A Little Help for a Friend (and a Talented Fiber Artist Besides)

Scarf by Fineena.
Photo copyright Wings, 2013, 2014; all rights reserved.

Update before posting: Wings and I are in for $50; it's already been sent. This is not a purchase; it's a donation. Can you match it? If so, go to PayPal.com and use this e-mail address: PALSKaren@aol.com. And if you can't, please help by sharing this with everyone in your real-life, e-mail, and social media networks.

This seems to be the year of the housing crisis. Already. How many of these have I done so far just since the beginning of 2014? Too many.

I mean, we're still in the throes of our own, and I don't expect that to change anytime soon, but we at least have had time to adjust. Our current digs are . . . well, to call them modest is still grandiose; it's not even a house. But we've managed to make it [mostly] functional, and relatively comfortable, and despite it all, we have each other and the animals and we get by.

Not everyone is so lucky.

My peeps at DK know her as Fineena. Some of you know who by her "real" name, too, but I'm not going to post that here unless she decides she wants me to do so for some reason. But I saw that peregrine kate, beautiful soul that she is, has a diary posted for her, and I figured if I can't help out there yet, at least I can post one in support over here.

Fineena, like a lot of us, has been through ten kinds of hell in recent years. The difference between her and some of us, though, is that she's doing it alone. Her only faithful companions are her Airedales, and they're currently boarding with her vet; whatever else happens, Fineena MUST be able to find housing that will accommodate her dogs. This is non-negotiable. Her life has already been put at grave risk by medical concerns (outlined below), and the stress of homelessness is only adding to that. But I can say from firsthand experience, knowing what it was like when I had no one in the world by my dogs: Losing them would kill her.

And that can't happen.

Follow me over the jump to see just what this lovely woman has been battling alone for so long, and find out how you can help.

The Westeros Wing

President Obama is a big fan, too. [Yes, it's Photoshopped, but it's still hellishly cool. Particularly since it was sent out as an actual White House Tweet.]

Good thing the creator is a liberal Democrat, yes?

Hmmm . . . .  I wonder whether we should send one of Wings's photos from his one-man show to the President and First Lady as a gift? 

In the meantime, back to promoting the final six days of said show. Links are in descending order of importance for sending them viral. You know what to do:

Jean Cocteau Cinema Facebook page official announcement.
Jean Cocteau Cinema Web site official announcement.
My official announcement here.

And please:  Share those links, not the link to this post.

Thanks.

Final Week!

Photo copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

It's the final week of Taos Pueblo:  Ancestral Places, Sacred Spaces, Wings's one-man show at the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe.

Next week, I'll finally be able to post a virtual exhibition here. It may run to two posts, since there are 10 captioned photos and some 35 jewelry pieces.

In the meantime, you can still help promote the show by sending the links viral. Those in the opening graf above can all be liked and shared on Facebook, Tweeted, shared on other social media sites, reposted or cross-posted elsewhere, and circulated via e-mail.

The two most important links to share are this one and this one. Once the virtual show goes up here, I'll ask you to share those links, too, since most, if not all, of the work will still be available for sale (shows are about long-term exposure, not immediate $$ — which is, of course, yet another reason why it's so difficult for Indian artists to do them).

Many thanks from both of us to everyone who has supported his work and gotten us to this point.

Cherry

Photo copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

Her name was Cherry. No, not very original, given that she was a Cherry Egger. In other words, a cross between a Rhode Island Red and a Buff Orpington, bred expressly for hardiness and egg production.

She was our best layer. She was our first layer, for that matter, producing the very first home-grown egg we got out of the first round of chickens that we brought home just over two years ago. By now, she was producing eggs of enormous size and quality, at a rate of almost one a day.

She left us, sometime between 7:00 and 7:30 this evening.

Around 6:00, as I was going to in to check something, I found her lying on the ground. Not at all unusual; they create divots in the dirt for dust baths every day. But she wasn't in a divot; she was lying flat on her stomach, not in brood position, and with head and tail drooping.

I picked her up; she was incredibly heavy-feeling, a dead weight. No motor control or apparent ability to stand. Panting, eyes closing. She reminded me of myself when I have a mono relapse.

