Crystal White sleeps through spring and summer. Tats fine lace on crisp fall days. In winter, an icy wraith, She crusts roofs, coats bare branches. Under deciduous trees, leaves clump, stiff to the ground.
She casts a spell. Keeps me warm abed. Reluctant to heed the call of morning’s light, I dream of fragrant gingerbread. Relaxed under a blanket, I peruse the glossy pages of a travel book. A fire warms the room. The logs crumble to embers.
Resigned, I set aside all thoughts of reprieve. Dark days are coming, Winter before spring. Grim hiatus, but these trials will pass.
The day before the election results come in, I’m anxious. I shuffle and create a spread, laying Tarot cards on the counter. The High Priestess represents my question. This card symbolizes divine law. The future is hidden, but intuition can be a flashlight in the dark. Which way to go? Towards integrity or expedience? It is an uneasy choice.
The Tower and the Ace of Wands (reversed) suggest a past where change has been postponed. We struggle to transform an outmoded system. It will take longer than one election cycle to develop the collective awareness required to come to consensus. In the short term, established institutions will remain in place.
How does one cope? The Hanged Man suggests a pause, a rebirth, and a reassertion of the feminine principle. Integration comes from a process of sifting facts, feelings, and thoughts together. Can we do it? The Six of Pentacles (reversed) points to money selfishly misused, an environment that must change. The Emperor is the X-factor, the unexpected outcome. The card represents rule by force under patriarchal institutions. If this is the election’s outcome, I hope we unite to change direction and reach for a different future under the rainbow card.
Immigrants are the lifeblood of America. They bring hope, energy, and optimism. Different languages and cultures enrich this country. We’re better together.
It’s a story that’s been told before. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “We all came in on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now.” I heard it in a Malvina Reynolds song.
Most people don’t remember that song. The sentiment has drowned in a sea of anti-immigrant vitriol that’s threatening our most precious import. And here you thought it was silicon chips or fast fashion. Don’t be fooled. We need a path, not a wall.
A burley soldier shoved Hansel aside. The soldier had taken his father’s leather, paid nothing, and laughed when Hansel’s father said they’d starve if he made no shoes. The soldier said, “Old man, we fight for you.”
Fight! But everyone wanted peace. Food and peace. Gretel, his sister, Jakob, his uncle, even his stepmother, though she gave no peace herself. Hansel stooped; straightened, stone in hand. In anger, he threw a rock at the swagger of a man. All of Hansel’s feelings, hopes, and fears flew with it. At the moment of impact, the world exploded into a forest path.
Dressed for travel, carpet bags packed, the Little People gathered around Granny Ellen’s grave. Saddened by Granny’s death, they knew that not a one of the village folk could take her place. She was the last of the elf whisperers. She spoke for nature. The elves reckoned the time for talk was past and the time for action too far in the future.
Gaia was resigned. The elves were united. Earth’s people had ignored drying trees, tolerated the stinky air and the murky water. Gaia summoned the Milky Way to make a staircase and the elves set off for home.
There are things you tell me before you die. Hurricane fears, the way rain scares you, bad dreams. You regret giving up your apartment. You miss seeing dolphins from your window on the bay. The view in assisted living is more limited.
But you have memories. Paris, London, Istanbul, Beijing. You toured the Galapagos. A birthday treat from Richard. Doesn’t he need you in the apartment? Sadly no, I say.
Some things survive. You remember a sweet sixteen necklace from your father. The jewelry that was your mother’s. Richard’s mobiles and guitars. Mexican crockery. Still, some things you don’t recall.
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Quince flowers on a bare stick of a tree, blooming in the dead of winter. Coral colored buds against brown bark, two elements, earth and water.
The blue aired sky, the fire orange sun. Air and sky and weft and warp. The dogs sense a reckoning. They raise their ears in a unified front with the four elements.
They yowl into song like actors in a musical. At times like these, when winter seems eternal, when spirits flag, when fear threatens to extinguish the elements of life, we need a rousing score. A yellow brick road. A little dog, too.
The ankylosaurus strapped on his helmet and hopped on his bike. His tail swung from side to side, balancing him. He was about to become a fossil, though he had no idea that the asteroid would strike that afternoon. No one did. They were all worried about T-Rex. Terrified, in fact. Fear, uncertainty and doubt ruled.
Before Rex, it was something else. And something else. Something else to distract them. They reacted. They dodged to the left, to the right. They ducked and wove. Eventually, distractions took their toll.
Ankylosaurus felt himself wobble. He steered hard to the center.
Swirling specters scatter cinnamon maple leaves, whirling dervishes, they dance in autumn snow. Wind breathes life, then stops.
I would stop but the dogs pull through slick pools of layered leaf litter, a spill of wet red color seeps into wine dark puddles left from last night’s rain.
Just hours ago, a gray day a hint of sun at ten, and blue. But now it’s settled into quiet light, an end of year contemplative light.
A wise light that gives the year a voice, gives the day a meaning, illuminates falling leaves; a soft blanket over bright, cold truth.
Let’s hear it for a different kind of war hero. Tim O’Brien tells war like it is through characters like Rat Kiley, who saves a buddy one day and another day shoots himself a ticket home through the foot. You know that book, The Things They Carried. The hero carries many things into and out of war. A photo to inspire, to torture, to raise false hopes. A first aid kit for when a grenade blows a buddy sky high. An army manual to list the protocols that caution against feeling. Read that book, or reread it. For the heroes.
Monica's Monday Morning Flash 