Surviving Year Two: Week 47

Everything Ends & Everything Begins Again

This is Week 47 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

I have really been going through it this month. This last lunation (May 25, 2017 to June 24, 2017) seemed to knock a lot of us around. The Summer Solstice jumped in there as well for extra, energetic turbulence.

The Moon and I go way back. Being a lonely, little girl, the Moon was always there for me. When I was small, I thought she followed me around and I would always look for her when I needed a friend. The first time I saw the Moon in the daytime, I thought she came out just for me.

As I grew up and connected to my nature-based spirituality, I learned about the cycles of the Moon and how connected they are to the menstrual cycle, the tides, and the seasons. When social media started getting popular, I infused my posts with wisdom about the moon blending the new world with the old. I still do. When it is the start of the New Moon, I remind everyone that everything ends and everything begins again. When it is a Full Moon, I remind everyone about the many names each particular lunation has had around the world.

In some of my darkest hours this month, the phrase "everything ends and everything begins again" has saved me. I clung to that truth, white-knuckling my way through the darkness, the suicidal feelings and the despair.

"Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. Knowing this gives me hope that human wholeness — mine, yours, ours — need not be a utopian dream, if we can use devastation as a seedbed for new life." ~ Parker J. Palmer

Ritual Seed Sprouts: Week 7

Today, I feel like I have survived a ship wreck. I am bloodied and battered. I have crawled to shore and friends have come and soothed my burns with handmade balms and put me to bed to sleep and heal. I don't feel very good, but I don't feel lost at sea today. I know that more rough waters lie ahead and more and more I think the key to survival is knowing how to navigate those ship wrecked moments. Trying to live a life of no ship wrecks is impossible.

So as a hopeful help to you, my sweet reader, and a reminder to my future, scared, ship-wrecked self, here are some things that help me get through the darkness (and see an almost identical list in my Surviving Year Two: Week 15 post!):

• drinking water
• taking my vitamins
• eating a banana
• calling a friend who is NOT AFRAID of my darkness and can be loving and present with it
• watching a movie I love
• listening to good music and moving my body
• burying my face in a furry kitty belly
• going outside and walking barefoot
• taking a shower or a bath
• reading a good book

I think a lot about the wise words of 88-year-old Bodhi Hanna Kistner, who felt that she didn't truly understand or feel happiness until her 60's:

"I think it's the skill of living in the present that I have mastered in the last 25 years. It is the key to enjoying your life in full. Enjoying life doesn't mean being unreasonably excited all the time. On the contrary, as I became older I realized that the first step towards finding the joy of life was to accept reality openly and sincerely, accept everything as it is. Reality is not perfect. But it is important to face the truth. This attitude works wonders."

Again and again, I try to return to the NOW. When I am lost in the dark place, it is always because I am grief-stricken about the past, or frightened and anxious about the future. When I can drop into the NOW, I realize that I am alive and breathing and living in my open human human heart and there is tremendous healing and vitality in that space. It can be SO HARD to find that wisdom when I feel like I am hanging on for dear life, as I am tossed and pummeled by the sea of my emotions, but I must remember to hang on and hold on. It will get better. And then it will get worse. And then it will get better again. I must learn to ride the tides like the good Moon Witch I know myself to be.

Thank you for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 42

The Flowering Continues

This is Week 42 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here. 

It's been two weeks since my Healing Grief - Flowering Ritual.  Part of the ritual was planting seeds into a planter box my husband made from scavenged wood. Along with good energy and deep wishes, some of my husband's ashes were also mixed in to the soil. This week, the seeds we planted began doing what seeds do — they have started to sprout!

I love living symbols like these little sprouts. They are a reminder to all of us who were present in the sacred circle that the ritual we created together keeps going, even after we have gone back to our lives. My opening, flowering heart feels a bit like these little sprouts — tender and new, yet fiercely strong and ready to grow.

