April Witch

Some people write books the same way a carpenter builds a house, slowly word by word. Others write book the same way a sculptor carves a face out of clay, scraping away every useless word that is not needed. Some write books like an artist, using words as paint and brushing the story colorfully across the pages. Others write books like a musician, creating a rhythm with words that weaves thought the story like a easily hum melody. Some people write books that are just a hell of a good story. If you find a book that has either one of these things you are in for a good read. If you find one that has all of them you are in for a great read. April Witch by Majgull Axelsson is a great read.

The best way to tell you what the story is about is by quoting the book description from the book jacket end flaps:



" 'No excuses will do anymore. Time to put my sisters in motion.'

Desiree lies in a hospital bed thinking, dreaming. One of the children born severely disabled in 1950s Sweden and then routinely institutionalized for life and one of a very few to survive nearly to the century's endshe cannot walk or talk, but she has other capabilities. Desiree is an April witch, clairvoyant and omniscient, leaving her own body and traveling into the world denied her.

The working-class woman who gave Desiree up at birth took in three foster daughters several years later, and even as adults they know nothing of the existence of their fourth sister. Christina, abused by her psychotic birth mother and burdened by a sense of inferiority, is now a physician; Margareta, the onetime foundling, an astrophysicist who can never manage to complete her dissertation, is as restless and sensual as she was in her youth; and Birgitta, in her day the fastest, sexiest teen queen in town, is now a derelict alcoholic and substance abuser.

In spite of her physical disabilities, Desiree possesses tremendous intelligence, and she observes the world around her with great acumen. She has developed a very special relationship with her primary care physician, Dr. Hubertsson, who realizes that she could and should know something about her own background. Unbeknownst to him, she goes on to make supernatural use of this information.

Sensing that her own time is drawing to a close, Desiree also feels that one of the others has lived the life that should have been hers. One day, each of the three women Christina, Margareta, Birgitta receives a mysterious letter that inspires her to examine her past and her present, setting into motion a complex fugue of memory, regret, and confrontation that builds to a shattering climax.

April Witch created a furor upon its original publication in Sweden, where it was an immense bestseller. Addressing themes of mother-daughter relationships, competition between women, and the failures of Sweden's postwar welfare state, it is foremost a thrillingly written and fascinating story. "



The other theme not mentioned is the illusion that we have total control over our lives. In each case the sisters learn early that this is not true and react in fear to this, each in different ways. One struggles against that lack of control. One creates a life that from the outside looks perfect and under her complete control. Another by traveling, never staying long in one place. The last by giving in to the fear and living a life of absolute chaos.

This book can be difficult in some ways but the ending sent my soul soaring.

Update: The shock collar came yesterday and today we sent it back. We just could not use it. I am relieved it is gone. We will figure out other ways to handle the problem.

Absolute Power

Respect my authority!
-Cartman on South Park

My poor dog Emma's life is going to change this week. We bought a (ahem) "Gun Dog Training Device," un-euphemistically known as a shock collar. I know, I know, we hate it too but we have no choice. The other morning when my husband was putting the dogs into the truck for their run Emma took off. She had seen two bunnies and just started running. My husband yelled at her to whoa but she was too focused on the rabbits to listen. She ran as fast as she could after them as they darted in and out of the neighbor's yards, crisscrossing the street several times. My husband tried to catch her but she disappeared out of sight very quickly. He then drove around trying to find her and after circling several blocks found her trotting along the street that leads to our house heading home. When he called her she came reluctantly because she knew she was in big trouble. We have had this happen many times before but this time it could have ended badly. She just has to stop this behavior before she get herself killed.

Emma is a strange mixture of both obstinate and sensitive and I realized it would not take to many tries before she understands that she could no longer run off when ever she felt like it. I agreed to get the collar with the understanding that we would shock her the least number of times possible. Then as the day passed my husband and I thought of other times we could use the collar to correct her behavior. We could use it to stop her from digging holes in the yard. We could use it to stop her from eating out of Kate's dish. We could use it to stop her from barking all the time. We could use it to make her sit when traveling in the cab of the pickup truck.

