Crowrider: Entering The Dream Cave and Living Your Dreams

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Laura Tabet

By guest blogger Laura Tabet

Hearing the Call
As we enter the deep heart of Autumn, we feel the loss of light and the darkness beckons us. At this time, I am aware of a familiar turn within, as the soul hears the changing of the drum beat. She is guided now, not by the light of the outer sun, but by a subtle glow of barely burning embers within.

Some of you may hear the drum calling you into the dream cave and resist it. Many of us are still scared of the dark. So much of our identity is anchored out there in other’s approval, in tangible accomplishments, and in our outer role as mother, father, or friend.

In the old myths they talk of the cinder biters – a tattered, hungry, orphaned youngster who is drawn to the quiet and stillness of a dying fire. The hungry adolescent in each of us is the one who longs to know the Deep Self and to become who we truly are but feels forgotten, unrecognized and unwanted. This part knows that when the soul is hungry for the nourishment of Self, one must lie, for some time in the ashes, stirring the cinders with a far-off look in the eye. It is right to go far away. It is a safe journey and a necessary one. It is in this quiet place that the inner world reminds us, feeds us, whispers to us of who we are and the dream of the soul. And it is here that we feed the fire. Our inward attention is like oxygen and wood to the desires, longings and visions of the soul. We need the fire, but it needs us too.

Dreams Made Real
After an abundant, productive, manifesting flurry that stretched from August til’ now, I am feeling deeply grateful for the joyful experience of making long-held dreams a reality. While I often favor the things that lurk in the shadows and more often advocate for the world behind the world – wanting to turn our culture’s wandering eye on the wild and forgotten – I must say that these last few months of producing, manifesting and living my dreams in the outer world was truly a deep pleasure: My first art show, deep artistic collaboration, a creative and rich practice, teaching/playing with a community of friends/students, and the chance to stand as priestess at two weddings. Wow. It’s been quite a ride! It is invigorating when you are living the dream and not just dreaming it.

However, this wonderful experience of my visions finding form further strengthens my dedication and value on the inner work that drives creation. Through my years of inward discipline, community ritual, journaling, listening, asking, four years of graduate school, many challenging initiations and with several stamps on my passport to the underworld – I have spent a lot of my life behind the veil.

Thirteen years ago, when I started working with Mary Swanson, I made a decision to listen to my inner voice, not knowing where that commitment would take me and doubting my path most of the time. Listening to and following my inner guidance has resulted in some radical shifts, many liberating, others quite devastating. But it is the ride that I am committed to – collaborating with my soul, my beloved, and my inner muse – riding the inner dragon is what I have signed my life over to.

It is and always will be a complex journey. I could say that it is worth it – that dreams come true – and that wouldn’t be a lie. These last two months have been truly rewarding. When the seeds we plant bloom and when our wings grow strong enough to fly we experience the creative ecstasy of the formless coming into form. It feels like magic – because it is.

And I have learned the deepest magic is found in moving with the cycles of the life. Knowing when it is time to stand in the spotlight and when it is time to walk into the forest.

And so I relish this time of year. When I begin to hear the drumbeat calling me in and down where Crone and Dreaming Bear are dancing at the fire. Here the tattered parts of my soul can rest in the ashes and I know it is time to put more wood in the hearth, stir the cauldron and feast on the stories in the flame.

As winter approaches I begin to prepare my winter cave. Soon it will be time to curl up in the stillness and for the soul to restore itself in the darkness. In this Autumnal time of transition, the leaves are turning and the soul begins to pivot. Carrying my dreamcatcher, my longings and open heart I have started walking into the darkness – wafting smoke, flickers of light and the soft laughter of an old woman are my only guides.

Questions
What manifestations in your outer world are you proud of?
What inner dreams have started to take shape in your life?
What last items do you need to cross off your list before you curl up in the winter cave?
Can you hear the drum of the inner world calling you?
Are you ready to move towards the stillness and open yourself to the visions that will dream you forward?

