The SPF of Blue Plastic

Yes in spite of the weather warnings, thunderstorms and floods, we went to the beach. It barely sprinkled on the way. Because of my first-class tent and LM's vehicle, there was no fear of rain, and I was actually delighted with the possibility that cloud cover would give me some freedom to play on the beach.

He goes over to windsurf at Bird Island, I prefer to stay on the Gulf side. So that means I have to erect a shade structure in order to survive. Most folks either throw up a prefab or strap a blue tarp across their car and call it done. Time to pop a beer. But since LM needs the car to get to where he's going to windsurf, I have to create a freestanding structure, which is one of the fun, engineering tarpsmanship challenges of the beach. That is, if you can do it before you fry!

A lot of people don't even bother with creating shade. Reddish-brown Gulf Coast citizens fish, drink beer and smoke cigarettes all day long for days at a time in the full sun as if they never heard the word melanoma. I just can't do it anymore, as an ex-Gulf Coast citizen. I fled the beach as soon as I found trees and shade. I've had one suspicious mole removed, but the main thing is that the sun zaps my immune system. I'll get a herpes fever blister for sure or a simmering respiratory infection. Too much sun and too much petroleum-based pollution when I was growing up, I guess. There are brown pelicans now on the beach, lots of them. There were none when I was growing up, frollicking in their habitat, because DDT had done them in. They didn't start coming back till I had left for Austin. I love the pelicans, welcome back, guys.

So that brings me to the point of this essay: non-pre-fab shade engineering!

Last time we went to the beach, two years ago now, I created my shade out of a big blue plastic tarp. I used 3 tent poles to make parallel arches, set them into 5-gallon buckets full of sand and water, and lashed the tarp to said structure with a very long length of telephone cord. Rebar to stake it down pup-tent style, at either end. These are all excellent raw materials to take to the beach, and the sand-and-bucket system to hold it down from the wind worked for a day, and the sunburn I got was incurred while I was setting it up, which took about an hour. By the time LM got back, I had a "kitchen" and "lounge" inside it, and my special Beach Bloody Mary for coctails. He was very impressed, maybe one of the reasons he decided I was a kinda girl he'd like to hang out with.

But the wind blew it all flat and flappy overnight, and next day I sheltered in the car, watching LM windsurf.

One of the other non-prefab shade structures we oggled that time looked like it had been retrofitted from an old parachute! Very post-apocalyptic looking, Road Warrior sheik, and it used the wind to help hold it up. My blue tarp cave technology just attempted to let wind go through, but when the wind changed directions, it got smashed.

This time I erected the blue tarp tube again, and the wind was kinder. But I felt trapped and caged in, and by the end of that first day it was obvious that I was getting sunburned even through the blue plastic. Well, gee, I never thought to ask what the SPF of a blue tarp is!!! My estimate: about 70. Better than sunscreen, but sure not 100%. Oh, yeah, sunblock lotions give me rashes and zits, and do nothing to save my immune system, even if it protects from sunburn.

Day 2 We tried something that would not be so claustrophobic. It was inspired by that parachute thing we'd seen before. I took a sheet, which happened to be blue and pink tie-died, good beach colors, and tied knots at each of the four corners, which allowed me to firmly tie a cord to each corner, and gave it a bit of a concave shape. After a few permutations, we had the lead edge (into the wind) tied/supported by two flexible white pvc poles which were slipped onto rebar stakes driven into the sand to hold them in place, and the rear end tied to two buckets of sand and water. It puffed up like a sail, like a kite!, and since the open end looked out to the beach, into the prevailing wind, we had a great view. (Of sea, sand, pelicans, and...convoys of drilling machines.) Later on we added a cord-and bucket attached to one of the front corners, which allowed us to yank it whichever direction, within about 30 degrees, the changing condition of the winds indicated. the back ends were 100% adjustable. You just hadd to move buckets and tie line to different lengths to get the best lift and shade coverage possible. Bet you'd like to see a picture, I'll see if I can figure out how to do that.

What's the SPF of a tie-dyed sheet?? I think about the same as a blue tarp. If I do this again, and I would go straight for the same technology, I'd use a dark-colored sheet to block more UVs. Unless I can find me a used parachute...

Where Bush Got His Marching Orders

Or: Why To Bookmark Snopes on Your Browser

Okay, friends, Snopes had researched the quotes given in that email and determined it to be True, BUT pretty much all taken out of context including historical context. They have provided all of the quotes surrounded in big chunks of the context so that you can see the caveats and qualifications. So I guess I have to take back what I said about the dems (at least the ones quoted) being as warmongering as Bush.

www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp

Snopes didn't make any guesses about who the anonymous author/editor was, but I would guess a rep. thinktank/opinionmaker. I suspected it was a hoax primarily because of the "Send this to everyone you know" tag at the bottom.

