The Story Midwife

It's a Game!

So, I have some news to share. 

But rather than just share it outright I thought we'd play a little game.  As of right this very minute, my little blog has 215 comments.  There is a number - very close to 215 - that is intimately associated with my news.  When the comments reach this number, I'll announce the news.

But wait!  There's more!

The lucky poster of the yet unknown number will be the recipient of any CD of their choice from my online music store: The River's Voice Music Store

Questions? Thoughts? Guesses?

And we're off...

The Story Midwife gets a little press

Church Marks Winter Solstice:
People light candles and walk through a labyrinth to represent the soul's journey out of darkness. 

Iowa's largest newspaper, the Des Moines Register, did a nice little write up about the Winter Solstice concert/ritual I did last week. One little tidbit that did not make it to press: just after the candlelit spiral labyrinth walk and just before the closing song the altar, home to 70-some tealight candles, caught fire. Thankfully there were just a few flames with no harm done and no one hurt.  Exciting, though. And a rather memorable way to end a darkness and light-returning celebration, me thinks.

How did you spend your evening?

Hear the Angels Sing...

Merry Christmas to you.

In the coming year, may you hear the song the angels sang at your brith.

And may you live fully into it.

Deep bows of Holy,
Trish

Under the Pink Carpet

Today I have been ripping out carpet.  It's very therapeutic.  And a very good workout, too. The pink Berber of our bedroom - installed by the folks that lived here before us - decidedly does NOT make my heart sing. But in ripping it out I've found something that does: wide-plank pine that with a little help will be stunning. So rather than slapping down new carpet as we first planned to do we will be sanding and refinishing it this week. Had I only known what treasures lay beneath the aged, pink eysore carpet!

My lesson in this:
Fear not what is underneath. For under the layers there lies the inspiration for a singing heart.

What is underneath your pink carpet today?

A Music Gift for You

Spiraling round,
Darkness abounds,
I am bringing the light.

__________________

Merry Christmas,
  Happy Hanukkah,
   Blessed Advent,
    Joyous Kwanzaa,
     Wondrous Solstice,

               to you.

To celebrate you I am offering you the gift of song. To receive your free song, please either leave a comment below, or email me at the EMAIL ME link to the left just below the picture of me smiling at you. Then, I'll send you an MP3 of the song.

Called Spiraling Round, I wrote this simple and sparse chant last winter to accompany a ritual my husband and I led some retreatants in at Prairiewoods Spirituality Center.

When I decided I wanted to gift you with this song, my amazing guitar-playing husband and I went into our studio to capture it. What you'll hear on the MP3 is the dance of Richard's guitar and my voice. It's quiet. It's simple. It's like we're sitting with you right in your own living room. So go ahead! Dance. Sing with your unique voice. Add harmony. Play your drum or your pots and pans. Change the words, if you wish. Light a candle. Take some deep breaths. Let it lull you to sleep.

Why would I do this, you may ask? It's a rich and full season we are in. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, we are experiencing shorter and shorter days. You may know that I am in love with darkness. In the midst of this darkening time we hear all around us the buzz of the winter holidays - many of which include stories of brightness of light. It can be disorienting. It can also stretch us to find the Sacred in the midst of all of it. In any way I can I want to offer blessings of hope and mystery for these days of intensity.

Over the next year I hope to be writing a book of rituals with accompanying chants (in the vein of Metta Chanting Circle) which will include a different arrangement and recording of this song.

I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention that this is one of our 5 year-old son's favorite songs. Last year on the Winter Solstice we called several friends and family members to sing them this song. He gets into it with full voice and drum - announcing his "Lightness" to anyone who will listen (or might just be strolling through the neighborhood). Consider calling your dear ones to sing Spiraling Round quietly in their ears.

However, wherever, and with whomever you mark this season, whether it is the Light or the Darkness that most calls to you, I bless you.

Finally, I wish to thank Christine at The Sacred Art of Living who has been clearing out her books and giving them away to her faithful blog readers. (I was a happy recipient! Thank you so much, Christine!) She was part of the inspiration for my own giveaway.

And thanks to Kashfia at Stock Xchng for the incredible picture above.

With blessings and deep bows,
Trish
The Story Midwife

Calling All Poets

I learned about the challenge below on This Mom's blog. I've already got poetic lines curling around my ears and heart. Consider yourself invited to spin lines of poetry, too.

I find this especially meaningful in light of today's report from the Iraq Study Group, about which I just heard on NPR. While listening, I also listened in on this story on Here and Now about Dr. Abdul Sattar Jawad, a former newspaper editor in Iraq and a dean at a Baghdad university. He's now teaching at Duke as part of the Scholars at Risk program, where he is researching T.S. Eliot and translating Shakesperean sonnets into Arabic.

Dr. Jawad speaks of how poerty is very close to him now and quotes a line of Eliot's The Wasteland, and brings it home to the Tigris river, which, he says, "is no more singing. It is, you see, sweating oil and tar, and you see the bodies of the tortured and murdered people floating in the river.

"I'm longing - living in nostalgia - to see my country, my Baghdad rising up again... We have to terminate this cycle of violence and hate."

Take a listen.

Sigh.

And if you choose to write a poem for the Iraqi people (whether or not you choose to submit), I'd love to know.  And perhaps we can share our works on the Story Midwife gallery.

__________________________________________

The Challenge: Write a poem for the Iraqi People, something that you want to express to their citizens.

Deadline:  Extended to May 2007

Who: Anyone, any age can write a poem and submit it to be included into The Gift of Words: Poetry for the Iraqi People

Fruition: Poems will be translated in Arabic, put into a booklet and sent to Iraq.

Gift of Words, c/o Cynthia Bryant- Poet Laureate of Pleasanton, PO Box 520, Pleasanton, CA 94566 or [email protected]  if you do have email. Be sure to include your contact information and age (if you like).

New Two

Thanks for all the great blog design feedback! Orange is my favorite color - my living room walls are orange, by the way. (Think more terra cotta, less pumpkin.) But I was definitely not going for the Halloween look. So thanks for your thoughts!

Tonight blue feels better. More mysterious. More wintry. Makes me think of icicles forming and melting. Of a snowy Iowa field in late-afternoon. Of water and snow and sky hand-dancing.

Have you icicles where you are?
Whose face can you see in their shapely forms?

New

Well.  I'm trying some new colors here.  I've been uninspired by the colors of my previous template design, but wasn't quite ready to tackle the color-change project.  Christine inspired me with her beautiful new look, and I went to work on a new design. Only I didn't think it would actually SAVE to my site until I republished. It did.  I'm not quite ready for it to be here, but it is.  And no doubt it will be a work in progress.

So -- whatcha think?  Like the darker color?  Like the old one better?  Tell me, tell me. I can take it.