Queen of Swords

Tuesday night, Hob and Wolfling and I went to see Guy Gavriel Kay, who was being interviewed by super-librarian Nancy Pearl at a local library. Kay has been one of my favorite authors for years, and remains one of the very few whose books I pre-order and buy in hardback. The Lions of Al-Rassan is one of my top two or three favorite books, and his Fionavar Trilogy, the "Sarantium Mosaic" duology, and Song for Arbonne are second-tier favorites.

I was eager to see Kay in person, but also a bit cautious, afraid of being disappointed. As it turned out, however, he was charming and interesting, and Pearl was a very good interviewer. One of my favorite bits of information was finding out that he had a law degree, because it puts a fun spin on the fact that two of the leading characters in the Fionavar books are law students.

When it came time for the signing, I was shameless in rushing ahead of Hob and Wolfling to get in line. Although I had already purchased and read Kay's newest book, I had brought with me my hardback copy of The Lions of Al-Rassan (which Hob himself had given me for my birthday a year or two ago to replace my battered paperbacks).

As I stood in line I fretted a bit about what I would say when it was my turn. What could I possibly say to GGK that he hadn't heard hundreds of times before?

Unlike many other authors, whose book-signings are machine-like with only the briefest interaction between author and reader, Kay took his time with each person, really focusing on what they said and interacting with them. When it was my turn, I told him that I had already read and liked "Under Heaven" but Lions was one of my all-time favorite books, that of all the thousands I have read it was my "desert island book."

It's a fairly common phrase, but he latched onto it with surprising energy, telling me that no one had ever said that before, and that he was especially taken with it in this case because of the novel's first line: Always remember that they come from the desert.* I said it with him as he spoke it.

After that I thanked him for all his books and for how much they meant to me. He put his hand over his heart and thanked me by name.

It was only later, after Hob had gotten his own autograph and we were out in the parking lot that I realized I was zinging with energy, and a while after that to fully absorb that I had said something unique and meaningful to Kay, and that I had been able to look into his eyes and thank him for the great gift of his stories, which in itself was a privilege I never thought to have.

( For those who want to know more about Kay and his books )




* For the purists, that's the first sentence of Part 1, not the Prologue. But if the author says it's the first line, I'm not going to argue!

I've been on the road for I'm-not-sure-how- long. . . five or six hours at least.

The Pacific Ocean has been at my elbow for the last several hours. I had forgotten what it was like. The biggest water I've seen for several years has been Puget Sound -- not the same thing at all. I've stopped at lookouts several times, including one isolated little beach where I was completely alone. I took my shoes off and went out on the sand to just watch the breakers.

This was the right decision. The drive has been utterly gorgeous. Before I reached the coast highway, I followed a couple of rural highways that wound through mountains and farmland and along rivers. Sometimes the trees almost touched over the road. I saw buffalo and elk.

This has been good for my self-respect (traveling an unfamiliar route alone) and my soul. I realized an hour or so ago that this is the first time in ages I've had the freedom to travel wholly at my own pace.

It hasn't been lonely, but I have wished more than once that I had someone with me to share the beauty of the journey.



And now the tv in the restaurant is reporting the death of Michael Jackson. . .

On Thursday, I am scheduled to go to a "turquoise tribe" networking event at my most sacred spot on my sacred island. The man who conceived of and developed the sanctuary is going to give us a tour, we'll all talk and share what we do, have be a little affirmation ritual, and then a potluck picnic lunch.

Just typing that almost made me break out in hives. The last bit, anyway.

* * * * *

I just deleted an entire entry because I could not stomach the whinge-y stuff coming out of my keyboard.

At least I faced it and exposed it for the ridiculousness it was, even if I decided to spare the rest of you the experience.

Tomorrow morning I am going to pack up my double-batch of _storyteller_'s chicken-cheese-crescent-rolls (guaranteed to win favor at any buffet or potluck), get my ass on the ferry, and do some actual networking with people whose businesses complement my own. And if the group experience falls short of what I would have preferred, I can always enjoy myself *by myself* when it's over.

Besides, I realized earlier this evening that there's something I need to leave at the dolman in blessing and release.

My apartment complex is surrounded by public trails (more than 20 miles worth), but I haven't explored them much in the past few years. The Eowyn Challenge is giving me incentive to get outside and walk, however, and this afternoon I picked up my trusty walking stick and headed over to one of the closer trailheads, Eagle Trail.

Despite the inspirational sound of the name, it proved to be a flat track through a narrow greenbelt/wetland between housing developments. It was about as boring as an outside walk could be. Even I was wishing for some company. Of course I was thinking about my Eowyn Challenge, but even my vivid imagination was having a hard time conjuring images of Middle Earth in this nondescript area. I had to push myself to keep going -- not because I was tired, but because I was bored.

Then a petite, white-haired woman leading a bay horse came out of the foliage to my right, stepped carefully down the small hill, and joined me on the path. Robin and Pistol were out for a walk. Pistol is a show horse, and Robin likes to get him out of enclosed spaces and rings to liven up his day and accustom him to dogs, cars, kids, and etc. We started walking together and having a pleasant chat. When we stopped at a crosswalk, Pistol leaned toward me as if to get acquainted. I held up my hand and he snuffled it in a friendly manner and I got to pet him a bit.

