27 Days Sailing from KAUA’I to CALIFORNIA, Part IV
Each day, just as evening began to shade the sky, an enormous, rippling line across the horizon in front of us appeared, darkly ominous, growing bigger and bigger. The first time I saw it I about wet my pants!
God Rays Under the Water
In no time at all, it was upon us. The sea was spitting and boiling, surrounding and encircling us. The boiling morphed into jumpy wavelets, curling splashes and tiny bubbles. What the hell??
27 Days Sailing from KAUA’I to CALIFORNIA, Part III
As we began to plod our way through the Doldrums, I started having a recurring dream when I settled down in my bunk to sleep after my night watch was over.
Land Ho!
My habit was to lie in my bunk fully dressed, because I didn’t trust James. He never did anything after that first attempt to molest me (Part I), but once was enough to freak me out. It soon became a non-issue, seeing what happened as I fell into sleepy-land.
Maybe ‘recurring’ isn’t quite the right word – episodic would be more like it. I’d go to sleep almost immediately, and merge right into the dream I’d had the day before. Only instead of the dream being a repeat, it was a continuation – as if I hadn’t been gone at all.
27 Days Sailing from KAUA’I to CALIFORNIA, Part II
One moment, sunny sweet skies — the next, the Mother Hulk of a demon storm with hideous, grotesque grey-green and black clouds pelting us square on with sheets of ice-cold rain.
The Story of Life
We were hard-put to keep our footing, being tossed around by gigantic heaving swells. I could hear the planet saying, ‘it’s ain’t over yet, you puny humans.’
You know about the Doldrums, right? Officially, the area called the ‘Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone’ is known to sailors around the world as ‘the doldrums’.
This is the windless belt of ocean around the earth near the equator where sailors sometimes get completely, utterly, desperately stuck. Boats with no other way of propulsion than wind can be becalmed there for weeks. Some never make it out.
27 Days Sailing from KAUA’I to CALIFORNIA, Part I
I struggled to sit up, holding my head on with both hands. I couldn’t seem to stand, so I slid off the bunk, and inch by inch slowly creeped on my hands and knees over to the box….
Cruisin’
It was a hot mid-August, 1984, just a few months before my 39th birthday. At the start of the month, as a representative for the Hawaii yachting association that held a trans-pacific race from California to Kaua’i every two years, I had welcomed ‘James’ and his son, a father/son team, who had come in second in their 31′ yawl in the double-handed (only two people on the boat) race from California to Kaua’i.
My now-grown kids have told me they loved it that I was an artist and showed them by example about being creative.
Together – detail
However, my personal opinion is that I might have felt more successful as a nurturing, loving mama if I had not been so completely focused on my artwork all the time.
But I wonder — could I really have been the lovey-dovey mama so often praised and put forth to us as the ultimate ideal mother?
I ponder this because my own experience as a child wasn’t exactly the fertile field of affection and acceptance I would think such a lovey-mama would have had in order to grow up to embody such a way of being.
As a young child, there was no tolerance for my being an overly sensitive, empathic child. I heard, ‘suck it up, keep your head up and stop complaining, straighten up and die right’ — words left over from my dad’s military years, drilled into all 4 of us kids’ minds.
I keep having dreams where I’m standing in a dried up, deserted field.
In the distance, I see the crumbling husks of hundreds and hundreds of houses, and the blackened, burnt skeletons of the once-magnificent trees that used to shade them. The cracked mud on the bottom of the creek is rock-hard, bereft of even a single drop of water.
CUTTING ONIONS: Me in kitchen cutting up onions with my pals Felix the Kitty watching the birdies outside, and Fido the Puppy watching me, with onion tears flying out of our eyes
In the fields, filthy, haggard humans scrabble in the dirt, raising great clouds of dust. Compared to these skin and bone remnants of long forgotten, better times, Scarlet O’Hara looks like a fat pampered doll.
There’s more, but it doesn’t matter — I awaken with such a heavy feeling of foreboding that I have to double my meditation and yogic exercise routine to come back to my inner peace before I start my day.
Yesterday was the fifth morning of waking up with the mangled shreds of these terrible dreams still hanging on in my inner vision.
