Amaterasu and Uzume

Amaterasu is the Goddess of the Sun, still worshipped in the Shinto Temples in Japan today. She is the Goddess of Beauty. One day she came home to find that her temple had been vandalized by her brother, the storm god Susano’o. All her handmaidens had been slaughtered, their bodies left to decimate her sacred space.
 

Outraged, she withdrew into a cave, pulling a big boulder over the opening to seal it shut. Now, as you can imagine, if the sun seals herself tight inside a cave, darkness falls all over the land. Soon the plants began to die, then the animals. The people came to plead and weep outside the cave, crying, “Amaterasu! Amaterasu! Come shine your face!” But she would have nothing of it.

The people appealed to the other deities, and 800 gods and goddesses gathered outside the cave. They cried and pleaded, “Amaterasu! Amaterasu! Come shine your face!” But she would have nothing of it.

The goddess Uzume stepped up to the cave, flipped over a sake barrel, and began a sexy and bawdy dance. She opened her kimono and exposed her breasts, flashed her genitals, and made fun of traditional shamanic rituals All the other deities began to laugh and laugh.

Amaterasu heard the laughter and became quite intrigued. The moment she rolled away the boulder, Uzume handed her a mirror, where she could see how beautiful she was. And in that moment she decided to burst forth and illuminate the day again.

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I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a sexy and bawdy dance to bring me out of my cave. Are you ready to change? I invite you to become curious and full of wonder, discover and explore your own inner landscape, and be fluid in transforming as you go through morphosis. Cultivating lightheartedness is a serious practice.

Pressed For Time

It is coming up on the first anniversary of my father's death. I've been working on a collection of poems, Pressed for Time: a Little Book of Grief. Creating this book was much like the stages of grief, as I went through shock, denial, negotiation, anger, and acceptance, not necessarily in that order, and some stages a few more times than others. Piecing together these ensembles was a part of my own healing, of feeling ripped apart and putting myself together, after not just the loss of my father but several other family members in the last few years.. 

I found it difficult to write after he passed, but little lines would float through my head, which I would then email to myself. This went on for about six months. Later I consolidated these, and chose Courier as the font, as it looks a little rough and raw, like my feelings. I printed them out on parchment paper, which I then shredded, line by line.

My stepson had gifted me a flower-press for my birthday. I began with the forget-me-nots and pansies that I had planted both at my father-in-law's gravesite as well as in my garden, along with other snippets from the various plants and bushes my father and I had planted together over the last three decades. Crocisimo, Euphorbia, English Roses as well as the Cecil Bruner, sprays of Salvia and ubiquitous fern.

During our stay in Carmel, I watercolored backgrounds in a sketchbook, simply free-flowing with the colors. I had been collecting rubber stamps for years, some of the rubber had decayed and certainly most of the inks had become dry and crusty, but they added an interesting layer. 

Finally, I assembled the pieces over a few months. I used Modge Podge to secure the dried flowers, standing the book up so the pages wouldn't stick together as they dried. I took photos of each page, some you've seen the last few months here on my blog. 

Mercury is going retrograde, and I have a feeling of tying up loose ends, completing projects, and really putting things at rest. 

Blessed be.

Letting Go

More than a thousand 

Peace cranes

Meditations

Secret frustrations

Friendships unfulfilled

 

Clearing

So nobody else goes

What the hell am I going to do

With all this dusty crap

 

Thousands Released

Paper cranes

Cancelled checks

All the same

 

Passed

Closed Dad’s eyes

Tried his jaw

Maybe he had

More to say 

 

Church of Chip

Forays

Camping thirsty minutes 

Away

New Brighton Beach

Yellowstone

Morro Bay

My time to

Light candles