Cloud Women's Quarterly Journal ~ Fall/Winter ~ Vol. 18

CLOUD WOMEN’S QUARTERLY JOURNAL ~ FALL/WINTER 2021-2022 VOL. 18

A NOTE FROM OUR PUBLISHER JOLAOSO PRETTY THUNDER

Greetings all! Wishing everyone the best this new year, especially more health and joy; we all could sure use more of both of these!

I am writing to express my sincere gratitude to all the contributors to Cloud Women’s Quarterly Journal over the past eight years since we began this experiment of holding space for women’s voices, art, ways of walking in nature, with their families, and in their lives. Thank you! We have curated some incredible creative writing, articles, art, photography, political commentary, recipes, and new ideas on making this world a better place. We are all so diverse; it is reflected in the work we have shared here over the years. We are diverse in age, race, class, physical and mental abilities, and the different and beautiful states of mind that Creator has blessed us with.

We — myself, and the Cloud Women’s Dream Society Council wanted to create a space for all of us to feel safe to come together to speak our truths about our lives and how we are living them. That is so hard to do in this day and age of Social Media. We are encouraged and almost forced to have personas that are not always genuine nor reflective of the realities of our lives. Our young people are encouraged to be brands instead of human beings; they are constantly bombarded by images of people striving to “make it” or “to be better,” meaning, to strike it rich by any means necessary. This constant rat race, this posing and fabricating our lives is not a natural way to live.

We here at Cloud Women’s Dream Society are dreaming of an annual or bi-annual print journal that will include beautiful art, photography, creative writing, articles, book excerpts, natural remedies, recipes, and political thought and discussion. We are dreaming of how we will make that happen and possibly be able to pay our contributors in the future. Please write to us here on the Cloud Women’s Dream Society website if you have any ideas. Also, please take the time to explore this site. Read our other offerings and our mission. Volunteer, or contribute in different ways.

In the meantime, please continue to contribute work to Cloud Women’s Dream Journal. We will be featuring women’s work here on the website and will update on the future of the in-print journal and do a formal call for submissions.

Lastly, I would like to thank our previous editors, Ty Shaw, Negara A. Kudumu, Darasia Selby-Adebisi, and our most recent editor Odilia Galván Rodríguez for all the fine work they’ve done over the past eight years.

All the best,

Jolaoso Pretty Thunder, Publisher.

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Cloud Women's Quarterly Journal ~ Fall/Winter Edition 2021/2022 ~ Vol. 18

Welcome, ~ Ximopanoltih!

Thanks so much for patiently anticipating our Fall/Winter issue. We hope you enjoy the love and care that went into curating this issue, which offers a lot of heartfelt poetry and prose, and last but not least, 'Kolks Food For Folks' regular recipe column.

We have seen a dwindling number of submissions for the last few issues, except for our faithful recurring authors. There could be a lot of reasons, but we believe the biggest one is the exacerbated state of ennui brought about by almost two years of this pandemic and what it has done to our psyches. Many would like to deny the plague's continued existence and constant attack on our global family, but anyone who is living, in reality, can not. We sympathize wholeheartedly with and pray for all those who have lost loved ones and family members. Sometimes whole families have gone on due to this horrible dis-ease, not to mention the rise in mental despair and suicides since this all started. Cloud Women's Dream Society as a whole sends out our deepest condolences and prayers to all who have suffered these terrible losses and are in mourning as a result. 

We continue to be committed to bringing women's voices to the fore in this space we hold for them and hope you will put out the word to other women that this is a safe space for all of them to submit their writings, art, photography, recipes, articles, and thoughts. After having discussed the future of Cloud Women's Quarterly Journal with the entire Cloud Women's Dream Society Council, we have decided on some exciting changes in format and frequency with which we will continue to publish our journal. Jolaoso Pretty Thunder, our publisher, gives more specifics in her publisher's note.

I give our publisher and the Council many thanks for trusting me to edit the journal for the past seven years. (Please check out previous issues, before 2019, on Tumblr.) It has been my sincere privilege and pleasure to serve.

Ma Xipactinemi, (Be Well)

Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Editor

p.s. Thanks to Redearth Productions & Cultural Work for continuing to sponsor our submissions process. Please go there to submit work. We accept articles, interviews, essays, poetry, short fiction and creative non-fiction, original artwork, herbal and natural remedy recipes, food recipes, and, yes, political commentary on what’s happening in our world. We specifically solicit and encourage submissions of work from BIPOC women who write and need to be heard. Tlazohcamati — Thank You! 🌳

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Poetry By Robin Carstensen

Dear Student Athletic Director

                                    Summer 2020

Re: droplets. How long does each one hang, or how far

does it risk propelling itself before it dissolves in midair

or into strands of hair whipping into a mouth with 200,000,000

droplets tagging along, exerting their legacy, ecstatic grip

before dissolving midair, or latching onto anything, strands

of hair, lips, eyes, someone’s daughter on Whitecap Beach,

her face wide open with determination, body bent forward

following direction. Re: student training. Asking for clarification.

Re: the Instagram video of the women’s soccer team

on Whitecap Beach, showing the girls packed in, pushing

hurdles through the sand for practice, side by side, no face

coverings, no six-feet distance per CDC and NCAA, wild-eyed

coaches drilling from the dunes; rows of their faces, pushing

their breath into gulf air. Re: droplets. How far does each

one expel its commerce of breath, its wild trade among

millions of droplets whipping into a mouth or lingering.

---

Out of Line

 i.

