Zimagical

Fall

2010-09-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

There were no grapes on the vine. The birds got them all. It is too hot for blueberries. Besides I am not blue but the sky is, dotted with red cardinals. I blow kisses for good luck and they blow kisses back. My face is covered in black juice that stains my white shirt red.

Journey 9 - Wake Dreaming

2010-08-06T06:25:00.000-07:00

It was a good journey--ran in to a crow perched atop a tall building, a cat jumped through a waterfall into a mossy cave, I followed-met a dragonfly that turned into a scarab. It disappeared into the piercing in my nose, and all some such. In the end, I met a few human types--not really interesting though. Still, everyone loved to dance and so we did. But it's good to be back. Dreaming.

This is a train of thought piece that I wrote on Facebook. I decided to go back and look at the symbols in the piece--kind of digging around in my head. I have to admit that this is not one of those heavily researched entries about dreams and symbols just my doing cursory investigations on the Internet. But here we go.

Rather than use Joseph Campbell's symbols for the Hero's Journey, I decided to investigate symbols of the heroine's journey. I found Maureen Murdock's work on feminine archetypes. According to Murdock, the female journey is very different from the male. Obviously. When Murdock asked Campbell, "what about the Heroine's journey?" He replied, "The heroine is the object of the hero's journey." and added, "“She doesn’t go anywhere, she’s what the Hero is journeying to.” Murdock did not like the answer and wrote her own book, which I have not read. But based the review of the book I would have to say that I agree that the role of women in the west is very conflicting. There is an absence of the realization of true power, which comes from the womb. The womb is the sanctuary of life, very much like the ocean. The fluid in the womb is the same substance as sea water. Enough said. So lets just suffice it to say that I don't have to quest for power, I have it already, which might explain Campbell's response. We don't have to go rumbling through the forest with swords and shields, women already possess the most powerful weapon of all, the womb. Anyway, on with the symbols.

The Crow: Messengers, omens of change. Crows are also very powerful tricksters with the ability to see the past, present, and future and important part of the Ifa continuum. My crow is perched atop a tall building symbolizing this phenomenon.

The Cat: I just got a calico cat. Her name is Cassie. I've wanted a Calico Cat since I was a little girl. Calico cats are described as auspicious beings. The etymology of auspicious (from auspice) is the Latin word auspex meaning diviner by birds.

The Waterfall: Water is always a symbol of cleansing and renewal. Oshun, an Ifa Orisha is symbolized by rivers and creeks (and of course waterfalls). Oshun is very kind and forgiving but she can also be a very angry goddess, although she is slow to anger. Just outside my door is a beautiful creek so Oshun is always nearby.

The Dragonfly: I found it interesting that the Dragonfly is also known as a "snake doctor". In Hoodoo, a Snake Doctor is a shaman. One entry explains that in "the Southern United States term "snake doctor" refers to a folk belief that dragonflies follow snakes around and stitch them back together if they are injured. So the Dragonfly is a healer of ritual specialists.

The Scarab: We go to Egypt for the symbol of the Scarab. Simply put, the Scarab is a symbol of transformation. It's Hieroglyph means to come into being. The fact that it entered into my being through a piecing in my nose symbolizes that I am coming into renewed life and spirit. I am breathing transformation and becoming.

Human types: I have to admit that at times people wear me out. All the fussing and posturing is really a bore. On this journey, I found no human types worthy of mentioning.

The Dance: My first entry in the blog referred to going through the Red Door. I explained that I would be back "directly." In reality, I was meditating. The above inscription came later, after my return from my journey. At the end of the journey, the moment of renewal, I danced. Of course, I have to return to Mother Africa when investigating the symbolic meaning of dance. Dance is linked to oral history through performance. The fact that I have been creating costumes that refer to dance and masquerade is symbol enough.

I had a good day yesterday. Meditating and dancing helped free my thoughts and spirit for the challenges that lay ahead. I awoke this morning renewed and ready to take on the world.

