Sunday, October 28, 2012

Hansoul and Greetall and the Harbringer of Spring

Hansel and Gretyl with Robin double pendant from pinchcheeky - Kraftbomb, Grey Lynn Auckland NZ


A long time ago before the great change which has come upon, Hansoul and Greetall, who were once-friends but never knew it because that was in the other dreams-stuff place, were adopted as babies into a strange family each on opposite sides of the world. These families were not like what either of them were used to, in the place of dreams-stuff where they really came from, these new people thought the children were there to be ridiculed and teased, sometimes hit and often ignored. This was okay to some degree because they were well fed, and the houses they lived in looked beautiful, their beds cosy, but also, they did get hurt sometimes and cried into the night.

On opposite sides of the world Hansoul and Greetall cried into the darkness and while they wept, they saw stories in mind, pictures danced and played.

The families who adopted these children didn't know they were dreams-stuff babies, they thought they were born of them. But everyone makes mistakes and so it went on.

Their tears flowed out into the evening and formed magical words, letters of frozen ice like the lake within them which Kafka, (they each had a cat who could talk, called that), told them was real, and it only broke when they wrote things down. So in their separate rooms, in different countries, one in the north and one in the south of the great globe that is Earth, these two secretly or openly wrote poetry, the great nothing of nowhere language which seems like it's spun of mere air, but then too, opens so many doors and windows in mind, and allows the world access, whirls and twirls.

But the families who had raised them decided the children were not to be allowed scribble-stoop, they needed instead to get out in the evil forest-ish place and find whatever they could to bring their families more wealth, food, building materials, anything at all useful. So it was the children wandered each alone in the dank and leafy groves where the wicked build pretty places to fool children. Ill will can seem apparently good, like some flowers are poisonous but beautiful. 

Hansoul and Greetall both wandered separately too, alone, but then came to the same fancy wancy delight as the other, one at the north door and one at the south. Neither knew the other was there. 

Inside a collection of fidgets and digits heard the young people enter and the monsters and greedlies rapidly got together an appearance of delicious and fun-filled, as if this was a party the young people had always wanted to attend.

Hansoul and Greetall lived inside the wild party for a long time, narrowly escaping death and often almost being eaten alive by Despair or the other bogey, Ennui.  They cleverly found they could hide inside cupboards and sometimes secret rooms, where no one else knew they were, once they each found the basement at separate times and occasionally the attic, now and then they also met other children caught in this maelstrom. Information better than gold they swapped it as soon as they sensed it was safe.

Some children fell into the clutches of monsters and were torn apart or fell asleep never to awake, others simply disappeared. Hansoul and Greetall knew they needed to stay out of bad luck and built some mirrory things to reflect back bad to whence it came, this could make them laugh with delight. It was not all danger and glamour either, one room held a few clever children who'd set up a kitchen and market, a music room, they did enjoy finding that door.

Hansoul and Greetall caught glimpses of each other occasionally too and wondered, 'Who's that?', but they never actually met. Instead their wits, words and beauty enabled them to dodge bull, wriggle out of trubble-n-fite spots, recognise the wrong witches, (who may seem far too good to be true) and befriend the correct witches, (who sometimes appear stern or demanding), but yes, anyway. Years passed.

One day by accident they each found themselves again at those doors they'd entered by and opened them, to run, run, run back to where they came from.  Yes, it was that sudden. However their homes had each both of them changed so much it was like a nightmare, ruined, difficult to navigate, sometimes a bitter wind blew. And they'd grown up.

The only thing for it was to get to their words again, to control and order these bewildering experiences. No matter what, (almost) everything they saw was so beautiful you see, even terrible and frightening places inspired them. They wrote themselves into new lives, just like other people build a house or move to a fresh country, Hansoul and Greetall could make words and meanings into walls, windows, doors, mountains, plains, roads, magical creatures and promises.

At some lengthy time to come and gone, a wireless confabulation took the peoples of the wide and warpy, woozy world into each others' houses through 'puters, and webbysights. Hansoul and Greetall saw each other's poetry after it had floated through space and bounced off satellites. They sometimes jeered and cheered the verses, or teased and breezed, tried hurtful things the strange families they'd grown up with had taught them to do. Hansoul and Greetall recognised the familiar manners of mayhem each displayed but, also, rather wanted to escape ill treatment and something in each other's poetry hinted they could. They also had all that beauty they knew of, which they almost always saw, (see)? and if they didn't it was a warning to go visit someone for assistance, (Greetall) or to hike a mountain for the better air, (Hansoul).

