Migration

I think we all follow psychic migrations at times. I'm thinking about Vaux's Swifts, how they hover into dark clouds and swoop down into Chapman Elementary here in Portland. The hawks come and pick them off, diving into their midst, hovering at the chimney's edges, devouring them and coming back for more (in their own cyclical patterns). I am in awe of these swifts, as they come like clockwork every September to the city before they continue on their journey to Central America. They know, in their hearts, they are meant to be here, to collect together and rest and perch against the bricks inside the chimney. I consider my family like this: we gather and rest together at holidays, feeding each other spiritual nutrients. And I keep getting these images (romanticized, grant you) of the Chapman children, willing to be chilled back in the '80s, to keep the heat off and rub their hands together so the birds knew they could call a place Home.

Friday night Jennifer, Karin, and I went to the Sauvie Island Corn Maze, the first one, the "non-haunted" but almost more eerie one, where we bumped into strangers and got lost over three miles of vegetation. Children of the Corn, yes. The Shining, yes. I loved being there in that smell of farm, of hay and lashing crisp air. That caramel cider tasted incredibly delicious as we sat on hay bales under the cloudy sky and stars and warmed our hands. This whole past weekend was a slice of warming one's hands....Mom and I explored Sellwood, found the closed-for-the-season carnival, and walked through it, witness to peeling clown signs and rusty machinery and silent game booths. Very Lost Boys -- it's like the vampire teens were sleeping, preparing for spring harvest, and we got to walk through their winter cocoons.

I had something (emotionally) yucky happen today. I'm going to keep it in my heart, a dripping heart sacrifice for the Ice Queen (read: the lovely card Tara gave me that looks like it's straight from Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, where the witch-queen walks alongside the polar bear in some Arctic freezeland, searching for heat.) This yucky tidbit, I already know, is a strengthening of my spirit. I know its reason for happening and I'm okay with it.

Witches. This brings me to witches, the way they burn sacrifices and sometimes themselves. I gain strength from THEIR strength, from their abilities to pull cloaked hoods over their heads and cast spells that can bring love or pain or desire. I've always felt one with the witches, their misunderstood natures. I somehow am able to tap into their creative migrations, their movements toward understanding why they desire to cast spells that could inflict destinies. Who knows.

This brings me to my final note: I bought the movie poster yesterday for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Freddy is holding out his razors, and the Teen Heroes (the teen witches/superheroes/misfits) are poised on them, ready to combine their unique talents & efforts together to fight Evil. They are their own migration, aren't they?....[Just now got a call. One of the participants from MSC is in Active Dying phase. He's my library buddy. I suppose he's migrating in his own way, too.]