Tobias

As if I could suffer, knowing you are here.
Sun is returning, its angle more direct, certain.
Nettles revive their iron kiss, piercing the ground
To roll out a velvet carpet over forest floors.
I walk barefoot, gamboling, a lamb-sphinx
Awash with Spring, its pangs, its birth.
Knowing without winters to toughen my hide
The sun shines for me alone
Even as velvet needles my soles,
And I prick my fingers whilst winging green angels.

My First Story-Mr. Jones and Mr. Bones

Behold, ladies and gentlemen.  Hard evidence that I began my story-telling journey as a wee lass of 6.  Saved from the dust covered archives by my trusty dad Jim.  Originally saved by my diligent mother, who may have suspected I'd find this entertaining many years later. Holla to the mutha. The translations are provided below each frame. Spelling errors included. Punctuation provided 28 years later for your reading ease. Enjoy.

 Mr. Jones has a goat. The goat(e)s name is Mr. Bones.  Mr. Bones bites the hose. My what will Mr. Jones___ (do?)  Mr. Jones moans and moans.  He is mad at Mr. Bones.  He ties Mr. Bones to a rail.  Mr. Bones hops up on the boat.  He pokes his _____ (nose?) in.  The home soap is on the sill.  Mr Bones bites the soap. Bam Bam.

 What a mess. My What will Mr. Jones do.  Mr. Jones gets so mad.  He ties Mr. Bones to a pole.  A robe is on the line.  Mr. Bones waits for Mr. Jones to go.  Mr. Bones tugs on the rope.  He hopes to get the robe.  Mr. Bones dines on the robe.  Mr. Jones (scribbles)  Mr. Jones will sell Mr. Bones.  Mr. Jones nails a noat to His home.  Mr. Bones dines on th(e) noat.

Sad Mr. Jones.  he has no hop(e).  My what will Mr. Jones do?


A cliff-hanger if ever there was one.  I was left wracking my brain after reading this, trying to recall what, if any, plan I'd had for the obvious sequel to Mr. Jones and Mr. Bones.  Only the misty haze of intention lost to time met my musings.  Though we may never discover Mr. Bones' fate, at least we know that he existed, if only for a few penciled moments.  Those hand-written moments were bound in wide-ruled school paper, taped on the spine and trimmed on the edges to resemble a real book...or a close to it as a first grader might come.  I have to admit, I'm quite proud of Little Jaime and fairly intrigued at how our destinies can manifest at such a young age.

Shotgun weddings and marrying strangers

I got a call from my gypsy aunt last week that went something like this:

Her: I didn't know you could marry people. I thought just Jackie and Summer could.
Me: Yup. I was the first to get ordained. Started a whole trend apparently.
Her: OK.  Well, my mom's neighbor's kid needs to get married to his girlfriend before December 25 and they need someone to do it. Would you consider it?
Me: Uh,... sure?
Her: How much would you charge?
Me: Well, I don't marry people that often (read, never), so I don't really need...
Her: (to her mother, my grandmother) Well, she should get paid for her time at least...(to me) how about 25 bucks?
Me: That's fine.
Her: When could you do it?
Me: I'm pretty flexible.
Her: (murmling in the background between her mom and the neighbor)...how about now?
Me: I'm kinda busy now...but I guess?
Her: Well, they just got cold feet so how about next Saturday at 2pm?
Me: Alright.

So today, I dolled up a bit, grabbed my Universal Life Church certification, and headed to Grandma's Neighbor's House, which, incidentally, my father built.  My aunt enthused over the new Jeep Rubicon in the driveway and we all chuckled over the bumper sticker that read, "Jesus Christ is Lord, not a swear word." Gypsy aunt said, "Well I use it as a swear word all the time!" I made a mental note not to mention any devil worship in the brief and thoroughly extemporaneous ceremony which I was about to perform.

The door opened and we stepped in to a nicely decorated, classic American house. Sitting on the couch were the bride and groom. I knew this not because we had previously met, but because despite the casual attire of everyone except myself, they were the only ones pregnant.

He wore a Creed t-shirt and jeans and looked like your favorite stoner friend from high school. Skinny, dark hair, quiet, loved his dog, Daisy. She, the stoner's girlfriend, was waiting in a hoodie, black t-shirt, tan cargo pants, and black Nike trainers.  She was big, he was little.  They were both keeping their cards close to their chest and saying nothing except to show me photos of their dog as a puppy.

I said, "I had a shotgun wedding too this year.  My husband and I just had our first baby in March, so I know what it's like to be planning at the last minute."

They didn't say much.  He was 36. She was 25.  They seemed nice and bland.  There was a home-made cake on the dining room table in a covered glass cake-stand.  Two bottles of unopened Martinelli's sparkling cider stood on the table next to a stack of plates and forks.  Two extremely joyful and manic dogs ricocheted between the Christmas tree, the couches, and my crotch. We made small talk while waiting for the groom's friend to show up. Thirty minutes passed; still no friend.

