Last night, I had dinner (on the porch in spite of the record-breaking heat here in the mystical MidAtlantic! Of course, we did have shade, the ceiling fan, and a bottle of icy grand cru from Arnould & Fils, recommended by my brilliant friend Stoat) with a beloved magical Sister. I asked her, "You'd tell me, right? Mercury didn't unexpectedly go retrograde and I just (in retrograde Mercury fashion) missed the memo?" Because it would explain a lot. (Blogger, you fickle, evil BitchGoddess, I am looking, inter alia, at you.)
And speaking of missing the memo, I'm not sure why I am just now finding out about the amazing sculpture of Fidelma Massey. If I'd known about her sooner, I'd have planned my garden around one of her sculptures. As it is, I'm going to have to sit down w/ Landscape Guy and see where we can work one in. There's a spot he's been pointing to along the Southern boundary for a few months and saying, "Something needs to go there. You need to figure out what."
And, in true if-Mercury-isn't-retrograde-who-is? fashion, I'm not sure where I first found Ms. Massey's work. I thought it was at Sally J. Smith's site, but now I can't find it there. (And I'd love, someday, to get Sally to build one of her fairy houses in my garden for G/Son, too. He's so fascinated w/ the fairy door on the big maple in my woodland). Whoever brought Ms. Massey to my attention, many thanks!
Which of her works do you like best?
Pictures: Google "Fidelma Massey" and click on "Images".
Just the first few minutes of so much empty space allows my breath to sink deeper into my belly, my spirit to expand. My INTJ self looks at those images the way a thirsty woman looks at pictures of icy water. The times in my life when I've been most surrounded by emptiness have felt the most freeing to me.
This weekend, G/Son asked me, apropos of nothing as far as I could tell, "Nonna, why Pop Pop was your only husband and you never had another one?" (There was another one, but we'll wait until he's older to get into that.) I replied, "Well, what I found out about myself was that I really like to have some time alone so that I can think my own thoughts." G/Son replied, "Well, why you don't like to be around people?" I said, "Oh, I do like to be around people, a lot. But I also need time to myself." G/Son then said something that floored me. "Well, sometimes you don't see me for days and you don't miss me."
If anyone has ever misperceived anything about me, surely this. But I think that it was really more an inquiry than a statement.
Honestly, there's not a day, indeed, there's hardly an hour that goes by when I don't think about G/Son and his 'rents, offer up energy for their safety, health, and happiness, and wish that I could be with them. Luckily for me, my family lives close by and I get to see them more often than, say, DiL's 'rents or Pop Pop and his partner. Goddess knows, there are more days when I stop myself from bugging them (with a phone call, a request to iChat, a visit to take them out to dinner or brunch) than there are days when I give in to my longing to be with G/Son. And, of course, often when I do call or iChat, this busy 5-year-old wants to head off to look for worms under bricks or to watch some Harry Potter before bedtime.
So I was floored.
I paused a bit before answering, especially because, as G/Son has his Sun in Pisces, Moon in Taurus, and Ascendent in Scorpio, I imagine that he's going to be, maybe even more than his Nonna, one of those people who will need a lot of time alone as he gets older. So I want to lay down enough breadcrumbs, along the appropriate paths, to be of some use. After grounding and centering, taking some connecting breaths, and touching the Great Grandmother in the Sky Depository of All Wisdom, I said, "Well, actually, I do. I think about you every day and I wish that I could be with you. But I know that you, and Mommy, and Daddy need space to live your own lives. And so, when I miss you a lot, I think about how I want you to be healthy and happy and then, sometimes, I light incense for you. And, I think about how, by really thinking my own thoughts, I can be a better Nonna to you and a better mother-in-law to your Mommy and a better Mom to your Daddy."
G/Son thought about this for a moment and then said, "Nonna, Guess what?"
Me: "What?" (This is a phase all kids go through, in my experience. "Guess what" is sort of a way of beginning a conversation.)
G/Son: "My new favorite colors are red and yellow, because those are the colors Harry Potter wears and, tonight, if you read me the book about Geronimo Stilton, can you let me read the words that are in big print, because I can read them now and I can also type the word "Batman" on the computer and, Nonna? do you have any blueberries for me because I am hungry and when I am hungry I like blueberries a lot, even though blue isn't my favorite color any more, and, Nonna, Guess What?"
The day ended badly with a broken ankle, a jinxed printer, and a dead car. The dry yellow grass against the sunset saved me. Roosters
pranced across a lawn of shit, proudly plumed in black feathers, bobbing before the gray goats. It was the first day I saw god in the quiet,
and found a mustard seed was very small. There I had been for years cursing “why?” and all the gold in the sun fell upon me.
There was a white mare in the midst of brown smog, majestic in the refinery clouds. Even the radio wouldn’t work!
My mother limps and her hair falls out. The faithful drive white Chevy trucks or yellow Camrys, and I’m here golden
on the smoking shock-less bus. I lost language in this want, each poem dust, Spanish fluttered
as music across the desert, even weeds tumbled unloved. The police sirens seared the coming night, dogs howled helplessly sad.
Lo I walk the valley of death, love lingers in my hard eyes. Mañana never comes just right. I mend myself in the folds
of paper songs, ring my paper bells for empty success. Quiero Nada, if I sing long enough, I’ll grow dreamlike and find a flock of pigeons, white under wings lifting awkward bodies like doves across the silky blue-white sky.
