Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws

Wild Child

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:37:00 -0700

I exploded into life on May 22, 1952, shooting across the room into the waiting arms of a surprised nurse who wrapped me up, stuck me in a baby bin, and made sure I was fed and rocked at regular intervals until Mama came to. George Leon Ketchum had arrived squirmy screaming and bloody – named George for my father and his, Leon for my mother’s dad. My Daddy was out to dinner when I arrived. He returned to learn the truth about me and went back out to drink. The next day he delivered the bad news to my still groggy mother and they commiserated over their bad luck, deciding to make do with Georgia Lynn.

They always called me Lynn, though, because Georgia just screamed “not George”.

I grew up most of the way in the Rogue River valley. Our play yard was vast, consisting of rivers, creeks, meadows, pastures, orchards, fields and wild forests. My best playmates were big sister Janet (the first family disappointment) and our beloved black lab mix named Blackie. When Dad went to hit us we could dive for the dog, and he’d growl and bare his teeth. After awhile Daddy figured out to tie up the dog first.

By the end of every summer I was brown from the sun, with calloused bare feet, brown hair streaked with golden light. I had gashes and gouges healing into scars from our toys at hand – trees to climb, rocks to pitch, slopes to scramble up, fences, old barns. I recall running “like an Indian” with irregular steps, trying to move swift and silent. Mama used to tell me she was going to ship me off to the reservation with the other wild Indians. I remember snaking out into high grass and patting down a circle. Hidden, on my back, chewing on sweet grass, staring at the sky, imagining. Once found, blissful enjoyment might be interrupted by a bath, a dress, stupid lacy socks, ridiculous shoes. I’d get dragged to church, or to visit some relative, and hear constant variations of, “Georgia LYNN! Sit still. Don’t get dirty. Stop picking at that. Keep your shoes on. BE STILL!” And I would try to wiggle out of the scratchy nice clothes and shoes and dream oh dream of being on that reservation with my wild kin.

Continuum

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 00:04:00 -0700

I am a grandmother. Waited a long time for this. Practiced a lot. It is a good kind of person to be. Eli’s grandmother. He is so beautiful. Rosy, sweet, soft, present. A rumble of physicalness in flow. He’s so overtaken by a sneeze, a sound, a fart, and nursing - godsmacked by nursing.

My child is such a great mother. Relaxed, real, a little anxious, a lot falling in love with her child.

And here I am again, falling in love with her in a new way.

In search of...

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 21:14:22 -0700

April 4, 2012 I quit my job with the state. Now my state is happy summer. Hoping for the best. Seeing what’s next. Enjoying my new grandson. Unemployment won’t take me but I can’t seem to apply for work anyway. In search of a human living.

Imperfect bits....yum.

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:22:00 -0800

Homemade hand mixed, hand rolled noodle dough is very satisfying to make. Gentle coaxing and ignoring the imperfect bits are the most important elements. Other than that - flour and eggs.

Strange Business

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 12:42:00 -0800

You sit here for days saying
This is strange business.
You have the energy of the sun in you,
but you keep knotting it up
at the base of your spine.

You’re some kind of weird kind of gold
that wants to stay melted
in the furnace, so you won’t have to
become coins.

Say ONE in your lonesome house.
Loving all the rest is hiding
inside a lie.

You’ve gotten drunk on so many kinds of wine.
Taste this. It won’t make you wild.
It’s fire.
Give up, if you don’t understand by this time
that your living is firewood.

This wave of talking builds.
Better
we should not speak,
but let it grow within.

From: The Illustrated Rumi, Coleman Barks

Xmas

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:54:00 -0800

My family is beautiful. The ducks on the pond are beautiful. The sunshine and blue skies of Xmas Eve were beautiful. The gray misty coolness of Xmas Day is beautiful. The shiny rain slick holly and berries are beautiful. The cedars swaying in the breeze are beautiful. My daughters laughing in the kitchen are beautiful. My husband napping in the next room is beautiful. My son in law reading by the Xmas Tree is beautiful. The friends who danced this morning are beautiful. The Shakti Sanctuary Kundalini Women are beautiful. The Sisters of the Good Death are beautiful. The slipping by of sweet time is beautiful. The sing along Fiddler on the Roof at the Olympia Film Society is beautiful. Gayle and Nick are beautiful, wrapped in love and light, are beautiful. Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws is beautiful.

Why

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:44:00 -0800

Why:

Love and Shadow in the Occupy Movement - Michael Stone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2akehtL-Ac&feature=share

And now for our show

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:33:00 -0700

Wrap up in a garment of love and present yourself to the world. Your gift is just you, right here, right now, as you are. My nose is runny, my self esteem is shaky, my love is big and awkward, I am too self centered. This is my gift to you, I am willing to be seen, so that we can see you. We need to make it real. Right. Now. Talk to me.

