Drunk on Power

I had to attend a court hearing with someone the other day. I have not been in a court of law in say, twenty something years. I walked in and was immediately approached by the police officer on duty, and she said ‘take those off your head’ and I looked at her dumb struck.

‘What on earth is on my head that is so offensive?'

‘Your eye glasses, take them off now!'

Okay, I thought to myself and folded my reading glasses and stuck them looped into the front of my shirt so that I could locate them again. I did not understand why my eye-glasses offended her, but I thought, okay, we’ll let it slide.

I sat down with my backpack full of books, pens and writing pad as I am in the middle of writing two papers for the end of term, the end of term is now and it is starting to stress me a bit, so I thought well, in case this takes some time I will use it to my benefit and work on my papers.

I was right, it took three hours and a bit. But, as I pulled my pens out of my back pack and set my books and papers beside me, the police officer swooped down on me again.

‘You can’t write in a court of law,’ she shouted at me.

I said nothing and put the pens into my back pack and sat there for a few minutes thinking about this. So, you cannot write, perhaps it is so you won’t write down sensitive information. Okay, it’s a privacy issue, fair enough. Even though I had no intention of writing down what I heard, but simply what I was studying about. I felt I had figured out the pens, but I still felt perplexed about the eye-glasses on top of my head. Okay, I think I will just read then, perhaps she won’t mind if my eye-glasses are on my face as I can see lots of other people with them on.

I managed half a paragraph of Bruno Latour’s Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory and suddenly I have the same police officer in my face again...

‘You can’t read in a court of law’, she shouted at me, because obviously by now, I am looking dumber than most of the other folk all staring at me with shocked faces.

‘What pray tell might I do in a court of law’? I asked indignantly.

‘You can sit there and that’s all.’

‘Well, no wonder the world is full of illiterate criminals,’ I bellowed.

And, with that she left me alone as I threw my eye glasses back onto the top of my head and challenged her to arrest me for having four eyes ill equipped to read or write with!

This is a sad state of affairs when the world is more concerned about a fifty-five year old graduate student trying to write her Master’s theses when simply accompanying someone to court for moral support. I should have expected it though, I was a support person for someone convicted of stealing her own stuff, and that didn’t seem to matter to the legal system either...all I saw that day was an institution that has turned into nothing but a revenue generating facility drunk on power.

I remember thinking as I left...I will WRITE ABOUT THIS!

How My Garden Grows this Spring 2011 in Christchurch, New Zealand

There is a pot in my garden that reflects how radically hysterical I can feel on some days...

And then, you can open my secret garden gate and behold my neighbour's wysteria...

Or walk on out upon a trail of petals...

But, I suggest you come back in from time to time and help watch my garden grow as it appears to be a good show this season...

I have decided to use this space as an ongoing diary for the many fruits and vegetables (and nuts, of all kind!) that my husband Clark, and my daughter Kasey and I are all committed to growing for pleasure, consumption and just to watch sometimes...and, for my family and folks back home...here is a little message that never sleeps...from me to 'y'all'....

WATCH THIS SPACE from time to time...it will GROW....Love, K

FIRST GARDEN STORY: HOW MY POPPIES GROW

What if the noise you make is the last thing someone else ever hears?
Will it bring comfort, or simply make them glad it is the last chance someone has to perform upon their world?

Criticisms and over-revved engines are proliferating this world, this world we all share for however long one gets to. Sometimes, it feels too long, sometimes not long enough, but always that depends a lot on what you HEAR...

I struggle to quiet the noise of my world, living on a corner in Christchurch wherein everything has sped up since the beginning of earthquakes. A lot of traffic has been diverted to the street I live on surrounding my garden and since Christchurch was always a city wherein the birds could be heard, they are still there, but mostly muffled by over-revved engines and discouraging words.

I cannot say those last two words without hearing the song “Home on the Range” in my head, so automatically I dream of living somewhere else where the ‘deer and the antelope play’, but I take my past ‘plug-ins’ and beat them back with my hard earned education and what do I have left...

“Silence is Golden” begins to play in my head!

And, the remonstrations of my past perfect parents, “If you don’t have something nice to say, say nothing at all”...but then, who would get to talk these days?! Or, so it appears, but I say...

Take a walk in your garden and find new ways to phrase the things that make you feel negatively. Bloom a language that will make life less difficult for the hearer, water the words that will bring more growth, pluck the words that threaten the opposite by simply not using them anymore...if those things go unsaid, they seem to disappear....

And, if not, and you recognize that these things still need to be discussed, THEN, try pure description rather than critique of any kind...
For today, every time you go to criticize another person or thing, STOP AND ASK YOURSELF:

How can I describe this person or situation without criticizing at all?

It’s a new game I am playing with myself, and the few times I have managed to truly pull it off, I could actually see the poppy growing taller...of course, there will always be poppies that need some propping up...be a friend, give them a kind of descriptive place to reside, rather than a criticism and see what blooms inside your garden, the one on the busy street with all the revved up engines...

I think it more than a little ironic that my red poppy is propped up by the recycling bin...


Wed 26 Oct 2011

I would be remiss if I did not share some photos from my extended garden of Hagley Park in Christchurch, New Zealand. We have more to talk about than just earthquakes...

Though it was a grey day, and few people out, the flowers were, like most survivors of human and non-human manipulations...extraordinary!

GROW ON...CHRISTCHURCH!!! There's nothing more to say...

Thoughts About Facebook

In one of the classes I take, university students admitted to having difficulties completing their papers because of the pull of Facebook. One student admitted to deleting themselves entirely off Facebook as the only solution to keep ‘enough focus’ to write a paper. Many more nodded in agreement.

I do not struggle to stay off Facebook, I struggle to stay on it. But then, I am a fifty-five year old student of life. The students telling me they struggle to stay off Facebook are another wave, generation, workforce, next group of leaders, thinkers, contributors, actors, rehabilitators, reactionaries, respite and/or mighty mess makers of our collective future.

Is this a problem? Probably yes and no, like so many things we have begun to equalize and rationalize as necessary parts of our every day experiences. My friend that came to visit me was quietly texting someone else under the dining room table. My reaction might certainly be different on Facebook instead of ‘in your face’, to be sure, because I grew up when it was a sign of being rude to give your attention to anything other than the person you came to visit. I believe my friend now prefers to greet me virtually and not physically. Come to think of it, I do not hear anything from this friend anymore. I forged a new set of manners by telling my friend to their face what I thought about texting someone else while visiting with another.

I can share that my ‘focus’ and ‘uninterrupted periods of time’ are generally interrupted by things like friends with failing health, birthdays, deaths, children with psychological traumas, over-active children, just plain intelligent children, women, men, dogs, cats, birds, flowering plants, vegetables and fruit trees, all in need of a little attention that distracts me from ‘enough focus’ and punctuates my periods of time, but then, they don’t derail me like Facebook can to the student trying to finish a complex paper, they make me grow, expand, and create a space and time worth being in so I care enough to write the paper in the first place.

Facebook is the new hyper-active kid on the block, and it is time we all decided just how much time we need to spend with this new friend, as opposed to all our old friends like reading, writing and arithmetic, and uh, physical family and friends.

