Love Tangles

Love tangles

 

Straight cut boards can be arranged into lots of shapes; including boxes and crates; tables and houses

They need to be joined somehow; mortise and tenon , half lap, nailed or screwed or biscuited.

Something else happens when you take a root or a twig or some such piece of a tree  or a weed;

You decided not to butcher it today; no slab, no amputations, thank you anyway;

No, today it will be by natural laws that they join; through the process that is almost mystical;

Perhaps the magic of a different dimension working here; like gravity or childhood  or dance;

Like meandering or making love ; like tree climbing or berry picking; like riding a horse or skiing.

Somehow, someway the pieces  fit  together into  what I have decided to call “love tangles”;

The law of natural forms that lend themselves to embrace and mingle their shapes in ways that are, at once effortless in some ways, uncanny in others, magical commingling of their pieces into what shape they can do the best; like spooning  or hugging, like wrestling or weaving, like a good conversation; where everyone gets to add to the conversation while listening; add a bit of spice to the talk.

I only know about this because I have been mussing around with sticks a lot over the years……

I have learned to trust the nature of the multiverse in these matters;  so when I walk up to a pile of sticks, I am excited about what will follow and not afraid of the result; I know it will look pretty good and will be pretty strong and will join the company of the winged  beaked home builders, the pond slappers and the damned cute little pack rats.

So, grab some twisted roots and wild branches, some winding oddballs of slow motion adapting to the community of branches as they all seek the sun, the roots as they all seek the water, the limbs as they defy gravity and flex their muscles all the live long day…….grab them up and put one on the other, put him on her and her around him and bring the whole family to the party; add a twig here and there and flex that willow to see what it can do in class.

Bring some nails and screws…….of course

They will surprise you once again as they join so easily and happily or effortlessly, more or less……….into Love Tangles.

 

    -Thor Sigstedt,   august 2012

When Things Go Sour

When things go sour

The result is pain

The other result is wondering how you got there

And who was right and who was wrong

And how did it get that sour that quickly

The answer is elusive, mysterious

Buried in the tangle of missed points

Buried in fears, defensiveness

Pride

Then we are crouched on all fours

Washed up on the beach

Barely breathing

Heart pounding

Face flushed with  regret

Wandering amidst the seaweed and the wreckage

Clinging to the hope that despite the momentary hurt

The work will be done

Responsibility taken where necessary

Apologies given

To them

And to

Yourself

Life goes on

And the multiverse does not really care

As we all drive down the road to a special place in the sun.

Barak Obama and Mitt Romney: Ironies

Barak Obama and Mitt Romney are ensnarled in an election era that screams irony.  Obama projected  his presidency on reaching across the aisle then was met with a party that decided that the only way to prevent his re-election was to oppose every single thing Obama proposed, even if it was in their best interest or if the idea had originally come from them or if the country was in crisis.  Romney would, ‘on the first day’,  repeal  ‘Obamacare’, which should have been titled ‘Romneycare’, as it nearly duplicates Romney’s ‘signature achievement’  in Massachusetts; his one idea being the ‘individual mandate’ (the most hated part of the plan now). Romney appears to have a muse that kicks in when he can look like a knight in shining armor to create jobs, but his history  forcing bankruptcies, often, and his role being ‘financier’, whose only obligation is to his money- lending  company, the Bain of his existence,  and to making a profit for Bain; not to create jobs .   Both are ‘ivory tower’, mostly; Romney with his obscene amount of money generated by, you guessed it, fancy manipulations of the financial markets, which are, of course, a major cause of the Great Recession.  Obama, coming from some poverty and racial tension, has learned to deal with that in a very modern way; he learned to walk amongst the rich and white and became a major brain in the academic world.   Romney has never had to worry about a job or a meal in his life and Obama has learned to walk amongst the Romneys of the world, breathing that air a little too deeply.  Neither mention the poor.  Romney has decided, religiously, that to lie is to win and Obama decided to dance with the bankers.  Both are knights, one transmuting into a raging anima despite his stick figure persona;  the other,  ‘Great Uniter’, facing this country that, unbelievably, has turned into a tug of war nation with the people agreeing to put a paper bag on their heads as they tug.  Winner take nothing and wait, numbed, for the next day.  They both need to take a walk in the forest   with a chainsaw and a rifle and a tarp and go to ‘donkey college’.  In the meantime, voting with our instincts, judge  based on probabilities and compromises; go with the truth teller and the warrior with the Nobel Peace Prize and a plan for a visionary  future,  despite the ironies.