Who can complain when there's Naked Ladies in The Garden of Disorderly Conduct?

For about a month now I've fairly ignored The Garden of Disorderly Conduct, partly because it's been too darn hot, partly because I've been too busy.

However.

I came home today and found four (four!) naked ladies displaying themselves in a very dry bed of Day Lilies. One is pictured to the left, the other three are in the process of blooming. ('Naked Ladies' is a common name for Amaryllis. Thanks Donald:)) Side note: this is the Mystery Bulb revealed at last. I did not plant these bulbs, the one and only time this flower ever bloomed was at the end of March almost six years ago. I'd never seen such a strange plant - all stalk and a bunch of pretty pink trumpets at the top. When I came home to these girls I actually screamed out loud, jumped up and down and said to Al, "LOOK! LOOK! NAKED LADIES!!! OH MY FUCKING GOD!!! I HAVE NAKED LADIES!!!!" Second side note: After I freaked out (as if I'd never seen a naked woman before;)) I went to get the camera and promptly fell down the stairs. HA HA HA HA HAAAAA!!!

Even though the garden is half-wild and parched bone dry it is still full of delights: tangerine ruffles, palm shaped sprays that twine like a ladder up crisped Dahlia; hay colored Day Lily stalks against soft pink trumpets; periwinkle darts and dark green strawberry leaves; a Medusa sunflower pair hosting a voracious yellow finch; flecked furry mullein stained butter yellow and lime green like pottery. It's a veritable feast out there.

There are so many ways that I have chosen to obligate my mind. Happily undoing this is a life's work.

I have felt less than 'accomplished' as far as the Garden is concerned. Having gotten off to the start I intended to in the spring this section of the summer finds me feeling less than productive. Walking through this gorgeous mess a few days ago with a friend she reminded me that even the wild and unruly gardens possess their own beauty. I love it when an offhand remark sets my mind ablaze. Since my friend said this I have noticed a thousand little beauties... this morning (I'm finishing this post Tuesday 8/3) I found a locust hanging out on the Astilbe. I didn't have my glasses on so at first I thought, oh great, another bug/disease that moved in because I haven't been paying attention. When I got closer I saw the little creature in all it's gray and silver glory.

It's good to have a plan. It's also good to listen when the plan is chucked out the window because a secret will is revealed: the will of disorder.

So my exercise these next few days is to concentrate on what does exist rather than what I think should exist. Not so different from what I was doing with the yard sale, eh? Besides, how can I really call it the Garden of Disorderly Conduct if it doesn't ever get out of hand?

*Third side note: more than half of the amazing plants in the GODC are volunteers or hitchhikers and of a healing/medicinal variety. Many of these plants have only been recognized because I left the GODC to it's own will. That and I'm kinda lazy sometimes. Thank gawd.

Thanks to blackbeans31 for hoppin' on board Reverent Strange.

I dig the blogs you're following, especially Tell 'Em Why You Mad Son.

Sharing The Love - It's The Gift That Keeps On Giving

It all starts with a glance... Part 2

While driving with my mother through town
I did happen to glance absently at the windows of a building, a beautiful building in Belvidere. What I there did see was a possibility,
a beautiful and engaging possibility.

I'm officially, seriously serious about opening my own business. I feel as though the myriad threads of my life are about to come together into a Big Beautiful E: E for everything! E for ecstacy! E for embrace!

It all starts with a glance... Part 1

there is night and day brother, both sweet things; sun moon and stars brother, all sweet things.

