Windburn in Autumn

Life got busy. I thought it was busy when I spent all my time applying for jobs and writing my book and working part-time as a Life Coach and keeping up with friends and practicing my pagan skills and working on my other projects. But it wasn't.

For the past two weeks (and this is a happy thing), I've worked six days a week. Four at the Farm, and two half-days as a nanny for this huge chunky four-month-old-baby with a lady-killer smile. Next week, I get to focus more on the Farm. (Which, really, is more about the Foundation that is working to preserve the Farm, and a lot about Education, come to that. I may even eventually get to do the job I was originally hired for, and preserve/digitize/catalog something. You never know.)

And it is SUCH a freakin awesome place to work! We have free-range wild ducks that are huge and black with red and blue and white bits here and there-- and they have little fuzzy yellow babies!! We have three grey barn kittens who keep sneaking into the house and onto peoples' laps when they aren't looking, and one old black Tom who lives by the kitchen stove and was totally offended when the kittens arrived. We have apple trees and pear trees and zucchinis the size of small sports cars. Lots of friendly male goats who come when called ("hhheeeeerrrr goat-goat-goat, hhheeeeeerrrr goat-goat-goat!") and really want you to rub behind their ears, and three dappled white Davenport-Arabian horses that all want to make sure they get some of whatever you're handing out.

We have school children learning to make butter and listening to the story of Florinda Geer who traveled the Oregon Trail with her parents when she was eight years old, and then planted a tree on her parents' land-grant farm in 1856 that is still standing and growing on that same farm today. Look, there it is. We have farm-fresh dairy cheese made with a long-lost recipe from very old hillside cave dairy farms in Switzerland. We have an archive with over 165 years of family history, letters, tintype photos, and furniture from that trip over the Oregon Trail in 1846.

What we don't have is money to keep everything going. We're still working on that bit.

Oh, and we offer farm visits and tours.
Check us out at www.geercrestfarm.com.
Can I just TELL you how much I love wearing jeans to work?!

Anyway, four days working like crazy at the farm with long 45-mile drives to get there and back, plus working part time as an Empathic Life Coach, plus writing my book and keeping up with friends and working as the Moderator for Natural Medicine on an online information distribution website called Factoidz, and carving out time to spend with my boyfriend (I seriously never thought I'd date again, but this man is worth it!) and making time to honor the changing seasons and glorious full moons and and and-- Well it's a heck of a lot busier than I was before. And I love everything I'm doing. I just don't get much sleep. And the days are flying by so quickly anymore, I keep checking my face for windburn.

Summer Journeys

Well, there went June... and hey-- most of July, too!

June was amazing. I joined in the Sun Fest celebration 2008 in Oregon, and met many new and wonderful artists and friends. Because of the rain, we were able to build our bonfire high every night, with sparks shooting 10 and 20 feet in the air. Gorgeous!

Truly, I celebrated Midsummer in all her glory and release.

Since then, I've struggled with my proclivity to expect the universe to order herself to my expectations. I'm learning, slowly, to let go, and to be open to possibility. Amazing and serendipitous events occur if we are only open and available to notice and enjoy them. Truly, it has been a magickal summer for me. My body is healing, my network of healthy and intelligent friends is growing, and my life tastes very sweet. Almost as sweet as the berries that someone hand-picked and left as a surprise on our doorstep one early morning! Such a loving and thoughtful gift from someone.

Blessed Be...

Colors of the Season

Ornamental chili peppers are purple, red, orange and yellow-- all on the same branch. The leaves on the trees are doing the same thing, and the colors are beautiful. Orange and yellow and green pumpkins-- and hey, the leaves are doing that, too! Yummy squash, ornamental corn, warm soups and bonfires. It is a beautiful time of year!

Autumn Comes

The Autumnal Equinox is coming!! Sept 22-23 this year. One of my favorite things to celebrate. I'd better start looking up fun traditions and rituals, just in case I want to do them.

Generally, I plan to have a mini bonfire, eat bread and honey, and spend as much of my weekend as I can manage outdoors. I'll also be changing out my four-season wreath decor. It's a very simple thing made of dried grape vines, probably eight inches in diameter. I wrapped a string of mini-mini purple lights around it, and then I have a simple little sprig of something representative of each season-- a red silk flower for early summer, and a mini cornucopia with fall leaves and an acorn for fall. A twig of evergreen with an apple and pine cone attached for winter, and a little frond of light green ferns (all fake, so they can be reused and they last the whole season) for spring.

I do occasionally bring some real flowers or tree branches or apples or whatnot into my home-- but this is a permanent display, and I don't want to take too much from Mother Nature just to decorate indoors. I'd rather enjoy the decorations where they naturally occur.