Thank You
I want to use this public forum to express my gratitude – as we are in the season of giving thanks. To all the unseen forces that supported me, to the guides and helpers that listened to my dreams, to the collborators that felt my call to play and showed up, to my teachers, mentors, parents, fellow seekers, peers, partners, lovers and witchy cohorts. You have all supported me and helped me craft the container that was and is ready to live this life, show up and contribute. You have kept me company at the fire of lost dreams. You have welcomed me back from my journeys. You have fed me with your courage, your visions and your twinkling laughter. I thank you with an overflowing heart.

I dedicate my successes and creations to all of you – life is a team effort.

ART SHOW // Thursday, November 17 from 6-9 pm  Opening
Animal medicine paintings by Laura Tabet and Ajay Reed
The Rare Bird, 3883 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland, CA
Enjoy the Piedmont Ave Art Walk

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Altar of the Month: November

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Heather Bleasdell

We skipped a weekend away in Tahoe in favor of a {STAY-CATION} … and it was such a great weekend. Steve, Addie and I set the intention for our family weekend: Adventure, Play Games, Rest with no work, no plans, no playdates. We stayed local to enjoy Sonoma County and our little baby Ida slept like a rock. I took the photo (above) of my husband and daughter coming back from gathering driftwood on a windy beach in Inverness. In it, their faces hide nothing. They are so in love. I am in love with them too.

For me, this time of year is all about gathering. I wander around my home and garden taking stock of what we have been bringing home all year. I find seeds, fruit, flowers, friends, art, treasures, stones, stumps, rusty metal things and so many good memories. As an altar, I fill a plate of my recent collections and treasures from seasons past.

Gathering Altar

 

 

 

 

What or who are you in love with? What are you gathering?

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Happy Samhain!

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Heather Bleasdell

Update: Our family of four made it out of the house this weekend to enjoy some Halloween love with friends. The Unicorn, Baby Gnome (now 7 wks), the Mermaid Fairy Princess and Super Gnome enjoyed an afternoon of games and goofing off. I highly recommend trying to eat a donut hanging from a string – fun for the whole family!

Light your altars tonight!
+ heather

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From Mexico With Love: Discovering Ancestors

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Emily K. Grieves

By guest blogger Emily K. Grieves

I have been writing this blog on Build Altars for exactly a year now. My first one last year was for Days of the Dead, coming up soon on November 1 and 2. As I was reflecting on how I could repeat talking about the classic Mexican celebration of Dias de los Muertos, I received a surprise email from my dad. In it, he attached photos that nobody in our family had ever seen before. They were photos of his father, my grandfather, which he had received from a half-brother he had never met until recently. The concept of grandfather had always been a big mystery to me. My maternal grandfather died when my mother was a child. My paternal grandfather, suddenly made real in these photos, had essentially been out of the picture in my father’s life since he was a little boy, for reasons that have come to light in more recent years since the death of my grandmother. This grandfather also passed away a number of years ago without me ever meeting him. As light has been shed onto old mysteries, my father has been more open to checking into his father’s life and who he was, and he just recently met this half-brother for the first time. I discovered that I have 4 aunts and uncles I never knew, from my grandfather’s second marriage, in some place like Barstow, California, thereabouts.

But most interesting for me is that my grandfather has a face now. Looking at these old black and white photos, I now know what he looks like, after wondering for a lifetime, and he looks exactly like my dad. And since I look a lot like my dad, I can see what features of my grandfather’s passed onto my own face. Perhaps even more shocking to me was to see photos of my grandmother, back when they were a seemingly happy little family in 1940, when my dad was a little 2 year old in overalls, before my grandfather was sent off to war in the Pacific. My grandmother is holding my dad in her arms, and she also looks exactly like me, as if the photo were just a black and white photo of me in a dress holding Marco. My grandmother passed away when I was 10 years old, and I recall her as a saggy wrinkly droopy sort of woman who wore cat-eye glasses and mumu-style dresses in gauche colors. She also smoked non-stop, I remember, and in one photo she has a cigarette dangling in her hand. But in 1940, her nose looked like mine, her smile, her way of holding her body, her long arms. I seem to have gotten the sharpness in my face from my grandfather, the cheekbones and chin, a certain look in my eyes. Studying the photos, and I really can’t tear myself away from them, brings home the fact I’ve long ignored or forgotten about that I come from someone. I have people. I have lineage. I have ancestors. I did not just pop out a one-time individual with no past or future. I am intrinsically tied to family, whether I want it or not.

