It’s time

It is time for me to wake up, to be always on, to be always awakening. It is time for me to stop sleeping on the opportunities for self improvement that I see all around me. I am almost 27 now. It's time to fully embrace health in all its incarnations. I sense an upcoming crossroads of my own creation. It's not that I am (necessarily) in crisis, nor have I recently gotten a kick in the pants. It's more like a natural compounding of events that is leading me to want to move knowledge to action, to move belief to power. I feel confident though a little scared, but definitely supported and able. More details as life unfolds.

I’m in love....

...with muffins!...blueberry/raspberry/golden raspberry/blackberry/lemon/calendula petal muffins are mine all mine tonight!

I just had to share, or not share, I guess, because I'm totally on a muffin kick, which hasn't happened for years, since I haven't had muffin tins for a very long time....I recently acquired muffin silicones instead of muffin tins, and it's a great new pastime. Today I'm experimenting with honey as a sweetener. The consistency has been fluffy-dense and moist so far.

I had some sweet muffins yesterday too with a secret message in the huckleberries.

In addition to baked goods, I am also in love with a human being who is blowing my mind in only the most delightfully wonderful ways. The consistency is sweet, light and unique with an unexpected gravity once it hits my belly. Delicious. A few months into love is an amazing place to be.

And I love on...

a tower crumbles
a very needed collapse
bringing more benefits than detriments
but traumatic and earth-shattering still

when tragedies happen to real-life buildings,
mourners gather at the scene,
sometimes for years, remembering together
united in their grief.

when our tower crumbled,
we inhaled relief with the dust.
pain and beauty and movement and change
(and it was overdue for a demolition)

the awesome and complete destruction was a series of choices
but just because that tower needed to crumble long ago
does not mean I can't revisit and shed a tear
at the site of the ruins.

for a while, all I could do was weep as I faced the ruins.
there will be no conspiracy theorists analyzing this wreckage,
there may be other visitors searching for answers,
but I usually come to these ruins alone.

I brought a friend last night. we kicked a few stones around,
laughed about some of the boulders that were once building blocks
and how they looked so much better on the ground,
than as a part of a hazardous tower that if left alone would have fallen yet again.

no tower will be like that one.
it was incredible, precarious, beautiful,
for a while, we thought it would always dominate the landscape,
with its unique spires and creative construction and hidden rooms.

so many times I have visited this place in my mind,
remembering it as it was when it was a tower,
holding a place in my memory that was no longer accurate to time and space
I was holding empty space up on a pedestal

now my tears blur the ground beneath me, but I am seeing clearly
I have picked up so many pieces, but the ground is still uneven with debris.
I could spend the rest of my life excavating this site
but the pieces don't all belong to me.

it will always be there in the landscape of the way I relate
it will always be cast in my memory,
and I deepen my acceptance.
it will always be sacred space.

Tasty bitterness

I find it amazing and impressive at how intuitive our senses can be.

I'm feeling under the weather aka my immune system is getting some exercise...I slept for 12 hours last night, dreamed mad, adventurous, red dreams, then awoke before the sun.

I just took some tinctures, and the ones I took normally taste bitter, so unbearably bitter to me. But today, they ALL tasted sweet to me. I remember hearing once that "if they taste good, you probably need them." Well, these normally incredibly bitter tinctures tasted so right, so sweet, that I'm sure they will do their work within me. We're so complex. I love being human.

Oh, plant allies, thank you for sharing this universe with us. I really love life.

***SiX mOnTh AnNiVeRsArY of the tragic ride in "Bunny Tough Love"...to all my friends that are still struggling, grieving and healing, much respect to you, and I love you dearly.

Another day in the life

I spent so much money on food today, mmm...if you've been meaning to come and visit me, this is the weekend to do it. It's also ON for the huckleberry picking this weekend, so get your fine self up the 101, but be careful in the process...there were two major accidents on my way back home tonight.

I went berry picking today. Well, first I went to the farmers market in Olympia and got all stocked up on greens, purples, etc. I also splurged and went for a whole flat of raspberries, golden raspberries and strawberries....YES! YUM! Then I went to my old home and garden in Oly and checked on all dem plants. The artichoke flowered (pretty!); the sunflowers range from drooping to going to seed and I took a good head with me (3rd generation, wow!); I got me some lemon cucumbers (so cute!); the squashes are still growing; some calendulas are still blooming; and I gathered some carrot seed (originally planted in '06); the dahlias are still gorgeous too; the broccoli is flowering. Yes, that garden amazes me. I dreamed about red clover last night, so I smiled at it in the garden this afternoon.

Then I headed out to the blueberry bog for what I knew would probably be my last pick of the season. I went there last week and I was so impressed with how abundant the blueberries were and how easy they are to find and pick this late in the season. I love how sweet they get this time of year. Most people have stopped going by now. Today, I enjoyed the reaching up and picking the dark sweet berries through the reddening leaves against the deep blue sky...ah, I love autumn. But it is time to quit the berry picking...heh heh, blueberry picking at least... As I went over to the 'blackberry section of the blueberry bog,' I was thinking about how seedy the blackberries were getting, when all of a sudden, a garter snake slithered right in front of my face through the berries. I let out a belated and involuntary 'oooohah!' and went on my way back through the blueberry tunnels. On my way out of the bog, I remembered that I meant to look for a hawthorne berry spot while in the tunnels, and all of a sudden, I look up to see a hawthorne tree! It allowed me to take three branches and on the the third branch, I 'asked' the tree, 'should I break it off here?' and as I reached for the spot to break the branch, I felt something unexpected--a little green frog the color of the hawthorne leaves was right at the breaking spot! He/she hopped slowly up the branch so I could break it. I think I let out another 'oooohah!' at that point too. I felt like the creatures today were giving me a nice send off for the season. It was sweet.