Thanks for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 38

Spring Heart

This is Week 37 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

Beltane will arrive (here in the Northern Hemisphere) this week. Spring is in full swing and with the New Moon so recently appearing, I have really felt the movement of new growth and new beginnings. This weekend, I was able to work on some important ritual crafting for my upcoming healing ceremony, which is a few weeks away. Some dear friends came over and helped me craft and we all shared stories of our lives as aging ladies in a chaotic and confusing world. The intense power of healing and calm I felt after spending this precious time in this trio is hard to explain in mere words.

As I have mentioned before, I am working with the author Danielle Dulsky in promoting her new book, Woman Most Wild, and in her book, she talks about the "three keys for liberating the witch within." Essentially, those three keys are: aligning with the cycles of nature; understanding the importance of ritual and ceremony; and bonding with like-minded seekers. I really felt like I embodied all three of these keys this weekend. I can feel the power that these acts released, moving in my body — freeing up and liberating energy that I thought was lost to me forever.

Red is MY color of Mourning

I still feel grief and deep heartbreak, AND I also feel like I have a more solid ground to feel my feelings. I have more access to the powerful tools that help me get up off the ground and look towards the future with hope. This hope is like a quiet little flame in my heart, where before there was only darkness. The old ways, blended with my modern life, is my path. It is a constant collaboration with spirit — I take the next step and listen to the response to my call.

As I was crafting the headpiece I am going to wear during my Healing Ritual, I understood new insights as I did this physical act of making. I wasn't sure why I needed to use red fabric until I started cutting and shredding the material and realized that while traditionally the color of mourning is black, my mourning color is red — the color of blood, the color of love, the color of the heart. This was new information to me that I would not have known until I did this ritual act of making and then receiving a response from spirit. It is so powerful to understand what our own, personal archetypes are.

This process of listening and acting is my path. It is a path of questions and answers. What ritual do I need to create? Where am I on my cycle? Where is my circle of women to sit and create with? I re-connect and I re-member. I am healing. I am growing. I am flowering.

Thanks for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 26

A Widow's Bouquet

This is Week 26 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here. 

I am exactly halfway through this project. My husband has been dead for a year and six months.

I wrote this one year ago:

"The death of a spouse is rated as among the most stressful life event that humans experience (Amster & Krauss, 1974; Holmes & Rahe, 1967)." according to the American Psychological Association. 

Add losing your job suddenly on top of that, and it's no wonder I have trouble keeping it together, right? I've got this Eastern European Ancestral Task Master named Gerta who lives in my head and berates me constantly that I am not working hard enough, not "getting my shit together" fast enough. I've been crying every single fucking day for 6 months straight. How does someone survive that? How is my body still functioning? Let alone my mind? And my heart? I'm so angry and so sad, all the time. Life doesn't make sense anymore and my day-to-day life feels like a craps game, played in a dark alleyway by nervous hustlers who don't give a shit about tomorrow - they are just trying to hustle up enough cash to get through the night.

 Somehow, I make it to the next day, but I don't know why. I don't know why I am alive and he isn't. Nothing means anything anymore. I don't know why I get up in the morning. I feel like I need to strip my skin off and re-start as a brand new human being.

I feel like Widows in their first year should get to go somewhere - like a Land of Widows, where they don't have to work, or take care of other people. They can just do heroin and fuck each other and cry and eat chocolate and swim in the ocean - or whatever it is they need to forget. Whatever it is they need to heal. Whatever it is they need to feel like they are alive again. 

I'm sorry. Thank you. I love you." February 4, 2016

Baby Tristy - 7-years-old

It's so painful to read this, and yet it also helps me see the ways that I have shifted and transformed over this last year. I have a new job, and for all of Gerta's harsh ways, she is the reason I still have that job. She pushes me and forces me to focus and work, even when I am in the depths of despair, and I'm actually really grateful to her for that.

I still cry just about every, single day. This is exhausting, but also cleansing and somehow empowering. Feeling my true feelings as they come up makes me feel like I can face anything, because honestly, if I can survive feeling brutal heartbreak every single day of my life, what can't I face?

Today I hold my fungal widowed bridal bouquet. I have dwelled in the subterranean depths of my sorrow and grief and processed and absorbed the rich, dense earth of grief around me. I have burst up through the depths and bloomed, integrating the death and life into a new organism that I hold close to my heart.