I am talking to a tune of ‘a disappearance’ from our society, that disappearance being the one called ‘solitude’. The capacity to be alone and at peace with one’s self in order to do or think about anything worthwhile, profound and not just responsive, as instant communications and quick information overload creates immediate and un-lasting results. No ‘solitude’, no class paper. No ‘solitude’, no new ideas. No ‘solitude’ no healing, epiphanies, and rejuvenation. Feeling pitted, plastered, knackered, disjointed? Then, you are too plugged in. ‘Turn off’ is the newest form of music for our ears. Seek solitude, and visit Facebook once a week or once a day, but by all means, control it, not it control us and NEVER at the expense of what is right in front of our faces, minus the electronic devices.

‘Solitude’ is a necessary environment which gives birth to ‘enough focus’ through ‘uninterrupted periods of time’ so that any student can write a paper at university level. Toss in the thousands of electronic texts shot toward the rising generation, the blinking boxes on our computers, cell phones and television sets and try to follow the translations of dis-ease caused by connecting with everyone at one time and not with one’s own mind, wherein students of any age stay off the page, otherwise known as not ‘focused enough’, creating the voids we are all beginning to FEEL, but find it hard to explain. Am I making sense? I think I am, but chances are, there is no one out there to respond with, we all just went a ‘twittering’ off somewhere else I suspect, once again.

Write. Write enough to find some new and different ideas to explore, that is why we go to a place to learn, to discuss different ideas, the place we discuss those with ourselves is in the space of silence, or while writing to one’s self, like this. I bet you thought this writing was for you, well, it is mostly for myself, but if it helps you, too, I am happy for that, but when I write, I write to find out what in fact I think about deep enough and strongly enough to WRITE about and push publish.

I care about the pull of Facebook; I care enough to have a sign in my office that says INTERNET ONLY from this time to this time, and after that, none of it!

Do I always adhere? No, but I do try and I am very conscious of the pull of not just Facebook, but anything and everything that will subtract me from myself for too long and thereby turn me into someone who points my finger toward another break in my solitude that then prohibits my showing up for myself at all.

Who amongst us can truly learn anything without deep contemplation, re-collecting all the information that has been blasted at us. We need to take the time to deconstruct, then reconstruct information so that we can achieve some kind of rational goal, like peace, like quiet.

I find that to be the single thing I desire from any experience, peace, and how hard that is when plugged into too many electronic devices that control my input and output in and to the world at large. If I cannot wait to go post the fact that I just made a new batch of cookies, the kind you really eat, and not the kind that attach themselves to me when I am online, then, perhaps it is time to take a decided Facebook holiday, contemplate and think up a new recipe to share, out there, all over the place, all at one time to everyone, this should be important stuff we stop the world in order to share, right?

And, the only reason I have for being on Facebook is that it is the major place I can find someone I know who might respond back to me. I have only one friend left who will write me an email, a letter, and, the rest of the world has simply disappeared into Facebook.

If you can’t beat them you have to join them is my syndrome I tell myself, but then lying in bed at night and the last thing my daughter says to me is ‘do you have your cell phone on you?’ and this happens now, and once, not so very long ago, like a reverse fairy story, it didn’t happen at all, I was not wired for sound but I liked the world better when I held a meaningful conversation with you, and not every day, but only when it was ‘our’ time to be together, now suddenly, we are all sick with one another’s problems at the exact same time through Facebook.

Turn this off now and go THINK about something. Write it down and send it to me, I will read it when 'I decide', which might be once a day, early in the morning and then OFF. After that, there is no room for technology in my life unless there is an earthquake to report on instantly to ease distant minds.

I am committed to being consciously alive, safeguarding my own 'solitude' and finishing this term of papers so I can come back to the wider world, but with boundaries in place, not just on Facebook, but fully present and fully un-present, whatever the case may be, depending on my own need for 'solitude'.

Enough is enough. Facebook needs self monitoring. Just do it! And, I just did.

Two Weeks in America (Not Long Enough)

I have lived in New Zealand for nine years now. And, it helps to be specific and say, Christchurch, New Zealand, as now, I live in a place that feels continuously dangerous on many levels. Any level over ground level feels dangerous when you are plagued with the mountain building a country can do when it is having earthquakes and aftershocks nearly every day, many times a day, without any way to predict, and/or eradicate them.
So, two weeks in America was sounding good for a change, and I had important people in my life to catch up with.

Needful to say, I would be travelling back to my original home during two marked anniversaries. One year from the original earthquake in Christchurch and ten years on from 9/11. It has been a shocking decade for me; it has been a shocking decade for most people. I am here to tell you it makes no difference what you are afraid of; FEAR is a democratic e-motion that propels seemingly sane people into insane head spaces, fear is now our common enemy when we take off our shoes and empty our pockets to board every airplane anywhere in the world. All our spaces have become homogenized by fear.

And yet, what I found living at grass roots level all over the United States, where ever I went, was not fear at all, but the stuff that made me realize once again, America is a truly strong country, not because of anything more outstanding and important than its PEOPLE.

I have to tell you American PEOPLE, I was truly impressed with the lot of you. And, not just because you were already important to me, as you are and always will be, but because I had an opportunity to peek into your lives rather quickly and on the fly with not much opportunity for you to change any existing situation, altercation, lifestyle choice, or the colour of your walls, your walls all seemed the same in one profound way, they were all still standing and without one single exception, built with LOVE.

I was LOVED on by ex-husbands, ex-step children, friends I had not seen in a shocking decade and even longer, taxi drivers, waiters and waitresses, my own children and theirs, strangers on street corners and even those I had altercations with due to jet lag and the inability to wear my own shoes, other Americans offered me their shoes instead.

America, you are amazing and gifted with the profoundest capacity to spread the most powerful e-motion yet. Your rootstock e-motion is not one of fear, but of LOVE. This profound capacity is your major Major, which equips you with the arms to end all wars poured out onto your mediated heads. I stand in awe of you, now from a distance and reconcile why on earth I would ever live anywhere else, if but not for a chance, to spread the LOVE somewhere else.

And, I have no fear left in me that you might not always be the greatest nation on this planet as long as you remember to LOVE all others the way you loved on me for two weeks in America.

Thank you one and all, you KNOW who you are, and you KNOW what to do, and ‘y’all’ do it better than anywhere else I have ever been. It is in this way that Americans are truly EXCEPTIONAL. Keep living it, it is not a dream, it is your reality that makes all the difference and can be the best ‘wildfire’ of all.....xoxoxo, yours always!

Thoughts on the Course of a Year

I have tried to remain faithful to writing something here every week since the earthquakes became such a large part of our lives here in Christchurch nearly a year ago. It was an act of fearlessness. To write some of my thoughts and put into a public forum, was in fact for me, a very frightening adventure.

Each time I push publish, I hold my breath.

Will I offend someone? Will I push someone over the edge of ambivalence to outright hating me or my mushy mind? It took an act of nature to make me not really give a damn. I had witnessed my own mortality, as well as the mortality of many friends and fellow Cantabrians. Life had become uncertain in the extreme sense of the word.

I still hold my breath. But, I push send anyway and hope that those who read, will read between the lines and guess that I am simply trying to discover a voice that might one day be consistent enough to write a complete version of many of the things I have only touched on.

Things like...morals (and not the prescribed ones, but those found through searching the self)...honesty (the kind that comes with confessing beliefs, or the lack of such, in the face of known consensus amongst friends, family and others)...passion (the kind that embraces activities other than sex)...confessions (the kind that reveals long withheld thoughts that I did not want to die without giving text)...

