The advantage of the world turned Turtle

Golden Fiddle Fern, Wikimedia Commons

From messages choked with meaning that needed to be sorted, I took a break from blogging until my well of creativity filled ... with flan. That long seductive taste from my girlhood memories was spelled c.u.s.t.a.r.d. Small O'ahu bakeries fill my memory with custard pies, still warm. My cousin Milly worked in Hadley's bakery in old Ka'imuki Town. Later, Aina Haina Bakery and our neighbor Mrs. Del Rosario. Both those bakeries and the women who worked them were generous with baked goodies. We bought what Ma could buy, and they shared the day-olds.

My yen for custard has not so much been tempered by age as spiraled beyond that lust; my body and my systems juggle her ability to process. I have food sensitivities and they change. Inflammation shows up or hides and that makes life trickier. While I took that much needed blog break, my body-mind and spirit told me to get back to quieting inflammation, and I've begun eating the Abascal Way, again. The last two months of safety pinning meant eating what could be had. It was a new learning curve and a new delivery system. Now that more fresh fruit and veg are available, and a plan is in the works to grow planter gardens on the picnic table ... my mojo has a new groove.

Wearing a red rhododendron from the fairground, after a pleasant walk in our neighborhood. Wishing me good mojo and a compassionate nod to keep on ...  

 

The lust for the sweet smooth dessert is one of those things that I can not enjoy -- in moderation. So sometimes I simply must find another way to enjoy that delight: I grow the myth of my life holding the tension of my wish for custard with my here reality. A side-ways move landed over there. I called there MOJO FLAN. The dance has begun, again, restarted from upside-down and inside out. There are more ways to eat your flan than one!

Don't you mean, "There are more than one way to eat flan?"
That's what I said.

Last night, after the Moon had begun her newest cycle, Pete and I considered our options for entertainment. We have (reluctantly) stepped into the age of downloaded movies. Held fast for as long as we could to watching films on a disc, we made the decision to start a month-free subscription to YouTube Movies. Why did we wait so long. We debated that one for a few minutes. But then, moved on.

We landed on another Emily Blunt movie, and I was amazed and surprised to be watching and listening to the music of Mary Poppins Returns. A new movie to us, not an old favorite, we enjoyed the unexpected delights of the world turned Turtle. I'd never watched the original movie of Mary Poppins but, of course, much of the music swirls through me without thinking. Meryl Streep plays Mary Poppins' cousin who can fix anything. But, only on certain days. The World is Turning Turtle was a romp of a song and dance choked full of meaning in the most delightful way.

Serendipity and coincidence, or collision and collusion, the evening's entertainment was just what we needed to greet the new lunar cycle with our intention to be willing to see life from different angles. Like a world turned turtle or a Fiddle Fern unfurling, the potential for life being wonderfully different rather than frightening different is in our attitude. Isn't it?

"For in the geometry of the spiral, it never really lands back at its origin; rather, it returns, but always above or below its point of origin. It returns a bit off the initial track so that the spiral remains open-ended, a bit diffuse, not stuck in the same space." - Riting Myth, Mythic Writing: Plotting Your Personal Story. Dennis Patrick Slattery *

I'll leave you with two tendrils of story in the myth that is our real lives. It was an experience with yesterday. My history already. But. A spiral of an experience and it unfolded when I accepted an invitation, and joined a ZOOM Session with a long-time friend. My friend is an avid advocate of daily self-care through the practice of Jin Shin Jitsu. A group of seven people were guided through a series of daily self-care. The focus was "JSJ Self-care and Fatigue."

The content and the pace of that Friday session was perfectly timed. I'd joined her once before, but was either unable to open other weekly on-line invitations or too entangled with my unfurling life to participate. Yesterday, space, time and fate opened the door and I stepped through. Mahalo, Donnette.

Twenty years ago, this friend and I began sharing a Hawaiian tradition of ripening into elderhood. The practice of Makua o'o -- elder in training -- has been a loose yet dynamic bond. She 'raised her hand' to an invitation. We were, at the time, two women returned to our common birth island after life changed; we were there after a divorce. Our safety pins were unfastened.

Like the myth that began as a tale written on a day only a duck could love, this friend has ripened, and continues to ripen. Sharing her findings with the original nine o'o, two makua (adults) exchange gifts in reciprocity. The Gift culture.

Together our tools multiply, or morph while traveling the spiral. Similar situations incite use of a familiar tool, but the fit of an o'o is different a year later, ten years later. The advantage of the world turned Turtle is everyday mojo suitable for times between masks, where ke'ia and kela (here and there) encourage a third place to be(long).

I so appreciate the timing of doors opening, or staying closed; a hand raised to signal joining in. If it's time, the door and the raised hand collude to opening. When the day seemed primed for a walk I took myself into the world outside the golden wagon. Virus or pollen the afternoon seemed large enough for me, too.

Content for the moment with the Moon and Sun moving together in daylight, I thought of Maile, who raised her hand with the New Moon. She "is in" to accompany me on the spiral of the Makua o'o. The legacy of Aunty Betty Kawohiokalani Ellis Jenkins continues.

Makua o'o ... pick a door, you have the key and I am grateful for the company and the explorations!

Doors at the Langley Fairgrounds

Have you been experiencing the advantages of the world turned Turtle? 

Unfasten your safety pins a new adventure has begun!

* I discovered the quote from Riting Myth, Mythic Writing: Plotting Your Personal Story by Dennis Patrick Slattery thanks to Maile Kaku. Maile has generously shared essays she is writing. As we, Maile and I, come to know each other via our emails, the give and take between myth-makers and suckers for alliteration weaves a nourishing bond. Dennis Patrick Slattery is one of Maile's professors. It feels like being in a Harry Potter novel for ripening makua here at The Safety Pin Cafe Mojo. And if it can be felt than the personal myth and the collective have found themselves. I have been inspired. 

 " ... We are not isolated little minds wandering on a large, indifferent earth. We are surrounded by our kin, by all of life, beings with whom we are wayfarers together. Instead of walking upon, we walk within, and this within-ness brings our imaginations to life. We are inspired ... literally "Breathed upon" -- together." Mozart's Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt (Thanks to Terri Windling for introducing Haupt's work in her post Wild Communion.)

E Ola Mau Na Makua o'o.

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