moon and could not tell you if it is

full or new, waxing or waning. 

Knowing that would have been the work of my ancestors,

those noble souls who built Stonehenge

and sang songs to Brighid

and marked their bodies with triple spirals

to honor maiden, mother, crone.

 

I sit at my desk, my back to the window,

and click-clack the chicken scratch.

Gaia knocks with a ping on the glass.

I respond without looking,

“We need the rain.”

Barry and Liz Chat It Up

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

CNN was abuzz last night about all the protocol the Obamas would have to follow to meet Queen Elizabeth.  Fortunately, they were not required to bow.  Apparently American citizens don’t have to bow to the Queen of England.

But there were other considerations.  They were not to speak until the Queen spoke first.  They were not to touch the Queen.  When they met the Queen, she would stick her hand out first to greet them, and then they could reach their hands out to shake hers.   They were to never have their backs to the Queen.  In their private audience, the Queen would leave the room first or walk out with them in order to avoid this horrible event that would probably cause the worlds to stop turning in at least eight different universes.

I’m a quasi- Anglophile.  I’m about as interested in all things British as any good English Literature major.   I admire the fact that the Brits have managed to keep a monarchy going for a bejillion-and-a-half years, and I can be moved by tradition, pomp, and circumstance as much as the next rebellious Yank.   But, I cannot help but hear the above ridiculous protocol for a President of the United States (for god’s sake) meeting the Queen of England without rolling my eyes and letting fly with a very American “Good grief.”  Get over yourself, Bess.

Perhaps it’s simply my baseball and apple pie showing, but it goes against every liberty-loving cell of my body to hear the news of ANYBODY bowing to ANYBODY, with the singular exception of curtain-call time on Broadway.

I see two ways the British Monarchy can continue to be relevant:

1)   Skip right past Charles and have William’s coronation.  Tomorrow.

2)  Figure out some way to convince Elizabeth to join the 20th Century (Yes, I mean 20th; even I’m not enough of an optimist to think she could make the leap all the way to the 21st).

God Save the Queen.  From her own pomposity.

Yin-Yang Economics

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

For the past few years, I’ve used credit cards as an emergency fund.

Boy, when it’s in black and white, it sounds really stupid, huh?  But, I don’t have piles of cash laying around, and sometimes piles of cash are required.  As an independent contractor, I have to pay my own taxes.  Although I have tried to be good and pay them quarterly in the past, that is often a challenge as well.  So this year I didn’t.  And this year I need a pile of cash.  And this year the economy sucks and credit has been clamped down tight.

Every one of my credit cards has had the credit limit reduced to just what I owe, and several of them have threatened to raise the interest rate to an ungodly figure if I didn’t agree to make no more charges and close the account.  I would wonder what the hell happened to my pristine credit if it weren’t for the fact that this same thing has happened to almost everybody I talk to.  Likely it has happened to you as well.

A few years back, I saw the actress Sharon Stone on some television show, probably The Today Show or something like that.  She was talking about the stroke she had experienced a few years before.  She said, and I am greatly paraphrasing, but this is the gist — she didn’t start to really heal until she stopped resisting it and instead embraced her stroke as one of the best things that had ever happened to her.  She believes that everything happens to serve her, so her stroke must have happened to serve her as well.   It was a powerful interview, and I remembered it because it had such an impact on me and also because I agreed with her.

I’ve thought about that interview a lot the last few weeks.  I’ve thought about it as I hear people bitching and moaning and fretting over the financial situation.   (Before I get flooded with responses from angry people, please know that I recognize there are many people going through very challenging times and really, really hurting right now.  Please, feel free to bitch and moan if it helps you.)   But, I’ve never believed that helps.  In fact, I believe it exacerbates the situation because so much energy is focused on “how bad it is.”

I decided this week to embrace the economy and the credit clamp-down as one of the best things that has ever happened to me.  I’ve been vowing to pay off credit cards for years.  Now, thanks to the credit crunch, I have support from the universe in doing that very thing!   I’ve been swearing that I was going to stop putting ANYTHING on credit, but always found “one exception” that I could somehow justify.  Now, thanks to the credit crunch, I will work out a payment plan with the tax man that does not involve Visa or Visa’s interest rates.  Golly, you mean there were options all this time???

I have so many things to be grateful for.  My job (both of them).  My house.  My partner.  Our family of humans and animals.  Free eggs come fall when the Dragon Bliss Chicken Herd reaches maturity.

And the credit crunch.

Thanks to the powers that be for ALWAYS looking out for me.

Springing

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

First the daffodils.

Then the tulips.  Red, yellow, pink. 

Lettuce is crisping in the cool morning air.

The cucumber magnolia sends out tiny shoots at the end of each branch.

The sycamores will make a late grand entrance, but until then there are the oaks, hackberries, and redbuds getting back to business. 

The cedar and cyprus have held a green vigil through the dark death of winter, but now they catch the fever and dance a little perkier in the breeze. 

The pine will start new quills to write the lovesongs of robins and chickadees, bluejays and cardinals.

Lavender, oregano, and mint are suddenly alive again.  

Rosemary dresses up and puts on her perfume. 

Hyacinths are bursting blue.  

 

The wheel will turn and spring will

become summer

become fall

become winter.

          But today is spring,

And I am bursting blue.