This IMBOLC weekend, I am creating ritual. Some friends will arrive this evening and we will craft collages together. We will light candles. We will eat and drink. We will laugh and cry together. The collage I make tonight will play a role in a much bigger ritual ceremony I am creating, that I plan to have the weekend of BELTANE. It will be a marriage of sorts. A returning to myself. A commitment ceremony to self-love.

My husband loved me in a way that no one ever has. He loved the broken parts of me. He loved the lost, wounded little girl in me. He loved my ugliest, and most frightened places. He "rescued" me. And now he is gone and I have to learn how to love myself, because I have tasted true love and I cannot live without it. I am also beginning to deeply understand that no one is ever going to truly "rescue" me. I have to rescue myself. I am my own heroine. I am my own Knight in Shining Armor.

I love that lost little girl inside me and I want her to have everything she could possibly want. I want her to know that she is loved deeply and unconditionally. I want her to have that solid ground of love and support to face her fears and still do what she wants and needs to do. I can give her that. I am learning how to give her that. I am learning how to give myself that.

Thank you for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 24 & 25

Witches Grab Back

This is Week 24 & 25 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here. 

The Racist, Rapist Garbage Monster has been the President of these so-called "United" States for exactly one week. A lot has happened, including one of the biggest protests in US history, with an estimated 2.9 million Americans participating. Our President has also enacted more damage than I thought was possible in the span of one week, let alone the very FIRST week of being our President. In response to the awful, fascist executive orders he has made, we're seeing rogue government Twitter feeds, huge protests at major airports, and our Representatives' voice mail boxes overflowing with calls and messages. It is a time of unrest. It is a time of great change. It is a time of awakening. It is a time of fear. It is a time of new hopes.

Meanwhile, I am still on my own personal grief journey. I have found it extremely difficult to write about straddling the "inner" grief of widowhood and the "outer" grief of suddenly having a fascist dictator as our President. And yet, my grief journey has taught me that now more than ever, we have to focus on the here and now and not "future-trip." Terrible things may be coming, but being afraid simply paralyzes us from doing what must be done TODAY.

As I have mentioned before, I am returning to my Witchy Ways to survive the Trumpocalypse. I am crafting ritual. I am honoring the Seasons and Moon Cycles. I am asking for the wisdom of my ancestors to fill my soul and guide me. I'm even talking to my late husband more, asking for his help and guidance as we move through this very scary time. I truly don't know what the future holds for any of us, but my spiritual connection to my energetic and ancestral helpers and the deep, powerful Feminine energy that we all have access to, is helping me navigate and I am so grateful.

Thank you for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 20

Living through the Holidays

This is Week 20 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

Today is Christmas Eve. I have an entire week of no work stretched out before me. I am scrambling to plan something to do every single day, so I don't fall into the deep well of sorrow, while still connecting deeply to the truth that I need a lot of alone time to process my grief. My late husband and I had several beloved traditions for the holidays. We always had a Winter Solstice Bonfire. We made tamales (sweet & savory) and gifted them to friends. We would have an ornament crafting party, where the goal was to make the strangest Christmas ornament possible. We would cook up and eat a lot of crab. We would run away to Desert Hot Springs for Christmas and soak in the healing waters of the high desert.

Just as I have been trying to reconnect with myself, now that I am a single widow with no partner, I have been trying to re-discover my own holiday traditions. What do I want to do with my holiday celebrations? So far, ornament crafting, hot water and eating crab have played a role, but so has quiet contemplation, filling the house with candles, and drawing in my journal.

I am moving slowly, at the pace of a snail. I am collecting the diamonds I leave in my little snail trail. I am breathing. I am finding new ways to love myself. I am becoming my own beloved in this new year of new beginnings and old endings.

Thank you for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 18

Witch Wolf Widow

This is Week 18 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

In the new Trumpocalypse, women are second-class citizens who must fight for their civil rights every single moment. After my husband died, I did not think I could feel any more grief, and yet this election result and the loss of so much creative life in the Oakland warehouse fire has been taking me into even deeper depths of despair. 

