It has been over a year and, one day, I might write about the time spent away, but for now I am happy to share the beginnings of a new project being undertaken by an inspirational friend of mine. The space in which this story starts has held many stories before this one,
but before very long, here, as you step through the door, your senses will be greeted by the familiar, intoxicating (and yet, surprisingly, still little known) world of all that is cocoa and chocolate.
It seems fitting that these walls will hold history, process and the magic of artisans learned over centuries, whilst providing a special space for everyone to relax learn, unwind, share and enjoy.
I have been very fortunate to be present at the beginning of several of my friend's projects and so look forward to seeing where this one will transport us all.
Today, the last day of naphopomo, began with a smile
whilst meeting up with a best friend and reading the
names of the boats at the fish market.
'Doggy Style' caught my eye!
'T', having finished selling in town when we caught up with him,
was selling for other people and behind him, through the wire
fencing, I saw
another time, lives lived before on Melville Street.
It has been enjoyable, this daily posting of 'something'.
I have not always risen to the ocassion, but the naphopomo
challenge was interesting.
Our 'day to day' (isolated within a frame) spoke of inner
things that we were unaware of, attuned to a moment
that otherwise may have passed by, unnoticed. Thanks
again to Karen aka Chookooloonks who brought us all here , to this wonderful space where many lives,
lived in numerous places,that have been shared through a lens,
with lessons loved and learned, united creative souls
of many persuasions.
It takes a special kind of person to do this, a person
who can see beyond her own boundaries to embrace,
inspire and include one and all.
Much love Karen and thank you xxx
Making an early start this year, not going to be left behind
with cobwebbing and cleaning and all there is to mind.
A true Grenadian Christmas requires a lot of elbow grease,
beginning now might help us find the path to inner peace!
With gratitude to the very wonderful Karen Walrond aka Chookooloonks
I am delighted to be participating in #NaPhoPoMo . Why not join in too?
As today is All Souls we remember all mothers who have passed, most
especially Betty and Ivy. xxx
A couple of years ago, the ancient guardian, that had stood at the entrance of the steep sided road that winds a circuitous way to the village for as long as anyone could remember, fell. The earth vibrated with the deep rumbling crash as one giant arm of the sentinel hit the ground. We held our breath. The Silk Cotton Tree, having watched over this community for hundreds of years, home to spirits, Soucouyant and jumbie, had finally lost the strength to stand with outstretched limb. T took to the road with everyone else and went 'to see'. All traffic both in and out of the village ceased, electricity was cut off and before long the sound of chain saws and numerous instructions could be heard. A taxi driver and his passengers had had a narrow escape as did Bev who owns the adjacent spice shop but luckily everyone was alright. Here is a link to the local news report on that day. Post by GBN Television News.
Some time later, T returned home with all the talk and a slice of this great buttressed sentry which is where it has stayed, unadorned, until now. I have long been an avid reader and admirer of Rima Staines's
wonderful work and blog The Hermitage and in that spirit, but without her ability, set out to paint a memory on the slice of this special tree that we once ran past as night fell.
Tonight is Halloween, and I hope a fitting occasion to mark the passing of a keeper of souls.
There is a place you can go after visiting someone in the hospital. It helps to sit there, just below the fort, and watch and not think too much before returning home to daily chores and tasks and the strange feeling you get when your life is temporarily on hold, someone else's lies in the balance and yet the world continues on all around you.
When a loved one passes you can help the family by staying home and making bakes with the youngest grandchild.
Once the family get together and decide on a funeral director, personal preferences, finances etc., the spot for the tomb chosen and approved, building materials found, borrowed or bought, you will then need to provide a lot of food and drinks (for all the people who come to help clear the bush and build the tomb), specifically Clarke's Court Rum and Oil Down.
You will need, firewood, plenty breadfruit, callaloo, fig, pumpkin, coconut, spices and be prepared to do a lot of peeling and grating.
Everyone will help in one way or another, be it the loan of a large pot, the donation of ingredients, the kneading of dumplings or the shouting of advice/instructions. You will need to do this on a regular basis until the tomb is completed.
In the meantime, over the course of the next few days, someone will donate cases of beer, someone will donate rum, someone will give the family a pig.
You will need to clean in and around the house.