I got mad. I yelled at them.
“What the hell?!? What do you want me to know? Is there something I should be doing? Tell me straight — stop torturing me!”
Eruption of Life
In a post I read on medium the other day, the writer said something I thought was incorrect. I was surprised, because he seemed pretty knowledgeable.
Normally, I don’t try to correct people — it’s almost never received well.
But this one sentence in his post really bugged me, because I’d lived through the era he was discussing, and I wanted to bring a little clarity to the topic.
Isn’t it funny how, even though a period of time was one of the most painful ones of your life, later on you can look at it as one of the most fortunate?
It’s January, 1999. After returning from visiting a friend back east, I’ve been homeless for months because I can’t afford to rent a place to live. I have but one suitcase and my dog. My thin, worn sleeping bag is woefully inadequate. Trying to sleep in your little uninsulated Kia? Not fun — nights in Santa Fe, New Mexico at 7000′ elevation are colder than you want to imagine.
Out of the blue, a friend asked me to house-sit as she and her husband went visiting relatives in another state.
I’ll be sitting here writing, or doing some other task, and in the back of my head I’m busy preparing the juicy makings of a delicious tomato salad, or a nice spicy wrap around some cheese and micro-greens, or some yummy curried lentil soup… Or making art of some kind….
Ice Cream!
If I don’t get up and just go make the darn food and eat it, more food ideas come, and come, and come … and they get louder and louder, and more and more enticing … until they finally crowd out anything else - even if I’m doing some Important Thing. So bossy!
I used to think that the feeling I get in my belly when I’m thirsty was hunger.
I’d feel empty, my belly would growl, and feel pushy, demanding. My mind used to interpret that as my body being insistent that I eat something.
So I’d go eat. Or, I’d try to - how many times have I stood in the kitchen and looked around, or opened the fridge and hunted inside, all the while feeling like ‘there’s nothing I want to eat in there.’
It was Sara’s 40th birthday party. I had barely walked through the door when she pounced on me, screaming. Right in my face.
Ideas! I love ideas!
Behind her, the casual low-level murmur of party-din dissolved into a ragged silence. Every head swiveled toward us, mouths agape with surprise.
I was so taken aback I almost turned around and left.
But I did want to be there.
I did want to wish her a happy birthday, meet people, have a good time. Now I was stopped in my tracks, unsure.
From a Dream, Narrated by The Voice of Dreaming: Word play.
Philosophy in Silli-ness. The Doctrine of Jest. Farcicality of Foolery…
Starting here and ending where?
Unity Continue reading
(Published in Small Craft Advisor Magazine)
Almost Home
I had been so proud! I’d been invited to be one of two kids to represent our local sailing club as skippers in a multi-club regatta held by another sailing club down on Long Island’s Great South Bay. In a Beetle Cat, a class of boats I had sailed in, but never skippered before.
And now, out of 14 boats, we were last. Not just last, but dead-seemingly-miles-and-miles-behind, last.
All I wanted was to be at home, buried under blankets in the deepest, darkest, corner of my closet, so I could cry my brains out.
Blind to All But Love
500! Never in my wildest dreams a year ago would I have imagined I’d be writing over 100 stories in ten short months, and be honored by 500 followers! 515, today — just blows me away.
When I first started posting on medium.com in January ’23, I had no clue what I was doing.
From formatting to links to tags, to how to get followers — no clue. Although I’m probably only a wee bit more clued-in, I think I’ve learned a bit about writing here since then.
One thing stands out —the conventions for following!
At first, I ascribed to the follow-for-follow advice I’d read about by supposedly successful writers on medium.
Yesterday, I was graced by the help of a young man who had no clue how much his assistance meant to me.
Raven Speaks
Due to a funky situation with my back, I don’t walk — I hobble. And it hurts. All day, every day.
So when I had to actually get a ride and go to the store for groceries yesterday, instead of my usual ordering online/store-delivery, it was a very big deal.
What used to take me twenty minutes whizzing around the store on my two strong, agile legs, now took me two and a half hours.
