Soul Food Cafe

Other sites I maintain filled with Writing and Art are through taking part in a place called ~Soul Food Cafe~.

~Making Descansos~

~Exploring Archetypes - Art & Writing~

~Celebrating Advent In European Style~

~Celebrating Advent - A Lemurian Tour~

~Writing Combined With Art~

***Recently, I have not added to these various blogs. I usually put more time into them through the long winter months while awaiting Spring which seems to come late in Upstate, New York. The art and writing I work at seems so scattered and I wanted to give it some order on my personal blog.

Heather Blakely, (aka - Sibyl and/or Enchanteur) guides all those
who pass through these portals with a white glove treatment,
a full heart of generosity, and the promise of an adventure with
relentless pursuits.

Do you enjoy blogging or have a desire to try? Do you enjoy the
company of other writers and artists through community groups found on the Internet?
Are you interested in finding your own door at Soul Food Cafe?
Are you bringing with you a desire of journey and perhaps getting
to the core of your being? Then Soul Food Cafe is where you should
be.

Contact Heather Blakey:

heatherblakey@daileywriting.net

And, be sure to visit Soul Food Cafe !!!

The Isle Of Ancestors

 

Week 15

A young girl sits upon the bench, leaning slightly forward.
Her cape is white wool and illuminated by the glow from the
slow burning fire. I smell oak and hear the hissing sound it
makes as it warms the room. The girl of about thirteen removes
her hood and it falls in soft folds around her shoulders. Her
hair is cropped to all one length just below the ear - it is the
color of burning flames. Freckles cover her soft complexion.

I know in a moment, searching her eyes which are the color of
a lake on an icy blue winter morning, this is my Grandmother.
I know from old vintage photos, brown with time. Her hands are
folded, held tightly together in her lap.

I don’t know how to address her, this child girl who is my
father’s mother. I want to run and embrace her. I know I am
running out of time. She takes a small box from the pocket of
her cape. It’s wrapped in white tissue and tied with a yellowing
ribbon. I begin to unwrap it carefully and find one black shoe,
cracked with age. Tears are streaming down my face as I hold the
shoe to my cheek. I am afraid she will disappear into the shadows
upon the wall.

I watch as she gently takes my hand. The warm love flows through
my body, which I miss feeling from this woman. The recesses of
my heart feel this.

Words become necessary and our eyes meet. I ask her where she has
been. I tell her how much I miss her. I tell her she was the constant
in my life. I knew she loved me. I thank her for teaching me the
art of sewing. I thank her for making my clothes long before I
could sit at the old treadle machine, belonging to her mother. Black
shoes come to mind as each Easter and Passover occur. New ones
appeared upon my feet this time each year with white buster brown
socks, scalloped along the edges. I thank her for the summer trips,
tooling in the kelly, green rambler. How special I felt - just the
two of us.

She begins to speak - I came to you as that tender child of thirteen.
The reasons are many, but the most important is I want you to
embrace your inner child. Acknowledge her presence. She needs you
to accept her and all her mistakes. She wants to reside inside you
complete, comfortable. You can learn so much from her - where
you are, who you are, and where you might be going. She points to
the future - the first step to acceptance is to listen to her
whispers late at night. Calm her fears and guide her into the woman
she so longs to be.

I promise an older woman who now sits upon the bench. I give her
rolled up papers, tied with thin twine. These are stories, my stories,
my poems, my songs. They are important for me to write and for
others to read. Contained in the stories are the contents of my life.

*** the above portion was written 8-14-05
*** the portion below has been added for this activity

I dreamed of the day she would rescue me. I asked why she didn’t take
me from my Father and Mother. I suffered so. What abuse does to a child.
My mother with illness and my father - afraid of that illness.
It ruled our being, our day to day existence and drained all hope
for the future. I suffered in silence and still do it seems.

She answers - I didn’t get you because you never told me. You were not
a verbal child. It wasn’t because I didn’t want you. I didn’t know …
You lived in a time when illness was shame based. I suspected
but not the extent to which you were subjected. Please forgive me.