The groom's mother, grandma's neighbor asked, with a heavy southern accent, "Now, where's that friend of yours!"

"Oh, he won't be able to make it." the groom responded quietly from the couch.

When were you going to let us know that fairly key piece of information, I wondered.

It was my show then.

Did they have rings?
Yes.

Did they have the marriage license?
Yes.

Did they have anything they wanted me to include in the ceremony?
No.

Did they have anything they wanted to say to each other?
No.

Alright. Complete artistic license for me it is then.

Anyone have a camera and want to take some photos?
Blank stares, and then, from Southern Mama, "Oh! Well, I guess we have our iphones."

That'll work.

I positioned myself in front of the Christmas tree so there could be some nice photo opportunities. The bride and groom remained seated on the couch.

Ok, I can take the hint.

I promise to not make the bride stand for too long. They rise. I ask them to hand each other their respective rings...and we're off.

Before I left the house to drive there, Tobias asked me if I had anything prepared in the way of speaking points.  I told him I was leaving it up to Spirit for inspiration.

Mind you, I knew that I wanted to impress upon them the importance of:
1. Being on the same team
2. The best gift they could give their child was a happy relationship between them.

Beyond that, I was going to give myself over as a channel for the Universe to use as it saw fit.

You know you've been in the zone when you can't remember what you said or how you performed...when it just flows.

Well, I couldn't tell you what exactly I said, but I do remember them paying attention and afterwards, Tobias received a text from gypsy aunt and dad heard from grandma that I was, "Amazing." and that they were "Very impressed with my examples and how I tied it in to having a child and her tattoo."

The tattoo was a pentagram smack in the middle of her chest with a sun around it.  Their wedding bands were celtic knotwork.  I may have mentioned Wiccan/Pagan traditions of handfasting. The dog may have burried her nose in my bum as I was pronouncing them man and wife.  Her owner may have yelled, "Git OUTTA THERE SHADOW!" as I was giving them the go-ahead on kissing.

They gave me 40 bucks and Jesus Christ remained Lord.  I consider that, a rousing success.

Time Only Exists When You Look Outside

I was standing in the shower today, in one of the rare moments of me-time these days, when it occurred to me that I am almost smack in the middle of my life.  34+34 puts me at a respectable 68, which, though it might be on the young side now in western culture, is not out of the realm of Passable.

It made me laugh.  Somehow on the way from trying to freeze time by holding my breath as a child to having a child of my own, I forgot to give credence to the passing of hours and days from a societal achievement perspective. For example, I went walking across a country after leaving my first respectable, full-time-with- benefits job  without a plan as to what I'd do next. At 33. Time for me, has always been a weird and slippery thing.

A large part of my soul just knows time doesn't hold any weight.  Because of this, I contemplate things like going back and getting a degree at Harvard because that's what I wanted to shoot for and then chickened out at 18.  What did I know then? But look at what I know NOW.  Such a much better place to be on the journey of accumulating specific knowledge.  How old am I? 34.  Whatevs.  I could still become a famous singer.  I could become an accomplished character actress.  I could hike across another country.  My point is, everything I could ever dream of doing still feels very much within reach.

I believed in the omnipotence of time for a little while back in my late teens/early twenties.  Then I had a nervous breakdown, thankfully.  I look at that wretchedly scary and uncontrollable experience as my bitch slap by universal truth. Time doesn't matter.  You live your life and follow your passion at whatever age you happen to fall at on the calendar.  The skin and energy and vitality will take care of themselves and do their own thing in symphony with how your soul is believing.

My intention is to keep manifesting my dreams, regardless of the date on a watch or the candles on my cake. I guess on some level, I thought all that might shift when I became a parent. That somehow my life would become clearer and more focused like a funnel when I had a wee human to nurture.

Yet, the wildness remains.  The rampant dreamer and wonderer is still afoot, beckoning me down the trail of possibilities and personal legends.

 I suppose the part of time that made me laugh in the shower today, was the realization that I am an eternal child myself, always curious, always hopeful, even to the last breath I inhale through my body. It certainly doesn't sound very compatible with the check-marks and achievement bars set by society, but what would I change? Nothing.  I love this experience. I love dabbling and dreaming of big things.  I love being surprised when I look in the mirror and see that I have more lines on my face than I remember...and that I put them there in the process of dreaming.

Living Light

Physical reality follows thought and intent.  Patterns of disease and illness, according to the Secret Book of James, come from ignorance of the Light.  I read this to mean, by forgetting what we Really Are, which, in my mind, are pieces of a Whole that is ultimately Light. Lightness of being, light in the darkness, light to be arranged in a rainbow of realities.  

