a bird

there is a bird
a giant bird
a transient bird
near the oft flowing waters
of the little acre wood

her south facing gaze
follows the flow
of the sometimes stream
of the slope of the land
and the portal of passion

she invites me
to join her
as she fades away
into the trunks and branches
that give her form

there is a bird
a giant bird
a transient bird
who chides me

to spread my wings

to soar with the mystery
to bring it back
to the land
to the life
that weeps for the gift

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Bad poetry in honor of the moment, and of the uncontaminatable essence of life; past, present, and future.

Peace. ☮️

A Proclamation

Every day I do my best to honor, serve, nurture, protect and defend my blessed Nona Gaia.

Peace.

Familiar Spiraling Cycle

Yesterday, on the final full day of autumn, as the rains that fall today began, this small layered piece that I started some five years ago emerged from a stack of this 'n' that that I was sorting through. It served, in the moment, as an odd yet comforting reminder of the nature of life, and how nothing is ever, as us two-leggeds cling to believing, completed. A reminder, too, of the transient nature of all things.

Just as gravity invites this odd, solstice rain into its familiar spiraling cycle, it invites us all, one by one, each in our own time.

Peace.

Seasonal Reflection

The days (and weeks) that lead into late December are not easy for me, and this spiraling segment of my seasonal journey seems to get more challenging with every passing year.

Yet, as winter solstice draws near I can feel its sacred Nature reaching for me (and me for it) until, eventually, I am able to feel myself disconnect form the madness of my contemporaries and the reality we share, so that I may receive the holy mantle that Nature wraps around me as I sink the roots of my spirit into what truly nourishes and sustains me, the earth, our Nona Gaia. All life.

This is a Medicine Time for me.

And every year I am more and more grateful for this deeply personal and transient respite from the world of my fellow two-leggeds, a world profoundly relinquished of ingenuous meaning and indelible value, a world that overflows with mindless consumption and heartless waste, denial and disregard, golden calves and false faces, vacant voices, abstracted gestures... a world that starves and depletes us, Nona Gaia. All life.

For me, it is a dark time, indeed.

Yet, no matter how dark, I look forward to this Medicine Time every winter, for the reflective sparkles discovered in the darkest pits of the season, and for Nature's sol renaissance. I appreciate it more and more each year, no matter how ephemeral the Medicine Time may be.

~~~

I grew up with this thing called christmas. For me it was a holiday of extreme stress. It most often meant carsickness in travel to a place called "home" that was not, where being the invisible child or the prey seemed my central role. It meant odd comfort extracted in dim solitude with a black and white TV and a black and white dog. And when it wasn't this, it was in the place I did call home, with a raised 'n' raging voice of disappointment, and of secret expectations unmet, countered with cold 'n' steely demeanor best left as is, until a switch flipped to smiles and cheer that perplexed and distressed those in its intimate wake. I did not care for this thing called christmas. And I still struggle with this piece of my story, and the reflections of it that I witness in the world around me.

And then some.

~~~

I do my best to pause in these final autumn days of waning daylight to acknowledge and honor my years of dedicated efforts in nurturing my relationship with the Nature of my multi-faceted challenges of the season, to offer gratitude for the reciprocity of that relationship... and the spiraling verve that cloaks me in the familiar succor of exploring the nuances of that reciprocity, of night 'n' day, darkness 'n' light, lower 'n' upper, outer 'n' inner, self 'n' all, death 'n' life... and so on.

The things I do - and don't do - in this season support me in so many ways. They offer glimmers of reflective, healing light in the darkest of places. And in this moment I can offer gratitude to the harshest of reflections, for without them, I might be following the crowd and missing the experiences of deep roots in dark places... the spaces that prepare me as an integral part of the turning of the wheel toward the waxing of daylight and the perpetual promise of spring.

And with that, I sink my roots deeper into what's left of the waxing darkness of the season that I may draw up the perfect Medicine as the daylight begins its waxing at the winter solstice.

I make ready. For me, for Nona Gaia. All Life.

Peace.