More about Crows: http://www.shamanicjourney.com/article/6033/crow-power-animal-symbol-of-sacred-law-change

Dragonfly: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Dragonfly

Scarab: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dung_beetle

The Dance: http://www.africanside.com/discussions-about-africa-and-african-news/african-dance-introduction-african-dancing

Remembering "Ma"

2010-02-14T22:25:00.001-08:00

Hattie Mae Hainesworth Marshall
August 3, 1924-February 15, 1977

My mother passed away 33 years ago today.

My father called her "puny" because of her graceful bone structure. She moved like a cat.
She was the eldest daughter of 10 children and bore the responsibility of caring for younger and older siblings, even after they were adults.
She loved children.
To know her was to know the truth (at least as she interpreted it).
She did not mince words.
Most of the time she was right.
She admonished stupidity and laziness.
"Use your common sense [your intuition]."
She picked cotton in the fields of NC and often talked about "taking the lead row." She set the pace for the rest of the workers.
Her transition upset the balance of life in our family for many, many years.
There is not a day that goes by that we do not speak of her--remember her.
She was the matriarch.
Her beauty could stop a train.

(No background music) School kids taught to praise Obama

2009-09-24T22:09:00.001-07:00

Here's a call and response song similar to the one the children sang:
Call: Every other house on my block is up for sale. Response: GW Bush and the conservatives.
Call: I haven't been to the doctor in years because medical insurance is too high. Response: GW Bush and the conservatives.
Call: American businesses are drying up. Response: GW Bush and the conservatives.
Call: The American banking system went down the toilet. Response: GW Bush and the conservatives.
Call: We were lied to about the Iraq War, which drained our coffers. Response: GW Bush and the conservatives.
Call: It will take a miracle to dig us out of this. Response: Barack Husein Obama

Up Late Again

2009-09-22T23:27:00.000-07:00

I should be in bed but I am not. I'm reworking my website. I painted all day, worked out, came home and got on the computer. I guess I could have continued to paint, but I was tired. Besides this needed to get done. I'm soon to bed. Yawning. Oh, here's something that I photographed not too long ago with my camera phone. It's some kind of really weird mushroom that was in the woods at Cascade Springs. Pretty though, but I wouldn't eat it.

Uneventful but full of delight

2009-05-27T21:46:00.000-07:00

I had a very uneventful walk today. Other than the birch trees marked with a large orange X on Oakdale, nothing out of the ordinary. One time I heard a rooster crow on Lullwater. But that was in the morning. I've never heard it again. Hmmmm. It was near the same place where I found the book entitled "I Can Dance." Sometimes it's good to remember eventful things on uneventful days.

I Can Dance

2009-05-14T08:03:00.000-07:00

After spending the past two days doing the huckabuck in my studio and crashing at a semi-reasonable hour, I awoke and went for my usual 4 mile walk. About halfway through the walk I discovered a stack of books on a trash heap. Laying on top of the stack was a little book entitled "I Can Dance." Now is that magical or what? But there's more to the story.

This incident took me back to my childhood and a very sad story but a very happy ending. When I was a little girl, I had the little girl dream of being a ballet dancer. I knew that I would have to take ballet classes. I asked my mom if I could take lessons and she replied a firm "No" and then went on to say that in order for me to take lessons I would have to go to the largest nearby town, Fayetteville, NC. Her reason: "They don't allow colored children" in the class in my own hometown, Southern Pines, NC. I was devastated. Colored meant nothing to me and I decided that I would prove to my parents that I should be allowed to take dance. So, I went to the library and found a book, just like the one that I found on the street. It was illustrated with pretty little girls doing all the ballet steps. I learned all the basic ones.

I would twirl and bow before my mom, dancing to the music that my dad played on his radio show on Sunday mornings--classical music on WEEB.

"See Ma, I can dance", I would say.

"But you still can't take dance over town and I'm not driving to Fayetteville," she would snap, obviously annoyed. I never lost the dream of being a ballerina but it became obvious after a while that I was too old to do ballet. Oh well, life has its disappointments.