I feel there is nothing to forgive. Your love was more than enough - the
only love I ever had or knew. I am grateful beyond measure. As I grow
older and wiser perhaps I see what love is through your caring and concern.
It is that small child within asking these questions - the wounded, abandoned,
orphan child. I have lots of work still to do. It cannot be done quickly -
so many layers. I ask the child within for breaks and rest time and reassure
her together we will take care of this. She is calm now and I know I must
keep my word.

I promise my grandmother to be patient and love this child within. She
suggests to take perhaps special time and review our progress and the time
we do spend together.

I am calm and filled with a new happiness as I sail back across the shallow
waters to Duwamish. I hold the black shoe in the crevice of my neck.

Finding Land

…I heard the familiar scream of gulls and knew land was close.
I sat up and looked into the distance, shading me eyes with
me blistered hand. I saw a land full of trees.

I found a new strength and paddled with what muscle I had left.
I had to get on land. Oh, just to be able to stand straight once
again!

I finally was there - in me haste I left the small dingy and quickly
ran back into the water and caught me travel companion. It took some
time as me legs unaccustomed to running were weak, like a colt
turning to stand and take his first steps.

With the boat pushed far upon the sandy shore I stood trying
to catch me barrings - a tropical island I was on - no one
around, no houses, no port - no ships. I knew I had to take
care. Were there wild beasts? Were there untamed people? I had
lived to see land and I intended to live to see home. Somehow
I would get back home.

To be safe I would make me a new home on the waters edge. The
fear of sights and sounds unfamiliar would keep me at a moments
departure.

I must find water - with all the thick green bush and tall leaning
trees there must be fresh water.

I walk only a short distance discovering a familiar sound of
pounding water. I come across a water fall - bending on it’s edge
I taste the water and it is fresh, cold, and lacks the salty taste.
It is drinkable. I scoop some in my hand and drink slowly. At
once I feel restored. Sitting down I slowly look around.

Flowers of every color and size grow together on the island floor.
But I find no sight of animals - I hear no birds - I don’t even
see an insect. And, I feel totally alone.

I scoop some water into me jar and head back to the shore. I must
make me provisions for the evening - try and build a shelter.

As I walk back I think of me ship mates, did any survive and what
happen to the ship? All at once I hear the thunder of feet, not
your normal walking and not small feet - I hide low enough in a bush
and peek through a large flower - birds the size of people I spy
- I ask myself how can this be? I am afraid they will hear me heavy breathing.
The birds speak English, and talking among themselves they are curious to an
odor they smell - I know it’s me and they smell me fear. They look around
with large beady eyes - their beaks opening and closing. They seem to be
satisfied and start on their way on a clear path.

Oh, where am I? Have I lost my mind? I quietly make me way back
to the dingy and start my preparations for night.

I stand the dingy tall side up buried among the brushes. I gather
large ferns as big as windows to cover my body. In my hiding
place I clear a space for sleeping. It’s not much - but it is
hidden.

I gather fruits from a patch of trees I spied while searching
for fresh water. The fruits remind me of grapefruit that are the
size of cannon balls. Nuts have fallen not to far off. They appear
to be walnuts - their shells as big as me hands and laying
on the ground.

I sit with me strange dinner and stare out at the horizon. I eat
and give thanks for me food - I ask me maker to lead me home
and me heart aches. I curse the peaceful waters of the blue
green sea.

The sun sets quickly - I have avoided me make shift bed as long
as I can. I climb into the bush with my jar and hold it close,
tightly to my heart. I drift to sleep and dream of me Mum,
me brother’s laughter and large birds, swooping and pecking
at me back.

Durmish Island

 ~Primroses~

I found the red caped woman in Durmish. She sells primroses of bright colors that remind me of pick-up sticks.

