Well of Remembrance and Someday My Prince Will Come
Squish and I are just home. With the Ballard Bridge and all being up and causing mayhem for most of the afternoon and early eve, I stayed at work and he stayed at daycare.
1st grade learned the word "squall" today and we had an informal introduction to cycles of weather. The most fun was when I dimmed the lights during math so we could role play what thunder sounded like and pretend like we were learners from an old-fashioned time without lights and power. It turned into something even better. When Thunder began to growl and call, 1st grade joined in and then growled and called a response-with joy-instead of the usual screams we hear next door and down the hall. I've only seen one other thing like it when I took a group of second graders to a place with a pack of red wolves and the red wolves began to talk to the children and my "pack" began to listen and talk back---wolf-style. Oh, these cairn moments in our life-adventures!
SO, we are here now, safe, warm, drying off. The cider is on, the fire is lit and growing in light and dance, the candles are warming the space and leading any who choose to come and tell stories, burn that which does not bring beauty, truth, or goodness into this life, and sit in quiet gladness. We have popcorn, too. The big burn will wait for a crisper night. And we have plenty of those to look forward to.
Last night was another one of those most beautiful nights of my this-life. I learned about Acornology, Unitive Consciousness, and pumpkin pie. I ate my first piece. I've made several but never "et one". Now, I know what I was missing-mmmmmm. I looked into the happy, wise eyes of an old golden friend. I looked into the hearts and hopes, thoughts and thrums of my Star- Sisters and community, family continues to be reborn and formed. I touched hands with sisters of origin this week. I held the touch of duff beneath my feet in old forest and the wet kisses of a happy, goofy puppy who is almost one year young next week. He is out for the count on the couch right now.

There was a song playing on pandora.com when I brought in the first load of wood. It was "Someday My Prince Will Come. It was a nice song--I'm into a George Winston kind of mood these days when the Christmas music isn't on----and it dawned on me as I was making the fire with love and intention-"MY PRINCE HAS COME....AND SHE'S ME!" I had a hearty laugh and joyful moment with that one. Oh how much more can I give thanks for?
Everything God has touched in my life, and I mean, EVERYTHING, has come to be blessing, healing, breaking and remaking for GOOD, for Love, for LIFE. I am a child of God, and by gum, I'm royalty now according to Disney!:)

I don't know if I have posted this before, and I am going to post it again. It fits. It speaks. It is, after all, that time of year.

The Well of Remembrance by Carol Lee Boyd, 2002
Come to the Well of Remembrance.
Here have women sacrificed the memories that overflow
In both mourning and joy
In all times and places.
Now it is your turn to pour into it your libations--
A grandmother's feathery hair
A daughter's pink-painted toenails
Fierce years of labor wasted and
Angry seconds of agony pain.
The Well is constructed of millennia of
Hands held around sacred groves, quilting bees,
birthing stools, and teal Formica kitchen tables.
It can hold all you have to offer it.
Now it is your turn to take from it what you need---
All the water that has flowed from women's
Eyes, mouths, wombs
Has saturated to the Earth's bones,
Has seethed next to our Planet's molten core,
Has evaporated and risen then fallen again into
Your cupped hands as cool rain.
Taste one tear from each of your ancestresses.
It is their wish that you drink deeply and
be as mighty as all their memories
distilled into one swallow.

I'll drink to that, says the Prince. Got my cider right here.