I am you, Sarah speaks

I lived in a small world. While I was a privileged wife of a landowner, my horizons were small. We dwelled on a  farm run by changing seasons and trauma. We wived on the Rolling Fork of the Nolan River in west Kentucky near what is now Louisville. The community was close, having migrated from Fredricksberg Virginia immediately after the American Revolution, we lived among the same families for over almost 150 years until your great grandmother, Annabelle left in 1919. Our family lived in and around LaRue and Hardin County Kentucky from 1781 to 1918. We fought to create a place in these wilds, a stable place where we could prosper. We were good people, pillars of the community. We held positions of authority and helped build and maintain status quo.

And Carole, maybe like you, the status quo made me angry. My husband was cruel, a monster of a man. I could not divorce him. I did not have birth control. I did not have power to control my own destiny.

Maybe this is why I run parallel to you, in your blood. Why of all my descendants, I have chosen to express myself in you. You could fall in love with a person of color. You could divorce someone who did not know you’re worth. Maybe I am reliving through you some of the choices I would have like to have had.

You heard my voice in your teens when Kevin, the the not so good looking black friend in your class, who was so funny, crushed on you, and you were horrified. Kevin was not attractive. Was that because of the color of his skin you wondered (I wondered). You looked around. David, in your French class, he was the best looking dude in your class. His light skin and fine features were attractive. He sat next to you. You helped him with French everyday. You asked yourself, “can I like him?” Then you initiated a relationship with him that lasted over a year. 

Where did that curiosity come from? It came from me. It came from the forbidden, never consummated relationship I wanted with Alex, an enslaved son of my husband. Lewis, my husband,  had been raping the enslaved women on his plantation since he was 14, unbeknownst to me for many years. 

When Alex returned from Mississippi without Lewis and found me undone, with a newborn child, an untended farm and children, he behaved compassionately, rolled up his sleeves and took care of what needed taking caring for. He showed me what kindness looked like. He gave of himself in ways that went far beyond what his bondage called for.

I loved him. As a brother, a friend and I often wished I could know him as a lover. I wished I could kiss him and bed him. I wished we could extend our evening fireside chats to the bedroom. Alas, this never happened.  We tended this farm, the smaller children, and we grew hemp and vegetables. We survived together and created a thriving farm after awhile. We were always watched and were never allowed to expand into the real family we had the potential to be.

Yes Carole, my blood flows in your veins and your curiosity, your daring, your choices often were made because they were choices I did not have and longed for. 

Sarah LaRue Castleman 1808-1904

Cease and Desist

 Dear Granddaughter,

The other day you finally asked for the consent of your grandmothers to write about them how you choose. In your imagination, every maternal grandmother lined up behind you and said, oh yes, dear, you interpret our lives through your lens - except me. I did not give you permission to rewrite my story your way. Oh I see your imagination stirring.

I won’t have it. You can’t have my life and call it terrible, colonizing, patriarchal. You can not tear down what all of your grandmothers and grandfathers have built. I do not stand behind your libel.

I have heard you. You aren’t even sure what side me and my esteemed husband were in the civil war. You suspect we supported the south. 

Likewise, you suspect several things based on my husband’s last name. I do not appreciate your judgements one bit. Because I married a Mather you suspect of us of being witch burning puritans. With absolutely no evidence to support this, you decided since these Mathers were only one generation into America in the late 1800’s, you have gone and assumed we are related to the Mather who was part of the esoteric group the Golden Dawn. 

Which ever way you look at it, you want to tarnish our name.

We, LaRue and Castleman descendants, are good people. Why you want to make my dead father off as some horrible bigamist when the record clearly shows he died the year I was born. You have no sense of pride in family name, do you? Saying he raped slaves, faked his own death and married again is a horrid thing. I wish you would shut up. I have no idea how you could imagine any of us support you here in Ancestral Land.  

My granddaughter, Jesse, is your grandmother. I have had more time to talk to her since she died in 1984 then you did while she was alive. You weren’t her favorite grandchild, As I am sure you must know. But she is really happy you want to highlight that she was a woman’s suffragist and fought for the New Deal in a touching and hilarious way. She loves those stories and tells you to imagine more of them. She loves that you realize she took her father-in-law, who lived in her house, down to the next county, to campaign for the New Deal. He sold fruit tress and she gave out New Deal fliers. They had to do it a county south of them because they couldn’t let their own community know what they supported. Jesse’s husband had a politically sensitive job. 