I use to be very afraid of technology and what might happen to me if I put myself 'out there'...meaning here...where others might inspect and find me lacking, confused, or worse...just plain boring. And, I admit, I am all of these things and more, but what is nice now, thanks to all the rocking and rolling with truly no where to run...

I am proud of myself for simply showing up, when the most appealing course of action was to run away and hide.

Petulant Princesses

I have seen a phenomenon that drove me back to university studies in my fifties. I use to have some very ‘airy fairy’ ways of describing this thing I saw/see/saw that troubles me even more now that I have learned new names to call it. For now, I will revert to a descriptive metaphor, ‘Petulant Princesses’, that suddenly came to mind while I was ranting about the need for lobotomies to a friend of mine who has her own Petulant Princess to thwart her family’s existence.

These are young women who openly ‘eat’ their mothers and some ‘others’ for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but most assuredly their mothers are the most palatable and the easiest to chew. Unconsciously these 'fire-y' maidens understand who is the most powerless, and I cannot say as I blame them, I am just trying to learn how to live through the uprising I have seen/see/seen happen right before my eyes to other mothers and me who cannot justify the extreme hostility that is reflected back at us.

Young women today are very angry. And, not just a little bit, but they have had a ‘bloody guts full’ and unfortunately, the only people they know they can take it out on, is ‘Mommy Dearest’. After all, if you cannot trust anyone to treat you as an equal across the game board, who needs a Queen? She may be powerful in chess, but that is the only place she is and this is obviously finally becoming a very big problem. Thankfully, but ouch!

It all began a long time ago, but Petulant Princesses do not KNOW this, they think their own mothers just now invented it, their loss of power. And, this powerlessness has some very ugly ramifications that are displayed in outright rage that clouds even the most educated minds at times, and to a childish and uneducated woman, has little if no opportunity to be expressed without many psychological slaughters, defamation of character and turmoil that will certainly finish the ‘nuclear family’, but then, perhaps losing the ‘nuclear family’ is not such a bad thing?

Personally, I am very happy for the many gay men and women brave enough to want to raise children these days. There is something to say about the strength of character it takes to come out and live authentically in a world wherein a 'fatwa' exists just as much in a Christian nation as in Islam. Unfortunately, I pity anyone raising a Petulant Princess, they have no loyalties to anyone and take no prisoners, they just leave bloody guts and mayhem, so inexperienced are they to their new powers of mobility with no real power at all.

However, even a great education does not preclude these consequences in some instances; Alice Walker’s daughter has done a good job of showing the world just how far a Petulant Princess can go to get a toe-hold within a world that is still, bottom line, a patriarchal society. I ache from and for this phenomenon, perhaps we are not so far away from collectively crying out and saying, “I will give my Petulant Princess in exchange for a Kingdom’.

From Private Beach to Public Nudity

Okay, I cannot hide it any further. I am one of THOSE.

I began my life with a decided thirst for TRUTH, to discover there was a short supply. Mostly, there are numerous, conflicting, life threatening, mind numbing, irrational, unfounded (but, traditionally held) BELIEFS.

A BELIEF is not a reality. In fact, all BELIEFS are based on MYTH, facts are something that by simple definition can be rationally held by everyone who is alive.

However, more and more, I see people stepping up to act on BELIEFS, just like Anders Behring Breivik who make reality a living hell for an entire ‘fact-less’ planet.

For those who BELIEVE that Breivik's actions can in any way be justified, I hold a very special place in my mind that says, I am sorry you are so sick inside to not be able to balance the too much information you have received from so many sick, amalgamated, cluster-f***ed BELIEFS.

Our BELIEFS are now globalized, televised, and...becoming actualized so that we can all see the results of BELIEFS and their manifestations...

DEATH by those who take them as TRUTH.

I can think of no BELIEF worthy enough to take another’s life. I think people have lost something very important when they resort to violence to provoke, or worse, to protect a world they merely BELIEVE in.

Much of the world has lost control of one very potent mental function...they have lost their IMAGINATIONS, so busy are they BELIEVING something.

John Lennon knew how to IMAGINE properly.

Anders Behring Breivik lost his IMAGINATION to an irrational web of BELIEFS that should frighten anyone to entertain. And, how much more do we all need to WITNESS, before we turn off the pipeline of information that shovels BELIEFS into us instantaneously...

Turn off the pipeline...turn off the television, the mediated spaces, the fascination... and WRITE down your own BELIEFS...take a good look at them, and PUSH DELETE on most of them...especially the ones that tell you this...

That you are in some way more special, more enlightened, more saved, better off, smarter, wiser...AND/OR...that you are the opposite of any of these things.

BELIEVE the only thing you can prove...you are alive.

Many Norwegian youths cannot say that today. They were killed by Breivik for their BELIEFS, because of his BELIEFS...and, to throw ours into the mix to justify and or vilify is simply the destruction of more life. Just like every army in the world sets out to do...KILL those who do not share their BELIEFS, we each do the same by pushing a BELIEF of any kind upon anyone.

This is the result of globalized mediation. The media keeps the hellish fires burning, to fascinate us. And, who cannot be fascinated by this very well laid out script of BELIEFS that Breivik has left for the world to munch on?

I would suspect the answer to that is no one.

Even I have to write about it. But, what I can DECIDE to do is give no more responses to his fallacious BELIEFS and state nothing but the FACTS.

The FACTS are simple and few.

Beivik lost his mind.

He killed a lot of people because he lost his mind to BELIEFS.

The only thing any of us can DO about it...is INVESTIGATE our own BELIEFS and see if we hold any that might prove as destructive as his did...and, if we do...

Push delete...literally and quickly.

Then, IMAGINE something better.

This is not easy to do in overly mediated spaces. Sometimes it means you must walk on a beach alone, with only one person to THINK through.

But, THINK, you must.

What can I prove to be true?

And, if I cannot prove what I BELIEVE, perhaps it does not serve me or anyone else on this planet to BELIEVE in it.

Most of the people on the planet today... simply BELIEVE something that has been handed to them, something time worn, something traditional, something that goes back for generations, BUT...is still no more REAL than Santa Claus.

IMAGINE something different...it’s easy if you try.

And then, don’t BELIEVE it to be TRUTH either, but do everything possible to make it a reality as long as it leaves things just as you are, and just as I am...alive and happy to be so.

And for those who KNEW the victims of BELIEF by Breivik, I hope you will be capable of imagining PEACE, LOVE and HARMONY one day...I know it will be one of the hardest things you might ever have to do, but I employ you to try...and, my promise to you is this...I will try, too.

A Bay With My Name On It

Parading the roads on Saturday I accidently found a bay to tuck into without ever thinking of leaving.

When I finally left this sheltered place it was like being unplugged from a miraculous event. A bay as of yet, not too discovered or encroached upon by two legged creatures, and only about an hour and fifteen minutes drive out of Christchurch.

This bay with black sand and floating golden castles amongst the trees next to the sea of turquoise blinding my memory of anything else, I stood amazed, fell to my knees, sat in place, I tried to take photos and only a third would appear, the shutter to my camera lens, was like I, blown away by the unanticipated love affair.

I found my place to negotiate my need to flee Christchurch. A place I can arrive at easily and contemplate the natural aspects of life that sometimes feels as if they might roll over me like the pounding surf.

