Clea Danaan

Soul Centered Homeschooling

2012-01-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

My husband just finished a power-filled retreat with Bill Plotkin, and one of the insights he brought home with him is this chart of soulcentric development. It perfectly captures why and how I homeschool (or at least towards what ends I aspire). I see my children as Explorers in the Garden, and homeschool as a way for them to explore the garden in the context of family, community, and nature. Plotkin bases his wheel on the four directions of Native American tradition:

Which of course relates to the Wheel of the Year in Pagan and Celtic spirituality:

And evokes Susun Weed's Medicine Wheel of the Wise Woman Tradition (on page 81 of HealingWise - can't find an image of it online).

Another frame that mirrors Plotkin's wheel comes from a totally different tradition, Leadership Education. The phases of learning (and development) that DeMille describes fit right into the soulcentric wheel. The phases according to age are:

0-12 Play/Family Work
12-16 Scholar Phase
16-20 Superb Education
20-24 Depth Phase (Liberal Arts College)
24-50 Build Two Towers (a Family and an Organization)
50+ Impact the World (Statesmanship)

The way this looks as homeschoolers varies. It underlies all we do. As Weed says, the Wise Woman tradition is invisible. It embraces all possibilities. So for us it looks like time outdoors and time on the computer, time at gymnastics and our school-ish enrichment program and free time doing nothing. It's about balance. Long term. Growing a family with soul. Living a soul-centered life.

Seed Packet Wedding Favors

2012-01-10T12:37:00.000-07:00

Cathedral Bells

Planning a spring or flower-themed wedding? Consider giving seed packets as wedding favors. One of my favorite seed companies, John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds will give you 10% off 10 to 49 seed packets of any one variety, or 25% off 50 or more of the same variety. Need some ideas? What about Lemon Balm, a perennial herb that brings love, success and healing and makes a nerve-tonic tea? Or rosemary, bestowing love, protection, and healing? In the flower department, how about Forget-me-nots or Cathedral Bells? For a fall themed wedding, give your guests pumpkin seeds (John Scheepers offers ten varieties) - just remind them to not plant until the following spring.

For more nature-themed wedding ideas, see my ebook, Magical Bride: Craft an Interfaith Wedding for a Goddess, available now in all e-reader formats.

Learning to Trust Your Intuition

2011-10-09T17:59:00.000-06:00

This past weekend I taught a class, the Natural Intuitive, to a group of lovely people in Pueblo, Colorado. What a neat little gem of a town! And a fabulous library that rivals any in Denver.

Anyway, the theme that emerged in the class was learning to trust yourself. Every single person who came to the class shared a powerful intuitive moment, whether they communicated intuitively with bears, the desert, their house plants, or their nursing patients. And every single person expressed a belief that their abilities were nothing special, that they would like to develop their psychic senses further and that they have no idea how to proceed. They doubted and down played their experiences.

I understand that feeling. Several years ago, when I was first exploring my intuitive abilities with both people and plants, I so doubted myself. I couldn't believe that I was actually getting accurate psychic information on my massage clients. Often what I reported made no sense to them. But every once in a while, a person would say, "Do you know me? How can you know that?" And bit by bit, I'd learn what an accurate reading felt like.

It's harder to get affirmation when reading plants or rivers or other non-human beings. But again, over time, I saw what my garden plants respond to. I observed plant behavior and was able to affirm my intuitive senses. Sometimes you can even research and therefore affirm or deny the information you get when tuning in to nature. Say, as happened in our class this past weekend, that you sense bedrock underneath you when tapping into the earth - the presence of bedrock can be confirmed by looking at geological maps. Over time you will get to know what an accurate reading feels like.

It takes time, and learning to trust. It takes accepting intuitive listening as real.

The best way I know to do that is to tune into your body. It's the same thing as knowing when someone is lying to you. You can feel it in your gut. When we don't pay attention to those messages, they burrow into our unconscious, where they continue to try to get our attention. Messages that are continually ignored can turn into illness. All of us can learn to listen to our bodies better, to heed and understand and trust our subconscious, intuitive messages.

Trust. Listen. Share with trusted people who get it. Your listening abilities will grow.

The Natural Intuitive Class Oct 2, 2011

2011-09-27T12:09:00.002-06:00

I'll be in Pueblo, Colorado, this weekend for a class:

The Natural Intuitive
Sunday, Oct. 2 at 2 p.m.
Rawlings Library, Ryals Room - 4th floor
Awaken your psychic powers, talk to nature and hear her reply. Nature intuitive Clea Danaa gives lessons in building psychic awareness and communicating with plants, trees and nature spirits. This rewarding connection with nature offers healing, renewal, knowledge of your life and purpose and a spiritual oasis in a chaotic world.

Manifestation and Synchronicity

2011-07-02T12:08:00.000-06:00

Things keep popping up in pairs and threes. Inconsequential things, mostly. Like Sears and Roebuck, specifically pointing out the now-defunct Roebuck part, appearing in two novels in a row. Little House on the Prairie mentioned in books and by people several times in two days. My dreaming about a person who out of the blue messages my husband (before I dreamed about him and without my knowledge). Three people posting Mary Oliver on Facebook in one day. Oh, and the day three unrelated Facebook friends mentioned drool in their updates. Silly things. Yet things that make you wonder.

Sometimes themes in my life offer a message, like the day a picture of my father, who passed away three years ago, appeared on Facebook (hmm, another theme!) (and, I should add that I bet there is a total of two pictures of him on Facebook, hard as that is to believe) and then half an hour later I get in the car and his favorite classical piece is playing on the radio. He's saying hello. But these little themes, like drool, really don't matter. Rather than making significance out of inconsequential things, I started to look at what energy lies beneath the pairs, rather than the pairs themselves. (Oh, I'm having a hard time making sense.) So, for instance, it's not the drool or Little House on the Prairie that matters, it's the energetic and emotional response that these images pull up for me that matters. An author mentions Little House on the Prairie, and while it's not central to the story, it's important to the main character. I remember being nine years old, sitting in our ratty burnt-orange recliner in the corner of the living room, reading for hours on end about Laura. A little energy burst goes off in my heart, tiny enough that I don't pay the burst any attention, but emotional enough that it creates a form in spacetime. Then that form pulls on the strings of causal reality, and a friend I'm hanging out with the next day casually mentions Little House on the Prairie.

A few years ago I entered to win a basket of natural and organic sundae fixin's from a natural food store. Chocolate sauce, natural sprinkles, an ice cream scoop, that sort of thing. As I filled out the form, I thought lightly and happily of my boyfriend's response should I win. He loves ice cream. Then, because it was such a silly inconsequential thing, I thought nothing more of it. I won the basket. Again - I felt an emotional response to this thing, but let it go. I think that is the key to synchronicities and to manifestation. There has to be an emotional response in order to create the thought form, as it is sometimes called, but it can't be clung to. And of course that is the challenge. If we really want something, it's hard to let go. As they say in Buddhist teaching, release all hope of fruition. Yet keep striving. Such a powerful dialectic.

So that has become one of my my meditations of late. There are a few things I want, and I am picturing them, feeling the emotional charge, and working to release any attachment or heaviness (another form of attachment) to them. We shall see how successful I am....... but then, clinging to "success" shoots apart the whole non-attachment bit. Oh, easy it is not. so I guess I'll just continue to observe, and see what blooms. I'd love to hear your stories of manifestation and synchronicity. Won't you post your stories for me? What is silly, hard, and fascinating about these energies in your life?

Planting Nettles in the Witches Garden

2011-04-20T15:16:00.000-06:00

The title of this post feels like it might be a metaphor. But it's not. Yesterday, damp and cool, saw me duck down behind our wild roses, pull away the leaf litter, and plant stinging nettle seeds. They don't grow wild here like they do where I grew up, and it wasn't until I had moved away from the Pacific Northwest that I learned of their infinite value. I couldn't figure out where I would plant them in a suburban yard with two kids and their friends running about. When I discovered the seeds for sale through Seeds of Change, I bought some. When they arrived the spot occurred to me - behind the rose bushes, to the side of the garage. It stays slightly damp there. When it rains the hole in the garage gutter drools on that spot. It's shady. And out of the way. If we ever sell the house I'll have to rip them out no doubt, but for now I have my little witch garden - thorny wild roses and a tangle of stinging nettle.

Interview with Clea Danaan on Zen Chickens

2011-04-13T21:26:00.000-06:00

My interview by Katya Quigley on raising urban chickens:

2011-03-27T22:21:00.000-06:00

I just watched PBS's Secrets Beneath the Ice, a report of research in Antarctica examining what our world will look like when the planet's temperature rises the predicted five degrees over the next hundred years. Scientists are finding strong evidence that sea levels will rise in the neighborhood of sixty feet as the ice shelves of Antarctica and their sister glaciers melt. Which means our coastal cities will be partially submerged. It means the salinity of the sea will change drastically. The higher temperatures will also mean changes in vegetation, summer temperatures, and other habitat changes.

Global Warming is real, but still unpredictable. We don't know for sure what is going to happen. And since it's probably totally out of our control (if we were to stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere the temperatures will still rise at this point) and we fear what we can't control, we just act like it isn't happening. But it is. And it will change the face of the earth in my children's lifetime.

Climate change is not a new topic for me. Trying to live in a way that mitigates its effects, like riding my bike and turning off the lights and hanging clothes out to dry, are not new behaviors. They feel neither wholly effective nor foolish, just part of being a responsible human being. But after watching this documentary (having also recently read most of The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery) I'm left with two unanswered questions: What does global change mean to me as I try to live a meaningful life? And what does it mean in terms of how I raise my children?

If rising sea levels is a given, for instance, what do I want to do with my life? What gifts and tools do I want my children to have given that this world now and the world to come in their lifetimes will be totally different than the world throughout human history? Surely the basics remain the same: love, compassion, understanding of interconnections, responsibility. But do those basics change in the face of a different planet? If, for instance, the world is as warm as it was during the age of dinosaurs yet contains nearly nine billion people, how will that change the way humans live? How can I raise my children to be wise, loving, calm, yet prepared?

I don't know. No conclusions. Just thoughts and questions. I'm curious what you think.

Prayer and Intention for Japan

2011-03-21T10:45:00.000-06:00

I read that Denver Botanic Gardens has created a wish tree for prayer, wishes, and reflection for the Japanese struggling with the massive earthquake, tsunami, and other related disasters. At first I thought - wow, they need so much more than prayers! They need food, financial resources, blankets.... everything! I caught myself. Of course they need those things. But caught up as I was in the here and now, I forgot for a moment the power of intention and prayer. We exists within and of the quantum sea. We are all connected. Thoughts have power. Heart fields have immense power. One way to tap into this power is to sit in nature - wilderness, a garden, a city park - and breathe. Ground yourself. Focus on Japan. Vibrate with love, healing, and wholeness. It will raise the vibrations in Japan and throughout the quantum sea.

When you send financial support (through a verified source like the Red Cross or Save the Children) send your intentions through the energy of money as well. Money and intention are both essentially energy. Energy - vibrations - bring other energies into attunement with themselves. Your intentions do make a positive difference.

What is a Nature Intuitive?

2011-03-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

In my book Voices of the Earth: The Path of Green Spirituality I talk a lot about being a nature intuitive. I have to admit this phrase makes me a little uncomfortable (isn't that the curse of the author, to read our published words and cringe a little?). I came up with it in the interest of maybe coining a phrase or at least presenting my ideas in a neat little package. But the thing is, I'm afraid making it a neat little package is rather misleading.

A nature intuitive, as I mean it in Voices, is someone who talks to nature and hears an answer. Who listens to his or her keenest level of sensory perception - which is to say the five senses - to tune into the quantum sea in which we and nature exist. But of course we are nature, too. Everything is nature. To say that a tree or a rock is more "nature" than a person or a table is erroneous. We're all vibrations. We're all part of the great being some call Gaia - and also of God/the Creator/the Goddess/the Great Spirit, etc.

Not everyone's intuitive or psychic abilities are the same. They vary in degree and style. Some are mediums, able to clearly communicate with the dead (and their styles can differ from each other). Some can sense the future. Others may have a heightened intuitive sense but not be tuned in (yet?) to the afterlife or the future, for instance. Along these lines, some people will be more interested in, and therefore able to sense, the vibrations of the natural world than people. So maybe we could call them nature intuitives. But really it's all extended sense perception directed at whatever thing you want to sense. Everyone has this ability, or the ability to develop psychic senses.

I do think perhaps being surrounded by "nature" (i.e. trees, water, stones) helps us to slow the mind chatter, a crucial part of tuning in to extended senses. So learning to intuit nature energies might be an easy first step to developing one's abilities to attune to people, which we usually refer to as psychic.

So. Don't get hung up on the nature intuitive phrase (maybe you weren't - I hope not. I was). It's all about attuning, listening, focusing - inward and outward. I think you'll find that this ability will lead you to "nature" no matter what you call it.