A little more than two hours in, I was this far away from breaking into rivers of tears. I was in so much pain! Continue reading
(Published in Small Craft Advisor Magazine)
Spinnaker
Since my parents took me sailing almost before I could walk, being able to sail is like being able to breathe. It’s more than second nature — maybe more like a second set of senses.
I can tell right away if someone is a sailor — there’s just something about them — the way they walk, the look in their eyes, the trace of wind on their skin, the strength in their backs. And how they watch the water, if we’re near a harbor or ocean.
You can shrug and say, “Eh! No big deal — it’s just a skill!”
A week camping near a lake, lava tubes, a mountain of chunks of beautiful black obsidian and volcanic tufa resulted in this carving…
Tule Mama
I never liked walking, so any time friends asked me to go hiking, I’d say no. But when my friend Bee, who lived all the way across the world from me, said she was coming to visit and would I go hiking up in Tule Lake, it sounded so fascinating I had to go.
And we walked. And walked and walked — and I even liked it! Turned out walking with her turned what I normally thought of as physical pain and duress into a fun and interesting adventure. At the end of our week there, I was sad to go home.
Tule Lake (pronounced TOO-lee) and Glass Mountain are up at the north eastern border of California and Oregon. It’s the ancestral home of the Modoc Indian Nation. Continue reading
I kind of felt bashful, and laughed as I opened my eyes. I realized right away that I was expecting some kind of white-robed, human-shaped being to come into my view. Pretty silly of me – I know that angels take many shapes.
Rainbow Birdy
It was slightly overcast that morning, the light mellow, muted. As I gazed at my beautiful garden right outside my window, a light mist swirled around the base of the palms and banana trees.
An issue I had been struggling with pulled my attention away. I went over to my desk and got online to see if I could find a solution. I clicked on inspiremetoday.com, because I always feel lifted and expanded by the articles there.
I was intrigued by the interview with Sophy Burnham, who reminded me of my past encounters with angels. Continue reading
Tonight, when I was reading about fears, I saw this word: Kakorrhaphiophobia, so I decided to play google search.
The face of fear
I love googling weird things. I’ll type two unrelated words in the search bar and hit go, just to see what comes up.
Much to my surprise and delight, not only did the definition of Kakorrhaphiophobia come up, but a whole long list of the weirdest fears I’ve ever heard of continued down the page!
So here are a few of the ones I saw on that page.
Wait until you read what Gynophobia is!
Suddenly, the plastic sheet in my hands quivered a little, and there! There it was! The Door!
Made of Day
In a dream, I was with a man who was kind of Tibetan looking, but not. He was showing me a piece of sheet plastic — about a foot square, clear, shiny. He was shifting it around in his hands a bit, playing with reflecting light off it onto the wall beside us.
Suddenly, he stops, looks closely, and says, “Got it! See?” I look, and all I see is a shiny piece of clear plastic.
He hands me the sheet, and says to shift it around until I “see the Door.” Huh? OK. So I shift it around, trying to see into it, trying to see color, trying to see anything! But no, nothing appeared.
So frustrated today!
Yeah. Well, not so much today. I’m the one in the puddle today, and it seems nine miles deep. And yes, I know it’s an illusion – an ill-used one – sure seems/feels real to me.
Sometimes I do things that drain my energy. I forget to stop, and end up an emotional mess. Have you ever done that?
Silly Birdies
A video I watched a couple of days ago that a friend sent me was one of those really well-done, 2-hour videos outlining how ‘they’ do this bad thing and ‘they’ do that bad thing, and how ‘we the people’ are suffering, and are powerless and helpless….
As I watched, I began to feel like I’d been kicked in the guts.
I could quite literally feel my energy field grow darker and darker, and my body feel weaker and weaker. Continue reading
Yes! In a video I watched a few days ago, Jordan Peterson was saying that unless you face and accept your dark side, you will just be a weak person.
I agree. It’s not that once you find your dark side you have to express it – it’s that you find it, accept it’s there, and choose NOT to express it. That makes you a strong person. And dangerous, because you know you will use that dark side if needed. I really like that.
Continue reading
Because love is a verb. And it acts a million times more powerfully than our puny little minds can imagine.
My Thoughts of Peace Fly Out Far Beyond Me
At 13, my dentist decided that deflowering me right in the open, right on the dentist chair, would be a cool thing to do.
