Merry Christmas, Joyous Solstice, Everyone -

All blessings. I hope this posting finds you well, and blessed with the callings of your hearts. I am so graced by each of you.

Usually I share a holiday blog or poetic essay at this time of year. This holiday season I'm inviting you to explore with me a book investigating one of humanity's greatest inventions: writing--and our imperiled alphabets and scripts, and the cultures from which they spring. This would be an amazing Christmas/Solstice gift for yourself or others—a deep dive invitation into what is human and humane:

Writing Beyond Writing - Lessons from Endangered Alphabets — Tim Brookes

At rallies for human rights, in church congregations, at meet-ups over coffee, human rights are touched upon as each person having enough to live in dignity and well-being--with food, shelter, warmth/cooling, safety and medical resources—or, often in prayer, as “the three”: wealth, health, and relationships.

In a church congregation where I felt safe to express myself, I shouted out, in response to the identified “three”: wealth, health, and relationships, “ . . . and, Creativity!” What I was hollering out is that freedom of creative expression, in mediums with which one is engaged and/or drawn to, is an oft overlooked, oft discounted human need and right, life-blood of the spirit, for which much human blood has been shed.

Tim Brookes, in his newly published book, Writing Beyond Writing—Lessons from Endangered Alphabets, – reveals that through colonization and language imperialism, we have repeatedly squelched, suffocated, tortured and killed creative expression—trashing unique views, and rich lenses, connections, interpretations, and curiosities in lieu of the aggressors/conquerors self-aggrandizement-- driven by a sense of greed and buried self-doubt. And, he demonstrates an alternative, through honoring and making visible the world's endangered alphabets.
Yes, our physical needs must be met—and, so, too, the callings of our hearts:

“If, of thy mortal goods, thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one & from the dole,
Buy Hyacinths to feed the soul”

– Muslihuddin Sadi, 13th Century Persian Poet

Tim Brookes, on a carrier-wave of his passion for beautiful wood, and a distinctive set of circumstances calling upon his carving skills, found himself drawn deeply into the world's endangered scripts, with their unique garden-bed of each script's culture.

Unlike our strictly bound linear Latin alphabet, representing only sounds strung together to replicate words and their meanings into coherent thought patterns and concepts, or to narrate moods and sensations, Tim found in the world's endangered non-Latin alphabets articulated cultural norms, values, traditions and practices, inviting those able to read them into a vibrant living connection with their alphabets and panorama of their shared inner and outer landscapes.

When we haven't known about something, haven't felt it, been in connection with it, or its loss, later learning of the loss, it's easy to slip into feeling it is not important, that it doesn't particularly matter, it isn't tangible to us. . . “So it slipped away; what does it matter” . . . “If it was so valuable, it would have staying power.”

Thing is . . . vibrant, beautiful, rich alphabets don't just fade. They have purposely, been banished by, as Tim points out, “the winning team” in intentional diminishment, or well-meaning sharing/”gifting” of the perceived values of our Latin alphabet, which it does have, but done so in disregard, often incomprehension of the value of the alphabets being pushed aside.

So---what has estranged us to the curiosity, wonder; the magic of eye-contact, touch, and connection, the serpentine wafts of insight, cleverness, wisdom, and compassion; of Something Else, other than our own? Why have the alphabets of “not us” been trashed, tracked, and murdered? – ongoing: See Mongolian subjugated to Chinese, Tifinagh to Arabic and French. What is it, about 'other' –and all its riches, that terrifies us so, makes us immune to the sunset of an alphabet, and its people, from our self-styled Latin alphabet ivory towers?

The answer? Often inner colonization—initially by our families, communities, cultural-norms, someone who was a strong influencer in our lives—then carried on by us, as sovereign, yet often not fully informed, adults--long beyond our 'formative' years. Tim's deep noticing, and artistic interaction with the endangered alphabets, and the retrieval generated out of that . . . has created a living bridge of honor, respect, and support of artistic/creative expression, the right of voice, of speaking one's truth and vision, via writing in one's mother tongue and script—generating life-support rescue for the peoples of endangered alphabets, ourselves, and our creative fire.