When you’re a lone voice in a rafter of academics,

            even after the Dean grunts

at you in the hallway, when you make his life

            difficult when you speak up

for the voiceless, when lives are at stake

and you can’t sleep

if they are cold. 

ii.

when he says in a private meeting you deserve fairness, but he can’t make waves with the CEO, with the Vice CEO, with the Assistant to the Associate of the Vice CEO, and he’d deny he ever said this, as he’d deny asking if students ever write about flowers instead of discharging bitter polemics

iii.

when you hear the pastoral theory of poetry in his head and observe him try to reconcile it with modernity, while he tells you he will deny saying it and he trusts you.

iv.

when this echoes your father

               retired from corporate America,

Vietnam and kidney cancer,

                 who trusted you when he said

religion was made by men to control women

                 and if you ever told your mother

or anyone, he’d deny it.

iv.

when the med-tech staff sergeant in the Pediatric Clinic Supply Closet pushes you and your starched senior airman skirt up against the cabinets and says he’d deny this and you should deny this impossible-to-get-out-of-intact-or-without-some-kind-of-bruising-situation no matter what you did and you should deny every other impossible to get out of intact or without bruising situation in other closets, in a boat out in a Lake in Riverside with an old man chasing you around leeward and windward, at a castle garden bench in Lakenheath, in a laundry room, at a brick wall outside a nightclub, at an office party beer gag, in a wide-open living room while someone’s wife still at work

v.

when you are still swinging

your camera off your hips

for the historic and glorious

shores of the Mediterranean Sea

three stooges off base

gang up on you beneath the hills

which become the sentinels who echo

your no across the valley and village

who crack a space through the trees,

a caesura big enough in his tank

on top of you for you to slip from the panting

chase through the woods in which you are

vi.

always the hunted through the highways and byways

amid men and their wives, homes, and offices

who would rather bury you 

vii

even in this institution of grace,

pedigree, science, and spectacle,

children playing in the sandbox

where you’ve raced since a child

to the commands, avoiding the brick

hands at your slightest indiscretions

because your survival has rested on yes

sirs and yes ma’ams, how may I help you,

viii.

where you’ve furrowed the fields,

packed them down and plowed on,

when you’ve made your body grow

to pull it all until your limbs swell

and strain your voice

into a treacle of whispers,  

ix.

              then lurches

unscholarly, erupts,

              dislodges a loose irreverent cannon

blasting from the top balcony,

             you can rest

assured that everyone knows

              you’re the outsider, agitating

crone, cunt, curse

             of a woman who needs some

wide berth because she’s lost it,

             so vocal and fallen

completely

              out of line.

---

Robin Carstensen

Robin is Switchgrass Review Co-founder and Senior Editor. Her chapbook, In the Temple of Shining Mercy, is the recipient of an annual first-place award by Iron Horse Literary Press and was published in 2017. Poems also appear in BorderSenses, Southern Humanities Review, Voices de La Luna, Demeter Press’s anthology, Borderlands, and Crossroads: Writing the Motherland, and many more. She directs the creative writing program at Texas A&M University-CC where she also advises The Windward Review: a literary journal of the South Texas Coastal Bend.

Chapter 99- Directions to the night she got free (or, the night she escaped her captors - the Deer Hunter and Gunsmith) By Jolaoso Pretty Thunder

Get your gear in order:

the whetting stones for the carbon steel knives

a  good lock for the door

Guinness and Valium

Camels hardbox unfiltered

your bulletproof vest made from

 passiflora incarnata and blue ribbon

 beer tabs from 1974

 a shell casing rattle

your iron boots

the will to live

you must be fluent in the language of alcohol poisoning and black out drunk, a way to reach the unhinged realm    she's gone again

pack your truck for a solo trip

strap it down using a trucker’s  hitch and a pocketful of hopefuls

head west and north, you will have to walk through the vineyards at night during harvest time

month of fire, season of excess, indulgence 

evacuation and disorientation

lay on the ground  Right before dawn make your way down the ridge to wash your hair using dew

you collect from the Lady’s Mantel, polish  your crown, wear the red lipstick, let  your eyeliner run

weep with both palms on the ground, weep some more  then get up, stuff  your mouth  using your two  hands with late season Muscat grapes, wild boar sausages, vagrancy and damask rose petals let it all run down your arms, let go of your mind

those with a weak suck at birth should not follow you here

tell them to not wait for you

don’t follow    don’t follow     don’t follow    don’t follow

        “        “        “        “

        “        “        “        goodbye

leave town irresponsibly without a plan

pick up a  topo map along the way and

follow the dragon veins along the east side of the Sierras

ride the backbone of California

where men are put in their place  Fall in love  make a big plan Make promises  Fall out of love  give it all away

seek solitude  Soak in the hot springs then be silent

and watch the sunset  Fall asleep singing

an invisibility song complete with a flicker feather

tied in your hair  Wake up in Joshua Tree and sit in the dirt

get down on your belly and collect tiny crystals

from the anthills, just lay there

make a bundle with them, chaparral and a traveling song, then lineup  365  .45 caliber hollow point

count them and your blessings then carefully

sew them into your inseam alongside Ativan

copal and peonia seeds

lean against huge boulders bigger

than all of your collective regrets  Leave them there

sip mezcal from a demitasse as you walk out

and into the Mojave with Owl’s clover blossoms in your hair.

---

Jolaoso Pretty Thunder

Jolaoso Pretty Thunder lives in the deep woods of Northern California on the native land and home of the Kashaya Pomo, with her family and two dogs Rosie Farstar and Ilumina Holy Dog. She is a farmer, freedom grower, practitioner and student of herbal medicine and the founder of The Cloud Women's Dream Society, as well as a contributor and publisher of Cloud Women's Quarterly Journal. She is a well-traveled poet who loves rock, porch swings, pickup trucks, cooking, campfires, lightning, steak, long drives, hot cups of coffee, gathering and making medicine and singing with friends and family. She is a practitioner of Indigenous Spiritual and healing traditions.  Generationally gifted/cursed and charged with possessing the 5 Clairs.