The trail went on straight, but Robin's route led around the residential area: the high rent residential area. She invited me to come with her, promising our path would bring me back around to my trail. Much preferring her and Pistol's company to solitude, I agreed. It ended up being about twice as long a walk as I had set out on, but that was okay. And I had the opportunity to see a very little boy (maybe two years old?) get to see and touch a real live horse for the first time, which was charming.

When we finally got to Robin's neighborhood, she showed me where her part of the trail had started. "Go through there. It will lead you to a cul-de-sac on a street. Follow the street to the left. You'll see the lake on your right. Go to the lake, and go left. You'll see the place where the trail branches off to go down to where you were."

I stared at her, disbelieving. It sounded very complicated, and I have a very bad sense of direction and equally bad memory for verbal directions. She repeated it twice, and I repeated it back. We said goodbye, expressing mutual wishes to run into each other again, and I set off, ill-at-ease.

I feel a lot of stress about getting lost. Even in a perfectly safe neighborhood, in broad daylight, where even the trails almost never took me more than a shout from a home, I was worried. I finally told myself that worst case scenario was to find an intersection, call my folks on the cell phone, and ask them to rescue me.

As I set off down the first part of the path, I heard Lohain saying something to the effect of Well, you wanted a more interesting walk. He was amused. He also pointed out that since being lost was a major stress for me, the walk had turned out to be something of an "edge" experience. Then he took a certain amused satisfaction in using my spiritual director's naming me an "edge walker" and applying it to the situation. Thank-you, dear.

I was relieved to find that Robin's instructions remained clear in my mind, and the landmarks were fairly close together, so I got back to the main trail with a minimum of effort. Once I was there, I was reasonably certain I was headed in the correct direction, but I was grateful for the landmark posts (set up to guide emergency response teams). Lohain chided me for not having paid sufficient attention to the land itself to be able to tell whether I was going the right way or not, and I resolved to do better at observing and remembering on future walks. The only landmark I recognized today was the mangled wreckage of a car -- and I was very grateful to see it.

As I mentioned above, the area is wetlands, and it rained most of last week. There were several places where the path was submerged in water, and the ground was boggy for several yards on either side. I was most of the way back to the trail head when I had to jump through a large puddle that had a raised mostly-dry spot in the middle. But despite my care, my tennis shoes got muddied during one of my attempted detours and mud inexplicably splashed almost to my knee on one side when I was jumping the puddle. I didn't think I'd landed with enough force to splash that high -- but I heard Lohain chuckling. I'm sure he was pleased that I was getting a bit dirty, and I wouldn't put it past him to have done some of the splashing himself.

By the time I got back to the trailhead I could feel blisters coming up on both feet, and had found out that my old tennis shoes were not sufficient to a long walk. I have my hiking boots from my canyon adventure, but those are too much for gentle trails like this. Time to invest in some sturdy walking shoes. I'm hoping that the blisters aren't bad enough to prevent Wolfling and me from going up to Whidbey on Sunday as we had planned.

According to my pedometer, I logged 2.88 miles, putting me at 4.56 miles in Middle Earth. I'm almost to the point where Frodo and Sam enter Tookland.

Wow. . . I was unprepared for the one-two shot from the universe today.

First, on the subject of "weight loss" -- which I put in quotes because while I do want to lose weight, I do think about it in a holistic way: better eating habits, more exercise, more water, and etc. Today on FetLife, I found a post from someone asking what group members thought about "weight loss as an ordeal" -- and my ears pricked up.

One of the big challenges I have around improving my physical lifestyle habits is that I don't have any emotional energy around it. I've never been physically vain, and I don't have any important goals that are impacted by my physical condition (except insofar as any activity or goal is impacted by one's physical self), so it's always been a challenge for me to stay motivated. But framing it as a spiritual ordeal could be a valuable, vital paradigm shift. This is something I just happened on this afternoon, so I'll have to sit with it for a while and discuss it with my ordeal mistress (Ereshkigal), but I'm intrigued by the potentials.

The other shift is, of course, this sudden strong desire to try dancing. I see it as a direct consequence of my recent conversation with Ereshkigal and Her urging me to get in touch with Inanna and embrace passion. But it also builds on Wolfling's new-found love for salsa, and her desire to get me involved, reading Faith in Carlos Gomez, and jillwheezul's affirmation of embracing life. . .

I don't want to get too excited about any of this, because I hate my tendency to go head-over-heels and then burn out when things get challenging. . . but as I write that I think about my perserverance in staying with my priestess training for a year and a half, so maybe I'm starting to gain some resilience.

However either of these paths go, I want them to be joyous. I supposes there's always a time on any path when one has to simply grit one's teeth and keep going, but I want my overall approach to be gentle and joyous. And if you're asking how an "ordeal" can be "gentle and joyous" -- well, I'm kinky, and I'm pretty sure I know what that kind of space feels like.