Sometimes I wonder if the hoaxmakers themselves go to Snopes when they are feeling low on inspiration!

Ivieee

(Above written as "Reply to All" in response to the anonymously written mass email below. When I get hoaxes forwarded to me I tend to look 'em up on Snopes and do a "Reply to All" to set the record straight. Obnoxious to the people on the mailing list who don't know me? Maybe. Just doing my part to "TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PRESIDENT LEADING US TO WAR" in this case. If you get bored with the quotes just go on down to the bottom.)

WHERE BUSH GOT HIS MARCHING ORDERS

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them.  That is our bottom line."

- President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

 

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear.  We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."

- President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

 

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."

- Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

 

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."

- Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

 

"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."

- Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sen’s. Carl Levin (D-MI), Tom Daschle (D-SD), John Kerry ( D - MA), and others Oct. 9, 1998

.....(I delete a whole lot of quotes for the sake of brevity)....

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation.. And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real."

- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

 

-----------------------------------

 

SO NOW THESE SAME DEMOCRATS SAY PRESIDENT BUSH LIED, THAT THERE NEVER WERE ANY WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, AND THAT HE TOOK US TO WAR UNNECESSARILY!

 

TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PRESIDENT LEADING US TO WAR.

 

Send this to everybody you know. The networks won't do it.  It's up to us to get the word out.

Drilling on the Beach

LoverMan and I went to the beach, a little minivacation which is all we can afford right now. One of the best beaches on the Texas Coast is the Padre Island National Seashore. We camp on North Beach, near the Malachite Visitor Center.

Now maybe a couple of months, I got a note from an old Earth First! bud that the National Parks Service was opening up Padre to drilling. At the time I had no response/reaction capability, nor do I now, but I forwarded his message to LM, who is a member of the SurfRiders Foundation, a beach watchdog and service nonprofit for water sports enthusiasts. LM in turn asked SurfRiders what they were doing about it, what they thought, and they were not up-to-date enough to know what was proposed or do anything about it. Before anyone knew what was up the comment period was over and a permit had been issued and they are now drilling and extracting on the Island, our best, cleanest beach in Texas. I am pretty sure it is for natural gas, and that the reserve there was enough to supply the whole nation for one day.

So I was curious as to how this would look on the beach, from a camper's viewpoint. We didn't go down to try to see the actual operation, too far down the beach, we don't have 4 wheel, so we wimped out. But, the main impact that we could tell is the traffic. 7 in the morning: rumble of a convoy of 18-wheeler sized heavy machinery of varying sorts, and big tanks. 10 or so in number, and in front and in back a little dune buggy with a guy wearing neon. Then, all through the day, smaller convoys of one or four or five machines, each trip always accompanied by the two dunebuggydudes, one in the lead and one behind. It was just very surreal, the effect was one of a miliarized, occupied feeling in an otherwise natural beach scene.

What were the two dunebuggydudes for? They drive the same beach-golfcart thingees that the Parks Service Turtle Patrolers drive, so my thought is that the contractor must have agreed to hire turtle watchers, as a mitigation, to make sure that the big trucks didn't squash any endangered sea turtles. LM said he got the distinct impression that the dunebuggy drivers were more about protecting the machines than turtles. In case you were an environmental terrorist or surfer who might want to attack the big bad oil company.

They DID look at us closely. And smiled and waved. And every truck driver in every convoy smiled and waved, I was pretty sure it was company policy. Mitigate the fucking turtles, sure, whatever, but make DAMN sure you mitigate the public opinion. Smile and wave at every camper and sunbather and fisherman, or you're fired.

If that was the case, I bet it is/has been effective. The first morning we even heard campers tooting their horns in greeting. Toot Toot! Hey we got 18-wheelers on the beach now, but they sure are friendly! Hell, they're just going to work like anyone else, and here I'm just drinkin beer on the beach! I'm just glad my brother-in-law has a job now so my sister don't have to pay for everything. Running out of oil and natural gas? Well we're gonna be glad we have that extra day on down the line. Toot! Toot!

Having to Pee

There was this cartoon, something B. Kliban style, that I have never forgotten! Just two panels, each a cartoon section of the human brain, one male and the other female. On the male side the brain was divided amongst: sports (the biggest part), work (a subset of sports), beer, sex (the second largest part) and, as a small part within sex, The Relationship.

The female brain was similarly divided, with, of course, shopping being the largest portion. Second largest was The Relationship, the within that, sex as a proportionately smaller subsection. No surprises, except for a distinct portion of the brain dedicated to "Having to Pee."

