Back to school...

Oh goodness... it's time to go back to school next week. I'm not excited. I'd prefer to have the kids with me... to go do all the fun things that were on my list for summer that we did not get around to doing. Sigh. Besides. I'm just not much of a morning person.

It's just starting to get warm in my neck of the woods... summer is always foggy and cool. And this year has been more than most. For goodness sake... I haven't even harvested a ripe tomato yet.
I bring this up here because I have to admit that I'm just not feeling the harvest festival cycle that started on August 1st. Honestly, I'm thinking I might have to rearrange the sabbats so that they make sense to me. I don't suppose anyone would notice (as I'm a solitary... and I don't do rituals all that much anyway). But somehow it seems dishonest... as the wheel of the year is supposed to be the one thing that unites pagans... right? If I give that up it feels like I'm just a lone person on my own anyway... so what's the point.

(Isn't this beautiful though? Makes me want to redouble my efforts to fit into the pagan wheel of the year...
I found this at evolvefish.com if you're interested in a sticker version of it)

I suppose I could commit myself to the lunar cycles... as that's more my calling anyway... but ignoring the seasons seems unfair even to me. I just don't know... I think it's going to take some real thinking... figuring out what's important to me, what kind of yearly rituals I want to have, which ones will strike enough of a chord with me that I'll follow through. The way things are right now I just feel guilty for missing those sabbats as they pass me by.

(I actually like this graphic too... the author says he or she uses it as a baseline to add more symbols...
and I liked the designs on his/her flickr page...)

So... I guess I really wish I had another month of summer left... to play with the kidlets and just be mellow. But here we are... and it's time for me to exercise that old addage that constantly comes my way: Go with the flow!

My new creative passion...

So, awhile back I told you that I was trying to find ways for my 7-year-old to pray because she's been asking for some guidance. I thought that besides the kneeling-at-the-edge-of-your-bed kind of prayer I'd find some alternatives.

As I was searching around the internet I found a book on prayer beads. I decided that I'd take beads and the book with us on vacation... and if we needed to do a quiet activity for awhile we could work on prayer beads. I have to say, that with this book the prayer was pretty much in the making of the bead... rather than counting prayers on something like a rosary.

This is the one I made for a friend...
It's a hand-held size... like 10 inches long or so.

And this one was for my 5-year-old... she chose the primary beads she wanted, and I made them for her. She went for a simple look... as fits her personality.

And she requested the pendant be made... just-like-that...

I have started a strand for myself that looks a bit different... more blue and green. I have also started one for my 7-year-old... but we needed to go buy a few bits-and-pieces before we could finish hers up. I'll post pictures as soon as we do.

I've spent so much money on beads (this is a bit of an obsession now... I'd say)... I will have to start giving them as gifts. I'm also looking into making some prayer beads that are more prayer placeholders... like the 108 bead mala prayer sets or catholic rosary beads... rather than just a set of beads that contain a prayer of mine.

Fairy gardens

The girls and I have been making fairy gardens... inspired by the gardens submitted to The Magic Onions. I don't know if we'll submit anything or not... but it was fun to look through some of the entries. And... it was inspiring. We went and bought some plants, and gathered up many rocks/shells/sticks/other stuff that we've had laying around for eons... just waiting for a project!

We made them in hanging baskets (which are probably a little small... but I wanted us to be able to complete them quickly. Later we might be able to take on larger fairy gardens... but I wanted this to be a satisfying first go at it.

This one belongs to the 5-year-old... she was so proud of her work. She kept adding things, then taking them away. Finally deciding that the fairies needed small sticks for a fire, and a shell full of water for washing up.

And this one was made by the 7-year-old. She went for more plants and less "stuff"... and it turned out beautiful also!

I even did one. It was so fun to play like that! I love the gardens... and I hope we'll get to do that again... it really does make you feel closer to something when you put yourself in their shoes... trying to figure out what they need. Lesson for my life with my children??? You betcha.

Oh... and this is random... but I wanted to show you the doll we made for the 5-year-old's preschool teacher. It is an 'ocean fairy'. I like it, but somehow it still seems that something is missing... I just haven't put my finger on it yet. Can you see what's missing?

Organic Art...

So, a few weeks ago my youngest daughter and I were in Palo Alto, CA and found this fantastic piece of art. It was built by Patrick Dougherty and he's done TONS of other cool stuff.

It's an amazing piece of public art, and my youngest and I spent an hour or so running back and forth through this thing... laughing and screaming in surprise... it was wonderful. What a gift... and how cool is this anyway??? I'd die to have one of his sculptures in my back yard!


It's like a big playhouse that adults can play in too... and I'm all for the realization of childhood dreams in adulthood.

Praying

I just spent the last two hours on the computer looking for prayer cards for children. Just to save you a couple of hours... there aren't any.

Awhile back I bought a Buddhist Prayer Deck for my seven year old... I know... what was I thinking??? I guess I thought there could be some beautiful simple prayers mixed in... but really there aren't... not simple ones. She has repeatedly tried to teach herself how to pray, but doesn't know what to do. I've tried some instruction, but she gets frustrated quickly if it seems that I'm trying to "teach" her... and she shoves me away. I can respect that... I think it feels like the prayer that she wants to do is being minimized with the idea that it can be taught... and yet... I feel like she wants something she doesn't have in her life.

