Pink Coyote

The Chef and I

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!  I am so grateful for my life, my friends and the immense love that surrounds me. I'm wishing you a sweet day of gratitude and great food...

 

Miles and I began our day pumpkin pie-ing in a tradition based around my husband's love of cold, leftover pumpkin.  Later, we'll head out to my parents (making the long journey two houses up) for yummy Thanksgiving fare, Carr family style.

Tomorrow Monday I'll post my 2008 Eleventh Hour Wishlist for you with a few goodies to help take the darkness out of Black Friday!  May none of you find yourself up at the crack of dawn overconsuming against your own better judgement!

;)

Post Script: I missed the boat with my list today-too much last minute knitting for holiday faireing in my beloved little mountain town of yesteryear!  Much to share next week about all of it, I'm certain.  Until then...

Fear and Trusting in Lost Spaces

After tea on my favorite corner of the couch that has been seeing a lot of my bum lately, I caught up on some of my favorite blogs and knitted while the pages loaded.  I've been holding my breath to see a post from the sweet Boho that her baby boy is on his way.  I can hardly stand the suspense!

I spend so much time with my head in my family matters, my local interests, and being generally avoidant of what is going on in blogland that I thought Out of the Loop would be the perfect name for a knit design company!  I truly feel left out of the doin's most of the time.  I have a little circle that I stay connected with, and many cyber relations often fall to the wayside.  I think I'm okay with that, but there are just so many interesting people doing the most amazing things (check out any of the links in my sidebar for a taste of what some really creative peeps are doing). When I don't keep up I wish I'd done a better job of staying in the loop.

This business of the "placental bleb" (can you believe it's really a word-I thought it was a typo) and "lake of blood" on my babe's ingoing and outgoing feedsack is probably not a big deal and most of the time I don't think of it.  But I had a meltdown in the shower yesterday (why always the shower?) because my imaginative fearfulness ran away without my noticing and I imagined that if I had to birth in a hospital because of a condition that needed that sort of care-what could happen to my early moments of bonding?  Or what if in the case of a C-sec, I didn't get to see my baby for hours?  Would nurses bathe her roughly and stick her with needles and drugs I haven't authorized them to use? I freaked out in tears at the thought of it and then the shower washed it all away and I was totally okay again.

I have tried to make a stern practice of being fearless in nearly everything I do.  It really goes against the way I was raised, so I make a point to dismiss or face fears with as much courage and faith as I can in the moment.  But I find myself needing to freak out to unsettling news sometimes and then as it sinks in and my higher self comes back into the picture, sensible thoughts return rather quickly.  I can't hold it against myself for overreacting if it's only for a short little time, can I?

I know well that birth is not something to be idealized or controlled.  I'm prepared to be as fearless as I can be about it again.  But no matter how many times you do it, there are still so many unknowns.  Can anyone be a pro at childbirth?  Each little bean comes with his or her own mysteries about how they will come in. It requires so much trust- and a few trusty distractions, as well.

I've been knitting up a storm preparing for a faire this weekend and another one the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I'm excited to show my work, to see what the economic climate is like in the crafter's market, to meet with people and have them try on my goodies.  It has been a very long time since I've put myself out there this way and it is going to be fun to share table space with some amazing glass and jewelry designing friends.

Here are yet another pair of wristwarmers (with thumbholes one can't see in this pic) that I finished a bit ago.  I like working with the thick/thin yarn-more alpaca-just so delicious and four times warmer than wool, it is said.

 

I think my biggest inspiration these days comes from unexpected sources.  I love hearing about grassroots movers and shakers who are finding different ways to create incomes while making room to stay home with the babes, growing food for the neighbors in their yards, travelling, creating local products and information sources that nourish the earth and protect young people from poisons.  I love what is happening in our country right now.  We have a mess to clean up, but never before have I felt so...um...united.  There have been times where I've wondered what the heck I was thinking to have children in such a time of corruptness in politics-and then there are days like the ones I've been having lately.  Despite real or imagined fears, I feel a deep sense of peace that everything will be alright.