---

In a Cabinet of Curiosity By Odilia Galván Rodríguez

I am an old book

My pages dry and cracked

Brittle but not yet

Dust turning into

Ash to fertilize new

Trees that will tell

Future stories

I live in a Cabinet

Of Curiosities

Like the ones that birthed museums

No one notices me

Amongst the odd and aging

Even the ancients

Waiting to be repurposed

---

Odilia Galván Rodríguez

Odilia Galván Rodríguez, poet, writer, editor, activist, and publisher is the author of seven volumes of poetry. Her latest book, from FlowerSong Books, is The Color of Light ~ Poems to the Mexica and Orisha Energies, 2019. She is the co-editor, along with the late Francisco X. Alarcón, of the award-winning anthology Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice, The University of Arizona Press, 2016. She has worked as the editor for several print magazines, such as Tricontinental Magazine in Havana, Cuba, and journals on line — Switchgrass Review, Cloud Women’s Quarterly Journal, and Anacua Literary Arts Journal.

---

Mother I Need By Peggy Morrison

Mother I need

Mother I need you to hear me

You are the only witness

Mother I need you to bear witness

to my childhood memories only I remember

I need to know that the golden bubble in my chest

is a real place

I find my way back

then suddenly I am

between there and now

there is a cold rain

I shiver

Mother I need you to hear me

where my battle howls                                                           

Mother I need you to free me

from the heavy weight of your optimism

your expectations

feel like my expectations

do unto others

keep everything in order

a tidy house with all the things inside

Mother I need to be free

from the heavy weight of loss

from the heavy weight of love

not  understood not entered

not matching symbols and movies where                             

they always seem to kiss, smile                                 

Mother I need the world to be easier

It is too cold.

Mother I need to rest

I need a lullaby that feels innocent

a sweet lullaby

a nap from which I awaken

fresh and calm

Mother I need eyes

I need eyes that don't flinch from the

dark colors of trash and blood                       

My eyes sting from car exhaust smell

I need to know how to find love

where there is pain

Mother I need eyes that see light within

I need your your trust

Your trust would be like ballast

hold my heart above water

hold my worn dinghy upright

in the backeddies

of this untamed sea

---

Peggy Morrison

Peggy Morrison is a California teacher, writer, dancer, musician, and outdoorswoman, currently living in San Francisco.

---

This Summer by Sonya Pendrey

I have spent my summer trying not to kill myself.

After waking up, I usually watch remakes of old soap operas until lunch. Then, I try to get myself

to ‘do the day’ - I walk my dog, stretch, get homework done. Once it’s dinner time, I turn the

television back on until I’m half asleep. At that point, I walk myself to bed and collapse. The next

day is the same as the day before and as the day after and so on.

My friend killed himself in April. Hung himself in a room I had stayed in for a few summers with

my best friend, his older sister. The way his bed sheets were mussed showed that he too had

collapsed - instead of into bed, off of it to swing from the ceiling fan.

I’ve struggled with mental health for as long as I can remember. As an eight year old, I

remember slapping myself hard across the face over and over one night after some boys at

school had called me ‘as fat as Garfield’. That led to a whole eating disorder fiasco. I’ve had

stints of regression since then like in high school and actually very recently - I didn’t know it was

anorexia until I learned about the disorder in a college Spanish course. But I had lived it and

have lived it since enough to know it indeed is a disorder that manifests after experiencing

traumatic events that exacerbate the sense of lack of control.

Then there were (and still are) the lists I would (and still do, uncontrollably) make every night

before bed of the tasks for tomorrow. The list making began around the time I learned how to

write in kindergarten. I tried to stop once in fifth grade but I ended up staying up all night reciting

the list - since then, I’ve surrendered to writing my lists down either on paper or on my google

calendar to get some sleep. A friend saw my planner once and called it my ‘serial killer hit list’.

My lists allow me to control what I can.

Throughout high school, there were weekends I couldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t sleep through

the day, though, although that might have been nicer. The light came in through the window,

dappled in the morning through the leaves outside. I’d watch the sun arc out of view, feel the

heat of the day through the glass panes, and then watch daylight fade and notice the heat

recede. The dark would settle and I’d lay there, wondering what the point of having electric

lights in the house was anyway.

I was convinced the problem was my home - the location and the people in it. I didn’t fit in with

the rich, white kids in the neighborhood and my family just didn’t understand me, both of which

were true to a certain degree. Moving to college will change everything, I remember thinking.

And it did. For a while.

A change of scenery always helps temporarily.

You can imagine my surprise and horror when it turned out that I carry this depression and

anxiety with me wherever I go. It came back, of course, and looking back it never really left. I

just smoked enough weed freshman year in the dorms to convince myself I was ‘cured’.

It’s really lonely to feel this way and to have lived through everything I have lived through. I wish

I had been more open about my struggles along the way. If my friend who is now passed had

known, maybe he wouldn’t have felt so alone. Or maybe we would have felt alone together and

been able to help each other. It’s isolating to feel these things, although I’ve learned recently

that it doesn’t have to be.

Since his death, my best friend and I have been more open with each other about our mental

states. Turns out, while I wasn’t eating, she was overeating and puking it up. Turns out, she

doesn’t make lists but takes pictures of when she turns the stovetop off to sleep at night. Turns

out, she also had weekends she couldn’t get out of bed. There’s a high probability that our

in-bed weekends coincided and we both lied over text to cancel plans with each other. That kills

me.

The morning she called me to tell me what happened, it was unusually gusty for a sunny day in

April. The evening the hospital unplugged him and his heart stopped, it became extremely windy

out of nowhere. At the memorial, it was so windy the pictures we spent hours setting up blew

everywhere. I think he was pranking us from the grave.

It’s nearing the end of summer and I haven’t killed myself. That’s about all I’ve done this

summer and I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that it has NOT been a waste of time but

crucial time spent healing.

Autumn on the horizon, soon leaves will litter the ground. Death promises birth. I look to the

future.

Today, I'll practice being myself.

Here’s what I have learned:

1. Vulnerability is a strength

2. Love is not transactional

3. To get through it, I must write through it

4. Life is hard but worth it.

---

Sonya Pendrey

A soon-to-be graduate from UC Santa Cruz, Sonya loves to hike and write. Her BA degree is in Environmental Studies with a concentration in Global Environmental Justice. She hopes to help people and the planet through her work. Her writing is dedicated to fellow strong-minded women and her sweet pup, Lily.