They say when we face the hardest experiences in life, we pull on the spirituality we were raised in and for lack of a better term, I was raised a witch. I have been feeling the call of my witchy ancestors all my life and now that we are facing some of the darkest times of American history, I truly believe that the witches need to come out. Thanks to my job at New World Library, I quite synchronistically am also getting to work on a new book about liberating the witch within by Danielle Dulsky, which I am very excited about (more about that in the Spring!).

Tracking the Moon phases and seasons in my art journal

I am feeling the call for ritual. I am feeling the call for gathering with my fellow women and supporting each other in owning our power and magic. I am always honoring the ebb and flow of the cycles we are always living with. I am a Witch Wolf Widow who is looking for her pack. I live in my grief and witness the grief in others. When I am filled with the deepest fear, I remember that I am a survivor. The hate-fueled, fear-mongering men in power have been burning, raping and beheading the strong women of this earth for centuries and yet HERE WE ARE. They will NEVER kill us all and those of us embodied at this intense time can call on the wisdom, power and strength of our witchy ancestors and keep creating positive change in this dark world.

It is a daunting task and self-care is also very necessary. Take care of yourself and each other.

Thank you for witnessing me. See you next week.

6 Months of Grief Project: Day 85

Beltane Eve

This is Day 85 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

Tonight, when the moon rises, it will be Beltane Eve. This is the halfway point between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. It's a time of bonfires and blessing the pastures with fertility rites. The young God has officially become a man, and the Goddess celebrates this by taking him as her lover. Together, they learn the secrets of the sexual and the sensual, and through their union, all life begins. It's a time to wander out into the fields and find a person to make love with. It's a time to plant seeds and to harvest the seeds we have sown.

My late husband and I would always have a Beltane Eve bonfire with friends and drinks and laughter. This year, Beltane snuck up on me. I have nothing planned and no where to go. I miss my big bear of a husband with all my heart. These are the moments he would rally and say "we're going to have a bonfire anyway... even if it's just us," and he would call friends and inevitably people would come over and a wonderful night would happen. I know I can rally too, but I'm so tired. All I want to do is cocoon and sleep and hide. I want to lay down in the Beltane field and never get up again. I want to return to the earth.

Maybe suicidal desires are really just desires to get back to nature. Maybe it is the call of the wildness, asking us to remember the animal part of ourselves. I have many wise elder women in my life - many of them widows - and one of them told me, just after my husband died, to go lie down in the dirt. "Let the earth take back your pain. She not only can handle it, she desires it. Give her your grief."

_____________________

I am very aware that this project can bring up a lot around yours or other's grief and loss, I will always follow every post with some online grief support resources that have helped me. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

Art with Grief:

• Photographer [Sarah Treanor] Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death by Jillian Wong
• When the Fall Comes, a film about Grief by Adriana Marchione
• Self-Portraits: Expressing Emotion Through Art on What's Your Grief?
• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow
• The poetry of John O’Donohue

Resources for Widows:

• Widowed Village
• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• The Rules of Grief are for Other People by Shawn Doyle on The Good Men Project
• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing
• Teresa “TL” Bruce's What to Say When Someone Dies
• They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain by Ann Finkbeiner on NPR
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief
• The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Loses, interviewed by Tim McKee in Sun Magazine
• How to Be a Friend in Deed by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times
• 12 Things to Know About the First Year of Grieving Someone You Can’t Live Without by Laurie Costanza in Elephant Magazine

And remember, I am sharing this project on a variety of platforms, including my Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook feeds, as well as my Pinterest page on Grief. I use the hashtag #6MonthsOfGrief, so it can easily be found on any platform. Please share this project with anyone you think might need it.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.

6 Months of Grief Project: Day 51

Turkey Easter

This is Day 51 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

It's Easter Sunday today and fortunately, that has never been a very special or important holiday to my husband and I, so I don't feel the deep despair that holidays bring out in me, during my grief. I do love the first days of Spring, when the land I live on seems to come even more alive and vibrant with new growth and baby animals being born. The wild turkeys have been strutting through our yard and singing their crazy gobble songs and delighting my friend Johanna, who has been visiting from New York. She's on a plane back home and now it's just me and the turkeys again. I'm going to have gluten-free, strawberry rhubarb pie with some good friends later, so there will be laughter and connection, which I need more than ever these days. Life continues to happen, even though my husband is gone. In the end, that's a good thing. I will continue to watch the seasons change without him, and I hope that someday it won't hurt quite as much.