My favorite photo is dated Sept. 1938, shortly after my dad was born. I have no idea where the photo was taken, but I imagine somewhere in Nevada, as my dad was born in Beatty, in Death Valley. There is a crispness and a clarity to the image that only real black and white film can capture. Standing there on a dirt street with old clapboard storefronts are my grandfather, my great-grandmother, and my great-great-grandmother, and the baby in her arms is my father. There is a shadow visible next to them of my grandmother, who is snapping the photo. I think, oh my, I have a great-grandmother and a great-great-grandmother?? I never even thought about them, since my grandfather was an unknown. But there they are, two very nice and sweet-looking ladies, gazing warmly at my father. And they have names, they have identities, they were real people once upon a time. Again, I am stunned into acknowledging that I have ancestors.

So this year Days of the Dead will be a little different for me. This year I will be celebrating my ancestors. This year I will be looking back through my lineage and honoring those from whom I came, especially those women, those grandmothers, who if they had known me would have looked lovingly down at me in their arms.

As the veil between the worlds draws thin this year and you celebrate the spirits returning for their annual visit, who will you honor? Where did you come from? Do you know your ancestors?

Also read Emily’s Day of the Dead post: Poetry of the Dead

Image #1: Photo, My Grandmother, Father, & Grandfather, 1940, Nevada.
Image #2: Photo, My Grandfather, Great-Grandmother, Great-Great-Grandmother with my Father in Arms, 1938, Nevada.

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New Moon in Scorpio

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Heather Bleasdell

Today, Wednesday, October 26th, the New Moon enters Scorpio and marks the Lunar Samhain. With the Sun & Moon in Scorpio, the sign of cyclical transformation, we move deeper into the season of endings. Miracles happen.

All New Moons take us into the dark, so we can mix with the Void, and emerge anew. This one is the Mother of all Dark Moons, in Scorpio, the sign of death that births the new. -Molly Hall

Like a snake shedding its skin, like the phoenix burning itself up to be born again, great insights can be born on this transformational night, if you listen – for Scorpio is the sign that seeks deep truth in all things. You may feel even MORE inclined to check out, but this dark, regenerative moon in Scorpio dares us to be truthful with ourselves. What deep truth wants to be reborn in you? Close your eyes and listen to the answer. If this question is asked in ritual, the rewards will come back tenfold.

  • Break out the Divination tools (Runes, Tarot cards, I Ching) or get a reading from a friend
  • Journal: list three things in your life, that you are now willing to tell the truth about (if only to yourself)
  • Make an altar to honor the parts of you that you are ready to let go of
  • Start a Gratitude Practice
  • Write your New Moon Wishes

TIP + TRANSFORMING THE SHADOW – It’s a powerful Dark/New Moon to surrender to Scorpio’s death and rebirth process, a subtle act that often requires the faith to journey through your own personal shadow. Take a moment to ask what habit, pattern, or belief no longer serves you? If it does not come up right away, write in your journal for a while. When you have the awareness, let yourself know if you are ready to let go of this habit, pattern or belief to make way for a new form or possibility to emerge? Take time to honor it through ritual –  make an altar to this part of yourself, write a letter to this part or drawing a picture of it to be burned. Recognize the gifts (the strengths and the weaknesses) and thank it for all the work it has done on your behalf. It served a purpose once, but now you are ready for a new possibility.