In this place of shelter the sea feels moderated by the distinct absence of golden sand, the black sand juxtaposing the drift wood like ancient bones with so many stories to tell me...the golden aspects in the cliffs peaking through the trees like ancient cathedrals welcoming me to worship my own appreciation of nature.

I sat listening and made a vow to return often, to make it my own place of refuge and ordered pilgrimage. This bay shall have no name for now. It is a private beach with my name on it.

I Met My Goddess

I awoke this morning and revelled in my FEAR-LESS-NESS.

At the prompting of a goddess, I joined a Yoga class that seems to put me back into my right body mind, of being cautious, without being terrified.
Apparently, the body stores fear in places that is released with simple stretches and breathing properly.

When I was young, I could not feel the immediate results of Yoga, but now that I am the same age as a speed sign in America and recently traumatized by living in 'earthquake alley'--I can instantly feel relief after a Yoga session that dislodges energy packets stuck in my body through fear. Fear sucks the life out of you. Yoga helps.

Witnessing what Yoga has done for a woman I am privileged to help take care of in the latter stages of MS, has made a profound impression upon me. Her practises with Yoga before becoming housebound and wheelchair bound are a direct result of how well she controls her own life now, from a body space with little mobility left to her hands and none to her feet.

But, oh, her mind...her mind is liberated!

I have not worked for this woman long, but already, she has done more to improve my life than any other person I have ever met.

She is my Tuesdays with Morrie experience and has taught me that knowing how to die...is knowing how to live.

It has been a transformational time, which simply means, I get to leave something behind and claim something else that might or might not be new, but was certainly buried deep inside me.

LIFE...lack of FEAR...and the ability to still move my own body around freely should be enough to inspire the will to live. But, sometimes, it doesn’t...and, on those days, Yoga helps as well as reflecting on my woman mentor who puts things back into perspective.

Please do NOT get me wrong, it is not a ‘there, but for the grace of god go I’ experience. It is definitely a ‘there, is a goddess I hope to duplicate in all my life and death experiences’ bar none!

Everything about her is worth duplicating in the face of anything that happens to me. And, so I try...she recommended Yoga, and I complied...I had to in the state of awe that I was in upon meeting her, and the state of FEAR I had allowed after the last two earthquakes we had in Christchurch.

When interviewing me for the job as one of her many caretakers (which is silly to call us, as it is she who takes care of us), my soon to be mentor asked me directly, “what are you looking for?” And, I replied, “someone to make me want to stay here”...and she supplied the reasons for that immediately.

So, now you know why my ‘moving on’ is ‘standing still’...and the words I am eating for breakfast are making me into a better version of what I was whilst traumatized, now FEAR-LESS, on the back side of meeting a goddess in the flesh.

Oh my, how things are supplied to make us KNOW we are right where we are supposed to be.

Interestingly, Tuesdays are one of my days with my goddess...and Fridays...and any other time she needs me. I will not leave her, it is for her to leave me now, or, perhaps we shall go together...one never knows and should never FEAR the living act of dying that awaits us.

I FEAR less, after meeting my goddess. And, Yoga helps, too.

Moving On While Standing Still (and eating my own words for breakfast)

I know I sound crazy. I feel it. And, I expect that many of my friends are anticipating hearing I have my bags packed and the moving truck is arriving any day now to haul me out of Christchurch.

However, the funniest thing happened these past two weeks that I had no prepossession of...I lost all my FEAR for the moment.

WOW, I cannot tell you how good that feels. For once, I am speechless...well, almost (never totally speechless is a writer).

I still watch where I am and look around for things to flatten me, but it FEELS differently for reasons that I am not positively sure of, but can only guess at. And, I know I said I would write about ‘other’ things for the moment, but let’s face it...I CANNOT NOT write about this.

These past couple of weeks have been ‘full-on’ for me personally, but then, they always are. Sometimes I feel I live a year inside a week and have felt that way since arriving in New Zealand almost nine years ago. The earthquakes simply feel like exclamation points on an already screaming sentence I call my life.

I have never been accused of being complacent, too passionate, yes, but never complacent. Has complacency settled in?

No, there are a few things that keep happening that makes me FEEL and believe, I am right where I am supposed to be, for now let’s call it, a higher purpose.

For one thing, when I began to make plans to move away immediately from Christchurch, I began to justify leaving behind others who could not physically move away, that well, love and need me as much as I do them. Ah, a Catch-22.

Yep, that is how it works...we tend to go down with the ship with such feelings (and, let’s face it, when have I ever done exactly what I said I was going to do)...and, right after the last set of double earthquakes that did literally ‘scare me shitless’ and had me out looking at real estate in Timaru the day after double indemnity, well...I began to watch a consistent thread running through my life.

I believe ‘running’ is the KEY word here...

When you are sitting in Christchurch dealing with the demon you know, it is hard to pick a place to go that does not have its own demons yet unrecognized...or, perhaps living through so many earthquakes has begun to make me feel invincible, not...I promise not, but I have discovered it was not DEATH that I am afraid of.

The FEAR was and is with living with the constant upheaval and the lack of admittance to the problem at hand. Now, there are things being leaked slowly to confirm I am not crazy, perhaps just more intuitive than most, and very aware of my FEELINGS.

Since September and earthquake #1, we at our house were expecting more earthquakes; you can and do feel their potentiality under your feet if you just take the time to stand still long enough and even when you don’t, you can feel the energy building up and the need for release. Many people who have never talked this way, now talk about FEELING them coming and knowing in advance. Funny that, we are intuitive creatures still, some call us human animals, I think that is a blessing at this moment.

And, there is more to come, earthquakes in Christchurch. But, the same is true with tornados in Oklahoma and even in the state of Massachusetts, we should expect the unexpected no matter where we live. The world is having one of those readjustment periods, or shall I say, is just doing what it always has done, but that we ourselves do not remember.

I feel that every geo tech in the world should be bargaining on how to get here and study what goes on under the patter of feet in Christchurch. And, a few have arrived and discovered enough I think to turn most heads pure white. True, some things you would rather NOT know, but I think that those who DO KNOW are being a bit more free with their information, thereby, giving sensitive folks like me a hand out to not feel so damned crazy.

So, how do we live with this? My friends and I have mapped out “NO GO” places. There are places not yet mapped by the government that they and I will not go to....no matter what. Or, in case of extreme emergencies, we contemplate the process very care-full-ly.

Like yesterday when my husband asked me to go and FEEL a property that might have potential problems. It had been signed off by three engineers as a SAFE building. Yet, he asked me to go to a place I would normally refuse to go to and if I FELT like there was a potential problem, he would write to the people who owned the building and insist upon a geotechnical report for the safety of those working within it. How could I resist this?

It did not take me long to FEEL into the position this property sits within. Sure, the building was fine...but, the land it sits on...has rushing water under my feet on one side of it, and a hollowed out feeling on the opposite. A prescription for disaster in this turbulent make-over of Christchurch, we do not need more engineers...we need geo techs! Or, more responsive people who know how to stand up and say quite boldly...

I CAN FEEL THE DANGER HERE AND NO ONE SHOULD THINK THAT MAKING MONEY IS AS IMPORTANT AS ANY LIFE THAT MIGHT BE NEEDED FOR MORE IMPORTANT THINGS....

So, that is what I have been doing, moving beyond my FEAR and standing still for the moment and saying to those who will listen, don’t go there, come here...and follow your own intuition when it FEELS wrong, trust it, instead of listening to what a building engineer tells you because building engineers have some very strong limitations...

