mumma yaga

 Sept. 26 After the rain, suddenly there seems to be more colour in the trees. Rain's baby is born! A beautiful boy with red hair, like his father, he is perfect! I had the privilege and honour of being with them for the birth. Rain was amazing, and she and the baby are doing well. Tal was wonderful, loving, and supporting Rain through it all.  Rain has become a mother. The baby is in perfect health, no problems, he passed all his tests with perfect scores. He has been consistently alert and engaged with Rain. His body tone is ideal, not limp or tight, his nursing instincts are good and he is getting the hang of coordinating them to latch properly. Rain is already well-versed in how to bring him to breast. When I held him, the baby looked at me and listened to my voice, and my grandmother's arms knew just how to soothe and calm him while Rain had something to eat, but he knew that I was not his mother, and the way he looked at me said as much. I was quite impressed. I am so gla

aug. 30 in the ER we sit against the walls  like refugees  who have reached the other side come in from the pain  across the roads and the city to seek help triaged into curtained cells segregated we wait the border guards, doctors and nurses, interrogate and run tests, draw blood and maybe, give medicine we are starved and broken and afraid  too numerous too poor and in pain in this pandemic time hours we wait for help draped against the plague lined up along the twisted corridor masked and huddled in the clothes we were wearing at the river our belongings at our feet arms in makeshift wraps faces in twisted pain patient as wounded soldiers a grey-haired woman, small and confused cannot comprehend the medical-speak that explains her stop-gap care a man in a cartoon t-shirt rests his black and bloated foot on a chair his sandal in his hand a young man holds his head, a woman her child a nurse gives a bus schedule to a woman in a pale housecoat  but her bag is empty of fare. the nurses

sept. 21 september, equinox, full moon, Rain's baby is coming any day now. "if you listen you can hear the waterfall in the blue jay call / and you search to glimpse wings in the leaves"  (from angels and mustard seeds , my - see footnote *** ) ***** The Alexander teacher says "let your feet release to the earth ... " I have only "reached" my feet into the earth imagining roots, as connecting to the energy of gravity, the magnet of the earth. But to release - it was an epiphany and its novel idea of letting go, letting the earth take, draw, open and accept, was a joy of realization. It didn't work well in the city: there was something selfish and destructive in releasing pain or waste into that burdened earth. But here I release my pain and broken energy knowing that the earth, the mountain, accepts and will transform it, draws it in like rain and corpses to remake into new energy, fodder and new life. * ***** We have returned to the vineyard. We w