My town celebrates the Day of the Dead, so altars are in storefronts all over town through the month of October. This year my ancestor altar is on my front porch. This year we have the sunflower heads from our garden filled with seeds, nuts and “nature-finds” from our walks, squash & flowers from our garden, apples from friends, old buttons from great grandma, old photos of our loved ones who have passed, sugar and novenas.

As each day grows darker, we are reminded that this season invites us all to dig a little deeper and learn to embrace the dance of life’s cycles and varying forms – from birth, growth and death on into the transitional time before rebirth. In magic, we say – Hold on to the dream and LET GO OF THE FORM. What have you outgrown? What is know true for YOU right now. It’s safe to communicate and come into the present tense.

Celebrate the Possibility you are stepping into!
+ Heather

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New Moon in Scorpio Wishes

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Heather Bleasdell


Scorpio is ruled by the planet Pluto, making this a powerful time of transformation, releasing old baggage, forgiving, restoring, composting, deepening and awakening to what real power is. Take a moment today or tomorrow to write 10 wishes in the areas ruled by Scorpio.

Make Wishes in the Areas of: Empowerment, Change, Crisis skills, Self-mastery, Sex, Soul mates, Financial Partnerships, Avoiding power struggles - New Moon Astrology by Jan Spiller

From Jan Spiller’s Website
Because this New Moon is in the sign of SCORPIO, it’s a powerful time for new beginnings in relationships that evoke your passion: perhaps with a sexual partner or a business partner. It is the most potent New Moon of the year for wishes involving Soul Mates or relieving personal debt. Things you may have wanted to happen in your life for a long time can begin easily manifesting through using the boost of this profound and potent New Moon.

For success, your wishes must be handwritten on paper and ten wishes maximum are allowed on each power day. The most potent time is the first 8 hours after the exact time of the New Moon; within the first 48 hours will still work. The potency continues to exist for another twelve hours, but is weaker. Therefore in OCTOBER 2011, your most potent times for wishing is on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011 from 1 pm PST through all day& night on Thursday.

Image: Performance Artist Marina Abramovic

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Grace Under Pressure: Letting Go & Staying Connected

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Mary Swanson

By guest blogger Mary Swanson

My mother tongue isn’t really English… it’s Energy. I perceive the world as patterns of energy, ebbs & flows, soft or fast or sharp or dull energies that pass through my body & consciousness. We’ve all had the experience of standing next to someone who’s upset or angry & feeling their energy. But I experience it as if the person had slugged me. It wasn’t until I went to “Psychic School” with Francesca McCartney that I began to understand that I wasn’t crazy, I just saw things differently than most.

Francesca talked about all these physical experiences as if they were perfectly natural. Telepathic communication, empathetic merging, unconscious projections, being in or out of body– she gave me words for these experiences. She brought me out of an isolation I didn’t know I could leave. It was a bit like Helen Keller learning to communicate.

Francesca taught us to recognize our own, unique energies of Self. She taught us to recognize the difference between our own energy and other people’s and to separate from anger, projection, and all the energies we didn’t want to spend our lives in.

I’ve spent two decades now learning to recognize how energies interact. I can talk about my observations with friends, clients and colleagues that speak this same language. I feel sane because of the ongoing discussion of “Reality” in a language that allows real communication.

When I learned to communicate my experience, I came out of isolation and experienced a kind of communion with others.

I grew up Catholic where the experience of “Communion” was an ecstatic high, complete with flickering candles, incense & chanting. When “god”* entered my mouth, my whole body filled up with pure light. What could be better than communion?

The ideas of Communion & Communication merged easily in me when I began studying poetry and theatre** and learned how to orchestrate words & movements to create an engagement with the audience. How to communicate something became my new religious experience, my communion. When communication happens it gives me the same god-in-my-chest feeling of communion.

