ornamental-hand-grenade

It's the Bindle's first ever sharing day for first grade and she and her dad are bringing in the cat first thing this morning. Two seconds ago we were all standing in the kitchen eyeing both the cat carriers and being unsure whether or not either of them will be able to contain her. It appears my kitty's gotten very fat and it is all my fault because I feed her too much and Neil was the first to tell me so somewhat vociferously. I realize that this is one of the karmic conundrums perhaps that has haunted my life and challenged my personality. I've never been any good at regulating the hunger that other people and creatures present to me. (And yet have had repeated recurring problems all of my life in over-regulating my own.) N says, "You just feed her whenever she asks for it. What the hell are you thinking? Now she can't even get into her cat carrier!" Yep. Guess so. Sorry.

Alright, Cinnamon cat, it's two small bowls for you from now on. One at breakfast. One at dinner and that's that. How much is a normal amount to give one's cat? Is a half cup of dry food at each serving reasonable? All of my previous cats wouldn't touch the stuff. This is the only kitty I've ever had who snubs canned food and prefers to crunch the dry.

List six/seven songs you are into right now.
No matter the genre, whether they have words or even if they're any good but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now

Post these instructions, the artist and the song in your LiveJournal along with your six/seven songs.
Then tag six/seven other people to see what they're listening to.

1. Sara (Fleetwood Mac)
2. Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands (Bob Dylan)
3. Waking the Witch (Kate Bush)
4. Knives Out (Radiohead)
5. Houdini (Kate Bush)
6. Court and Spark (Joni Mitchell)
7. Love is... (Stevie Nicks)

Tagged: _goingunder_, emophobe77, raga, bayarts, mimisoleil, justkimu, ezulychaosgurl

Have fun!

Poem for calliopeo to read at the salon today in my absence. Yet another revision of the old piece for Persephone.

(Keep in mind t might not format here in it's proper form.)

“Twilight of such day”

~for Persephone

Crown thrown at the gate rusted rests, proscribed

where structural post rotted . Whether or not she mends…an edge is… chambers shifting

exceeds a shrieking blackbird waiting to be read. Who knows what the crows are hollering for?

Underground your cloud spreads indicative of shadow…as though sunset, herself, knelt down!

We meet and do not meet this way

Now and then, the pierce of a child’s holler. Fragile cherry blossoms dress winter’s branches. Boot heels. Sharp inhalation.

You imagined you couldn’t retract?

Sudden lurch: simple mundane absence of a vehicle

Aphrodite: Roots in air are not sustainable?

Sophia: or?

Demeter: The frame stood stripped, dangling

Sophia: Cats from the cradle?

Athena: The senses take in and the mind makes sense of?

Sophia: Listen

Demeter: Beyond path of an abiding trajectory: beyond reach of what might hold.

Hera: Mark footprints at water’s edge

Athena: Collect Sea into wicker basket

Artemis: Retreat. Saving residue of sand

Aphrodite: How the crack of a voice reveals…

Less and less conductive, the precipitated collapse headlong

Twice begged. And twice refused. These things cannot be spoken.

Complexity, by nature, eludes

A thin layer of snow makes blanket. Harsh shadow, house shadow. Pressed forms curve.

Demeter: fragments arc, pitch, plunk into the scantling

Hera: …herself unfit for

Aphrodite: true she had grown thin

Athena: waiting for the other shoe to drop

Somebody ate pomegranate.
Somebody suppliant on the porches of households refused.

Come Spring. Come Rose.
By young Persephone lost to Shades and Shadows. See how the world doth Winter—the barley lost to snow.

Peopled in the tide ere you slept.

Thanks, love.

JDK

List your current six favourite songs, then name six friends to do the same.

(Hmmmm....the word "current" being integral)(I've been stuck in a rut!)

PJ Harvey "Angeline"
The theme song to Miyazaki's "My neighbor Totoro" (Bindle and I sing it together!)
Kate Bush "Deeper Understanding"
Balada Conducatorolui, the Latcho Drom soundtrack
Astrud Giberto singing "Fly me to the moon"
Kate Bush "Rocket's Tail"

Passing the torch to:
calliopeo
winterredwood
lrstech
_goingunder_
justkimu
dreamoftheocean

I am preparing to walk a two day marathon and a half (39 miles) walkathon to raise money to find a cure for breast cancer and to raise funds for women who, like me, might have a lot to live for (small children, etc.) and yet not have the money or medical insurance to cover their treatment were they to find themselves with breast cancer.

This is something I've been wanting to do for years, but have been too busy with grad school, etc. to even begin to think about it.

I still have a lot on my plate but I am making time on an almost daily basis to take long walks for up to hours at a stretch and, while it definitely tires me out, it feels really good. It's a good tired. A stretched tired.

In order to do the walk, I have pledged to raise 1,800 dollars, which is a lot of money to me. Unlike many people who do the walk, if I don't manage to raise the money, I can't just put the difference on a credit card. So I am asking everybody I know if they can donate. Any little bit. Even five dollars would be a step for me toward reaching this goal. (I'm not accustomed to asking people randomnly for money. This feels fairly awkward. But every cent of it goes to a very important cause.)

You can donate easily, directly on line, simply by linking to my official Avon Walk personal page.

My Avon Walk Page

I hope y'all will check out my page, whether or not you donate! I've been kind of keeping it like a mini journal, weekly updating my process preparing for the walk.