...para El Dia de los Muertos

Willing To Fight by Ani Difranco
The windows of my soul
are made of one way glass
don't bother looking into my eyes
if there's something you want to know,
just ask
I got a dead bolt stroll
where I'm going is clear
I won't wait for you to wonder
I'll just tell you why I'm here

'cause I know the biggest crime
is just to throw up your hands
say
this has nothing to do with me
I just want to live as comfortably as I can
you got to look outside your eyes
you got to think outside your brain
you got to walk outside you life
to where the neighborhood changes

tell me who is your boogieman
that's who I will be
you don't have to like me for who I am
but we'll see what you're made of
by what you make of me
I think that it's absurd
that you think I
am the derelict daughter
I fight fire with words
words are hotter than flames
words are wetter than water

I got friends all over this country
I got friends in other countries too
I got friends I haven't met yet
I got friends I never knew
I got lovers whose eyes
I've only seen at a glance
I got strangers for great grandchildren
I got strangers for ancestors

I was a long time coming
I'll be a long time gone
you've got your whole life to do something
and that's not very long
so why don't you give me a call
when you're willing to fight
for what you think is real
for what you think is right

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MusicMatterFaithless

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MoltenLightChadVanGaalen

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I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides,
I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace.
I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you
and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.
Namaste,
Ram Dass

Deep Dreaming, Day and Night, Twin Stars

One of the most beautiful dreams I've ever had in my life started with the peeling of a sunburn from my shoulder to my chest until I had uncovered my ribcage, looked in at my beating heart and pulled it out.

I looked at it and said to myself,

"...next time be more careful... do not lose track of your dreams. If you think you are lost now, wait 20 years and guess again at a direction you cannot discern. Pay attention to your dreams because they will not go away. They may be hard to see but they will never go away. If you refuse to see, they will gnaw at you like wondrous motions of the body, a mystery that eludes and confounds and inspires. They will foster in you the sense that something isn't right, that something is lost, that something forgotten must be recovered. There will be an aching space, an unnameable space that is ever unfulfilled. They will linger in every moment. Save yourself the heartache and don't lose track of them; once they are deeply buried, they are difficult to unearth."

About Last Night...

I had a seriously, serious hissy fit. I lost my cool and that ain't cool.

I feel much better now. So much better in fact that I could pee my pants. Why? Because I do not owe taxes. That's happened before and it's worse than awful having worked my butt off just to pay more taxes. Did you know that when you cannot pay owed taxes that you can pay in installments at 28% interest? Yeah.

Money is tight, but it's not extinct and it's not everything. I have a roof over my head, clean running water, clothes on my back, friends and family to love and who love me right back... I have my health. I have a great job. Heck, if food is that scarce I can plant a vegetable patch in the front yard and teach myself the craft of canning.

I will not live in fear. I choose to connect with my fellow countrymen and people of the world through love, or something, anything but fear. We each have our challenges and opportunities.

The possibilities are absolutely endless. No more fear.







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N9m_F8ryfc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBlwU0MlUSk

I Honor the Twin Stars of My Day: Baking & Cooking

I had a moment the other day when I realized that I've been working as a baker for 14 years. I had no idea that my first job at the Hometown Bakery with Dan and Mary Lang in Morris, Minnesota would lead to such a wonderful career. As a visual artist I don't think it's much of a stretch for me to love the beautiful, process oriented world of pastry... at long last these two worlds have collided in a photograph of my own hands at work.

The world in which I could make a portrait of myself as a baker - in the way I love to make portraits, in the moment - does not exist. I am so often on the other side of the camera or lost in thought as I roll dough or I'm covered in a goo that has no business near a camera that I never truly imagined the power of seeing myself, my hands, at work in a photo like this. I like it.

*photo by Katy Gerdes

Thank you for strangers at bus-stops, New Revised Edition

I am so glad for strangers, strange-to-me people, who talk with me. It's like being friends with the proverbial box of chocolates: You never know what you're gonna get, but isn't it fun?

Three days ago at work I met Peter and Laura. Each wearing their JESUS SAVES t-shirts I "knew" the moment I laid eyes on them that I was not going to enjoy our exchange. Peter asked me if I had any material in the store about our savior and Lord, Jesus Christ... Here we go I thought. I told him, no at this moment we did not have anything specifically about Jesus in the store. He began what I perceived as the usual missionary diatribe, Have you accepted our Lord Jesus into your heart? Do you believe Jesus Christ, son of God, died for your sins?

