knew it all along

The heart cloth is long and skinny with a 10" section of blank space left on the bottom (the photo is sideways so you can't see it). I wonder what will happen there. As I work on this piece, I keep thinking hearts of space like the NPR music program that used to be on Sunday nights that I loved so much. I always tried to get the kids in bed before 9 so I could listen to it.

Our family had a little birthday party here yesterday for Jan. We gathered at our house for drinks/visiting/playing in the late afternoon -- then all 14 of us piled into three cars to drive to a favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner. Afterwards we came back here again for Mexican coffee, hot cocoa and his favorite pistachio dessert that I make every single year for his birthday. We almost made caffeinated coffee instead of decaf, I pulled out the wrong package. One daughter's boyfriend caught it, otherwise it would have been disastrous. I guess you could say the boyfriend saved the night. Mine, anyway.

Wings. Another page in my art journal. 

Moon water infused by the full moon.

The heart cloth photo with a black/white filter.

I'm exercising my intuition lately. Recalling things I knew all along...events intuited from and by my heart before they became reality. How often was I right about something. And what might lie ahead, what do I know deep down right now that I should trust.

Here is the Mexican coffee recipe link, it was good. xx

enchanting yourself

Brigid's Day 2017 is much different from other years. But then many things are different from other years.

I started my Brigid's Day devotion this morning, two days late, by taking a morning bath with strained oatstraw infusion added to the water. It felt silky, so nice -- I reminded myself to do this more often. One little candle burned down completely.

After getting dressed I collected three cauldrons filled with objects and symbols of the past, the completed, the unnecessary.

The fire took off quickly and burned well, these things needed to go. I chanted "light of Brigid, shine on me, growing brighter, now I see". After you chant something for a while, you find yourself going into a state -- you start making up music to sing the chant to or you'll pick out a word or two to repeat over and over, and you will almost always catch yourself getting softer, then louder, then softer again. Chanting is a way of enchanting yourself.

The candle on the left was lit from the fire in the cauldron and it will burn until the end. A friend and I had made Brigid's crosses earlier in the week -- we used straw that had been soaked in warm water for a few hours. The beauty and simplicity of these sacred Nature items comfort and encourage. More chanting.

This is a tarot spread for guidance to connect with the Goddess Brigid or St. Brigid (or God or Source or whoever/whatever you want to invoke). I spent a few hours reflecting on these cards and then writing about them in my journal -- and that completed this year's very simple Brigid's Day.

Our new Earth flag is freshly hung. The old one is quite torn from getting whipped around by the wind/catching on the house gutters, but I have some mending ideas in mind. Mending the Earth, that's it.

The ashes of transformation will go back to the Earth to continue the cycle of death and rebirth. I hope we can all return to the garden soon and start planting. All of us together. Maybe even chanting.

the way is clear

Yesterday of this current dark/new moon phase, I burned away some false beliefs. There were and still are many of these programmed beliefs, I've only just questioned the ones on the surface. It might seem like I'm going through some sort of crisis but it's not so much to do with everyday life, it's more about my relationship with the world around me -- what is real and who is real. So much of what I've thought and believed and participated in is illusion. The frequency I was once in tune with has gotten fuzzy and distorted and it's time to find a clear connection again. Like a radio. A place to be, which I sort of don't have right now, I'm in between.

And lest this sound political, I'm not on either side.

Then I went and finished the Hitchhiker scarf. I didn't quite make the 42 points the pattern is named after (the book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"), I think there are 39. The scarf is over 60" long and made from sock yarn -- it took a very long time, nearly two years with my highly irregular knitting sessions.

This morning of the new moon, I put fresh cloths on the little table that is my altar. The cloth on the left was made by my Grandmother Lucia and I stitched 16 blue moons onto it recently. The cloth on the right was made by me for St. Lucia's Day a few years ago and always reminds me of my grandmother. A few nights ago I stitched the words "the way is clear" -- a message I've apparently sent to myself because everywhere I've turned the last few weeks I've seen or heard the words "the way is clear".

Then I drew a card for guidance and wouldn't you know....The Moon.

I'm gathering items to burn on Brigid's Day, there may be a new batch of false beliefs to throw in as well. If you'd like to bless your own home and hearth, my last year's Brigid's Day Household Ritual is here.



To clear connections. xx

calm & bright

"This is the beginning" I said to myself on Winter Solstice. Even though the moon was waning and it was cold and dark outside, there was such a strong sense of beginning anew. So for me that was the beginning of the new year. Inside myself, it felt calm and bright.