Wisdom and Books

Over the past several weeks, I've been reading bits out of several different books of knowledge. One is a reconstructed history of the Celtic mythology and belief systems around certain trees-- the holly and the oak, for example. The other books are about shamanism and Native American wisdom-- the wisdom of the First People. I've also been drying rose petals, applying for jobs, wrapping up one internship and starting another, and trying not to let any of this interfere with my school work. After all, I've only got until December to finish my Masters.

-The Wisdom of Trees b Jane Gifford
-Earthborn Wisdom by Susan Wells
-Wisdomkeepers by Steve Wall and Harvey Arden
-Poems by Nancy Wood

I'm taking a course in Children's Literature this summer, and it has afforded me great opportunities to browse the children's sections at my local library. One collection of fairy tales that I stumbled across and love for their Pagan qualities is called Moon Ribbon, by Jane Yolen. It constantly amazes and delights me, how insightful and wise children's books can be. I also highly recommend Twelve Months of Monastery Soups if you want a good seasonal cookbook and love one-pot meals like I do. Whatever else I am, I don't think you could ever accuse me of being a purist.

Blessings

Comfrey Ointment

Wanted to update all my loyal readers (I know, at that stage, I'm dreaming) about my forays into herbal healing. The comfrey ointment I made is a big success. My mom is so happy to have her own little container of it because she was always asking to use some of mine every time I visited. And it is good for so many different things!

• Sprains, strains and bruises
• very shallow cuts and scrapes
• poor circulation
• bug bites (as a cream, it would be great for poison oak, too, I think)
• mixed with lavender EO it helps with scarring, too, if you catch it early enough
• and of course, dry cracked skin
  

Comfrey itself has gotten a bad rap and is now no longer recommended for internal use, or use on broken skin because of its carcinogen content. So I looked into this, because comfrey was once excellent for healing tea, too. Yeah-- it has the same carcinogen content as a peanut butter sandwich. So I use it in tea, too. It really seems to calm my digestive track quite well, and is very yummy in a green nutritious sort of way.

Next up? Calendula Ointment!
Blessings Be
to You, from Me.

Dating. UPdating.

I just updated my profile on WitchVox. It's kinda scary having a real and very honest profile of me available to the general public. But it was also educational. How do I represent myself to the world today? What do I believe to be true about myself in a general way? What do you need to know about me before you decide you like me? Do I care if you like me?

So, since it's all about the Pagan, I'm including my observations in a Pagan Practice Post, too. Here's what I ended up with:

Your Likes:
Helping people smile and feel appreciated just as they are, petting contented cats, the Pacific Ocean, and probably the usual-- Nature, cat-naps, family meals, reading, walks/hikes, listening to stories-- especially from Old Wise Women and men (I hope to be one someday) -- learning new things, fresh air, tea with friends, laughing, clear communication, the color blue...

Your Dislikes:
Distress, active hatred, lies, politics (depends on what they are, probably) ... Most of the time, I'd rather look around me and find a reason to laugh.

Your Personal Profile:
I'm learning to listen to my inner Guides in new and better ways. It's definitely a process, with lots of opportunities to laugh at myself (and laugh about the world around me) and grow. I'm nearing 30 now, and working hard. Means I rest hard, too. I like that part.

I've always had a penchant for listening to people tell stories about their lives-- especially stories that are important to THEM. Now I'm learning to listen to how those stories inform ME, and my relationship with Ancestor Earth, Mother Moon, the Forest Father, and the Greater Good.

So far, I'm learning to effectively apply herbal healing, EO's, my slight knowledge of the 7 chakras, and healing stones. I've learned that I'm not Wicca, but I do a lot of work in a similar fashion to Green Witches, Kitchen Witches, and Tree-Talkers. I'm practicing my Medicine Woman Tarot, and listening to the magick around me when I go with friends on hikes. Trying not to anger the fairies in my living room, honoring my Guardian, and laughing at the hedgewitch in my head who advises me when I cook. (It tastes better if you don't look at it first. Hey- fresh greens and garlic go in EVERYTHING, right?) I'm laughing a lot more than I used to, too.

I have an old soul, and a new start-- I'm using both gifts to make the best life I can. It's pretty great so far. When I finish my Masters, I'll be hunting for official librarian positions so I can go on helping people find the information they need to be their best selves, too. And believe it or not, most of the librarians I know are NOT boring. They're crazy. You know how it goes-- it's the quiet ones you have to watch.

I am also learning about both this Witchvox thing and this Pagan thing, and creating a presence for myself within it seemed like a good place to start. So, here we are. I'm creating a presence, making my connection to this wonderful community official, and this is it for now. By the way, if you have found any reliably accurate and easy to use books on herbal lore, kitchen lore, and homeopathic healing, I'm interested!