Breathe it in, feel it, taste it, touch it—and feel the oxygen, the renewal, the arriving to the crossroads of dust, wood, water, air, sunlight--and that which leans back into the night and wonders at the stars; the patterns in the heavens, our minds, and the pens and paintbrushes at our finger tips—fully present and engaged in the livingness, the illumination of scripts—their sounds and visual movement, and the answering echoes in our minds and bodies that comes from reading and writing in those scripts.
They alter what we remember, how we perceive ourselves and those around us, how we feel, the insights and understandings we have, how we connect-the-dots—and the decisions we make and the actions we take based on our synthesis of that.
​
Allow Tim's connection with wood and script to take you to some place new with an unimagined view. It will alter your inner and outer landscapes, your interior dialogue about how we are made, and where we are going. Read this book!

https://www.endangeredalphabets.com/

Our mission is to play an active role in preserving endangered cultures by using their writing systems to create artwork and educational materials.
. . . and join Tim and the Endangered Alphabets Project this January 23, 2024 for the first World Endangered Writing Day--”A day of talks, discussions, activities, awards and games in support of the world’s minority and indigenous scripts and their communities.”

https://www.endangeredalphabets.com/world-endangered.../

Warmly,
Indigo

DEEP WINTERING

WINTERING:

Luscious. I titled it in all caps. There is solace in the stilling of winter. Back behind the Salvation Army bells at store entrances and “sir-rishhhh” of tires in snow slush, there is organic permission to quiet, to go deep into moon-satined rivers deep within us, to curl up in the “tree-trunk” of our bodies, to touch ourselves, hold ourselves, to be animal, to be connected to the deeper rhythms, to relax into it . . .

Wintering: To “hear” what we see; to see what we taste . . . some kind of deep level synesthesia. Back to being "animal": alive, really, fully, with it--instead of just skimming it. I'm saying yes. I am giving myself permission to wallow in a year of soft gray and ivory, tawny tans, and deep shadow blues. 

. . . a year of cozy, of comfort, of nurture, of restoration and recovery from "too long, too much". I am going to literally soak in other people's words. What a vacation to take long drinks of other peoples' thoughts, contemplations, and flights of watercolor art delivering the spell-bound images of the word magic scrawled on the pages and the wonder of reading out loud again, the magic of voicing what is written. I'm going to read myself bedtime stories. Seed my dreams, stretch in the cozy warmth of my own body heat, peeking at the soft-footed arrival of the gray day, over the rumple of my bed covers, with a milky sun peering back at me through my window.

Wintering: having time to pause, to contemplate, to gaze, to mull over, consider . . . has become such a luxury in our time. I'm claiming a year of it. I'll be working, still, but only 36 hrs, instead of 40 per week, starting the day after Christmas—16 hours more per month that is mine.

I have several journal-format magazines, one of them that I'm working with now, Field Guide to Everyday Magic by Stampington, and stacks of books, such as Wintering by Katherine May, gorgeous books—images and words by Jackie Morris about Snow Leopard; another about a Gypsy-woman who rides a polar bear pulling a vardo wagon full of books who comes by in the night and leaves a book for you . . . Jackie's book about unwinding. 

This is the time of star boats that sail away into the rivers of stars. Then, there is the soothing of dark branches scratching the soft gray underbellies of the lowering clouds, pregnant with snow fluff, waiting to come down in soft flurries. I'm always amazed that our sensitive faces relish the nip of snowflakes, looking out from a ruff of fur. There is a quality to the voice in snow country that is a timbre like no other, held in a silence that you can hear. There is snowfall inside me, a stilling quiet, as those animal-self seeds slumber beneath the surface of winter white.  