Rock Gardening in the February Sun

2011-02-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

February weather always teases me into feeling that real spring is just around the bend. After ten years in Colorado I know the warm weather and sweet air do not mean the end of freezing night temperatures nor do they mean the snow has all passed. We will get another snowstorm, probably a big one. But for now, with snowdrops and violets peeking through the mulch, temperatures kissing fifty, and finches and juncos singing about love, I need to get out into the garden. Since I cannot plant anything and I'm not doing any winter sowing this year, I've been moving rocks.

Our house was built in 1950, and sometime in the last sixty years someone moved a whole lot of rocks into our yard. I keep uncovering them, most about the size of two fists nestled together. Some are larger, requiring my rusty red wheelbarrow to move. Every year I shift them about, front yard to back, side to side, circling beds or marking paths. One year I made a spiral of rocks, but I kept tripping over them on the way to the garden. An apple tree is planted in that spot now. Some years I line them up as borders, other years I scatter them for a more natural look.

This year I have an idea to turn a strip along the south-facing fence, which has never grown vegetables or anything but weeds very well, into a rock garden. I'm on the hunt for a dwarf pine tree or two, and I picture these resiny evergreens surrounded by a natural scattering of rocks nestled with thymes, pasqueflower, and heuchera or something little and white and dainty. I stare at the garden for ten minutes until one row of rocks looks all wrong and I rip it out. Another row seems to cut off the flow of a pathway, so that comes out. Then the pathway, flagstone also uncovered near the front door shortly after we moved in and promptly moved into the back garden, also looks all wrong. I feel the need to pull it all out and do it the right way, raking the soil flat, putting down sand, reconstructing the mosaic stone path, and tucking in dwarf thyme into the cracks.

This is the perfect time of year for this garden task, as I can see the shape of the yard without greenery. It's all bones and brown grass. Rock bones, not animal bones. Bones of the earth. As I haul and dream I feel connected to the builders of Stonehenge and artists like Andy Goldsworthy who crafts outdoor sculptures out of natural objects. I aspire to craft a garden of art, though mostly it's more like a pile of rocks here and a smattering there. I recall how Rebecca Dye, landscape architect, listens to the rocks she places in gardens. They tell her where they want to go and with which other rocks they want to sit (I wrote about Rebecca in Sacred Land). I try to listen to the rocks. The result is more alive than a random placing, if no Andy Goldsworthy.

I feel more alive, too, carrying rocks about the yard, dreaming of spring and feeling my own roots stretch into the cool dark earth. My work becomes a conversation between my hands and heart, the land, the stones, and the spring-like day. Spring planting may be a while off yet, but by playing with rocks I get to stretch my gardening fingers and am happy.

Fractal Intelligence

2011-02-12T16:55:00.000-07:00

We recently watched the NOVA Science Now episode "How Smart Are Animals?" A discussion followed as to why and how we are asking this question. We know animals are "smarter" than our species has historically given them credit, but we're having a hard time quantifying that intelligence. It occurred to me that underlying this question is actually a more foundational question: What is intelligence? What is it to be human?

It bothers us humans that there is a difference between us and non-human animals, but that the more we dig into the question of what that difference really is, the harder it is to articulate what that difference is. We tend to say things about emotions, intelligence, tools, and language. But non-human animals definitely feel emotions. From an embarrassed cat to a grieving elephant, animals feel. Many animals use tools, from crows to chimps. Many others have of course evolved their own built-in tools, including beaks, claws, long tongues, and the like. We say this isn't a tool - yet it's no different, really, than our evolved thumb. It works, and we use it to achieve our goals.

Scientists are fascinated with the measurement of intelligence and language. But so often the measurement of these qualities is to compare them against human intelligence and language. We are only seeing other species intelligence through the lens of our own. Same with language.

If you slow down cricket song, it sounds like angels singing. If you slow down bird song, it sounds like jazz. Maybe scientists need to be using not spoken language, but music to study animal intelligence. Music and fractals.

I suspect that animal - and plant and rock and air and water - intelligence is not linear like ours (currently) is, but is fractal in nature. (I mean to say that human intelligence is currently linear as we understand it.)

We're fond of saying that humans use only 10% of our brains. We think we will be "smarter" when we access more parts of the brain. Interesting that music activates many different parts of the brain at once, as well as these parts' interactions with each other. I suspect becoming smarter is not about simply using more linear brain space, but about delving up and inward fractally. I don't know what this means neurologically, but as an artist and a dreamer I get a certain Yes when I visualize the idea. Nature's intelligence and language is musical and fractal and we will understand it - and ourselves - better when we delve more deeply into these ways of understanding.

Affirming Inherent Goodness

2011-01-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

I've been struggling with an issue that affects every area of my life. Lately it's been particularly difficult. Last night I talked to my husband about the issue, my feelings and reactions, my struggles and stuckness. Compassionate man that he is, he listened for a long time, nodding and such, and then offered some things that might in a small way help. They weren't bad ideas. But I realized the reason I get frustrated and resistant when I'm talking to someone about an issue and they offer advice or solutions. Now, we all do this. We all want those we care about to feel better. We like to fix things. We like people to be happy. But in that moment, what I really wanted was to be assured that even though I'm struggling, lost, sad, angry, and frustrated; even though I have demonstrated some not-so-pretty behavior; even though I don't have any answers and am therefore "failing" at something in my life, that I am still an okay person. Not just okay - inherently, deeply lovable.

That realization helped me clarify a parenting approach as well. In Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, Naomi Aldort presents a compassionate approach to parenting that relies heavily on affirming our children's feelings and desires. I've found that simply reflecting what my daughter feels, though, often stirs up a maelstrom of emotions that stop us dead in our tracks. Aldort writes about this, saying that if our child has not felt affirmed enough in the past, reflecting emotions can open the floodgates. I've had a sense, though, that with my daughter there is more going on. Last night I realized it's not enough to reflect. I have to convey to her that she is a good person even though she is feeling difficult emotions. Even though she is resistant and angry and overwhelmed, she is still okay. Still fabulous even! That her emotions happen but are not equal to her self. This has to be behind any affirming or reflecting I offer. Otherwise, I say, "You're sad about that," and she cries harder because of the sadness itself, because she has this belief that sadness is not okay.

So this shall be my new approach - to offer love, not solutions; affirmation of Self, not just naming of emotions. For my daughter and everyone else.

Urban Farmer Seeds

2010-12-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

I just discovered a cool idea: Urban Farmer Seeds (ufseeds.com) "uses recycled magazines to package all of it's seeds. Our eco-friendly seed packets are made using old magazines and catalogs that would otherwise go to a landfill. We separate these catalogs by paper strength and size and then turn them into seed packets for our seeds!" They sell organic and heirloom seed packs and gardening products geared towards a small carbon footprint at reasonable prices. If you sign up for their newsletter you get a $5 off coupon of a $25 purchase that is good 24 hours from entering your email. Nice work!

The Wheel of the Year via Little Bear

2010-12-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

I love the warm and wholesome children's series Little Bear, as do both of my children. One thing I enjoy about it is that they celebrate the Wheel of the Year, though they don't call it that. These episodes honor a few of the seasonal holidays:

Little Bear's Sweet Tooth - It's the Harvest Day Picnic and everyone is enjoying the races and games- except for Little Bear. He's having fun sneaking off and satisfying his sweet tooth at the desert table, until his sweet tooth causes a sore tummy. (Lammas or Mabon)

Moonlight Serenade - Little Bear dances under a Harvest Moon with a scarecrow, a family of pumpkins and a set of garden tools. When Little Bear and scarecrow get launched to the moon, he wakes up and discovers that it was only a dream...or was it? (Samhain)

Goblin Night - It's Goblin Night and Little Bear and his friends are dressed up in their scariest costumes. On their way to the big bonfire they practice scaring each other...and do a very good job! (Samhain)

Winter Solstice - Little Bear learns holiday traditions by celebrating the winter solstice with his family. (Yule)

The Blueberry Festival - Little Bear and friends put on a play to celebrate the annual blueberry harvest. (Midsummer)

Because the friends spend a lot of time outdoors, the seasons and weather play an integral role in the show. There are many snow episodes and several fall and summer stories as well. It's an earthy cartoon that we all enjoy! You can watch some episodes on Nickjr.com or you can buy episodes or seasons to watch on amazon.com/ondemand. Netflix also has several dvd's of the show.
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Have Youself a Sacred City Solstice

2010-12-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

Those of us tending towards Paganism may envision the perfect winter Solstice as something along these lines:

Snow blankets the silent ground, unbroken for miles around but for the occasional animal print etched into its glittery surface. A full moon rises above the horizon, casting evergreen shadows long and mystical. Inside the cozy log cabin we gather before a crackling fire. We sip eggnog made from the milk of our own cows or goats, who are at this very moment tucked warmly into their hay-filled barn. As we sip our nog and gaze upon our children playing peacefully with their wooden toys, we tell stories and sing Pagan holiday songs like Deck the Halls and the Pagan version of the Holly and the Ivy. Our night is lit only by beeswax candles made from our own hives and the fire. After a meal of winter stew and mead, we push back the furniture and gather for the family ritual. We call in the ancestors and the powers with whom we work, we raise energy and charge the Yule Log which is placed reverently on the fire, and we share cakes and wine or juice before ending our circle. Then we snuggle down in our cozy beds, sleeping soundly, and rise just before light to sing or drum up the sun. Then we share our handmade, cloth-wrapped gifts, and break our fast with sunny foods like buttery polenta, fresh farm eggs, and cinnamon tea. Then we spend the first day of winter snow shoeing through the silent and sparkly morning to bring gifts of seeds and dried fruit to the woodland creatures.

It could happen. If you live in the city, however, this fantasy may be a bit far fetched. How best does a busy family in the heart of a city celebrate the Longest Night and the return of the Sun?

Here are a few suggestions.

Celebrate around the dinner table. Light lots of candles, turn off the electric lights, and share a meal of seasonal foods like potato leek soup and home baked bread (or at least locally made bread). Discuss what the light returning means in terms of playing outside, the promise of spring, and so on. Ask your children what they think about the return of longer daylight hours. Discuss what kinds of inner light they want to devote more time to in the coming year, and what that might look like.
Make a Yule log. This might be as ornate as an actual log decorated with boughs and candles (drill holes in the top of the log or attach candles with wax or hot glue), or as simple as sticks gathered on a neighborhood walk, which you then burn in your fireplace or a charcoal grill. It's the honoring of light that matters. You might also bake a Buche de Noel, or if you're really strapped for time, buy one at a local bakery. Discuss the meaning of the Yule Log as you eat it by candlelight.
Take a walk at dusk for a week or two, or just go stand in your backyard at sunset. Notice where the sun sets and when. You might even want to keep a journal of this data, maybe the same night each week for the months of December and January.
Rise with the sun on the 21st. For families with little children, this won't be as hard as it sounds. You probably already do already! Go outside on the front porch or balcony to watch the sun rise. Eat polenta with lots of butter for breakfast. It's a sunny food! Discuss how corn is grown in the summer, at the opposite end of the Wheel of the Year, and now we warm up with its sweet sugars and starches as winter officially begins. If you eat eggs, serve them sunny-side-up!
Read winter books, like When Winter Comes by Nancy Van Laan (ages 3-7), The Winter Solstice by Ellen Jackson (ages 7-10), or The Return of the Light: Twelve Tales from Around the World for the Winter Solstice by Carolyn McVickar Edwards (listening to chapter books to adult).
Cut out snow flakes. Use yellow or gold paper to make suns. Hang them from the ceiling or stick them to the wall or hang them on a Yule tree.
Bundle up and take a walk in a local park or your neighborhood to search for signs of animals. Discuss what the trees are doing. Gather trinkets like pine cones and feathers to decorate your family altar or centerpiece. Ask permission of the land to take these treasures home with you and listen carefully to the answer.
Here in Denver, many families drum up the sun at Red Rocks. You may want to find a community ritual, sun ceremony, or other local activity. Check your local newspaper for large events, or local New Age or Pagan book and gift stores for open rituals. Or make your own, inviting another family or your entire community to share Solstice dawn together.
I like to offer one gift to my children on Yule and save the rest for Christmas morning. We are an eclectic family with strong Christmas family traditions. I've seen so many arguments as to when you should celebrate - as if it makes one a bad Christian to honor the Solstice or a bad Pagan to open gifts on Christmas. It is all about family, light, love, and gratitude. These are the important parts to remember, whenever you celebrate.

Hope these ideas resonate, or spark some of your own. Have a very merry Solstice!

Magical Homesteading

2010-12-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

It seems urban homesteading has passed through fad phase and settled down into a quiet way of life for thousands of people. You don't hear about it much on the news, and the featured book table has fewer titles related to homesteading, but internet groups and blogs are still going strong. I meet fewer people who say they wish they had chickens, and more people who report someone in their neighborhood who keeps a small flock. These urban and suburban homesteaders come from all walks of life: various religions, conservative and liberal, young and retired, women and men. It ranges from the city apartment with herbs on the balcony and a supplemental community garden plot to a small farm producing wool, eggs, and meat.