A day or so after the death comes 'The Praise'. From about 8 p.m. until midnight, people come and sing religious songs and say prayers in the house of the deceased. You will need extra chairs. You may be asked to provide a Bible, a candle and a vase of flowers. It is customary to repay this kindness by providing bakes, fishcake, saltfish, cakes, Vita Malt, coffee and/or cocoa tea. Someone may kindly send sandwiches, juice and cake. The people who are leading the praise will let you know when they are ready to eat and drink. This will require a lot of people helping out in the kitchen who will also need feeding etc. Also, the people who cleared the land and are preparing the tomb will be outside offering their support and, as well as food, will be in need of a fully loaded ice cold bar and a tarpaulin rigged against the elements.
Between the time of death up to the funeral there will be a lot of family meetings.
You will all have to wait for family to come from away.
Wash, repair, iron your funeral clothes well in advance of the funeral.
The day before the funeral it helps if everyone gets together to prepare the food in advance for the next day. Various people will make plans to cook various dishes in various locations with their teams of people. Get up very early on the morning of the funeral and start to grate the coconut. Someone will come and help you. You may feel overwhelmed but everyone else will know what needs to be done. Someone will make the fireside, someone will bring wood, someone will bring a next pot, someone will call and say come for the cake, someone will add the sugar to the juice, someone will help you peel pumpkin, someone will make dumplings, someone will cook, someone will peel the fig. Someone will tell you what to do next. Someone in the local shop will help you out with whatever you have forgotten.
Some of the ladies who made The Praise will arrive to make the wreaths. They will need chairs and tables. You will give them what flowers you have, twine, some coconut fronds and they will bring some with them. They will need juice and cake mid morning.
When your food finishes cooking someone will help remove it to a safe place. By now it will be lunchtime and you will share one pot with all who came to help.
Eat. Bathe. Dress.
Walk to the church, someone will stop and give you a ride. The coffin, which will be open, will be at the doorway to the church.
Sit.Stand. Sing. Pray. Listen.
After the service, the coffin will be placed in the funeral home's vehicle and all the mourners will walk behind it to the family land to the accompaniment of soca hymns. Sway a little, it helps.
Once the priest has blessed the tomb and the coffin is place inside and sealed, the singing will be led by the same ladies who sang The Praise, while the family are now free to mourn. When all songs have been sung everyone from near and far, (there will be a lot of people), will return to the family yard for food and drinks. Someone will help to share, someone will run the bar, your job is to make sure that all get food and drinks. It will seem like the biggest party you have ever given. Eventually everyone will go home. (you may find some cinderella slippers left on your veranda) You will have done your best and realise that there are some amazing people out there and that everyone understands and knows what you have just gone/ are going through. Thank you to every single person who. in one way or another, helped my amazing, strong, loving, kind hardworking husband and his family give their loving wife/ mother/ friend, the very best of goodbyes.
Rest in Peace my dear friend and mother in law, Miss Veronica Ivy aka ToeToe xxx
In my mind I am diving down as deep as I can into the darkest depths of crimson damask, weighted with multitudinous froths of lace edged petticoats, breathing heady, smuggled, 18th Century Fragonard inspired scents of rose, jasmine and vetiver combined with the heat, sweat and dust of the Caribbean. I am still searching for the music that I know she danced to. I sink into the myth and magic of whispered tales from long ago.
Imbolc is the time of
cleaning, sweeping, sowing, dreaming,
new beginnings, self forgiveness,
nourishment, light, renewal,
candles, cake and milk.
In the dark days of February in Northern climes
when the days are short and the nights are long,
between Winter Solstice and Spring
Brighid brings life and hope and sustenance.
She also offers me the perfect opportunity
to finish the cleaning I was supposed to have done
for Christmas .
Rarely do we get to watch art or craft programs on television.
T subscribes to the sports channels, being an avid cricket and
football fan and we have a basic package that brings us various
'reality' TV shows, CNN, God, cartoons, local 'news' and
advertisements that exhort us to purchase products unavailable
here. However, currently showing on Channel 44, PBS, is Craft in America. Wonderful. Catch it while you can!
One never knows when our cable provider will decide we
have seen enough and take it off without warning, as recently
experienced with the final episode of Survivor Philippines!
At this time of year I yearn for the damp darkening days of autumn, ancestral rituals and rites.
The strong tug of deep Celtic roots demand acknowledgement and rightly so. To deny where one comes from sometimes seems essential to survival in a foreign land but, on special occasions such as tonight, it is very necessary to return in some way. So I sneaked the pumpkin from the yard and carved it quickly before T came home, not that he minded but ... Now I think of sweet chestnuts and how breadnut taste similar when roasted. Apples are absent but the feeling is the same. You can read about Samhain here, if you would like to. Tomorrow we will clean the graves of T's ancestors for All Souls, plant flowers and light candles For now, I place the lantern in the window and glimpse the thin veil between worlds .