More bulletins as events warrant. . .

With the exception of square and contra dancing (neither of which I've done since college), I've never been comfortable with dance -- but one of the delightful aspects of my relationship with uncrowned_king was his penchant for sweeping me into a dance in my very small kitchen. We were going to take a ballroom dancing class together.

Now Wolfling has started doing salsa and loving it, and I'm reading a memoir called Faith in Carlos Gomez, in which a woman whose physical self image is very similar to mine, and who feels very isolated from people in general, finds her life opening up when she gets involved in salsa.

And yesterday jillwheezul gave me some very wise insights about the desireability of my embracing joy and whatever "special" is coming to me.

So. . . this will be my next adventure:

4-1-1 Introductory Sampler ($49.95 per person)

If you are new to ballroom dancing, our sampler is a great way to try the numerous popular dance styles available today. Our sampler includes:

4 half hour private lessons
1 group class
1 party

If I don't report back on my private lesson schedule in the next few days, please pester me!

Wolfling and I are in the theater waiting for "Mythbusters Live" to start!

Tomorrow Wolfling and I are leaving for our first big trip since our Disneyland adventure three years ago. It's not quite as big a deal, being only an overnight trip to a resort that's only two hours or so away, but it's something she's been wanting to do for a very long time, and I'm taking off work so we can make a special date of it.

Tonight was supposed to be dedicated to packing. (Among other things, my darling daughter can't find her swimsuit. This is Not Good since we're going to a big indoor water park.)

Instead, we spent the evening at the hospital, visiting a dear friend of hers who has been there for several days due to internal bleeding in his colon. Fortunately, it doesn't seem like it's going to be serious, since they caught it -- but it could have been life-threatening.

We were getting ready to leave the house when it suddenly occurred to me: the last time we went on a vacation adventure we also ended up spending time at the hospital. I mentioned this to Wolfling and her eyes got wide and she half-laughed half-choked, then said, We really should thank C for diverting the curse from us! And then she pointed out that both illnesses were gastro-intestinal.

We did not, of course, mention this to her friend. . . .

I'm thinking that perhaps the next time we prepare to take a special trip, we should start performing banishing rituals well in advance. . .


ETA: Wolfling just came downstairs. She told me she found her swimsuit -- about ten seconds after putting Sobe (her favorite beverage) in the cup on her personal altar.

Yep, we've got fairies.

Trip was a beautiful, smoothe ten hours.

I'm exhausted.

Had dinner with Oakmouse, now I'm going to bed.

'night all. . .

Yesterday was A Good Day -- and certainly less painful than Friday.

I got up, made the posts I'd been planning to and a few I hadn't, sent a rose to uncrowned_king's LJ and left a comment on the last entry (I can't visit his body's resting place), and then set off for the island.

I'd chosen to go to Fort Casey, one of the old miltary installations on the island designed for coastal defense during WWII. We used to visit there when I was a child and my family vacationed on the island, but I haven't been back for years. Unfortunately, although the guides indicated there were trails, there weren't many of them and none of them were very long. Still, I had a good time just wandering around the battery itself, over the coastline, past the lighthouse, and down five or six short trails.

It felt very strange to be there by myself. I've always had a tendency to solitude, but I haven't done many outdoor trips by myself. It was a beautiful day, and there were people all around: family groups, groups of friends, partners, a soccer team. . . People who didn't have another human companion had a dog with them. The only other person I saw alone was an energetic white haired woman in a pink and black track suit doing what was obviously a regular walk. I felt unusually. . . not "conspicuous" but perhaps set apart?

Still, I had a lovely time, and the point was that I was there with Lohain's spirit. I went down some side trails and found a lovely hillside that overlooked the beach, and just sat there for a while in the sun with the scent of the water.

I saw two deer grazing in high grass very near the path, a snake lying across a path I was considering (which didn't move when I got close, so I decided to leave her alone and take a different route), and a little brown rabbit. When I drove out of the park, I saw another deer, and then a coyote that broke from cover, loped across the road, and disappeared again -- a very rare sight for me.

Then I went to the Earth Sanctuary. I hadn't planned to go, but it's become a touchstone place for me. I went into the labyrinth for the first time in ages -- not because I thought it would bring Lohain closer, but because the center of a labyrinth is always magical space. Then I took a trail down to a stone circle. Finally I took a side path to a medicine wheel, which was fenced off with specific instructions about how to approach it, including being barefoot, washing your feet, smuding, bringing in tobacco, and how to pray there. I didn't go in, but just looking at it was a prayerful experience. It was much more impressive and spiritually charged than either the circle or the dolman.

It was raining lightly off and on the entire time I was at the Sanctuary, but most of the time I was under a thick cover of trees, so it didn't matter. I was all alone on the land, except for the birds and a squirrel (who scolded me loudly), and it was simply lovely.

There's a group called "Whidbey Walks" that's meets once or twice a month to walk together, and I'm thinking of joining up. I love being out there, and I'd like to make some new friends and get to know the island better. Besides, I keep thinking that one day I'd like to live out there, and it would be nice to find out more about what that's actually like.