Then I stopped and got some pollinator pears and blackberry honey at the fruit truck. It happened to be fruit truck guy's last day...a sweet little redheaded boy and his dad were there too, sharing an apple in the shelter from the wind by the fruit truck. Of all the moments of the last week, I feel like that moment I officially and fully ushered in and fully embraced fall.

Speaking of redheads, that's another update all together...mmmm...a careful and delightful whirlwind, a starry and grounding transition....mmmm....although I'm not so keen on this whole business of calling in sick for a Friday night date....well...somebody needs to give that redhead some medicine! heh heh heh

OK, my beautiful people, remember to take deeeeep breaths (or at least don't breathe shallow). I've been finding that to be a challenge in the last week. Stay healthy or if you're not healthy, then get well!

Venus in Retrograde in Blue (Movement I)

Ha ha....what did one co-dependent partner of the past say to the other?
I am so alone without you.

Not really even funny...

Oh, Hera...

............................................................................................................................

Why?

Sometimes I would like nothing more than to curl up in the warm familiarity of your arms

To surrender to the frustration and fogginess and dysfunction
To sacrifice myself for that semblance of comfort

I am a fool to believe that building that tower up again would be anything but a crumbling that I've witnessed dozens of times before. I know this.

I want to know the answers now
to the questions that can only be answered with experience
distance
intention

............................................................................................................................


Transformation

Out of the illusion of scarcity...into perspective...arriving at unexpected abundance

I was not, I am not
expecting too much

I am ready and receptive...
I am willing and open...

Whole and ripe

The time is right

Simple pleasures this morning

the beads of oil that linger on the side of my coffee cup

the intensity of dried strawberries

shooting the breeze with the construction guys, telling "dirty" jokes that are so lame (but hilarious to me) that they can't help but giggle

knowing and trusting that all is as it needs to be right now

watching myself travel along depths and heights, and finding peace in the work towards balance

mmm simple pleasures....so easy (sometimes) to maintain this perspective....

Best quote of the day so far (when I asked a man how he's doing today): "I'm great. Even when I'm terrible, I'm still doing great."

I don’t brag, I mostly boast

Oooh, update!

I grew a garden (seriously, I ain't no plant killer) then I moved away at peak season.

Love and let go, I guess (in oh so many ways, siiiiiiigh).

Here's what the garden produced successfully:

Returning from last year: carrots, cilantro, strawberries, bachelor buttons, dahlias, kale, chard,

From seed: green lettuce, snow peas, sugar snap peas, cucumbers, blue pole beans, red whirly bird nasturtiums, sunflowers, corn, chives

From starts (from Jenni): chocolate mint, bleeding heart, borage, fennel

From starts (from the market): calendula, purple and green basil, lemon cucumber, squashes, red lettuce

From weeds: daisies, red clover

Also in yard: foxglove, snapdragons, cherry trees, salmonberry bushes, apple tree.

Now I don't live near the garden, but I hear it is still producing and really weedy!

Anyways, I am an earth worshipper and will continue to be, because all I did was weed and water, and I didn't even do that very well, so THANK YOU PLANET EARTH FOR BEING SO AMAZING and letting me learn in my garden.
My metaphor-garden is seeming to be blossoming too in just as many unexpected ways...call for details!!

Love abundant.

Oh and in other news, salal berries, huckleberries, red huckleberries, wild blackberries, himalayan blackberries, thimbleberries (it's a little late) and blueberries are all blowing my mind with their deliciousness.
Hope all is well in your parts of the world, my beautiful people that I love....

I ain't no plant killer!

I have this impression of myself: I can do anything.

It was instilled in me by my parents, my teachers, my friends: you can be whatever you want to be.

In my vision of the future, I will grow much of my own food, with ample to share with friends and neighbors.

I come from a family of farmers!

But I'm not so sure that I am good at gardening. I could blame the cat for digging where I planted seeds. I could blame the inebriated state that I was in when we transplanted some starts.

I could blame the ivy and the red sails.

But the sad truth is that I am not personally experienced with growing food, and most of my successes have been at least partially accidental.

I killed the most of the borage. The strawberries from last year didn't produce last year, there are no blossoms and some are going senescent.

The bleeding hearts are halfway alive.

But the peppermint is going strong, and so is the fennel. Sunflower and bean sprouts are coming up, and so are the snow peas, corn, broccoli and lettuce. I haven't seen the nasturtiums or the squash yet, nor the cucumbers.

Well, it's only been 11 days since I planted. Maybe I could be patient.

My garden could be a reflection of the self, and so maybe I should not be so critical at this vulnerable point when all the sprouts are just bursting forth, so small and unique. Maybe I should be appreciative of the raw potential and recognize that I have the power to nurture the nature of the garden.

I'll keep you posted, and maybe, come September, I'll share some of my bounty with you.

That is, if there is any.