Perle Champion

Day 12 of Blogging from A to Z.  Today’s letter is K 

K is for Ken which goes beyond Kith and Kin.

Kith and Kin, originally our land and people – now family, are a package deal.  There is no choice involved unless you consider the reincarnationist belief that the soul chooses to whom it is reborn.  But as at birth, the soul promptly forgets that choice however good or arbitrary, the belief is moot.  Our kith and kin for good or ill are ours.

Ah, but ken.  That is a different story.  Here choice enters in, and a large part of who we are is informed by the choices we make.

There are those people we meet in life that we instantly recognize as a kindred soul.  You know them; they know you.  You share a vision of the universe and fall in step for a time or forever.  That is ken.

Day 11 of Blogging from A to Z.  Today’s letter is J.

J is for Jembe Jadding for Jade (haiku)

Primitive Jembe

in hand just jadding for jade

winter’s ground yields not.

Day 10 of Blogging from A to Z.  Today’s letter is I

Id, the Isle of I.  The Id, unaware, struts, and thinks it stands alone, an isle unto its singular self.  So wrong.  It is but a small part of the greater I Am that is all creation.  

Call that creation, god, goddess, god’us, the ethers, the universe, or the back of the Iroquois’s Cosmic Turtle.   Think of Narby’s book The Cosmic Serpent, where the twined snakes in old lore represent the DNA that is the map of all things.  It speaks volumes of knowledge that simply is a part of the cosmic consciousness of which we each are but a small part.

We are islands, but just as the sea laps the shores, and the isle continues into the sea, we are all an integral part of  each other.  The very air between us is as alive as we are as we move through it – from earth to the very heavens.

Touch a leaf and the stars vibrate.

Day 9 of Blogging from A to Z and the letter is H.

H is for Horehound Candy, Horehound Herb and Horehound Music.  I remember Horehound candy, but never knew it was a herb much less a music album.  Thanks to Google, I do now.

I remember sucking on horehound candy sticks, which taste like root beer.  I always liked root beer and as I child I liked candy as well.  Now not so much.  Sugar is so un-PC these days and I’ve lost the taste for it.

Seems the Horehound herb can be brewed into a rather nasty tasting tea, but as it’s a good expectorant and very helpful in getting through a bad cold or the flu, you can hold your nose and take the dose and be done with it.  Think I’ll pass on that one, my colds are years apart anyway.

But Horehound music? Actually Horehound is the name of an album by The Dead Weather out of Nashville.

I’m not sure what possessed this 4-some to name the album Horehound, there doesn’t appear to be a single title on it that has anything to do with the herb, the candy, or the tea.

Oh, well, that’s H out of the way, moving on to ‘I” and I haven’t a clue.

Hasta la huego, y’all

Easter, Passover, Sabbats Oestra or  Eostre, the spring equinox – however you celebrate this time, I’m sure food plays a central part.

Be it feast or fast, we celebrate or mark the passage with food whether its abundance or its parcity.

Lent’s hallmark is the foregoing of certain foods.  Then comes the ritual feast to break the fast, and we gather at table and share bread and wine and more.

The food is a minor player – symbolic.  It is the ritual gathering, the human contact that is important.  It’s a need in all beings, and food is just the vehicle or excuse if you will.  Beyond the need for food as sustenance, gathering at table is a ritual that binds us one to another and feeds a need deeper than that for food.

On this Easter we gathered.  I broke Lenten fast and feasted with family, friends, and two of the most generous and gracious hosts I know: Jo Ann and Ricky Shahid.

Blessed be.

Day 7 of Blogging from A to Z – Today’s Letter is G

Day 6 of Blogging from A to Z, and Today’s letter is  F

Coincidentally enough it’s Friday, so let’s make it F is for Friday Flights of Fancy.

Friday is like Spring for me – a gateway to a long weekend as I don’t work on Monday.  So, every Friday my mind takes flight and fancies all I can do with three glorious days ahead of me to fill as I will as the only taskmaster I’ll have is me, myself and I.

But I am often a bit of a sluff.  I’m more about pleasure than getting another query done, or finishing that e-book to submit to Booklocker, or getting my slides together for a photography showing.

And those are but a few of the projects that languish in varying stages of completion or incompletion depending on how you view the glass or donut.  Half full or donut or the hole.

Since it’s Easter weekend and the family is gathering as I type, I’ll have the perfect excuse for all I don’t get done.

Yes Scarlett, I too will think about it tomorrow, after all tomorrow is another day.

Day 5 of Blogging from A to Z – Today’s Letter is E

E should be easy if I wanted the easy way to exit this challenge, but ease is not what I seek this e’en.

I thought of eggs we eat, that if we didn’t would hatch as an eyas or something more mundane.  

But whether a chick that pecks it’s days away earthbound and destined for our dinner plate, or nestling falcon destined to soar taking our flights of fancy with it, each is miracle called life.

Day 4 of Blogging from A to Z – Today’s Letter is D

Too often, we dash between dawn and dusk barely noticing the miracles, large and small, strewn like gems throughout our days.

I recently read an article in which the writer said ‘live your dash’.  What I wondered did that mean.  She went on to explain that as she wandered through a cemetery one day, she noticed that beneath each name there were two dates with a small dash between them.

I never thought about that – a lifetime reduced to a birth date and a death date separated by a small dash.

I know people who plod through their days for whom that dash is far too large.  I know people who dash through their days and never notice the day’s bounty.  And I know people for whom that dash is far too small to encompass the life they live.

I’m determined to live my dash from dawn to dusk and then some.  Are you living your dash?

Day 3 of Blogging from A to Z – Today’s Letter is C

It is not just the yogi and yogin who seek their Center, we are all seekers.  

The purpose of life on earth is to find that center or core, that very crux or beginning, who we are beyond this body of flesh, blood and bone.

We may never find it until we leave this carnal life and return to the universe that birthed our soul.  That soul, whose free chose to be this flesh, blood and bone just wants to go home thus is ever seeking its center, its core, its crux.

The wheel turns.