Priscilla’s Last Day on the Island

Ahhh, my lovelies, all good things must come to an end (but why?), and so my time here on Knotts Island is almost over.  My bags are packed and all that is left for Mari and I to do is fix my broom and say goodbye.  I’ll miss the island, and the alien, and Junior, and Mari, but I’m anxious to move on and continue my journey.

So, to the broom!  As you remember, I had a slight mishap with my broom when the good people at customs USA weren’t going to let me in to the country without a passport.  I became so agitated that my spell to create a passport blew the bristles right off the end of my broom, and left me with diminished abilities to create and move.  Fortunately, Mari has lots of creative bits and pieces around to choose from, and together we made an upgraded version of my broom- a Broom 2.0.

Voila!!  Now this is a broom worthy of the Queen of Cyberspace!  I had to try it out right away, so we went outside and I jumped on.  “Careful!” Mari cried out to me.  “You don’t know how powerful that broom may be!”  “Nonsense!”  I cried back.  “I’m in complete control…………..!!!!!!” 

The G-forces nearly tore the hair off my head.  I was going so fast I couldn’t see the ground, just a green blur and then a blue blur as I shot out over the Atlantic Ocean.  “Blast!”  I thought, “if I’d only taken off in the other direction, I could be in California by now.”  Well, I had to get turned around somehow, my world tour didn’t include flying all the way around the world to the east.  As my vision cleared I could see in the distance a black and white blur approaching fast.  It was tall and I thought if I could just hook one hand around it as I flew by, I’d be boomeranged around and hopefully headed back in the direction I’d come from.  The black and white blur turned out to be one of the barrier island lighthouses.  I leaned toward it, reached out my hand, and just managed to snag the pole at the top of the beacon.  I had a quick glimpse of a man’s startled face as I whipped around the lighthouse.  “Wheee!!” I shrieked as sparks flew from end of my broom.  Might as well give the guy a story to tell the kiddies this Halloween. 

It had worked.  I was headed back over the island and could see the horse weathervane on the top of Mari’s house and Mari and Junior standing in the yard.  I aimed for them, thought better of that and aimed for the Meditation Garden, and just managed to grab the branch of one of the apple trees.  Fortunately all the rain had soaked the tree and its leaves or the sparks from the broom would have set it on fire.  “You see!” I shouted to Mari and Junior as they ran up to the tree.  “Nothing to it!”  Then I fell out of the tree.

When I came to, Junior was standing over me, staring into my face with concern written all over his.  Mari picked me up and sat me back up on a tree branch.  “Smile”, she said, and took this last picture of me on Knotts Island, North Carolina.

Journal Work

Greetings, my lovelies!

You just won’t believe it- Mari can hardly believe it- it’s still raining!  Nearly an inch and a half in the last 24 hours.  This area of North Carolina and Virginia (southeast) has been 12 inches short of rain this year, so Mari says let it rain.  But yesterday afternoon the sun did come out for awhile, so we were able to go into the Meditation Garden and do some sketching.

I arrived from Australia with this lovely journal sketch book and Mari loaned me some markers; it was wonderful to sit in the garden in the sun (it was a bit damp, though) and draw.  Here is a quick sketch I did of the dried cornstalks:

While I was working away on my sketch, I heard two little voices speaking quietly and a little dog barking.  I looked around and saw these inhabitants of the garden reading to each other from a storybook.  I went over and introduced myself and the little girl showed me where they were in the story.  I read along too.

Later, it began to rain again so we went inside and I worked some more in my journal.  I did this drawing of the alien:

He was very good at posing, he barely moved at all for hours.

Then I did this sketch of the lotus on the causeway to the island from a photograph of Mari’s:

Mari says it’s very Matisse-like.  I’m not so sure.

Then I tried a cut and paste with stamping project.  The cat picture is from a French poster of Le Chat Noir; the cat looks very much like Junior (those fat cheeks and glowing yellow eyes, like his picture in the moonlight) so I copied, cut and pasted le Chat Noir onto one of my journal pages.  Then I used stamps to make the hands and kitties around him. 