Every few months over the last year I've been making oracle cards for myself. The last card of 2016 for Winter Solstice was "calm and bright." Each card was incubated -- it was dreamed up, thought/written about and meditated on. Finally a simple image was found and glued onto a card from an old unused deck with words that indicated the spirit of the card. I'm going to continue this project in 2017 and also create a simple guide for the card meanings before I forget what I was thinking at the time. 

A dresser in the sewing room is literally stuffed with cloth but the top is clean and spare which feels really nice. The January calendar moon cloth was made as part of a sewing ritual a few years ago and I found the honeycomb canisters and the arrow in Target's dollar spot. The mouth-blown glass ornament and the lovely beaded crane were Yule gifts. 

Yesterday on the full moon, the pink hyacinth opened up. I am reminded by Hyacinth to open my heart chakra to let the light in. I've been thinking about something I read recently, derived from Alice A. Bailey, about how the full moon itself has no influence on the flow of love and light but rather indicates a free and unimpeded alignment between Earth and the Sun. The Sun being our center, energy source, and center of life and intelligence is now approachable to connect with the energies of love and light...that humanity has always intuitively known to consciously cooperate with the flow of energies. 

Sunpower will be one of my cards in 2017. 

And happy weekending to you, thanks for coming by. xx

a friendly place

And just like that, a new year has dawned and the season of cold comfort is underway. 

 

Winter gardens are spread around the house wherever there's light, I'm just trying to keep everyone alive at this point. The orange tree in the kitchen is blooming its very last blossom now and when that's done, I'll give it a nice long shower in the bathroom and move it to another room for a while. All parties involved need to be rotated around, the ferns presently under lights in the basement each need a turn to hang by a window and the eucalyptus deserves a sunny place for a time -- and so on. I think the shortage of light this time of year makes me a more attentive plant person. That yellow chair in the background was $10 at a yard sale last summer. We'll probably spend hundreds having it reupholstered someday, I just really like it.

On New Year's Eve, I stitched the last of the blue moons onto the vintage doll quilt that my grandmother made. It came into my hands nine years ago. There were 16 squares that I filled with 16 moons. I hoped it was the right thing to do. 

A few days ago I remembered another quilt from my grandmother -- a baby quilt. The same pink fabric. And 16 squares. That I think I've had since I was a child. She must have made them around the same time. She must have had a little leftover fabric from making the baby quilt. They are cut from the same cloth. Like she and I.

My nightly ritual of going outside with the dogs before bed helps me attune to the phase of the moon, the clarity of the stars, the color of the night, the temperature of the air, which houses still have lights on, the sound of traffic on a busy street a few blocks away...and so much more. It has become an integral part of my day. It calms me and reminds me that the world is ultimately a friendly place. It makes for a good night. xx

ablaze with holiness

Illuminating the darkness -- tables, hallways, entire rooms ablaze with holiness. 

Some dark moon work: I paged through my 2016 calendar planner and wrote down one thing I learned during each month. A lot has gone on so it wasn't easy to limit it to just one per month. 

My next list might be 100 wishes for the year 2017, I'm still thinking about it. It would have to be an offering of love to the world kind-of-thing and not just for me. Although I could probably use maybe ten of those wishes.

The festivities have been everything I'd imagined and more. Happiest of New Years to all. xo

bottle brush tree crown

About two weeks ago, our orange tree had 88 flower buds -- many have bloomed but there's more coming. What a divine fragrance, we are beside ourselves with joy. The orange tree is on a caddy with wheels in our kitchen so I can roll it around depending on what's going on in there. During the day, it's under the skylight and when I use the oven, I push it toward the sink. When I need the sink, it goes over a ways. If we have people over, off to the laundry room. Really a member of the family. Sort of reminds me of an old Twilight Zone (or Outer Limits) episode where a vacuum came to life and rolled around a house.

The orange tree is the main news in this web log but a very small amount of decorating has happened as well. I seem to have dozens of bottle-brush trees so a crown just seemed like the right thing to do. The snowball lights also went up and the witch loves that. Her batteries are getting old so she's quieted down some.

We've just had a cold snap but the dogs' and my nightly vigils to both front and back yards continued. Between the half moon and the snow, it was very bright out. Daisy always lies down on the snow but Talula never does, must be something genetic.

That's a photo of our fireplace from the outside looking in. Good to change perspectives now and then, see things from another point of view.

This year's last full moon will soon occur -- Tuesday, the 13th. Most days I continue to light my moon candle and take quiet time. I might meditate, draw a tarot card or write down a dream. I feel that the world is changing and the one thing I know for sure I can do is to take care of myself.

xx