Great Turtle Island

Just like looking at your house or city from google map satellite view, there is some deeper understanding for my own culture when seen from afar.
I had Thanksgiving dinner today in an organic and biodynamic restaurant. They served some amazing truffle mac n cheese, which is traditionally american, but is it traditionally Thanksgiving? Not at my house.
There were sweet potatoes, roasted and stuffing and turkey with cranberry and some sort of pumpkin pie. I have come to understand that non Americans somehow dramatically miss the point when it comes to pumpkin pie.
By the time the turkey was served, I had to restrain myself from crying. Like I did last week when I saw the kiwi play.
So here I am in limbo. I love both lands so much that I have ended up in neither.

Or something.

Anyway, it is crystal clear that it isn't possible to hold all the old comforts and still have all the new adventures. Some things must be traded.

And I am thankful that Thanksgiving has meant something to me. I am thankful for the years with the whole family at grandma's house....for the wet fallen leaves sometimes covered in a layer of snow. I am thankful that I ever knew that warmth, as that was the rootstock that feeds me still. It is the groundwork of my groundedness. It is how I know how to love and hold, to commit and show up and when it is time to take responsibility for a dish or two.
I am thankful for the traditions that are mine, even far as they are from any ocean. I am thankful for the hours and years with the family that have flavoured my memories and also my present.
I am thankful that their love is a moveable feast, and that I am able to partake in it anywhere I go. And I am thankful that I have gone, for that is how returns come about.

artist lover healer

A few weeks ago, while traipsing through the low key underground marrickville sunday farmer's market, I came upon a used book table and found "Women Who Run With the Wolves"

Many times in my past I have come into contact with the book and is has been made physically accessible to me. But, as I have realized a moment ago, I avoided it partly due to not being ready for it, and partly not being ready for it as an act of wildness itself, rebellion against the party line.

I have recently been alerted to a hidden truth about myself. I have often wondered why it is when other people in a group turn one way, I turn the other. When they raise their arms high, mine are lowering. I have puzzled as to why it is that I seem to be out of sync and backwards to any group I participate in, whether singing, dancing, yoga, cooking....whatever.
So, the thing that was brought to light....as a child, that tendency to go against the flow protected me from the often hourly stampeding of harmful information and practices into my vulnerable and absorbing young self. The ability, whether learned or inherent, to be out of rhythm with those around me became solidified as it served the purpose of keeping me vital and shielded.
Now, as an adult, I have struggled with finding myself singing and dancing along with the others, even those I have chosen as my own.
And this includes the reading of this beautiful work. I had dismissed it in some mysterious way due to that tendency to dismiss that which someone else has found foundational.
Of course, this tendency also comes along with it's shadow, that one that I find pulls me toward fanaticism and perfectionism. Anyway....

Running with Wolves.

Dancing with Wolves.

On the bus this morning, while reading the work...I found myself describing a 6 women circle. My 6 women circle. The Hex.
And what those women represent to me. And I found that it came in threes and twos perfectly...like this:

Jaime.......Artist
Amy.........Lover
Felecia......Healer
April........Artist
Carrie.......Healer
Karen........Lover


And our fore mothers Jackie and Sharon who represent all three of course.

The race

It's Tuesday November 6 in Australia.
The day of the race.
Unlike America's Tuesday race, businesses here actually close. People dress up and then get ridiculously trashed or "pissed" and destroy their hairdos and outfits in a glorious party that will only be repeated once per year.

I get the impression it's something like how American Halloween sort of marks the festive party beginning of the winter holiday season.
Except that it is summer here.
And this race involves horses.

As a horse lover, I of course find nearly nothing enjoyable about the whole thing except to watch those creatures running. Which is the smallest part of the race day. Carnival weekend. Whatever.

It's 80 Fahrenheit today and windy as can be. Perfect for running, the wind dried any sweating and kept me cooler than I would have been.

I unexpectedly got the day off (due to the race) and got to talk to my April.

With all this free time on my hands, I have experienced a beautiful yoga practice this morning and now can commence to shape the flat to my liking. Oh. Happy freedom.

But about the election.

I read an article about the abstainers and their reasons for not voting. Nearly 100% of them were progressives. And young.
Something about us, my generation, we don't seem to have the gift of the long view.

The lesser of 2 evils is often the way it is. And it's often the way it goes, heading toward progress. We don't expect our first job offers to be the dream job, but we take the best we can and work it until something even greater opens up, and we are more ready for it's particular responsibilities.
Why do we think that there will be a viable candidate who will put an immediate end to military aggression? Or one that will legalize gay marriage and end the war on drugs tomorrow? Do we really expect that there will be a candidate that stops oil and coal subsidies right away, who demands women are paid equally and education gets all the funding it could possibly need?
Here is a suggestion of what I think we should do......
We use our ideals to feed our imagination, our creativity about how to build a better world. We use them to nourish our hopes and keep us buoyant in what is often a dark and cold ocean of existence.
But when it comes to action in the present tense, we must use what we have now, not to romanticize the ordinary, but to use it as a means. God. I waited my whole life for a candidate I felt decent about voting for. Not to say I haven't voted for the lesser of evils before, but I hoped.
I imagine there are progressive idealists all over the USA who don't vote for whatever reason, mostly that the system isn't ideal or the candidate isn't ideal. And, I just can't help feeling that non participation is not working. It doesn't say much of anything to anyone.
What's that saying I remember from the wall of my high school US history classroom?

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Not that the other side is evil.

They just don't strongly believe in women's rights or gay rights or environmental quality rights or education rights or health care rights. They believe money comes first. That economy comes first.
It's a perfectly legitimate view.

It just isn't my view.

And in our hearts, I don't think it represents most American's views either.