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Back Fence PDX Storytelling Shows

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Upcoming Shows & Workshops

October 2021

Oct 28 2021 - Dec 09 2021

Fall Storytelling Intensive

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Happy full moon Friday 🌕 This is the first of t

Happy full moon Friday 🌕 This is the first of two Aquarian full moons coming at the start and finish of Leo season. Tonight’s peaks at 7:38 pm PST at 1° of Aquarius, and the second will be Sunday August 22 at 5:03 am PST at 29° of Aquarius. Full moons always highlight some oppositional energy - in this case, the cool, radical, collective mind of Aquarius versus the hot, self-loving, personal-power-seeking-and-unleashing Leo. The moons will highlight the first and last degrees of the parts of our charts ruled by Aquarius - the same place we are getting the current Saturn transit. In the hours to come, we may be getting a big reveal or activation, some swelling chords, a big wave of mood, but not a big finish - not yet.

Aquarius is an archetype of mind and imagination. At its highest expression, it wants to inspire deep, detached reflection on the reality diamond, on how futures come into being; it wants to generate radical new ideas and visions. The thing that prevents us from getting that far out is fear - mostly fear of the unknown. When we are afraid of the unknown or have that kind of free-floating forever anxiety, we imagine terrible things. The nervous system doesn’t distinguish between real present threats and imagined threats, so we tense up and contract in the body, which causes pain, which then causes more fear. It’s a cycle that feeds on itself and grows our terror. We start to feel like things are spinning out of control.

If you are at all stuck in a fear-tension-pain-fear cycle, if some panic is rising, that’s a signal that it’s time for a radical break with the past. Aquarius wants to activate a higher perspective, help you realign to your Self and realign to the collective good. It wants to put on some EDM that slays. It wants to help transmute that fear into clarifying, focusing, motivational energy. It wants you to contact Future You, the you that has already lived this, and receive some clarity and heart and courage. Things are changing because they must - new energies are arising. A lot of this change is an inside job. We have to give up clinging to the known. We have to fire up the silver dragons and invent a new world.

Today at 4:16 pm PST, the moon goes fully dark and

Today at 4:16 pm PST, the moon goes fully dark and renews herself at 18° of Cancer. Cancer is represented by the well-armored Crab, and is the archetype of the mother and the nurturer. We’ve been swimming in these sensitive tides since the solstice, and with this new moon, they peak. As the cardinal sign of summer in the northern hemisphere, Cancer’s job is to call us down off of the clarity highs and citrinitas epiphanies of spring and into summer, the season of the body, of heat, of sensation and feelings and relationships, and the need for maintenance and attention in the external, mundane, material world. It’s integration season - time to apply whatever enlightenment we think* we’ve gained. If you’d rather not come down off that mountain - if spiritual bypassing sounds, frankly, good, after a year and a half of grief and bracing - that’s reasonable. But the great mother may pull us - against our will if needed - back into the body and feeling and relationship and limitations.

With this new Cancer moon, we can take some time to rest and reset and get new. It’s a good time to exquisitely reattune to our physical and emotional needs. If there’s any way we’ve been trying to run on empty, it’s time to begin to really feel that, to listen to our symptoms of overwhelm, and slow our roll. It’s time to strategically nourish and care for our bodies and our hearts. Something new wants to begin in our lives - wherever in your chart Cancer rules - and we want those initial conditions to be loving and resourced. What new structures and containers might you be needing at this time? How can you stabilize what is tender and healing, or early and still developing, with the flowing robes of mercy emotional labor and the protective shells of healthy boundaries?

Vintage Chinese illustration by an artist with the signature R. Kondo via @dopblog, a Kiyoshi Awazu artwork from my birth year, 1979, Cancerian art by @sarahbahbah, and honey jar portrait by @erikaleesears.