Urban homesteading is a magical way of life. Magic is the art of changing your consciousness - and the world's consciousness - at will. Magic examines our interconnections to everything around us and our responsibilities towards those things to which we are connected. Both of these qualities can also be said about homesteading of all varieties. I raise chickens because it's fun, because I like knowing where my eggs come from, and I like the responsibility of caring for the animals that nourish me. I like the surprise of my neighbors when they realize I'm growing my own food (especially the children), and I hope I am contributing to the world in positive ways by teaching others how they too might live more responsibly. I am working to change the current paradigm that says that farm and suburb are two different things, that life should be divided by zoning laws and labels.

Homesteading is also about really knowing your land, whether that land is your backyard or your neighborhood or both. This too is a very magical quality. To paraphrase Phyllis Curott, a witch is someone who pays attention. We notice how many squirrel nests we have in our neighborhood, where we can find wild herbs, how rain affects our property, the changing light through the seasons, and other ways in which we and nature coexist. The garden and our animals teach us about life and death, give and take, ebb and flow. These are all aspects of energy we must know intimately to work magic of any kind.

When I was thinking about writing this blog post I imagined I would post things like an amulet you might make to hang in the chicken coop to keep the girls safe from predators, or how conjuring a dragon can be a form of magical protection for your homestead. If you would like to learn some of these tricks, check out Magical Housekeeping by Tess Whitehurst or Cottage Witchery by Ellen Dugan. Both books have lots of great ideas to magic your homestead. I realized while writing this post, though, that homesteading is an act of magic all itself. Just like it's not the tool that holds the magic, but your consciousness, it's not the spells that make a home magical but the power in your heart.

Blessed be!

A Nice Collection of Chicken Information

2010-11-30T14:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/11/10-photos-videos-cool-coops-eggs-chickens-pets-backyard-urban-farming/

A friend sent me this link on cool chicken coops and I thought I'd pass it on!

And while you're thinking about that chicken coop, head on over to Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk and order my latest book!

You can read some of it online! :-)

Healing Shame: The Work of Seven Generations

2010-11-09T10:47:00.000-07:00

I recently came across the book Positive Discipline by Jane Nelson, Ed.D., and read it voraciously. I have never considered myself a punitive parent, for we don't hit our kids and have tried to frame time-outs as calming down time. But reading this book I saw how we are still using shame and blame to try to coerce our children (mostly my daughter, for my son is only 14 months old) into behaving in ways we condone. Like getting angry at my daughter for interrupting, or sending her to her room for screaming at us. In Positive Discipline Nelson discusses how erroneous it is to think that a child will do better by being made to feel worse, that in fact a child doesn't sit there in time out or when mom is yelling at her and think, man, I need to be a better person. She just feels bad about herself and angry at mom. She feels powerless and acts accordingly. I highly recommend the book or its companion, Positive Discipline A-Z -- 1001 Solutions to Everyday Parenting Problems for any and every parent.

But beware. In evaluating and changing most of the ways I interact with my daughter (with whom I've been battling since birth), I'm going through a powerful and intense process. My rational brain says that "all" I'm doing is learning a new skill set in order to deal with something that hasn't been working (punitive discipline works in the moment but over time makes it all worse). But I'm exhausted, achy, and emotional. I'm angry and sad. I even woke up with a mild bout of mastitis (which is all about anger and boundaries and service).

Every time my daughter misbehaves or does something annoying or makes a request of me, I stop, notice my gut reaction, and then draw on this new skill set. This means 100 times a day I have to evaluate and change my patterns of relating. On an energetic level, I realized, this is huge. I'm changing the energy between me and my daughter, me and my husband, and even between me and my parents. I realized, for instance, that the sadness that plagued me the other morning was all the stuffed sadness and shame I felt as a child when punished. Again, my family was not terribly strict or punitive, nor were my parents overly permissive. I'm seeing, though, in reading this book, how subtle and pervasive our culture of shame and blame truly is. How we hand that shame down from generation to generation, an undetected language about the self and the world. I am feeling not only my unconscious sadness finally arising, but also sadness about how surprisingly difficult it is to be kind but firm all the time, telling my daughter with my actions, words, and tone of voice that she is valued, that she belongs, that I love her unconditionally - how awful that this is so hard! I am also, I suspect, feeling the sadness of all the generations past who were shamed and blamed and told they didn't matter because that is what people did and still do with each other, especially children.

For it is said that when you heal an emotional wound, you heal the seven generations behind you. I see them all, my parents, my grandparents, their parents, on back before my ancestors came to the United States, all carrying these weights of not belonging, not being good enough, being "bad" people. I can feel these weights. Feel the sadness and confusion and longing. Powerful and overwhelming.

And then there is the anger. I have a sneaky temper. I lash out, I realized, when I feel trapped and discouraged because I can't control others or myself. My father was the same way. Yelling or banging a wooden spoon on the sauce pan hard enough to break it are ways of releasing the fire of frustration that boils over with humbling regularity. I have worked so so hard to manage this anger, and even more so now as I use positive discipline techniques. The only problem is the anger is still there. It rises like bile when I am in my reaction phase. I breath, do snake breath (check "Managing Mama Rage" by Tera Freese in the November-December 2010 issue of Mothering magazine - a timely article for me), try to cool down, and then deal with my daughter or husband's offending behavior in a more enlightened manner. But by the end of the day, partly due to my being totally yin deficient, wherein the kidney cannot "cool" the liver, I have a very cranky bit of anger churning inside me. Not pretty. I'm doing meditation, talking, writing, and breathing. I'm noticing my anger. I'm noticing my usual patterns of reacting. I'm healing and changing and it isn't easy.

I have been a spiritually minded person my whole life. I have done therapy and bodywork. NET and Reiki. Retreats, expressive arts therapy, massage. But the most powerful and intense path of healing I've encountered is conscious parenting. Being a mom is hard work. It is healing work, for myself, my children, and the seven generations before me. I wish you guidance and strength on your healing journey. Blessed be.

Samhain Meditation: Inhabiting True Self

2010-10-29T10:34:00.000-06:00

Our Samhain Altar

I awoke this morning at dawn and smiled at my thirteen-month-old son, who gazed at me for a moment and then offered one of his sweet grins. We lay next to each other in the quiet of the early morning, simply being. I realized that he is possibly the only person ever with whom I feel completely myself, totally calm and unaltered. I wondered if this is because he is still a baby, or because of who he is. I think a little of both.

When I am with another person, even a dear friend, my husband, or my daughter, I wear a sort of mask or costume. It's not that I am fake, exactly, just that I am not inhabiting the peaceful real self I am when alone, or first thing in the morning with my son. I often see this same mask-wearing in my daughter and husband and it irritates me. I want them to be their real self. Which of course is me wanting to be my real self and not knowing how.

We all wear these masks and costumes. We fear the vulnerability of being truly seen. Why? I think the true Self is powerful. Literally - full of power. Power centered in the self. When one is centered in her true self, she can be threatening to others who are used to getting their power not from within but from those around them. Ah, narcissism. My dear father was a narcissist, as was his before him. One of the things about living with a narcissist is that you always feel like you have to make them okay - and to do this you have to hide your power and cater to their emotional needs of the moment. We get used to doing this, and then it is second nature to hide the Self.

I think in some ways most of us are narcissists. We suffer from low self worth and seek power from others by denying them their power. It's not a conscious or malicious thing, it's just how we as a species tend to interact with each other. And it's how we teach our children to interact.

As a mom I don't want to perpetuate this pattern any longer. I know that the only way to teach my children to be themselves and for them to feel safe calmly inhabiting their true Selves even in front of others is for me to do the same. I am making this my Samhain meditation this year. It's amazingly hard. First I find that centered self and then I work to maintain it while interacting with another person by holding on to the body feeling of centeredness. I notice any sort of feelings that arise, like vulnerability or even anger. I just notice those feelings and learn from them. I keep coming back to center, noticing, learning, growing. It's a powerful meditation. I invite you to do it with me if you like.

Have a blessed Samhain. May the veils be thin for you.

Who Will Pay for Environmental Clean-Up?

2010-10-16T16:59:00.000-06:00

I'm reeling a little thinking about environmental ethics.

There is a company, Abtech Industries, that has created a Smart Sponge that cleans up oil and bacteria into a stable state that can then be recycled or burned to create electricity. How cool is that?!

The technology is NOT being used to clean up the gulf oil spill or pollution in Puget Sound (where the orcas are the most toxic marine mammals on earth) or anywhere but the test sites (as far as I know) in California, Connecticut, and North Carolina. See the pdf with more info here.

Why not, you ask? Because no one can figure out how to pay for it - or WHO should pay for it. Alabama ABC news said, "BP hasn't placed any orders." See the videos (which are several months old) here under Abtech Videos. I don't know if further talks in order, but it brings up a huge question for me.

If we humans possess the technologies to fix our environmental crisis, solutions like the Smart Sponge, solar panels and hydrogen cars, but we won't implement them because we're looking at the bottom line, at money, then where does that leave us? Pretty screwed, I think.

Obviously it takes money to manufacture sponges and cars and solar panels, and money to implement them. But it takes money to fight wars, too. It takes money to do anything. So why are we not spending it on healing and cleaning up pollution and preventing our children's cancers and saving wildlife?

Who will pay for it all? And what is stopping them?

Green Spirituality Library

2010-10-05T14:52:00.001-06:00

If I were to create a library of books on green spirituality, here is what I would include:

(By the way, I don't make any money from the sales of other author's books here, it's just easy to use the link widget from Amazon.)

Also,

The Way of Hen: Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens by Clea Danaan

The companion to Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens,
Meditation and the Art of Beekeeping by Mark Magill,
also available on Amazon.co.uk

Also check out this list, publications from GreenSpirit.

What else would you include? I'll add to this as I think of and discover other books on green spirituality.

Blessed be and Namaste!

What's So Spiritual About Chickens?

2010-10-03T16:24:00.000-06:00

My newest book, Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens: The Way of Hen comes out October 31, 2010. The book examines the renewed popularity of urban and suburban chicken ownership, and delves into how hen keeping can actually be a part of a spiritual life. It sounds silly - and believe me, there is a lot of silliness about chickens - but when I looked more deeply at the reasons for the backyard chicken movement, I found a depth and meaning not immediately obvious.

People keep chickens in their backyards for sentimental reasons, or because they just like chickens. Raising one's own flock helps one become a little bit more self sufficient. Collecting a few brown eggs every day feels earthy and good. Given the price of free-range organic eggs, raising your own saves a little money. But the desire to keep hens goes beyond these reasons, too, or perhaps over time keeping chickens becomes more than that.

Raising birds in the backyard brings us right up close with the cycle of life. A chicken is a pet that offers us food, nourishing us both emotionally as all pets do and physically, just as we nourish them through our feeding and care. A small flock of farm animals juxtaposed with the bustle of city or suburban life offers hope, that we can have it all, that we are not bound by historical ways of thinking and categorizing, and that we can change. Keeping chickens is also a fun project, and embracing joy and simplicity are key parts of spiritual living.

Do you keep hens or know someone who does? Have you always dreamed of having your own chickens? What have you learned from hen keeping?

Preview Clea Danaan's Zen Chickens Online

2010-09-28T11:06:00.002-06:00

My newest book, Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens: The Way of Hen will be out October 31, 2010, in the UK. You can "look inside" on Amazon.com and Amazon UK. You can only order it from the UK at this point, but if I get enough hits on the US site, a US publisher will be more likely to swoop in and bring it here.

This book is a part of a series done by Leaping Hare Press related to spiritual homesteading. I'm not sure which titles are forthcoming, but the companion to Zen Chickens is Meditation and the Art of Beekeeping by Mark Magill. I saw some of this before it came out and it looks equally fabulous.

Enjoy!

Discussion Questions for My Earthy Spiritual Books

2010-09-11T18:11:00.003-06:00

Books by Clea Danaan include Voices of the Earth: The Path of Green Spirituality; Sacred Land: Intuitive Gardening for Personal, Political & Environmental Change; ebook Magical Bride: Crafting a Wedding for a Goddess and forthcoming (October 31, 2010 in the UK) Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens: The Way of Hen. On my website, CleaDanaan.com, I have added to the bottom of each page for my print books several discussion questions for book groups or further personal exploration. Check them out!

Nature's Devotional: Cricket Chorus

2010-09-11T17:13:00.002-06:00

Want to hear something really cool? Check out "God's Cricket Chorus" (link below). This recording of cricket song slowed down in ratio to the length of a human lifespan versus a cricket's lifespan gives me chills. It makes me wonder in what other ways nature and spirituality reflect each other. Musically, this has lots of fourths and fifths, which are comfortable intervals that are also often used in religious music. Is there a bigger significance? I'm not sure. I like to think there is.