A scalloped sign hangs below her kitchen window, framed in red gingham curtains -

                                                         ~Primroses for Sale~

She is forever a single woman and works at a pipe and tobacco shop facing the shipyard where elderly men buy pipes in all sizes and shapes and sweet cherry tobacco. News and outdated papers are shared on the peeling wood bench. Conversation and stories are told each day.

The lady with the red cape lives in an attached cottage up the high hill which winds into the town’s tiny circle. One can usually see her late at night, sitting on her window box ledge reading and occasionally staring out the window.

She is a quiet woman, never saying hello but nodding with a fresh smile to the town’s people. She prefers her aloneness, along with her books. Beautiful books, bound in rich, red leather - old and worn.

The people of the town, especially the older woman who owns the vegetable stand accepts her mystery.

I was attracted to her lovely flowers and the smile they brought to me. They are among my favorite flower - the idea of their personal enjoyment of cool temperatures and at times blooming before the snow has melted is magic for me. Among Spring’s first, with my jacket still on, hands still in my pockets and the chill of my breath still showing as I breathe, there is the primrose. I call them ~Spring’s Promise~ with each bright color representing the promises of new beginnings.

This was how our friendship began - speaking of primroses.

It was lunch time and she asked me to join her in the quaint cafe across from the pipe shop. We sat and ordered croissants, filled with chicken salad, prepared with chopped pecans, on lovely pink plates. The tea was hot, warming me - the lemon puckering my mouth.

We both remembered meeting before, but not the exact place and not the exact time - perhaps it was at the bath house  … and so our conversation began.

I learn she stays in Durmish through the winter months. Her brother is a sailor and his ship anchors here. You see, they were born here and many ancestors have come and gone. It has been said their family was among the first settlers who sailed whale ships so long ago.

I tell her of my plans to go to the Island of Ancestors - she nods and says perhaps she to will make the trip one day.

We speak of books - our love of reading. The great authors of the 19th century are our favorites. Books, authors and reading and we are in agreement, somehow became our anchors. The stories woman write, are their gifts passed down.

Today is a day for walking and I am introduced to Durmish through the eyes and direction of the woman in the red cape.

Carnival

I dance through the paved street in a sequence of steps. With a mask of  glitters and sparkles that throw broken chard’s of light to the people cheering in the streets.

The music of a hundred flutes invites me to leap, jump, and tumble. My steps are called delight and I am the ballerina floating in the snow of a white out.

The people watch, cheer, and clap their hands, high, over their heads. I turn cartwheels in the street. The bells I wear draw attention.

I use my long, slim legs in tights of green and orange to leap and express the happiness of life through living. I am a part of the whole - part of the crowds, the performers and those who wear their vestments.

The celebration of carnival resides inside and outside of me.

It is about the motion of life - life leaps into surprises of wrapped golden gifts. It then jumps over hurdles of birthday presents wrapped in silver paper. Sometimes life tumbles to scrap off frosting from the pink, blue and yellow cupcakes molded in poka- dot paper.

My costume is worn with pride, like the uniform of a soldier. I am the elder warrior, a fiercely protective mother to an army of six - I own the scars to have proof of my battles, won.

Age allows for my graceful rhythm - it has the specified role. Call it the boogie, call it a frolic. Inside my garb is free and the rhythm migrates to the outside in a style and class for a particular and place.

Carnival

 Masks

Purposely not idenifiable

I wear a mask

like the face of a clock

tick tock, tick tock

The extra layer

another surface

of expression

cosmetic and covering

is the facade.

My countenance in camouflage

a disquise in veneer

an aspect

a coating

a shroud

The subterfuge

and imposture

the pose

of deception

lacking in character

Hide, conceal, and veil

in the dark brown cloak

the pretense of disquise

without face, obscure in the guise of overlay

Screen the faceless without idenity

Tic Tock - Tic Tock

The Isle of Prey

Event One

‘Permission to come aboard, Sir.’- my memory is clear on this, now an older man, half a century old. It haunts my dreams of sailing great ships and is always the way the dreams begin. Once aboard the nightmares set off with the sailing ship on a warm night in dense fog.

