mumma yaga

 July 25 If I am being wholly present, then am I not "mind-less"?, meeting the moment with my heart or being? I suppose I would have to look at the meaning of "mind". There is a good deal of talk about "mindfulness" these days, and I think it is meant to be "being present", focussing the mind on the task at hand, be it work or play. One brings all of one's senses and thoughts to the "now", turning off the inner voice. This is a problem of language, isn't it?  Sometimes I am mindless, just alive and here. It is July, truly the month that lasts forever. I am taken up with mosaic work, cooking, walking, being, just being, on the porch with K or Rocky, taking time to be ("be") with Rocky. I am caught up in the life of the trees and birds and little insects - their being (again) blows me away (there is a word for this somewhere). I stop to look and am bewitched (!), yes, I think that is the feeling sometimes, joy and awe bo...

 July 16 When we were children, July was the month that would last forever. Summer stretched ahead for unending weeks and weeks, of heat, grass, grasshoppers, running in the sun, running in the leaf-dappled woods, tagging your big toe on a stone, popsicles, maybe even ice cream. That sense of endless time still envelops me each July. I feel it like magic: the days will go on forever. It is hot and goes on being hot at night and in the very dark dark; hot, so that you sleep almost naked, if you can sleep at all, spend the day almost naked. There was always water - the sprinkler, the creek, even sometimes the beach and hot sand and sandy towels. We went to the creek forever to catch tadpoles, wading in without our shoes, armed with nets and jars. At the cottage we looked for crayfish under rocks in the shallows. There were thousands; blue-gray as the limestone and sand, they darted backwards in a flash, under the next rock. And rain, we loved the rain, sudden and cold. We danced bare...

 July 15 it is time  to gather the witches call the sisters home there will be a  dance like none before call down the magic  it is time no torches to light the way just the dark the lightning down from the thunderclouds will be our guide the thunder be our drum gather the witches the women of the circle gather in  the women of the tribes are we afraid? yes we have always been afraid it is in the blood we are raped alone we are pregnant alone the witness hides in the shadow and no-one tells eve the convenient fall-guy is held up bleeding and bleeding from whose blade?  summon the sisters draw the circle the sun is gone for now the weather turning the enemy is abroad time to gather, my sisters  though i know not what to do the future is now the book cast on the stone stone is our heart today shh gather the witches mumma yaga, july 1, 22

 July 8 I have been struggling to write for some days, but every sentence is left unfinished because of words knocking to be heard - like dishes in the sink. Women around the world are reeling with the shock of the ruling that came down in the US that overturned Roe versus Wade. * It is notable that one of the popular television shows in the US currently is The Handmaid's Tale , a cautionary story of women's right to autonomy. Carl Jung is barfing with the irony of the Shadow like an elephant in the room. In Canada, women only achieved the right to vote in 1918. To say we tread on thin ice is an understatement. We continue to be underrepresented at almost every level of power. We continue to be summarily killed by a male partner, often in full view of the police, meaning they have received reports of violence by the perpetrator or are holding a restraining order against him.  A woman does not ever WANT an abortion. A woman does not ever want an abortion. Yes, repeated. If she ...