The waxing moon that pulled in Cancer season and t

The waxing moon that pulled in Cancer season and the Solstice on its tide peaks today, getting perfect and full and finished just before noon, at 11:40 PST, at 3° of Capricorn, the holy earth goat. Happy full moon my friends. This one feels special. We’ve had so much dramatic and difficult astrology the last six weeks, it’s been a minute since we just got to have the sweet release of a full moon. The same could be said of the larger cycle - we’ve had so much dramatic and difficult cataclysm to respond to and survive, it’s been a minute since we’ve had a season to properly integrate and gently unravel. I hope this is a turning point for us, an emptying of the glass of urgency. An unwinding of the Chronos clock.

The earth signs encode the knowledge of earthly manifestation - how do you grow or build something real? How do you turn something from a dream or an idea to a concrete born thing? A sturdy thing that lasts? An abundant thing that feeds many? Capricorn teaches us to embrace the slow steady unsexy parts of manifestation - how to labor with love, how to steadily tend the work without receiving immediate results or reward. Capricorn is unphased by obstacles or complexity, because it knows the obstacle is the way. It’s here to invent and shape structures in the collective. With this full moon, we get to reflect on what we have been slowly steadily building, what dream we’ve been calling into form. Whatever it is, wherever it’s at in its growth, honor it, put a flower crown on it, release it. That’s it. Then devote yourself to your body and replenishing your energies with practical precision - water, electrolytes, naps by the fan. Dappled light, wet wipes, mangoes. Being.

🌕 Full moon at noon inspiration painting by James Siena 🙌🏼

Solar eclipse report: I woke up early yesterday mo

Solar eclipse report: I woke up early yesterday morning, not long after sunrise, and felt strange. Kind of hungover and dizzy and buzzing. Like a lightbulb or circuit getting too much current. I was like, oh right, eclipse. And then I was awake awake. I glanced at my phone, and had received multiple copies of the same automatic email from Recreation.gov, reminding me of some camping reservations I made for the summer solstice weekend. So the first words I saw upon looking at my screen were “recreation recreation recreation recreation recreation.” The solar eclipse was happening in Gemini, and for me, that governs my 5th house of pleasure and creative life. Alternating waves of dizziness and giddiness washed through me. I was literally too unsteady to get up, so I just laid in bed and felt my thoughts fizzing like champagne. Some transmission came through about pleasure, that like a lot of the healing and creating ahead will be pleasurable. The dizziness didn’t subside for two hours. In other news, a man (a professional lobster diver) was swallowed by a whale this morning off the coast of Provincetown. And then the whale puked him back up. He’s fine (!) except for some bruises and is recovering in a hospital. I hope you are all receiving your share of new life/new energy/operating systems upgrades/being puked back up mostly good as new by the whale. And let’s just all go really slow, slow slow slow, as it may take awhile for all this to settle and get integrated.

Tomorrow/Thursday at 3:53am PST, eclipse season co

Tomorrow/Thursday at 3:53am PST, eclipse season completes with a new moon solar eclipse at 19° of Gemini, the cosmic lovers. This is an annular “ring of fire” eclipse, the spooky magic kind, but most of us won’t be under its path to see it. We will definitely feel it though. The full moon lunar eclipse two weeks ago on the south node in Sagittarius inflamed old patterns and beliefs and initiated a massive clearing. This eclipse is happening on the north node which has the opposite effect – it is drawing in energies, initiating coming changes, seeding new stories. It’s also coinciding with a Cazimi Mercury - Hermes Trismegistus in the heart of the sun, downloading messages straight from the Self source.

If you’re being impacted personally by these eclipses, then the last two weeks have been a wild and somewhat terrifying ride, and I hope you’re ok, or atleast staying hydrated, and laying low for the big finish. We are in the rebirth half of this little death/rebirth movement, but it still has the feel of a power outage/power surge. This is not the kind of new moon you should try to wield for manifestation, or even a deep house cleaning. Your only intention should be to stay connected to your body, to the antennae inside. Write down anything you receive. Insights that arise this week will be potent.