Wings took her blinders out on the off-chance that they were bothering her. We checked her over thoroughly; no sign of mites, of Marek's, of any of the usual possibilities that afflict adult hens. It appeared much more like wry neck, although at just over two years of age, it would be unusual. There are, however, conditions that can affect adult hens that have similar symptoms: a form of congestive heart failure; abdominal fluid build-up; other conditions that can cause sudden paralysis. After comforting her a bit, we set her in the coop, and she seemed to perk up, eyes open again.

I ran an errand, back home by 7:00, and she was back, as well. Out of the coop under her own power, down on the ground in one of the mud pits, scratching and pecking happily. We went inside to eat dinner, and came out half an hour later to see about putting the little ones in for the night.

She was on her back in the mud, stone-cold and stiff.

Happy and eating one moment; gone the next.

If you have to go, I suppose it's as good a way as any.

Wings cleaned the mud off her feathers and put her in a protected place. We'll bury her tomorrow, over by the dogs and her little "sisters" who lost their own battles with wry neck two years ago.

I know it sounds silly to most people. But even our chickens are family.

We miss her already.




Copyright Ajijaakwe, 2014; all rights reserved.

For Cree

photo copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

This is Cree in better times. Now she needs help.

i'm ordering more of the practical items (supplements, etc.) that she needs right now, but it's very much touch and go. She had a flare this bad back in late December that we thought had resolved — until this last week's extreme weather.  She hasn't had another one this bad for such an extended period in probably six or seven years.

There comes a point where she can't be put through this kind of pain any longer. I don't want to think we've reached that point yet, but things are not good.

Beyond what we're already doing, it comes down to Spirit. So whatever you got in the way of prayers, good vibes, good thoughts, anything else — Cree needs 'em. 

Now.

Thanks.

"Tushinde Pamoja"

Remember that Kickstarter project for the "girl mothers" of Congo? I wrote about it here and here, with an update here when the shooting of the video was complete. If you missed it the first time around, the ten-cent version is this: A friend of mine, a professor, lends her formidable skills and talents to a great number of projects, some of which involve underserved populations in Africa:

One of her former students launched the project, and is collaborating with musicians in Congo to help what are known there as "girl mothers": very young unwed mothers who have been abandoned by their families and society. These young women have decided that they will not be tossed aside, and instead have banded together to mount a fierce fight for their own futures, the futures of their children, and the futures of all of Congo's other girl mothers and their families. 

This is leadership. Leadership, in fact, at a level that most of us can't even begin to imagine. It's difficult, it's frightening, it's dangerous. All the more so in a place like Congo right now, where bloody internal strife is being leveraged and exploited by outside colonizing forces that want to steal the region's wealth of valuable natural resources. 

Now, this Kickstarter project is trying to help amplify these young women's voices. Two popular Congolese musicians, Innoss'B and Maisha Soul, have committed to working with them to create a powerful music video and help send it viral throughout Congo (and, everyone hopes, the world beyond). It's a message of hope, expressed through the cultural commonality of music. 

It's a message that these young women and their children matter.

Now, the video is not only complete, but uploaded to YouTube to make it accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. The goal of these young women and their allies in the group Maisha Soul is to send it viral across Congo. But it's a message that is so important — and the video itself is  so uplifting, so inspiring, so filled with hope — that it needs to be sent viral worldwide.

You can help with that. Click on the video above to take you to its YouTube page. From there, share it via the many different social media platforms that it makes available — a click or two is all it takes. Cross-post it, repost, share it via e-mail, tell your friends.

Let's get the stories of these courageous, strong, beautiful, powerful young women out there.

Chi miigwech.


* If you'd like to read an English translation of the lyrics, they're over the jump, courtesy of my friend rb137.

Eleven More Days — Please Share!

Taos Pueblo:  Ancestral Places, Sacred Spaces, Wings's one-man show, runs for eleven more days at the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe.

Please help us get the word out by liking, sharing, tweeting, cross-posting, re-posting, and e-mailing the following links:

1. The show announcement on this blog;
2. The show announcement on the venue's Web site:
3. The show announcement on the venue's Facebook page; 
4. The venue's main page; and
5. The venue's main Facebook page.

Items 2 and 3 especially need likes, shares, etc; that's most important to sending this viral.

I'm so proud of Wings and his work. Please — help me share it with the world.

Chi miigwech and ta'a.