I wish you well in your travels-- whatever form they take.

...and you know, it's funny... This is me. It IS me. And when I read this, I feel I've managed to communicate these goals and this reality on my blogs. It's a good reality check for my self-image, you know? I mean- yes- I do still get a thrill from a fresh box of crayons... but other than that, I'm a functional adult. And I'm really proud of that. Most of us (including me) have very good reasons in our past that we COULD have become very messed-up adults. And I'm not. Not very. My kitchen-- now THAT is messed up. But I'll clean it tomorrow, so no harm done.

Have a great morning, and a restful afternoon.
Blessings Be to You from Me.

The Important Stuff

Clean Water for drinking is very important--
and occasionally highly absorbing to watch, too.
This is John Henry. He's our "work-cat."
He hasn't met you, but he knows you'd like
to spend the rest of your day petting him and cuddling.
Even if your hands are full. He's also very tall.
Taller than the 2-year-old whose stool he's borrowing.

A Nice Place to Relax and Meditate--
That's very important. This is my tiny back patio.
It doesn't take a lot of land to have a retreat.
The dark green leafs at the bottom are my surviving Greens,
and there's another pot to the right of the photo
with a bunch of my herbs growing in it.
I made split pea soup with home-grown
Thai Mint, Basil, and Thyme in it last night.
Yum.

The delicious little pea pods growing below were
a complete surprise to me. This mystery vine
grew out of a group of broken seed packets
in a bowl of spilled water--
and this last one got transplanted outdoors
in the middle of winter
to save it from my cat's voracious appetite.
It lived. And then it got pretty purple flowers on it.
And then it started GROWING.
Lots.
And then the pea pods appeared.
Mystery Solved. Joyfully.

It doesn't take a lot to make an outdoor altar.
I found the black plate on sale at Target for $5, and
picked up the little tea light lamp on a trip to the coast.
Plant some slow-growing ground-cover in a shallow container,
and voila! Instant joy.
I didn't use Chamomile for this-- but I have it elsewhere,
and highly recommend it for this project.
Chamomile has a lot of extra Spirit Energy.
And it smells divine.

Love and positive attention are vital to
every living thing's well-being.
My wonderful cat, Abbigale
gives me unconditional love.
Even when I'm trying to take her picture.
She is one of the most precious gifts
my life has given me so far.
I try to love her just as much back--
but I'm trying to break her of the habit
of playing with the wind chimes in my bedroom
at 3am every morning...

Reasons to celebrate are everywhere.
Just get out your camera and start taking pictures
of the little things that make you smile.
I refer back to these a lot...
It's not the beauty of the picture--
it's the joy involved in the moment the picture remembers.

And with that, my tail is done.
(This is Abbigale, the valiant explorer, under the living room rug.)

Getting Fresh

Can I just tell you how MUCH I love fresh strawberries? With Nutella? And Farmer's Markets. Those rock too. Big rocks. This week, at the Farmer's Market, I found a guy who makes fresh pesto-- in five awesome varieties. Fresh pesto. And strawberries. But not together, please.

I also want to share with you the fact that I am now the proud owner of two identical pairs of khaki pants, appropriate for a professional work environment. Why two? Because it's the first time ... EVER... that I have found professional-looking machine washable khaki pants that don't gape at the back of the waist, don't have really big poofy pleats that make me look pregnant or REALLY CONSTIPATED, and don't need to be hemmed by about 8 inches so I can walk. And they were on sale for about $16 each. So I bought both pairs. I feel that the universe loves me.

So, dude, if you hear me complaining about ANYTHING in the next week or two? Just remind me that I found fresh strawberries, home made pesto, and machine-washable khaki pants ALL IN THE SAME WEEK, and I have nothing to complain about. Nothing.

Not even the fact that my semester ends in less than two weeks, and I have five-- count FIVE-- final projects of various sorts to complete in that time frame. Yes. And I'm going to be eating strawberries with Nutella while I do it.

By the way, I've also recently discovered a couple of great resource books for those of us who want to get to know our corner of the natural world a little bit better, or who like to cook, or who are interested in traditional herbal medicines, or who just like nice smells and pretty flowers. Yup. I think you're on the list there somewhere.

A Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of North America by Joan Barker, ISBN 1-40546-309-0.

Revised Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast compiled by Pojar and Mackinnon, via the BC Forest Service Research Program, via Lone Pine Publishing.

The Successful Herb Gardener: Growing and Using Herbs-- Quickly and Easily by Sally Roth, a Country Living Gardener, ISBN 1-58816-419-5.