_____________________

I am very aware that this project can bring up a lot around yours or other's grief and loss, I will always follow every post with some online grief support resources that have helped me. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

Art with Grief:

• Photographer [Sarah Treanor] Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death by Jillian Wong
• When the Fall Comes, a film about Grief by Adriana Marchione
• Self-Portraits: Expressing Emotion Through Art on What's Your Grief?
• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow
• The poetry of John O’Donohue

Resources for Widows:

• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing

• Teresa “TL” Bruce's What to Say When Someone Dies
• They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain by Ann Finkbeiner on NPR
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief

• The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Loses, interviewed by Tim McKee in Sun Magazine

• How to Be a Friend in Deed by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times

• 12 Things to Know About the First Year of Grieving Someone You Can’t Live Without by Laurie Costanza in Elephant Magazine

And remember, I am sharing this project on a variety of platforms, including my Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook feeds, as well as my Pinterest page on Grief. I use the hashtag #6MonthsOfGrief, so it can easily be found on any platform. Please share this project with anyone you think might need it.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.

6 Months of Grief Project: Day 48

A beautiful table top at Deetjen's Big Sur Inn

This is Day 48 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

Today I'm thinking a lot about the deep patterns of sorrow and grief. Even though it is heartbreaking, there is a solace in realizing that I am not the first to go through this pain. There are hundreds of thousands of widows past and present, who have survived the death of their beloveds. They spiral back, deep into history. We are all forced to face a new life alone. We are forced to remember how to do everything by ourselves. We are forced to feel our inner strength and resolve.

Grief is like a spiral. Almost daily, I spiral down into my deep grief, sometimes staying in bed all day crying and watching movies. Other days, I can spiral back up out of the depths and get out to the grocery store, and pull some weeds in the garden and laugh with friends. I always know that I am in this spiral and that things could change at any moment. This used to really frighten and overwhelm me, but I have become much more accustomed to the shifting moving places of my emotions.

Newgrange kerbstones via Newgrange.com

The spiral has always been one of the most powerful and important symbols of my life. It's an ancient concept, representing the cyclical nature of life - everything ends and everything begins again, just like the moon cycle, our menstrual cycles, the seasons, and on and on. And spirals have been carved and drawn and painted since the beginning of culture, art and making. We have found spirals engraved on small ornaments and on megalithic stones. The Newgrange kerbstones are decorated with spirals, providing an entrance to a sacred space. J

ust as there have been thousands of widows before me, there has been the spiral, inspiring, guiding and holding us. I draw spirals in times of sorrow, because it calms me down and focuses me. Try it the next time you are feeling anxious. It might help.

_____________________

I am very aware that this project can bring up a lot around yours or other's grief and loss, I will always follow every post with some online grief support resources that have helped me. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

Art with Grief:

• Photographer [Sarah Treanor] Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death by Jillian Wong
• When the Fall Comes, a film about Grief by Adriana Marchione
• Self-Portraits: Expressing Emotion Through Art on What's Your Grief?
• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow
• The poetry of John O’Donohue

Resources for Widows:

• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing

• Teresa “TL” Bruce's What to Say When Someone Dies
• They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain by Ann Finkbeiner on NPR
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief

• The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Loses, interviewed by Tim McKee in Sun Magazine

• How to Be a Friend in Deed by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times

• 12 Things to Know About the First Year of Grieving Someone You Can’t Live Without by Laurie Costanza in Elephant Magazine

And remember, I am sharing this project on a variety of platforms, including my Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook feeds, as well as my Pinterest page on Grief. I use the hashtag #6MonthsOfGrief, so it can easily be found on any platform. Please share this project with anyone you think might need it.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.

