magic

there is magic in the air tonight
the moon is bathing the land in night
owl eyed Athena is looking down on me
faces stare at me
a warrior
a priestess
i am reading the iliad it is time

dogs,flokati,boy sleeping

Amsterdam

 I was greeted by our prime minister (the previous one, now) on a giant television outside the airport

 I didn't see much of the city, only from afar, but I did see the old shipyard. got to know it a lot, walking up and down

 some rehearsing, a little music, telling, meeting people

 and a flag..Greece was on my mind a lot, since we are being turned inside out by political powergames

 a greek question mark in one of our singing bowls

 colours on walls. the grey sky seems relentless, just as I suppose our sun is to people coming from grey skied countries

 language learning outside the mens rest room. looks like broken english..I know its the other way round. And, Martine, do women need telling?

 bench floor patterns during nightime

swans in couples
saw a raven
and fat self satisfied seagulls
ducks, and black ones that I learnt were called coots


I didn't spend much time in Amsterdam, but I saw people, met some I'm glad to have met, hung out with members of the pack, told and listened to stories
a good trip
maybe another time I will see the city, and, who knows, a blogging friend or two....

Back, sort of

I'm back in a way..

The tent was pitched, in the middle of a huge "square" in the city of Kerkyra on the island of corfu

I haven'y had time since Thursday to upload the fotos

There were moments of bliss, the tent full of people listening, entranced, to stories

There were moments of exhaustion ..driving the van by a river in the mountains..8 hrs drive..arriving to find there was no provision for electricity(how else would the drill work? or would we be hammering into tarmac, 45 holes?) and then the police hadn't been notified so we had to stop until that got sorted out..

and then having to be there, watching, guarding, telling, cleaning rugs and pillows for 16 out of 24 hours

but it was all ok in the end,

more than ok

magic

yes, I believe in magic

moments:

storks clacking away in their treetops at dawn

a tiny bird stealing wool from a flokati rug to line its nest

the lizard that stood guard next to me for hours looking at the tent from its stone, there in the park

the children talking to the genie of the lamp, they saw it, they really did

the swallows swooping and crying to each other every morning and evening

the people from morocco and afganistan and albania who gathered in and around the tent to tell me their stories after everyone had left

Thodoris and Alekos who catered for an "official" event in the tent who fed anyone who asked for food after the mayor and the ambassadors had had their fill of couscous and hummus

the way the young men looked at the meat before making the courage to ask for some

oh the stories I heard...

star

this has been in my mind since the stars a few posts ago..have you heard the story where the girl has married the moon and she goes to his house in the sky? there is a wide plain, and there are lots of people kneeling with their bottoms sticking up and their heads in the ground. later in the story she taps on one persons shoulder and he lifts his head. in the ground there is a hole, and she sees the earth and her place. when the being turns around and looks at her, she sees that he has only one huge eye in the middle of his forehead.. he is a star

off to bed, long day tomorrow, solstice storytelling begins. I'll post about that, I promise..

new

luka cat dog

her foot is on the big mythology book that serves as a table sometimes

yesterday I stitched all day, started 3 little cloths. The pictures are terrible, but I can't find the charger for the camera.

after watching jude's videos "making" discipline went down the drain. I had to get these out of my system

this is a the literal one.. a landscape

a ship on a winters night

and the holy wild cow womanstaring at the bases took much longer than the actual stitching

and there is some digesting to be done

and now, some housework

we are reaching the b.c. era- before civilisation

the solstice, 1

from 2007, a story...here

that is me on "living on earth" a radio program that airs in the USA.. I was in a radio studio in Greece, and they connected through internet phone

sweatpea..not a video, but close

(the photo is from 1996..)