My own daughter, Annabelle, can’t wait for you to explore her story of leaving Kentucky in 1919 after her family settled there over a hundred years before. Like you left Georgia to become a farmer, she and her husband left a lifetime of being morticians among families they had lived with since before the American Revolution to become  diary farmers on the Gulf Coast in their later years. She loves that you see the pattern there from your own leaving of family territory. She likes the way you tell the story tracing it back to patterns beginning thousands of years ago, as our ancestors moved west with herds of domesticated animals, devouring the forests and eroding local cultures with patriarchy. Y’all too moved west (Annabelle moved south, I gently remind her). It goes to prove you are doing all the same things you whine and moan and want to change in the world. 

I can’t even get over what my own mama is happy for you to tell stories. She still hates my daddy so badly, she is ready for you to tell about him raping slaves and leaving her with practically nothing - barefoot and pregnant with me. She has no loyalty to the Castleman name.

I am so done with the lot of you.  Even my grandmother, Jane, is glad for you to expose the Indian Killing of her father. She is also glad to let you explore all the LaRue’s history, the Hugenot family she married into.  She wants you to look into the marriages between cousins and was horrified when I married Henry because he is my cousin on the LaRue side being the grandson of her husband’s brother. 

You all can just go to hell. Stop trying to tell these stories. Nice people don’t air their dirty laundry. We are patriots and proud of our heritage. I need you to cease and desist all these writings.

Your great, great Grandmother,

Melissa Castelman Mather

Eve in the Cave

 Eve stirred, feeling and hearing a hiss.

She had been dreaming up a storm for a very long time.

This dream had taken some nasty turns.

Eve’s eyes frittered open and she perceived a dim light. She saw the long sinuous snake slithering on and around her. Blinking, she saw a crone holding a light in what must be a dim cave.

Eve sat up with the crone’s help.  The snake curled in her lap. The Crone handed her an apple and offered her a ladle of water. Eve asked her, her name. The old woman answered, “Hecate.” Hecate than hung her lamp on a hook on the cave wall and picked up her long gnarled staff. She leaned heavily on the staff and made her way to stand in the center of the small space. She drew a cross on the cave’s floor. 

She looked intently at Eve and In a strong, yet wavering voice she declared, “We are at a crossroads. This cave is a portal.” She looked deeply into Eve’s eyes and said, “We are grateful for your presence.”

Eve felt unreal. Her dreams had lasted so very long. Eons. Adam, her lover had betrayed her. He had stolen lands, cut trees, poisoned the water. He had stolen all the power from the sky and earth. He had made terrible unnatural things which belched poisons.  She witnessed great wars and terrible scenes of conquest and death, the world over. 

The dream lasted an eternity - until now as she awoke with Hecate writing in the dirt and talking of portals and crossroads. Eve took a deep breath and looked at Hecate. The she gave a shrug and looked around the cave. There were no words for the nightmares she had witnessed. She couldn’t imagine what a portal was.

Hecate said, “Eve, our purpose here is to rewrite history and make better stories than the ones you and Adam birthed so long ago. Those stories have become a world gone mad.”

Eve nodded. “Were those dreams true?” she asked. 

Hecate said, “In many ways, yes. The suffering is real, the machines, those inhuman things you saw, they exist. These are things and people have become obsessed with things and owning them. They delight in domination and long to be better than others.”

“Adam and I birthed this?” Eve asked, disbelieving.

“Honey, your stories were stolen and rewritten. What you birthed long ago was hijacked, taken and misused. This is why I gave you an apple. We start here, in this underworld cave. When you take a bite of this apple, you will be able to walk out of this cave and make a new world. You can create new stories  - and you can make a better Adam!

When Other People Tell Me Who I Am

 

When I arrived, I found a box with my name on it.

I found out soon enough, the box was mine to wear, 

And I am not allowed out of it.

It is tight and constricts me.

I have gained weighty opinions and the box hurts.

I am not having it.

You can’t tell me who I am.

Because

I am the wide open spaces,

Because

I have climbed into the crack in the earth 

And explored the ruin.

I have come to know myself without the boxes 

that I was put into, then taped shut and labeled Carole.

I have covered the box in art and writing.

I have unglued the seams.

I have pulled the box away.

Unadorned

I claim this space I take up.

This larger than a box space 

and I settle and expand, becoming the space all around.

Carole has left the box.

Carole is walking into the forest,

Magic on her mind, 

Carrying the box to sit upon.

Politics - A tarot reading for the coming week

 Asking about our current vulnerability

will US be attacked by terrorists in next week?

The heart of the matter and I get four of swords, truce.  

We are sleeping under swords with our weapons by our side,

The opposing factor is the tethered one. 

We have our hands tied. There is no movement. 

We are in an election cycle and legal challenges tying our hands from being able to act aggressively and in our own interests and the interests of the world.

The root cause gives me the high priestess reversed.