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Poems By Regina Jamison

Hot House Mamas

Wish I could save you

from all the fissures, cracks

and hot flashes

I know what it’s like   dying

to see a once strong body

slip away

to find yourself on your knees

where you used to stand

pains in your back or along

a ridge

garbage like cancer growing

we are hot house mamas

shifting temperatures like tides

capillaries and veins showing

recycling won’t save us

how can one recycle a life?

We want to believe in

reincarnation

maybe there’s more to this

maybe this is not an ending

we will wake up

renewed

lessons learned

ready to begin again

---

Human

What are we in the end anyway

but a conglomeration of light

flashes of darkness

just beyond the reach

of the eye

spirit, solidified for a thousand

moments

We found a way

to harness air

to swallow it deep inside

believed ourselves to be more

than molecules

greater than the stars

---

Regina Jamison

Regina Jamison is a Lambda Literary 2014 Fellow. She received her MFA from the City College of New York. Her poetry has appeared in several literary journals among them are, Switchgrass Review, Sinister Wisdom: Black Lesbians We Are the Revolution, Five Two One Magazine, Magma Literary Journal: Deaf Issue, The Americas Poetry Festival of New York Anthology 2016, Promethean Literary Journal, Off the Rocks: An Anthology of GLBT Writing Vols. 14 & 15, and Poetry in Performance Journal Vol. 43. Online, her poetry has appeared in Castle of Our Skin: Black Poet Miniature Challenge, Gnashing Teeth Journal, Silver Birch Press – Me as a Child Series, The Lake Literary Journal, and Mom Egg Review. Her poems will also appear in the upcoming issue of BAM 42 Stories. You can read her new essay in the Bronx Memoir Project Vol. 5 Anthology. Her short stories have appeared in In This Together: Stories of Romance & Survival During the Pandemic, Girls Who Bite: Vampire Lesbian Anthology, Zane’s Purple Panties, and the Lambda Literary Anthology: Gaslight. She was a Guest Editor for Gnashing Teeth Publishing’s anthology, SHE: Seen. Heard. Engaged. Her first novel, Choosing Grace, was published with Bella Books.

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Poems By Lou Ella Hickman

suddenly

                                   among water-color clouds

                                    the sun

                                    looking at everything

                                    looking at me

                                    shimmers

                                         i

laughing

                                    suddenly

---

            a love song among the seasons

                                                i

                                    sunlight is falling

                                    falling with rain

                                    we gaze out the window

                                    watch the rain     shining        

                                    we touch

                                    lean into each other

                                    sunlight   rain   shining

ii  

                                    among the branches

  autumn fires begin again

                                    we gaze out the window

             fire rises

              until we are wind  among the branches  

  flaming

                                          iii

  snow is falling

                                     slowly falling

                                     we gaze out the window                  

                                     wrapped in silence

                                     we watch snow fall

                                     falling    the wind too is silent

                                          iv

                             trees bloom white

                                    bloom green

                                    we gaze out the window  

            then

                                      nothing but us

                                    trees bloom white

                                   bloom green

                                        the wind sighs

---

                                    a poem . . .

                                                            water

                                                                        over

                                                                                stones

---

                                                mesquite

                        distilled like hard liquor

                        whose knots coil

                        and ever slowly 

the spun gold sap

                        (this angel fire)

                        seeps slow tears

                        under a spearing thorn

---

Lou Ella Hickman

Sister Lou Ella has a master’s in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines and four anthologies. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless was published by Press 53 in 2015.

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Kolk's Food For Folks

Wishing you all good warmth, good food, and good health in 2022. Enjoy!

---

Vegan Split Pea Soup

slow cooker or stove top

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons olive oil OR 1/4 cup water for water saute

• 2.5 cups of green split peas, rinsed and odd peas removed

• 3 large carrots, chopped

• 2 celery stalks, chopped

• 1 onion, chopped

• 2 cloves garlic, minced or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

• 2 teaspoons of thyme

• 2 bay leaves

• 4 – 6 cups vegetable broth or water*

• mineral salt & fresh cracked pepper, to taste

• 4 tablespoons fresh parsley, roughly chopped (or 2 – 3 teaspoons dried)

INSTRUCTIONS

Slow Cooker:

• Place ingredients into the bottom of your crock pot, starting with the split peas and finishing with the broth. Heat on low for 7 – 8 hours or high for 4 – 5 hours. Add parsley 30 minutes before done. Let soup cool slightly and remove bay leaves.

• Using an immersion blender, carefully, as to not burn yourself, puree soup until desired consistency. You can also puree using a food/processor or blender, may take two batches. Taste for seasoning adding salt and pepper as needed. Soup will thicken upon standing.

Stove top:

• Heat oil/water in a dutch-oven or large pot over medium-high heat, add the onion and saute for 5 minutes. Add carrots, celery, garlic, and thyme, and saute, stirring frequently, for 3 -4 minutes. Add the split peas, bay leaves, and vegetable broth/ water.

• Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Stir in parsley 30 minutes before removing from heat. Let soup cool slightly and remove bay leaves.

• Using an immersion blender, carefully, as to not burn yourself, puree soup until desired consistency or mix well with wooden spoon to mash. You can also puree using a food/processor or blender. Taste for seasoning adding salt and pepper as needed. Soup will thicken upon standing.

Serves 4 – 6

NOTES:

Make this oil free by using 1/4 cup water in place of oil when sautéing on the stove top.