Welcome December

I love this month. That is, as long as I keep myself insulated from the outer trappings of my external world. December is the month that welcomes winter, that offers us the solstice and with it, the promise of the reborn sun. December is the month that invites us to take our final seasonal dive into the darkness and shadows, and then... caress the gifts of Medicine we discover there as we bring them into the solstice light to acknowledge, honor and appreciate. 

In this season, when so many around me are distracting themselves with shallow activities of waste and poison in the false light of our times, I crave the solitude and quiet of the early evenings and long nights, for that verve is transient and will shift and evolve with the winter solstice. So now, now is the time to be still, to wrap ourselves in the darkness, to be with the quiet of winter's approach... to explore our dreams and conjure how we might best serve them when the light of day shines stronger and longer, so that we may bring our dreams to our communities in service to the greater good of the world.
 
Our world needs us. Nona Gaia is calling us to support her, that she may support us, and all life. She invites us to emulate her loving generosity. She is challenging us to dig deep, beyond our shallow lives of convention to discover the deeper values that reside there... to feel the nourishing and sustaining richness that lies beneath the surface... to embrace the choices and behaviors that nourish and sustain us, her, and all life. The time is ripe to question every choice we make, every behavior we choose, and every action we take. For our world. 

So as December arrives, honor the seasonal mantle of darkness that offers warmth in the chill, and comfort in the shadow. Honor the mantle that wraps us in the still quiet of the dark season, as we await the coming of Yule at the solstice, when we welcome the newborn sun of the season... as we dream of new choices, fresh behaviors, and invigorated actions of deeper meaning and value that guide us into the promise of spring.

Rest. Renew. Refresh. Get ready.
 
Peace.

Blog4Peace 2018

Words are important. Knowing is important. Willing is important. These are all part of the dream, and the dream is important.

All these things are true. Truer still is the doing. The walking of the words. For doing is the magic that makes all things manifest.

Recall Peace.

Awaken Peace.

 Create Peace.

Walk Peace.
Do peace.
Be peace.
Manifest peace.

Join Mini and all of us to Blog4Peace.

Peace.

Descend, Witness, Share and Heal

Every season invites us to mirror its verve, its behavior, its Nature. And in this month autumn sinks its verve deeper into the warmth and gloom of the underworld.

November is, for me, a time to descend ever deeper into the spiraling web of my own shadows. It’s a time to get intimate with the sticky threads of my often-atrocious darkness. These are not threads of my choosing. These are threads that catch on me. These are challenging strands that summon me into intimacy, that I may know them well enough to hear their whispers and learn their hard lessons, that I may express gratitude for them, and that I may weave them into the light of my world.
 
It’s a time, too, that I honor the ancestors, and this year it is the ancestors of Nurture and Knowing – the ancestors of earth, and of sky – that summon me. The Nurture ancestors invite me into their underworld so I may be witness to their deep, dark stories. In turn they invite me to share these stories – when the time is ripe – with the Knowing. Together we spin and weave the stories of misery and turbulence with those of wisdom and healing, to manifest the evolving Medicine mantle that comforts me in this life.
 
This practice of diving deep and honoring the ancestors has been a conscious ritual for the past 24 years, and you’d think it would get easier over time, but it doesn’t. This year's challenge feels harder than ever. The shadows are whispering the arduous stories of Nurture, and so I sit in the darkness, still and quiet, to hear them and hold them in my heart, that I may have them when I reunite with the Knowing.

I adore these dark days of mystery, and the ancestors I meet there, travails and all. Together we make Medicine.
 
 
Embrace the mantle of darkness that comes with the lengthening nights of this season. Wrap yourself in it, Feel its embrace, for it is the challenging and comforting embrace of the ancestors of Nurture.
 
Peace.

Summer... In Every Season

Autumn arrives tomorrow evening in my part of the world, which makes today the final full day of summer. It has been an active season on all fronts, as they say, and even as autumn arrives, the pace will continue to quicken, especially in the gardens and kitchen.

