Martin Shaw in Truro, NS

When I first read something of Martin Shaw’s work, my body rumbled. I won't mention which book, but it wasn’t the only time I experienced a deep inner rumble while listening to the voice of an OTHER. Another time was while I listened to a conversation between Tyson Yunkaporta and his wife Megan Kelleher on the Future Thinkers podcast - Indigenous Thinking in Times of Transition. The deep convulsing of my unconscious self responded to these voices as if they were speaking with my own unheard voice. A version of myself that had absolutely had enough of not being heard, not being seen, not being acknowledged, was a potential in me that was not willing to stand another moment of being ignored. You see, I was under the spell gifted to me at birth (insert sad emoji face), by traumatic early childhood domestic violence, a dissolution of my barely established ego, that alluded I was not real, that what I felt and experienced was not relevant to the mainstream conversation that was happening in my home and elsewhere. And this REAL me, was not having another second of life under a rock. Not once it heard itself speaking in the voices of these two men and a woman.

 

My experience of Martin Shaw live and in person, at the confluence of fires of Beltane & Walpurgis was life affirming. YES, I was real. His voice was truly my forgotten sacred OTHER. The one hidden for decades under the accumulated dust of dying stars. The unconscious me that had rumbled loudly and thrown me out of my sad illusion of a disgruntled and deep contraindication of life on THIS earth, was also an animated growler of the angelic kind. One of the Sidhe, was HE. This new earth contained the old earth too. And it was as REAL as the one I was standing on. I even have a picture now to prove it (thank you SOM for posting it)… complete with bonfire between me and this enchanted OTHER, in the same local space (BTW, that is me in the bottom right of the image, in the wicker chair, in the front row under a blanket). Phew. I am so glad I have all the proof I need now. Thank you Old World Sir, for being so ROMANTIC in your storytelling, while being simultaneously GRUMPY about it, like an enchanted dwarf speaking riddles into my soft underbelly.

On the drive home from this affair I swore out loud You Bastard you awoke me from my slumber and now I want to change. FUCK GOD DAMN it you prick! Where were you when I was 7 and needed you? Where were you when I was 14 and tried to give myself away to any taker while I was still young and fresh and unplucked?

Oh, right, I had you buried safely under a rock and was quickly learning how to KNOT listen to you. The HOW was fast becoming a lie I would tangle myself in for years to come. So NOW you show up in stark clarity, the SUN to mirror my forsaken MOON and you politely decline my GIFTS of sacred mead (as was right for you to do)… STILL. I am so bloody wounded and OPENLY grateful to you for having finally come to my shore to grace me with your incredible GIFTS.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, said three times to honour YOU and the memory of HOW to be held by a resurfacing TRUST, an emerging and unfurling trust in the sanctity of LIFE. Thank you dear Martin for all that you stand for, for HOW you’ve stood for it, both privately and publicly, and most of all, with the GRACE in which you’ve stood steadfastly with it throughout your life, and for remembering what I could not. The TRURO show (the 2nd Truro to you!) was and will always be a truly beautiful treasure.

The Skeleton Woman

Visual storytelling by Benjamin Dennis. A needed balm for my sorrowful bones.

Burial Ground

I woke up this morning to my brain telling me it was Clyde. I'm assuming it was my left brain, since my right brain doesn't talk to me in words, only images and sensations, but it was definitely referring to my right brain.
So I started thinking about Clyde as a brain and that led me to horses; the Clydesdale.
Then I thought, what in Hel is a Clyde? And what on earth is a dale?

So I 'googled' those terms.

The River Clyde flows past the Isle of Arran into the Firth of Clyde towards Loch Lomand & The Trossacks National Park in Scotland. It flows from the southwest towards the northeast. This is a northwest flow. This is often the direction of the prevailing winds here at the edge of the world. Perhaps my thoughts, as they travel down into my body, then flow northwest through my song towards Scotland. The song of my body as it sings to the world.

There is a long cove there, called Loch Long. I too live in a long cove, here in the west. Hmmm... food for my soul.