To hear God's Cricket Chorus, click here.

Agricultural Vinegar Weed Killer Available at Denver Urban Homesteading Indoor Market

2010-08-22T11:04:00.004-06:00

The Denver Urban Homesteader's indoor farmer's market, which I blogged about here, has grown quite a bit since it first opened. As you walk through the big wooden doors off the buckled sidewalk, a sweet coolness descends. Ahead of you are buckets of local fresh produce, fabulous pictures of chickens, and local milk, eggs, and ice cream. Turn to your right to browse the many fabulous, local vendors selling cheese, pasta, plants, produce, meats, honey, and more. Or take a left at the front door for another big room of vendors offering veggies, teas, and plants. In this west-side room there is also a big comfy couch, a chicken coop (sans chickens), a brewing area, and resource table.

The main vendor, just ahead as you walk in the front door, also offers agricultural vinegar, a natural and non-toxic weed killer (just don't drink it or put in on your salad!!). We got a spray bottle and tried it on the weeds threatening to take over our xeriscaped front garden. It works like a charm: you spray it at the top of the roots on a hot day, the plant sucks up the vinegar, and it dies. It even worked, albeit with some less success, on the bindweed. You avoid the Round Up (which plants are showing to develop a resistance to!) and lessen the weeds. Agricultural vinegar can be hard to find as it's not regulated and therefore not sold in most nurseries. I found a great source for the weed killer in Denver!

By the way, I learned that bindweed grows in hard pan areas of low nitrogen content. So another way to beat the weeds is to fluff your soil and add organic matter high in nitrogen. After a while the bindweed will move on. An integrated system of improving the soil and natural vinegar weed killer is the best approach to rid your yard of invasive weeds.

The Farmer's Market is open Saturday from 1-2, and Wed, Thurs, and Fri from 1-6 at 200 Santa Fe Drive, Denver. We've had no problem finding street parking close by.

The Virtues of Mud

2010-08-06T14:05:00.005-06:00

Yeah for soil! Let's hear it for the power of mud!

Combine the elements of water and earth for a powerful synchrony that can stop leaking oil wells, cleanse the skin, keep children happy for hours, or build a house.

Have you hugged your mud today? Go outside! Make some mud pies. Let it squish between your toes. Make a sculpture. Give thanks. Let your awareness sink into the mud and just notice. What secrets and powers does it have to share with you?

2010-08-05T20:37:00.005-06:00

I posted a few weeks (months? my, time doth fly) ago about how one of our hens had gone broody, meaning she wanted to hatch some eggs. She hogged the egg box (the others could squeeze in and lay, but would have preferred their own space) and she stopped laying altogether. This meant a 33% reduction in our daily egg offering. Most hens don't just snap out of it, you either have to "break" them (which doesn't always work) by doing crazy things like setting them on ice cubes, or give them eggs to hatch. Since we don't have a cockerel, I had to find some fertile eggs. A lovely new friend of mine on a local backyard poultry meet-up group offered me six eggs, and when we got back from family vacation we slipped them under Sylvie just to see what would happen. I had no expectations. My primary goal was to gently break Sylvie of her obsession. Secondarily I would have liked to add another hen to our flock. My friend agreed to take back any males that might hatch and any extra females since we really only have room for a maximum of five hens.

Well. Five of the six eggs were broken and eaten by our chickens within a few weeks. I became vigilant then about fluffing the hay in the egg box, as our diligent "mama" was so good about digging a little egg hole right down to the wood of the box. I suspect this caused most of the breaks. I carefully checked on our one little egg, which slowly got rather worn looking compared to the fresh ones the other two were still laying. Then on day 20 (chicken eggs take 21 days to hatch), I held the egg up to my ear and heard a peep from inside! Oh, so exciting!

The next day my daughter and I checked on the egg and its adoptive mama several times over the course of four or five hours. I'm sure we were a total nuisance. First there was one little hole pecked (called pipping) and then a crack all the way around (zipping). Then we could see the orangey brown feathers, all wet and sleek still, peaking through a wide crack, but the baby wasn't yet free. Next time we checked, I found a smashed shell and no baby. We found it then on the other side of mama, still drying out, so sleepy from its hard work.

I checked on it several times, making sure it wasn't pushed out of the box again, as it once was. I wasn't sure what to do - move it? Leave it be? I read not to worry, mama will protect it from the other hens.

Sadly, this was not true. The next morning when mama took a break, another hen came in to lay an egg and pecked the baby to death. We buried it in the garden and my daughter named it Menda. She is very nonchalant about death, which I think is a good thing. When the existentialism of death hits when she's older, I hope the matter-of-factness of her experiences as a young child will help her through it.

I felt disappointed, but also glad to see the whole experiment through. Now I know that if we go this route again, we need to keep the hay fluffed. We need to be prepared to move mom and babies into a safe place on hatching day. At this point I don't have that safe place - in spring or fall the garage might work, but not in the heat of summer or the chill of winter.

And Sylvie? I'm not totally sure because she still sits in the box and ruffles her neck feathers every once in a while, but it seems she has snapped out of it. I'm glad for her sake, because broody hens eat very little and she's looking rather worn. She's been out and about, eating and being a normal chicken. She doesn't seem to be grieving the chick. So though I wish our chick had lived, I feel my primary goals were met and I know better what to do next time. I also have a hunch the little guy was in fact a guy, so we would have had to part ways at some point anyway. I hope for his sake he's happy nourishing the honeysuckle in the garden. He sure was cute.

Gender and My Book Sacred Land: The Evolution of a Spiritual Gardening Book.

2010-07-17T20:19:00.006-06:00

One review of my gardening book Sacred Land says some lovely things about the book, and then points out:

One flaw is that it is geared solely for women. Men can read it, but the language and imagery used is exclusive to women, no gods of harvest are mentioned, nor sun gods nurturing the land. Even so, men should read it for the tips – even if the meditations won’t always suit.

I wanted to respond to that here, as it is a complaint that comes up every once in a while. I even got an angry email from a reader about the issue! So maybe this blog will help explain.

When I originally wrote the book, it was intended as part of a series of books called the Goddess Guides. The first was called Goddess' Guide for the Magical Bride and became my book Magical Bride. The second was about healing, and I haven't written it yet. The third became Sacred Land. If you have read both Sacred Land and Magical Bride, you will know that I profile goddesses related to pertinent topics in each book. The series was meant to be geared towards women, on normal topics we deal with every day like marriage, gardening, raising children, and health. I wanted to include goddesses and women who inspire me on each given topic.

So at first, Sacred Land was titled Goddess' Guide for the Sacred Garden. Then it changed to Sisterhood of the Sacred Garden. My publisher felt this title was too... sisterhoody. It didn't work for them. So they took the title and subtitle out of the text, and the woman-goddess focus got lost in the new title. At that point I should have edited the heck out of the book to include gods and men, but I didn't. Not because I don't love gardening gods and men, but just because I didn't. First book and all that jazz.

So dear men and others wondering about the gender imbalance in the book, fear not. I mean no disrespect. I mean it as empowering to women - and to gardeners of both genders everywhere. And now you know something about the evolution of a first book!

Nature Spirits and Devas

2010-07-08T20:45:00.000-06:00

"One may ... look at being such as elves, and devic angels as communication bridges between man [sic] and nature intelligence." -- "What is Nature Intelligence," Co-Creative Science by Michaelle Small Wright

"[T]o resolve the evils and problems of this world we must all learn to communicate with the world of nature spirits and the angelic hierarchies from which they derive." The Secret Life of Nature by Peter Tompkins

The natural world is conscious, and we can interact with nature spirits, fairies, nature intelligence, and individual "natural" beings like trees. First, we must honor and respect them. Give them space to do their work. Then we must learn to listen. Slow down, open your heart, and open your senses. You may hear nature spirits, see them as light or even little beings, or feel them as presences and intelligences. Finally, we can use the wisdom we gain from working with nature to improve our own lives, from our spiritual path to the way we walk upon the planet.

A good place to begin to open to devas, fairies, and other intelligences is in your garden, or in a place of wilderness. Sit or lie down in a comfortable place. Open your heart, relax, and let your consciousness drift among the beings around you. Notice what happens. At first, you may not believe that what happens is "real," but over time you will learn to trust your abilities and style of listening.

For more on communicating with the natural world and developing your sixth sense, check out Voices of the Earth: The Path of Green Spirituality.

Links

How to See A Fairy by Clea Danaan

What are devas?

Devas, Elementals, and Nature Spirits

What is Green Spirituality? What About Panentheism?

2010-07-08T20:43:00.002-06:00

"Most compassionate people I know work with the soil whenever they can. Gardening for them us much more than a hobby. It is a way of life and a way of wisdom. The soil teaches us something that is necessary for becoming compassionate." - Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion

"Nature makes the Divine tangible. Nature is the gown the Goddess wears to make herself visible, and the God dances to express his joy. Looking at Nature, we see living, incarnate divinity." - Phyllis Curott, WitchCrafting

We are manifest in a body in order to evolve, to learn, and to open more fully to love. One of our most important teachers in this life is the Earth. Nature is God/dess manifest, as we are. We are nature. We are divine. Nature is divine, and the hologram blooms on.

Panentheism is the belief that we are in God and God is in us. We can go inward to reach Spirit, and we can go outward to find Goddess as well. It is a dialectic: Both/And. We exist in God, and God exists in us. Panentheism can be a useful tool for understanding the sacred nature of Nature. It is God, as are we, though God is also bigger than Nature and bigger than we.

Confused? Go sit next to a tree or in a park or a by a stream, and meditate on the idea that God is in us and we are in God. See what arises. Sit in that wonder.

Green spirituality is non-sectarian. You can be pagan, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Native American, Santerian, Islamic, or any other faith that believes in the sanctity of the earth. But green spirituality is not about religion. It is about opening to the wisdom of the land and applying what the earth teaches you to your own life.

Here are a few practices you may find helpful on your unique journey of spiritual awakening:

- Meditate. Take time to sit, watch your breath, and witness yourself.

- Create. We are all creators! Paint, dance, sing, play with clay or mud or leaves. Write. Color. Sew. Cook.

- Spend time in nature regularly. Visit a garden, the mountains, the ocean. Listen. Write in your journal. Observe.

- Practice ritual. Light a candle, gather with like-minded loved ones, and take time to worship, talk, laugh, and manifest.

You are not alone on your path, even if you practice as a solitary witch or don't know what to call yourself. You are surrounded by loving and supportive beings like guardian angels and guides who are there to help you on your path. My own path has been rather eclectic, and at times I've felt very alone and lost. Looking back at the past twenty years of spiritual searching, however, I see how I have been guided simply because I have asked for help. My dad took me to his Lutheran church and also shared books on fairies and meditation with me. I joined Young Life in junior high school, then a Lutheran Bible study in college. Then I discovered magic and paganism, and found the earthiness of it suited me better than evangelical Christianity. Yet Christ Consciousness is still a part of my beliefs and my understandings. Then I studied Reiki, which has always been a teacher and a guide. Though it is a healing modality, the power of Spirit rushing through my hands has been the most tangible evidence I've had of God, of there being more to this world than meets the eye. Through my Reiki practice I developed psychic abilities. I also studied paganism and Wicca more formally, through books and solitary practice. I attended a Buddhist university and Matthew Fox's program in Creation Spirituality. As I've wandered through the garden of spirit, two things remain constant: the sacred earth and the presence of the Creator.

Also try these sites On Eco-spirituality:

http://www.eco-spirituality.org/e-dclr.htm

http://www.metahistory.org/Ecospirituality.php

"Ultimately, however, the value of such practices as neo-shamanism and neo-paganism may not lie so much in their ability to connect us directly with nature as it does in their ability to connect us directly to the modes of perception we lost when we left the old gods behind in the primordial forests of our ancestors. These modes of perception then become the invitation to the land of faerie, the key that unlocks the passage back to connection with the earth mother."-Owen Couch

The Energy of the Gulf Oil Spill

2010-06-14T13:34:00.003-06:00

As massive amounts of oil glug into the Gulf of Mexico, poisoning the water, beaches, and wildlife refuges, we all float on a sea of questions: Can it be fixed? What is going to happen? How can we help? At my house we don't have a television, so I'm having to search for my news about the spill. I'm caught between wanting to put my head in the sand and know as little as possible, and wanting to devote several hours teasing out "the truth." What I have heard tells me that BP and Halliburton are pretty much at fault and are pretending nothing has happened, and that nobody really knows what to do. I have also heard speculation that when this 100 million barrels of oil gets picked up by the Gulf Stream, life as we know it along the US eastern seaboard and western Europe will be irrevocably altered. In some very awful ways. And then there is the hurricane season approaching us, wherein sea water from the gulf is picked up, churned, and dumped inland. Scary.