Later that afternoon I was in the basement when I head Emma barking upstairs. It was the same bark she would use as a puppy when her ball rolled under the couch. It was her, "Hey, get out from under there," bark. When I went up to see what was going on I found her standing over her food dish. She looked at me, looked back at her dish and barked, "Hey, get out from under there." I walked over and looked in the dish and saw a spider crawling around. I got a piece of tissue, removed the spider, killed it and threw it away. Emma watched me and when I finished I said to her, "Ok, all done." She looked in her dish and then satisfied that the spider was gone went outside.

That night as I lay in bed thinking about this I smiled. One thing I like about Emma is her spirit. Then I thought about the shock collar and was horrified to see that I was thinking of shocking my dog so my life would run a little smoother. I was willing to break my dog's spirit just to make my life easier. In less than 24 hours I had turned into Mussolini, willing to suppress my subjects in order for the trains to run on time.

My husband and I went back to our original agreement. We would only shock Emma to keep her out of danger. We would wait for her to outgrow the other things.
She will. Kate did.

Google Time

Searches made this week that brought people to Santiago Dreaming:

1. Pilgrim walk Spain
2. camino.santiago.walk
3. santiago women call
4. buck (bunk) bed
5. sex santiago (see a pattern here?)
6. Colleen Shannon (they were not looking from me as you can see)
and,
7. Does Emma Watson believe in ghost (I don't know, does she?)

Little Piggies

I have been helping out during Story Hour at the library on Tuesday mornings. "Pam," the head librarian, has 23 children between the ages of three to five and brought me in to be the enforcer. I'm the one who rounds up the kids who get bored or distracted and herd them back to listening circle.

Before Story Hour officially starts the kids play with toys that belong to the library. This keeps the children already there occupied as the rest of them trickle in. It also is a way to distract them while their mothers leave the room. Last Tuesday Pam and I notice one little boy, "Travis," carrying one of the metal toy trucks. He had wrapped one of the cords from the bucket of wooden stringing beads around the front wheels and was holding the cord out in front of him with the truck dangling from it. When he noticed us watching him he said, "This is a dead truck."

I laughed because that was not what I expected him to say but Pam laughed louder and then told me the following story. Travis's mom is the town's Vet and last week Pam called her out to her farm to look at one of her pigs. The pig was having trouble delivering a litter of piglets. The Vet came as soon as she could and brought Travis with her. Pam's husband was the one handling the pig problem and since Pam was doing other chores she did not get to the farrowing house until sometime later. When she opened the door to the building the first thing she saw was Travis walking around with a dead baby pig tucked under each arm happy as a...well, a little boy who likes to carry dead baby pigs around.

You Can Try To Take The Dog Out Of The Dog Or You Can Accept Reality

My dog Emma is a digger, just loves to dig holes. When I catch her at it she is always digging with great glee. I thought I had broken her of the habit but for about a week now she has been digging holes again. When I catch her at it I yell at her, call her a bad dog, and fill the hole in.

This morning when I got up and looked outside I found another hole and asked my husband what we could do about Emma's behavior, she was digging holes all over the yard. My husband said the reason she is digging is to create a cool spot where she can lie down and be comfortable in the heat of the day. Hearing that made me understand that Emma is just being a dog and my trying to stop her was unrealistic. I asked my husband to go out and start a hole next to the lilac bush by the back wall for her. Later when we looked out the kitchen window we could see Emma lying in the hole nosing the freshly dug dirt, happy as a...well, a dog in a hole.

Postponement

The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.
-Flora Whittemore


I have been pulling one tarot card a day from my Zen Tarot deck and on Saturday I drew Postponement. The card shows a woman standing in a gray landscape and in front of her is a picture frame and by looking through the frame she can see the landscape in its true colors. The woman is the same color of gray as the world around her but the blouse she is wearing is showing a faint rainbow of colors that match the colors seen through the picture frame. The book that came with the deck states that the woman wants to go through the picture frame (the colors developing in her blouse show that) but right now she can't seem to do it. She will wait. As the book explains:

There is still too much 'what-if' activity in her mind. Tomorrow never comes, they say, but no matter how often it is said, it seems that most of us tend to forget the truth of it.

I interpreted this to mean that I should not put off doing the things I already planned to do that day. I did briefly have the thought that the meaning of the card was deeper but I brushed it away.

