2008 Autumn Equinox/Winter Solstice Issue
Soul Collage ~ Kathy Fitzpatrick
Poem~ Jon Neiss
The Endangered Brain ~ Dr. Kaye Kilburn
Wildflower Stew ~ Rebecca Swan
Vagabonds in Conflict~ Lucinda Hodges
Ever Wonder Why You're So Different?~ Kate Goldfield
My Non Toxic Wedding~ Jennifer D’Alvarez
Daniel Hanson ~Lucinda
Chick Pea Curry~ Rachel Rogel
Fruit/Citrus Roasted Veggies ~ L. Hodges
Kathy's Raw Food Holiday Recipes
Roasted White Beans with Miso ~ L Hodges
Interview with Joyce Le Fleur on the Light Brown Apple Moth~ Kathy Fitzpatrick
The Great Escape~ Henry Thomas
Arts
Remuneration for the Licentious
by Jon Neiss
Remuneration for the licentious moves and twists and pulls
that press in and irk me, walking of the scarred edge of
today's razor.
It ain't easy
falling off the mountaintop, watching your limp and
helpless, worthless weight fall, bouncing from crag to crag,
smashing bones into various dreads and cobwebs.
or watching a tear pop out and land with you,
next to you,
in a pool of the ooze of your daily mind's
wish to be something more.
It
ain't easy dropping off the top of the mountain, each and
every day to the tune of 10,000 days, picking yourself up,
like it didn't just happen,
like you weren't just
walking into the set of a horror movie,
but you are,
and this one is real
and it is
it is
your life.
It ain't easy falling off the top
of that mountain,
bouncing and barking and
wailing,
all the neighbor children running from the
screams,
crying, "Monster! Monster! Mommy, there's a
Monster!"
And the villagers all ready with torches and
pitchforks to rend you scar your heart even deeper.
Your eyes -
just staring
your ears -
just
listening between the whistles and buzzes and cracks and
gray dust.
And they think you are just happy, just
like them, maybe some mailman, walking down their block,
with a sack of mail, smiling and singing silently to
himself, ready to deliver the mail with a smile, a friendly
neighborhood smile, like some small town in a quaint nook of
Vermont.
It ain't easy and
everyday falling off the mountaintop.
Picking up
succumbed limbs, marching them forward, watching them
awkwardly flail out of time, awkwardly stumble wildly
forward, beyond the ability of any grace or gentleness.
Watching everyone run from the grotesque scene as
quickly as possible,
Taking dead ancient Greek warriors
as comrades, ready to nurse their wounds with them and call
them friend from the haunted shadows they call home. But
ghosts are never good company.
It ain't easy falling off the mountaintop, and the multiple
horrors and the daily sweeping endless toil of the toll
keeper waiting in hope for some salary.
Jon Neiss is an activist, poet and writer who copes
with chemical injury in his daily life.
By Kathy Fitzpatrick
"SoulCollage® is the
process, developed by Seena B. Frost, of creating a deck of
collaged cards from found images—cards that are arranged in
suits for the primary purpose of self-exploration and
self-acceptance. SoulCollage® is a process through which you
contact your intuition and create an incredible deck of cards
which have deep personal meaning and which will help you with
life's questions."
I found the process immediately appealing, you don't need any experience or training, you can just jump in and create a meaningful work of art. I love the way it extends my creativity and at the same time, provides a way to re-use things we'd normally recycle. Most of my work is done
on a 5x8 mat board, the images attached with a mixture of white
school glue and water. A small wall-paper roller is used to
smooth the edges melding the images together. I start by
looking through a random collection of images, rejects from
previous cards stuffed inside a couple of file folders in no
particular order. Whatever i'm drawn to is placed in a pile,
other images are added to the mix by hunting through aired out
magazines. Occasionally, i'll challenge myself, and use only
images from a single magazine or from what's already been
collected. Making cards fills me with child like wonder, there
is no thinking, only doing. I become lost in the process,
delighted to be in a space where there is no right or wrong, no
preconceived ideas about outcome, and no mistakes, only happy
accidents!
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~please click on a photo to view a full size image of Kathy's Soul Collage~
The following are three of my favorite cards and speak to me on many levels. That said, it's really not important what any of the cards are to me but rather how you, the viewer, perceives them. So i encourage you to select an image[s] from each card and answer the questions as they relate to you. Please note: typically one would not read a Source Card. I have included it because it can be seen as something other than that. 1. Who are you? 2. What do you have to give me? 3. What do you want from me? 4. Is there anything else you'd like to tell me? 5. How will i remember?  Chakra Card  Source Card One  I I Am the River |
~please click on a photo to view Kathy's personal interpretation and a full size photo~
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Outside Looking In Who are you? I am the one that forces you to keep your distance. I am the one who keeps you away from your family. I am the one that keeps your friends away because it's too "difficult" to be around you. I am the one who tests your patience. I am the one that ebbs and flows. I am the one only you can feel and no one can see. I am the parasite that came to suck the life out of you. I am the one who makes people think you're crazy. I am the one who changed the course of your life, I am your new spiritual path. What do you have to give me? After a lifetime of speaking up for others I force you to speak up for yourself in order to survive. I give you the gift of time for creative pursuits and time to enjoy your home and garden. I have taken away your old life as a rat on a tread mill and have given you large expanses of time to be. What do you want from me? I want you to speak up for yourself. I want you to know when people lay their trip on you it's really all about them. I want you to question everything and then go deep inside yourself for answers. I want you to stay away from energy vampires and people who live in fear. I want you to rest, eat well, exercise, and to continue creating new life out of the rubble of your old life. Is there anything else you have to tell me? Yes, i am not the enemy and chemicals aren't the only thing that are toxic. People can also be extremely toxic, be wary of those who are mired in a life of fear and implement censorship. How will I remember? Everytime you enter a space and have to leave you will remember. When you're around family or friends or loved and have to leave because someone "forgot", you will remember. Whenever someone says it's "all in your head" you will remember.
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Death Card 1 - "Night" Who are you? I am the death grip, the noose that came to choke the life out of you. I am the itchy thing on the back of your neck, the poison flowing in your body. I am the spider that bit you. I am the dursban that nearly killed you. I am the bat that connects you to the dark underworld and the light. I am the rope that kept you in bondage. I am the eye that watched as you withered and died. I am the tooth that held tight to old ways. I am the candlelight that held vigil as you struggled. What do you have to give me? I came to give you a taste of death, to wake you up and release you from your pain body and into fuller and greater consciousness. I came to release you from your fear of death. What do you want from me? I want you to listen to the beat of your own heart, to follow your own true path. To be one with the knowingness of all things and to take your place as one who knows. Is there anything else you'd like to tell me? Yes, because of me you will learn acceptance is more than a word. Also, in order to live one must die, death is the beginning not the end. How will i remember? You will remember whenever your health has a reversal. You will remember in the fall when the earth goes to sleep and dies a little death. The relevance this card has in my life today is transformation. One of moving beyond form into pure consciousness, transcending limitations, finding acceptance with what is and soaring back into the world. 
Death card 2 - "Emerging Butterfly"
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Kathy Fitzpatrick is a writer, activist, intuitive and naturalist who loves to dig in the dirt, eat weeds and grows her own organic herbs and veggies.
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