The Beauty of the Broken Cup

I write in a very small room that I believe was destined to be a storage closet. At the last minute, I asked the builder to put a window in the room and also a phone line...just in case I needed an office....that was a few years before I started writing and when I did begin working....this little room with its natural light, the huge oak tree outside of the window and the tight womb-like surrounding was the perfect place to work.

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All writers have quirks about their work spaces. Some need silence, other need the bare bones of an almost empty place...and some of us......write in clutter...with objects that remind us of events and memories and things we feel are important.

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I'm a clutter writer..... my little room holds everything from my writing fish (an old happy red fish named Faulkner) to a bottle of home made "medicine" ...a concoction my grandmother taught me how to make to cure anything....(it's about 90% whiskey...so what you can't cure....you're likely to forget after a couple of glasses).

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One of my treasures that sits next to my screen....is my "broken cup."

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Hub turns wood as a hobby to relieve stress...and one day I sat down with him and a request...I had read a story in a Buddhist book about the Japanese tea ceremony. Tea cups are prized for their plain lines and spiritual qualities they inherit with time and use. If a treasured cup is broken, it is not thrown away......the crack is sometimes filled with gold....and the cup is brought back into the ceremony after it is mended.

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The lesson: the cup although broken now returns more beautiful......tragedy adding a new dimension...a new texture to the cup.

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When hub handed me the cup...I was delighted....he allowed the wood to crack...he filled it with turquoise....and then I noticed he added something I had not asked for...the carvings in the wood ....which looked like twine had been wound around the cup.

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It's the twine that makes me ponder...for I am already a believer that tragedy and misfortune also carries opportunity.......... when I'm stuck with words or a story or feel font pressure...I look at the cup....and wonder what holds my life together?

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Like you....I've been broken ....and unlike this cup....in more than one place.....but even when I rise to the challenge and fill disappointment with opportunity and new resolve .......what ultimately holds me together? Family? Love? Friends? Inner Resolve? Tough genetics?

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I have my guesses....I have preferences for what I believe and hope holds me together....but on a day to day basis....what keeps everything in alignment?.....what keeps me moving forward....despite the cracks?

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It is a very good cup.....it gives me much to think about.....what is the twine of my life?....what is the twine of your life? Is it there everyday in some form or another? Or only there when the cracks appear?

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A Double New Year..........

My friend Krista and I have been celebrating New Year's Eve/Day for (we think) 6 years. Each year we write our hopes and dreams as well as the emotions we want to get rid of.......on balloons. We take them to a clearing....and let them go....so the gods and the universe are crystal clear about our intentions in the coming year.

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One surprising consequence of this tradition.... is how much we have learned about helium balloons ....they're affected by temperature ( cold temps decreasing soaring considerably)...and they can be very attractive to tree spirits who are quite playful and nosey and not only like to hold onto balloons but read and contemplate the messages for a while before they let them go.

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Trouble is.....Krista, smart wonderful woman that she is, has moved to Minnesota ( to work on her PHD) in the last few years.... and sometimes we're not together on the traditional start of the New Year. So we decided a New Year should begin whenever we get together.

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A couple years ago our Year began in the middle of January when the temperature in Minnesota was below zero. We skipped the balloons ( knowing a lift off was impossible) and wrote our hopes and negatives on small white pieces of paper.... which we threw up into the air and onto a frozen lake. The gods immediately gathered them....white onto white.....and they disappeared.

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Some years when we've had a lot of shit happen to us....we not only release our balloons but actually write our negatives down....and set them on fire. Last year....we used a little propane lighter to ignite them and then tossed them over the bridge onto a stream.....they burned for a long time......which looked spooky....these little fires burning on top of the water. It seemed the negatives had so much energy in them.....they weren't easily eliminated.

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Which is another wonderful part of the tradition. Divination. What does it mean when the tree spirits holds on to your balloon...is that good or bad or indifferent? What if your negatives take a long long time to burn....does that mean you are still holding on to them mentally even though on the surface you have released them??? So much to ponder....and wonder....about what we dream and release into the universe. It's not only the sending...but how they are received which seems important.

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This year....Krista came home a couple days ago.....it was warm.....which means good soaring weather...so we kept our tradition......and since Krista and I haven't seen each other for a whole year....and....the 28th is my birthday..... it was a double double beginning to a New Year.

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We let our balloons go......and to our surprise ...they did not lift off....they hovered together at ground level....and actually stopped...side-by-side...by a tree....as if they were having a conversation with the tree spirit....then they lifted off into the sky....not quickly....but slow and steady....till they were up up and finally out of sight.

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We wondered what this new twist meant? Why did our balloons stay so close together? Why did they visit the tree? Why did they take off so slowly despite the heat??? Hmmmmm....we both felt our negatives weren't big enough for a seperate burning so our balloons carried our positives and the things we want to let go off in one package to the gods...perhaps the double duty weighed them down a bit.

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So here are are dreams and hopes and the things we want to eliminate in our lifes/selves ....going off into the universe.....

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Our balloons seems eager to get going.

Here they go off...side by side.....hovering near the earth....and stopping in front of a tree.

Finally they decide to head upwards.

And there they are....still together.....going off to do their business with the Gods.

Happy New Year.

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