I’ve been thinking a lot about communication lately. About how communication has the same root as communion– from the French root communer, ‘to share’. When we communicate we let go of isolation and we share something of ourselves that makes us & the other person feel great.

Because I’m beginning to pack up to move from Vermont back to San Francisco, I’ve also been thinking about letting go. I’ve learned so much about letting to of energy, letting go of projections, letting go of blame & guilt.

But what is the energetic experience of letting go and communing at the same time?

We are all getting good at the practice of letting go. We spend a lot of time learning to let go of relationships that didn’t work out, we grow & change, loved ones die, others fail us, we fail ourselves & each step along the way have to “shed a skin” in order to keep growing.

Every meditation, every death, every parting, — we practice letting go.

I heard a story recently about the Dalai Lama –that his meditation practice involves preparing for a good death. I wondered if he meditates on letting go. Because death must be the ultimate letting go.

But lately I’ve been thinking about how to let go and stay connected. If it’s true that Love is the connective tissue of Life (god = love) than doesn’t it make sense to give & receive Love even while you’re letting go?

In the language of energy, I’m understanding staying connected is a visceral thing and that it’s supposed to feel like god-in-my-chest Communion. I don’t have to let go of Love, ever. I can let go of all the projections, the hurts and wounds and trust that visceral, straight from the heart, god-in-the-chest, Love. I can be separate and connected both at the same time.

So, lately my practice has been to stay aware of my own feelings of loss and whenever I feel them to send love to what it feels I’m letting go of. A visceral energy communication. God-in-my-chest light radiating out Communion with what I’m letting go of.

It feels really good.

Notes:
*this whole idea of god being a male-something in some separate reality located somewhere… has got to stop. It’s tearing our world apart. That something called god is everywhere in & around us. If it has gender it is an ever-changing combination of male and female in infinitely varied expressions.
**Poetry and Theatre: When an audience & performer get together and experience catharsis.

Image

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Crowrider: The Art of Relationship

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Laura Tabet


By guest blogger Laura Tabet

With four planets in Libra (Sun, Saturn, Mercury and Venus) my mind and experience is centered on relationships. This astrological concentration is highlighted this week by the full moon in Aries (Tuesday the 11th) and the ongoing transit of Uranus through Aries, who’s opposing energies really light up the ongoing tension between our need for radical, individual freedom and our longing for and commitment to our relationships.

As this topic of Self and Other has been meandering through my awareness this living inquiry has been fed by two things: 1) collaborating on a art show and 2) reading Joanna Macy’s, Coming Back To Life and Lynne McTaggert’s book The Bond.

The journey of collaborating on 15 art pieces with another distinct, creative and strong individual (both of us are Aries) has been a phenomenal workshop on these themes of self, other and creativity. In the end we thankfully found our collaborating groove but it took us many uncomfortable stages before we got there. There is an art to collaboration. Libra in fact, ruled by Venus, rules both art and relationship highlighting that relationship is in face a creative process.

Through the foibles of our creative process together I have discovered that there are three different dances that appear in the creative process of relationship:

1) The Power-Over paradigm – One with rigid structures and one in a collapse
There are times when one individual’s sense of self collapses into the “leadership” of the other. This leads to a total loss of self for one and a sense that the “leader” is driving the process. I’ve noticed that we switch off being the pushy “leader” and the overwhelmed, small “follower.” Akin to the dominator-victim dance. Not pretty. You can get some art made in this paradigm but there is no relationship and no magic. This isn’t collaboration.

2) Chaos – no differentiation
There are also moments when we are both collapsed. Neither of us hold on to the direction, guidance or creative spirit within us and we are both in a collapsed state of trying to please the other. When BOTH individuals in a relationship focus their attention on the other, we lose our footing in the self and it all gets very cloudy. We made our worst art at these moments. Both thinking, “what color would they like?” “I wonder if she is going to like this?” PUKE! This lead to our greatest finding:
Co-dependency makes bad art.