---

Best Gluten Free Vegan Bread

Adapted from A little Insanity

Ingredients:

Yeast mix:

1/2 cups warm water

3 Tablespoons Honey (or any natural sugar)

2 1/2 teaspoons Dry Active Yeast

Chickpea/Garbanzo Brine Whip:

1/4 cup aquafaba- Brine/ Liquid drained from canned garbanzo beans (aka Chickpeas)

1/2 teaspoon Cream of Tartar

Dry Mix: 

3 cups of All Purpose Gluten Free Flour Mix

Scant 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum (in addition to what’s already in GF flour mix)

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Wet Mix:

1/4 cup olive oil

2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

Instructions:

Preparing yeast mix:

In a measuring cup, measure out warm water (should be warm to the touch, not hot or cold), stir in honey and add yeast last.  Set aside and let proof for approx. 10 mins.

Preparing chickpea brine whip

While yeast is proofing, pour aquafaba along with the cream of tartar into bowl (if you have a stand mixer use that).  Whisk quickly (on high) until stiff peaks form.  Once you have stiff peaks, use a spatula to coop out the fluff and set aside (I usually only whisk a few minutes and am satisfied with out the peaks).

Preparing dry mix:

After (or while) the aquafaba is whisking, combine all the dry mix together in a bowl.

Add in the proofed yeast mix to the stand mixer bowl.

Add dry mix ingredients in mixer bowl with yeast.  Slowly add in oil then apple cider vinegar.

Mix well (on Medium high) for 2-3 minutes until dough is smooth, but wet and sticky.

Add in aquafaba fluff

Mix gently (on low speed) until dough is well combined (apron 30 seconds or less).  Do not over beat.  Mixture will be thick yet somewhat runny (like cake batter).

Spray or grease 9x 5 cake pan.

Rise and Bake Instructions

Using a spatula, scrape the bread mixture into your prepared loaf pan and cover with plastic wrap.  Set pan on top of your warm stove to proof while the oven is preheating.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

It is important not to over proof the bread0 just let it rise approx. 20-30 minuets (depend on your room temperature).  DOn’t let it rise above your loaf pan.  Gluten free breads do not maintain their structure and will flow over then collapse.  

Bake for approx. 50-60 minutes.  If the crust is darkening too quickly, you can cover it with foil (tent open ended) and return to the baking until done.  (Internal temperature 210-220).

Loaf may initially rise much larger than pan and shrink back a bit.

Remove loaf pan from oven and let cool for 1-2 minutes before turning out onto your cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before cutting into slices.

Soup and Bread

What could be better?!

---

Cacao Vanilla Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup gluten free all purpose flour I used ‘Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Baking 1:1 Flour’

• 1/2 cup almond flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 cup coconut oil softened at room temperature

• 1/2 cup honey

• 1 large egg room temperature or 3 Tablespoons of aquafaba (chickpea water)

• 1 Tbsp vanilla bean extract

• 1/4 cup cacao nibs plus extra for sprinkling

Instructions

1. In a small mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder and baking soda. Mix well and set aside.

2. In a large mixing bowl, add softened coconut oil and using a hand mixer or fork, lightly whisk oil for a few seconds to break it down. Add honey and beat until well combined and fluffy.

3. Add egg or aquafaba, and vanilla extract. Beat until light, fluffy and smooth.

4. Gradually add in flour mixture, beating well until it begins to form a soft dough.

5. Slowly beat through cacao nibs.

6. Form into a soft dough, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

7. Preheat oven to 355ºF. Line a baking tray with parchment paper, set aside.

8. Remove from refrigerator and form into balls/cookies. Approx. 2 tablespoons worth each. Place onto prepared tray, pressing down on them slightly. Leaving 2 inches between each cookie as they do spread.

9. Sprinkle each cookie with a few cacao nibs and slightly press them into the cookies.

10. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until lightly golden around the edges.

11. Remove and cool on tray for 10 minutes.

12. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

13. Serve and Enjoy!

Recipe Notes

Store in an airtight container, in the pantry or refrigerated, for 4-6 days.

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Sarah Kolker

Sarah Kolker, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and Moore College of Art and Design, was born and raised in Philadelphia and has studied health and wellness practices in Philadelphia, Jamaica, SF Bay Area, and New York City. Sarah is an Artist, Educator, Chef, and Certified Yoga Instructor.

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Cloud Women's Quarterly Journal ~ Summer Edition 2021 ~ Vol. 17

Welcome, ~ Ximopanoltih!

Finally! We are so excited to share Cloud Women’s Quarterly Journal ~ Summer 2021 Edition, Vol. 17, with you. We never want Summer to end, so this year, we’re coming to you late Summer, hoping to extend our favorite time of the year.  

We were also hoping that by now, we could say we had most of the COVID-19 pandemic behind us because, no matter what you really believe about this tragedy, that’s what all of us want. For COVID to be a thing of the past. And while we could sit here for hours and point fingers and speculate on whose fault it is that over 600,000 people have gone on to the Spirit World, we won’t. Many of us have lost people we love and care about, and if we haven’t, we still hold our breaths just thinking about what might happen later today or tomorrow. Whose relative might go next? 

So with all that said, we implore you, please, go do it — if you have not been fully vaccinated — go as soon as possible. If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for all the millions of people (so many of them children) who are at risk and can not be vaccinated. This is not about your body, your choice, though ironically, many of those who are spouting this slogan are also the ones who believe women should not have the right to choose what happens to their bodies when it comes to abortion laws.

Maybe that’s why we don’t want Summer to end because even if many of us are still not visiting relatives or friends, we’ve been more outdoors in nature this season. This has been a time to enjoy being outside, which has been so good and healing.  

This is also a time of much grief, uncertainty, and worry, but we at Cloud Women’s Quarterly and our sponsor Cloud Women’s Dream Society know that art and beauty help heal the soul. So please enjoy these offerings of absolute beauty from our hearts to yours.

It is a pleasure to curate this journal, and we encourage more women to send us their writings, interviews, recipes, and artwork.

Happy rest of the Summer, everyone, and please remember to follow the protocols to stay safe. Wear your mask, and practice social distancing, and always — perform random acts of kindness every day.