Of course we need a little music to bring to this night and I can think of nothing more wonderful than.........
I forbid you maidens all that wear gold in your hair
To travel to Carterhaugh for young Tam Lin is there
None that go by Carterhaugh but they leave him a pledge
Either their mantles of green or else their maidenhead
Janet tied her kirtle green a bit above her knee
And she's gone to Carterhaugh as fast as go can she
She'd not pulled a double rose, a rose but only two
When up there came young Tam Lin, says "Lady, pull no more"
"And why come you to Carterhaugh without command from me?"
"I'll come and go", young Janet said, "and ask no leave of thee"
Janet tied her kirtle green a bit above her knee
And she's gone to her father as fast as go can she
Well, up then spoke her father dear and he spoke meek and mild
"Oh, and alas, Janet," he said, "I think you go with child"
"Well, if that be so," Janet said, "myself shall bear the blame
There's not a knight in all your hall shall get the baby's name”
For if my love were an earthly knight as he is an elfin grey
I'd not change my own true love for any knight you have"
Janet tied her kirtle green a bit above her knee
And she's gone to Carterhaugh as fast as go can she
"Oh, tell to me, Tam Lin," she said, "why came you here to dwell?"
"The Queen of Faeries caught me when from my horse I fell
And at the end of seven years she pays a tithe to Hell
I so fair and full of flesh and feared it be myself
But tonight is Hallowe'en and the faerie folk ride
Those that would their true love win at Miles Cross they must buy
First let past the horses black and then let past the brown
Quickly run to the white steed and pull the rider down
For I'll ride on the white steed, the nearest to the town
For I was an earthly knight, they give me that renown
Oh, they will turn me in your arms to a newt or a snake
But hold me tight and fear not, I am your baby's father
And they will turn me in your arms into a lion bold
But hold me tight and fear not and you will love your child
And they will turn me in your arms into a naked knight
But cloak me in your mantle and keep me out of sight"
In the middle of the night she heard the bridle ring
She heeded what he did say and young Tam Lin did win
Then up spoke the Faerie Queen, an angry queen was she
”Woe betide her ill-fought face, an I'll death may she die”
"Oh, had I known, Tam Lin," she said, "what this night I did see
I'd have looked him in the eyes and turned him to a tree”
Back in June, I damaged my foot and, with the exception of the occasional bus ride to town to pay bills etc, I have stayed home. The foot was maintained in various states of elevation, therapy- both hot and cold,- a plaster cast, heated soft candle mixed with aloes and camphor massage, then wrapped in a black plastic bag for two days (courtesy of T's sister who has recently returned from vet school) nerve and bone tonic together with more than a few incantations, prayers and a tiny bag of 'protection', just to be on the safe side. I was really disappointed at my lack of stoicism and bravery and somewhat surprised by my overwhelming thoughts of gloom and doom! T, needless to say, rallied to the situation with endless enthusiasm and kindness, providing every need, much love, understanding and more besides. So, perhaps you can imagine my delight at being able to 'make the rounds' around Cornell yesterday! It is an easy walk, on the old estate road, that takes you up past Annandale Falls and, instead of continuing up to the dam and the forestry, you take a left by the big mango tree, just before Kool Nursery. Now the road climbs a little higher before you reach Cornell. Here, before hurricane Ivan, was full of nutmeg trees, a very cool and shady place with the foliage so dense that it was dark even on a sunny day. We were pleased to see a lot of replanting and new growth. The track levels out now and then drops down through Mango and back into the village of Willis.
T has his breakfast as we take a five just after taking the left turn for Cornell. These stainless bowls are great by the way, they come with a plastic seal lid, from Bargain House in town, $20e.c. for a set of 5. I drink ice water and relish in the foliage and peace and quiet.
Cornell is more or less as I remember it but trees are being planted and the land nurtured.
......and I would like to stay here a while but
we continue on around the corner where we can see.....The Sea!
There is something missing from our walk, no Beres or Xena. We decided to leave them at home on this our first venture out together since The Foot, but it is strange being here without them. I think T thought he may have to carry me home, but all was well and he waited for me patiently as I foraged around with my nose in the bush that I have missed for so long.
On the way back down the hill to home, T told me all about La Diablesse
(This video is of the truly wonderful Richardo Keens-Douglas telling his La Diablesse story )
and how this is her toothbrush.
A frisson, a shiver of something as we walk past the plant and on down the hill and then, with a skip in my step and a happy, happy heart, home. Thank you to everyone who made me well again. I am so grateful.
