like mercury colliding...

Happy Sunday! We had a beautiful full moon this week. I love the Roman word for moon, Luna. Considered the feminine counterpart to the masculine Sol, for the sun, Luna has been a favorite subject of artists and writers, her beautiful full face, an illuminated fixture in night sky.

Though earth revolves around the sun, the moon revolves around the earth. She always shows us her face, each facet glowing with the same intensity. Some would say that she is only a dark orb of rock, a pale reflection of the sun’s light but I believe she makes the light accessible to us. We cannot gaze for long at Sol’s blustering, spitting face. Luna filters that intensity and softens the destructive nature of the Sol’s all-consuming, blinding fierceness. She bends the light so we can gaze upon it. She often calls us to reflect, to hope, to dream. And she is by no means weak or powerless. She commands the night sky, dipping her finger into the oceans causing them to swell in the rising of the tides. Even when the earth blocks her face from the light, she is there, unchanged, surrounded by a host of stars.

Luna, with her feminine traits, causes me to reflect on a few important truths about being female, despite what we have been encouraged to believe. It is interesting that I started this week with a reminder to love oneself and ended it with a comforting recipe that I share every year with my daughters. In the same way, I feel compelled to share this “recipe”; a list of affirmations on what it is to be female in this man dominated world. And to the beautiful men reading this…it is not my intention to dismiss your magnificent traits. It is the times we are in. With so many ugly words and actions directed toward women, I feel we need to be reminded who we are.

You are a woman…
You are a compliment and partner, not a pale or lessor reflection of man.
You have a purpose and a path, you are not a possession that needs keeping.
You are mysterious and intuitive.
You are strong.
You are powerful.
You are beautiful.
You are vibrant, not a cold, inanimate object.
You are a hearth keeper with the ability to contain and soften the intensity of raging fires, warming those around you.
You are fierce.
You are a co-creator of life.
You are a nurturer.
No attempts to control you will ever change these truths.
You are a woman.

…and here is today’s Shi Sai..

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 18 December 2016

Remember to love yourself my friends
we are a long fall from Eden
fair Luna owns the night sky
nothing warmed her heart more than a crackling fire
it is quite a rush
always thought ye were a legend though,
peaches, cream and sweet kisses
it’s just horsefeathers
murmurs of spring…
So just as I would tell my daughters from memory each winter, I’m sharing my recipe with you.

~kat

7 Comments | tags: being female, Luna, Shi Sai, week in Reverse | posted in Digital Art & Photos, Essays, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Shi Sai, Week in Review

December 17, 2016

Easy Potato Soup – The Ultimate Comfort Food

By Kat Myrman

Every year, when the weather chills I get a litany of calls from grocery store aisles. The conversations go something like this:

“Hi mom, I’m at the store. Tell me what I need to make potato soup.”

And I smile and happily recount the list of simple ingredients as memories swirl in my head from days gone by when my four daughters were little and my pocketbook was lean. There is nothing like this simple staple to warm hearts and fill hungry bellies. It’s the ultimate comfort food.

This year, as my brood gathers for the holidays, soups and chewy ciabatta bread is on the menu. One of my son-in-laws will be replicating the Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana (it’s his specialty!) and me? You guessed it! Potato soup!

Now you will find all sorts of fancy and elaborate recipes online and in cook books. Some require broths and other ingredients like chicken or ham, broccoli, carrots or cheese. My recipe is all about paying homage to an amazing nightshade edible tuber, the esteemed pomme de terre, the magnificent potato!

So just as I would tell my daughters from memory each winter, I’m sharing my recipe with you.

Ingredients for a Crowd

5 lbs of Red Potatoes, peeled and quartered

1-2 sweet onions, chopped

2 12-oz cans of evaporated milk

1 cup of butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound)

1 TBS salt (plus more to taste)

2 tsp fresh ground pepper

Optional: cornstarch to thicken

Place onions, potatoes and salt in a large stockpot. Add enough water to completely cover the potatoes. Boil, uncovered until the potatoes are soft.