Which of course was the whole joke, at least from the point of view of a woman looking at the cartoon!

My old girlfriend J once told me NOT TO HOLD MY PEE, as all of us girls do on a regular basis because really we DO have to pee more often than we are presented with socially acceptable occasions to do so, because, she told me, holding your pee hurts your courage.

At the time, there was no place in my mind to process such an allegation, possibly because The Relationship was taking up too much space.

Holding your pee hurts your courage?? What kind of talk was that? Until, much later, did I look at the connections between adrenal function (which is what courage is made of) and renal function (which is where pee is made). If you hold your pee, what your body understands is that a frightening situation is in effect, such that if you took the moment to pee, your life might be in danger. You are prepared for fight or flight, no time to drop your panties! But, because of shame, a false sense of danger is given, because there is no safe, private, shame-free place to pee, or even just the possibility that someone will know that you are going to pee makes you hold it. So women are always in a subliminal state of fear and of having to pee.

One of the recent times I felt this pressure was at Barton Springs, on the south side, in the Dog Park end of the springs. So, I swam in the dogpoop end of Barton Springs, then didn't change out of my wet swimsuit and didn't pee because those things were inconvenient. So guess what, I got a bladder infection.

NOW talk about having to pee! Only you go to do it and you get a dribble, and you still have to pee! Piss!

UTI's are usually treated with antibiotics. Unfortunately, antibiotic treatments, especially if relied on sequentially, make you more subject to E. coli infections in general. So even Prescriptions for Nutritional Healing recommends that a natural approach to fighting UTI's is best. Save the antibiotics for tuberculosis or something.

And sure enough, if I take my UTI Tea formula, and some Colloidal Silver, my having to pee problems are vanquished.

UTI Tea: one part marshmallow root, two parts horsetail(aka shavegrass) and three pars uva ursi. Simmer a palmful in two mugs of prified water for 5 minutes, then drink this tea on an empty stomach 4 times a day.

A New Species

Okay, I just got back from the Patti Smith concert, and what I will say of my rock goddess' performance: it was okay. Firefly and I did'nt go way up front, like we usually woulda, maybe that had something to do with it, or all of us being so old. I love Patti Smith, I really do, but the best show she's done lately was a free show at Waterloo Park few years ago, just before Gung Ho. Haven't gotten the new album yet.

But! The new species which of which I have now seen two representatives, right here in my own very permeable home! It is shaped like an American cockroach, but about 3/4 of the size. It is a roach of some sort, but just because of it's different coloration, and its mellower temperament, and obviously not being a cockroach, I choose not to smash it. Its wing covers (elytra) are sandy grey-brown, with darker speckles. And the elytra don't lie as closely pressed to the thorax, giving the critter a lighter, fluffier appearance. A lot of which I find disturbing about cockroaches (German or American) is their spazzy motion - the scurrying and the flying-at-your-head. This new species has mellower movements, as if it has not been subjected to the evolutionarily selective force of millions of swats over thousands of generations, to have the erratic, hyper-evasive manouevers of the pest roach species.

It reminds me, of when I used to be a produce-slogger at Wheatsville Food Coop for so many years. If there ever was a bug in the store, an employee would call on the PA system. I was defacto, the HUMANE bug removal point-person. My boss, MC, once defended leave the spiders that inhabited the light fixtures over our workspace, because they caught and ate flies, which are know to carry human pathogens. I was so proud of her. But one day, in a box of bananas from Guatemala, a live critter crawled out which was exactly the size and shape of an American cockroach, but because it was bright spring green, with a white running-stipedown its side, nobody found it to be disgusting. "Pretty" was even mentioned, and as I released it into the garden, it went with best wishes from many of the staff.

Participate in Creation of a Post Petroleum Age

We have a few moments here, which may stretch into five or ten years, where many of us are able to see what is coming down the pike, but the impact has not arrived. So we can afford to think about the sorts of things in a not-panicky way, but be fully motivated . The end of the petroleum age is upon us, and what do we do when oil-driven systems fail?

There is a really interesting e mag I'm starting to read, called "From the Wilderness." It deals with Washington politics, primarily, but it is looking into the future and taking peak oil into acccount. D-Fly, I thought you might be interested in this article http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/061504_call_action.html which is calls for submissions on how we can ease the transition into a post-petroleum world. Microliving and microconsuming would probably be a big part of it.

I just found my primer on consensus decision-making process, "Democracy in the Raw," I still think it is one of the best essays/how-to's on the topic. I should send it in, who knows? Maybe feudal gang-rule will win as we fight over the last canned food, but maybe neighborhoods and regions will decide to organize themselves more fairly in order to deal with needs and scarcities. Just maybe. Look for the rainbow.