However, when I was in Australia in 1994, I camped out with a group of Aboriginal women at an Oasis in the desert somewhere near the Strezlecki Track. One woman, Nora, took us deep in the bush for a ceremony that had to do with "women's business." I sat among the elders tapping rocks against rocks just as they did and felt very happy to be included in the ceremony. All of a sudden, Nora came forward and took my hand and pulled me to my feet. "Do this", she said, as she moved her feet, arms and body. I aped her moves and we danced. For a very long time, we danced.

I was overwhelmed. I later told her my ballet story and in between tears and sobs I said,"All my life, I wanted to dance ballet, a dance that is over 400 years old. But today I danced a dance that represents over 40,000 years of continuous culture. Thank you for this gift!"

By the way, I also saw a man that looked like Picasso walking down Oxford Road with his two graying dogs and another man who resembled Diego Rivera. What a morning!

Wishes

2009-05-02T11:57:00.001-07:00

I made lots of wishes on yesterday, which is why I didn't blog. One (the most important one) came true. It was about balance and letting go. I have a tendency to think that I can make things happen even though the universe says no. I even get angry about it. In the end, I wind up being angry and out of focus. I really hate that. Sometimes it takes days, weeks, months before I can pull myself together. Such was the case with my wish (prayer) for balance.

The other wishes that I made are being worked on. They involve material things. Interestingly enough what threw me out of balance in the first place was that I could not have something that I wanted. In the end, I had to give up and realize that the thing that I wanted was not for me. The universe sent a better option. I'm back to wishing again but this time, I am ready to move in another direction if need be. Now that's balance!

Blowing Kisses

2009-04-29T21:02:00.000-07:00

When I was a little girl I learned that when you see a red bird you should make a wish and blow a kiss to it. This will bring you good luck. I have learned that luck is a relative thing. But by acknowledging the red bird I am in tune with the universe, if but for a moment! On second thought, I guess I was pretty lucky to learn this practice.

Sometimes a simple act is all that is needed to change our disposition. It moves our spirit, changes our focus and perspective, especially when the mood is not pleasant. I have had times when I have been on the fringes of anger and then a red bird zooms through flying very low. I pause for a moment to blow the bird a kiss. In an instant my mood has changed. Good magic is about moving our spirit to a place that is better.

Transcendence

2009-04-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

I love the whole idea of transcendence. When things get tough, magic takes over. Hoes work by themselves and cotton is turned into clouds.

Another story in Courlander's A Treasury of African Folktales talks about how an overseer put a group of African slaves in the field "but he couldn do nuttn wid um." The overseer whipped the slaves. Angry, they got "tugedduh an stick duh hoe in duh fiel an den dey say 'quack, quack, quack,' and dey riz up in duh sky and and tun hesef intuh buzzuds and fly right back tuh Africa." The hoe was left in the field, sticking in the ground but the Africans went back home.

Hoes That Work by Themselves

2009-04-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

From A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore by Harold Courlander.

I have heard about a magic hoe that folks put in the gahden. They speak certain words tuh it; the hoe goes ahead and cultivates the gahden without anyone touching it. They jist tell it tuh do the wuk and it does it." (Folklore, Georgia Sea Islands."

The land possesses the body. The body possesses land. When in need of rest, sleep, escape the body becomes "magic." It transcends.

My ancestors spent many days transcending--through prayer and meditation. Hoes magically worked by themselves and people could fly.

Ogun

2009-04-27T05:44:00.000-07:00

It was all about the garden today, especially garden tools and the role that metal plays in our lives. Today a wise man talked about metal and how we tend to forget how vital it is in our lives. It plows our fields, tends our gardens, and it carries us from place to place. It floats in our bodies. It also makes our weapons--knives, machetes, guns. Give thanks to metal--Iron, cobalt, selenium, zinc, potassium and the necessary 25 more that keep us functioning.