Silence, an Open Canvas

WABI SABI IMPERFECT PERFECT, in my right brain

What will it be like?

when I frequently arrive to a

hushed flight of pauses—dipping and soaring the welkin of constant cerebral activity, cracked

open with parting curtains of quiet, skeins of  quietude—gratitude for skin-tingles either side of a bell

spilling into pools of silence,  soothings of sooty gray sky quivered by Victorian lacings echoing an

exquiste mend: veins of gold-dusted laquer, lacing porcelain Quan Yin, Wabi-Sabi imperfect,

tracing her mercy of silences into a canvas of sound.

A Different Lens: covid-19

Our world is in a cocoon--an unscheduled retreat, at great cost to many, yet  meta- morphosing us into a new form of inner and outer community we've not seen before. The enforced shift in social distance and varying degrees of self-quarantine has also been bringing about self-arrival, a chance for us to catch up with that which we never slowed enough to meet before.

In this pause, more inner changes--and the maverick actions that will come of that, breakaways from stuck thinking—have arrived than many formal attempts on my part to create change. Spiritual and literal oxygen has arrived, refreshing my intuitive web-link to the Universe, and refreshing left-brain and right-brain to each other, and the creative fostering that comes from their chat.

Years of entrenched views, that have held me back, self and life interpretations, that have hobbled my self-confidence, made me hesitate, pause in unnamed anxieties have gotten enough fresh air let in for me to be arriving a new me, to  how can  look at things differently.

I am feeling most grateful this morning, that being able to air out all of this in a safe environment, and some overnight incubation, creates a bridge for me start a shift out of this stuck place, this old view, old fear--and open up to a new way of looking,
interpreting it. I think just the idea that I can look at it differently is a shift.

And I look forward to the new view/interpretation coming in, even though it's still fuzzy right now--like adjusting the lens on binoculars and something coming into clarity.

Everyone of our tribe brings something to the THRIVE table. Grateful to share the journey. We can't heal what is hidden in mistaken think'n, until it is revealed. We Just stay stuck when its concealed.

I feel like a wild horse that has just cleared the fence!

The Doggie In My Heart

I'm grateful the pause of this covid-19, regarding my rescued doggie, Curry, who, last night, had an unhappy encounter with a baby gate that came unexpectedly crashing down on him . . . has me home today to help him recover from his assumption that the crashing gate was his fault and that I'm mad at him, which I am not—and worse, that it was a 'live trap' to then drag him away back to the pound.  I heard the gate, and I went to right it, and he was nowhere to be seen. He had gone to hide under my roommate's bed, out of reach, cowering.

This morning, when I heard his prancing-toes out on the deck, I went to go see him, and he backed out the sliding glass door and went to cower on the far side of the deck, hanging his head in shame, walking stiffly, as if he was broken—his eyes sadder than I've ever seen.

I got down on all fours, hands and knees, then went to lie beside him, stroking him and speaking to him in soothing “good boy” tones, and crooning other endearments. He allowed himself to partake in a loving belly rub, but then shortly walked away, tail down, and stashed himself under her bed again. I can only imagine what abuse and terror conditioned him to respond like this, what unbidden cruelties of “Your're not wanted.”

He is a most beautiful Basenji-Chi (blend of African Basenji, once a gift to kings, and loveable Mexican Chihuahua). He is the light of my life. When we brought him home last June, it took several months to build up trust, and play, and a sense of family with him, his being an adopted brother to my housemate's Chiweenie, Mookie, (blend of Chihuahua and Dachshund). It shreds my heart to see his sense of trust, confidence and play shaken out of him like this.

And, this can maybe be a rewrite of that story for him. Something happened that he assumes was his fault, or that he is the fault—and, this time, this Mom is NOT mad at him, and we are not sending him away to a kennel or turning him out into the streets because of, he supposes, his transgression. Oh my God.

