The Byrne Diaspora

New life

 

It was 2:00am on Tuesday morning, and I was trying to sleep on the couch at the Chapel Hill Birthing Center. Kaisha was next door in the Peach Room, surrounded by her husband, midwife and doula, labor progressing but not as fast as we'd hoped. I felt exhausted and anxious and scared. And then Mom came into the room, sat down on the table across from me, and said "Let me take this." So I let her. And then I could sleep. 

So she was Near for the birth of her grandson--a Leo, a lion, like her. Happy birthday, Mary Anne! Today I wear your grapevine-circled cross. May you continue to be with us, especially with the new parents Kaisha and Don, as we begin to raise this precious son.  --MCB

Elle le regarde

Monica observes, imagines, weaves a tale, tells it like it is, keeps going.  She's been doing it all her life, legendarily drawing pictures only to toss them over her shoulder, and on to the next thing--a dress, a dance, a story, an asana, Ethiopia, India.  One of her favorite authors, Ursula K. LeGuin, once said, "My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it."  Did you know Monica's in earthbound, ground-shaking exile right now, writing up to the eve of her birthday?--like this: I tried to change the words...Trail is Mango, Ocean is Daal, and so on...This went on for several days, or longer.  I called the Ocean Daal for at least a week.  I felt right powerful that I'd redefined a word, and renamed an entire entity.  But just when the thought came round again and I felt most triumphant, I felt suddenly nauseated, as if I'd rolled milk-sweets in salt and eaten a thousand... Yet keep changing the words and writing more, Monie-Love, Star-Child, though they toss you up and down!  We are so blessed to have among us an observer, a fantasizer, a bearer of gifts from Somewhere Else.  Happy, happy birthday to you.--JEB 

In praise of summer

 

Where are you gonna be, when Kaisha and Don drop their latest? ;)  --MCB

Permawonderful

 

Here and there, the dwellers at Our Lady of Bear Creek host guests who hear rumors and want to come see for themselves.  Don 3 wrote about some March visitors from Harvey Harman's Permaculture Class at Central Carolina Community College, where both Dad and Donald took courses: They came to see, among other things, how we use water.  Permaculture is a design system that tries to piece together sustainable homesteading elements so that every item in your system is redundant and every item has more than one use.  I.e., two sources of water, not one, and each source serving more than one use.  A great example is our rainwater tank (redundancy for our wells), which serves as house water (for dishes and cleaning toilets) but also as emergency water for drinking.  If you want to hear (I mean really hear) more from Don 3 on water, look back at this post.  Then go get a tall cool glass, gulp it, drench your thirsty plants, spritz your legs, pour it over your head!  This July, this heat wave, can we just say: water is wonderful.--JEB