I had such fun!  And I’ll be very glad to have these visual reminders of my stay on Knotts Island, which will be coming to an end soon.  First, though, we have to fix my broomstick- remember that tiny bit of over-the-top magic that blew the end off my broom?  But that’s for another day…

Rainy Afternoon on the Island

Well, Mari said they needed rain, did she not?  Over half an inch of rain so far this afternoon, Mari says that’s more than they’ve gotten at one time in months.  So we couldn’t go fishing but we did do a Tarot card reading and we made a necklace for me with the letters of my name!  Here I am, with the first card I drew, and you can see my new necklace as well:

It was a three card spread, to show my past, present and future.  Here’s what it looked like laid out, with some Raven cards watching the process:

Mari posted the interpretation for my reading at Le Monde de Tarot.  It was good to get my hands back on some Tarot cards, and get a little guidance for my journey.  I’ve been seeing and learning so much lately, it can get a little overwhelming!  But I have plenty of help and support, so onward we go….as soon as it stops raining.  Guess I should have specified how much rain??

Priscilla’s Secret Mission

So, I see that le Enchanteur has revealed my secret mission!  Mari was curious as to why I was so anxious to learn how to use her digital camera to take pictures, download them to her computer, then upload them to her Flickr account.  Also I have been working hard at WordPress on my blog and am ready to learn more about Web 2.0 so that I can share my experiences with the world!  Mari’s already introduced me to Riversleigh, where she has a room, and the new and expanding world of Avanoo, but alas!  I need an email address!  I hope le Enchanteur is conjuring one up for me, and preparing a room for me at Riversleigh.

Here are some pictures I’ve taken while here chez Mari’s (learning French from Mari too!):

A bluejay at the feeder outside Mari’s office window

The Meditation Garden in Mari’s yard

A passionflower vine with fruit

The Full Moon over the back part of the house

Junior in the moonlight on the edge of the Native American garden

How am I doing, my lovelies?

Island Life

Greetings, my lovelies!

Ahh, life on the island!  So slow and gentle, so laid back and peaceful…help!  Someone rescue me!!  No, I’m kidding, but I have had to learn to take life at a slower pace and in a much smaller sphere than I’m used to.  When I awoke after my night of alien-watched dreams, I wanted to go everywhere and do everything all at once.  I wanted to travel the island, take the ferry to the mainland, go to the wineries (there’s two on this little island!)…Mari told me I’d miss much of the pleasure of southern, island living if I rushed through it all.  So we began with a little porch-sitting.  The little carved cat is a stand-in for Junior, who refused to pose with me and the pumpkin for the picture. 

Then we went out to the Native American garden to see what’s left out there and to listen to the cornstalks.  Turns out cornstalks have a lot to say, and I’m sure that my arrival in their midst will give them something to talk about for days.  Besides the cornstalks, there are lots of lima bean vines and immature lima beans, but Mari says they need some rain to fill them out.  I’ll see what I can do.

Then we went for a drive around the island.  This took all of about 15 minutes.  There’s a market-type store, a tiny post office, a failed restaurant, the two wineries I mentioned before, a garage where islanders get their cars inspected so they don’t have to drive or take the ferry all the way to mainland NC, and two churches.  Also lots of boats, docks, yards full of crabpots…Mari says we can go fishing tomorrow, and I said why don’t I just say a fish spell and conjure some up?  Mari says that’s not the point.

At the end of the drive we stopped at the island cemetery.  It’s a small place but well-tended, with some very old graves mixed with newer ones.  We walked among the graves, reading the headstones and being careful not to walk on people.  There are island family names that reflect the nature of place, many Waterfields and Watermans.  We found the gravestones of the family that used to live in Mari’s house, the Joneses, who also used to own the little market when it was closer to the house.  In the house, they still have the old safe that used to be in the store, but it’s locked and they don’t know what’s in it.  Treasure, probably.  Maybe Blackbeard’s, the pirate who, it’s said, buried his treasure somewhere here on the island.  Mari goes around with a metal detector sometimes, just in case.