I try very hard to be an optimist, at least in my musings (I'm a total cynic in many ways, and maybe that's why I write inspirational spiritual stuff - it is said that we write what we most need to read). So I want very much not to get sucked into the End Time discussion of the oil spill. Or the island of garbage in the sea, overwhelming oil issues in Nigeria, civil war in east Africa, etc etc. The only thing I know to do, given that I am not a scientist or a lawmaker or a billionaire, is to try to understand on an energetic level what is going on. It helps me to have an idea of the bigger picture. Then I can choose to ride my bike, send money to a cause, or take other "small" actions and know how they fit into the big picture. I can't read enough articles to really know the big picture in manifest reality, but I can get a feel for the big energetic picture.

So here it is, at least as I sense it. When I feel into the Gulf of Mexico, I get a choked feeling, a poisonous, hot, thick feeling. Like I can't breathe. I see the constant motion of the water, of the oceans all connected, wrapping the planet. I see the life forms in the sea that live near volcanic vents that live in conditions totally poisonous to us, and I know that we may cause mass extinctions but that life will go on.

But also I see an opportunity. I feel that the energy of the oil spill, like many other disasters, is an invitation for us to work together and rise to the cause. To use together the technologies we have developed to stop the spill, to change our lives, to heal. I see an image like a large group of people and animals and non-corporeal energies gathered together, working as one, raising all to a higher level of consciousness and interrelatedness. To do this, we must be positive. We must think integrally, stepping outside of old boundaries. We have to let go of attachment to the bottom line and to usual ways of being. We can do this. We must.

So what can you and I do? Here are some concrete ideas on National Wildlife Federation's website. And the International Bird Rescue Research Center. Here are some more organizations to check out, too.

You can pray. Do ritual sending Reiki or other healing energy to the planet and the ocean and the beaches. Hold circles to raise the energy on the planet. Learn to transmute poisons by reading Sandra Ingerman's Medicine for the Earth.

You can do your part to shift the global paradigm by living as green as you can. Garden. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Ride your bike or walk. Help others to do the same - not by preaching, but just by supporting and teaching. Every bit matters.

The Earth is hemorrhaging oil. We need a tourniquet and some very big bandages. We need to stop stabbing her. We need to help her heal.

Agricultural Biodiversity and Sustainability for the Future (Guest Post)

2010-06-11T17:02:00.003-06:00

Thank you to Jack Lundee for submitting the following guest post.

_____________________________________________

June 7th, 2010

Agricultural Biodiversity and Sustainability for the Future

"…In other environmental issues we tell people to stop something, reduce their impact, reduce their damage…" - US Ecologist Gary Nabhan

Since the beginning of the green movement, there has been a rise in the number of organizations and businesses that are doing their part in the promotion of sustainability through conservation. This past Earth Day brought about the Earth Day Network, which has been playing its part to bring conservationist and green enthusiasts together, sharing ideas and discussing new ways to support the planet. Other large organizations non-profits like Doug Band and the CGI (Clinton Global Initiative) have been working on successful emission reduction projects in the San Francisco Bay area. All the while, the climate is continuing to worsen, and individual, as well as collaborative acts, are important for any successful green campaign. As human beings, we're constantly told to reduce our carbon footprint, consume less unhealthy foods, and spend less time in the shower! But let's take a minute to step back and look at this from a different perspective; one that Gary Nabhan strongly suggests.

Gary Paul Nabhan, phD., is a Arab-American writer/conservationist who's extensive farming work in the U.S./Mexico borderlands region has made him world renown. Specifically speaking, Nabhan is known for his work in biodiversity as an ethnobotanist. His uplifting messages and attitude towards life and culture has granted us access to multiple beneficial theories including his latest of eat what you conserve.

According to The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, about three quarters of the genetic diversity of crops been vanished over the last century and that a dozen species now gives %90 of the animal protein eaten globally. In accordance, just 4 crop species supply half of plant based calories in the human diet.

Nabhan claims that by eating the fruits and vegetables that we are attempting to conserve/save, we're promoting the granular dissemination of various plant species. But this goes beyond what we typically buy in supermarkets, particularly because of price and abundance. We must remember to try new things and immerse ourselves in the very concept of diversity. Keep in mind; the benefits of splurging for that costly fruit/vegetable supremely outweigh the cons. Not only does one promote biodiversity and further eliminate the need of farmers to remove rare, less purchased crops off their agenda, but one also effectively encouraging healthier lifestyles.
Agriculturist Marco Contiero mentions that "biodiversity is an essential characteristic of any sustainable agricultural system, especially in the context of climate change."[1] Contiero believes that people should eat localized crops, spending less time purchasing imports and becoming heavily reliant.

According to Conterio's theory, this would suggest that we, as individuals, tend our own crops/plants, and make sure to purchase localized farm products at supermarkets and groceries. In the end, this condenses export/import reliance, thus reducing our carbon footprint.
Nabhan and Contiero's theories both rely profoundly on an action oriented approach at conservation and sustainability. With an abundance of green movements following Earth Day 2010, organizations and individuals have taken a stronger following to expert opinions like the ones demonstrated by both of these highly influential agriculturalists. So remember, when the fall season approaches, be sure to visit your local apple orchard to pick some fresh fruit. Also, as eco-conscious individuals, don't hesitate to stop the next time you drive by a yard stand with fresh crops. Promoting biodiversity and localized farming is a crucial piece of the conservation puzzle.

Jack Lundee – Supporter of all things green and progressive.

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Want to submit a guest post for my Intuitive Gardening Blog? Send me an email and we'll talk! clea at intuitivegardening dot net.

Broody Hen!

2010-06-06T10:24:00.002-06:00

A few weeks ago we lost Maisy the hen to a neighborhood dog. She's still a part of our yard; we buried her near the garden and my daughter brings her flowers regularly.

Yesterday the new top hen, Sylvie, went broody. This means she sits in the egg box and pretends to warm eggs. At first I was surprised and concerned. I bought breeds that usually don't go broody. But she's still a hen, and here she is, stuck in the box. We don't have any extra room, and only one egg box, so I wasn't sure at first what to do for the other hens. Then I got the urge to get fertile eggs and stick them under her to hatch. Feels like destiny, since we just lost our other hen.

At first I thought - that's CRAZY. The last thing I need is another responsibility. But this urge was nearly as strong as the urge to have a kid myself (which I'm not feeling right now...). So I asked hubby - would you object to my getting two fertile eggs? He said no he didn't object as long as I do all the work.

I' d have to find homes for them if either is a rooster. I will have to research what we have to do for the hen. We have to isolate her, hook up another waterer and feeder. Not sure how we're going to do this. But I figured out how to make a waterer with used plastic containers, and our neighbor offered us a wire cage a few weeks ago that we can line with cardboard. I found a guy on Craigslist with fertile eggs. So. We'll see what happens - I'll keep you posted.

The Deva of Sand Creek

2010-05-15T20:41:00.005-06:00

My family and I had a picnic at a new little spot we discovered along Aurora's Sand Creek, a nook that actually has some sand and water that is safe (in terms of its depth and speed) to wade in. We brought aqua-socks, snacks, water, sand toys, and a couple of plastic bags in which to collect garbage. It's a lovely little spot with raccoon prints along the sandy bank and what I later identified as Bullock's Orioles playing in the trees. Well, there were red ants. And a leach (on a plastic bag, not a person). On the other side of the bank ran a chain link fence that my husband identified as belonging to the prison. But here on our side of the fence my daughter played in the water and we filled a grocery bag of trash to carry away. We left the garbage with some other trash on the truck of some volunteers planting cottonwoods along the banks of the creek. I felt proud of the lessons my daughter received about caring for the land and exploring natural areas.

I miss water. I grew up near Puget Sound in Washington State; my husband grew up on Green Bay in Wisconsin. When I told my daughter I was glad she was getting a chance to play in the water, that it was strange to her daddy and me that she doesn't have much water to play in, she said, "Why? That's not our home." I felt sad, but also interested at her sense of place and matter-of-fact perspective.

While she played with her dad, who wore the baby in an Ergo carrier, I sat in a little eddy of calm and tried to sense the spirit of the place. I couldn't. Usually I can tap into the deva or spirit of a place instantly. I closed my eyes and called out mentally to it. Finally, with a lot of concentration, I got the sense of a far-off being. It felt hard, cold, spiky. I felt the willow branches and the rocks, but also metal and sludge. It didn't want to converse.

Later we went over to Bluff Lake, a pond near Sand Creek with a trail and a boardwalk stretching out over the cattails. Volunteers run outdoor education programs here, and neighbors like to use the trails for jogging and dog walking. Swallows darted over the water, a grebe gave a scratchy call from the reeds, and red wing blackbirds swooped past. I wondered if maybe my difficulty in sensing the spirit of Sand Creek was merely due to my (maternal) exhaustion. But when I reached out to the deva of Bluff Lake, it came back strong and clear. I got a sense of how this basin of water serves wildlife. It feels calm, bright, an oasis. That it had done so for a long time.

When I got home I looked up the history of Sand Creek and Bluff Lake. I discovered that Sand Creek was an irrigation ditch and that part of it downstream from our little spot was once a Superfund site. That stray bullets used to be found in the creek behind Bluff Lake nature area from the prison. That the water contains lots of heavy metals. That Bluff Lake had been closed off when Stapleton was an airport, that part of it had been a dumping site for extra airport concrete, and that heavy rains washed de-icer from the airport into the lake. The lake is a natural wetland, not an irrigation reservoir (from what I could tell). The history explained to me the energy of the places. Bluff Lake is and has been for some time a respite for animals, if somewhat ignored and abused by humans. But Sand Creek feels like an embittered indigenous person because that's what it is. Shoved there, polluted, shot at, ignored. Only now is it being restored, slowly. I'll be curious to see how the energy of the place changes as the newly planted cottonwoods grow in, the garbage is picked up, and no more heavy metals are dumped into the water.

The feeling of the creek makes me sad, but I try to focus on what we are doing to restore a long-abused stretch of land. This creek feels like a key part of the restoration of Denver and Aurora, the waterways of which were mostly crafted by humans and abused, but that are now being restored as opportunities for valuable interactions with nature. The energy of Sand Creek and Bluff Lake reflect the energy of the whole area, which is awakening to the impact we humans have on the land (and water) and how we can make informed, respectful decisions about our interactions with them.

Global Paradigm Change - How You Can Help

2010-05-08T08:40:00.005-06:00

I've begun corresponding with a like-minded woman who has founded a homeschooling community in Bellingham, Washington. She felt moved by my book Voices of the Earth, especially when I write about the Whatcom Creek explosion. She said about her work, " I am intuitively feeling like this organization is on the cutting edge of a new educational paradigm that will be embraced once the shift I am sensing on the horizon takes place." Then she asked if I felt the same shift coming.

I do feel such a paradigm change brewing. Not so much on the horizon, as it were, but more underground, like an earthquake gathering energy. Most people hunger for this change. Many are afraid of it. Some are so afraid, they resist it as if their lives depended on it. Which they do. Earthquakes, like birth and death and growing pains, can be scary. They change the lay of the land. They cause tsunamis (it occurs to me that labor contractions should be compared to tsunamis - a wave that rises, takes over completely, and then abates, bringing change). Or maybe a better metaphor would be a forest fire, raging through the brush of our psyches, leaving a smoldering land ready for new growth.

What would this change look like? My dream and hope is that all people would feel each other and the earth more deeply, and that our actions and decisions would come from that awareness. A simple idea, perhaps, but just imagine what would have to change. The center of how we live on earth would change. Education, politics, business, construction, transportation...... and it already is changing. Local community groups dedicated to setting up urban food, green transportation, and social justice initiatives can be found across the world. Think tanks, institutes, and non-profits also create global change, like the Institute for Social and Environmental Change. Small groups like my new friend's Free Range School are also a crucial part of the shift of global compassion.

What can you do to help this change? You and I are the doulas of global change, helping our species birth a new us. Look the change in the eyes and breathe deeply. Little actions can make a big difference:

When you plant anything - carrots, lilacs, maples - say a prayer of thanks and blessing.
When you reuse - cloth bags, cloth diapers, water bottles - recycle, or choose less, you are making a difference. Take a moment now and then to feel into the change on a bigger level. What do these actions mean to the soul of the earth?
Teach children about ecology and caring for the land. Take them to streams and rivers and the ocean and the mountains. Pick up trash. Bring offerings to the natural spaces you visit - cornmeal, a bit of your own hair, or a sprinkling of herbs. Offer these gifts in thanks and blessing and teach children to do the same (just by doing, you teach them).
Listen to your dreams. Pay attention to your hunches and intuitions. Feel how we are all connected. Feel how the trees and soil and air and sun all matters. You matter.

These are just a few thoughts. I'm sure you can think of others. The point is to connect, open, and live consciously and compassionately, on step at a time.

We are the blood of the earth, and the earth is in our blood. Aho, Ase, Amen.