Ma Xipactinemi, (Be Well)

Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Editor

p.s. The deadline for submissions to the Fall issue of CWQJ is October 2, 2021. Thanks to Redearth Productions & Cultural Work for sponsoring our submissions process. Please go there to submit work. Our issues are loosely themed on the four seasons. We accept articles, interviews, essays, poetry, short fiction and creative non-fiction, original artwork, herbal and natural remedy recipes, food recipes, and, yes, political commentary on what’s happening in our world. Tlazohcamati — Thank You! 🌳

Poems By Adela Najarro

My Litany of Scars 

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” 
—Rumi 

On the path that kept burning was my heart. 
The Divine knocked on the door 

not once or twice, but continuously, 
so I asked about the scar on my shin, 

kicked by a foot 
kicked by a foot in a shoe 
kicked by a foot in a shoe with cleats 
how will the light enter? 

I asked about the faint echoes on my arms 
left by tape 
left by tape wrapped round 
left by duct tape wrapped round and round 
the tearing sound 
so I couldn’t move 
so I stayed in place 
how will the light enter? 

There are ridges on my ears 
bitten 
bitten by teeth 
bitten by teeth that belonged  
bitten by teeth that belonged to a man 
who claimed the label husband, 
a husband beastie 
with sharp sharp teeth 
how will the light enter? 

On the path that kept burning was my heart. 
The Divine knocked on the door 

not once or twice, but continuously 
and the light entered 

through a dried leaf shriveled brown 
how it moved 
how it moved with wind 
how it moved with wind and skittled scuttled 
across an ordinary sidewalk 

past a broken piece of glass 
a piece of trash, forgotten in the morning 
a piece of forgotten trash 
on a cold morning where the clear sky 
no longer hurt so I closed my eyes 

and the light entered. 

Credo  

I believe in the sun and moon Orion in the sky 
that light shining through broken glass overcomes evil 
that the cooling waters of the ocean heals 

that most people try that those who hurt others  
cannot see into themselves       

I believe in making pacts and prayers and ofrendas 
that a flower’s beauty never dies but stays  
to fortify and strengthen  that when we love more 
than one person the universe speaks to us in dreams 

in dreams the afterlife is just those who have hurt others 
are forgiven even so        I believe it would be all right   
to lock them up for a good long time  
in a place without light dank empty  

I believe in my mother’s love that my father 
held me close in a crooked way that when it rains 
he falls through sky and waits as water on a leaf 

I believe water heals every day   that the moon shines 
through a skylight just for me that the sun’s corona 
clears smog from the air and from my lungs 

I believe that I can breathe clear even in the most trying times 
a cloud weaves a wave rolls stones crumble 
if a piece of broken glass shines on the sidewalk 

and a wind catches one loose leaf I believe 
love stays that heaven and hell are microcosms 
within ourselves the afterlife is just a star \

in Orion’s belt in the vacuum of the universe      

I believe in one breath  

more 

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Adela Najarro

Adela Najarro is the author of three poetry collections: Split Geography, Twice Told Over and My Childrens, a chapbook with teaching resources where students explore creative writing, identity, and what it means to be Latinx in US society. She teaches creative writing, literature, and composition at Cabrillo College. More information about Adela can be found at her website: www.adelanajarro.com.

Championing Over Violence

Migraine Protocol

This was me today, feeling insane while driving and getting a migraine. Hard to explain if you don’t get migraines with auras. Colors and disorientation. I couldn’t get my hat down low enough and couldn’t find my migraine shades for the first 5 minutes of the onset.  Pulled over and found them and took this.  

I was going to submit some poems, with the hot weather upon us, I thought it was important to share this migraine headache protocol. For me, and many others, the likelihood they’ll have a migraine increases with the hot weather. The heat, the smoke, the bright refracted light, the glare off of cars while driving can all trigger a migraine. I have been photophobic since I was a child. 

At the onset, to prevent it from escalating

Imitrex 25 or 50mg  

For the anxiety 

Immediately take nervines, hypnotics, and sedatives in tincture form. Usually a combo of passiflora, lactuca, kava kava, pedicularis densiflora, California poppy, and vervain. 

I also take 3000 mg of glycine (amino acid) very effective in relieving anxiety and panic.  

Drink 8 ounces of water mixed with Calm (Magnesium) and electrolytes. 

1 mg Lorazepam 

For light sensitivity  

Immediately put on shades. 

Close your eyes or go into a dark room.  

Put on a migraine helmet and ice on the carotid artery in the neck (base of the skull)  This helped to reduce the inflammation in the brain. 

Reduce stimulation of all kinds. 

If the headache part makes it though (despite imitrex) I have a cup of black unsweetened strong coffee (vasoconstrictive) to constrict blood vessels in the brain.  

Postdrome care (which can last 3 weeks for me)  

Migraine helmet, electrolytes, hydration, and continued magnesium. Cold nettle infusion. Lots of rooibos tea.  Lots of sleep, stay out of the sun. Wear migraine glasses inside as well as outside. Apply Icy Hot from top of shoulders all the way up to the bad of the head. Avoid movies with flashing lights and busy scenes. Avoid bright screens of all kinds, computers, smartphones, etc. Keep lights dim. Take lukewarm or cool showers.  

Prevention 

Above all, avoid all high histamine foods. 25mg amitriptyline each night before bed. 50g quercetin capsules each night. 15g CoQ10 to lower levels of the pain-related protein  CGRP.  Drink rooibos tea daily, drink cold nettle infusions or chilled nettle tea often. Avoid getting super stressed out.

Let things go.  

~ Migraineur of 41 years 

This should not be taken as medical advice at all, this is merely what works for me.

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Prettythunder Jolaoso

Prettythunder Jolaoso She lives in the deep woods of Northern California on the native land and home of the Kashaya Pomo, with her family and two dogs Rosie Farstar and Ilumina Holy Dog. She is a farmer, freedom grower, practitioner and student of herbal medicine and the founder of The Cloud Women's Dream Society, as well as a contributor and publisher of Cloud Women's Quarterly Journal. She is a well-traveled poet who loves rock, porch swings, pickup trucks, cooking, campfires, lightning, steak, long drives, hot cups of coffee, gathering and making medicine and singing with friends and family. She is a practitioner of Indigenous Spiritual and healing traditions. Generationally gifted/ cursed and charged with possessing the 5 Clairs.