They smashed more icy words out of the prison within and melted the sense of them to create an ocean, where each could float folded paper boats of messages to the other, sometimes in dreams.


Meanwhile, a bird formed from their grown up attraction and it sometimes sang. A robin, a red-breasted creature seen in winter which hints at spring to come. Neither realised this winged messenger flew between them and sang songs about better days but it did, like how in the back of somewhere and nothing there's always an echo of The Big Bang which started all this, (so loud, the beginning of the universe, and in some ways love is also a booming and enormous explosion upon people).


Now the great change is upon the world and trees need to be planted in great amounts. Greetall often writes poetry to encourage this, while Hansoul teaches her the value of listening. She teaches him something like path-making. Hansoul writes in pages which are so secret they may not exist, not until they're ready. 


They're each caught in the hell, fluff and happiness of words and meanings, although still far apart. The robin sings. They're swinging backwards and forwards, like the pendulum of a clock and it's time to plant again.



*

Please if you enjoyed this story, plant something tomorrow, it may be a herb garden, or some border plants, a window box, it could be a larger shrub or palm, it may be a tree. Take care where they're placed and make sure they'll flourish there, it'd be great to reforest as much of the world as we can, to absorb carbon and make the planet again far more habitable for human beings and other creatures than it is now.







More about robins here -

http://voices.yahoo.com/native-american-myth-robin-became-harbinger-1338351.html




*
New Tiny Titles, (below) which may be available at Look Bookish, (if they do not sell beforehand). Look Bookish event is a one-time only grand book sale, dress ups, entertainments, uh huh. (You may also bring books to sell, swap or discuss), on the 17 November 2012 at The Happy Tea House, Grey Lynn, Tamaki Makaurau Auckland, Noo Zeaaalaaand.  It's a Saturday, from 11am - 5pm, and the same day as the Grey Lynn Festival, eeep.

Ask me if you want an invitation, (yes, you do need to have met me or know me online quite well to get the invitation, but then you can also invite your friends). I am contactable through facebook, or comments here (but I do not check them every day), and also email my full name all one word at hotmail dot com, *smiles*





This Waywin craft http://waywincraft.blogspot.co.nz/
lovingly sewn and tied and fashioned from the fabulous crafty gift I found at Finders Keepers. (Thanks you lovely people, if you want to come along to Look Bookish please just ask me, or I may pop in with an invite to your facebook, hope that's okay). 
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Finders-Keepers-Recycled-Wardrobe/156541407698608


*

Up-date on the trees/plants I paid for to cover the carbon for my trip to the Coromandel. I've donated to this place here -  http://www.livingwatersboi.org.nz/latest-news-riparian-restoration-sediment-control/living-waters-bay-of-islands-news/64-living-waters-nursery.html

Well worth the $100-, ( a lot more than the carbon I created for that trip but then it also covers me for driving round the city and for some time to come, really). What a great project anyway.






Friday, October 26, 2012

Moppy at Golden Dawn, and Waywin


Love is the Drug playing between
 



bands

at The Golden Dawn Friday night

classic time travel

Long Island Iced Tea for Gen

G & T for me



Nooves in Viv Westwood shoes and poetry lipstick

Moppy in the best tux style council get-up evah

Kanooa has a pirate French look going on



we wait for Sans on red cast iron chairs

she wants some notebooks

crush bang yeeaah

dit dit dit

&&&@@@^^^


-------------------------------------------


Moppy's MP3 for free here  






*
Also, this Sunday Waywin is at Kraftbomb


http://waywincraft.blogspot.co.nz/





These are new Lyrical Brooches, and Waywin also has some new Tiny Titles. These are only available from Kraftbomb or if you know Waywin personally, at present. The articles need to be seen, held and admired, Waywin thinks, and talking with the crafter really does enrich the whole experience.