Gemini encodes the mysteries of evolution and creativity, how halves unite into wholes, how new ideas and new lives are born. Two sides or initial states must enter into oppositional tension, and if this tension can be held long enough, a transcendent third, a new thing that transcends but includes what came before, will be born. A new phase in your life is already unfolding. It will both transcend and include all your previous selves and parts and lives, nothing left out - it will be a magnificent integration. But getting there requires devotion to the now, and the now, and the now. The now is the good part. Let’s not be in a rush to get to the end of the story.

Post eclipse otters 💛

Post eclipse otters 💛

Wednesday morning at 4:11 a.m. PST - the dark drea

Wednesday morning at 4:11 a.m. PST - the dark dreaming hours for us on the west coast - a Blood Moon arrives, the first eclipse of 2021. It’s a full moon total lunar eclipse at 5° of Sagittarius, and it sets the stage a bit for the new moon solar eclipse in Gemini that’s two weeks away. Sagittarius is the centaur philosopher, the deep professor archer firing truth arrows. It’s a healer of ideas and beliefs, a giver of enlightenment. A full moon lunar eclipse on the south node is a clearing, an emptying out. No matter where in your chart/life it’s happening, a full moon lunar eclipse in Sagittarius wants to clear out dead philosophies. It wants to reveal and release beliefs that are harming us and do not serve our personal or collective liberation.

If this has been affecting you personally and perceptibly, you’ve probably been noticing relationship shadows and old behavior patterns re-emerging in ways that you can’t not see, and this consciousness, this seeing itself - it’s a kind of harsh sunlight that clears and makes clear. This clarity IS change and brings more change, and that’s a good and healing thing, but it might not feel good. Enlightenment can be painful. As poet Tony Hoagland says: “Some people think the truth is the worst thing that can happen. The truth is not the worst thing that can happen.” Self-care under these conditions probably means tolerating and respecting what we are noticing and feeling, welcoming the difficult passage, and, whenever possible, just going back to bed 🙌🏼 on that note - love and protection on us all. I’ll see you on the other side of some serious rest.

Art by @luck_krsty 🌕🌑

Happy Monday friends! This week is a big one, with

Happy Monday friends! This week is a big one, with an eclipse and the start of a Mercury retrograde. Whatever you are feeling, give yourself a ton of permission to just be as you are 💛 I want to tip you off to some free deep play / process portals coming in mid-June. The facilitators in The Workshop Workshop I’ve been teaching this spring have invented some final zoom workshop projects. Each one is truly excellent - there are three you can check out and sign up for now with spots still available. The incredible Laura Moulton (writing teacher and founder of Street Books in Portland) has cooked up a Literary Exorcism writing workshop to help us cast out some personal demons and limiting self beliefs (yes 🔥please), that’s happening Friday, June 11th. Later in the day also on June 11th is Draw Ur Heart with Allison Kennedy (hybrid poet & visual artist & director of Michigan’s This Is Fire), an art-making workshop that will come with actual supplies in the mail ahead of time (❤️❤️❤️!) And Thursday June 17th in the evening the amazing Shanon Emerson (creative coach & artist podcaster @shanonwithonen) will be hosting a Re-Entry Workshop, a space to process and ritual around the last year and how we want to be now (✨). All the registration links are up at the link in my bio, these offerings are gifts, totally free, first come - first served while spots remain open. Pass it on to whoever could use some joy, including yourself.

UPDATE: All the workshops are full, these filled up faaast! I will list again if new spots open up!

My doctorate diploma finally arrived, in the week

My doctorate diploma finally arrived, in the week of my 42nd birthday, it’s pictured here on top of my birthday piano, a seriously beautiful Winter Company upright (thank you Brian 😭 and thank you Stephen and Brad and Rick for helping move it in!!) I’m officially more real, a certified philosopher poet and moon doctor adult with a piano, we celebrated with expensive cheese and tea at the Sandy River. What I might know now: the past is the god beneath our feet, it’s creating us. The future is the god above us, casting all the bright, terrifying light, calling us up and up. The present is the god of rivers, the only one you can look directly in the eye, get into the river whenever possible.

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