Spider Woman

There is a black spider under my work table who has been there for weeks and I can't bring myself to relocate her.

Night before last I picked out a book that's been sitting on my shelf unread for who knows how long-probably the nineties!  It's called Spider Woman's Web by Susan Hazen-Hammond.  It's full of short Native American tales of women reclaiming their power, but sometimes reads like a nighttime television drama. 

When I began studying shamanism years ago, our circle was instructed to journey into the unconcious realms to find our power animal, one that would be the first in a series of many to help navigate through the soul's work.  Most of the women got animals well revered for their wisdom and grace like the wolf, the owl, the eagle and bear.  Mine was the black widow.  She who eats her mate when she's finished using him for her dark purposes-that was the gist of what I knew about her then. 

I've developed a rather sweet relationship with her since, wrapping my mind's image of her with long, silky threads around my wrist as the drum beats to journey off looking for whatever it is I seek answers to.  When we moved to the valley, we were inundated with widows all over the property, and what I find most fascinating about her is how solitary and reclusive she is.  You will not find her moseying curiously across the carpet like a common house spider or building webs in high outlooks over the dining room light.  She lays low, tucked under an eave, weaving and weaving, then coming out when the lights are off to wait for her prey.

Grandmother Spider teaches us to explore our strength, vitality, creativity, and our power.  She nurtures us through difficult times of the unknown.  She dares us to weave our own fates, in this very moment, and to seize what we desire when it finds it's way into our web, and to be nourished by it.  The web symbolizes the fertile place where our dreams can manifest, woven by our own creative intentions.  Her waiting represents the patience and flexibility required to see our intentions to fruition.  She exudes the quiet confidence of one who will meet her destiny with relish.

As autumn skitters toward winter, I find my thoughts mingling with the new year: New baby, no out-of-the-house job...what will my idle fingers yearn to make? I had major creative energy birthing the year Miles came to us.  When he slept, I painted.  I wore him in a sling so I could make journal pages while I swayed back and forth with him.  I'm so curious to listen for what has been dormant in the year and a half I've been "out in the world"...like a subtle, little music that seeps out of our souls- a forgotten waltz drowned in doing...

Do tell me-

What's spinning in your corner?

Watch, Wait and Trust

I'm already getting flack from my healthcare practitioners about having had a homebirth with Miles and of course, they want to know if I'm planning another one, which they strongly advise against.

I keep telling them (the practitioners' whose organization begins with K) the same thing: "I can't know now if a homebirth is what will feel most safe for this baby.  Thank you for your professional opinion."  And I try to respect the medical community's vast experience of birthing emergencies while trying to stay in a mindset of honoring my own intuition and listening to my body and what it needs to do it's job.

I was so fortunate to have a previous doctor who believed in me and in my intuitive vision for birthing my son at home.  She took great care to monitor my low-lying placenta with a marginal previa to make sure that I would be safe to pursue labor at home.  I respected her authority and would have scheduled a C-section if that is what she could have proven to me to be best.  What a gift to be so cared for and feel so supported.  But this birth is proving to be a bit different.  I have the same sort of situation going with a thickened placenta that is also low-lying, but I have practioners who are vague and will not be honest with me about any impending danger to my child.  I know it's a watch and wait game, but as a pregnant woman, I would feast on some real information that I could use to follow my own progress.

It's so frustrating to believe that my healthcare agency wants me to just be a good patient and not make any waves.  It may be an unfair projection, but it feels as if some western providers have lost touch with the heroic feminine process of birth.  Instead of helping a woman do her job, they seem to get in the way and try to take over the process.  It isn't as if billions of women have been doing this for tens of thousands of years with grace and dignity....right?

(If this subject is of great interest to you, I suggest Ricki Lake's film, The Business of Being Born, all about the medicalization of birth.)

