Cork Love

The lyrics from Sinead Lohan’s song “No Mermaid” have been running through my head for a while. So I googled it and imagine my surprise and delight to find out she’s from Cork City. One more reason to be proud of my rebel Irish roots. My revolutionary American roots are a whole ‘nother story.

No Mermaid by Sinead Lohan
We went down to the edge of the water
You were afraid to go in
You said there might be sharks out there in the ocean
And I said i’m only going for a swim

I was swimming around in a circle
I wasn’t always in view
You said we might get into red flag danger
And I am alone when i’m not with you

But I am no mermaid
I am no mermaid
And I am no fisherman’s slave
I am no mermaid
I am no mermaid
I keep my head above the waves

We were swinging from the centre of the ceiling
You were afraid to give in
I said I know i’ll always live for this feeling
And you closed your eyes you said never again

We were dancing in the middle of the desert
You said we’ll burn under the hot sun
I said i’d rather be the colour of pleasure
Than watch like you from under the thumb

But I am no mermaid
I am no mermaid
And I am no fisherman’s slave
I am no mermaid
I am no mermaid
I keep my head above the waves

We went down to the edge of the water
You were afraid to go in
You said there might be sharks out there in the ocean
And I said i’m only going for a swim

I was living around in a circle
I wasn’t always in view
You said we might get into red flag danger
And I am alone when I’m not with you

But I am no mermaid
I am no mermaid
And I am no fisherman’s slave
I am no mermaid
I am no mermaid
I keep my head above the wave

*sigh* she writes and sings so beautifully. I hope I am not infringing on her copyright by posting her lyrics.

Former Etsy Narrative for my Archives

[Here in my etsy shop, I share with you reclaimed paperbacks, many of them favorite books I’ve read myself, including pulp fiction, pop lit, bestsellers, and classics I haven’t.]

I have always loved books. It was my excuse to get a degree in English and the humanities (the one major that fed my reading addiction). Besides going to the library every Saturday with my sisters and dad as a child, I ended up working in libraries for years starting in high school and through college. Before he took off for Vietnam, after he’d moved us North in case he didn’t come back, my dad took us to the local library to meet the children’s librarian, Mrs. Nickerson. He did come back and we continued our weekly library jaunts to libraries wherever we were living at the time from Steubenville, Ohio, to Oceanside, California, back to Cape Cod and more. When I had my own children, the library was an outing at least once a week, usually more. We’d spend hours there in the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington, Vermont. Libraries always felt like home to me. Even on vacations, we always went to the local library.
A library job is what brought me from Vermont back to the Cape, and while the job didn’t work out (people change) and I miss Vermont terribly, my love of books remains constant and saves me from total despair at times.

[While some of these books are well worn, they are not in tatters and still highly readable. Some are even written in so you can share another reader’s journey as you take your own. With a book, you can escape to all over the world. You can inhabit the life of someone else when you need to escape from your own. You’re never alone with a book. And along with a book, goes a good cup of tea. I am a tea connoisseur as well as a bibliophile and will include in each package some hand-stuffed and tied bags of some of my favorite teas. Enjoy!]

Hope

There’s that expression, “false hope,” but do you believe it? I don’t think there’s any such thing. Unless you know for sure that all is lost (life basically), then how can you believe there is anything but HOPE? Like Yogi said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”

Plain Talk, Plainsong, Plain Chant

Returning to the root of communication. The intention of speaking our truth, our mind. Snappy catch phrases, the latest lingo, hip expressions, deep and soulful sounding supportive statements, or plain song. The purity of simple language and its poetic simplicity. Which do you prefer?

Teachers

At least one more teacher coming for the retreat, possibly two. Gathering teachers is not as easy as it sounds.

That’s been one of the hardest parts for me, besides the marketing. While I am definitely a people person, marketing is not my strong point. Selling, you know? I can sell when there’s no pressure, nothing at stake (my pride, definitions of success and so on). I can sell what I love that someone else has made, but not when it’s my own. It’s that struggle with ego and when to toot your own horn, when no one’s even heard it to begin with! But I’m excited to think the final pieces of the teacher puzzle are coming into place.