They only look at buildings and not what lies beneath your feet. It all matters here and everywhere else you may go...

And, no one KNOWS enough to make a large group of people actually SAFE in a now documented earthquake zone that is doing what it will do for as long as it takes.

So, I am moving on while standing still.

But, for those who worry about me...don’t...I will die one day, perhaps by earthquake, perhaps not, but when I do die, I won’t do it running into the demons I don’t know, but will hopefully die facing them.

And, that FEELS right and good and responsible to those whom I brought into this world and will one day leave behind...

I am moving on, it just looks different than I first anticipated.

Women Surrealists

Women Surrealists and the Politics of Eros from Manchester Art Gallery on Vimeo.

Leonora Carrington

LEONORA CARRINGTON by Pamela Robertson-Pearce from Neil Astley on Vimeo.

A Messy Desk

Yesterday, I wrote for two hours and the dogs barked to make me let them in, I did, and when I came back, I accidently deleted everything I had been writing. Damned dogs, I am sick of them being my critics, and master over my every move. Today, I start again.

Sure, dogs can be better companions than some people, but very much like people, they interrupt the flow of trying to do what a writer does. Finding a quiet spot has been difficult for me.

Lately, I have had to write from the dining room table, as the room for my office had to be relinquished a few months back when natural disasters (and welcomed visitors) insisted I share that room with other people. So, I moved into a corner of the dining room. Yesterday, I decided to move my writing space into the garage. I am almost there, but for now, I am sitting here at my dining room table contemplating the books pulled for reference this week and the list is kind of telling:

The Spirit of Trees, by Fred Hageneder, Mother and Child Vibration Heart Exhibition, by Popx as a Creative New Zealand project, The Expressionists by Wolf-Dieter Dube, Van Gogh by Lara Vinca Masini, Art Book Kandinsky by Dorling Kindersley, Essence & Purpose of Yoga by Raphael, Woodstock 3 Days of Peace & Music by Richard Havers & Richard Evans and Conversations with God Book 3 by Neale Donald Walsch.

Looking at this selection I can remember my writing week.

I pulled The Spirit of Trees to reference a poem I wanted to write for a friend. She has a birch tree outside her window that she reflects upon every morning. Fred Hageneder does for “standing people” (Native American expression for trees) what prophets have always done for other people...provide inspiration. My friend cannot go outside to see her tree, nor can she stand, I wanted to bring the tree into her heart even further:

Birch Spells Love (for Diana)

Liberated mind,
connecting with a birch tree,
struck into reverence, grand, grander still...
...three hundred millions worth and counting by Hageneder,
whose friendly science combined with inspiration
intermingles and unites one ecosystem
between a mind and a tree, a birch tree for thee...
...uncaged emotionally, intuiting, rooting
electricity and magnetism, vitality, growth and maintenance
to be on schedule is prudent for perpetuating a species
through the ages and myths preceding the gaze...
of a birch tree, by thee...
responsive to the wind, brightening the dark solitude and heaviness of life
rarely reaching one hundred and twenty, like us, the birch lives
giving way to other trees
coming and going like the wind
leaving bark for boats, canoes, containers, and called
‘the tree of the beginning’, preparing the Earth as well as the soul
in ancient Ireland, the ‘mother of learning’,
presiding over the alphabet:
the first letter b (beth) represents the Birch
as the universal soul described in myth by many names—
Frigga, Demeter, Aphrodite, Venus—
divine mother and goddess of love.

(I can’t say I really wrote this poem, but simply extracted information out of Hageneder’s chapter on birch trees and put it together to convey some of the things I thought my friend might find interesting)

Oddly, the front cover of Mother and Child Vibration Heart Exhibition has a happy nude pregnant woman leaning against a massive tree. There are two of these books sitting on my table because my daughter and I were both in the exhibition that this book is about and she wanted me to write something in her book. I did this week. I simply wrote “You are already the best Mother—I know, Love Mom”. And, she is...she mothers everything and everyone with such a balanced vibration even though she is not physically a mother, internally she is spot on.

The Expressionists arrived in the mix because my daughter was studying these works and commenting on them this week. I stood amazed that she understood the language of Art so innately. However, I shouldn’t have been stunned, she comes from a family rooted in Art for generations...watching her interpret works makes me believe our DNA has a memory, but it does not dictate everything, just enough to show that The Expressionists always belongs in our family mix anyway.

Van Gogh is lying there because he has always been one of my favourite artists and because the book belongs to a friend and I must remember to give it back. This book has been trying to stay in my mix for too long now...I decided to keep it close to me until I could return it. This is the practise of writing something down to make it happen which I seldom see fail for me. Now, the return of Van Gogh is imminent.

The Art Book Kandinsky is a book that I have been reading on for years. I have collected many paintings by a man who calls himself Domingo (for Sunday, the day he was born) and posted a few on my blog. For years I have been trying to complete a book about Domingo’s work. Six years ago I showed a mock up of what my book would be like to a publisher and he said he was interested. I told him I would be back with him in a few weeks, that was SIX YEARS ago. So, what happened? Life, that’s what. I had six other people living with me for a long time, I am in recovery. So, why the Kandinsky book? Domingo says his only inspiration for his own paintings comes from Kandinsky alone, he claims, there are only two artists, Kandinsky and Domingo. How’s that for hubris?

The Essence and Purpose of Yoga is lying there to help me remember to go to Yoga classes each Sunday evening. There are two wonderful yoga instructors giving free (gold coin donation) classes once a week to Christchurch residents because of the earthquake stress. It is, without a doubt, the best thing I do for myself since the events that have unfolded which I am trying not to write about so much anymore, everything about my life at this moment, is defined by the ongoing events and the anticipation of more. After yoga class, I am like Rhet Butler, “And frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” This is a good way to feel in view of the subject matter I am trying not to write about so much.

The Woodstock book was pulled to clarify for myself what I was writing wherein I proclaimed “I was scared shitless” by the earthquakes. The first time I heard this expression uttered publicly was through the Woodstock experience when Crosby, Stills, Nash, and yes, Young were on stage. I could not remember if Neil Young was with Crosby, Stills and Nash at that time, or what. My memory leaks a lot. Anyway, I found the answer, yes, and my article remains factual though unpublished. It is titled: “Tits and Nuts” and uses the famous expression compared with ‘e-mail forwards’ currently going around that threatens you if you do not reply. Perhaps I will post it one day when I become less afraid.

And finally, Conversations with God, Book 3, I pulled because a friend of mine had written to me about a relative that had committed suicide. I vaguely remembered reading the best take on suicide I had ever read inside this book, pulled it off the shelf and found it tabulated just so I could find what I needed. It is an amazing take on suicide and I typed up a few of the pages and sent them to my friend hoping it might alleviate some of her pain. I think it did, it sure helped me. We talk a lot about suicide in New Zealand; it has one of the highest suicide rates for young men compared to anywhere else in the world.

So, this is why my desk is messy at the moment. And, like every morning, I sit here and contemplate what it is that I need to say so much so that I arrive every morning like clockwork to sit and write, read, study and write some more. Painting use to take pride of place, but then, that was back when people bought what I painted. Now, I just paint for pleasure, but writing is akin to breathing. It is something I must do to stay alive.