Already we've put by gallons of tomatoes, canned and dried... and they're still producing. Apples from our local farmers' market are all dried, save the bowl full for fresh eating, with skins and cores fermenting for what should be a gallon of apple cider vinegar. I hope we can snag another big box of apples this weekend. ::nods:: And yesterday marked the harvest of all but the last few fresh leaves of collards for canning. There's peppers, radishes, carrots, cucumber, and other harvests fermenting on the counter, and tomatoes and summer squash in the dehydrator.

We will be enJOYing summer throughout the autumn, winter, and spring seasons, until the wheel of the year turns and summer arrives again. And then some.

This coming week, as autumn takes center stage, I'll be harvesting and processing beets. I'll definitely have to make more kvass this year, as we have one delectable bottle of this jeweled beverage from last year, and I want more. ::nods:: I'm sure I'll make some fermented pickled beets, and borsht, and who knows what else. And some, later in the season, will go into cold storage to see us through the post-frost days.

There's still peppers, winter beans, leeks, onions, carrots, cucumbers, lemon grass, tomatoes, beets, lettuces, chard, eggplant, calendula, basils, shiso, dill, cilantro, and other herbs waiting for harvest. And maybe there'll be another batch of shiitakes before autumn is done with her dance. Not to mention horseradish, poke, chickweed, and other wild friends. And as I consider these things, I'm reminded that before you know it, it'll be time to plant the garlic... and light the first fire to warm our little hut. And I am grateful.

I am grateful to be an honorable steward of the earth, a devotee to Nona Gaia, as I tend the soil around me, the waters, and all our kin. I am grateful for the gratitude the earth expresses with generous bounty to nourish and sustain me and her, in every season.

As I tend to the patch of earth that I call "mine," I pray that others will join me in tending her. She needs our attention, our care, our understanding, our compassion, our penance, our love, now more than ever. In every season.

Peace.

Summer Preserves

Now... bring me an ale!

Peace.

Weaving Together

I wore, as is my habit, one of my Spirit Cords to the Women's Herbal Conference this past weekend. It serves as a lanyard, as well as a reminder of my intentions. But I also packed my finger-spun Prayer Cord... the one made with vintage fabrics that came from my Aunt Mary, and leftover fabric from a shirt I made in the 1980s to wear when fishing with my father-in-law (and awesome friend)... the one with thirteen prayers knotted in between the closing knots of creative intention. As I was packing, I was compelled to bring it along, though didn't know why, yet the feeling was so strong that I - as I so often do - trusted the feeling. 

You know what I'm talking about. ::nods::

Then came the drive north, and the homecoming (arrival, if you prefer) and settling-in, and eventual wandering-about. And then there was this... hanging sticks and twine, and waiting scraps of fiber and fabric... a sacred community space waiting to make manifest within a sacred community space along a well-traveled pathway at the conference (within a sacred community space, and so on. Right)? And there it was. I knew why that Prayer Cord came along.

I recall the verve of those thirteen prayers and feel such deep sweetness that it's now part of this community weaving that made manifest over this past weekend. It was magic to be witness to its evolution... to be witness to the beauty that all those prayers, all those intentions, all those wishes and dreams, tears and laughter, hurts and forgivenesses, to all that LoVe weaving together.

The whole weekend.

And still.

::nods::

Peace.

My Way to Medicine

This is one of those days where I look at my gardens, cultivated and wild, and say to them, "Relax. Be gentle in your expressions over these next few days. I will be home soon to bless you, to honor you, and to tend to your generosity, for now I must make my way to Medicine."

And as I express these words I realize that they are, indeed, a blessing. A blessing to "my little acre" and the rooted life within it...  to the spouse, to the dog and the chickens, and to me and the Medicine weekend in which I'll be immersed.

Over the past few days I've been diligent with harvests and preserves, and even tidied up a couple spent beds and added mulch to them as well as to a pathway or two. Even this morning I'm finishing off the tomatoes and squash that are in the dehydrator. There are herbs hung to dry, and more waiting to join them when I return home from the Medicine that is New England Women's Herbal Conference.