Were our world normal, no covid-19, I would have had to go to work, would have had to leave him, with no time clearance to work this out with him, except in broken intervals, with more time for his old negative assumptions to reset and solidify. I am so grateful to be available to him, as we recover him, together. What grace this covid-19 brings to this, while I continue to recognize the distress, grief and financial impact that it has also brought.

And, in spite of this grievous setback, this morning, while a little dented, we started with each other from NOT ONLY the original trauma, but also from our shared history since that. He let me touch him, let me bond, even while he still warily engaged from a shadow of shame . . .

And now, a few days later, shared joy arrives this morning: Curry greeted me with a pounce, a wet cold nose, bright eyes shining. Here's the Curry that  I know and love -- squeaks of happy greeting coming from my beloved Basenji-Chi, tweets of joy emitting from my heart.

Arriving and Continuing

Ailment: I'm afraid of not being what I'm not for fear of $ financial disaster.

Antidote: Spirit finds the Soulution.

I am making a choice to TRUST my HP (Higher Power), that I call Mariko-san/MaiLing (Truth Worth) + All-That-Is, + Other and Company (the support and companions we always have, even in Anime)—and . . . in spite of the jitters, anxiety, fear, sadness, rejection disappointments, frustration, worry . . . on and on . . . to find the Solution that is work I can engage with deep motivation, and not put my writing and art passions at risk of prostitution. This is a rich and complex path to come up with the combination key-lock that will allow me to move forward.

One of the things I see here is that my engagement with the animal world—pet, feral, wild—is very directly connective = animals and those who love them. On the other hand, writing and art, though they can be inspired, and even amped by others, is a very self-engaged “retreat” energy for me, in which I get to dive beyond sight into both Treasured and completely unexplored realms, and the deep need for protected boundaries in that.

To many, I am sensed as an extrovert: Public speaking, blogging, make-it-so/happen, arrive the 3D, engage, take action . . . and while I do very much carry those energies within rich intuitive nuances, actually, it comes from being a contemplative, exploring, turns-within, introvert.

I grew up with a blessing of animal presence: Horse, dogs, cats, goats, chickens, baby barn owl, raccoon, baby fox—and—as I moved into later adulthood as a Cultural and Natural History Tour Guide,I found a renewed connection with fox, bobcats, coyote, eagles, hawks, jays, squirrels—and one very special Peregrine falcon whom I was blessed to rescue--(after a WEEK, I so found out, later, of others noting and not acting!!! This falcon now resides in the Sierra Vista area as a part of a licensed educational program, as injuries disallowed return to the wild, and a very worthy lifestyle alternative!)

Animals are magic to me, as are the stars/galaxies and the Fine and Performing Arts, and the grace of those who embrace these arenas. We are also blessed by paper-pushers, accountants/number crunchers, retail sales personnel, IT specialists . . . and it's time for me to find both my work and creative niche, which, while connected, are not necessarily the same. Arriving.

What I've arrived to is that I want to switch careers into animal grooming/care as work—visible and connected to my shared world with them and humans, and continue to explore my writing and art in a non-work environment. Anybody out there? Would love to hear from you!!!

Blessings, on your path and all your endeavors!

SURPRISE! When What You Hunt Finds You

Sometimes, those rare instances show up when something catches our attention from the corner of our eye--suspends us out of time--soaks us with a profound sense of recognition, connection, our only then knowing that sense of something lost--found. What has been unseen, disregarded, dismissed or gone torpid in unuse thrusts up and breaks surface--something that you didn't even notice was gone until that instant, until it stands there before you.

Under the glaring fluorescent lights at Walmart, surrounded by gaggles of noisy kid families about their shopping, out of place, at eye level, I flashed on the arresting image of a Blu-ray/DVD cover: a red-haired elfin teenage girl lifted in the arms of a svelte, boneheaded man--long elegant horns atop a canine skull. Reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast--it was something more. I stood transfixed--every hair on my body rising in a mysterious sense of joyful, other-worldly recognition. I was looking at a copy of Kore Yamazaki's anime, volume one, of The Ancient Magus' Bride.