3) The Power-Against paradigm – Two rigid individuals battling for control. Two defended individuals protecting their points of view or armoring against perceived threat. Two equally strong-willed, rigid organizations battling for control and power. No art gets made in this dance.

Joanna Macy, in her book Coming Back to Life, highlights the extraordinary time we are living in – a time of limitless information and power – a time of profound creative potential as well as vast destructive dimensions. It is a time when we must learn the art of relationship and how to create WITH life rather than dominate it.

McTaggert writes:
“The competitive impulse that is now a major part of our self-definition and that forms the undercurrent of all our lives is the same mindset that has created every one of the large global crisis now threatening to destroy us. If we can recover wholeness in our relationships, in my view, we will begin to heal our world.”

Both Macy and McTaggert ground their call for a new imagination of relationship in the emerging field of new science. What we now know about life and the laws of nature is taking us rapidly into a new way of seeing, and rendering our old paradigms obsolete.

A new dance is needed. And a new dance only comes from a new imagination, from practicing new forms of creativity and collaboration – from trying to make art together, fumbling, collapsing and trying to dance again, and again in better and better harmony.

We must let go of our old paradigms of our essential separateness, which lead to isolation and competitiveness. From the point of view of systems theory, the study of deep ecology, and the essential laws of nature, the power-over paradigm is according to Macy, “both inaccurate and dysfunctional.”

On the other hand, Macy writes:
“Living systems evolve in variety, resilience, and intelligence; they do this not by erecting walls of defense and closing off from their environment, but by opening more widely to the currents of matter-energy and information. They integrate and differentiate through constant interaction, spinning more intricate connection and more flexible strategies. For this they require not invulnerability, but increasing responsiveness.” THAT IS CREATIVITY!

While it is important that we recognize that all of life is made up of relationships, it is also important to catch the importance of diversity in Macy’s and McTaggert’s understanding of natural laws. We must all BE who we are, SHOW up with the particular information that flows through our distinct perceptual beings and bring it into the creative dance. That is how we evolve, that is how we make art, that is how we dance the beautiful dance of relationship.

Image: Praying Together, Ink Drawing by Laura Tabet

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Full Moon in Aries

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Heather Bleasdell

Say Yes to the Journey, Agree to the Adventure!

On Tuesday, October 11th the full moon bursts into Aries. The planet associated with Aries is Mars – the hero, the adventurer, the pioneer, the warrior. Mars asks us, “What do you desire?” When the Moon is in Aries and the sun is in Libra we are asked, “what is your relationship to your desires?” Invoking the natural curiosity & playfulness of Aries, stay open, entertain possibilities, and don’t rush to premature solutions - energy follows your intention. Once you have a clear picture of what you want, you can utilize the initiative gifts of Aries to create a new beginning and take a first step. Be BOLD – what do you really, really want?

  • Give yourself a “fresh start” in any area
  • Move that body – run, cartwheel, karate chop!
  • Halloween Costume- ask yourself, if I could be anything, what would I be?
  • Bonfire Time – light it up
  • Commit to one creative act this week

TIP + Speak Up – According to Caroline Casey, the Gods and Goddesses want to help us but spiritual etiquette requires that we ask. I’ve found that the most effective (and strangely quickest) way is to literally ask for what you need out loud. For example, when I lose something, I say out loud ”Show me my keys” and they appear soon after or “I want to find the Curious George DVD and return it to the library”… which actually took a day and a half to reappear (and thus I paid a small fine, oh well.) I also do this when I need help. For example, I have a one month old with no obvious sleep pattern other than – she is supposed to be sleeping. Thus our sleep is also unpredictable… and from time to time I start to panic. So when I start to get crazy I go to my altar, light all the candles, ask for help out loud and pray for sleep. It comes in unpredictable ways, but more often than not help arrives and I sleep… even if it’s only for a little while.