I'm driving up today with a blessed green syster, and have two intensive classes waiting for me tomorrow to kick off the weekend. And the rest will be filled with learning and sharing, healing and compassion, drumming and dreaming, and so much more. And for all this I am so very, very grateful.

This Medicine respite comes at the perfect pivotal time for me, just as the gardens are exploding, and just before the mad rush to manage them as the food and Medicine that sustains us through the year. And for all this I am so very, very grateful.

Peace.

Stillness and Evolution

Over the past couple of days I've been witness to and recipient of energies and behaviors that seem distinctly contrary to the Kindness work in which I'm currently immersed, to the verve I'm nurturing and inviting into my being, my life, my Medicine, my world.

It's fascinating. The experience has reopened portals to mysteries renewed to me. It has turned mirrors toward me, and I face more challenges... to even my own kindnesses... to my expressions, to my best intentions... to my Medicine ways.

This experience was born from a consciously reluctant choice to express myself... to others... in a space I generally remain still.

I'm not sure what it all means in this moment, but I feel a space opening to me where Kindness and Truths are intersecting. And I can feel another portal forming... and I know my task is to prepare for this passage, this next tract of journey.

It's an adventure, this life. It offers beauty and cruelty, forgiveness and hurt, comfort and pain, release and judgement, clarity and confusion... and so on. And so today I pack my bags - both literal and figurative, as serendipity would have it - to prepare for this next tract of journey.

And I shall be still. As the portal forms. As the Good Medicine evolves.

Peace.

Kindness

This past week has filled my heart with opportunities and "surprises." The kind of opportunities and "surprises" that remind me that the more kindness I nurture within mySelf, the more kindness I see around me. And the more truth I speak, the more truth I see around me. And I am grateful.

Nurturing kindness should be so easy, right? And I feel it getting easier. Yet it is a challenge in this world we live in, a world that seeks to individuate, divide, and set us against one another, that seeks to indoctrinate us that someone (else) is always to blame. It is a challenge when I witness conversations of complaint, or expressions of judgement about things that - in the grand scheme - matter not one iota. It is a challenge. Yet the more I consciously root myself in kindness, the more it becomes part of me. It is a challenge, and work most worthy.

I invite you to give it a go. Nurture kindness in yourSelf. The world needs it. Now more than ever.

We'll revisit the truth at a later date.

Peace.

Time, Space, Vision, Journey...

I'm looking at this measure of linear time we call the calendar, and feeling a bit befuddled as to how it's almost August. How does that happen? Wasn't it just the start of July?

This surprises me. And in a way, I see this as a positive for me, given some of the work that I'm doing in the realms of healing, meditation, journeying, and simply being. I've been focused on this thing we call the "here 'n' now" so time has become - as I see now - less of an overriding measure for me. It's becoming more of tool, and less of Life gauge. It's losing some of the indoctrinated value we're all taught to give it. And I plan to nurture this.

Nonetheless, as a tool, I do offer it value in that it supports the part of my journey that I share with you.

This resonates in such a beautifully odd way, as the past few of days have been immersed in calendar work; work in the present, in the immediate, and in the long-range view of time. The immersion has been akin to charting a course upon which to journey. Doing this has freed up at least one facet vision for me.

So it seems that aspects of time and vision have opened up to me, like space to be explored, like a belly to be filled, like a canvas to be covered, like a garden to be tended. I don't know where this will take me, but I'm in it, and I'm looking forward to this fresh phase of journey.

This may not make sense to you, and that's cool. It's does to me. ::grin::

Peace.

A New World

The solar event that took place Thursday morning was, as are all holy days of Nona Gaia's, a welcome event. In deed. Indeed. As I welcome the swelling buds of summer's arrival, and the transitional blooms of spring, I consider my friends in the southern hemisphere welcoming the arrival of winter, and the waxing daylight to come. I consider this as I welcome the waning daylight, and my long journey home to the darkness if winter.

I couldn't have ordered a more perfect day to welcome summer. And it was a perfect day to wallow about outdoors, to gently witness the magic and Medicine all around me. And to leverage some of the day's solar apex verve for some personal healing work.