This process has taught me how much work is involved putting one of these things together — even a wee one like BEAR. I have tremendous respect for the herculean effort Elizabeth puts into Squam. It boggles my mind. When I saw five retreats listed on her site the other day, I gasped — and then clicked on her staff page which brought a big smile — just little ol’ her and Peg! How can you not love someone who dreams so big?

I believe in spirit guides, in the energy of a place and in the energy of beings gone before us — where so of and of whom we channel through our own existence and actions. Miss Alice Mable Bacon and Mrs. Mary Alice Armstrong are very much alive in Elizabeth MacCrellish. When she referred to her climb up Rattlesnake when all was said and done the other day and she saw a sign she’s never noticed on previous climbs, that’s when I knew.

“To the Aborigines, geography is memory. Every mile sings, every mountain speaks of their ancestors’ journeys. Nothing is irrelevant, nothing is lost to death. All things partake of life’s spirit and vitality, the land is vigorously alive, unseen forces flourish, and all have a special site (or Dreaming Place) that is a spiritual home for them and their ancestors.”
~ from my current bedside book, Deep Play by Diane Ackerman, one of my favorite authors.

** image from my heaven on earth, Owl’s Head, Groton State Forest, Vermont

Deep Play

Definition from the cover of:
n. 1. A state of unselfconscious engagement with our surroundings 2. An exalted zone of transcendence over time 3. A state of optimal creative capacity

Diane Ackerman is one of my favorite authors — if you’ve never read her book A Natural History of the Senses, then I suggest you skedaddle to the nearest library and check it out. It is exquisite, particularly when she writes about our sense of smell and our sense of touch, how/why certain customs and words evolved and so on.

The Zookeeper’s Wife is another good one. The latest I’m reading is Deep Play, and so much of it resonates with me on so many levels. My sense of place, my self-definition and the themes I encounter in my daily life — it’s like all of us on this planet really are pulsating to the same rhythm, at different times and sometimes the same time. One breath, one voice, one consciousness. Blows me away. I believe it’s a vibration we’re unconsciously aware of on a subliminal level when we engage in deep play,alone and in community. And the deeper we go in our play, the more in tune with others we seem to become.

More intuitive and sensitive to the subtle nuances and layers of meaning in our everyday language, geography, and encounters, more in touch with our essential spirits — that spirit that transcends time, space and our bodies. It can be scary and exhilarating simultaneously.

A state of heightened attention because we are so in the zone. Riding that Big Kahuna.

2010

Haven’t thought of a word for 2010 yet, don’t know if I will (I love language and would have a tough time choosing just one).

I have done up a website for the retreat though — it’s still a work in progress There’s certain glitches I’ve hit (losing original content and so on when I make changes) but that’s all part of my [steep] learning curve. Squarespace is right on with the support and on a holiday, for goddess’s sake. I cannot speak highly enough of their service.

Overall, this ultra-fussy Virgo (6 planets in Virgo!) is totally digging Squarespace. I like my tea just so, the lighting just so, my shoes have to be just right, my pillow just right (Goldilocks had to have been a Virgo), and so on. So, to say Squarespace rocks the big house is an understatement. It’s only day 2 of my trial subscription, but I do believe I’m sold, sista!

My Goddess

i used to dance
a long time ago
egyptian ballet african hip hop cuban butoh roth 5rhythms dancemeditation

anything to move my body
shake out my sorrows
jazz out my joys
share my sisterhood

awakening the goddess was what got me going
and my goddess awoke
she rose like the phoenix

but she’s been gone awhile
i don’t know what’s happened to her lately
she returned to ashes

but it’s time
for her to rise again

Turn up the Volume

So, yay, I can finally turn the speaker on by myself and I actually figured out (on my own!) how to listen to the interview with Andrea over at Jamie Ridler’s site. I think I’ll listen to one every morning til I’ve caught up with them all. People’s voices sound tinier when I listen to them than when I read their words — interesting. But I’m feeling good about this blogging thing now and I think the Andrea interview helped — my creative space — just show up for 15 minutes in the morning with my tea and I will write something, even if it is only another writer’s quote such as this one by Oscar Wilde (a favorite of mine, with his impish Irish wit) — it’s from a book by Jack Gantos called Hole in my Life.

“It is not what one does that is wrong, but what one becomes as a consequence of it.”

Now I’m off to work with the wild, the beautiful and the damned. And one of these days I’m gonna add pictures. Have a glorious Wednesday, World.