A conceited, selfish, ruthless  woman is the reversal of this card. 

It is “It will be wild" card, a root condition. An insurrection against our government. An inherent instability.

I do not think this woman is Hilary Clinton though if I were a right winged extremist, I would certainly say that. 

And maybe it is her in that she been attacked so viciously for the last decade.

 I think perhaps what underlies all of this in the past is the secrecy of the plots against our country and our rights and liberties. 

There are a fair number of swords in the entiriety of this reading which gives me the idea at the root of these lies 

all of the big lies about Hilary, the last election, and our country that we are  constantly fed. 

It is the statue of liberty turned upside down. 

It is all the factions trying to remove the power of  Democracy world wide. It speaks of the worldwide efforts of patriarchy to remain all powerful.

The past is 2 of pentacles reversed - change. 

Yes, the shit storm of change with gays and blacks and queers and women 

all being givern the power to be voices in the collective 

and it is causing the powers that have solidified 

great grief because these rights and voices threaten their hegemony.  

These liberating changes give powerful people much desire to destroy self determination and other freedoms 

The goals,  cruelty, disinformation and division take away our power.

The goal is queen of swords reversed.  

Another woman - with  Lady Liberty as queen of swords and the High Priestess 

are both reversed, pointing to the cessation our rights and freedoms and especially our economic relevancy.

The future is the prince of swords.

 It is coming rapidly whatever it is. 

The prince or knight of swords is fast moving,

There will be knight coming to the rescue. A statesman?  

The unexpected coming and going of a matter of great concern. 

A restriction of scientific outlook. 

Oh shit. I hate this card here in the future.

Fears is the placement meaning for the next card which is the seven of disks.  

It is a card of examining the roots of a situation. 

And yes I have the fear that our nation as a colonizer has given us all these vulnerabilities. 

The means we have used in settling this country and becoming a super power 

have not been merciful or as full of integrity as we tend to tell ourselves. 

My fear is we are getting what we deserve.

External influences is the next card and I get nine of swords.  

Which is extreme worry for what is to come 

Notice more swords. 

Lots of disinformation and inability to know what is really going on.

In hopes and fears, six of cups

My hope is that our cups will be filled, our hearts made happy and peace reigns. 

The card has a lot to do with nostalgia and looking to the past.

I think we do all hope for the peace we have known in the past, 

unless we are of color, disabled, a woman or any other group that has been discriminated against,

then our nostalgia is not so longed for. Our fear is that it will go to being like the past. 

The outcome is the five of swords, which Allison Crowley declares is worry.

Summary of my interpretation 

Will we be attacked in the coming week? No. We will spend a lot of time worrying about it. There is something , this knight of swords and I don’t know what to think about him. I will draw a clarifying card.

I pull from another deck and I get the seven of swords. 

It is a betrayal. I’m sorry but I feel quite certain that American extremists,

 let by the speaker of the house Johnson, are betraying the American people and we have reason to worry.

What If the I Ching Was the First Widely Published Book

 Henry quietly polished the letter Z.  The alphabet was complete and he and Juno were ready to to try the invention. He looked across at his beloved young wife whom he loved with his entire soul. Together they inserted the last letter into the machine. Juno nodded at him, saying, "Now the true work begins."

Henery's family in the south of France were a long line of traders with specialities from the Far East. He had grown up with an old sacred Chinese text brought by his caretakers, an old Chinese couple who had lived with his family since before he was born. They had taught him to read it and also showed him the ancient woodblocks which gave him the idea for his letter press.

Now he and Juno, his second wife, had invented the world's first modern printing press. With the completion of the carving of the letters, they were commintting a translation of this text into various European languages. This book was entitled the Book of Changes and described a journey one could make throughout their life to be the best person the could be. It described how nature informs one how to behave in a set of sixty four images which combined the elements of earth, wind, fire and water.  The series of natural images taught how to make correct decisions which benefited the individual, family, community and state. It began with the Creative Dragon, followed by the Tesponsive earth - the elements combined in magical ways to help each person live a better life.

Years past as Henery and Juno completed sixty four co[ies of this new book. Then togehter they traveled North, South, East and West dispensing this Book of Changes far and wide. Henry's adult children, Anna and Richard continued producing new copies. his nieces and nephews helped create more letter dies and also woked tirelessly to continue printing this sacred script. More and more the wisdom contained in the Book of Changes went out into the Western world. People began reading this text, using coins with it to divine correct action, to course correct in community disputes  and essentially learned vital lessons for harmonious and balanced lifes. They learned to behave as water does when obsturcted, stilling and waiting as new thoughts and resources pooled around them, and like water, when enough wisdom accumulated, they would flow around and over their obsturctions.  They understood to travel was be like fire on a mountain, illuminating and dependent on others to survive - just as fire mush have fuel to burn and must travel along a mountain burning wood, they too were dependent on those who hosted them. They knew it was would be best to move on before all the wood burned, welcomes outworn and illumination dimmed.

