As I sit here typing with one hand bandaged, I wonder what this new year will bring. Some things I know already and somethings I highly suspect will manifest, but the rest, the majority in fact, is a complete mystery.
I have plans of course, I would not be a card carrying Air person without my plans. But I know in my bones that life doesn't always abide by my carefully laid out plans.
Like for instance, yesterday I had planned to comb out my hair for my annual New Year's Dinner. And there I was dressed all in black with a white towel wrapped around my head for the entire affair. I could not unbraid my hair due to my bandaged hand. Oh Well!
And today I was supposed to wash all the accumulated pots, pans and dishes left from the dinner and once again ... oh okay, I guess I should explain why my hand is bandaged.
Every year since I bought this house, I have invited family and later friends to join me on New Years Day for a feast of collard greens, black-eyed peas, honey baked ham and cornbread. And over the years, the feast has grown with folks bringing their contribution to an orgy of food, laughter and meaningful conversation.
There are two traditions that are associated with this dinner, first there is no alcohol allowed and secondly, I use Prince music to motivate me as I cook before my guests arrive.
The second tradition is what caused me to cut my "bird" finger.
I was blasting what I like to call Prince radio, "All Prince, All the time". And as I danced around the kitchen singing along, my little kitten, Devi, began screaming from the doorway at the top of her lungs. I was pretty sure it was not an offer to sing-a-long. At first I would pick Devi up and sing to it, which often calmed her down. She was having problems with my music, and who doesn't on occasion.
But just after I washed my hands for the umpteenth time so I could continue cutting collards, my favorite song, "Joint to Joint" came on. Devi began crying and just as I turned to reassure her ... yep, I forgot I was in mid cut ....I sliced my finger. Youch!
I raced upstairs with blood oozing from my hand. When I emerged from the upstairs with my bandaged finger ... the first time ... I turned down the music. I looked down to see blood on the floor .. and back up I raced. The second time I had a much better bandage on my middle finger.
So although I could complete the meal prep, take a shower and get dressed, I was unable to do small detail work like ... unbraid my hair. And today, after a bandage change at 2 am, I have decided to not touch the dishes till later.
So my carefully laid plans were thwarted by a little kitten's dislike of Prince music blasting out of a boom box. If that is not an object lesson for life ... I don't know what is.
So anyway, my plans are to share some of my goals and provide a window into how I go about meeting them as the year progresses. We will see what actually happens, now that morning has finally broken.
Happy New Year!
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Wish I could be there. Very well spoken.
Katrina,
I wish you all the blessings and power you need on your journey. Thank you for these words. It is good to remember that returning to work (and thus returning to grace) bring a chance for us all to rest and have joy.
Wishing you joy in the Work.
David
Dear Katrina- Thorn reposted your blog and happy am I. Your passion, always so immense, comes blowing out in these words. So akin to my own heart and soul that it makes me have a bittersweet smile.
The Storm is only now coming to the edges of our universe and yet it will sweep and consume all that is. In the end, our beautiful universe will be so much...more? Different? Complete? Who knows?
All I do know is my soul came here to witness and be part in this period. I cannot shrink from the work. I am here with you, fae sister!
Thought-provoking piece, Katrina. Thanks.
I don't know what to call myself either. In Pagandom, I've taken to referring to myself as a Witch at Large. In the interfaith world where I'm active, I call myself a Pagan. Sometimes I call myself an uppity woman or a Second Wave Feminist. I've never really thought to publicly identify myself by my sexuality, het woman, which is very "white bread" and old-fashioned. Not only het, but serially monogamous for the most part. It seems almost a liability these days to say you're het, but I am proudly and happily so. I tend towards intellectualism but only have a BA, which doesn't carry much weight, at least in public and professional worlds, no matter how much you've studied, trained, and can articulate, even teach.
My biological heritage is Irish, Dutch, French Huguenot, Euro-mongrel. My social heritage is Roman Catholic on one side and conservative Methodist, temperance-crusading, women's rights and education on the other, with distinct East Coast sensibilities, now mellowed by more than half a century living on the Left Coast. My maternal political heritage is conservative Republican (altho what my relatives might think of current trends in the GOP I cannot imagine, since they did have brains and they did think and they did have a social conscience), yet I am much farther left in my outlook than any elected official I know. My paternal political heritage is blue collar Democratic, except that my dad broke with his family on politics and allied with my mother's family's conservatism.
I'm a former hippie, a home-birth advocate, a home death and green burial advocate, an opponent of capital punishment and resorting to warfare to resolve humankind's differences. I support the right to conscious self-deliverance. I rejoice in any and all consensual expressions of love and eros. I'm a lover and a mom.
I have never missed voting in an election and I disrespect those who don't avail themselves of this hard-won right. (I have ancestors who fought the Brits in the American Revolution.) I support workers' rights. I recognize our interdependence on this planet, so could be called a greenie. I'm a committed environmentalist in my day-to-day life (in terms of eating locally grown food, expanding public transit, recycling, preserving open space and wildlife, opposing exploitation of natural resources [strip mining, oil-drilling, nuclear facilities, agribusiness, monocultures, clear-cutting timber, overuse of pesticides, genetic modification, etc.]) I want to make the city streets "safe for dancing," as my old friend Tony Serra said when he ran for mayor of SF on the Platypus Party ticket.
Well, you got me going there, my friend. Thought-provoking read, as I said. ;-)
xo,
Macha
Lovely azaleas!
[cough][gag][snort][sneeze]
Just lovely...
I know what you mean.
I feel you. There is too much bs- particularly when people decide that their temperament is tantamount to truthful and ignore everyone else.
I get irked by immature extroverts or closet introverts who ignore you REPEATEDLY and then pretend you're out of line for being upset by the time they can't pretend you didn't say anything anymore. I find that the same people will ignore you if you blow up right away, too, and that it's because they just don't think that honoring what you value is important to maintaining a relationship, or even worse: that you don't know what you value at all and that it's all a mind game for their pleasure or annoyance. Then they call you passive-aggressive, aggressive, moody, touchy and temperamental. I call them "not listening".