Time Travelling at the Crossroads

Trailer Park Girl gave me permission to add posts retro-actively, and alter the date to suit the posting, so I have done a bit of time travelling. For example, at the very bottom of this blog I added a poem written on April 1st, and made the date of posting reflect that.

Past and present have been crossing paths for me lately. This does happen periodically in my life, and probably in yours too, so it doesn't freak me out too much. In my main case here, an old girlfriend showed up and left me a note at the shop, letting me know that her mother was in poor health and needing a visit from me. This lady, LD, was in fact a very big influence on my writing, being an author of short stories of edge-walker semi-biographical nature. We were arrested together the first time I got busted for an Earth First! protest. When she held the Dobie-Paisano fellowship and lived out on the ranch, I got to connect in a life-shaping way with Barton Creek, a chapter of my life not to be reopened for nearly 7 years later as my main Earth First! avocation. So her coming back into my life now that I've taken up this writing thing is fitting.

None of this was on my mind when, for seemingly no reason at all, this morning I pulled on my old purple Earth First! shirt, then ran into my old lover S, literally in the intersection (crossroads), who has just moved in down the street from me. I stopped in to tell him about LD, and to see what he knew, since he was the one who introduced us in the first place. He had heard about her health crises, and told me about the death of her man, and suggested, "Maybe she needs some love."

Well, yes, of course that is what we should do. S knows where she lives, and has a car...

Later on tonight another friend B looked at my shirt and quipped something about it being in honor of the anniversary, which went over the top of my head. Then later he informed me that it was the one-year anniversary of the conviction of a man, purportedly and Earth First!er, for burning SUV's and Hummers, and that a warning had been issued that Earth First! might make stikes against SUV's in honor of the anniversary of this man's conviction! Look, if I got this story all screwed up, it's 'cause I don't watch TV and wasn't even listening too good when B told me. I swear, its just coincidence that I wore this shirt! Still, I was more than a little paranoid on the way home, esp. considering the bit of time I planned to spend after midnight at my favorite (and very monitored) railroad crossing!

The other time-looping thing started some days ago, when I found a copy of a manual I wrote for the budding anti-corporate pro-democracy movement, a primer/how-to for groups to use facilitated consensus process, which I still believe could be made to work for a self-governing people. I will post it (in the past, naturally, like 1996) because everyone should know how to do this. It could become useful in the post-petroleum future. "Democracy In The Raw: Consensus Process for Facilitated Meetings," it's called. When I found it I thought of B, who was in Atlanta at the time, doing the work that is in continuum with the groups I was working with when I wrote this piece. Hmm, I wrote this on assignment after a conference that took place in Chicago, which is where my LoveMan is right now, he who drives an SUV, so see, I ain't goin' to be burning any, even if I am wearing an Earth First! shirt! Because that SUV driver might really be a homeless civil servant who lives in hisorher car! End of coincidence!

Summer Schedule

Remember the back-to-back entertainment schedule presented in "Ivieee's Picks through June?" Well, friends, I actually did go to see most of those shows and as a result of this and not having found a housemate soon enough, now I am a poor girl again who cooks at home and writes for entertainment. I did not even read the Chronicle because of the dangerous enticements to pay cover charges that might be contained therein.

HOW-ever,

I did see the new Harry Potter movie, *in cape* and *with wand* of course! My goal is to see it on the big screen 3 more times, so give me a call if you are going.
And I will see Patti Smith this Friday! A birthday show for my girlfriend FireFly, and I imagine, a politically potent opportunity it will be.
AND I got a sweet email from The Alice Rose tonight, thanking me and LoverMan (hereafter referred to a LM) for being such good fans and letting us know that things were going well in the studio and that they will be having some shows later on this month. I just hope that they are not during our beach trip, because yes, I am a crazy groupie fan of The Alice Rose, and so is LM, but wouldn't it be weird, sick, even, to alter your vacation plans to see a local band???
We just might be crazy groupie fans enough!

Further along in summer, and on through the fall, as of tonight I have committed myself to teaching a lot of classes, which tends to keep me off the street, and money coming in instead of going out. I teach classes on magic through the shop and as a part of Tejas Web, the local manifestation of the Reclaiming Tradition. So look for flyers around town or on TW's website, www.tejasweb.org or my shop's website, www.naturalmagic.us for more info.

Dark Moon Magic

This Wednesday night is the dark moon. That means that the moon has been getting smaller for the past two weeks and on that night it is as small and dark as it gets until Thursday at 4:27pm, when the moon will start putting on weight again.