The festival was for Ogun--the Yoruba deity of iron and metal. Ogun clears paths for clearer thinking and makes for loyal relationships. Ogun uses his metal tools to shape our lives and inner potential. Ogun is a powerful force running through our veins in the form of 30 metallic elements that are necessary for a healthy body.

Ogun was once married to Osun, the beautiful deity of love and inner peace. My friend and I mused as we worked in the garden that upon glancing at the beautiful river goddess who lived in the grove at Oshogbo, Nigeria, he decided that she should be surrounded by flowers and more beauty so he honed the tools for cultivation. Oshun went to work and created the grove. We imagine her walking there each morning, fan in hand, stopping every now and then to smell the roses.

Look Back

2009-04-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

I am not sure why I am afraid and what I am afraid of or to be quite honest if I am really afraid at all. I am anxious about the next moment. I wonder if it will be as good as the last moment or better than the one before.

This morning I went for a long very brisk walk. The sun was shining and it was warm, almost hot at eleven. It - I felt good.

I blew kisses at the red birds that zoomed across my path. The rock that I thought metal was just a rock. I picked it up, walked a ways then threw it. I shook someone's world--shifted the energy just to the left of me.

See what I mean about that last moment.

Right now I am trying to figure out why I wrote the first sentence of this piece in the first place.

2005

2004-12-31T20:30:00.000-08:00

tSUNAMI has shifted the earth and I am weaving straws--over under, over under. If one move is missed then all falls apart. The earth has shifted and the birds have headed for the hills. They sit and wait for the next cab which got stuck on Peachtree at Five Points. Margaret Mitchell turns in her grave because everything it seems has fled with the wind--the children have no prams.

I enter 2005 optimistic. I pray for all those who have died in this most unfortunate and horrible disaster. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be there. I love my family and I am grateful for the good fortune that I have had in the past year. I hope that I can do something good for some one beginning in the next moment. I enter 2005 alone but everywhere.
I pray for peace.

Back to Sisi

2004-11-04T16:49:00.000-08:00

Chiaka's voice:

When I arrived, I was naked. At the first sale, I was sold with three others, all from the same hamlet. Ztimi was my age. I was so sad. She made a little flute from a reed that she found when we were chained together just before the final separation. I was so sad and confused. I was so sad and confused. I was so sad and confused.

Sisi: The packets I don't know how to make them and why.

Chiaka: Listen to me ...what you saw was real it was you and and yes it is not you--always much younger than you really are. How long have you played this game, since maybe 23? A good number. Anyway, you are not there you have moved on. They are looking at you but they do not know that you are looking at them. What do you see? When they look at you what do you see?

Sisi: Both my mother's grandmother and father's mother are fire--red. My great-grandmother's skin is black, my grandmother's skin is reddish brown.

Inner thoughts regarding the spiritual exchange. The place where you back up and move forward at the same time. What is it called?

Summer of 64', Forty Years After

2004-11-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

I wrote this poem on yesterday as I watched the vote of black people in Ohio and Florida being challenged. It brought back memories of forty years ago, when I was a little girl, and the political climate at that time. It is very discouraging when voting returns to issues of race and voter eligibility based on race. The sacrifices that black people made during the 1960s ushered in an era that would see women making strides for equality, especially in the workplace; handicapped persons being accomodated and given opportunities; abortion rights and many other civil liberties that we enjoy as a free people. For black people to be challenged at the polls forty years later is extremely sad.

The president ran on a platform that targeted different groups of people, painting them as social deviants. He appealed to homophobia and fear, cloaking the issues in morality and honor. There is no honor in cheap tricks. I find nothing moral about a person who would take a nation to war by lying and inventing enemies. Over 100,000 Iraqis have been killed, and over 1000 American troops. More deaths will follow. I wish that I could be optimistic about the future, but I can't.
My memory will not allow me.

The Summer of '64, Forty Years After--Nov. 2, 2004

My mother stands on the screened porch in her bra and grasps a Coca Cola spray bottle.
The bottle makes an excellent water toy, especially when she is not looking.
I like the metal corked tip,
the way if fits snugly into the bottle's opening.