As I hung my hat up at the long, long day's end, complete with the morning crown of daisies, red clover, white clover, rue, and sacred sage, I offered gratitude for the simple choices I make, for the simple blessings I hold, and offered a prayer that others may know such blessings in the hard and greedy world we have made manifest. And Nona Gaia responded, "You can remake your creation. Or I can do it for you."

So now I ask, on this first full day of summer, that you join me in Dreaming, Doing, and Manifesting a World in which we can all feel safe, cared for, nurtured and nourished.

Peace.

Make the Medicine

Just as the last of the transplants are placed in the earth, other plants come full with a demanding shout, "Harvest! Harvest!"

There's motherwort, mullein leaf, and catnip hanging to dry, and cleavers, violet leaf, and red clover blossoms taking turns in the dehydrator.

Every day there's something to harvest.

And yet every day there's moments to sit, be, and b.r.e.a.t.h.e. as I witness the evolution and miracles around me, within me, and those yet to imagine and be witness to.

It's these moments of stillness in which the greatest Medicine is extracted.

Make a moment. Extract the Medicine.

Peace.

Mysteries and Blessings of May

I look at my calendar and offer consideration to this thing we call time. This month of May has afforded me several days that lingered, the kind of days that felt longer than their measure. Know what I mean?

And yet here we are closing in on June.

Tempus fugit is a truth, for this thing we call time does, indeed, have wings. I'm quite certain it has fur as well... of fox and coyote.

So here I sit amid the wild May blossoms as the wings and fur of this waning month remind me to breathe it in. To hold each moment, bless it, and release it to its place in the big mysteries, to share my blessings there.

Peace.

It's May! It's May!

Dock, Garlic Mustard, Celandine, Forsythia... LoVe from Nona Gaia.

I don't know about your world, but in mine Winter has taken his sweet time exiting his place on the seasonal stage. So even while this entrance of May stills feels his chill, I know deep in my being that the warmth of the season will manifest more tangibly in the coming days. After all, it is May Day! And as this Month enters, it offers the warming elements of our collective reality. And I am grateful, for as much as I feel the season's verve blossoming in my life, I have yet to sense and see its tangible reflections in my own little acre. I look out on this morning of sensual burgeoning and see the daffodil buds still swelling, yet not one in bloom. It feels disjointed, disharmonic, and it is... and also transient. 

Nothing is permanent. Nothing lasts forever. There are, after all, no straight lines in Nature. She evolves with or without us. So as the warmth of the sun emerges and shines on this May Day (and it will), let us honor and celebrate the blossoms around us, and within us, for they too are fleeting. Let us sing out together, "All hail the Queen of the May" and dance in the coming of summer with her, with one another, with all Life.

Peace.

And I Am Grateful

A week ago I split for the weekend to engage an adventure. I met up with 16 other healing spirits made manifest in this realm we call life, only one of whom I knew, and that was from a brief (though meaningful) encounter some 13 years ago, or so. And I am grateful.

It was one of those rare opportunities that are conjured from a place of mystery, a place where everything - every single thing - lines up perfectly. It was one of those rare opportunities for which refusal was not an option. And I am grateful.

This window led me through light and shadow, through hard places and soft, with people, with energy, with the elements, with spirit, in the realm of the big mystery (as I call it), to a new garden of healing potential in which my roots have already sunk. And deeply. And I am grateful.

The weekend, the people, the experiences, the magic, the intelligence, the healing, the LoVe, are forever etched in my spirit. And I am grateful.

I'm still digesting it all, and still have pieces of unfinished gratitude to express. Once that feels complete, the journey - and the story - will continue. And I am grateful.

Peace.

April's Medicine

April arrives and I'm still waiting for winter's snowy mantle to assimilate. Nonetheless, this month offers the affirmation of expanding daylight, warming sunshine, and showers of opportunity, clarity, and renewal.