Ruh Roh. It's no surprise to me that this is all happening during a retrograde Mercury.
The worry for Icelanders is that each time Eyjafjoell has erupted over the last millennium, Katla, named after an Icelandic witch, quickly followed.
Explosive percussions heard every few minutes here testify to lava explosions inside Eyjafjoell, a few kilometers (miles) to the west, and the threat that Katla might be awaiting its cue. "There have been three Eyjafjoell eruptions and Katla has followed each time," said geophysicist Sigrun Hreinsdottir, [I love Scandanavian names] at the Earth Sciences Institute. "They are very close."
Some believe the volcanoes are directly linked underground so that magma from one can flow into the other. Hreinsdottir said that what happens inside volcanoes is largely a mystery. What's known is that Katla has erupted approximately every 80 years since Vikings first settled this island nestled under the Arctic Circle more than a thousand years ago. The last eruption was in 1918 and "it's the longest pause of Katla on record, which is why we are monitoring it very carefully," Hreinsdottir said.
An eruption from Katla might not necessarily be dangerous. But it has the potential every time to repeat the 1918 scene when a wall of melted glacier water swept down, bearing ice chunks the size of houses, and blanketing southern Iceland in thick ash. What effect a monster eruption would have on a Europe [already] crippled by the much milder Eyjafjoell can only be imagined. Much would depend on wind direction, the type of ash and height of the ash plume.
. . .
All the same, Katla -- known with the volcano Hekla as Iceland's "angry sisters" -- looms darkly in [local residents'] life. "We were brought up on this," Gudmunsson said. "In school we were told stories about Katla and we trained to evacuate." In case of a major eruption, a towering wave of melted glacier water could rush from the mountain across the narrow, flat coastal strip and, potentially, into Vik. "I live in a house on the flat, so when Katla goes and the eruption starts we have to move up the hill," Gudmunsson said. "The odds are not very high but it can happen and it has happened."
Better to just not piss off the witch!
In the Saga, Katla is a sorceress, a witch who at first with wit and smart magick hides her child from the men who want to kill it. But the magick isn't all perfect: the men always return after having had to give up the search in Katla's place at Holt. Each time they return, they will look exactly in the very spot the child was hidden before.
Katla expects that to happen and hides her child in a different place and in a different manner every time and she knows to work a different magick too. Thrice her strivings succeed, but the fourth time the men learned to expect magical illusions and brought with them another witch for help. This time, Katla didn't see them coming soon enough to prepare another new perfect hideaway for her child, the magick doesn't work this time. The men find and kill her child.
In her grief and anger Katla curses the men, they should stay in bad luck from now on. After that, the men kill Katla too.
The case is brought to the Thorsnes-Thing. All who parttook in the murders are taken away their property, and banned from the country for the rest of their lives. The buy a ship and sail away from Iceland, and there is no trace left of them after that.
NYT: A cloud of ash from an Icelandic volcano shut down much of air travel to and from Northern Europe for a third straight day as a massive transportation gridlock spread around the world. Actual evidence of the ash was being detected in Britain, where air travel was likely to remain shut down until Monday.
Scientists were uncertain when the ash, reported to be drifting at altitudes commonly used by civilian jetliners, would dissipate.
Mercury sure the fuck is in retrograde. It's been several years since one kicked my ass the way this one is doing. Fasten your seatbelts; it's going to be a bumpy ride.
The WaPo reports votes on Obama's stimulus bill by Astrological sign, although, oddly, they list the signs in alphabetical order.
I'm no astrologist, but the results are interesting. There are 55 crabby Cancers in Congress, 50 two-faced, fast-talking Geminis, 45 people-pleasing Libras, and 42 critical Virgos. Only 33 idealistic Aquarians and a mere 29 each of practical Capricorns, free-spirited Sags, and stubborn Taureans.
In 2008 the adjustments that are slated to occur during the retrogrades are in Air signs. Thus these Mercury retrogrades will impact our throughts, ideas, decisisions and attitudes about specific events and choices we are reviewing. . . . Mercury turns retrograde January 28th at 24° Aquarius; Mercury turns direct February 19th at 8° Aquarius
And, Computers crash, software develops unexpected glitches, traffic jams ensue, telephone service snarls up, letters get lost on the mail, machinery breaks down, new projects fail. Ah, yes, the trickster Mercury is up to his old pranks again. In fact, at least three times a year for about three weeks each time Mercury has his way with us.
The Dark Moon is tomorrow and Mercury goes retrograde on Friday. You might want to conclude your important business/travel plans/financial contracts, oh, say, tomorrow morning.
Mercury goes retrograde on Tuesday and stays there for a long time. Sometime, when you've got hours to spare, Aunt Hecate will tell you the tale of the lost mammogram films.
It happens three times a year; you may as well learn to take a brief time out.
I'm a woman, a Witch, a mother, a grandmother, an eco-feminist, a gardener, a reader, a writer, and a priestess of the Great Mother Earth. Hecate appears in the
Homeric Ode to Demeter, which tells of Hades who caught Persophone
"up reluctant on his golden car and bare her away lamenting. . . . But no one, either of the deathless gods or of mortal men, heard her voice, nor yet the olive-trees bearing rich fruit: only tenderhearted Hecate, bright-coiffed, the daughter of Persaeus, heard the girl from her cave . . . ."