These ancient texts restored to the people their sense of connection to the natural world. Their eyes began observing on their own the relationships in nature reflected their relationships with each other. The idea of a dog eat dog world began fading as bepeople began to understand when to cross the big waters to take on new endeavors or whether to stay put and look inward for sustenence. The proliferation of the Book of Changes altered society's progression into opportunism into the wisdom they were all part of the same creation. People began to understand having right relations with people, animals, nature and the world all around.

Meanwhile Henry and Juno traveled to the coast and set sail back to Juno's lands in the Far East. She could not wait to introduce Henry to the Goddess Quan Yin. She wanted their daughters to grow up in Quan Yin's compassionate gaze. She wanted Henry's last years to be in the temples from where the Book of Changes had orginated, the words they had spread the world over - just in time for the New World to be discovered. 

This New World held its own mysteries and cosmologies, so similar to the Book of Changes. They too used nature as a model to walk in right relationship with all of their relations. While the tragedy of diseases came about as Europeans mingled with First Nations, because neither population did not share similar immunities, there was a sincere ddesire to not spread these diseases. They found wasys to care for communities on both sides of the sea whose immune systems failed during these times.

There came an understanding that new stories could emerge. Old times before the mingling of East and West and Turtle Islands was passing forever. The collapses of ways things had once been was very hard, but the wisdom of the peoples of the earth flowed together. Quan Yin and Quatzacoatal became lovers. Vocamos blew. The earth shook. Pele cried. There was much collapsing around them. Yet because they all drank from the deep well of right relationship, the people put together a system to govern themselves where everyone was represented - along with rivers, trees, animals, birds and insects. They remade the world in love.  

Preparation for the Underworld

While plugging in her various electronics,

El hit her forehead, and crown 
On the large wooden beam 
supporting her her wall and roof
In the steep A Frame of home.She slipped into a trance as she collapsed on the nearby futon

And trusted as she placed her hands on pain 

That Universal Life Force Energy 

Would flow through the crack.

She has been gnawing a bone,

Imagining a story she would rather not be true.

There are so many stories
as capitalism and patriarchy collapse into chaos

And the normal order of things fell away.

There are so many stories that are not ideal,

So much El can not control or change.

Nobody is asking her too.

The world wheels out of  her control.

She explores her mind, reluctantly.

The messages arrow into her solar plexus.

Yet she stays aware.

Witnessing the enormity of fast moving change

In a society already exploding at breakneck speed,

Her job as a witness

Is a bitter tonic

Which she must move into right relationship with.

There are stories she doesn’t want, 

And she is moved to understand

The threads  of reality weave a fluid cloth.

The Blades of Truth

Whir as fast as jet engines can blow them.

Owl hoots. “This is a large collapsing system.

This is the season to go into the Underworld.”

“How will you take your winter hibernation”

Kicking and screaming,

Unconscious dreaming?

Or will you cross over with me, 

flying through these interconnected roots 

And networks to the deep lacunas 

Of an Underworld so vast and beautiful

Living in a dimension humans rarely view.

Oh El, there are so many dimensions to witness.”

El was gathering herself.

She was not ready.

She can never be ready

To visit the king of Air in the night world.

She was not sure she would ever be ready 

to follow Owl following Venus into the vast chambers 

In the living Underworld.

Would she make it back?

Last year’s journey almost killed her. 

How can she be ready to again face these forces?

She knew this place meant her no harm,

Neither was it benign.

She has no choice.

She must go.

Owl whispers,

“The season changes,

Whether you wish it or not.

The nights are coming.

She brings her messages.”

“You are more prepared than you were last year.

Last year had to happen.

You had to come into speaking alliance with Grandmother Moon.

You had to shift and with us or die.

You are here, the choice made.

Now we do the work.

You have tomorrow to prepare

And then it is time.”

Whoo, hoo, hooooo, Owl hooted as she lifted into the air.

She trilled as she disappeared.

“Prepare the best you can,” Els mind began.

Then she stirred, felt her tender head.

No lump. She looked in the mirror, checking her pupils.

As she sat reflecting on the work to be done in this coming season.

An equinox, another beginning 

with the sun waning into deep darkness for  the next three months.

The stories were dark too,

Yet she knew this work with the soul of the dark earth would be supported.

There was a council of grandmothers on the other side, she suddenly sensed.

She did not have to journey through this darkness alone.

“Blessed bee,” she whispered.