Winter Solstice

One of my Winter Solstice altars

Today is the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. We've had a very cold, dry winter so far, and my heart and soul yearn for the rain. I am a true Northern California girl - I need wet, moist earth and green, dripping branches to truly feel at home and to truly feel the magic of the season. The cold, bright landscape of this strange winter we're having leaves me feeling lost and confused. It's too bright. It's too cold. My plants are dead from frost and my lips are constantly chapped.

This is a time for nesting and reflection. When I can, I like to have a big bonfire and invite all my friends to gather round it and let go of the old year by burning various ephemera from the past, but this year, I'm going to celebrate a bit more quietly. No bonfire this year, but there will be lots of candles lit throughout the house. This is a night to stop and breathe - to take in the year that is about to exit out the door and dream about what is to come, when the light returns. I want to nestle in my little nest, curl up with my beloved husband and kitty cats, sip hot cider and LET GO. The solstice is a time of wonder, of ritual, of candles lit under shivering stars.

Painting of Antlered One by Susan Seddon Boulet via Turning Point Gallery

It's important to me to re-claim this holiday season from the corporate, industrial world. Thankfully, every season still celebrated, has a Goddess beneath it - you just have to scratch the surface a bit - and my favorite Goddesses of the season are Beiwe, Beiwe-Neia and Rozhanitsa. All could fall under the archetype of the "Antlered Goddess."
 
The Saami, indigenous people of Finland, Sweden and Norway, worship Beiwe, the sun-goddess of fertility and sanity. She travels through the sky in a structure made of reindeer bones with her daughter, Beiwe-Neia, to herald back the greenery on which the reindeer feed. On the winter solstice, her worshipers would sacrifice white female animals and thread the meat on sticks which they bent into rings and tied with bright ribbons. They also cover their doorposts with butter so Beiwe can eat it and begin her journey once again. 

Sami woman reindeer herder, Berit Logje
with cast antler at round-up near Kautokeino. Northern Norway.

In twelfth century Russia, the eastern Slavs worshiped the winter mother goddess, Rozhanitsa, offering bloodless sacrifices like honey, bread and cheese. Bright colored winter embroideries (usually red on white) depicting the antlered goddess and her children were made to honor the Feast of Rozhanitsa in late December. For her feast, small, white-iced cookies shaped like deer were given as presents or good luck tokens.

The antlered woman is really an iconic figure in art and mythology. I'm actually working on my own antlered crown that I hope to complete before the year is complete (wish me luck)!

More reading about the Antlered Goddess:
In Search of the Antlered Goddess of the Ways by Robert Moss

Amanita Muscaria mushroom

I also really love the old stories about the origin of Santa Claus. It's no coincidence that Christmas colors are red and white. Just look at the mushrooms the old shamans used to take, because really, Santa Claus is just a Bear Shaman on mushrooms anyway!

What about music? I plan on making a mix of all my favorite Winter Solstice music (stay tuned!) but until then, I recommend listening to Beautiful Darkness, Celebrating the Winter Solstice, by Jessica Radcliffe, Lisa Ekström & Martin Simpson. It's a quiet, sweet, powerful album and a great companion for nesting through the winter cold.

I am wishing you all a joyous and delightful new year full of light, love and vigor.

Happy Pink Moon!

Photoshoppin' by Dan Macken

Tonight is the Full Pink Moon, named for the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring! And yes, that's my face in the moon above, surrounded by Pink Phlox and a handsome gent making a toast!

Tonight's Moon is also called:

• Planter's Moon
• Peony Moon
• Flower Moon
• Wildcat Moon
• Moon When Geese Return in Scattered Formation
• Growing Moon
• Seed Moon
• Awakening Moon
• Full Sprouting Grass Moon
• Egg Moon 
• & Full Fish Moon (because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn).

ENJOY!

Hambox Advent!

Miss Hambox, herself!

I am very proud to say that I was invited to participate in the most fantastic Hambox Advent 2008! Every year Lady Hambox gives us 31 days of Holiday Inspiration. There truly is no way to describe it. You must see it for yourself.

Be sure to click on all the days (so far) and check back every day for a new treat. The day I contributed to is December 11th, by the way!