In magic, we take the clues the moon gives (the Doctrine of Signatures) and do workings of minimization, banishing, exorcism, making smaller, getting rid of, undoing, or if called for and we are prepared to accept the consequences, cursing.

On Wednesdays we are ruled by the influence of Mercury, the god of messages, diplomacy, science, chastity, and self-improvement, it seems like a good dark moon to get rid of negative things that involve irrational emotions, delusions, lies, misrepresentations, and bad communications.

See where I am going with this? Tomorrow night would be an excellent time to do workings to banish George W. Bush and the neocon religious right from power and the White House. My plan, and suggestion, is to do this every dark moon through the November election.

At the crossroads is the place for this sort of work. I like places where railroads cross roadways, myself.

We banish this seeming Dark Age
No wrongful war do we wage.
From power is George Bush relived
And no more deceipts are believed.
By November this administration is failed
Bush and Cheney are run out on a rail.
Polarization, misrepresentation at an end
With democracy, tolerance and peace
Just around the bend.

Perhaps you can do a better chant. I might, myself. Then, you walk away from the crossroads without looking back.

An excellent follow-up would be to, upon the New Moon, and I would recommend this Friday, do a working to call a new, beautiful awakening of peace and justice and reason, into the nation, a working with Iris and the Rainbow of Hope after the storm. Because you don't want to leave a power vacuum. Magic, like Nature, abhores a vacuum. I will be doing this at - YEAH! The Patti Smith show!!!

How will we imagine and build a country that would earn the respect and admiration of the world, a nation that could really help to minimize the suffering inevitable that we are heading for, the bottleneck of civilization? By which I mean the end of the Petroleum Age of Humankind, friends.

Blame the Camel Spiders

I exchange email with a cousin of mine who lives “on the Mainland” (from the Galveston perspective). We love each other deeply, tho I am an arch liberal/radical and he is evidently a total Gulf-Coast variety neoconservative. Earlier in April this year we had an exchange about the war. It started with the spiders. You know, that doctored photo that went around in forwarded emails showing the “camel spiders” that soldiers in Iraq were encountering. Our actual text is in italics. Nevermind, this blogspot doesn't do italics.

COUSIN
(photo of spiders attached)
Are these things for real?

IVIEEE (reconstructed approximately from memory)
Hmmm, they can jump 15 feet, and run (at 20mph) screaming at your shadow. Cuz’n, did you know they took the word “gullibility out of the dictionary? Here’s what they say about camel spiders: (.......) But don’t take my word for it, go to Snopes.

COUSIN
No, I didn't go to snopes. I'll take your word for it. It's the reason I asked you in the first place. Doesn't matter, i ain't goin over there anyways. Fuckin place is flat full of shit i'd rather see dead than alive.So I'm teachin ya manners? Alright! Nice to know I'm good for somethin,lol! Later.........

(Now what does he mean by “shit,” spiders, camels, ... People? I had to ask:)

IVIEEE (reconstructed exactly from memory)
Okay, so first we went there to find and destroy the weapons of mass destruction. Then we wer there to liberate the Iraqi people. But now we get down to the nitty gritty, we are there because we’d rather see them dead than alive? Just trying to keep up, here...

COUSIN
We? What's this "we" shit? Did I ask you to be like me? Think for yourself, kiddo! I don't need support for my opinion. Last I heard 70% of the little bastards thought there was nothing wrong with killing Americans. But, the funny thing is, I've heard from friends,(and relatives) coming back from there that a lot of them really appreciate what we've done for them and are really glad we came. No, not relatives of yours, these are my extended family. So, actually, turnin the place to glass with a nice nuclear device really is not an option. But as far as your little terroristic friends go, hmm, gee, I wish that had the guts to be as vocal as you.It would make things easier to distinguish those who should stay above ground and those who should be below.And don't give me that load about how they're fighting to preserve their religion and way of life.Their cause stinks worse than that fertilizer you use on your ganja plants. Asimilate them to youth here and you have a bunch of spoiled brats with more testosterone than brains too lazy to pick up a shovel and improve themselves and their way of life. No glory in that! Much better to blow up planes full of mothers, children and people who really do make a difference in the name of "Allah" . Basically no different than the crackheads we have around here.

(End of exchange.)