In its own way it's been a comfort, this lingering transition. The season's pace has tempered the liveliness of patterns, connections and potential that have been enthusiastically surfacing for me lately. And that softened Medicine is greatly appreciated. And despite winter's reluctance to move on, there've been moments of deep warmth, sitting outdoors in the afternoon, watching the thaw, the blushing of the tree buds, the waking of the earth. I am so grateful to witness these gifts, for these quiet moments of deep stillness nourish the desired temperance that calms the mounting momentum I feel within and around me. And these Medicine moments activate the vision that empowers my ability to focus on that which adds deep value to my life, your life, and the life of our Nona Gaia.

So, yes, much is germinating, sprouting and expanding this month. Some is known and some is mysterious. Some is joyous and some is challenging. And I prepare to embrace it all.

May you, too, prepare to embrace the burgeoning Medicine that is yours.

Peace.

Time Will Tell

The snow is melting, reluctantly it seems, along with these remaining March days.

Time has slowed down for me this week, and I'm so grateful for that. In these days of tempus fugit that we all live in, I'm grateful any time Time relaxes her wings.

This week has offered a more relaxed pace than I'm typically accustomed, and in it I've discovered my own influence on this magic. I, it seems, played a key role in manifesting this enchanting pace. It has also offered me a challenge to test this notion... by recreating it. And so I shall shine my light on the magic of my influence as I nurture a refreshed and renewed relationship with Time.

As for the burgeoning nettles pictured here, they have no apparent relationship to these ramblings. Or do they?

Only Time will tell.

😏

Peace.

Spring's Light, My Light

Merry spring, friends! Or autumn, as the case may be. 😊

Yesterday's vernal equinox ushered in the season for which I am ripe, as I am ready to cast off winter's dark mantle. The seasonal mantle that feels so cozy and comforting at winter's arrival, and which grows heavy and cumbersome as the season evolves.

I honored the day of spring's arrival with journaling, with seed starting, with making the season's first batch of pickled eggs, with a wee bit of time outdoors, and some quiet meditation. And reflection.

If you follow this blog at all, you might remember my February ramblings where I shared the perplexing binary challenge - silly though it may seem - that I was facing, and how - by the light of the reflective Moon - it offered me an expanded perspective that guided me deep into the disquieting alchemy of it, into the need to stir my cauldron with all the contrary verve, and allow it to simmer that it may temper and manifest something delicious from the discomfort.

Time has passed, and space has shifted, and now I'm deep in the verve and guidance of The Hermit, where I find Myself shining My light on the spaces I choose. Dare I say, a seasonal serendipity.

The guidance I've chosen since November has been challenging, sure, yet it has nurtured a deepened relationship (roots) to those things that most nourish and sustain me, and - more importantly - that hold blessed potential for nourishing and sustaining my tribe, my rooted ancestors, my beloved Nona Gaia.

And it's fascinating. I'm noticing patterns more easily. And honoring the Medicine within them. There are dots connecting in serendipitous ways, offering deLIGHTful opportunity. Thanks sweet Hermit! One such opportunity will come to fruition in April as I enter my next guidance phase of The Lovers. I feel a ripening. And I am ready.

So - in this vernal moment - as I reflect on the choices I've made these past several months, I offer you this: When you ask Spirit for guidance, heed it well, and follow its lead, for I am confident that providence will greet you.

EnJOY the journey. 

Peace.

A Healing Journey of Challenge and Evolution. AKA: Everything's Normal...

In 2004, when I first starting blogging, many of my posts were undeniably rooted in my personal healing journey, my evolution. The posts were written more for me that for any reader. In most ways this is still true, though in ways one might not easily recognize. And that's OK. Yet I feel a tug - at least today - to write for me, to document my journey/s here as well as in my heART journals. And so it goes.

The last couple months of 2017 were razor focused on some deep diving into the seas of my heart to examine closely the things I claimed as vital, not just to my life, but to all life, past, present and future. Some of what I discovered there was beautifully delicious, while other discoveries required brief dives and wee sips, a need for frequent decompression, and the recurring need come up for air. There was a lot of returning and returning. Know what I mean? Much of it was distinctly uncomfortable. And while I feel I've gleaned a better, deeper, if not darker understanding of my own heart and what urges me in this life, I feel I've returned to the surface with a lot of sorting and blending to manage in the days and months ahead.

