8 posts tagged “shinan barclay”

Carrot Therapy

Horses in stalls

Oregon’s coastal mist rolls in, darkening the tree line. Shapes of Douglas fir, Sitka spruce and alder fade as rain pounds on the barn’s tin roof. Its another gray morning at Ocean Ridge Stables, where my neighbors have given me an open invitation to visit, pitch hay, muck the stalls or engage in any other desire of my heart.

 The air is cold on my cheeks, reddening my hands. I zip my jacket, pulling the collar around my neck. It’s early, 6 a.m. Only the horses stir, assuming I’m the person who’ll dump grain into their buckets, throw sections of alfalfa into their stalls. But today, I’m not here to feed them, but to nourish myself.

All week, I've sandwiched my writing, early morning, late at night, around the twelve-hours each day of a care-giving job. Stressed and exhausted, I need to renew myself, not with a beach walk, a mountain hike, nor a hot bath or gardening but with carrot therapy—offering vegetable treats to these four-legged friends.

As I lift the metal lid on the feed barrel, the horses whinny and neigh, trying to get my attention. Feed me! Feed me! I scoop a handful of grain and carry a shoulder sack full of the sweet, orange roots from my garden. Strolling from stall to stall, I nod at Curly, Smokey, Tinker, Choctaw, Flower, Star and Woodchuck. The horses paw and stomp in their beds of straw.

Carrpts

Curly reaches toward me with his muzzle. Stretching his  lips like a chimpanzee, he begs and I offer the grain. Choctaw, a colorful brown and white Appaloosa with black spots, whinnies with his head high. He’s looking for breakfast and snorts at the orange appetizer, but munches it down anyway. I run my cold hand down the warm hairs on his neck.

 
Offering carrots, I savor the musical crunch and chomp of each horse. Woodchuck, a coffee brown Arabian, stretches his neck toward me for another treat and I oblige. These animals have shown me a giving and receiving of sensual pleasure, similar to chemistry with the opposite sex. Their sounds, smells and textures satisfy a primal part of myself. Perhaps that’s because I was born in the Chinese year of the horse.

 
I delight in their neighing and the smells of hay. I love their warm breaths on my hand. In feeding them, my soul is

Horse muzzle

 nourished, my body grounded. I return home, refreshed and present.

Ok, I wrote my piece...if I were president...and submitted it to cnn.com, along with my photo and I encourage ya'll to write your ideas. GO GLOBAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.cnn.com/exchange/submit/success_blip.html

Rainmaker's Prayers Cover

Shinan Barclay wrote:
If I were President, I'd mandate that communities and individuals build sustainable, local agricultural and renewable fuel sources, like bamboo. In Cuba, after Russia and the U.S. pulled out and the country was left without fuel, transportation and food, PEOPLE CREATED VEGETABLE GARDENS EVERYWHERE.
With global warming, climate change  and peak oil, I sense we humans are at the tipping point of our planet's health and well being. We need to begin to work together, locally to build sustainable living options--food, water, fuel and community. Nature is intelligent, consider DNA, photosynthesis, an acorn becoming an oak. Indigenous people had the wisdom to work with and honor the natural world. Perhaps we could re-engage that wisdom.
"Rainmaker's Prayers, Align with Global Harmon," is an anthology  of  true stories, people who have re-connected with and partnered with the natural world. Choose to live a more simple life-style, honor the air we breathe and the water we drink. If I were President, I'd mandate going back to basics before we are forced there from fouling our nest.
http://shinanbarclay.vox.com

Mures

     My hands thump a strange rhythm on my bottle-shaped Udu and I feel my great-great African grandmother sitting beside me. My roots include Irish, English, French, Sioux and Afro-American. Besides freckles, a wide nose and curly red hair, my  ancestors have endowed me with rhythm. Catch me doing dishes sometime and you'll hear me thumping out a rhythm on the cups, plates, pots and pans-my drumsticks a stainless steel knife in each hand.    
    "Sound, rhythm, energy and individuality," I read in Peter Elbow's Writing with Power" is basic to a writer's voice." Mmm, drumming and writing share the same elements. Another writer, Robert Hass, "thinks of rhythm as a power because it has direct access to our unconscious and because it can enter our minds and bodies and make us move."* Hass is talking about the rhythm of language. However, the same unconscious, motivating power is also found in rhythm from drums.
    A friend, told me that she does drums prior to writing. Although I light a candle, say a prayer and ring a little bell to bring my mind to focus, I longed to drum before writing. Then, while house sitting for friends, I borrowed their elk skin instrument and drummed before each writing session, drumming when frustrated with the process, drumming when overwhelmed with numerous anthology to do's. Drumming helped me center and enabled me to return refreshed to Rainmaker's Prayers Anthology.
    "I want my own drum."  I saw a Native American drum at an auction and decide to bid. It went for $300. Too much for my budget. Then, in From  Mud to Music, I recalled the mid-eastern, hourglass shaped ceramic Dhoumbeks.  But, one musician warned that as the leather dried, it pulled too tight, cracking his ceramic bases. I read about Udus, water bottle drums from Nigeria and, since I'm a potter, decided to make an Udu. Nigerians shape the Udu with clay coils. I don't like  manipulating long coils so, I decided to use the potter's wheel to form my Udu. "Start with nine pounds of clay," the Mud to Music author said. I can barely manage seven. Inspiration! Make bowls and put them together. Bingo. I've made hundreds of bowls. I love their round utility.
    "Instead of trying to match circumference to circumference," my ceramic instructor advised, "make several similar bowls and pick two that match. Use the rest for gifts." I ended up with four matching bowls. I put those together, added a cylinder neck, a bottom stand and decoration. I want my drums to be art pieces as well as musical instruments.    