I was so shocked, so surprised, so absolutely flummoxed that I felt empty, void, deflated, suspended from anything I’d ever known before. I was the embodiment of the thousand-yard stare.
I felt so helpless and so betrayed that I ended up wanting to hurt everyone, even people who were not involved in any way, and even people who would have helped if they’d known how I felt, and if they’d known how. Continue reading
I once knew a fantastically popular, immensely powerful man. Once his swooning fans had left for the night, he would retreat to his den.
Song of Solace
He’d try to bend his skeletal frame around the huge, impossibly soft pillows on his couch, and he’d sit there, scowling and frowning, gazing blindly out into the night.
He’d hear me talk about a project or an event, hoping it would turn out well, or hoping I could get it to work, and he’d cry out, scolding me, “Quit saying I hope this, I hope that! Because it won’t happen! It won’t happen, do you hear me? Hope is an empty beggar!””
He’d glare at me, pinning me to the wall with the daggers of his eyes, trying to punish me for outright refuting his truths. Continue reading
In a dream, I ushered men out of a light-filled chute and onto the ground at the bottom.
Creation of Beings
I could hear them flopping and bouncing and clattering down the chute, some cussing loudly, some weeping and wailing, terrified; others silent.
All came out with a shout of pleased and excited surprise that they were still alive and unharmed.
My role was to show them how to see that thoughts are things, and that they could create their own reality from now on. Continue reading
I had a dream where I was being hunted by dozens of enormous ravenous beings.
Gnarly Monsters try to grab me…
They stomped and crashed the very earth under their feet, making me stumble and fall.
Each one reached gnarly fingers out to grab and rend me, but somehow could never latch on.
I was terrified.
What do the different file type names mean and how do they affect your images?
These explanations of file types will help you understand what kinds of files to use for your documents, print books, ebooks or websites.
This is an enhanced excerpt from my book, The Etsy Image Guide.*
I’m asked about image file types so often that I decided to publish this part of the book independently. Since I wrote the book in 2018, this post includes more recent information.
In this post, I go over file types: jpg, png and tif files; and compression types: lossless and lossy files.
Hang with me as I point out the basic differences of each file type, because the quality of your post, publication, book, or website depends on your knowing what file type to use, when, and where.
If you consider yourself ‘not tech savvy,’ please just pause a second, take a breath, relax a little, and pretend to enjoy reading these little definitions — I guarantee you that once you know the differences in file types, your experience using images both online and off will improve dramatically. Continue reading
How many times have you looked at my tile drawings and they didn’t make sense to you? Or maybe felt so busy you didn’t look at them for long?
Here’s how to ‘read’ them.
1. Direct your eyeballs to the exact center of the square.
2. Drop your eyes vertically to the center of the bottom line.
3. Now look over to the right bottom corner,
4. And then back up to the center.
You have now traced a triangle with your eyes.
Keeping your vision within the triangle, look again, this time focusing on the elements that are there. Continue reading
A radical twist in my self-perception happened recently….
I’m Happy to Be Me
My mother died early, at only 69. She was one of those always-takes-care-of-others-first people, so you never heard about her, as a person. I have felt cheated for almost 40 years, not having a better picture of who she really was. I didn’t want that to happen to my sons.
So I’ve been writing stories about my life. I want them to know about the person I am, the things I’ve done — the folks I’ve met all across the world, the places I’ve visited, the amazing things I’ve accomplished, even though I never thought I could.
I was surprised out of my sox when memories started to emerge about how I was raped by my trusted family dentist at the age of 13 … as well as other not-so-fun events as a teen, young adult, and older. Continue reading
What can be done about it? How do we deal with it on a daily basis?
My Prismatic Heritage
I can hardly believe the things men oh-so-casually do to women. The things they have the nerve to say. Even after decades of observing and experiencing their stupidity, I’m still astounded. I’m in my late 70s, and men still grope me, FFS. For real!
Recently I read a post by fellow medium writer Susan Wheelock, in which she talks about a man in a higher position in her company saying this to her in the elevator: “You know, Red, I’ve been meaning to ask you — does the carpet match the drapes?” Continue reading