Wow, I was going to reply to this, made a couple of starts: "turnin the place to glass with a nice nuclear device is not an option? Because that would really make it hard to get the oil out!" I guess the raw hate and invective just pushed me so far back that I could not. I was stunned into silence, and I have not emailed him since. But I think we should remember that this is the family environment most of us exist in. I have surrounded myself with tolerant, liberal, multicultural people, but undiluted American hate is no further away than the next Thanksgiving gathering, for most of us. They are sticking with George Bush and Cheney, and they think it is America’s prerogative to stomp and kill other nations. In past discussions I have had to remind him that I was a family member who would be run out of the country if his proposed "love it or leave it political pogroms were actually carried out. But if you think my redneck neocon family is scary, just wait til you figure out how many fundamentalist christians really believe that George Bush was elected to bring on Armageddon so that they can get on with the Rapture.

Theories on Love

My LoverMan left for Chicago this afternoon, a work trip, then an air hockey tournament. We have been spending so much good time together that I am anticipating some lonesome nights where, instead of cleaning house or anything practical, I might just jump-start this bloggy thing since I will have many man-free hours on my hands. But since love is on my mind...

In my line of work, which is magic, making potions, and running my witchy shop, we get a lot of questions about love. How to get it, how to hold it, how to make it work. A lot of time is spent talking people out of casting love spells on people. The second big lecture Zarah and I give is how not to be taken advantage of in love, how to get out of "bad love." In fact, our usual advice is that matters of love are best worked on in mundane, non-magical methods. This is where a magic shoppe becomes a low-budget mental health resource.

It was not so long ago that I felt myself unqualified to give advice about love. After the end of a fourteen year love relationship, I had a couple of short-term flings, then headed straight for two very ill-advised love affairs that were very painful when I got dumped. After the second of these I wised up and stayed out of love and off the market for a full six months, during which time I figured out that I was a really cool chick who deserved good love or I wasn't having any of it. When I was ready to make a go of it again I realised that I had no clue, that after a 14 year romance, I was basically at the college-age maturity and street smarts about dating. In talking about this to my dear sweet ex, I found that he had come to the same conclusion, that he needed some professional advice! And went out and got some books, which he loaned me, in the nick of time.

Bad titles but wow! What an education! I was amazed and wondered, "Why don't they teach this stuff in high school?" Most of us waste a huge percentage of our productive, young adult lives getting into bad love or recovering from it. Nina Attwood, Be Your Own Dating Service, and Date Lines: Everything from Hello to I Do. Told you the titles were bad...

A few basics. One is: There is no such thing a a soul mate. Get over it! For each and every one of us, there are many, hundreds if not thousands of ideal mates with whom we can forge a rewarding relationship. For crying out loud, there are 6 1/2 BILLION humans now, so we can dispence with the scarcity issues. Almost every week, I work with someone who, because they believe so-and-so is their soul mate, flounders in pain, causing pain, trying to make a doomed relationship function with aforementioned "soul mate." I think that this feeling of "once in a lifetime" evolved from when there were not many humans to mate with, and we had few choices of mates. Maybe back then, before the huge population spike, you might have had to put up with a lot of misery from your soul mate in order to get laid and have a shot at reproducing. Not anymore. We can afford to be very selective, and to move on if the thing is not exactly what we want.

Second is: Do move on if your love isn't what you want and need, and the quicker the better, because of a human emotional process called "attachment." People get attached to people, and the more time spent, and the more intimate that time spent is, the more attached you become to that person, whether or not the relationship is rewarding and healthy, or hopelessly codependant and incompatible. Breaking the emotional bonds of attachment (what we call heartbreak) gets harder and harder the longer we stay in the nonfunctional relationship. So, say, that was fun but it won't work, bye-bye, no we can't just be friends.

Third is: Good love and rewarding, lasting relationships are based on a foundation of shared values and desire to be in the relationship. Shared values means you see eye-to-eye on things like politics, manners, lifestyle, boundaries, religion, morality. The big stuff. The "opposites attract" thing is a lie.

I know that I personally wasn't grown-up enough to qualify for any of thes things until I was close to forty. And by "grown-up" I mean mentally healthy, understanding who I am and that that was okay and what I want out of life and from a relationship to some degree of certainty, and figuring out that it was okay to ask for it.

That mentally healthy thing sure is the challenge for many of us, and I've told my customers that "True love is made possible by good mental health."

Insomniacal Meanderings (first in an innumerable series)

I have trouble sleeping, and my logging habit may proceed forthwith.
Tribute must be paid, for me even knowing about blogging, to my dear girlfriend Trailer Park girl, http://www.crossroads.net/jnazak/blog/ and she will have to be my first and main inspiration. Before her, I had never heard of this format, and not very subsequent, I was hooked on her writings, simple diary entries and musings in the theme of big ideas within a small-scale dwelling in the South Austin biome. StarrMusings and SloppyEnchilada are my only other blogger influences to date.