The Magical Qualities of Plants

2010-04-25T10:43:00.001-06:00

All plants have certain qualities, their own magic or medicine. Often you can learn these qualities from herbal and gardening encyclopedias, but sometimes you either can’t find a given plant or don’t know what kind of plant it is. Fortunately, observation and direct communication can teach you about a plant’s magic.

First look at a plant’s form: What is its shape? Size? Color? In biology, form follows function; in magic, function follows form. What does the shape of the leaves, roots, seeds, or flowers remind you of? To take an obvious example, look at a cactus. Cactus medicine is protection (and chastity!) which is manifested in its thorns. Roses look like the luscious folds of a yoni, and they bring fertility, lust, and love. Kidney beans look just like kidneys, and they help nourish those organs.

Next look at the plant’s location. Does it grow in a ditch, in a desert, atop a cliff? A plant will lend you the properties it has had to cultivate to survive, and this too is part of its magic. For example, cattail grows in wetland areas. It is able to withstand soggy roots without rotting. It has fire energy, and offers strength in adversity.

You can also learn about a plant by communicating directly with it. Find a spot where you will not be interrupted, near a plant you want to know more about. Focus first on the energy inside your own body. You may want to start by feeling the inside of one small part, like your hands. Feel the tingling sensation or whatever you feel inside that part of your body, or the whole body if you can. Next, become aware of the earth beneath you. When you feel connected with your body and connected with the earth, you are centered and grounded.

Continue to feel the energy inside you, but bring you awareness also to the energy around you, in your energy field. Sit with this space for a few moments. Gradually expand your awareness around you, until you meet the plant’s energy. Ask the plant if you might connect with it. You will get an answer as a hunch or a sense. If that plant doesn’t feel like connecting, choose another plant until you find one that does. Most likely the plant will be thrilled that you want to communicate with it. With respect and thankfulness, expand the area of your energy to include the plant. What does this plant feel like? What do you notice? What does it have to share with you, to show you?

When you are finished, pull your awareness back into your immediate body. Take some deep breaths. Record what you discovered. Using plants magically and communicating with them may be new to you, but if you are curious to learn more, just stick with these practices and see what happens.

I'm Tweeting 'Bout Plants

2010-04-15T19:26:00.003-06:00

Most of my days (and nights) are filled being a mama, but I find time now and then to blog or reach out to my dear (and terribly appreciated) readers. Up till now I've not gone over to the Twitter craze, simply because I feared being overwhelmed. Which I am. But I am nonetheless on Twitter now, as GardenWhisperer. I tweet about plants and the garden, offering the intuitive impressions I get when tapping in psychically to plants and their energies. If you are a Tweeter, please add me to your list. And if there is a plant you would like more information about, send me a message here, on Twitter or via my website and I'll give your plant a reading. Just as soon as I feed the baby.

Spring Fever

2010-03-28T11:00:00.002-06:00

I've been feeling a little crazy. That restless feeling behind my sternum that feels like a scream or a laugh or running around outside. Full on spring fever.

It has me wondering about the energies of spring. Several four- and five-year-olds I know have been demonstrating anxiety behaviors lately, and it seems to be a cyclical thing that hits this time of year. I discussed this phenomenon with my husband, a therapist, and he commented on how he could feel the quickening of spring. Underneath the frozen land stirs the lightness of spring. Could this be what is causing our children's restlessness and my own feeling of craziness?

I tried doing a simple search on spring fever and spring anxiety behaviors on EBSCO but came up with nothing. If any of you research types have a moment I'd be curious to know if there have been any studies on spring and mental health, akin to the full moon studies.

Certainly we humans are as tied to the land as the any creature on earth, we just don't notice it as consciously. This connection is part of the reason I celebrate the Pagan Sabbats, which honor the turning of the Wheel of the Year and our place in its unfolding. I feel more aware of my part in the seasons when I honor them not just as a gardener and homeschooling parent but also on a spiritual level. Obviously these aspects of myself are all linked.

How are you responding to spring (if, that is, you live in the northern hemisphere)? What projects are you starting? What is blossoming? Sprouting? What quickening do you feel?

The Proliferation of Urban Gardens

2010-03-15T22:21:00.004-06:00

When I was writing Sacred Land, I was on the bus one afternoon, staring out the window. I've never been able to read on a moving vehicle. So I stared and let my thoughts roll by with the scenery. An empty lot between two buildings just begged for green and growing things. It screamed Plant a Garden Here. This lot and my thoughts on the book gave me this vision of every empty lot, every roof top, every yard as a garden. Flowers, herbs, and mostly vegetables and fruits. I wrote Sacred Land with this vision in mind. What would a world be like where we grew half our own food? Where instead of meeting at Starbucks we could meet at a friends' garden to sip mint sun tea? Where parking lots of abandoned malls were bulldozed to grow food?

My idea is not new. I learned from the fantastic book I'm reading, Novella Carpenter's Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, that in Detroit in response to the depression of 1893 the mayor helped people to set up Pingree Potato Patches where the unemployed and indigent grew food on abandoned lots all over the city. Exactly! And then during the world wars such programs existed again, most famously the Victory Gardens of WWII. After the depressions and wars end, though, we go back to the supermarket and let the lots go abandoned once again.

Why? Why do we only cultivate urban farms if we are crazy counterculture freaks or during times of war and economic depression?

Joanna Macy writes in her article "The Greening of the Self" that "What looks like apathy is really the fear of suffering." We have become, as a culture, apathetic about our food. About farm workers. About the land and the subtle and exquisite balances of ecology in relation to agriculture. Why should we care about such things when we can get a tomato from the supermarket any time of the year? Because really growing tomatoes is hard. You have to know what you're doing. And you have to wait until August, and then you have to preserve or give away all the extras you don't get to eating. Working a garden plot takes knowledge and work.

Ah, but the rewards. I can hardly buy a supermarket tomato. I have tasted the real thing. Same with lettuce, arugula, parsley, spinach... the list goes on. I know that not everyone loves digging in the dirt. But most people love the feel of the sun, the call of birds, and the joy of harvesting an egg or a carrot from the source. These joys are very truly possible even in the city. Even from a condo. For a banker or a paraplegic or a dancer or anyone.

Plant something for yourself this year. Even if it's a single basil plant. Or a whole farm! See what happens in your world. In your heart. We can change the world one garden at a time.

Spiritual Foundations of Homesteading

2010-03-10T15:03:00.003-07:00

I'm reading a fascinating book (very slowly, since I've nearly no time for reading!) called At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America by Rebecca Kneale Gould. Gould looks at the history of homesteading as a spiritual practice, from Thoreau to Helen and Scott Nearing to contemporary homesteaders seeking a better life by attuning with nature. Helen Nearing is actually the Helen referred to in Krishnamurti's biography: they were young lovers. She studied theosophy. All homesteaders, Gould argues, seek deeper meaning in life through care of the home and the earth. She writes, "Whether we prefer the term spiritual or religious... we can see in the practice of homesteading a lived response to problems of meaning that are personal and cultural." (xvii) She writes about homesteaders seeking a deeper sense of self by "recentering the self amid the wonders (and resources) of the natural world." (xviii)

I am enjoying reading the history of my work, and I'm appreciating the academic discussion of things dear to me, namely nature, homesteading and spirituality. Most exciting to me is to discover the foundations of non-religious spiritual practice through gardening, raising chickens, homeschooling, and other homesteading practices. They go way back! It's a lot like when my husband, a music therapist, learned that one of his grandmothers was a music teacher, something he had not previously known. There is an historical foundation to our creative madness after all.

If you homestead at all and enjoy history and spirituality, you would likely enjoy At Home in Nature. At the very least it will bring you to explore your own motivations and practices as you prepare for another spring on the homestead.

Is Keeping Chickens Right for You?

2010-03-02T08:31:00.004-07:00

So you're considering raising a small flock of hens in your urban or suburban backyard, and you're wondering what it's really like. Is it a good fit for you? Here are a few things you might want to consider, both pros and cons.

Chickens poop a lot. The poop stinks (the runny kind - they make little round pellets that dry quickly and aren't so bad, and they make little stinky miniature cow pies). It's great for compost - I find the balance of nitrogen to carbon in the poopy shavings you get out of the coop to be just about perfect. It's fairly easy to spray the poop off the patio with a hose (get a sprayer attachment), and the grass likes it. It's not as gross as cat or dog feces.
They scratch. They love to demolish compost piles, mulch beds, garden beds, you name it. When we let our chickens free-range, we can count on needing to rake and sweep the pathways clean afterward. I contained my compost pile in wire mesh after having it flattened numerous times.
Chickens are curious. They aren't brilliant, but they aren't really dumb either. Leave open the backdoor or the garage door and they will go exploring. And they poop wherever they explore.
Egg production drops in the winter. There will be times when you will want to supplement with grocery store eggs and they just aren't as good - you get spoiled pretty fast. And there will be times when you have to give eggs away to friends and neighbors. We have four hens and we eat a lot of eggs, and that seems to be about right most of the time. We bought two dozen additional eggs a month this winter.
Chickens peck at the color red. So don't put a red shirt on your child when she goes to play with them. They will also peck fingers that are held out to them. And tiny toes.
Chickens are dusty. They take dust baths, they have shavings and hay, and they scratch in the dirt.
When they lay eggs, or when they want to lay an egg and another hen is in the box (you need one egg box for every six hens, although two doesn't hurt), they BAWK really loudly. So far the neighbors haven't cared. But you can't really keep them secret. Also, every child in your neighborhood will know you have them.
Chickens make sweet crooning noises when you talk to them. They have their own personalities (chickenalities?) and dispositions, just like any animal. Some will like humans, others will not. Ours are fine with our cats (the cats don't like the hens, though - but they don't go after them now that they are big as they are).
Hen care needs to be part of your routine. Every morning they need letting out and feeding and watering; every afternoon you need to check for eggs; every evening they need locking up and possibly feeding. You need to clean out the coop frequently. With out flock of four we do it once or twice a week. The deep litter technique of stirring it and letting it compost in the coop doesn't work well for our small coop.
When you go out in the morning to feed them and they make sweet curious crooning noises and you dump their litter in the compost, life is good. The garden is balanced. You've brought the country into the city. All is well.

Need more information? Check out mypetchicken.com and backyardchickens.com. Great websites with lots of information!

Tis the Season of Imbolc

2010-03-02T08:01:00.003-07:00

One thing I love about celebrating the Wheel of the Year, which includes the Solstices, Equinoxes, and the four days at cross quarters to them, is that we get to celebrate an entire season rather than just a day that is then suddenly over. Right now we are celebrating Imbolc, which is on February second and comes six weeks after Yule and six weeks before Ostara. By "we" I mean my family, including our chickens. The girls pace back and forth in the run, anxious to be let out in the yard so they can search for the barest hint of green grass. They keep on scratching deeper and deeper as the ground thaws. Grow! they seem to be shouting at the earth. And as I said in an earlier blog, they are laying more eggs than they were just a few weeks ago.

Today when I let them out in the morning the ground was frozen solid. The dew point was near freezing, though, and we had frost on the ground. Frost is rare in my part of Colorado where it is usually too dry (as I understand frost and dew point and humidity). Where I grew up we had frost almost every morning in the winter and early spring. It's a peaceful sight to me, the gray frosting on the grass and leaves. At my daughter's playgroup/preschool we are discussing patterns and shapes in nature, so I was particularly noticing the shapes of the frost. My favorite little snapshot of the morning was a black chicken feather rimmed with frost crystals.

I know the ground will thaw and we'll soon plant peas. For now I'm enjoying the return of the light (or living room is so bright in the morning!) and the scent of spring in the air, just under the chill.

Signs of Spring: More Eggs!

2010-02-21T17:26:00.003-07:00

There is snow on the ground and it's cold outside. In Colorado, March tends to be the snowiest month, and this year is an El Nino year so we're due to have several big wet spring snows. Spring feels really far away. Even spring planting in the garden like peas and spinach feel painfully far off.

But we've just begun to see one sign of spring. Our chickens are laying more eggs. All winter, with the shorter days and winter molting, we've gotten no more than one egg a day from our small flock of four birds. But in the last week, they've begun laying three eggs a day. We give them no artificial light or heat; it's the longer days that is kicking them into higher production. This is the first spring we will have chickens, as they are just about a year old now. I'm enjoying the unexpected sign that spring really is on its way.

Obviously this is why Ostara, the spring equinox, is celebrated with eggs! We celebrate the return of nourishment through one of these simple signs of spring. By keeping chickens we are learning more about the natural cycles of the Wheel of the Year and how they manifest.

Gardens Transform the World: Review of The Curious Garden

2010-02-03T19:50:00.005-07:00

Tonight we read The Curious Garden by Peter Brown. My daughter and I admired the transformation of a dreary city - brown, smoky and people-less - into a green, bustling, and flower-bedecked world. The agents of change? A small boy and a garden. The new green world was not unlike a vision I had while writing Sacred Land, a world where every rooftop, empty lot, playground, park, and yard grew food, flowers, and herbs.