As January came ripe and transformed into February, the work of sorting perplexed and puzzled me, for what I perceived felt out of character, and distinctly out of my comfort zone, for I was - quite possibly for the first time in this life - seeing things in binary form, distinct and separate, and at odds.

Then today came. And today I sense that this exercise in black and white (as they say) has broadened my view of a perspective that I do not embrace. From this higher and deeper space, I've been offered a gift of greater understanding and compassion for those who cling to what my own experience has taught me is a falsehood. A falsehood that pervades our social conventions. There's a part of me that hopes I can feel and express more of that understanding and compassion for those with whom I feel at odds, a little or a lot... and there's another part that I can feel stiffening against this hope. And yet, there it is, a challenge I've been offered, and a challenge to which I must respond.

You know what I'm talkin' about.

Yet this is still surface stuff, what I feel most drawn to in this challenge is the alchemy of it, the need to stir my cauldron with all the rival verve, and simmer it all to temper and manifest something delicious from the discomfort.

So now I sit with Nona Luna, et al, to witness the tides that stir the cauldron and temper all things in this salty brew I call life. I must stay alert, for the next phase of this journey will be lonely, for I am called to play The Hermit, with only my observations to keep me company.

Wish me well.

And may your journey bring you challenge and evolution.

Peace.

Imbolc Blessings

I don't know about you, but as we spiral into this part of the year - the midpoint between winter and spring - my mood lifts as I witness, without doubt or question, the lengthening daylight. Even as I know that winter's worst may still lie ahead, even as I awake to a winter wonderland, I feel uplifted by the light in this aspect of the seasonal tunnel, and the promise of spring that awaits us all.

To bolster and nourish my lifting mood, I've gone through my saved seeds, my leftover seeds that are still viable, and my recently received batch of organic heirloom seeds from Baker Creek. With this annual ritual, I Know that the season of seed starting is here and with it, and with every seed I plant, I shall collaborate with Nona Gaia in nourishing the promise of spring, the promise of abundance, and more. Much more. Growing and preserving the lion's share of our own Food, and much Medicine too, offers blessings I count year 'round, and I encourage all who are able to grow as much Food, Medicine and Empowerment as they are able.

If all you can manage is a pot of something on a windowsill, that counts. Go for it! 

And with that I wish you a blessed Imboc.

Peace.

Time to Get to Work

Back in November I felt a distinct tug to return to the journey work that had served me so deeply and broadly many years back. So I made a commitment to mySelf to make time and space to the meditative work of exploring my own internal landscapes, as well as those that call to me from beyond the familiar, and perhaps then some. It was a tug, a calling, to which I knew I had to respond.

Over the past few months I've made some time and space to revisit this work, yet my efforts so far have felt shallow and less than rooted to the calling that beckons me. I recognize that Truth. I've journaled it. Yet mere acknowledgement is - apparently - not enough.

Last night as I sat crocheting with my spouse and some foolishness on the foolish screen, the healing mantra-counts that guide my crochet patterns took on a voice of their own, if only for a moment, and I felt an uncomfortable shift. The backache I had been experiencing most of the day eased, yet the ache lingered elsewhere, moving throughout my being, transformed to an ethereal reflective form that challenged me from the places of mystery to which I've been summoned, yet have not fully committed.

So today, after the mystery of night's deep sleep, I reflect on my ordinary life journey thus far... as well as those otherworldly journeys that woke and nurtured parts of me that manifested extraordinary experience and perspective that is - I am quite certain - otherwise unreachable. I sit here and honor the fiber of my journeys, ordinary and otherwise, that twine and circle and become stronger with each hook 'n' twist 'n' spiral. I sit here and honor how mystery gets our attention. I sit here and honor the commitment and the roots I must nurture. I sit here and honor the work that sits - in progress - on my lap.

I sit here and honor the actions I shall take.

Peace.