Whereas: My name is Heidi Ho to the Rescue and I am 13.75 years old and will be 14 in September.
Whereas: I have been in loyal service to Cathie Jo for a full, long and exacting 13.25 years.
Whereas: I have already had 3 strokes.
I here by declare certain house rules null and void.

Rule #1 No poohing in the house. Never mind that. Not only will you pick up my pooh at all hours of the day and night, but you will be happy, cheerful and grateful to do it!

Rule #2 The pet shall come when called and do whatever the owner tells her to do. Pet! Owner! I don’t think so. Whereas I am a sovereign and free individual who is half blind and half deaf and totally willful and obstinate… you can just clap your hands, holler, wave your arms like a highly untrained semaphore, jump up and down and chase me around! And if you’re not careful you will be required to call the S.P.C.A. and turn yourself in!

Rule #3 No walking through, digging in or sleeping in growing beds. To heck with that! It’s HOT, DRY and HARD around here.
More rule changes to be announced as soon as they have been implemented.

Yours Truly, Heidi Ho to the Rescue

All of One Brood
Writing Prompt: Blah, Blah, Blah…The year before you were born.
1956 was a very good year for a seed like me. I was just about ready to break ground…
The really big, powerful ones are the most fun to watch: calabazitas, frijoles. They look like they are causing the birth of a miniature mountain, a wee little volcanic eruption, as they uncoil and strengthen their stem to breath in the world above ground, bringing with them the moist, deep secrets of Mother Earth. The sacred spiral unfurling is a beautiful dance to behold.
The climbers, as they reach and grasp, wrapping tender new tendrils around whatever is handy: like baby’s tiny fists finding something steady to hold on to, as their strength increases, day by day. Grasping, climbing, hoisting, their ever expanding bulk, finding the upright position and taking its advantage in moving forward, up and into the world, climbing steadily towards the Father, the Sun.
The sun flower, as it grows from a tender, juicy, vulnerable and very edible young sprout… to a powerful young tree like adult, through the budding out of the earthly face of Father Sun, is an inspiration and a damn good reason to get up in the morning. My beautiful garden is a 5:30 am, rise and shine kind of a blessed sanctuary.
This miraculous holy thing that I participate in, is the single most lustrous pearl of my life. It’s like stepping into a living breathing writhing balmy breathed emerald… stepping right in, being made stronger and more whole just by taking it in, in through the eyeballs and breath, into the soul: letting the vibrant, vibrations of plant medicine heal me to the core.
There is strength not easy for me to miss in all of this, simultaneous, reaching up and digging deep. The power of delicate new roots to break ground: to push deeper and deeper into the mysterious brooding body of Mother Earth to be fed… the brilliance of turning Father Sun’s solar power into one’s own flesh! To seek, in both directions, life and all it has to offer.
Living intimately within the process of seed becoming plant and plant becoming food capable of sustaining other forms of life enhances every aspect of my own. Taking responsibility for growing the food that I eat, the food that becomes my own flesh… feeding my soul and hooking me up fully: engaging my body and spirit as one.
I want to live in my garden. I need to create a garden house. Just like when I went out into the woods to live in Alaska. There I lived like a squirrel in my little house of trees: the earth floor, the log walls, the pole and sod roof… I am going to build myself a home in my garden. I am going to listen and learn from the plants how this is to be done. I know them well enough to know that they will teach me how to live beautifully among them.

Someone wants to know why I don’t open up the sacred space of my cyber ceremony to critical debate? I do not bow down before the false god of academia. I am a dyslexic poet. I answer only to Grandfather Coyote and his high holy cadre of spiritual cohorts. If someone wants to enter into a celebration of creativity, well then… let’s dance! But understand all you intellectuals and academicians out there, all of your credentials and education will not help you here. Here, in the realm of Firebird Ceremonies you venture into the sacred space of a Heyoka Coyote Poet Warrior. Careful, because for all the years that I have been honed against the stone of Allah (Ouch!) my pen was at my side; perhaps it has developed an unusual edge. And remember, Grandmother Moon and a spit fire platoon of Ancestors are covering my donkey. I will gladly pit one humble man up against all you highly educated persons out there: and my beloveds name is Hafiz. Let our hearts all be imbued with the sacred sanctum if his holy verse!
I pit fire without the use of a modern kiln, estranging me from the process, because I know how to pit fire, period. I do not have an inordinate amount of breakage because I know how to stop, and ask, and listen, and wait; days, weeks, months, or years if that’s what it takes, and then to humbly accept the gift, in whatever form it comes.
Feel free, all takers, to email me a poem, wrung from the marrow of your ancestral bones; pulsing, hemorrhaging, and oozing with passion for the position you take. I am not asking for what you can prove on paper. But where do you stand in your heart of hearts, and from there, can you truly claim that you know how to and do pit fire your pots? Just how slowly must the fire approach, embrace and kiss the raw clay for the pots to survive that magnitude of unbridled power? If you do not know the answer to this question, you do not know how to pit fire. If on the other hand your overshadowing concern here is “market appeal” and productivity; then yes of course, pit finishing is indeed the correct process for you to employ.
There is a song written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore, sung by Johnny Cash, it expresses very well the magnitude of Love and passion that I feel for my work. I have a profound willingness to sacrifice for and be consumed by this love. The song is called: Ring of Fire. Another song, one he wrote himself, speaks volumes about my relationship with the sacred work that I do. It is called: What Do I Care.
Warn out, academic, fixed railed, disconnected from the land “thinking”, has contributed greatly to this disastrous global situation we are in. This, “I’m right, because I have the paper that says so!” attitude won’t fly here.
Ah, but what does the heart say?
It is the poetic spark of original creative thought, in us all, that will save our collective donkey!