Remove from the heat. Don’t drain the water. Using a potato masher break up the potatoes, leaving several small lumps. (If your pot is too deep you can transfer the potatoes into a bowl to mash.)

Blend in the evaporated milk and butter. If your soup is too soupy, you can use a tablespoon or so of cornstarch to thicken. Have a taste and season to your liking, adding the pepper and additional salt.

And if you must, you can always add the extras I mentioned above. My kids like to add shredded cheese and bacon bits. Me? I like it simple. Warm, smooth, filling. The perfect dish on a cold sleety day! Yummy in my tummy! Stay warm everyone!

8 Comments | tags: potato soup, recipes | posted in Essays, Random Thoughts and Musings, Stone Soup and Other Delicacies

December 17, 2016

Love’s Murmur – Magnetic Poetry Saturday – 17 December 2016

By Kat Myrman

though cold winds
wildly rustle through
our souls, we are
warmed by love and
murmurs of spring

kat – 17 December 2016

6 Comments | tags: cold, love, Magnetic Poetry Saturday, Poetry, spring, wind | posted in Digital Art & Photos, Magnetic Poetry, Poetry

December 16, 2016

Hotsy-Totsy – Friday’s Word of the Day Haiku – 16 December 2016

By Kat Myrman

Channeling my inner Flapper at my granddaughter’s Roaring 20’s Sweet 16 Party 🙂

Happy Friday! Today’s dictionary.com Word of the Day is hotsy-totsy. It is described as Older Slang. – about as right as can be; perfect: He always thinks everything is just hotsy-totsy.

Hotsy-totsy originated in the Roaring 20’s. There are many parallels between the 1920’s and modern times. The U.S. and the world was just coming out of a World War I. Science was amidst a great debate over the size of the universe (aka the “Great Debate” of 1920). Today we have a great debate of our own: climate change proponents and deniers. And speaking of science, the famous Scopes trial in 1925 was an attempt by creationists to vilify and abolish the teaching of evolution in schools. We’re still seeing this battle play out in school boards today.

In the 1920’s we saw a rise in radical political movements worldwide. Today, there are many references and parallels to those radical movements: Fascism, Nazism, Nationalism, Fundamentalism, Communism and National Socialism. Political agendas focused on moral issues in the 1920’s, as they continue to do today. In the 20’s the 18^th Amendment was ratified prohibiting alcohol, only to be repealed in its entirety 13 years later by the 21^st Amendment. Today it is marijuana that is flip-flopping between legal and illegal in our courts, with the states taking the lead in decriminalizing it. The 19^th Amendment, giving women the right to vote in the US was ratified in the 1920’s. Ironically, even though the door opened in 192o, women have a long way to go. Today women still suffer from workplace discrimination and wage discrepancies and continue to be objectified and denied the right to make their own health decisions. We have not come very far from the days when women were considered the property of her husband.

The Immigration Act of 1924 placed restrictions and quotas on the number of immigrants allowed to come into the U.S. Today, we are seeking to do the same and more, by building walls, registering immigrants of a particular religion and threatening to send immigrants back to where they came from. Also in the 1920’s we saw enrollment in the KKK peak after its resurgence in 1915. Sadly we are seeing a this trend again in today’s volatile and polarized society.

In the 1920’s if someone was hotsy-totsy he likely thought quite highly of himself. I can think of a few people who shall remain nameless that fit that description! 🙂 I love the other terms that were mentioned in the “Origin of the Word” segment in dictionary.com: heebie-jeebies and horsefeathers:

Origin of hotsy-totsy – The term hotsy-totsy first appeared in the 1920’s in William (Billy) De Beck’s hugely popular comic strip Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. De Beck, in addition to coining “hotsy-totsy”, also coined the terms “heebie-jeebies” and “horsefeathers”.

Such fun words! Of course I had to figure out a way to use them in a haiku. And so here it is. I often hear the warning that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We never learn do we?