==Alesia Matson
YIM: vibesgoddess
ICQ: 23026132

http://MetaphorsForLife.com
http://Xstitcher.webs.com -- X-Stitch Xpress online!

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves
awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an
infinite expectation of the dawn.
-- Henry David Thoreau

• M's briefcase was stolen today. He left it on the passenger seat of the Subaru with the windows down, in Arcata this afternoon. MacDuff was in the car at the time, though we don't know if he was sleeping or what. Lots of stuff that's inconvenient to lose, but the killer stuff was his checkbook and the entire plan folder for the RV park expansion he's been working on this summer.
  
  
• Tigger came through, went with me to the household storage unit and got his stuff out of it. He had more in there than he thought. :) Now I just have to pin down Elder Son, who no longer lives in the area and whose visits usually aren't announced to me... He's got more stuff in there than his brother did and I want it all out so I can store my store inventory in there.
  
  
• The holiday weekend was a mixed bag, as you may have seen if you're reading along. One highlight not mentioned was a very nice dinner at the Sunset Restaurant, in Cher-ae Heights Casino. Another is the sweet little swimming hole we found up on the Smith River while tooling around on Sunday.
  
  
• We had fires in the woodstove for warmth, most of the weekend. :( On Monday the sun made its long-delayed appearance. M mowed the lawn and we bought a big bag of good fertilizer for the roses and garden plants. I'm about ready to harvest our first chard, probably with dinner tomorrow.
  
  
• I spent some time at Handmade Memories this afternoon to get it a bit more stitching time plus a little exposure for X-Stitch Xpress to the ladies who come in to knit and crochet there. This Friday night is the "Midnight Madness" event, which in other venues would be called a "stitch & bitch," I'm sure. *grin* Is lots of fun and I need to decide what to take for snacks. Oh, and call Ellen, whom I have not heard from for over a week now.
  
  
• I'm psyching myself up for heading out tomorrow to all the local yarn and scrapbooking shops with cards and fliers.
  
  
• Haven't made much more progress with the inventory lately. I feel like a slacker. :( I am getting a few calls off that marquee advertising; no paying customers yet.
  

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): While appearing on the TV show "I'm a
Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here," ex-pro basketball player John Salley gave some advice I'd like to pass along. "When you see crazy coming your way," he philosophized, "you should cross the street." I do think crazy will be headed in your direction sometime soon, Sagittarius, and the best response you can make is to avoid it altogether, preferably in a way that it doesn't notice you. That's right: Don't shout at crazy, don't bolt away ostentatiously, and certainly don't run up and give crazy a big hug. There are far better ways for you to gather in your fair share of intriguing mystery; I'd hate to see you get bogged down in a useless, inferior version of it.

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it."

--Anais Nin

07:46 pm - 5 More Words from little_wren82

1. Tarot: I started reading tarot in... 1995, I think. Or thereabouts. I found the imagery and symbolism on the cards very compelling, archetypes and metaphors dancing in and out of waking consciousness. Tarot speaks to some very deep levels of our understanding of ourselves and what we're about on this journey between cradle and grave. Used in that context it is an invaluable tool for self-examination and growth, one I still use today.
   
   It's not a chronic substitute for intuition and good sense (though it can pinch-hit, occasionally, when inspiration fails). It's not an excuse to be self-righteous. It doesn't foretell the future. Used with a dose of good humor, it can plot out an intriguing storyline. :) If you're a writer stuck for plot and you understand tarot symbolism, give it a try sometime.
   
   
2. Language: A transmitter of information, but it is not the information being transmitted. It is a means of communication, but not that which is being communicated. Spoken/written language in particular is a poor way to convey truth, but it's what we continually fall back on, which explains a lot when you think about it.
   
   I love language and I hate it. I love its poetry, its power, its rhythm. I love how it motivates and provokes change. I love it when it is used to carry and convey truth, and on those (exceedingly) rare occasions when it actually does facilitate communication.
   
   I hate it because it is used to lie, to obscure truth. I hate it when it wounds, tears down, destroys. I hate it because it is WAY too easy to use to divide us -- a tool this powerful should be more difficult to wield, should perhaps require years of training and licensing. Instead we let just anyone use it -- which again explains a lot, doesn't it.
   
   
3. Music: Now this is a means to communicate truth which is MUCH more accurate and efficient than spoken/written word. :) I would argue, for the fun of it and using up lots of those silly words, that humankind only really achieved civilization when it discovered how to record its music and make it available to everyone. All else up to that point was mere prologue.
   
   I studied music in college, saxophone and voice. I was a band/choir geek in high school. I had every Christmas Carol imaginable memorized when I was a girl in elementary school. My earliest memories are of my mother singing to the car radio. She stopped when she noticed me listening. I remember asking her not to stop, to please keep singing. :) Eventually, shyly, she did.
   