So, I pored over other possibilities... like affirmation decks (I bought one for teens... when it gets here we'll see how much of it I am willing to turn over to her)... and I ultimately decided that I'm going to have to make one for her. I bought some pagan prayer books (I already have one that I love), and I figure that I'll write some for her. Maybe I'll have them ready for Yule! ;)

Giant hurdle #1... learn a little bit about PhotoShop... grrr.... despite having to learn a new program, I AM trying to keep it simple. I want them to look like cards in the sense that I want them to have a front and back, I want them to be attractive (but all the backs will be the same) and the prayer will have a "wallpaper"-like background... though I think I'm going to try to make those all different so that it will be interesting... probably nature scenes mostly.

Wish me luck! Although, if I do learn PhotoShop then maybe I will finally illustrate my book of children's wand spells (we bought the kids wands one year at the Renaissance Faire and there was some discussion of how to use one and what kind of things to use it for... so I wrote up a "manual") and self-publish it. Hmmm... this may turn out to be good for me after all!

Dreaming

Anyone else having a lot of dreams since the solstice? I've been dreaming all kinds of stuff, some new, some old recurring dreams. All seem to have messages in them... about who I am, what my personal characteristics are, and situations that play out in integrity. It's been amazing to watch this unconscious life evolve lately... I hadn't dreamed reliably in years... well, since the kids were born. Honestly, I didn't get much sleep for the first few years the each of my kids were here... which really calculates out to almost 5 years without all-night bouts of sleep. I've been kinda worn out.

But, back to the topic of dreaming. Last night I had a dream that is, in its basic form, a recurring dream, although the details of the dream often change. It's a dream where I'm in an airport... trying to catch a flight. The planes are often different... and the origination and destination are often different... or sometimes I don't even know that part... but it's the classic dream of angst about being on time or finding my way around. Some people dream about school this way, or work, or they've transformed it into their very own story. Anyway, last night my dream ended with me missing my flight... which is very odd... I almost always end up getting there, and somehow I knew this dream was a culmination of a few events... stick with me for a second while I tie some seemingly unrelated things together.

I woke up, with some kind of odd knowing... that something that I had been holding on to, something that was no longer serving me, had been released. I do a lot of work with the Chinese meridian system, and the clarity was in the Gall Bladder/Liver pair of meridians. These are the "wood" meridians... which are associated with creativity, the ability to see (both physically and intuitively), and the emotion of anger (commonly held in the liver meridian).

Now, rewind to the day before the dream: I've been reading a book called Plant Spirit Healing by Pam Montgomery... and I had JUST read this passage about the Wood Element in Chinese medicine. I had identified strongly with the Wood Element in this framework, and felt that the imbalances in that element had been strong in my life. They were the issues that led me to growth, and to identifying with who I really am. In summarizing the Wood Element Pam Montgomery says that the key to the element is to be flexible and to "go with the flow". Damn... now that phrase "go with the flow" has come up for me over several years, in many places, and out of the mouths of many people. I wonder if that will shift for me now.

Reading this Plant Spirit Healing Book had me thinking about plants I feel connected to. I decided (yesterday) that I was going to try to form stronger relationships with some of the plants in my yard... some I've planted, some are relentless "weeds", and then there are some plants that just don't seem like they are willing to grow here, no matter what I do. But, I digress. Yesterday I laid down under my favorite tree in my yard. It's a Liriodendron tulipifera, or a tulip tree, and is quite beautiful. Its leaves look like little birds and they dance in the breeze. I was hanging out with this tree, trying to deepen our relationship, because me and this tree have some history, but I'll save that for another post. Initially, when I put a leaf on my cheek, I got a strong vision of a geometric pattern... like through a kaleidoscope. Unfortunately, I didn't get far with this exploration because the kids were hungry and life in general got in the way. But I don't think it's a coincidence that I had the dream following this initial connection.

The dream (where I go with the flow, but am ultimately thwarted at getting to my destination... thus a block), the book (the Wood Element and the Gall Bladder and Liver meridians), and the tree (where maybe more happened than I had understood)... seem to create a triad of symbols that indicate to me that something important is happening... and after this SUPER long story, I was wondering if it was happening to anyone else?

Fairy gifts...

Over the winter I planted a few cool-weather veggies and sowed some seeds into my garden boxes... mostly flowers... just hoping for something to fill the box. We have mild winters, in fact, Feb-May is sort of the natural growing season here. Then the rains stop and things get dry.

(As planted in November)

Anyway, the plants were decimated by snails/slugs/whatever and none of the flower seeds sprouted... although some mysterious plants grew in one box. I thought they looked like potatoes... but couldn't imagine how that would happen... although, maybe I put some compost in there? I just don't remember... but somewhere around April I realized that they actually were potatoes... and I started tending them!

But, I went out yesterday to find that the snails were after them again... so I thought it was probably time to harvest them...

And... there they were! Little golden orbs of food, given as a gift, something I did very little to support. I giggled as I dug in the dirt with my hands... pulling out these magical little treasures! I so love gardening.

In my mind I could hear the fairies laughing with me. I knew that these were gifts for us. I felt so amazingly light and happy... I felt connected and blessed and full of gratitude.

The kids and I left offerings to the fairies last night... I hope they had a party to celebrate!