Permanent Memories

For almost all my life, I was convinced I would not be a parent. For an even larger part of my life, I was even more sure I would not have a tattoo. Things change. For the last couple of years I wanted a tattoo of the symbols which make up my sons name. It starts are the end, when Hawina changed her name I gave her the little bird icon which flies over the i. Her new last name was Falcon so the bird seemed appropriate. When Willow was born, we needed a short symbol for him for all the scheduling and planning we did around him. I constructed a W wich was made out of two similar flying birds. Both dads had Sky as a name at one point and we considered Sky as a middle name, but that felt like to much. So in part because Sky, Hawina and Willow were living in a building at Twin Oaks called MorningStar we took Star as his middle and our family name.

So now I have a bright orange tattoo (Willows and my favorite color) to remind me when I am far away (like now in Hawaii) or when I am right beside him, that our lives are linked.

Never underestimate Witches

Hawina woke up on the morning of Willow's 6th birthday and turned to her lover Corb and said "i am sad, i think my father has died." But she didn't just suspect it, she knew it. She went to check her e-mail, assuming there would be word from the Netherlands there of his passing. But when she did not find it, her belief was not shaken. Further searching would reveal the e-msg had been diverted to a folder because it came from an unusual place. Her dad was dead.

How could she know this? Is the question that jumps to most peoples heads. True he was sick and had been hospitalized. But how could she know he died this particular night? It is because she is an empath. Someone with an extraordinary sense of feeling, a sixth sense as to things which are happening in the world that touches her.

My scientifically oriented friends will be dismissive of this as nonsense. And this is where i came from, my own years of rationalist training. Repeatable experiments - this is the only truth determining model. Well after decades now of inexplicable insights of the witches and empaths i have crossed paths with, i've decided that science is not the beginning and end of truth. And not only that, but if you limit your belief system to science you miss some of the most beautiful and magical parts of the world.

Long before Willow was born Hawina and i made a life time commitment to each other. Almost 15 years into my unusual dance with her, a lifetime seems like just the right amount amount of time.

Sick Stars and Skipping town

My whole family is sick. Willow got it first, but in rapid succession Sky, Hawina (picture to the left) and got it.
i dont do sick well. i joke that because of this i dont do sick often - but it seems my luck ran out this time.

There is nothing quite as sad as a sick kid. Willow overall has been pretty great about his ailment which has run him up to 102 degrees and has had us worried. He seems to be getting better, or at least is over the worst of it.

Hawina's father is ill. likely dying. She is flying to the Netherlands on friday to be with her family of origin during this tough time.


At the same time i am going off to do an honest seduction
workshop with the lovely Sabrina in Hawaii. Leaving Sky with the recovering Bino (short for Bambino a name we have given him since not long after his birth - which is italian for boy child)

daily practice - frisee and enchantment

"Get a daily practice" nags my co-dad, Sky.

"It can be meditation, running with Keenan each morning, or even something you have home grown like co-empowerment. but you need something to get more organized so you will be less frustrating and more respectful of people who you deeply care about."



More recently Angie has struggled heroically to help me to get organized - building tools and attempting to craft better work culture - shared document spreadsheet flow charts of things to do and checking in with me on progress daily.

Angie wants to have a philosophy discussion on why i remain "the most disorganized organizer" she has even know. Hoping to avoid this conversation, i developed a daily practice. It goes something like this:

Everyday, at last briefly - ideally first thing, i will go to the hammock shop and start weaving a hammock. I'll put my labor sheet at the end of the gig with a pencil. On the back of the sheet will be my to do list addendum (to be added to the Angie's automated system when convenient).

I'll think about what is the most important thing to do today, the one thing. And ruminate on the rest of my various projects and relationships and assess if i am doing the right thing.

As i stood in front of the hx, counting the 14 stitches i felt an amusing comfort that i might have stumbled onto something that i can do that might work. I was about 5 minute in but fairly deep in meditation when Apple bounced into the hx shop asking who was going to come play frisbee. .

I was thinking at first - i am just figuring this out, this is important, i should work on this daily practice thing more. But then i went back to first principals "What is most important here?"

Today is a beautiful day. The kind of mid-february 70 degree sunny day, which convinces you both climate change is happening and that some of it is beautiful. So in walking out to the frisbee field i recommitted myself to treasuring these fringe benefits of the collapse of the eco-system.

Eleven others - mostly strapping youth come to the windy frisbee field. I am there early, joking with Ezra. We created Boris Goodenov, for the question in a stylized Russia accent "Are you good enough?" "Yes i am Goodenov, Boris Goodenov from the Soviet Frisbee team." And for a brief period we were all calling each other Boris "Throw to me Boris" or "Boris pay attention" which was a call to everyone in its comic way.

i was the only one on the field over 30 - i guess Elsa is 30. i am happy to be there, i play a respectable game - even have one very nice catch in the end zone and some good passes.

i am deeply appreciative of this very low maintenance body of mine, which allows me to play this wonderful game with these amazing people. i think that every gift is an obligation. And the look on Apples face when i actually showed up on the frisbee field was enuf to melt my heart.

On todays list of things to do:

count blessings - and
1) brilliant intimate advisers
2) treasuring the collapse
3) appreciate rugged bod
4) Bucket and engaging ed

It is too windy to keep playing, we decide on soccer, but the ball is at Kaweah, a good 10 minute bike ride each way. I decide to go get the ball, but confusedly walk off in the wrong direction. Then i hop on a bike, but Noah has gone off ahead of me. I ride to catch up and then i realize it is foolish because he is way ahead of me and much faster than me, even when i am trying to cathc up with him - he is booking.

So i swing thru Harmony, shower, change to another pair of boxers - find a trade local t-shirt. And stumble into the tremendousness which is Bucket - who is using D & D monster handbooks and many multicolored and various sided die to teach fast arithmetic.

"You look thru the closing cosmic portal. What do you do?"
"Nothing" sez Willow
"you see something red, inside." entices Bucket
"we jump thru" sez an enthused Gwen
"Gwen is thru" corrects Bucket.
"I jump thru" hastens Willow
"Jonah?" Bucket looks to Jonah, who quickly complies

"You are on the top of a large grassy hill" Bucket begins in a calm voice
"And when you look over the side of the hill you see 100,000 of these.

"what do you do?" but before Bucket finishes Willow is already screaming and running in place.
"You see a door."
"We go thru it." Shouts Jonah.
"There are 100,000 of these guys outside, what do you do?" Bucket entices
"You could close the door."
"We close the door" advises Jonah
"There is a lock"
"We lock the lock" says Gwen
"To lock the lock you need to solve this math problem.
And you have to do it before the monsters break down the door." Bucket grabs a piece of paper and starts scribbling and the kids gather around excitedly.

Open Love Letters and the New Media

The nature of privacy is changing dramatically.

Something about this media in combination with cultural shift is encouraging bloggers to chronicle their activities publicly in a way which was unthinkable outside of erotica just a short score years ago.

This presents something of a challenge to this never-humble propagandist. My lovers Angie and Rosie write colorfully about our complicated intimacies in their blogs. Public love letters are not new to me, i posted one i wrote to the rock musician Bruce Cockburn a decade back. What is challenging to me is the idea of private almost cryptic communications posted pubically.

My reflex when in this media is to write to the widest audience. But as they should, my intimates are stretching me.

you
gathering the shards
of cash and tasks
kicked in the head
between snorings
unwilling to be
unstoppably tickeled
welcome

and you
old soul disguised
laughing w/ razor
teaching a clod dancing