   No other force in this reality can bring me to tears as quickly, make laughter bubble up and spill out of my throat as heartily, open me up to transcendence as reliably as music. I hope that after I pass through the veil at the other end of this vale of tears that those who gather to celebrate my life do so with music. If they do, I'll surely be there too!
   
   
4. Parent: If there is any area of my life where I'm more ambivalent about my performance, I can't think of it off-hand. I like to think I did the best I could, parenting my boys, but I'm not convinced of it. In fact, I'm actually pretty sure I could have done better, that I missed the point of parenting entirely, with them. :( I was selfish. I didn't figure out until it was much too late that their childhood should have been all about THEM; instead, it was much too much about me.
   
   Neither of them seem to resent me for it, not overtly. Ah well. At least they have something to tell a therapist, if they ever decide to go.
   
   
5. Sexuality: I was really relieved this was "sexuality" rather than "sex" until I saw that creativedv8tion settled on the smaller word for one of the five he gave me. :-0
   
   Sexuality used to be a huge part of my self-identity. Hell, it used to be a huge part of my self-worth, for all of that. I was not only open about my sexuality, I was up front and assertive about it. I wanted you to know that I was bisexual and polyamorous, playful and adventurous and available -- I truly believed these were important facts for you to have. They were very much a currency I needed us to use in any relationship we might have constructed.
   
   Somewhere along the way, in the past five years or maybe ten, that has changed. I don't really know how or why, but it has. My sexuality is now just another trait about me, like being overweight or having brown eyes. It's simply there, no more or less important than anything else. Somewhere along the line I was able to effect some healing and integration on the issues that originally caused the imbalance, though I didn't honestly recognize that until just now.
   
   I'm... grateful for this, very much so. My life feels much more intricate and depthful and complex now that so many other things can come into focus, in their turn. :) I can build relationships using currencies other than sexuality, a realization that has expanded the palette of interconnectedness enormously.
   

• I harvested lettuce leaves and nasturtium leaves and flowers to augment our dinner salad this evening. You have to pick the nasturtium leaves when they're still smaller than a quarter, they have a light, crispy texture and mildly peppery flavor.
  
  
• I like having sunlight in our backyard again. I may have mentioned this before.
  
  
• Framboise Lambic is A Very Tasty Thing to drink. I wish I had some now.
  
  
• After the Subaru passes its smog test tomorrow (this is me using the power of positive thinking here) we will officially be a 3 vehicle family. Hereafter known as Scooby-Do, the new addition got 23 mpg on its first tank of gas since it was put back on the road, which bodes well; Maggie May got about that on her first tank too, as I recall, and it kept getting better and better as time went along. I figure Scooby will pay for itself (registration and repairs) before the end of 2009 in saved fuel costs alone.
  
  
  • Lazarus (the truck) will now only be used when M needs his tools at the other end of the trip. Scooby-Do is officially his work car and I'll be using it from time to time as needed for its all-wheel drive.
  
  
• http://xstitcher.webs.com/apps/blog/ -- the link for X-Stitch Xpress's new business blog, if you're interested in following along. I've been chronicling some of the start up process for the business recently but I anticipate I'll be using it to announce additions to inventory, new ideas for product, changes to my routes, etc. Or whatever else strikes my fancy. :)
  
  
• Has anyone else noticed how the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie ("At World's End") pretty much prophesied the attitudes that led to the collapse of the financial sector (and thus our economy) here in 2008/09? There's a direct parallel between Lord Cutler Beckett and some of the "captains of industry" I've seen getting their pee-pees whacked in hearings before the congress...
  
  
  • They were all selfish, greedy psychopaths. But the pirates, in the movie at least, were honest about being selfish greedy psychopaths. And in the end, it was the pirates who made choices for the good of the whole rather than their own selfish (or corporate) interests. You couldn't say that about Cutler Beckett. Or John Thain, for that matter.
    
    
  • Yeah yeah. It's "fiction," I know. Got it.
    
    
  • But then again, "credit default swaps." Speaking of fictions, and other not-true things.
  
  
  
• Anyway... I haven't cross-stitched since the BoINK debacle. I had intended to do some stitching over the weekend, but that didn't happen. Note to self: don't use the weed whacker and THEN load and stack green firewood unless you want your hands to tremble every time they grasp something for 24 to 48 hours.
  

mech_angel

1. Wisdom: The third leg of a rather important life triad, the other two of which are Knowledge and Experience. Wisdom is what you get from knowledge and experience, though it's not an automatic result them. It does require some ability to analyze what you've been through and derive something important from it; in the best of all cases what you derive from this cycle has application to humanity at large. Then people think you're a guru and come to you to hear your wisdom, not realizing that all you can give them is "knowledge." Most of which they then ignore, of course. What they don't ignore is unfailingly misinterpreted when it's put into action/experience, but since it's all leading them through their own cycles of knowledge, experience and wisdom, it's all good.
   
   Except the part where they get disgusted with you because your wisdom can't be theirs too. But hey, nothing in life is without flaws.
   