This week I wrote about our relationship with nature, being a mother, Domingo, being scared shitless and suicide. I guess I can see better now why writing is so important. Even the dogs have not bothered me this morning, only the cat.

Time for a Chocolate Bar

This week the New Zealand government came forward and offered to pay out those living in the red zone the rateable value of their home, so that they might be capable of moving on. There are still areas to be assessed, but it is a beginning...and, I might say, a beginning that reminds me of why I think this country is such a unique place to live.

Yeah, I know, it has been nine months for some folks, but one must remember, this is not a static event, but one that keeps on going and going and well, we rock down here, literally. Anyway, I was much relieved, even though it did not affect me personally; it helps the general feeling of hope and goodwill for all of us who are capable of feeling appreciative that we are amongst the living, bottom line.

Now, I feel the government has ‘moved on’ as was necessary for a feeling of beginning anew...I know there are glitches, there always are...and, I know there will be some people who feel that it is too little, too late...there always are...but, I still stand amazed at what New Zealand does for its citizens in disastrous situations.

The waiting was tortuous. But, I feel a lot of pride for New Zealand at this moment and thought I should step up and say so.

It even affected how I was feeling about just leaving...at the moment, I am just standing around, staying put with a bit of an afterglow on.

The baby’s head has surfaced and the transitional stage we were stuck inside has begun to ease up...I am breathing more normally now...and thinking...what will it be?

As for now, I think I will commit to writing about something ‘other’ than earthquakes and recovery...while this new creature is being born, I think I might go back to thinking and writing about trees, birds, gardens, imaginary worlds, shorelines, morality boards, paintings, great books, education, Brother John (there are three months of stories there) and anything else except disaster.

Phew...anybody got a chocolate bar? I am ready to celebrate!

Some Things Never Change

Sitting here this morning and reflecting on why I get up and write every morning. I watched my grandmother do the same as I was growing up. Each new day started with a cup of coffee, a fag and a hand written letter to somebody.

I gave up the hand writing a few years ago for the word processor on my computer. It was not an easy thing until I saw how quickly I could ‘delete’ parts of what I had just said. Brilliant, I thought, and stuck with it. Unfortunately, I do not always ‘delete’ parts that infuriate others.

Now, when I have a mind to, I can even publish what I write to go all over the world instantaneously! I wonder what grandma would have made of this. Possibly, she would not be sure, just like I sit...

...wondering how all this will shape the way we communicate to and with one another and when someone will figure out how to put a postage stamp on our newfound freedom to vent...will our silly responses be stored and archived in some futuristic electronic library for the next generations to try and figure out what the heck we meant?

I discovered recently at University that many of the young students could not read long hand...you know, the kind my grandmother did, and I was taught, now, they can only read print. And, most will not bother to read any further than what can be conveyed in a ‘text’ language. I found myself writing poetry in ‘text’ just so I could be read.

Amazing to see how fast things are changing...some days it makes me exhilarated, some days it just makes me tired.

Today, I sit between the two options and wonder, what to do next...in order to be engaged with.

I find that even with the ability to reach out and write to people all over the world at a moment’s notice, I still mainly hold a conversation with myself.

Some things never change.

And, the figuring out what those things are...takes a lifetime...and at the end of it, or shall I say, more than half way through...you discover that there is only one of you out there anyway...

So, I find, I sit here and write to myself, for myself and that is good enough.

Brother John's Last Night in Christchurch

I’ve lost track of the number of earthquakes and aftershocks (literally and figuratively) Brother John and I have experienced while he was visiting us in Christchurch form March 17 through June 22.

However, the most significant part was the fact that he and I were rebuilding, not only our outdoor kitchen as a testament to recycling the past in the present... but, our separate pasts that didn’t cross for far too many years.

Once upon a time, we lived on...

Cloud Nine together...when we were very young, and then 'stuff' happened not unlike earthquakes and aftershocks in real time Christchurch. You know, that ‘stuff’ that makes life so bloody interesting in hindsight, but at the time, it feels like we’ve gone to the dogs, and the only solution is to sleep right through it...

However, John and I stood together these past three months...

And neither of us lived to regret it, but learned how to wake the sleeping dog...

Or, at least Brother John did, I tended to hide behind the veil every now and then...

...while my friend Ora kept the laughter flowing from all directions, making us feel fuzzy and warm. Thank you, Ora!

And, youngest daughter, Kasey, fell madly in love with Brother John...

And , husband Clark, cooked flounder for him, and many other meals inside our kitchen that Brother John built.

It was a fish fry on the last night Brother John was here, and also, the first time we would be using our new kitchen exactly what it was built for, the nights the earthquakes put our lights out...

and, another earthquake did...this very night.

But, thanks to the industry of my family...

We had other lights to come back on with.

And, the neighbours all arrived to see Brother John off, and experience what the kitchen built in The Aftershock Gallery is really all about...

Creature comforts, no matter what.

And now, the day after the farewell at the airport, where we put Brother John on one of the only planes flying out of Christchurch because the rest were grounded by the volcanic ash in the air from Chile...

All we can say to Brother John is this...

Sincerely, we do...miss you already!

PS...who are we going to get to play Skipbo and roll the dice on all these sleepless nights?

PSS...at the writing of this I have just been informed that you (Brother John) are still in the air, your plane having been diverted around the volcanic ash over Australia, but, you are due home tomorrow at 1:15PM, back to Oklahoma where the wind ‘blows ash’ rather quickly...lol...be safe brother, be safe...and, I applaud your single slogan:

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY! XOXO, Your Big Sister loves you, Kathy.

I Move On

Sitting down and talking to your youngest daughter about her options, post many earthquakes and aftershocks, the divisions between the two descriptive nouns is debatable, as is the difference between a recession and a full blown depression mainly dependent upon which activity is happening to you personally and which activity you are hearing about on the news, the internet or the radio stations. If it’s happening to you it is an earthquake and a full blown depression, if it is happening to another it is an aftershock and a recession, the dynamics are always strongest when in one’s home port.

We are all fxxxed who live in Christchurch in one sense of the word, but in another, we are the most privileged on earth. We get to decide whether to go or stay, and what that looks like solely dependent upon our attitude and not necessarily the environment or immediate opportunities. This is when the spiritual side of a person takes over, there is no external certainty, but internally, we all get to choose, am I happy or sad...do I believe there is more to life than what meets the eye or not?

Well, I do and always have. I have played around with trying to decide upon an absolute version for this and I gave it up for Lent without ever becoming a specific religious affiliation permanently, because there is nothing but impermanence in this world, it is the one major truth, just look at Christchurch, or Sendai, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. KA-BOOM, it all falls down or disintegrates whether it be a natural disaster or a human designed one.

I have to maintain my dignity and integrity if nothing else. What does that look like, and how do I convince those others surrounding me, depending upon me, that now is the time to strike out and start a life somewhere else? I cannot. I can only allow them to make choices of their own and I, myself, must make choices that others may not want to hear, but I shall do, no matter what, because I enjoy living, I really do.

I will not go down with the ship. That is not why I came here, I came here to live.

My options are two. I can go back to the USA where I was born, in the state of Oklahoma where I have many friends and family, or, I can stay somewhere else in New Zealand beside’s Christchurch where I might be able to make a simple living and continue to see the many friends and family I have here. Both options hold family and friend ties, none of which are any more important than any other, they all count. I do not need to be living close to anyone to call them my family and friends; they just are and always will be. I feel no over-riding pressure to move or not move based on family.

