Shape Shifters--Don't Go Changing

I spent most of the morning in the car repair center getting my steering fixed. (Everybody who feels like every challenge is some deeper than deep symbol can go ahead and laugh right now. Do it now and get that over with.) While I waited for my car I spent hours, yes hours (4.5 hours!) trying to ignore endless episodes of The Transformers, Sonic the Hedgehog and Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles. I did not consider how this Saturday morning programming was in accord with the post I was planning to write today. All of the animated stars of these shows are themselves shape shifters. In fact they are all shape-shifters who use there ability to change to thaw rt crime, help the innocent and repeatedly save the world.

So, it's Halloween today. I love the way the air feels. Early yesterday, I stood in the street for a long moment and tiny golden leaves swirled around me, rustling and airborne, spirits of the trees that gave up the ghost touching me, singing. My skin tingled with anticipation as I wondered about the ancestors who come a little bit closer than usual at this time of year. I planned to cook them some pole beans and corn bread. Then, still in the street like a shocked squirrel, I saw the children rushing to school in their costumes. Witnessing their excitement added to mine. I thought about candy and said grace for this time when we get to celebrate feeling fear. Our city has been scary lately. But, more than these things I've been thinking about shape-shifting this year.

Who are the shape shifters and why are they important? Shape shifters are people who are willing to surrender their apparent identity for a good reason. Shape shifters are important because they can walk between worlds, bringing information, wisdom, aid, traditions, etc. from one place to another. By shape-shifting they can share gifts from their world with the residents of their new world. If they did not shape-shift but tried to share such things they might be rejected as a stranger. The shape-shifters are pioneers. They learn quickly-new languages, new customs, new terrains and climates. They are very adaptable mainly because they aren't afraid to be schooled or to look like fools.

The trick is that shape-shifting can be frightening. Firstly is the un-grounding loss of identity. It's hard to keep your feet on the ground if you find that you don't have feet anymore, just some flippers in their place. Next, shape-shifters don't usually travel in packs; it can be lonely-all that walking between worlds. Plus, frequently, when you shift back and you try to tell your folks about the adventure their aren't even words to communicate what you've been, what you saw, tasted, listened to, braved. And then there's the inevitable difficulty that some shifts leave a mark and you never are quite the same. Everybody notices the change and might not accept the shifter back into the fold.

So, this post is my holler out to all the shape shifters. To all the kids going into communities other than their own for better schooling, safe travels. To all the beautiful folks changing their gender identity, you are the brave ones. To all citizens newly naturalized, you are welcome. To all the black girls and boys who are frowned upon for talking white, you are heard. To all the ministers I know minding the spiritual gap between sects and denominations, you are blessed. To the missionaries and relief workers leaving hearth and home to help, thank you. For every woman who walks into a board room and is mistaken for someones assistant, you are powerful. For people who saw themselves as rich but have lost some of their perceived wealth, you are overflowing. To every chub on a low-fat diet,at the gym, or struggling to change your body, you are perfection. To all the cosmetic shape-shifters, eye-lash gluing, wig/weave workers, go-head with your bad, bad, self, you walk in beauty. The drag queens, actors, role-players and ren-faire goers, thank you for being fearless. To all the other shape-shifters, I see you. Your capes and masks, your super, super powers are the change we want to see.

Disguise is not a challenge. The truly brazen option is to become the Other. The shape-shifters are the ones who will lead us beyond tepid tolerance towards hot, passionate love for what is Outside. I don't agree with people who feel that we need to encourage tolerance...What is that? ( I tolerate tight pantyhose!) Love is the Challenge. The Ten Commandments charge us to Love our neighbor; it doesn't say to dredge up some tolerance. The act of shape-shifting breeds the compassion that will allow us to finally Love one another.

What is the Bountiful Bone Pot?

The Bountiful Bone Pot is

*the cauldron of magic
*deep creativity
*good ideas
*over-flowing
*licked dry
* always full
* the potential in emptiness, the void
*always simmering
*slow cooking
*always bubbling, somethings always cooking
* a place for experimentation and science
*filled with food
*where medicine comes from
*an incubator
*a place of transformation
*where stone soup is made
*where nothing becomes something and something boils down to nothing

The Bountiful Bone Pot is the name I give to my work and to the process that evolves as I do that work. The products that result are feasts, sometimes just little morsels, sometimes delicious or piquant bites that all have been baked up in my proverbial bone pot. When I embark on the creation of something new--- a class, an artistic project, a rehearsal process, the building of a ritual, writing a poem or story, the preparation to share healing--- I think to myself, "Okay, let me dip into my Bone Pot. Sometimes when I put labels on cosmetics, potions, medicines, or fashion accessories the labels will read "The Bountiful Bone Pot". When I say the words they sound like a bit of a mouthful but that seems somewhat fitting.

A friend actually came up with the term. She sent me a thank you note in response to a letter of condolence. (Yes, I have friends that I exchange actual letters with regularly. Old fashioned, we are!) In her note she referred to my words of comfort, couched in a compliment, couched in a joke, as being 'just one more from Kim Crutcher's bone pot!"


The Bountiful Bone Pot is my pet name for my creativity. I adore my gifts and and shouldn't everything that is adored have an adorable pet name? I do a lot of work in the kitchen and want everything I make to feel luscious, nourishing, life-affirming. So pull out a spoon, sometimes you'll need a knife and a fork to really get it. There now. Taste.