Right now I am see-sawing back and forth on the brink of a choice to embrace Light or wallow in fear.  There is a part of me that has so identified with having a body that I sometimes forget that it is a vehicle but not the power that animates.  I have come so close to death but never actually experienced it that I sometimes have a false sense of intimacy with the shift in matter that occurs at that moment.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I have learned the fear of dying unexpectedly but never gone into the unknown so my relationship with death is not transcendent, but rather a flirtation that gives a false sense of mastery or kinship with it.

I want to be cozy with bodily death because I realize on a fundamental level that I am not loosing anything but rather, leveling up, so to speak.  Now that I have a child, I am faced with the integration of the notion that he would not be loosing anything either, should I transition before he reaches maturity.  That one is a lot harder, more than likely because I haven't embodied a state of peace around death yet myself.

The heritage I come from teaches that death is like sleep and that we will awaken when Jesus returns to be reunited with our loved ones. Death will have no more power.  Essentially, everything stops when you die. Your spirit doesn't ascend, it just goes into a deep freeze until you're unthawed by the Lord. Of course everyone will be sad when a loved one dies but it should work out ok as long as you've been saved. That however, is another gamble that you can't REALLY know for sure, no matter how many scriptural assurances are thrown at you in church.  It was almost a matter of pride in our culture to be in a continual state of wondering and therefore constant questioning (read, worrying) of your salvation.  

I don't think this is extremely helpful, nor correct, especially when the good lord spent so much time speaking about love and being able to do miracles, heal the sick, walk on water, and generally, be rad, accepting human beings that recognize their divinity. It's all been horribly twisted.  It is still the A track however, so when I am faced with an imbalance in my physical body I find myself standing at a crossroads.

Part of me says, "No problem. This is an opportunity to remember wholeness and restore balance."

The other part of me says, "Red Alert! You are about to be put into the fire! Your body is fallible! Sin! Sin! Death! Scary!"

I infinitely prefer the first option and so am battling for the space to view all options and outcomes with equanimity...that said, what I really ought to be focusing on is the Source of Light.  By beholding we become changed. Not by creating crazed regimes of enlightenment but existing in the Light.  Enjoying the connectedness.  Remembering that we are all spirits having a bodily experience.

My homework now is exploring ways and states of being that raise my consciousness to exist in this truth with ever deepening awareness.  So let it be written. So let it be done.

Traveling the inner byways

As of the last four months, all my traveling has been of the internal nature, relying on memory and imagination to color the miniscule gaps of time that appear and disappear like worm-holes in the state of being called New Motherhood.

Between the feedings and the changings, the entertaining and the nurturing, people around me are starting to get their wander on, and several, my baby sister included, are taking off for the Camino and Peregrinations Into The World.


Vicarious travel has never seemed so exciting until now.  Remembering the places I have been and the people I have met whilst being on the road evokes a sense of gratitude and excitement on behalf of those going into New Frontiers.  I do not feel the need to go now, but am quite content to wait, germinate and bide my time until the next leg of the journey through the world is fully developed and ready to embark upon.  It may be years before this happens and that is right and fine.  

I am on an adventure of the most human kind at this moment.  Watching and witnessing the unfolding of a spirit coming to land in a body that I helped form and bring into being.  It is its own form of world travel, only this is a stone that will ripple the surface of life's pond with stories and adventures of its own one day...imagine.

The Darkness of Denmark

I'm sitting here at 4.18pm watching the sun go down.  Yesterday, Tobias and I hosted a huge family gathering out here at our summer house and I wondered aloud, "What do you Danes DO with yourselves for the three months out of the year when the light shines little to never?"

I was hoping for answers like, "We spend our time telling tall tales of northern trolls and Viking heroes of yore."  or "Carving toys for village children."

What I got was a range from, "It's the opposite in my soul, as in, it comes awake in the winter." to "I don't remember."

The leaves have all mostly fallen from the trees and I have the fire burning pretty much constantly and I have to admit, it's pretty cozy.  It reminds me also, that the Seasonal Affective Disorder that plagues a large majority of Pacific Northwesterners, is probably childs' play compared to the deepening dark of Scandinavia.

In response to this, I have several photos of the early Fall which demonstrate both light and color. And castles, because let's face it. Castles should be hunted down and photographed with all the glee that a foreigner can muster. Behold. Glee.

We also discovered Hamlet's Grave, which, the sign was kind enough to inform us, was likely not where Hamlet was burried, but WAS an important burial mound for some kind of Danish royalty, so we should be satisfied with that. Talk about marketing genius.

Another Fall highlight has been meeting a very nice and frisky Icelandic pony named "something Icelandic".  Here she is in all her shaggy glory.