So this led me to look for similarities in my own physical surroundings of the Mi'kma'ki and that brought me to looking at the small island off the west coast of the larger island of Bute, of which the Sound of Bute flows between. Hmmm... a song reference, perhaps?

There are ruins there from medieval times. The outline of an old monastary in a place that is only named on the google sky view map only named Midpark.

Turns out it is named Marnock after St. Ernán. Earnán, is of Irish origin and many saints are named after him. The name itself means 'knowing.' There are many saints named for the those ruins. An archealogical project has revealed stone slabs bearing early Christian and Norse runic markings.

To cut this story short because my brain needs to go elsewhere for a while. All this led me to Fingals' Cave in the Isle of Staffa. The Isle of Staffa is a series of hexagonal rock columns formed by volcanic eruption millions of years ago.

 
I will wish to sea myself there, while I ponder dale, which means the plains in a river valley.

They Hold No Quarter

Listening to one of my all time favourite bands from childhood Led Zepplin. All through the 70's & 80's I listened to this and had no idea what the lyrics meant, nor why I loved them so much. No I do. They hold a piece of my heart.

Led Zeppelin - No Quarter (Live at Madison Square Garden 1973)

[Verse 1]

Close the door, put out the light

You know they won't be home tonight

The snow falls hard and don't you know?

The winds of Thor are blowing cold

They're wearing steel that's bright and true

They carry news that must get through

[Chorus]

They choose the path where no-one goes

They hold no quarter

They hold no quarter

[Guitar Solo]

[Verse 2]

Walking side by side with death

The devil mocks their every step

The snow drives back the foot that's slow

The dogs of doom are howling more

They carry news that must get through

To build a dream for me and you

[Chorus]

They choose the path where no-one goes

They hold no quarter

They ask no quarter

They hold no quarter

They ask no quarter

The pain, the pain without quarter

They ask no quarter

The dogs of doom are howling more!

Her Story

Herstory - a beginning; in words and images.

"She has arrived" writes Cathy Newman, author of a National Geographic article The World Through The Eyes of Women published on November 15, 2019. She is citing photographer Sisse Brimberg's response to being mistaken for a photographer's pack mule, instead of the photographer, when arriving to a 1980's photo-shoot. Out of respect to National Geographic's copyright protection policy, I will not post any of those amazing photographs here, but you can look at them via the link above, which tells the story of women photographers in a 'that was then, this is now' motif.

“the universal language of the photograph upon which this publication (and others) depended was solely a contribution of the male eye and mind.”

Those are the words of Naomi Rosenblum, a photograpy historian. More important words there have never been Naomi, thank you. And these by the author of that article.

"We are beyond the days of women depicted as decorative objects dressed in waterfalls of silk (the predictable debutante ball shot) and the assumption that the creator of the image was a man."

It's such a difficult story to tell, her story. But it is happening all around us, in fact its gushing out. It started out as a squeak, then became a hoarse whisper, and is now quite audible, even for those who can barely hear it.
There are many many more stories, images, and songs, of women, their children, their hardships, their neglect, abuse, shame, loneliness and mystery. There are so many stories poring out now that soon it will be hard not to hear them.

I myself have just been re-born into my own image, not his. Don't get me wrong, I'm not angry at him, or Him, or Her, or any of them. But some will be. And that's okay too. My story includes all the stories of women, men, and children of any colour, shape or form, of varying gender, or no gender at all, as well as of the multiplex creatures and cultures that remain intact, and of the many that have been buried, destroyed, or lost throughout history. Most importantly, I wish to tell the general story of the earth, of which I am embodying. If you have a mother, this is your story too. 

I may be arriving late in the game of feminism, but I believe there is a reason for this. It is the way of the mother. And in the way of the mother, I will tell the story slowly, in small digestible increments.

Mind over matter may be the way it appears to you now, but understanding is to know that it is you. I may be only one pair of eyes in a body, with one voice, but I am not alone. Together, we are the story. It's a tangled story, but our aim is to undo that mess, and clear the way to becoming more than the mess we are in.

And thank you Cathy, for a wonderful beginning to this story, my story, herstory.