Love.

someone sent this to me via email and i didn't open it until today b/c i was sure it would be some shmaltzy crap that would make me barf (yeah i have a bad attitude sometimes so sue me) but instead it made me cry (which is rare). maybe one of the best most REAL things i've read about being a mum--sentimentality and whatever (or maybe i'm just getting soft in my old age! hahaha!)

Mothers

This is for the mothers who have sat up all night with sick toddlers in
their arms, wiping up barf laced with Oscar Mayer wieners and cherry
Kool-Aid saying, "It's okay honey, Mommy's here."

Who have sat in rocking chairs for hours on end soothing crying babies who
can't be comforted.

This is for all the mothers who show up at work with spit-up in their hair
and milk stains on their blouses and diapers in their purse.

For all the mothers who run carpools and make cookies and sew Halloween
costumes.

And all the mothers who DON'T.

This for the mothers who gave birth to babies they'll never see. And the
mothers who took those babies and gave them homes.

This is for the mothers whose priceless art collections are hanging on
their refrigerator doors.

And for all the mothers who froze their buns on metal bleachers at
football or soccer games instead of watching from the warmth of their
cars.

And that when their kids asked, "Did you see me, Mom?" they could say,
"Of course, I wouldn't have missed it for the world," and mean it.

This is for all the mothers who yell at their kids in the grocery store
and swat them in despair when they stomp their feet and scream for ice
cream before dinner.

And for all the mothers who count to ten instead, but realize how child
abuse happens.

This is for all the mothers who sat down with their children and explained
all about making babies. And for all the (grand)mothers who wanted to, but
just couldn't find the words.

This is for all the mothers who go hungry, so their children can eat.

For all the mothers who read "Goodnight, Moon" twice a night for a year.
And then read it again. "Just one more time."

This is for all the mothers who taught their children to tie their
shoelaces before they started school.

And for all the mothers who opted for Velcro instead.

This is for all the mothers who teach their sons to cook and their
daughters to sink a jump shot.

This is for every mother whose head turns automatically when a little
voice
calls "Mom?" in a crowd, even though they know their own offspring are at
home -- or even away at college -- or have their own families.

This is for all the mothers who sent their kids to school with
stomachaches, assuring them they'd be just FINE once the got there, only
to get calls from the school nurse an hour later asking them to please
pick them up -- Right away.

This is for mothers whose children have gone astray, who can't find the
words to reach them.

For all the mothers who bite their lips until they bleed when their 14
year olds dye their hair green.

For all the mothers of the victims of recent school shootings, and the
mothers of those who did the shooting.

For the mothers of the survivors, and the mothers who sat in front of
their TVs in horror, hugging their child who just came home from school,
safely.

This is for all the mothers who taught their children to be peaceful, and
now pray they come home safely from a war.

What makes a good Mother anyway?
Is it patience?
Compassion?
Broad hips?
The ability to nurse a baby, cook dinner, and sew a button on a shirt, all
at the same time?
Or is it in her heart?
Is it the ache you feel when you w atch your son or daughter disappear
down the street, walking to school alone for the very first time?

The jolt that takes you from sleep to dread, from bed to crib at 2 A.M. to
put your hand on the back of a sleeping baby?

The panic, years later, that comes again at 2 A.M. when you just want to
hear their key in the door and know they are safe again in your home?

Or the need to flee from wherever you are and hug your child when you hear
news of a fire, a car accident, a child dying?

The emotions of motherhood are universal and so our thoughts are for young
mothers stumbling through diaper changes and sleep deprivation...

And mature mothers learning to let go.

For working mothers and stay-at-home mothers.

Single mothers and married mothers.

Mothers with money, mothers without.

This is for you all. For all of us...

Hang in there. In the end we can only do the best we can.

Tell them every day that we love them.

And pray and never stop being a mom..

Please pass along to all the Moms in your life.

"Home is what catches you when you fall - and we all fall."

Please pass this to a wonderful mother you know (I just did!)

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!

Patience Understanding, Time and Forgiveness are the roots of "LOVE

[oh yeah and this is xposted to hipster_mommas

I recently suggested to my belly dance instructor that I might take the name Shekina for my special belly dance name and asked her what she thought of it. She emailed me back asking me to reflect on what the name means to me. In response I wrote this, right off the top of my head:

"It's part of my live journal name. Which is shards4shekina. I like
the idea that we are all--that all is all--fragments of the Divine
essence. I like the idea that this happened because of an accident,
because the vessels carrying the Divine emanations were broken. I
like the idea that everytime we break, break something, fuck it up,
break down, that we are further fragmenting the essence of G-d and
that conversely, the paradoxical other side to this, is that in
fragmentation there is also expanse. There has been a certain amount
of fragmentation, of breaking, in the course of my little thirty six
years here on this earth. Maybe how I survive is by believing~really
believing~that each time something breaks and I become more fragmental
I am also paradoxically presented with the opportunity to become more
whole."

I thought I would post it here as some you (my wonderful readers) have asked me before about the significance of the name shards4shekina

another friend sent me this to honour mother's day: "Happy Mother's Day! I thought this was interesting and worth sharing. The original Mother's Day was about peace.

Here is the original Mother's Day Proclamation, penned in Boston, 1870, by Julia Ward Howe, founder of Mother's Day and author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic":

'Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says, "Disarm, Disarm!"
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice!
Blood does not wipe out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war.
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions.
The great and general interests of peace'"