I pick a card out of the Tarot deck by first shuffling the cards and then fanning the deck out evenly on a flat surface. Next, I lightly run my fingers back and forth over the backs of all the cards and at some point one of the cards will "stick" to a finger and be dragged out of its place. That becomes my card for the day. When I do this on Sunday morning the card that "sticks" is Postponement. Someone sure is trying to tell me something.

I pick up the book and reread the commentary and in addition to the above quote these lines right after it pops out at me:

In fact, the one and only result of postponing things is a dull and depressing feeling of incompletion and 'stuck-ness' today. The relief and expansiveness you will feel once you put aside all the dithering thoughts that are preventing you from acting now will make you wonder why you ever waited so long.

Well, that's correct, I have been feeling like my life is incomplete and that I am stuck. I have been drifting since January and all the good things I was going to add to my life then have quietly been allowed to float away. My eating habits have slid back to too much sugar and too many Cokes. I haven't been exercising, except to walk the dog once a day. I can tell my body is not getting enough water without counting the number of glasses of water I drink. I have not meditated once. Instead of doing any of these things I went into hibernation -it was easier. Now, Spring is here and I feel as if I am awaking from a long Winter's nap. Still groggy but ready to rise.

Postponement. Got the card two days in a row, so, what ever I am postponing is bigger that not sticking to New Year's resolutions. I know this but I don't want to face it. My life is changing and has been changing since the day I read that article about the Camino. The greatest change was finding out certain beliefs I held were true. Belief can be described as, "conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon," no real proof needed. Some people say belief is hard but I say belief is easy, finding out that what you believe is true, that's hard.

Before I walked the Camino I believed certain things that I had either read about or heard about. I believed that people can be contacted by the dead. That people have a third eye and meditation can open it. That miraculous things happen to people while walking the Camino. After the Camino I know that miraculous things happen on the Camino because they happened to me. I know that it is true that people can be connected by the dead because my mother has been contacting me. I know that it is true that people have a third eye that can be opened by meditation because the last time I meditated I could feel a strange pressure centered between and slightly above my eyebrows. All these things scared the hell out of me, which is why it was hard for me to write about the Camino at first and why I stopped trying to contact my mother and why I stopped meditating. Doors have opened, doors I am still afraid to step through.

...we need to be willing to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly.
-Shakti Gawain

In Remembrance

Jeanne Shannon
June 5, 1928 - March 22, 2002

Its The First Day Of Spring Today

When Spring Appears

Meadowlarks
give lusty cheers
when spring appears
when spring appears.

Buds and seeds
prick up their ears
and blades of grass
show eager spears.

And only icicles
weep tears
when spring appears
when spring appears
-Aileen Fisher


Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.
-Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)

Spring is] when life's alive in everything.
-Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)

A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King.
-Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), No. 1333

Spring has sprung. We're free at last, people. Free at last. Thank you mother nature, we're free. Time to toss open that metaphysical window and check out that psychic landscape. See lots of possibilities budding out there. Time to hoe those rows, feed that seed. Pretty soon you get a garden.
Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess, Northern Exposure

(Photo, Lilacs, taken by me)

Random Thoughts

-I have now watched three episodes of Mad Mad House and I am not sure why I am still watching it. I keep waiting for "something" to happen. Although I must say I was glad to see Kelly get voted off last week. She was the one who described herself as Catholic and a "good girl." Well, she turned out to be Mrs Crabtree the school bus driver from South Park; the kind of person who lashes out at you when you innocently say hello.

- I went to the Metaphysical Fair while in Denver last weekend and stopped by the "do your own reading" room to check out the tarot decks they had put out. I did a reading with a wonderful new deck call Oscho Zen Tarot Cards and was blown away by the beauty of the deck and the reading. It is not like a regular tarot deck but gives you more spiritual and intuitive answers. My sister bought me the deck and book for an early birthday present.

-Spring arrived last week bringing with it Red-wing Blackbirds, Juncos, Sandhill Cranes flying overhead, new green grass, daffodil shoots, and temperatures in the 70sF/20'sC. This week we have leaped over Spring and into Summer. The temperature is now at 90.3F/32.4C. This could be a long hot spring/summer.

Have a good weekend everyone.