Safety is first. And, I definitely do not feel safe in Christchurch, some do, and they have their reasons for such, but me, I feel vulnerable every minute of every day now, not just when the earthquakes and aftershocks happen, but always. I have had enough and I know it, so it is time for me to move on. America or New Zealand?

To move back to America would cost us a lot of money, and, with no guarantee of jobs for either my 64 year old husband, or my 55 year old ‘feminine’ self. Perhaps you think it matters not if I am ‘feminine’, but according to many people all over the world, it counts as another strike against me. I am simply being realistic. I can no longer bat my eyes and wiggle my hips at the same time, I must pick separate days to do either and even then, there is always the possibility my hips have been loaned out to taking care of a grandchild, or two, there are parents gone missing all over this world. It is a reality, too. It definitely feels like a 7.4 when that happens, oh, and with an enormous ‘g’ force that has nothing to do with eroticism, in fact, that doesn’t exist post-traumatic events like earthquakes and full blown depressions, except in the movies.

My youngest daughter cannot think of leaving New Zealand, I honour that choice and I understand it. And, I know that this too may change.

I don’t go to movie theatres anymore, for nine months now, I avoid all contact with large building spaces wherein I might be flattened instantaneously, a thought I have every right to consider post earthquakes, but maybe not pre aftershocks. In other words, those of us here in Christchurch have a whole new way of thinking about everything, and we do, have every right to, just like everyone else all over the world dealing with their own unique collective problems that doesn’t seem to miss anyone. So, what is the trouble?

Nothing is new; it is just part of the process. But, we try to make it seem unprecedented, in order to make a statement. What might that statement be? Perhaps it is something like this:

Look here, I am having an earthquake and a full blown depression, I have to figure out what matters in my life and what doesn’t and consider my options and make decisions and write lists to see what it looks like on paper, in the air, on the sideboard, while I’m taking a bath, when I am relieving myself and when I am driving. Whew, I have to think about this everywhere and all the time as earthquakes and depressions demand that you do something providing you survive them, and I did, so what now? What do I do?

I move on...

Right Now

I have a friend who e-mails me and wants to know what is happening right now...each time Christchurch rocks and rolls again, and again. Usually, I fill up a page with all types of avoidance to what I am really feeling...which is hard to describe, there is almost no precedent for it.

Traumatized and invigorated, I switch between the two...traumatized as to each singular event, then riding some kind of energetic wave that seems to be excess energy going through me, reminding me, I am one of the fortunate ones...I still stand and so do my closest loved ones, as well as my home.

But, the suffering hangs in the air, and the experience is not unlike being caught in the act of childbirth, stuck in the transition stage, and the newborn refuses to come all the way out. This is the stage when women become blatant and often say things others would rather forget, it is like being ripped in two and the only thing one wants, is relief and a separation from what's going on inside them. This best describes how I feel right now.

After last Monday's 6.3 when my husband and I were in the car going up Papanui to his office in Merivale,I had the opportunity to see the horizon become an oceanic wave, trees swinging wildly recommending I leave, water rushing out of the ground, cars being tossed about and in that moment I finally decided, this is enough. It is time to distance ourselves from the ongoing pains of giving birth to a new Christchurch.

It has been almost nine months now, and we are coming to terms with how long we as individuals can endure the ongoing contractions amidst pregnant pauses full of morbid anticipation. Unlike some folks here, we do have some choices.

Like most, we are tired, psychologically traumatized, bewildered, short tempered, forgetful, disorganized in day to day matters but highly organized in our earthquake relief packs, incapable of going to certain places, unwilling to go to others, sleep deprived, over indulgent to our bad habits, capable of predicting the rhector scale, depth and direction of each event, but...

keenly aware that we are a people having undergone unprecedented events that have given us sensitivities when nourished, may bring more compassion into this world when we collectively get out of the ring of fire we are currently sweating in...

right now, I need some distance, and...that will be my focus for the next few weeks until I can achieve my goal to move my family further afield...not to forget Christchurch, but to help from enough distance to provide a safe place for my family and friends to come see me sensibly, notwithstanding that the whole world feels dangerous thanks to instant real time technology...

this is NOT the end of the world...

but, the world doing what it always has done, giving birth to new topography...hopefully, without my family in it.

Right now, I believe in leaving.

Birthday Poem

ONE (Infinity’s Rule)
There is one
out there...
always
...and inside, too,
but, not...
TWO
There are twin reflections
out there...
always
...and inside, too,
but, there are two,
which makes
THREE
the number
of love
reproduced
by two
making
ONE.
And then,
it all starts over...
Happy Birthday!
From one to another, and another,
and another, that is Infinity’s
rule of love...
one, two, three, one...
one, two, three, one...
one, two, three...
ONE.
The adventure awakens....
‘We are’ ‘the ones’ we have been waiting for...
go ask Alice and see Domingo.

Random Thought and Other Matters (Including the Dalai Lama)

Today, on my youngest daughter’s nineteenth birthday, I reflect on many things.

For one, who are the people who matter most to me?

...and, like the Dalai Lama whom we just had the good fortune to see and listen to in real time, flesh and blood in Christchurch, New Zealand this past week, I would have to say...

all of them.

All people matter the most to me, whenever they present themselves, I am happy to allow them to matter and then decide later that they might not be agreeable to my day to day matters, but for the moment, that person, is very important to me, whoever they are.

Mostly, these days, that person is just me sitting across from myself on paper and reflecting my face back to clarify myself with anyway, I see no separation, but that’s another story...

and the reason I have so many stories is because I take notes, and I took notes while the Dalai was speaking (and when I first learned about Alice Walker), I listened to everything....

...anyway...I ramble so, in and out of my own home which is forever changing as we move physically and spiritually across the landscape of whatever town we live in, I do like most people, I do what I do until I don’t do it anymore, but the Dalai Lama (and Alice Walker) have a particular pattern that they adhere to for life lived with as much happiness as possible, this is what I see when I see their faces light up. And, their faces do, light up that is.

And the Dalai Lama was a leveller for me. He puts things simply, where everyone can understand, the only hard part is being able to hear everything he has to say because of the soft children noises overcoming the audio, the weeping men beside and in front of me and the noise my own handkerchief is making, which isn’t a handkerchief at all, it is a scarf I wear automatically when I feel good, it is turquoise, it is soft, it feels like New Zealand around my neck, a place I chose to come to and stay in for so many reasons it would take many lifetimes to express, just like any good feeling.

Happy Birthday My Beloveds! And, that means all of you who read this, CHEERS, and if you have any questions my girlfriends, I suggest you go ask Alice...

Grandma's Toothbrush Holder

I opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet my family and friends helped move into my office from the garage (Gurge in caveman language).

That filing cabinet used to be my right hand friend, and I have not opened it since 2009, it is 2011, and before that for seven more years it was barely opened out of frustrated plans.

My method of filing was found unacceptable by another one day during a cultural clash. ‘Left of center’, centre spelled differently now, I use to say then.

And now, I say ‘thank you’ to my golden friend who always keeps me wanting to be on the planet just to know more. You are one and many, with names that sound funny, some sad, some out of this world, but always your many names represent golden round love.

My grandmother began painting late in life. Her son, my father, was an artist. She thought it looked fun and began painting what looked like sick cows and moved onto genius rather quickly. Grandma's china painting was some of the best I have seen, so delicate, precise, yet loose, many hours of gentle applications, many firings, and with the luck of the Irish (Grandma would say), an art piece was born.