Poems By Sister Lou Ella Hickman

when summer shines 

more than wheat glitters  

as the sun dazzles it ripe 

with wind bending  

water glitters into iridescence 

as birds skim across its luster 

leaves glitter green into a sheen 

as they sigh  

over sleeping things 

all is ripe 

Life comes to every harvest 

shimmering  

   the texas star 

      cooperia pedunculata
 (also known as the hill country rain lily)                               

                           i 

after  
spring/early summer rain 
it  
rises    blooms  
small  moon white  
on a slender green stalk 
along the highway  
a star 

ii 

a barbed-wire fence
protects a field 
where a sky of stars 
fell the night before 
and stayed 

the moon: who is she, really 

       i 

the setting sun whispered the latest rumor 

            your beloved   the moon   

            woos with her shinning flesh 

the white tipped tides   

i wept . . .  

             another she the ocean a body
the moon also loves? 

      ii 

could the moon be a twin 

who sheds her skin and blood 

like mine 

as she slowly counts one to twenty-eight  

iii 

            perhaps the moon             

                                    is an old woman who empties her purse . . . 

                              as she counts her coins  

        she measures out her change 

o 

               so carefully  

               for     each     dark     night 

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Sister Lou Ella Hickman

Sister Lou Ella has a master’s in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines and four anthologies.

Two Poems By Lara Gularte

ILLUMINATION 

            Upon viewing the painting, Personal Rise, 
                                            by artist, Stan Padilla 

A woman dreams face up to the universe, 
wishes for the return of her ancestors, 
hears the murmur of their voices. 
Through open windows they spill in, 
pour down on her as stars. 

The moon in the east window fills her with power, 
and her strength increases with earthshine. 
Sudden radiance, her heart crystalline. 
A whirlwind of ancestors spins her into the air, 
gravitational forces pull on her. 

Find her- 
among a constellation of shiny stones.  

This poem was previously published online with other work from the Escritores Del Nuevo Sol Ekphrastic Poetry Workshop.

TRAVELING MY YARD DURING TIMES OF PANDEMIC 

Under a lowering sky,  
light shifts through tree branches,  
pierces deep shade.  

A gravid doe under the Blue Oak. 

Emergence from amniotic shell, 
placenta of plenty, the breath, the bleating, 

a coming of life, 
spotted, tawny, long-legged.  

View from the bough, 
a moment of union with doe and fawn. 

Beyond these dark days,  
my heart fed with divine immunity. 

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Lara Gularte

Lara Gularte lives and writes in the Sierra Foothills of California and she is El Dorado County Poet Laureate 2021-2023. Her book of poetry, Kissing the Bee, was published by “The Bitter Oleander Press,” in 2018. Her forthcoming book, Fourth World Woman, published by “Finishing Line Press, will be available January 2023. Nominated for several Pushcart Prizes, Gularte has been published in national and international journals and anthologies. Her poetry depicting her Azorean heritage is included in the The Gávea-Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry, and in Writers of the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States and Canada.  She is affiliated with the Cagarro Colloquium: Azorian Diaspora Writers, at the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI), California State University-Fresno. In 2017 Gularte traveled to Cuba with a delegation of American poets and presented her poetry at the Festival Internacional de Poesia de la Habana. She’s a proud member of the esteemed, “Escritores Del Nuevo Sol.”  Gularte is a creative writing instructor for Arts in Corrections at Mule Creek prison.

On the Beach By Anyssa Galván Bilka

On the Beach Mixed media. Copyright ©Anyssa Galván.  All Rights Reserved.

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Anyssa Galván Bilka

Anyssa is a Los Angeles-based artist, graphic designer, video editor, author and avid dog lover. She graduated with honors in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in visual communication. When she is not creating art, Anyssa enjoys cooking, traveling and spending time with her pups. You can find her latest work here:

A Poem By Victoria Bañales

Santa Barbara’s Summer Heat 

Cabrillo Boulevard 
—wide stretch of glorious beach. 
This is where you find 
sandy shores, palm trees 
sunny rays, ocean scent. 
Sailboats that float, like clouds 
dreamy views, waterfront hotels 
seafood and ice-cream on the wharf 
pompous yachts parading the docks 
—look at the blazing sunset!  
Skies on fire. 

 State Street 
—live entertainment, places to eat. 
This is where you find 
restaurants, bars, boutiques 
revel in the city’s colonial past 
summer’s anticipation: Old Spanish Days. 
Forget about Indians and Mexicans 
enjoy mariachi music, perform a hat dance 
crack confetti eggs, drink tequila. Laugh 
—look at the flamenco dancers!  
Crowds on fire. 

 Milpas Street 
—forgotten fields, centuries ago. 
This is where you feel the heat 
find “authentic” Mexican food. 
Adventurers trail off the beaten path: 
stained cracked sidewalks 
mom and pop Mexican shops 
gas station, liquor store 
laundromat, dollar store 
—look at the Mexican lowrider!  
Cops on fire. 

 Alphonse Street 
—twin blocks, over-stuffed lots. 
This is where? You will never know 
invisible ramshackle houses groan 
sunbaked women hunch over eggshells 
careful not to crack the fragile whites 
paint, stuff, cut. Beneath a giving tree 
chain-link fence, ruptured and bent 
black-eyed Susans, bougainvilleas ablaze 
—look at the exotic flowers!  
Mami’s eyes on fire. 