    Now, a novice drummer, I surprise myself as I sit with my brightly glazed  "Udu."  This long necked, rounded belly ceramic drum echoes and reverberates. My hands, palms and fingers cup, slap and beat, producing different tones. "Do-ray-me-fa-so," I laugh, knowing that the notes aren't a musical scale, but five percussion sounds.
     My hands fly over the Udu's neck and belly holes. Once again, like swimming, gardening, painting and writing, my hands provide pleasure. I drum in the morning, drum when feeling scattered, drum to focus, drum to think, and each time, whether for five minutes or fifteen, I feel centered, peaceful and present. Mickey Hart writes in Drumming at the Edge of Magic, that for shamans, a drum becomes a vibrational vehicle of transport. I like that idea and file it under "advanced drumming."
    Drumming creates an ancient rhythm similar to the nearby ocean tides which pound and reverberate up the beach, through the ground to my cottage. Drumming is my heartbeat and breath, the unconscious power of life itself.                        

*The Writer's Chronicle, Vol 40, #3 pg 86.

    “It’s so hot and dry; everything is dying,” complained my neighbor before downing the last drop of water from her bottle. Arizona’s high desert country lay parched and cracked. Plants bowed limp under scorching days and bone-dry nights. Residents worked outdoors in early hours only, while evergreen trees released needles in a last ditch effort to conserve moisture. Everyone agonized over the prolonged drought.
    Traditionally, Southwestern tribes invoke nature’s blessing through ceremony. What if the cure for drought, I wonder, is simply honoring weather spirits? So, rather than focusing on complaints, I found myself organizing a Pray-for-Rain Ritual.
    I placed an ad in the local newspaper: Pray-for-Rain Ceremony, Thursday 7 pm. Airport Mesa. Did I cover all the bases for an event: date, time, place, intention and publicity? That following Thursday, nine people gathered.
    To set a sacred space on Airport Mesa, we sprinkled cornmeal in a ceremonial circle, a practice gleaned from Native Americans. We positioned aquatic objects—a puppet whale, a ceramic alligator, a bronze otter and a stuffed toy dolphin—one at each of the four, main directions—North, South, East, West.  In the circle’s center  we placed shells, pearls, coral, and pictures of marine mammals—anything that conjured a connection with water. Finally, we burned sage in an abalone shell as each participant invited the smoke to purify all thoughts, feelings and actions.
    I initiated the plea by addressing each of seven directions— North, South, East, West, The Great Above, The Great Below and The Great Within. “We call to the Great Guardian Spirits of the North, the Grandmothers and Grandfathers of midnight, mystery, winter and the great bear. We give thanks and appreciation for your work in the world and your presence in our lives . . .”
    After that, each person invoked names of “moisture spirits.” Neptune, Roman sea god, come forth. Sedna, Inuit mother goddess of all ocean creatures, be with us. Maui, Polynesian god of the oceans, join us, please. Over and over  the group chanted: “Moisture Spirits Return.” We shuffled and twirled around the circle, padding, so that our feet sounded like rain hitting the ground. We sprinkled water from a large sea shell and chanted the mystical words: “O-shoo-wa, O-shoo-wa! Moisture Spirits Return.”  
    Although the sky remained blue and the air hot, dusty and laden with pollen, we felt uplifted. In acknowledging the weather-spirits, something had changed, a shift in the atmosphere, if only in our attitude.
    “Try taking zigzag steps,” someone suggested. “That’s the Native American symbol for

Rainmaker

Suddenly, everyone was dancing, shouting and cheering with shared  exhilaration while cool drops of moisture kissed our faces. The sky darkened. Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed and the rains poured down. Hallelujah!
“Thank you, Moisture Spirits!”
“Thank you, Rain Makers!”

That night I learned where two or more are gathered, in a shared sacred intent, Spirit joins in and answers our prayers.