I sit on my little stool watching as the black & white TV Dogs
nip at the legs of people who look just like me.
My plastic baby bottle filled with water is wedged in the mouth of
my baby doll.

She drools and I wipe the water from her mouth. Sometimes, she is an excellent
source for my torturous games, today she is loved. I've cut all her hair
so that nothing is left but stubble.
She is a pitiful doll, but she is mine.

White people make faces in the camera and shout "niggers", and
"the niggers ain't", "git no vote", "niggers ain't",
"gone go to school with my children", I hear and
"the niggers ain't human." Do they mean me?

I watch my mother as she shakes her head and rhythmically shakes the Coca Cola bottle.
Tears fill her eyes and spill down her brown cheeks gathering
just below her chin. They fall and mix with the water from the cola bottle,
and hit the white cotton shirt that she is ironing. She irons Hard and Fast.

She says: "I'm gone deliver these shirts to Ms. Walper and then I'm gone go over town
and make sho' I can vote. These crackers ain't gone scare me outta voting. You hear me."
She speaks to the steam of the iron, to the clouds, to the red bird that, has just flown by,
To Me.

She sweats from the heat. Moisture settles between her breasts. I sit on my stool,
white doll in hand, and watch the TV dogs and the white men,with guns and angry words,
the white girls, their angry faces.
My mother determined.

There is too much anger here. The baby bottle is empty.
The doll pisses me off. Her blue eyes do not close.
I fold her legs into the sitting position and place her on the pedestal that holds
my mother's rings. She will be safe here. It's time for a new game.

Running down the hallway, I enter my bedroom. Emptying out the toy box,
I find my gun, examine it "bang, bang" and then throw it down. I pick up a book instead.
My mother says that the pen is mightier than the sword and that knowledge
is the armor that will take me to freedom. Like my mother, I am very determined.

Copyright 2004 lynnlinn

Photography as Art

2004-11-03T17:24:00.000-08:00

hands.jpg
Originally uploaded by lynnlinn.

Zimagical is zmagic when imagination awakens.

No Messages

2004-11-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Election Day. My sister thinks that it will be just like Christmas. I think that it will be a day of tension and stress. I hope that there will be no violence.

It rained today. I made up a tune but now I can't remember it. It took me through the toughest part of my day, the final two hours. I was very productive and kept to my schedule, except for going to the gym. But I walked three miles, so that counts for something. Tomorrow I will write. I may write all day.

2004-10-31T21:38:00.000-08:00

The piece begins with a love poem and the voice of Ananu, the elder spirit. She is speaking to Sisi. She tells the story of the days before she left Calabar. She remembers a young boy from the Dahomey who liked her and how he teasingly blew his flute upon her breast. The two of them were captured and sold into slavery. She remembers him telling her not to be afraid. This is a love poem. I hear music. Drums/flutes....

Welcome

2004-10-28T23:17:00.000-07:00

Sisi's Box

2004-10-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

Dahomey, Mississippi (1890): It was on Saturday mornings that the bird would come. The tapping at the window became more pronounced as the months passed. She would curl tightly beneath the bed linens certain that the bird would burst through. It was a red bird--a cardinal and its presence calmed and frightened at the same time. But she kept silent and did not tell her parents about these strange events, a girl waiting at the threshold of age twelve would appear childish with such stories. So she just curled beneath the covers until the bird stopped.

I think that this is a good begining place for the performance/exhibition piece that I will need to write. Now for the voices. How do I elicit/construct voices? Who is speaking here?

Anna Murray Douglass Lecture

2004-10-27T16:15:00.000-07:00

This is from October 21, 2004. At last I have returned from the lecture at Agnes Scott. What an amazing experience. Standing room only. Everyone was anxious to hear about the exploits of Frederick Douglass and about his first wife. I erased the paper twice and literally wrote it in less than a day. I am still getting responses to the presentation which I think moves me more into the arena of performance. I am writing poetry again and seeing images again and feeling again. Thank you ancestors. Thank you Anna