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Victoria Bañales

Victoria Bañales is a Chicanx writer, teacher, mother, and activist. She is the founder and editor of Xinachtli Journal—Journal X—a literary/arts magazine focused on social justice issues. A 2021 Macondo Fellow, her writing has appeared in various anthologies and journals, including Translocalities/Translocalidades: Feminist Politics of Translation in the Latin/a Américas, Beyond the Frame: Women of Color and Visual Representations, North Dakota Quarterly, The Acentos Review, Cloud Women’s Quarterly Journal, and more. Victoria is a member of the Hive Poetry Collective, Writers of Color Collective-Santa Cruz County, and the recipient of the 2020 Porter Gulch Review Best Poetry Award. She holds a Ph.D. in Literature and Feminist Studies from UC-Santa Cruz and teaches English at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz County.

A Poem By Robin Carstensen

Say it Anyway 

                           Mother toed the straight and narrow  

           while you pined for her face  

                                    gleaming at you, you,                         

                    her glistening port,     

then raised your sail  

                          for the vast green realm.  

        You’ve summoned your mother  

                                        to bear your whole life  

                          it’s her  

                    you’ve been calling  

from swollen temple  

                 to burning feet  

                             where even brown eels  

                  lay their eggs,   

build their homes  

                  among sea anemones  

                                             and turrets,  

                               and all our swashbuckling  

                    and clanging  

                            swords, our bodies shedding  

        their dutiful cells  

                         on the naked shore  

                                                    for her heavenly gaze 

                   couldn’t fill the longing  

                                                 ebb and flow  

                                    everywhere  

                                 you weren’t,  

                                               she was  

                                                            a marsh 

                                                  I was 

                       a fen, there was her name  

and mine, then 

                 the wide lower course, open sea 

                  a cove and coral reefs, rain 

                           of stars, wave, crest 

             curling under, the taut  

          close, the whispering 

                                                       efferent force        

        pulling, the terrible  

            cry of gull, the say it  

                                           anyway 

                                                  I’ll never leave you 

                                                                                    anywhere 

                                                                           we clamber on 

                                                             unmoored.

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Robin Carstensen

Robin is Switchgrass Review Co-founder and Senior Editor. Her chapbook, In the Temple of Shining Mercy, is the recipient of an annual first-place award by Iron Horse Literary Press and was published in 2017. Poems also appear in BorderSenses, Southern Humanities Review, Voices de La Luna, Demeter Press’s anthology, Borderlands, and Crossroads: Writing the Motherland, and many more. She directs the creative writing program at Texas A&M University-CC where she also advises The Windward Review: a literary journal of the South Texas Coastal Bend.

Reminders and Tools for Summer in the Sun and Being out in Nature By Nahui Ollin Paredes

Reprinted from our CWQJSummer 2018 edition with permission from the author.

Insect Repellents

Commercial products such as insect repellent and sunblock can have harmful effects on our bodies. Most commercial insect repellents contain the chemical DEET, (known to chemists as N, N-Diethyl-meta-toulumide.) From 1961 to 2002, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reported eight deaths related to DEET exposure. Three of the fatalities resulted from deliberate ingestion, but five occurred following DEET exposure to the skin in both adults and children. Some children exposed to insect repellents or lotions containing DEET have experienced the same type of neurological effects observed in adults - including headaches, tremors, lethargy, seizures, involuntary movements, and convulsions. Experts also say that frequent and long-term use of this chemical, especially in combination with other chemicals or medications, can cause brain deficits in vulnerable populations, especially children. While we are not scientists and have not reviewed all of the data we think that the least exposure to toxic chemicals the better for all.

So here are a few good resources on alternatives to chemical insect repellents.

From Mountain Rose Herbs - No-Skeeter Spray Recipe
https://blog.mountainroseherbs.com/noskeeter-spritz

From HealthLine - Ten Natural Ingredients That Repel Mosquitos https://www.healthline.com/health/kinds-of-natural-mosquito-repellant

A Quick Bug Spray Recipe:

Ingredients:

½ cup witch hazel

½ cup apple cider vinegar
40 drops of essential oils (eucalyptus, lemongrass, citronella, tea tree, or rosemary)
1 - 8-ounce glass spray bottle

Directions:

Mix witch hazel, apple cider vinegar, and essential oils in an 8-ounce glass spray bottle. Spray over all portions of the body but avoid repellent in the eyes and mouth.

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Sunscreen and Sunblock

The problem with commercial sunscreens and sunblock is that while we need protection from the sun’s harmful UV rays which can cause skin cancer we also need the Vitamin D which the sun provides to guard against deadly melanomas.  

With regard to both being out in the woods and in the sun this summer, it is important to wear appropriate protective clothing and gear. Also, if you are planning to use insect repellent and or sunscreen/block, which most of us do, we suggest looking at alternatives to the regular chemical-laden commercial products.

Here are some suggestions regarding healthy sun exposure.

1. Avoid being outside during the middle of the day when the sun’s rays are the hottest.

2. Seek shade under a tree, umbrella, etc.

3. If you’re going to be outside during peak sun it is necessary to wear a large-brimmed hat.

4. Wear light, loose clothing to cover exposed skin.

If you would like to make your own sunscreen here are two excellent resources:

A Natural Homemade Sunscreen Recipe That Works! From DIY Natural

https://www.diynatural.com/homemade-sunscreen/  and

from Wellness Mama this Natural Homemade Sunscreen Recipe

https://wellnessmama.com/2558/homemade-sunscreen
 
Here is a list of commercial alternatives that may be less harmful:

7 Best Natural Sunscreens for Sensitive Skins

https://www.prevention.com/beauty/skin-care/g20074495/best-natural-sunscreens/

Enjoy what’s left of the hot weather, and remember we need sunscreen when we’re out in nature any time of the year and bug spray helps too, especially when we are out foraging for wild plants and other medicine-making ingredients.

Nahui Ollin Paredes

Nahui Ollin Paredes is a world traveler, dreamer, writer, and wise woman. She loves to brew up herbal decoctions, make remedies, salves, oils, and tinctures. As a person who thinks multi-tasking is what women do naturally, she believes it’s always good to include knitting or crocheting as an additional activity while binge-watching something on the screen. You can often find her cooking for family or friends as she’s always found comfort in the alchemy of the kitchen. ♡