LIFEstyle, food, politics, religion, music, and love may turn out to be recurring topics if I manage to keep this thing going without sacrificing any of my other written goals. I only have so much time for writing, and I hope my projects don't compete, but compleate each other.

That said, here is just a bit of food and lifestyle, which happened tonight: A couple of years ago, my dear friend gave me a cauldron/hibachi/bbq grillthing which I parked on my porch, waiting patiently for a less brokenhearted period of my life. Sure enough, when romance stroked my tummy, the little rusted potbellied cooker came out. It immediately responded to love and hunger and a two-beer buzz, producing grilled portabella burgers, veggies, and now, grilled fish. "This thing is great! I'm delighted with its design!" said my LoverMan. Now we take it to the lake, in any cardboard apple box cluttering my kitchen, just in case a grill is not available, and now we might even turn up our noses at the county-park-provided cooking facilities in favor of the Majik Cowldron. And we spark it up in the front yard, amongst the weeds, as we did tonight.

But before you put something on the Cowldron, try this version of the Manhattan: 3 cubes ice, two jiggers Wellers bourbon whiskey, one jigger Nolly Pratt sweet vermouth, three splashes Angosura bitters, a thin slice of orange, skin bruised and squeezed, a big splash of the syrup of the jar of Maraschino cherries, and one cherry thereof. A very adult drink, but! how well it goes with anything vaguely Southern, BBQ'd or Cajun.

I asked my pal Grouper to report back to me which fish were ecologically and spiritually okay to eat, but until that study comes in, I take Doc at Wheatsville's recommendations and offerings. Very affordable among those was the Tilapia, which I put into a marinade of olive oil, lemon juice, bitter vermouth, Tony Chachere's, garlic powder, fresh lemon basil, TX tarragon, and lemon thyme. We started a fire of Cedar Elm twigs, offerings from my yard trees, then moving up to a few two-inch thick Pecan branches, which I pick up biking or walking home, whatever I can carry, because Pecan is so good for cooking on this little grill. Even though it is June in Central Texas, starting a fire in the front yard was pleasant, and what with the Shoo mosquito potion and the six sticks of SuperHit incense, even the monsoon-puddle-bred skeeters stayed a safe 10-ft radius around the cooker. We used the burning flames to reheat the leftover blackeyed peas and greens as sides. Once the coals were down, well it was two minutes on one side and 30 seconds on the other side for the Tilapia, barely enough time for me to make another Manhattan for LoverMan and me to go with dinner.

This might seen very gourmet, if we were not barefoot, or Martha Stewart if we were not so poor, or extravagant, if it were not so cheap and cooked on twigs from the yard!, shallow if it wasn't so eco, or degenerate, if it wasn't so healthy!

I like to imagine, how, after the oil crash, we could retain a few of these sorts of lifestyle and diet pleasure with simple modifications. The fish may be perch from my creek, or pigeons even, and the oil is sesame fom where we planted in what was the street. The greens and blackeyed peas grow real good here, if we bothered. Now the whiskey, we would need to import some expertise on that....

Natural and Spiritual Aspects of Poison Ivy

Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) is "a shrub or climbing vine, older stems of vines fastened to trees by a dense growth of aerial rootlets and often climbing into treetops. Common to abundant in and at the edges of wooded areas, and containing an oil capable of causing intense itching and watery blisters through contact with the skin. Leaves variable in size, divided into 3 leaflets on an often reddish tinged petiole; the terminal leaflet symmetric, roughly ovate but lobed and toothed, larger than the lateral ones; lateral leaflets are asymmetric, lobed and toothed on the side toward the leaf base and usually only toothed on the opposite side, turning orange and red in autumn. Flowers greenish white, inconspicuous, in clusters up to 4 inches long. Fruit cream to white, sometime a dull yellow, spherical, about 1/4 inch in diameter, conspicuous on bare twigs in winter." -Brother Daniel Lynch, C.S.C., Native & Naturalized Woody Plants of Austin & the Hill Country

Poison Ivy and Poison Oak are folk names for the same plant, often used interchangeably and with much confusion, depending on the region. Poison sumac, a related species with five or more leaflets and growing as a shrub or small tree (though not in central Texas) is also often confused with Poison Ivy. East of Austin, in the Lost Pines, and further east, in the Piney Woods of east Texas and the southeast, there is a closely related species, Toxicodendron quercifolium, which could be more properly called Poison Oak, at least in Texas. ("Quercifolium" means "oak leaf" in Latin nomenclature.) Both local species, as well as several other Toxicodendron species in other parts of the continent, and Poison Sumac, have the same oil, urushiol, which is the substance that gives
Poison Ivy its most charming reputation. Urushiol oil is extremely potent: Only 1 nanogram (billionth of a gram) is needed to cause a rash, and an average is 100 nanograms for most people. 1/4 ounce of urushiol is all that is needed to cause a rash in every person on earth! Specimens of urushiol several centuries old have found to cause dermatitis in sensitive people. 1 to 5 years is normal for urushiol oil to stay active on any surface including dead plants The word is derived from urushi, Japanese name for lacquer.