On the spot, entranced by the image, I laid down my long-standing psyche pattern--the huntress with her "bow and arrows." As the "archery equipment" fell to the floor at my feet, my immediate takeaway was that I felt "filled." The acquisitive hungry ghost that haunted behind my fires of creative fervor and lurked in the luscious binges of engrossing conversations with friends, the want factor receded from me; shadow chased by sunlight. . . . I felt myself scooped up, on the spot, and held close, like the red-haired girl in the picture before me.

I felt found, seen, visible--wide awake, wide open--filled with a sense of possibility, mystery, intrigue--reclaimed by something--guarded and protected by a fierce, present, dragon energy--this, even while respectfully regarded and inquired--and mysteriously beckoned. To my sense of wonder, I stepped from inner shackles into an inner clearing.

All of this from a glimpse of an anime cover? What I had unknowingly sought stood magnificent before me--the anime image capturing an ancient archetypal story of a lonely mage and homeless young woman now become apprentice to this powerful, reclusive magus; and in turn about, sometimes she the teacher, his having lessons of his own to learn.

I stood looking at a star constellation in the night sky, recognizing it as my own. Why? Where from? Don't know. Don't care. Doesn't matter. Restored something in me--a sense of depth value, an inner confidence that had been definitely on walk-about--recall of connecting with a being not unintelligent by any means, but at the same time not acculturated to the status quo of our embedded social and cultural structures with all its attendant restrictions: Whoosh: breathing space--kind, if sometimes baffled, inquiry into Other, plumbing internal depths that had faded from sense and sight.

This is the story of Chise Hatori and Elias Ainsworth, and a full cast of characters spanning numerous realms; a story about the cultivation of empathy and self-introspection--seeing through to a person's quivering vibrant core and the ownership of emotions, choices and consequences; inquiring into integrity and ethics—not about the ownership or suppression of another person; rather, ownership of relationships and a deep regard for sovereignty, even as we are the challengers that trigger growth and change that sometimes takes us on separate paths.

I'm still receiving this new sense of being filled up, from within. Meeting moments of peace and equanimity before this, in the rich complexities of encounters with self and in exchanges with others, they've been fleeting. This brings a base shift; new glasses and new eyes.

Barnes and Noble, https://www.barnesandnoble.com, features an anonymous quote:

We lose ourselves in books. We find ourselves there too.

Kore Yamazaki has captured, in her magical manga and anime, a story etched within the very hollows of my bones, where the marrow lives: an Archetypal Presencing that has threaded my entire life--so often relegated, dismissed, as chimerical fantasy. Enter the ancient thorn mage and the courage of a young girl as they together leap into their own depths and darkness to find the light within both of them.

From want of use, since my late husband's passing, this archetypal pattern within me had slipped into torpidity. Blessed with rich, close friendships, and surged with cyclic creative fire manifested in a passion for writing, and in a wider arc, enamored with drawing/sketching, this part of me, a very active, vibrant and interactive part of me, had languished--a psycho-spiritual vitamin deficiency, costing me significant portions of my native verve, sauce and juice. A marathon session of watching season one and two of The Ancient Magus' Bride anime brought the lights back on! I felt alive as I had not in many years. Who knew!!!

Ms. Yamazaki! Self-described in the September 2017 Forbes Magazine interview as only knowing "how to draw manga" -- for me, you are a magician scribe revealed in this Ancient Magus' Bride story that spun out of you, renewing me to a deep sense of magic, of re-trusting the Universe, and myself, in my native ways of sensing and egaging my world--ways that over the years had gone bone dry in me--bones left to bleach and brittle, slivering in the sun--now moist again with quicksilver in my marrow, my psychic flesh sewn back onto them--my huntress' "bow and arrows" now a rubble of dust on Walmart's floor.

ありがとうございましたArigatōgozaimashita, Ms. Yamazaki

天の恵み Ten'nomegumi (Heaven's Blessings)