This kind of exchange has never been interesting to me, I actually find it quite offensive. I could feel many years of negative experience with zealous christian proselytizers boiling up inside me, but being at work as a fairy godmother it's not my job as an employee, nor especially as a human, to be rude or offensive. I chose to say that I was at work and did not feel that it was an appropriate topic of discussion. However, this was a cop out since at Fairy Godmother talking about God/Spirit is one of the most likely topics of conversation. Not only was it a cop out, for me it was a darn lie. I just wasn't sure how to be authentic and be a nice/kind human.

Peter said of course he could respect (which he couldn't) that I was at work and would not try to engage me further but he really would like to know if I believed Jesus was the son of God. I had to ask myself if this was an opportunity not to lie in order to avoid a perceived conflict? What the hell. I actually said yes, I do believe Jesus is the son of God. Then it was do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead to show us the mystery of God's will? As I talked with Peter and Laura I realized I had no lies in my mouth and that my anger had dissipated. So I said yes, I believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

Of course Peter and Laura were persistent but something in me had shifted. I fully realized that along with my anger had gone a basic belief that other people had any right to define my relationship with the Mysterious J. Seems basic enough, doesn't it? But at what point in my life did I give someone else the right to define my relationships? How often do I choose complicity over dialogue?

Better yet, how often do I assume I "know" what's going to happen in a given situation?

I honor the Wheel of Heaven and the Axis of Time. May I learn to carry what is hidden as a gift to others.

A few months ago I decided that I hated my life; so I set about dismantling it.

My girlfriend and I took a break. I quit my job and took a five dollar an hour pay cut. I sold most of my books, ignored every phone call and every bill that needed paying. I refused to shower for days at a time. Dishes? Laundry? Bah! I walked across the street everyday to Victor's Cafe for blueberry-mango pancakes and coffee.

I've played out this routine a thousand times in my short life for a thousand reasons. But this time, lurking in the back of my mind was an inquiry... Almost a whisper I was asking myself "Why?" Why do I hate my life? Why do I feel depressed? Why have I felt this aching sorrow and deep sense of separation for most of my life?

I've been trying to piecemeal answers to these questions my whole life. I have stacks of journals and sketchbooks, photos, snippets, book cases of poetry and art, crates of textiles somehow hoping to amass some kind of Devil's Mountain of an answer... bits and pieces that somehow represent a semblance of the whole. While these things are beautiful and sensuous and reflect my love of joyful expression they do not constitute a delightful life, a life of action. In fact they tell me more and more how much there is to do.

Maybe all it comes down to is selfishness. I hoard beautiful objects, isn't it more than possible that I've been hoarding the beauty inside me? WHY do I do that?

I honor the ecstatic embrace of shadow and light.

I vow here and now not to give in to despair. I will not focus on the negative. Everything has changed in so far as now I know that my friend has cancer. And yet nothing has changed. I still feel a deep love and respect for the complex diversity of all life. I still feel the closeness of my wonderful friend. The profound love we have for each other is still here and always will be. Each moment is the same unknown moment it's always been.

Lighthouses, Storytellers and Innkeepers

Solstice Night, December 21st, 2007

Celebrate The Dreaming
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Join me for the Turning of the Wheel

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Bring a verse for winter:
A song you love,
A drum you love,
A love you love...
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I'd like to honor the longest night
by tending a kind of creative fire. I'd like to celebrate
the turning of the year by offering
praise for the soul in Dreamtime.
If we do not dream, how can we bear the
darkness of our nights? how do we build the world town?
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I'd like to celebrate with music and poetry and storytelling...
I hope it will be a nugget of a night,
one we can all carry like a portable campfire.
As around a campfire, we share the stories of co-creation.
We respect the work of the dark, cold night...
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