“To achieve the impossible; it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought. ” – Tom Robbins

Giving yourself permission to Bust Out of the Box!
+ heather

 

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From Mexico with Love: The October Spiders

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Emily K. Grieves

By guest blogger Emily K. Grieves

Today I found the first “October spider” of the year. I call them October spiders because they always appear out of nowhere around this time of year, and their webs are clinging to every plant by the time Days of the Dead rolls around on November 1. I always wonder where they hide the rest of the year to be born again every autumn, weaving elaborate spans of fine translucent threads like suspension bridges from leaf to leaf, stalk to stalk, cactus to cactus. I have seen their webs reach many meters across, seeming unimaginable distances for such small creatures. They are appropriately pre-Halloween-y in color – orange and black and yellow and white stripes, and they skitter to the edge of their web if you look too closely at them. Once frost falls in November, they disappear as suddenly as they appeared in September, vanishing back into the void from whence all good spiders come, the realm of pure spider possibility, leaving just mashed tendrils of silky web behind to collect dew drops in the melting frost and finally drift away into the grubby winds of dusty December.

The October spiders remind me each year of the time when I first arrived here – it has been exactly 7 years since I stepped off a plane in Mexico City with 3 bulging suitcases and a blank slate. I came to start a new life in the great unknown. I had no idea what I would be doing here, how long I would be here, where I would live, or how I would manage. I had a huge amount of faith and a lot of art supplies. I remember the customs agents at the airport looking through my bags and pulling out a bamboo barren for making linocut prints, peering at me suspiciously as if I was some art smuggling terrorist. Thankfully I had also packed some already cut linoleum blocks, so I gave them a demonstration on how to make a print and batted my blond eyelashes until I got a smile out them.

I remember my now-mother-in-law picking me up at the hotel with those 3 bulging suitcases and me looking up every word in my Spanish-English dictionary to try to communicate to her that I had left a couple boxes in storage but that what she was looking at was all I owned. And that I was basically at her mercy! She graciously gave me a bed to sleep in and I began my daily ritual of going over to the Dreaming House to wander and look at walls, and slowly dream images into being on those walls. The days were so crisp and bright, and as I wandered around the vast yard over there, the spiders wove their webs around me, stringing thread to thread to thorn of maguey, and I found myself entwined in this place, never leaving, never able to leave because I am bound into it, just as the thread reeled me in, across space and time to be here now, its sticky strong fiber holds me into place. And so I am here exactly where I am supposed to be, watching the October spiders spin themselves into being in the sunlit air.

Here is the poem I wrote last year about it:

I wish sometimes

I wish sometimes, futile like rain on asphalt,
to live in the Hudson Valley, imagining myself
glowing in the aura of light that sifts through the pink
grass blades of early morning autumn hoarfrost, and I
am the fox slinking along the field’s edge into the cover
of a red forest. The leaves are about to be laid bare, crumpled.
Because here I live in Mexico, in a village with the name
of a saint, like all villages in Mexico, unspoken native
names tucked behind like a tail between their legs.
I came here by wish, or because I simply gave up
pushing against the strong arm of the universe and the houses
of stars that lined up along the Milky Way to say,
you will live in Mexico. I like to call it
choreography, created just for me, and I,
who am so clumsy, try to dance it, try to move in time
down long gray streets of cinderblock, nodding
to the ladies who move in their eternal daily pattern
from butcher shop to fruit stand, from tortilla shop
to elementary school, from vegetable stand to bus stop.
And the ladies nod back, watching me. I look
at the maguey, coming too close and bleeding
from the thorns, and their gray-green leaves are not
gray-green, but pixilated, thousands of tiny green dots side
by side with thousands of tiny gray dots, and so my eyes
see an illusion, leaves laid bare, crumpled. The October
spiders are born already and string their cord from thorn to thorn,
painting fine mandalas that sway in the wind and stay
strong in rain. They are everywhere, and I wish
I, too, could be reborn each year.

Image: Spider in the Pyramids, photo by Emily Grieves

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