At 22 weeks and gestating, I'll be biting my nails for 18 more weeks (with luck!) to see how this little seaturtle plans to come into the world.  In the interim, I'll wish for warm jelly, kind hands and strong heartbeats under the bright white lights...

Knitting for Life

I work at a little spa in town that is so cool.  Tonite we're having a fundraiser for a humble, helpful organization called Links for Life.  Rebecca Cotton, who owns and operates our oasis in the middle of downtown Bakersfield was struck to dramatically change her path in life when a dear friend was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago.  She's a great example of how we can be moved by the journeys of others to move in a completely different direction than we thought we were headed, and enjoy every moment.  Our spa offers many chemical-free and organic products, which is right in line with how I roll.

Cancer is something I've had my head in the sand about for too many years.  The number of people around me facing it or helping a loved one who has it is slowly growing.  The environmental influences we face today, coupled with all of the aspects of modern life that create cellular distress in our bodies, means early detection needs to work its way into our young lives sooner than later.

A very dear friend in our world just recovered from a double mastectomy at the age of 39.  With babes ages two and four, she could not risk the recurrence rate that a lumpectomy and radiation promised-so she went for the total removal.  Of course, she has a gorgeous new rack now, but the irony in the story is that the precancerous activity she gave up her boobs for would have been the least of her worries.  Lurking near her collarbone was a bit of active, invasive cancer, missed by the mammo, but caught by the surgery.  Whew!  Her intuition guided her not to take any chances and she listened.  Her courage blows me away.

For Jill, and anyone else who has been affected by this disease, six gals will be partying in your name tonite.  The scarf above is my contribution to tonite's giveaway-it's made of the most divine 100% brushed alpaca, which is like cotton candy on your skin.  It feels like a soft, warm, hug... 

Peace.

I love the germans.  They're so practical while being stylish.  Check out this hausboat! 

The idea of living on such a tiny dwelling reminded me of this amazing, ethereal woman I know who gifted me with some wonderful words when we had to leave our home in the mountains to forge our new path with Miles down in the valley.  She'd sold her wonderful home on the mountain, too, and took little with her- save for her two big birds and some clothing- onto a boat together with her love, and began her life as a mermaid.  I asked her about leaving her beloved home and community, was she as grief-stricken as I was?  In her angelic voice, this is what she said....

"Oh....pixie....in order to open completely to the adventure that was in front of me, I needed to let go of the life I loved in that home and fully embrace the choice I made to be with the sea."  So simple.

What she said made all the difference for me to move on in a positive direction and see what could be created in my new situation.  It was just what I needed to hear because I hadn't even realized that I'd been grasping so tightly onto something that was already a part of the past.  I was not living my new life in the present because of it.  I was just stuck.  I've used her words to get me through so many times when I didn't feel I could trudge the long road ahead to heal a part of myself or to learn something new.  I could envision my own arms open, face up to the sun, ready to face whatever this move meant for me.  Two years later, I still hold her words close to me.

It has also helped me to realize how little I truly need to live-the few things that I really can't live without and the rest, the stuff that I've collected that is mostly just part of  moments long past.

I'm always amazed when someone else's thoughtful words stick on me and help me through a tough time-it makes me grateful that we take the time to talk to each other and flush out the fears and encourage one another, each in our own special voice.

 

This on the new dawn of an historic election is my wish for our children to have a better chance of growing up in a safe world, on a healthier planet- where lives come before profits and equal human rights stretch to the farthest corners.  Today, being an American means something to me.

Honoring the insect community, Miles and I decided to dress as Mama Butterfly and Spider Boy for Halloween.  Sooner than later, I'll have to quit matching us up (a boy's best friend is his mother...), which was done slightly unconsciously! Try to ignore the scary mom factor.

 

Much yarning going on here today, but too busy to stop and take a snap.  Lots to share very soon!  I got a box full of Ozark Handspun yarn and the table has exploded in color and texture-I can't wait to put photos up.