The painter and architect Hundertwasser had similar visions. From Wikipedia: "For Hundertwasser, human misery was a result of the rational, sterile, monotonous architecture, built following the tradition of the Austrian architect Adolf Loos ("Ornament and Crime"). He called for a boycott of this type of architecture, and demanded instead creative freedom of building, and the right to create individual structures.In 1972 he published the manifesto Your window right — your tree duty. Planting trees in an urban environment was to become obligatory: 'If man walks in nature's midst, then he is nature's guest and must learn to behave as a well-brought-up guest.'"

This is a housing development designed by Hundertwasser. It looks a lot like the city at the end of The Curious Garden!

I highly recomend The Curious Garden to any parent of a 3 to 9 year old. After reading it you could draw pictures of a garden city your child might design, plant flowers in a pot, design a new garden for your yard, research wind energy, or just compare and contrast the first illustration with the last.

Review: The Garden Game

2010-02-02T17:30:00.003-07:00

A friend of mine picked up a game for me she thought I might enjoy called The Garden Game by Ampersand Press. I love it! My four-year-old and I played it this afternoon, and while the reading-heavy game isn't really meant for the preschool set, we both enjoyed it. I appreciated the educational piece, which teaches about gardens from microbes on up. She like collecting flowers, vegetables, and pollinators for her garden.

Writes the publisher, "The joyful and inspiring board game about gardening for food and fun. Players feed the soil, plant seeds, nurture the plants, have harvest festivals, and help each other through natural disasters! Plant the largest garden and save the most seeds and you are the winner."

This game could easily be adapted to a cooperative game, building a collection of gardens together, focusing on trading garden cards, or making one large garden together. Older children and adults will enjoy learning about the ecology of gardening while younger children can appreciate simpler concepts like pollinators, compost, and the seasons.

Imbolc Earth HomeSchool Gathering

2010-02-02T17:04:00.005-07:00

This is the first in a series of blogs about what I am calling Earth School, an informal cooperative of homeschooling families focusing on homesteading, gardening, traditional skills, healing and ecology. Today we met for the first time at my house for Imbolc, also Candlemas in the Christian and Catholic calendars. Imbolc celebrates the return of the light, the very first stirrings of spring. Traditionally candles are made on this day and Yule's dusty greenery is burned in a cleansing fire.

I asked everyone to bring old candles or beeswax, wick if they had some, clean metal cans for melting the wax, and containers or molds. We melted wax in double boilers (aka an aluminum can or a melting bag in a pot of simmering water) and poured them into our containers. We didn't have enough weights, so for some of the candles we tied old crayons to the wicks, one to hold the wick up and one to weight the wick straight.

The kids ranged in ages from infant to five and a half, and they mostly played around the house and in the garden. Everyone enjoyed visiting the chickens - there were two eggs for my daughter to proudly collect. My kitchen is small so we went in shifts, each mama helping her child or children make his or her own candle to take home.

I tried to make a fire outside, but fires need tending, and so do kids. Since I was wearing my baby and keeping toddlers away from the firepit, the fire only lasted a short time. But the smell from the woodsmoke cast an earthy (albeit not very environmental), country smell to our projects. And I did toss in what boughs from our Yule tree I had left (the rest I had used to blanket our herb garden against spring snows).

The kids left tired, happy, and carrying a little symbol of light. They learned how candles are made and that they can do a cool (er, hot) craft with a little help from their parent. And we mamas got to chat, drink tea, chase kids, and have fun.

Happy Imbolc!

Gardening with Baby

2010-01-23T14:40:00.003-07:00

I wrote this over three years ago - my baby girl is now four-and-a-half. But I like the essay so I thought I'd post it here for all you gardening mamas.

Though the days still float warm and sunny, the nights are cooling. Last week I consolidated some potted basil plants into one pot and brought them inside to over winter. I then let my twelve-month-old daughter go at it with the now plant-free pot I left outside, still half full of potting soil. This dark fluffy soil was more exciting to her than the chocolate cupcake we shared on her first birthday. She plopped both hands into the soil with a joyful yell: Dirt! Dirt all for me! I continued cleaning up the fall beds, weeding and mulching the kale, leeks, and radishes. When I turned to check on her, I found my daughter happily sitting in the fourteen-inch pot, dirt sprinkled atop her fuzzy head.

My little sprout loves the garden as much as I. We spend hours working and playing together outside, though frequently our goals conflict some. I would prefer my tomatoes to ripen, for instance, while one of her favorite pastimes is to sit next to the jungle of tomatillos and tomatoes, picking green fruits. She takes one bite, chatters at the hard orb like a squirrel, and tosses it into the mulch. This could go on for hours, I suspect. To save a few tomatoes, I relocate her to a shady patch of grass with some plastic pots to play with. She is happy for a while, but after not too long I see her monkey-crawling on hands and feet over to the pumpkin vine, where she likes to pat and scratch at the beautiful orange globe. Or sitting in the middle of the lettuce patch, babbling away and harvesting very baby carrots. Or perhaps plucking the irresistibly bright red heads off the geraniums.

With her help, the hoard of squirrels who share this land with us, and the short high-altitude season, I have not harvested quite as much this year from the garden as I would have liked. We have lived in this house just over a year, and the yard had been sorely neglected before we came, so I have worked hard to improve soil fertility and keep noxious weeds at bay. Every zucchini and carrot that makes it to maturity is worth a celebration; I got none of the strawberries, and out of six vines, only one pumpkin. In truth, though, I don’t mind. It has been a year of growing things other than food, including patience, a child who loves the earth, and a garden of exploration and discovery.

Many have said I was crazy to take on so much in the garden while learning to be a new mom, while caring for a babe. The garden, though, has kept me sane. When I don’t have soil to sink my hands into and a compost pile to tend, that is when I feel a little crazy. And it is here in the garden that my daughter seems to be happiest as well. She does not yet understand the connection between the plants and our food, but she knows the power of the land. When she was a week old, I removed her swaddle and tiny onesie and laid her on the grass. She relaxed into the Earth in the same way she would mold herself to my own body.

Now, a year later, she is almost walking. I ask her if she wants to go outside, and she speed crawls for the back door with a yelp of delight. I used to have to fish grass and wood chips out of her mouth. Then I had to make sure the tomatoes she picked were too large to pose a choking hazard. Gradually I have been able to let her play by herself for ten minutes or more at a time, always keeping an eye on her while I do other garden tasks. It has meant, though, letting go. I’ve had to let go of the baby pumpkin she picked early, and of her clean clothes when she scaled the compost pile. To release the idea of a perfect urban garden, because I have chosen to stay home with her rather than work, and money is scarce. I’ve had to let go, too, of always being busy or productive, and have taken time to just sit and watch her sweet little self as she dumps dirt or mulch over her head with a toothy grin. So while she chomps on green fruit and uproots flowers, I am happy, for she will be my baby only once, and I am growing a child who loves the Earth. To me, there is no greater harvest.

The School Garden Movement: Farcical Fad or Fabulous Foundation

2010-01-17T09:43:00.005-07:00

Caitlin Flanagan's Atlantic article argues that school gardens are robbing students of a "real" education, especially immigrant students whose parents work the fields. She writes, "The cruel trick has been pulled on this benighted child by an agglomeration of foodies and educational reformers who are propelled by a vacuous if well-meaning ideology that is responsible for robbing an increasing number of American schoolchildren of hours they might other wise have spent reading important books or learning higher math (attaining the cultural achievements, in other words, that have lifted uncounted generations of human beings out of the desperate daily scrabble to wrest sustenance from dirt)." Blogger Ed Bruske and others have already provided fantastic arguments against Flanagan's essay, but I wanted to add a few points from my own homeschooling, intuitive gardening perspective.

It's not just science, writing and math that kids learn from the garden. It's not just that their whole regard for their bodies' and where food comes from improves. Or that they learn about the positives of diversity and how to overcome hardship by working together. People who garden, kids or adults, in schools or at home, are more grounded people. Which is to say they entrain with the energy of the garden. Though they probably don't know it, they spend time working with nature spirits. They learn about seasons and dirt and weather, not just from books but through their bodies.

Kids who DO things instead of just learning about them truly learn things, and more importantly they build the foundations for higher learning, as in the Benezet study in the 1930's that found that children learned math better if they weren't given formal math training until 7th grade. Their education focused on the ability to think, read, and discuss their thoughts with others (what Benezet called "read, reason and recite"). These kids who weren't taught rote math were then able to pick up higher math concepts very quickly when older - much more quickly than those with "formal" training in long division and fractions.

That is what kids in gardens are learning. They learn to communicate with each other and with the land. They learn about self efficacy. They learn to learn. And perhaps they also learn that the hard work their parents do or did in the fields is of value, that poverty doesn't come from dirt under your fingers (or pesticides in your lungs) but compartmentalizing classicism that separates "learning" from "doing" and values reading over real relationship with the earth.

Tree Poems

2010-01-10T10:06:00.005-07:00

I'm working on an article about planting an apple tree over my daughter's placenta, and came across a lovely collection of tree poems from a website dedicated to the Spirit of Trees.

(From the website:)

Many tree-related online resources focus on the scientific aspects of trees or describe simple tree-planting procedures. Spirit of Trees offers a complementary approach, one that highlights the symbolic and aesthetic dimensions of trees. You will find, in particular, an extensive collection of multicultural folktales from contemporary storytellers, with links to more tales on the web. When told with feeling, these have the power to foster a heart felt connection to trees, one that taps deep into the human imagination to inspire hope, wonder and compassion for the living earth.
There is also a selection of poetry, plus other sections for lesson plans, for scholarly essays, and for national and international tree organizations — and more.

...
Cristy West
Editor and Program Coordinator

Here is one of the poems for you:

A Blessing for the Woods

by Michael S. Glaser

Before I leave, almost without noticing,
before I cross the road and head toward
what I have intentionally postponed—

Let me stop to say a blessing for these woods:
for crows barking and squirrels scampering,
for trees and fungus and multi-colored leaves,

for the way sunlight laces with shadows
through each branch and leaf of tree,
for these paths that take me in,
for these paths that lead me out.

Shifting the Energy of the House

2009-12-29T11:08:00.003-07:00

"You know," I said to my husband while he played Bejeweled on the office computer, "if we put the bed on that wall and the dresser here we could put our room in here."

He glanced at me nervously. I get this feeling every now and then where I must rearrange things. Usually it's just the couch or a table. This time I was talking about flipping two rooms. The internet cable. A huge heavy desk. Book shelves. He's less than thrilled when I move around the contents of a room, something I've done since childhood; when I start moving whole rooms he gets downright freaked out.

"Why?" he said cautiously.

"Because the office would fit better in our room. It would be nice to have our room closer to the bathroom and the office off the kitchen. It would be cozy in here, but... it would work."

I started to get excited. I began to picture the soft white curtains in our "new" room. The kids' art table under the window in our "new" office. I spent the day convincing him. I bribed him with a shoulder rub if he'd go down in the (gross dusty spider-infested) crawl space to figure out the internet cable situation. Finally he agreed, saying he actually liked the idea. If not of moving stuff, of having it all moved.

Long, boring, dusty story short, we did it. We've slept two nights in our new room and the new office is mostly set up. There are odds and ends we need like closet organizing and that darn cable moved (we went wireless on both computers), but the big pieces are in place. It feels really good - but also very unsettled. The baby napped poorly yesterday. I yelled at my daughter twice yesterday (I'm not proud to say). Things feel like they are floating off the floor a half inch. But it feels like the rooms are finally in the right place (we've lived in this house over four years), as if we'd swapped two puzzle pieces that finally clicked into place. When the dust settles (the invisible energy dust, I mean), the Feng Shui of our house will feel so much better.

Does your house feel unsettled? Bedrooms should be in yin parts of the house; in our case we moved a room from the front of the house to the back. They should be near bathrooms and away from public areas like the kitchen. Public spaces should flow from one to another, including living room, dining room, kitchen, and playroom or family rooms. Walls and doorways slow energy. Large windows let in energy from outside, which was one problem in our "old" bedroom, since we had a large window facing the street. I often felt unsettled and on alert while I slept. If you're having trouble sleeping, try moving a bed or even your whole room. The adjustment period can be unsettling, but you'll know it when the pieces click into place and it will change the energy in your entire house. And since our house is an extension of our selves, it can affect your health and happiness as well.

For more on Feng Shui and the energy of place, check out these books.

Nature Spirit in Artist's Photograph

2009-12-26T13:57:00.005-07:00

A fantastic artist named Rosemary Ranck contacted me for information about nature spirits as she had just captured one in a photograph. She wrote, "I was lucky to have a sweet, cute elf like image appear in a photo I shot while photographing changing leaves a month or so ago." And later said she "never saw 'her' [the spirit] until it was uploaded."

