Ode To A Crab, mandala created from a blank circle, June 2008, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
ocean moondancers
sidewinding, hiding in shells
crabs are people, too
Hello, Cancer!, detail of Ode To A Crab mandala created from a blank circle, oil pastels, black Sharpie, Crayola markers, June 2008, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, June 29th, 2008
-related to posts: haiku (one-a-day), Target — May Mandalas, inspired by post, Good-Bye Gemini
Hello, Cancer! That’s you, QM. I love your sidewinding hiding in shell crab mandala. I thought about you in Taos this weekend. Thanks for holding down the fort.
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ybonesy, welcome back from Taos! I missed you! Hope you had a great time. Can’t wait to hear about your adventures and maybe even a post or two. The weekend went so fast. And now…on the eve of a long July 4th weekend. That makes me happy. 8)
Yeah, the crab, I just had to do a mandala. I didn’t realize until you did your Good-Bye Gemini post that when Gemini ends, well, the Cancer crab comes Home. July is my high time. I finished the rest of my June mandalas this weekend, too. Will post sometime over the week or so. Stage 6 of the Great Round is Dragon Fighter!
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QM,
Great haiku and mandala! J.J.’s B’day is the 29th of June, making him a crab. A crab memory:
Fishing off the Santa Monica pier, a man hauled up a crab on his line, took it off and started waving it around. Got a little too close to my Mom and she let out a blood-curdling scream! If she wasn’t so afraid of water, I think she would have jumped off the pier, rather than have that crab come any closer! Much, much later, she could laugh about the episode.
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oliverowl, thank you. And Happy Birthday, J.J.! I didn’t realize that he was a Cancer, too. And that I posted this on his birthday. We sure can be moody creatures. But we’ve got BIG HEARTS!
Funny story about your Mom and the crab! Do you know why your Mom was afraid of water? I often wonder if people become afraid of water because something happens during their childhood that makes them afraid. Or maybe they weren’t exposed to water or never learned how to swim.
We learned to swim in Georgia from the time we were tadpoles and most of us kids grew pretty comfortable with the water. We also took swimming lessons at a local pond. In the South, we spent a lot of time in the water in the Summers. Swimming was kind of second nature. Or maybe that’s just the crab in me. 8)
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I have a fondness for Cancer people..my daughter is one, and my beloved aunt was too.
I also have a fondness for moondancers (I consider myself one). 🙂
We have crabs in the river here..the river is brackish so we are graced with fresh water and salt water creatures. It is also very tidal so at times, it is much like the ocean. It is constantly changing..from smooth like a rolling river..to white caps like the ocean! The crabs are blue crabs, and they are beautiful.
Needless to say, I loved the haiku and the mandala!
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Suz, I’m honored to be in good company with your daughter and aunt. 8) Thank you.
I feel lucky to have a Taurus Moon and a Taurus Rising sign in my chart. With this emotional Cancer water sign, it really helps ground me to the earth.
How lucky you are to live near freshwater and saltwater critters. Blue crabs! Those must be beautiful. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen one in person.
I study the large, orangish crabs I see on the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts. They are strange creatures those crabs. The way they sidewind across the sand. Yet they can be tenacious if they need to be. I gain great insight into the Cancer astrological sign by just watching them.
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[…] watched the Moon carefully in June, paid homage to the longer light of the Sun. I tried to stay present to the Moon’s many faces. Days she held her ground opposite the brighter, bolder Sun. (Why can we see the moon in the […]
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Love this piece!
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Thanks, Raine Klover (I like that name). Saw some great photographic work on your blog. And the glass negative project is quite ambitious. You must be a history lover, too.
Suz, one other comment on your blue crabs. Liz was doing some research on Savannah (where we will be in a few weeks) and she discovered that the blue crabs live there, too. Don’t know if we’ll see any, but I’m hopeful. 8)
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Oh..I hope you do, they really are beautiful!
I have never been to Savannah, but it is on my list of places to visit. It is not that far from northeast Florida.
Looking forward to hearing about your trip there! 🙂
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Suz, me, too! I’ll keep you posted on that trip. I’ll be so close to you down in Florida. 8)
BTW, I drew Sea Horse today in the Susan Seddon Boulet Animal Spirits cards. I hadn’t been drawing Animal Cards in quite a while, and then recently started drawing them again. (I think ybonesy has stirred me with all of her animal posts!)
Anyway, I left a comment yesterday in the WRITING TOPIC – INSECTS & SPIDERS (LINK) post because I drew Insect yesterday. And then today, I drew Sea Horse and decided to leave it here since it has to do with the ocean and I’m a Cancer Crab and we’re about as landlocked as you can get in MN (unless you count Lake Superior!).
There are no Crabs in this deck. And since I’m a tidal moon ocean dweller in my astrological chart, I thought Sea Horse would be close:
I see this as a good omen for the trip to Savannah in a few weeks. When I will once again be by the sea. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the Atlantic. 8)
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You won’t believe it, but Mom, Liz, and I pulled the Seddon Boulet Animal Spirit cards today and Liz drew the Sea Horse right as we were getting close to St. Simons Island, Georgia. (Mom drew Dove. I drew Cat. And a few days ago, I drew Lion. I’m seeing a theme here.)
We haven’t seen any blue crabs yet (except a pewter one in a little store off Demere). But Liz did find a conch shell at low tide — it was inhabited though. Lots of good video there. Still time for viewing the blue crabs. And maybe some dolphins. We’ll see. We are heading out of Cancer and into Leo. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
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Crab people :
hiding in shells
wondering
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beautifulisness, thanks for stopping by. Thankfully, the crab people come out of their shells sometimes and wander the sunny beach — sidewinding.
no longer hiding
traversing land, sand, and sun
gathering up love
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