   
2. Threads: You know, what's funny about this is that I wanted to gloss over "wisdom" to get to this one. :) There is so much that is multi-layered and multi-faceted about this word as a metaphor and all of it is yummy.
   
   The Fates of Norse mythology, spinning out the thread of a man's life...
   
   A thread in a tapestry, a strand in a web. Individually unremarkable perhaps, but when entwined with others something really amazing and beautiful happens. Fibers merge, colors mutate and blend. People are like this, lives are like this; we embroider one another's lives. Threads twisting and weaving and braiding and fraying and separating -- and sometimes ending -- and the bigger I get, the deeper I delve, the more of this incredible Tapestry I can grok at once and it's all so very beautiful. All of it.
   
   A thread that weaves consistently through any life can disappear for a time and re-emerge years, sometimes decades later, its color and weight changing and being changed by those around it. The thread I would name "children," for instance, looked and behaved very differently for me 20 years ago than it does now. The thread named "music" is constant though it's like an overdyed floss, colors changing as my tastes in music change and broaden. "Loyalty" is a thread that comes and goes, or perhaps more accurately, my struggles to define, integrate, and deal with "loyalty issues."
   
   As I gather the threads of my life and braid them into a single expressive strand, I see everyone around me in the same process, whether it's realized or not. There are some sparklies in mine now and then, and it's frayed here and there. The colors span and transcend mere rainbows... As a life metaphor they don't get much better than this one.
   
   
3. Needlework: Needlework to me is a contemplative practice.
   
   It is beauty in being and becoming.
   
   It is magic in form and function.
   
   It is a place and a space where I am at one with myself, still in my center. It is privacy and freedom to think my own thoughts in that privacy.
   
   It is... continuity. With each stitch I take I am continuing a tradition begun by distant ancestresses I can scarcely imagine. I am linked back to all those women through this working we share, their stitches living on in me and all my stitchy-sisters today and in tomorrows to come.
   
   Needlework may be other things to other people, but that's what it is to me.
   
   
4. Crone: Thank you, mech_angel for giving me this word and making me address what it means to me yet again. It's needful. A crone is an old woman who has embraced her power and her status. She has not denied them by trying to stay artificially young. She hasn't surrendered them, not to husbands or children or doctors or religionists. There are a lot of old women who are not crones and I do believe that much of my internal ambivalence to my own approaching cronehood derives from this initial confusion. I have been blessed to know one or two crones... they are not always easy people to be around, but they are always interesting people to know. :)
   
   
5. Games: I could probably write volumes on this one, but I won't. Summing up, "games" to me is what we're all playing, every minute of every day. Even when we think we're not, even when we say we're serious or not playing -- that's when it's the biggest game of all. These days I enjoy deep games, and one of the biggest disappointments in my life is that so few people I know are capable of playing them, let alone enjoying them.
   

mech_angel

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Metaphorically speaking, Sagittarius, you have unearthed or are about to unearth a rare fossil. I think it's a pretty sensational discovery. It's a missing link that could help you make sense out of episodes in your past that have always mystified or frustrated you. I urge you to learn all you can about this fossil. Follow every lead it points to. And ask your intuition to run wild and free as it dreams up possible interpretations to its multiple meanings.

• Since when are we ADDING to FEDERAL law enforcement? The FBI has always been carefully circumscribed to keep them from becoming National Police -- these Forest Service idiots are apparently not so bound by law.
  
  
• In the NATIONAL FOREST CAMPGROUNDS, fer crissakes? We go into the woods to get AWAY from civilization and its trappings! When we go to the city, we keep our dogs on leash -- MOSTLY TO PROTECT THEM from other people, not the other way around. We don't vacation in the city much for that very reason -- I think I'd appreciate it if city people reciprocated. Don't come to the wilderness if all you're doing is bringing the city in with you!
  
  
  • It was bad enough that sheriff's deputies and the highway patrol drove through the campground occasionally, IN ADDITION TO the forest rangers of course. We'd grudgingly accustomed ourselves to that and those officers knew better than to run around bothering anybody who wasn't bothering anyone else. The NFS's Law Enforcement, federally empowered, apparently feel no such restraint -- they're actively justifying their jobs by entering your camp proactively, WITH WEAPONS, even when you are NOT causing harm or problems to anyone else.
  
  
  
• With a gun. WITH A GUN. He had a holstered sidearm, walking into my camp. The mere presence of that thing elevated the tension levels unbelievably and of course my dogs responded -- I felt threatened, they seriously wanted to get between me and whatever was causing that!
  
  
• Now, to be fair the leash law in national forests has been around for a long, long time. We knew we were going to have to ride herd on our dogs a bit more than we would if we were at home -- but as responsible dog owners, we accepted that (see the point above about never having been bothered if we weren't bothering anyone else). They're good dogs, both young and still learning their manners for places like campgrounds. It's part of our duty as pack leaders to teach them and they were remembering pretty quickly from last year when the NFS Storm Trooper showed up.