Stop Shopping

Oh my Lordy, it's Holiday Time again. I am here to remind you that in this particularly difficult economic time, it is not only O.K. but joyfully wonderful to make your own gifts this year. In fact, why not start a new trend of making gifts for all the future holidays that will come upon us?

To inspire you, watch the latest video from Rev. Billy & The Stop Shopping Gospel Choir. They have some wonderful ideas, including some gifts that the "non-creative" can give (although I believe everyone can make something!).

And remember, now is the time to start those projects, so they are ready for the holidays!

Daily Rituals

I just read about Brenda Hutchinson's project Daily Bell 2008. In this year-long project, she honors the sunrise and sunset - every day! - by ringing a bell or many bells. Her blog has wonderful videos of all the different places and ways she has rung her bells, including in the quiet of the Marin Headlands, the wild acoustics of a San Francisco parking garage, recruiting strangers in the local Starbucks, and with a big gaggle of kids and puppies across the street.


She also has a youtube channel where you can see a daily video of her bell ringing.

The various combinations of bells ringing is so beautiful. It reminds me of the wedding of my special friends Chris and Sylvia, where Sylvia and all the women in her bridal party came skipping and dancing down the aisle ringing little bells. It was so quiet and beautiful and yet also raucous and celebratory at the same time!

I also realized that I don't own a single bell!

I have been thinking a lot this week about daily practices and rituals that help me feel closer to God. I decided that chanting (I originally wrote "changing"!) with the sunrise was something I'd like to do - as chanting Hindu prayers and mantras has always been a powerful experience for me. I do find that even with that commitment and intention, I do not end up doing it every day.

So I am in awe of Brenda honoring this commitment she has made to the sun and its movements with such a beautiful and simple act.

What is a simple, spiritual act of honoring that you can do every day?

What Would Jesus Buy?

Finally got a chance to watch What Would Jesus Buy? The Church of Stop Shopping is definitely a sister to the Church of Craft.

Not just at Christmas time, but at all times of the year, it is a powerful choice to not buy, but to make instead. Craftaluja!

Nowruz

a Nowruz altar (from Current TV)

The Spring Equinox is approaching.  We already are noticing the arrival of Spring around our home. Our bulbs have pushed their way up through the dirt and weeds that I haven't pulled(!) and opened their beautiful little flower-heads. The lambs are frolicking and knocking each other over. The plum trees are bursting with delicate, pink flowers that rain down on me as I walk by.

It makes sense that in some cultures, this is the time that the "New Year" is celebrated.  One of my favorites is the Persian festival of Nowruz.

Nowruz (which means "new day") marks the first day of the Iranian calendar, and it is a celebration of new beginnings.

First the home is cleaned thoroughly - spring cleaning!  This is the time to get rid of the old things that do not serve, get into all the nooks and crannies and make a sacred space of the home.  I've written before about how powerful the experience of cleaning my home can be (even when I don't want to do it!).

The home is filled with flowers, particularly honoring bulb flowers like hyacinth and tulips. And tiny seedlings are started, often in egg shells!  I love this idea of growing new little plants in the home in one of the most fertile symbols there is. As my husband and I continue to try to get pregnant, the though of having my home filled with new growth and symbols of fertility is very appealing!


Nowruz is a time for honoring family and ancestors, eating symbolic foods, and bringing in a healthy and prosperous new year. Being an Interfaith Minister, I enjoy learning about the traditions of other countries and faiths and, just as all artists do, interpreting it through my eyes and letting the rich history influence my own spiritual traditions.

There is a great radio piece highlighting Nowruz, where Bonny Wolf visits Najmieh Batmanglij, a Persian cookbook author living in Washington D.C. You can hear it here.

Much more detail about this holiday can be found here, including all the foods that are prepared and their meaning, as well as other objects placed on the table, like a mirror for for "cleanness and honesty," a bowl of water with a goldfish, to symbolize life within life and the sun leaving the sign of Pisces, and a bowl of water with an orange in it, which symbolizes the earth floating in space.

Enjoy the Spring Equinox (this Thursday), in any way that feels right to you.  Enjoy!