It's Ours

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 23:43:04 -0700

Walked around the tent city, home of Occupy Olympia. Felt good, like the sixties, like making a difference. So many different perspectives…an old union organizer, a young anarchist, lots of young families with little kids… All trying to balance being heard with listening. All with the same reason to be there: it’s ours, and we’re claiming it. Saw a sign by some chairs that said Elder Circle. That’s where we’ll sit.

sttarlight: via

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 23:57:45 -0700

sttarlight:

via

What I Will Miss

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:25:59 -0700

When I die, I will miss the quilts my Grandmother made. She left behind so many quilts for us. From Washington DC to the West Coast, up and down the Mississippi River, little girls and middle women and old ladies and me are curling up like cats, stretching out our toes, under the quilts hand pieced, stitched together, and quilted by my Grandmother and her friends, from pieces of their dresses, baby clothes, front room curtains, husband’s shirts, lives.

When I die, I will miss how honey smells, like a hot, drowsy summer day lying on mossy grass sprinkled with purple and white bee flowers. Bumbly black and yellow bees collecting golden pollen in the sacs on their back legs until they droop and fly crazy with a list in the dripping sweet sunlight back to the fresh, quiet, green shady retreat of their mysterious homes which I never see, but honey smells like that.

I will miss the shade of blue the sky gets on a cold January afternoon at dusk, when the day is not quite gone but night has not yet arrived, like faded washed out indigo deepening for moments and when I forget to look suddenly dark. The way sunlight sparkles on frost in the morning makes me believe in magic and faeries. How puddles glaze over with cracked starburst patches is deeply mysterious. I will miss that magic.

I found a leaf, fallen months ago, a huge maple leaf with all the green leafness gone, wintered away, frozen out. What remained was a spidery filigree of leaf bones. What was not there was past, dead, done. But those delicate bones…this is hopeful. That the essence crumbles away to nothing but the quilts or the bones still define the part that lived.

My father died. His cigar I do not miss, but I do miss the belligerent persistence with which he smoked. I saw his spidery filigree of bones when the bugler played Taps, and a breeze suddenly arose from the still air, lofted the flag held above his empty casket by Marines in dress blues. The bones lifted the breeze that blew across my face, his last touch on my cheeks, and the faces of my sisters and daughters. The bones live in the old clock, the big blue Masonic Bible, in my sister’s bull headedness, my daughter’s quick intuition. But mostly the bones live in the breeze that stirs through the eddies of Puget Sound in Honeymoon Bay between Baby Island and Verlane’s oyster beds by Eleanor’s house, who lent us her boat to row out and dump the ashes of my father in his favorite place.

When I die, I will miss the wind singing through the tree tops and camping by a creek wide and deep and swift enough to wade up and float down until my body aches from the joy of wading up and floating down, turning brown in the sun, my body feeling aches and delights and the sweet sounds reminding me who I am.

Jellies!

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:06:00 -0700

Jellies!

Dances With Worms

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:55:57 -0700

I danced as one with worms last night. Blind, assured, ingesting what’s in front of me, timeless, circular, muscular, soft, willing. Just resting in what I do without effort or thought. This simple process creates the soil that is the basis for life on our planet. Just being a lowly worm doing what I do.

Who I am, blind to other realities, trusting, being, expressing without effort. In my own time, my own way, dancing with worms, ingesting what’s in front of me, creating the essence that is the basis for life on our planet. As important as that, just from the worm dance.

How life is.

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 23:55:00 -0700

How life is.

Fortunate Cookie

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 23:22:59 -0700

“It is time to learn to dance in the rain, and stop waiting for the sun.”

Where I live, it is cold and rainy about 308 days a year. So, I’m dancing.

Nonviolent Communications

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:15:53 -0700

I am going to investigate this book. What a great way to engage the world - with boundaries, with I statements, with no words that create a victim. Practical advice. http://www.cnvc.org/bookstore/cnvc-store-printed-items.

Communications is not about making others understand, it is about understanding myself.

Arts Walk

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 21:57:00 -0700

Olympia has some beautiful things, like Arts Walk twice a year. I bought a bowl from Trudes that is for burning guilt. I admired pottery labia with flowers made by Kendra. Burning trees by Duncan. Drank some wine and listened to a guitarist sing his cojones off. Anna got an el tigre tee shirt, orange on black. Saw Chandra, met Dominic. Beautiful but real, like that.

Down in the dumps

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 22:14:00 -0700

Ever been down in the dumps? It’s a strange place. Nobody is on my side. Nobody got my back. Then, I get a good night’s sleep, and suddenly everyone loves me. I am looking forward to that part.

Goodbye, Mr. Jobs

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:36:00 -0700

“…you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

~Steve Jobs

Why is it?

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:39:23 -0700

Why is it that as we grow older we look for signs that say we are not enough? Why is my inner two year old scarfing ice cream? Related?