There are three gravestones from the Jones family that lived in the farmhouse where I am now.  Mary Elizabeth, Paul and Laurel.  I felt an immediate attraction to Laurel’s grave and asked Mari to take my picture there.  Mari said she knew why, and when we got home she told me this story.  The farmhouse is over 100 years old, and has seen many deaths as well as births in its rooms (Mari’s husband’s son was born in the guestroom where I’m sleeping).  When Mari first moved in, 16 years ago, she began seeing a male entity dressed all in black with a high hat on his head.  If he hadn’t been so short, she told me, I’d have thought it was Lincoln.  Anyhow, after being startled by him a few times (never scared, he wasn’t a fearful entity, but it was a little disconcerting to find someone standing in a doorway when you knew you were alone), she asked the being to leave.  He did, and has not returned. 

But there’s another entity, one that Mari’s never seen, that makes herself known by sabotaging things in the house whenever Mari and her husband plan trips.  The water pump, the stove, the electricity, all have stopped working sometimes hours before they are to leave.  Mari’s husband finally told Mari that he believed it was Laurel, who lived and died here and doesn’t like for Mari’s husband, the home’s caretaker, to leave it.  When he told Mari this, an overwhelming smell of perfume filled the air around them.  Mari doesn’t wear perfume, and the scent was very floral.  Laurel.

I’m here!

Oh, everyone, I can’t tell you how glad I am to be here!  Such a journey, the trials I had, and what I had to do to get here without a passport!  Well, more on that in a bit, let me tell you about Knotts Island, or at least what Mari has told me and shown me so far.  The island is small, on the border between North Carolina and Virginia, and is protected from the Atlantic ocean by the barrier islands you can see on the horizon line in the photo above.  Here’s a link to a Google map so you can get an idea of where I am.

So, the journey.  This was the first flight I’ve taken not under my own power, I mean, without flying on my broomstick.  I was on a plane, and at first that was okay, although it did get a little tiresome on the long leg over the Altantic, and I did so long to be able to feel the wind in my hair and the splash of spray on my face.  Then I arrived on the shores of the USA, and the trouble started.  I couldn’t see what was happening but I could hear voices saying I was absolutely not going to be allowed into the country without a passport!  Imagine!  Me, needing a passport!  I knew I should have traveled by broom.

Well, I didn’t travel all this way only to be turned back for lack of little blue book.  I tried every spell I knew to get myself out of the bag so I could really let loose with the power of my broom but to no avail.  So I began calling out, in a little old lady’s voice: “Help me!  Oh please, kind customs people, please let me out of this bag!”  There was silence.  I struggled and kicked and cried. “Will no one hear the cries of a wretched old lady??”  Someone unzipped the bag.  I leaped out, and pointed the end of my broom at the group standing around me, all looking like extras in a Stephen Spielberg movie (you know, mouths hanging open, awe and wonder on their faces).  “Passportamus Createamus!”   The power required blew the bristles off my broom.  But there, on the table next to my journal, was my passport.

Unfortunately, as you can see, it’s an American passport.  You have to be so specific with these spells, or Goddess knows what you’ll get.  Anyhow, I’ll skip over all the confusion, excitement and arguments that ensued at the miraculous appearance of my passport.  Eventually, I was packed back into my bag, with my new passport all legally signed and sealed and stamped, and was sent on my way.  When I arrived at Mari’s, I was exhausted.  We had a glass of wine (Moonrise Bay Cabernet Sauvignon, from one of the two island vineyards), and then Mari showed me to my room, introduced me to the alien, whose name is something unpronounceable, and to the resident black cat, whose name is a very pronounceable Junior, and tucked me into the bed.

I slept so soundly, with the alien guarding my dreams, and Junior curled up at my toes.  Till tomorrow, my lovelies.