The reaction to urushiol is not a toxic reaction; it is a true allergy, differing from other skin allergies only in that about 80% of all humans are (or could potentially become) allergic to this substance! Like other allergens, it takes at least one exposure involving direct contact with the oil for a person to become sensitized; after the potentiating exposure/s, every contact begins a series of agitated immune responses resulting in the familiar rashes, blisters and oozing pustules.

Poison Ivy's message is specific to humans. Birds and other creatures eat the berries, and even goats and cows and deer at least incidentally browse the foliage, with no negative consequences whatsoever.

Brother Daniel Lynch points out that Poison Ivy is an edge species. She springs up at the edge of forest, like many other vines will do, to close in the forest, and to seal it off, if any disturbance has opened the canopy. This is why roadsides and even wide trails are favored habits of Poison Ivy. She guards the edges of the forest and says, "None shall pass!" (Unless of course they are the immune 20%) Another edge environment she frequents is waterways, and so she protects the erodable soils along creeks' and rivers' sides.

What is a warning to some can be a teasing invitation to others. If we heed Poison Ivy's message to tread lightly in these sensitive areas, if we know her face well enough to avoid direct contact with her body, she will often lead us to places of beauty seldom seen by less mindful two leggers. Once we have been initiated into this process, she may also lead us in other environs, where she does not grow in body, but wanders in spirit, into exquisite discoveries. Whenever we find ourselves wandering from one experience to the next unexpected, and then realizing that we are blissfully lost, we have hearkened unto her call.

Another of Poison Ivy's lessons is the ability to discern between a thing and another that seems to be the same. By discerning the difference between her trifold leaflets and the trifold leaflets of the Box Elder, for example, or between the five leaflets of Virginia Creeper and the sometimes occurrence of Poison Ivy manifesting five leaflets, we can discern between reality and something masquerading as truth.

If we have learned that we are sensitive to Poison Ivy's message, our first inclination is to know how to recognize her in the wild. She is for many of us the first plant species we know how to identify, but, she hopes, not the last. She is the one who initiates us into plant identification, but she sees no reason that other plant species should not be known by name and reputation as well.

The receiving of wisdom is sometimes related to the reception of a poison, as in the poison of the Amanita Mushroom, or other poisons of hallucinogenic plants and animals. The serpent Priestesses of ancient Crete and other Oracles around the world have used the toxins of snakebite to receive visions and truths, and the bite of spiders is also similar to this injection of knowledge that is sometimes painful to the recipient. Likewise, the poison of Poison Ivy is correspondent with wisdom that, in this case, dawns painfully after the fact. Her teachings therefore speak to the gaining of insight and compassion through the process of Regret. Poison Ivy can help up with regret, loss, and grieving. She supports herself on strong trees in the forest, and so can we in times of need.

By the doctrine of signatures, according to which the appearance of a thing reveals at least some of its true nature, Poison Ivy shows herself to be sacred to Hecate, who rules most of the baneful, toxic, and entheogenic herbs. "Leaves of three," each leaf seeming a bit like a beckoning hand, indicate the triple goddess, in this case this goddess of the crossroads, who monitors the choices in life that we make. If we find ourselves at a crossroads in life, with a difficult choice to make, perhaps Poison Ivy's link to Hecate can be availed. If we ignore her advice, well, it would not be for the first time.

Poison Ivy makes a beautiful landscaping plant in situations where human access is unnecessary or unwanted. Her protective role in nature is perhaps an underutilized strength in urban neighborhoods. Back fences and property lines are natural places to plant Poison Ivy, where she could be a lovely wild backdrop to more formal plantings, especially taking into account the fall colors she provides. Any place overseen (but not overgrown) by Poison Ivy would be appropriate for the household pet cemetery or meditation nook. If you need to trim your Poison Ivy, simply wear thick plastic bags over your hands and trim into a plastic leaf bag, while uttering the appropriate prayers and obeisances. The trimmings will often root easily if deposited in appropriate habitats, perhaps those places in need of Protection, Truthfulness, Discernment, Wisdom, Compassion, or aid in the process of Regret. Planting Poison Ivy can be a truly revolutionary, enwildening action, politically, personally, and spiritually, and will certainly strengthen the bond between you and this powerful Plant Ally.

Cedar Stevens
June 2004