You see, once I was a brave young man who sailed the oceans without even a whimper. Now I only look out at the sea from a distant cliff, where no gulls gather.

I wore stripped red knickers and no shoes. Me skin wore the sun, honey colored and with a glean.  Me lips tasted the fresh salt, chapped from the wind, me tongue licking it’s flavor. Me hair grew long and wild, streaked a shade of bronze. I was a proud lad of me first whiskers the same streaks of color as me hair. I took me first taste of rum and danced a gig on deck under the stars. I shimmed robes and searched the open seas for pirates and Napoleon.  Sea sickness never came near me and I never missed me father and just sometimes me mum with no tear to wipe away.

Summer wind came upon the sailing vessel and by night fall the wind was a great force - we were in a tropical storm. I stayed atop the deck as commanded. The night wore on as the storm grew worse. Some of me mates went over board and I remember their screams. The curtain of night kept me from seeing the tossed men and boys.

At one point I heard cracking and grinding - the great ship breathing with fear. Soon the breathing turned into screams of fear as if the ship were aching with pain. After this horrible sound I only remember the feel of freezing water. I was tossed about in the dark waters, grasping for air, swallowing more water than I ever imagined. Coming up for air, I caught sight of a dingy right in front of me. I grabbed on the side for dear, sweet life. With the last of me strength I pulled me self into the tumbling boat - it were three quarters full of water. I felt around for maybe a paddle - nothing but an old glass jar. I held tightly to the jar, hugging it close to me heart. I must have fainted or slept from pure exhaustion- the last sound I remember was the chattering of me teeth.

I woke to blinding sunlight and cool breezes. I were soaked and shaking. The ocean still rough from its beating it took from the wind. I sat up slowly, glass jar in hand. I scooped water out of the dingy for what seemed like hours. It must have been noon as the sun blinded me eyes, it’s heat burning the very top of me head.

Hunger, Oh the hunger! I thought the noises from me stomach could be heard for miles. I spied in the water sliver, slivering reflections - fish. I used the jar and managed to catch three. They flopped aimlessly on the floor of the small boat. Once I almost lost them and held them down with me bare feet until they flopped no more. Convincing me self and me need to survive I ate raw fish, spitting out bones until nothing remained. Me poor stomach and the thought of raw fish - it were hard to keep the wee bit of nourishment down.

That night I ly alone and found the stars a remarkable comfort - even gave them names of me best mates. I don’t know the number of days and nights I lived on top of the waves, open to the elements, until one morning …

The Unarranged Flower

*** This poem and collage is inspired from day eleven of the Advent Calendar

The Unarranged Flower

An arch of colors surrounds the reflection of a man

they call  the unarranged flower.

He is the interrelationship

of main events, secret in plan

his circumstances unfounded.

Within his garden, the upper layer of earth

He scoops away unwanted parts

of growth - woody, climbing and trailing.

His shovel shifts and clears

the course dirt

Around the arbor of fragrant colored rosebuds.

The man has a gate

on this closed entrance

where drops of rain drizzle

and a star named sun is light and warm.

The unarranged flower produces an abundance

of compost for nourishment.

He is ripe, mature and fully developed

He is a perenial, continuing

Solid and constant

Soon he withers

He is below ground

Where his source core

was established

The man once again becomes

the seed, the spore

the beginning again of

the unarranged flower.

The Bath House

On the road to the Alluvial Mine are many places to stop. I had imagined quaint, tiny shops full of bric-a-brac, colored tissue paper for wrapping and quirky cards to fill the emptiness purchasing can sometimes fill. Paper money is not found on this journey, and most certainly not the goal of the shop keeper in this far away land filled with mystery.

There is a stone house, with jagging windows and various wild flowers in pale colors growing through snowfall. Steam and low chatter fill the back of the house. A large sign made with knotted pine swings on a chain with a squeaking sound. All that is written on the sign is ‘Bath House’ in simple cursive. A traveler can easily miss the sign if not paying close attention to the circular, half moon drive, as the writing is only on one side of the sign.