For further information on influencing the weather,
look for Rainmaker's Prayers Anthology, Shinan Barclay, editor
forthcoming on amazon.com

Rain through ritual

Shinan Barclay

Shinan N. Barclay, is the co-author of two books: The Sedona Vortex Experience and Flowering Woman, Moontime for Kory.  Her memoir stories appear in the following anthologies: Chicken Soup for Woman’s Soul II, Heavenly Helpings,  Scent of Cedar, and Open My Eyes, Open My Soul. Her short stories have been translated into Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese and Czechoslovakian.

Her poems and essays have been published in more than one hundred magazines, including Washington Women’s Digest, Holistic Life, Tucson Lifeline, California Quarterly, Manzanita Quarterly, Ranger Rick and Canadian National Wildlife as well as the book Sacred Texts of the World’s Great Religions.          

 In 1982, Shinan received a Masters degree in Holistic Psychology from the University of Humanistic Studies/California School of Professional Psychology. A tile-maker, gardener and jitterbug fan, Shinan lives in a tiny cottage in a huge rainforest which boarders the South Slough Estuary of the southern coast. 

Shinan is the niece of world renoWn author/ psychoanalyst Rollo May "Love and Will," "The Cry for Myth," and the niece of Gerald G. May M.D., PhD,  The Shalom Center, author of "Simply Sane," etc.

SPIDER RESCUE

A personal narrative

by Shinan Barclay

Early dawn, I stumbled to the bathroom and found a flat, brown spider scrambling around the bottom of the sink. It wasn’t the usual oval gray, daddy-long-legs whose wispy webs wave across the ceiling, curtain rods and windowsills of my cottage.  It was a hobo spider.

Hobospider_wwwonewest_net

“Well, Miss Arachnid,” I said, watching the rhythmic tap of her limbs, “Did you fall into the sink or crawl up the drain?” Yes, I’m an eccentric who talks to spiders.

My visitor’s mouth appendages, “pedipalps,” resembled both pronged forks and pincher claws—useful tools for nibbling my flesh. But with its claw-like mouth paws, the spider is busy munching gooey green toothpaste; much like my friends eating basil-pesto pizza—heads bent, lips abutting cheese, finger tentacles shoveling in mushrooms, pepperoni and sausage.

“Do you want to go back down the drain?”  I question the creature. I’m rarely this chatty at 6 a.m., but I want to help. My spider is an amputee—four legs on one side, three on the other, one limb lost perhaps in her efforts to escape the slippery basin.

“Shall I play God and send a deluge?” No answer. To avoid the croak and reincarnate option, I decide not to brush my teeth and let the spider be. I suspect life choices for arachnids differ from those for Homo sapiens. I’ve read that by the time a human being makes conscious choices about life and death, he or she has reached a transcendent or enlightened state.

I know nothing about the spiritual evolution of arachnids. A biologist friend once told me “all organisms gather information and make choices.” He hopes everything will evolve to the place of doing no harm.

Where do spiders come from, I wonder? A mythology book told me that long ago, a Greek woman named Arachne challenged the Goddess Athena to a weaving contest. The goddess dealt with the dare by turning the woman into a spider, and since then there’s been a

Cape Arago, Oregon

worldwide escalation of the eight-legged weavers. Although spiders live everywhere, my slice of the Oregon rainforest is prime habitat.

By eight o’clock I really needed to brush my teeth.  However, the spider still crawled about in the sink. “OK, Miss, this is your relocation phase.” I scoffed at myself for the time I spend rescuing spiders, worms, snails and slugs.  Do I have some neurotic save-the-critters compulsion? Where, I wonder on the Karpmann triangle of victim-rescuer-perpetrator does human-insect intervention play out?

From past experience, I knew that this spider could return from its lair and bite me in my sleep. I’ve also learned that by asking nature for guidance, a co-creative safety is offered to me and to the creature in question.

In the kitchen I grabbed a glass and an index card—my bug trapping equipment. Back at the bathroom sink, I cupped the glass around the spider and slid the card underneath, allowing time for the critter to scramble onto the flat surface. One shaky move from me and the arachnid could bite. Its mouth-claws appeared eager. Finally, I raced the captured creature to the door. Outside, on the porch, I tipped the glass and Miss Arachnid slid into the hydrangeas.

“Where will you go?” I asked. “To a new home? A new mate? Or will you return, called back by instinctual longing to lollygag in the bottom of my sink?” Spiders rarely give up their habitat.

Driving to work I wondered if I had left the spider in the sink, would it have acquired new climbing skills? Would its survival need, over evolutionary time, have helped the species of arachnids develop suction cups on their feet, like spider man, thus enabling future spiders to leap out of slippery sinks?

Had this spider been caught in the web of my life, I wondered, or were we both part of a universal network, what Gregg Braden calls the “Divine Matrix.” Friends think I spend too

Globe

much time thinking about such things and that I should worry instead about global warming or the war in Iraq. But I believe the microcosm affects the macrocosm. When we offer compassion on a small scale, ripples of kindness flow out to the larger world.

 COMMENTS?  email Shinan at   rainmakers2007 [at] yahoo dot com or

shinan.barclay [at] gmail dot come