This afternoon I found one of her art pieces I had tucked away in the top drawer of my filing cabinet right before I moved one house to another, several moves ago, I had completely forgotten it.

I opened the drawer and heard something other than paper moving around, I spread the files and there was a bone china toothbrush holder painted ever so daintily with soft yellow roses and impressionistic leaves, signed Kise 1965 in my grandmother’s certain hand.

It was a good moment. It still is. I washed the toothbrush holder carefully with water rather than tears. The tears lodged in the back of my eyes glistened brightly, I saw my grandmother hold her breath to achieve such minute brush strokes that could only have come from a brush with one hair, and, a lot of patience, and, a lot of time, and, a love of painting.

I inherited that love from her, and both my parents. I was hit with a trilogy of painting people to guide me. Even if I am not a rose gal, I am more of an agapanthus or a bird of paradise and I love painting!

And, all my painting friends who come to remind me that life is good whenever I decide.


Grandma says, let’s rock and roll and paint anyway...
All we have to do is grow wings. Easy enough if you just paint them.
I decide, you decide, today we decided to do it...
And, grandma’s toothbrush holder came back round
Just to prove it, if you decide for it to.
I did, and I do, and I hope you do, too.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Don’t need teeth to laugh, aye?
Brush it all away with golden syrup
Dip it in chocolate, any kind...
Even the kind you can’t pronounce
It goes in so easy
Comes out twice as fast
Seems like gas
But, really freezes
Instantly sometimes
And never at others
Don’t blow my covers off
It’s cold soon enough
But, for now
I feel good
Just knowing
I have grandma's toothbrush holder.

What is Anyone to do?

Yesterday, Christchurch City's "The Press" revealled some things that most of us living here already knew. We live in a dangerous place. So, what do you do?

What do you do when those who would rather you not know, are letting you know enough to KNOW...we will have another "major earthquake of up to magnitude 7.0 during the next year"...now, that is something longer to anticipate than a tornado bearing down on you.

Being originally from Oklahoma, tornadoes are my reference point.

So, what do you do? What do you do with needing to go here, there or anywhere else outside your own home in order to live? My home is as earthquake proof as you can get it at the moment, but the Fresh Choice in Merivale isn't. And, I had to go there yesterday and was told by my husband it was 'safe enough'...I beg to differ and so did one of the employees there while I held my meltdown in aisle number three looking up at sudden death over my head. Nothing was strapped down, everything loosely stacked...I was appalled!

My daughter was with me and simply mortified by my loud enough observations to solicit the ear of one traumatized employee who adimitted "I am scared to death to come to work here, I am looking for another job and I cannot afford to quit until I find one".....

This is unaceptable.

I know we are all still in shock and completely traumatized, I know this. But, why there is no one to shut these places DOWN, until they are acceptably 'safe enough' for employees and customers, I do NOT UNDERSTAND.

I will not give Fresh Choice one more purchase EVER, for their complete and utter contempt for human life they have shown me by chasing the buck before making sure they have done everything conceivably possible to prevent loss of life in our next anticipated wave of devastation.

I waiver from one moment to the next...

Do I stay here and allow others to be in control of my safety, or do I just leave everything behind and get out now?

What's a Sister to Do?

Why, tell them about feminine energy rising...

And, perhaps warn them, how hot it is...

When sisters have been forced to keep quiet, and simply watch too long...

They lose face and wait for another moon...

But, coming soon...is an explosion...I promise, watch this space.

These paintings are all done by a man calling himself Domingo. They are part of a collection owned and housed under beds in a city called Christchurch, New Zealand, wherein earthquakes tread daily. They came from the spirit surrounding Domingo that insisted that feminine energy MUST rise up to help resolve the tremendously imbalanced issues all over this planet we call earth, our mother, our system, our world.

Our world is hurting...and, longs for everyone to listen, stand up and rise up to the basic rhythms of creativity...

You can't have a beautiful world without the complete inclusion of women.

What Brother John has been up to

This is the first fire in the outdoor oven Brother John built in our backyard in Christchurch, New Zealand. It has been a labour of agitation, shock, and determination, grounded in love for a city’s sudden demise and the rebirth of opportunities between a brother and sister after many years in the darkness. A fire is perfect that forges new memories with the old to create something awesome out of devastation.

In the beginning, there was a home that had been acquired that did not meet up to our expectations because we had to downsize for economic reasons. We were only partially moved into our home the week of the first earthquake in September, 2010. Suddenly, there was even more chaos than we ourselves provide. Nature had begun to redecorate our household, lifestyles and define what our needs truly are. Now more than ever, access to fire became very important for warmth, cooking, light and that feeling that only fire can bring a reflection for the soul’s deepest contemplations.

In November, my husband and I went to America to visit friends and family and contemplate whether we stay in Christchurch or move somewhere else. We came back to Christchurch and began trying to pretend September never happened, then, February, 2011, came and gone was any pretence that the place we had chosen for our home had to be tremendously renegotiated, recreated and still always in the back of our minds, relocated as well. Brother John, being a builder and a mason, decided to come from America and visit Christchurch, New Zealand and see what he could do to help us all.

Unfortunately, at this writing, there is no real re-building going on in Christchurch, just mostly demolition. Much of the historical and should I say hysterical buildings are rubble now, not just from the natural disasters that happened, but from the chaos that happens when things are more than anyone or even a collective of everyone can handle, machines of all kinds move in and crunch and munch without planning and contemplation. Herein, was born the agitation we felt as we witnessed perfectly sound building materials being hauled to the dump.

With nothing to do and nowhere to go, and a profound fear of even being inside our own home, we began to collect bricks being thrown away and committed to building a kitchen outside our home that would function without the power society has forced us to become so dependent upon, electricity.

These were our building blocks, our thoughts were committed, we would use what everyone else was throwing away and create a safe space to utilize, and something that would bring us comfort, as well as a desire to even stay...

Foundations were laid....
And the first walls we began to form were for our vegetable garden, something most people have in Christchurch, The Garden City. Our vegetables, which had been living in old recycle bins, made obsolete by a new scheme for recycling implemented just prior to the earthquakes wherein each household received three bins on wheels, one for rubbish, one for recyclable paper, metal and glass and one for green stuff that really belongs on your garden anyway, but nonetheless, an almost perfect plan gone awry in the aftermath of chaos. But, leaving very portable bins from the old scheme of recycling that were just right for portable gardens for people like us, forced to move too much in order to find our economic stability in times of recession., we still had access to our own home grown vegetables and fruit trees. We just moved them with us; however, Brother John begins to alleviate the movable feast, by starting the first column...

Brother John eventually gets rid of that clothesline you may see in the picture and that is a pretty good story in its own right, it began our running banter about ‘Caveman language’, to be explained later.

One column became four pretty fast, not unlike the language.

Anyway, these were days of running around Christchurch City very close to our home and meeting strangers who never wanted to see another brick as long as they lived. But, we felt comfortable with our bricks, because a Caveman was building it. And Cavemen, build STRONG. And strong people recycle everything!!!


And put light stuff over your head.

And, sometimes hold their own heads....

And leave their unique stamp on things.

And use whatever they have available even if it does make them speak in unique languages.

IT is all worth it in the end...

But, it’s not over yet...there is always more....