Olaf and I start down the cinder drive and immediately an elderly gentleman greets us. He assures me my donkey will be taken care of. I have noticed thus far, animals are treated and cared for as well as travelers on this journey and I am at ease.

I wander to the back of the aging home and am greeted by a woman with a red cape surrounding her. The smell of the pale flowers is intoxicating and familiar. Camilla, Gardenia and Magnolia mixed together are lovely.

She leads me to a small shed where inside is a wood burning, pot belly stove. Enormous bath towels are folded neatly on the stool. Wash clothes, a loofah, and pumice stones are piled high in a wicker basket. Soaps of all kinds are laying on top of each other in glass jars and a terry cloth robe hangs neatly on a hook.

I change into a robe and slippers are by the door. The walk to the tub is beautiful - snow piled lightly causes the pale flowers to sparkle. Steam lingers around the old wash tub. Quickly, I climb into hot water filled with bubbles. I close my eyes and lean back. I have become more  weary than I had realized. The excitement of the journey, settling in Riversleigh, and back on the road once again has caught up with me and I am swept into a melancholy state.

I open my eyes to a kind quiet woman standing over me. She introduces herself as Dame Washalot and sits on a stool next to the tub. She has a large pitcher filled with snow water and pours it on my hair - she begins to scrub, it feels wonderful, so relaxing. She asks many questions. I speak of where I came from, and some of what and where I am going.

As she rinses the shampoo from my hair I think of the holiday spent with Darlene and of the coming New Year. I tell the Dame of my desire for more friends like Darlene. I speak of a loneliness I have felt since early childhood. I wish for new beginnings, to perhaps live in a different place and find a more suitable job. I explain I just don’t know how to begin.

As she scrubs my feet she assures me of all the possibilities - but I have to search these wishes out. Wishing is just not enough, nor is magical thinking.

The Dame rinses me from head to toe - she wraps me in a fresh clean robe and kisses my cheek in a motherly manner. She leaves me with some kind words - each night scrub the old day off, let it go down the drain. Take the time for extra care, giving much needed sleep a head start.

Tears come to my eyes as she hands me some clean, pressed traveling clothes and soap wrapped in delicate paper the colors of the pale flowers.

My donkey is waiting in the drive, freshly groomed. Once again we are on our way on the curving road to the Alluvial Mine.

Map of the Heart

At a photo storage site, (within the modern marvels of the world wide web) called ‘picture trail’ there is an added attraction called ‘photo flicks’. There are twenty-seven different types to be exact, with names such as: slow slide, peel mirror, and bobble heads, to name a few. The ‘photo flick’ that caught my attention, actually mesmerized me is called ‘rotating glass’.

It is a box, in the shape of a rectangle - after the photos are chosen and take up their residence within, the box starts to turn, showing the pictures in a translucent way. The box turns slowly in what appears nothingness. There would be no way to touch the photos inside - one can only watch.

I tried many pieces of art, I tried various sizes of the box and I tried several backgrounds, none of which satisfied me. If the truth be told I decided against this particular ‘flick’.

Something bothered my sensibilities about this, a feeling of being uncomfortable occurred.

After reading the segments on mapping the heart I remembered the ‘photo flick’ and I could see my heart within it’s glass dimensional walls, spinning slowly, going absolutely nowhere.

I came to believe I couldn’t build a strong wall around my heart, I chose glass and saved bricks to build a wall around my physical self.

In my heart are many broken trails, or heart breaks that needed protection. Sometimes protection is not what is needed. Feelings, thoughts, fears can become jumbled and confused. The wrong type of protection can keep one from living and loving. If it goes on too long , it will break and shatter, especially the heart.

I will not fool myself - this housed heart will take some time to take apart. I can take  down its sides first, and go from there, piece by piece. It will take endurance mixed with hardwork, patience along with faith and a new found ability to trust this process called healing.