Monday, October 15, 2012

Leaving the Place of a Thousand Lovers Tamaki Makaurau


the apocalypse is subtle
grey new territory where she's no idea what could happen
next - interior travel like wakeful dreaming
'smile at fear' a famous artist quoted in a magazine



queen city Auckland where she dance moves
a play blue car turns the southern motorway sci-fi
alone laughing getaway with her latest imaginary friend
(been inventing company for good since Amrka)







a New York City kite last spring
but now she's chanting local landscape to inhabit
loneliness a traditional past-time and grand craft
silence could fog the place - bring the sky too down

spring birds dart the road crossing top speed traffic
she sees him in the back seat like a privileged wayward child
fluffy clouds ahead stacked in order of importance
startling blue above as clear as an idiot's conscience

he asks a question cheek-innocent - where are we now?
o this is where stud farm daughters sip through polo
and woolsheds sell soy latte decaf cappuccino
nearing Manurewa the turn off to Clevedon


subtle shades of wealth attempt camouflage
but for extraordinarily well-kept fences
intense green naivety could blush not owning
they're somewhere between ocean and eggplant



rolling pasture with white fence battens nailed
horses require visible height and limits - doesn't any sensitive?
a hush of knowing how noisy loss becomes otherwise
these lullaby streets and their cradle names




leading to bare masted ships moored near the horizon
forgetting asphalt with Kawakawa Bay
loose mollusc bone banks of cockle shells
rain cups pastel skitter and underfoot grind




where is he now in her rescue of make-believe?
invented stories to save air-fares and shock
but could they crunch about this pale streaked beach
discuss Russian authors in their strange recognition?

her imagination, his charm and impossible numbers
veils of thought their purdah and choreography
reinventing who they are daily like a newspaper
distance self-defense against artist ninjas

anyone who wishes may believe they're here
while she curls this car lone into fern and more dense green
the hill road follows a snaky tarred route
foothills and farmland and fir









snaps black creosoted house and barn so definite
an occasional theatre of lilies and pasture
some seasons the stones here talk of fires
forgetting their tumble under ancient glaciers

people may also prefer to disremember icier days
mists and breezes go on for hours regardless
sensory organ rivers to our inner seas
spear-headed pine-tops are waiting for what?

the braid edge road ribbon
a series of lush green garments
the body of land spring-dressed
calm and pleasant which may continue




 
shell-shocked or frantic players welcome here
subside while rounded grey stones persevere
imagine joy could turn them into wings
acceptance of best and worst a relief map



 
these shores are the emotions between
a gentle firth where water rests and laps
before the hot springs past the bird sanctuary
a plan of experience includes steam



new Kopu Bridge bulge before the Thames road
(how fearfully the old bridge shook
bump bump bump a language we didn't want to learn)
technology as smooth as a con-artist 





Thames built on gold rush and shipping
some of these quaint houses could sing once
their voices raised into the night with strikes
a clang upon fortune's occasional cast iron proof






then a long dark tunnel of dead camera battery later
the curly highway to Whangamata and Whitianga
destination gate swing to a gravel drive curve
sleepy cats, old friends and a black corrugated iron barn



where do years go and all this talking?
we hope our children also wonder
raise eyes skyward when birds call from the valley
talk in the spa pool at night and rescue moths






cheese makers further south
cafe attached for travellers to believe again
journeys also operate over a table
every conversation turned a giant key





recently she moved into a new mind
where these trips occur and agreement
the strangeness of harmony after wilderness
who ever knew goodness could feel extreme?




 inside an arched blue room rebuilding
the subconscious mind vaulted and velvety
friends keepsake others in messages
now and then a touch to believe we're real




before she slept her friends flew close to hold
spoke through darkness their muffled hopes alight
let some tears go safe from drowning
laughed their buoyancy's return and rafts




oared or waved towards bridges
believed this is what always matters most
coming together to clasp and let go
flawed and repaired our beautiful nonsense







*

At Miranda Hot Springs I noticed a welcome change to their brochure, visitors can sponsor a native tree. I will be buying trees to cover the carbon cost of this trip, shall keep you posted.

*

These photographs and more shall be posted on my facebook with captions eventually, however they were each taken during a road trip from Auckland NZ to Miranda (Hauraki) Hot Springs via Clevedon and the coast road, then to Thames and at last, into the Coromandel Peninsular, October 2012 - thanks to Annie and Terry for a lovely visit. They make stunning furniture and homewares, amongst many other activities. The fireplace is not theirs, (the image finishes this blog post) but it gives you a good idea of their style, the trugs and picture blocks are theirs, below.  http://www.livingimagesdesign.co.nz/


The cheese factory and cafe we visited is here  http://www.matatokicheese.co.nz/




Arohanui tatou katoa - great love to us all and our families, friends and communities on this planet Earth our only home x