Here is the original photo untouched:

Again, Rosemary did not see the little face until she uploaded the photo to her computer.

Here is the photo lightened and sharpened some:

You can't really tell the size of the little face, but you can clearly see her curiosity with the camera and/or Rosemary.

Rosemary wondered why the little elf revealed herself to her. In looking at Rosemary's paintings, it's clear to me that Rosemary's intuitive abilities tend towards the visual. She felt attuned with the place and the beauty of the changing leaves, and her friend came to say hello. Now Rosemary is hiding little nature spirits in her paintings.

Here is some of Rosemary's work. You can see her heart and soul in her paintings.

Thank you Rosemary for sharing your story with us!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more on nature spirits, devas, elfs, and fairies, I recommend the following books:

The True Meaning of Yule

2009-12-16T12:03:00.006-07:00

We hear a lot about the true meaning of Christmas, and I remember when I was a practicing Christian the holiday held a deeper meaning for me. Now my spirituality includes not just mystical Christianity but also Paganism and a sprinkling of Buddhism and Taoism. So while I celebrate Christmas Day, largely this is because of family tradition, and because many Christmas traditions come from Yule traditions. I think more about Mary and her unassisted birth than about the baby she bore (at least on Christmas). As a Pagan I also celebrate Yule, the day after Winter Solstice. The holiday celebrates the return of the light through the rebirth of the Sun. As I stared at the Sun low in the sky one afternoon last week, I wondered about a deeper meaning to Yule - the real meaning of Yule, if you will. In Christianity the "reason for the season" is the promise of the baby who will grow up to save humanity from darkness. Is there a larger magic to Yule as well?

I believe that we are all on the path of the Christ. We can all become Christed, or evolve into Christ consciousness, also called non-dual consciousness (for a deeper discussion of this see Jim Marion's Putting on the Mind of Christ). The journey towards non-dual consciousness is central to our incarnating on Earth. The birth of the Christ child is a metaphor for our own continual rebirth into higher levels of consciousness. And therefore so is the story of the birth of the light at Yule. It is our own light that is reborn at Yule.

I began to see how the Wheel of the Year, the progression of holidays spiraling through time as the Earth revolves around the Sun, is a story about our evolution as souls. The story of the God and Goddess through the Sabbats is our story. In fact, not just the earth's journey around the Sun, but the universe's story is our story. Or rather, our story is the universe's. As the universe exploded into being from the void, so did our souls. As it expands into the unknown, so do we. Eventually we will rejoin with the Creator, as planets do when their star expands into a supernova. All is one Story.

___________________________________
You may also enjoy:

Finding the True Self: Yuletide Dreams

2009-12-06T19:30:00.008-07:00

A chilly snow fell all day; we went out several times to replace the frozen chicken water. A few days ago I collected eggs so frozen they had cracked the shells. The birds are puffed up and probably not terribly comfortable, but they are fine. It's a dry snow, so different from the heavy wet doom that fell in my childhood in the Pacific Northwest. It makes me love the Rocky Mountains, love Denver, love winter.

We put up our Yule tree yesterday, purchased from Tiri's garden which offers sustainably harvested trees and supports children's charities. Christmas when I was little was about my dad, who died a year and a half ago. Putting up the tree and listening to carols reminds me of him. I miss him. When I was younger I always dreamed of the Christmas I would have one day, my mom cooking dinner with excitement for a new recipe, my dad watching from the couch with a twinkle in his pale blue eyes, my husband and I laughing, and my children playing by the tree. This dream Christmas took place in the Pacific Northwest, green and salty and damp. We never had that Christmas, and now we never will.

I remind myself that in reality Dad was unhappy and cranky near the end of his life. The little time he did spend with my daughter, he didn't interact with her much. We found visits awkward because he was so in his own little world. But I can't help but wonder what he would have thought of my son, who is already, at three months old, so like him. They share the eye twinkle, the interested brow wrinkle, the open smile. I can't help but wish that Dad had gotten the medical and psychological help he needed to grow into a healthy sage man so that he could have met my son and spent Christmas with us here in Colorado, or we with them in Washington.

Instead, this year we celebrate with my husband's sister and niece and their families, who have, in all but history, become my family as well. My husband and I have had to do the dance of whose family traditions we will follow, but since we both come from midwestern Germanic stock the traditions aren't so dissimilar. And then my husband and I have also included Yule in the winter celebrations, not formally a part of our childhoods. I feel both sad to let go of the past and filled with joyful gratitude for the present.

I had a dream a few nights ago that I was searching for my birth family. In real life I am not adopted, but in my dream I had been. I told someone that I had to know who I might have been so that I could let go of that person before I could really be my true self. I feel like reflecting on the fantasies I once had around family and the holidays is a lot like that dream. Who did I want to be? Who will I never become? Who am I now? Most importantly, what can I release that no longer serves me, and then whom can I step into as my present self? The truth is, while a part of me longs for the Pacific Northwest and childhood dreams and traditions, I hate heavy wet snow and love the dry mountain air. I love my chickens. I love that we bought a sustainable tree that supports charities. All of these yuletide gifts are tied to the present in Colorado. So the fantasy yuletide I once dreamed of back in Washington state in some ways will never come true, and yet is manifest in ways I never could have dreamed of.

I imagine my father standing in my snowy backyard, laughing at the chilly puffed-up chickens, a cigarette dangling from one hand. He would have loved it here. I believe in some ways he is here, in me, in my son, in the life I've created as a suburban homesteader, for it was he who planted those seeds of self-sustainability when I was a child. Now he is free to be his true self, unencumbered by the struggles of his mortal life. Just as I am free now to continue to seek my true self as well.

Indoor Farmer's Market by Denver Urban Homesteaders

2009-11-30T15:16:00.003-07:00

My family and I went to check out the new indoor farmer's market hosted by Denver Urban Homesteaders. I love farmer's markets, but I tend to be whiny about those here in Denver from June through October because they aren't strictly farmer's markets. One can purchase bananas, Juice Plus, and Tuperware at them. I turn up my locovore nose. But this new indoor market was a true farmer's market, offering local goat milk, cow shares, local eggs, one veggie stand with lovely squashes and other winter veggies, and even local mead. Great photos of chickens lines the walls. There were also very cool chicken coops for sale. (Later someone said to me, "Aren't you guys in the market for one of those?" I replied, "No, we built ours. Out of scrap wood. While I was pregnant. I'm such a homesteader!" Hee, hee.)

If you live in or near Denver or happen to stop by on a Saturday, come check out the market. It's at 200 Santa Fe Drive every Saturday from 9-2.

Garden Mothers: Musings on the Garden Year

2009-11-29T12:36:00.002-07:00

I.
In my garden, Earth and I chat like two mothers over a cup of coffee. Mother to mother, matter to matter. Yes, she says in the spring, the manure serves me well, thank you. I comment on the delicate unfolding of early flowers, and she smiles at the growth of my toddler. Oh, yes, how my Little Goddess has grown, she muses as I plant peas. I gaze up appreciatively at the almost-open lilacs surrounding the garden and press seeds into the damp soil. We discuss spring’s strange weather patterns: snow, then eighty degrees – pea planting time. I give her some weeds and kitchen scraps which she will whip up into compost stew.

Oh! Chickadees are moving in to the birdhouse this year! And look – the crocus we planted two years ago has multiplied. Earth gives me bouquets of dandelions for my daughter to pick. I thank her for the fresh air and fresh spinach that help me raise a vibrant baby. I pour a little cup of breast milk onto the soil in thanks. Her green children continue to push through the spring soil, reaching for Father Sun. The air warms as she journeys around him, hinting at the blast of summer to come. Just in time, the Box Elders behind our house leaf out: We now have shade on the back patio as the afternoons creep towards deepest summer.

I share with my daughter Earth’s spring crafts – yes, these are also dandelions – see? They close up, then re-open white and fuzzy. These are dandelion seeds. Just like the seeds we put in the garden to grow watermelons. Blow them and make a wish! Yes, my daughter, I wish for watermelons right now, too, but we have to wait. When the summer is too hot to breathe, then we’ll have sweet watermelon from the garden.

II.
When the time comes, Earth is full and sweaty as a pregnant woman chasing twins. She insists I take more, fill my kitchen counters with her gifts: Tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, too many zucchinis to know what to do with. She offers me corn with three different colors of kernels, red, white, and yellow. She nods knowingly, telling me how diversity and chance will save us all. In diversity and pluralism is strength.

After my daughter goes to bed, I come out to visit the Mother. I stand in the garden in the warm summer night, crickets singing their praise and wonder. The baby apple tree, covered in bird netting, reaches above my head now, a silent companion in ritual. Beneath her roots my daughter’s placenta has rotted away completely. My body grew it to nourish my daughter, and then I gave it back to the land to feed the tree that will feed us. The Wheel keeps on turning, blessing, feeding, in birth and in death.

I light a candle and set it in a jar. It’s windy tonight, as it so often is at the edge of the Rocky Mountains. I’ve brought with me another jar containing a thick dark liquid. Mother to mother, I say thanks and pour my moon blood at the base of the tree, sprinkle it over the garden beds. Each month I sacrifice some of myself, and give it back to Earth. Matter to matter. Blood for blood.

I sit quietly on the hard ground. Even after watering the lawn, the clay soil is hard beneath my bones. I drink in the night. The moon rises behind the house, her shadows creeping around the Box Elder and shivering moon dust on the lawn. The night pulses with green abundance all around me, but there is also a sweet hint of rot, a promise of the dying times to come.

III.
Autumn is short here. Suddenly the trees have turned yellow and brown. It is too cold to dine on the patio at night, though we can wear tank tops and shorts during the day. I pull up the empty corn stalks and tie them to the front porch. A few more squash plants fatten on the vine, covered in bird netting to keep out the squirrels. I plant a last crop of radishes and scatter kale seeds. The compost needs turning.

Earth invites me to come sit, to slow down in the scurry of fall, soak in the sweet rot and slow cool. Three hawks circle above, slowly, a yearly autumnal dance. My daughter turns a year older, and I settle more fully into my relatively new role as Mom. Earth shows me how. She brushes the hair off my face and offers me a glass of cider. All is well, she says, all is turning, circling, sweetness.

IV.
As soon as I pluck the last pumpkins it begins to snow. My daughter stands at the back door on the heat register and watches white soften the dried plant stalks. The cold curve of land teaches her about death, stillness, calm. Other mothers keep gathering: We scatter Kabocha squash and pumpkin seeds on the deck for the squirrels. The chickadee family hops little prints into the snow as they share in the offering.

On a warm winter day the snow melts in patches. I pull a hat over my ears and go visit the garden, my baby who is not a baby following slowly in the chilly air. I pick a frozen scallion and a small handful of hardy kale. A mother squirrel bounces through the leafless branches above me, dropping snow dust onto my shoulder. I tromp out to the compost pile to dump a week’s worth of kitchen scraps, and dream of spring. Sun glares low in the sky.

At Solstice we build a small fire on the back patio. Wrapped in blankets and the chill night, I sprinkle mead around the apple tree. Thank you, I call to the frozen Earth. Tomorrow the days will begin to lengthen, and I will flip greedily through seed catalogues. Tonight my daughter tosses a pine cone into the fire, and we watch the sparks rise into the icy darkness of the Longest Night of the Year.
And soon, very soon, we will plant peas. Mothers and daughters, soil and sky, spinning, turning, whole.

_______
Clea Danaan is the author of Sacred Land: Intuitive Gardening for Personal, Political and Environmental Change (Llewellyn, 2007), Voices of the Earth: The Path of Green Spirituality
(Llewellyn, 2009), and Magical Bride: Crafting a Wedding for a Goddess (Wyrdwood, 2009). Visit her at IntuitiveGardening.net or cleadanaan.blogspot.com.

Fiery Herbs for Yuletime

2009-11-29T10:17:00.002-07:00

Yule marks a time of transition from revelry, marked by Jupiter (Sagittarius), to responsibility, marked by Saturn (Capricorn). It is at Yule that we light great fires against the cold and dark, dancing, laughing and storytelling through the Longest Night. We are called to balance: light and dark, inside and out. It is up to us to light our fires and keep them tended, yet at the same time to pause for inner reflection and stillness.

Many of the herbs associated with this time of year are about fire and protection. Holly, juniper, pine, mistletoe and rosemary are all associated with the element of fire. Their essences burn away that which is unwanted: viruses, fear, old habits, poverty, loneliness. These herbs purify and protect. Using them throughout your home, in cooking, and in ritual will help you burn away the cold while protecting inner calm and quiet. You might put rosemary in your bread, hang up a mistletoe branch, or rub pine-scented oil into aching muscles.

One specific way to use these herbs is while cleaning. While mopping your kitchen in preparation for Yule, light a pine-scented candle. Put a few drops of rosemary, juniper, or cypress essential oil in your mop water. Burn a little cedar incense, and sprinkle a pinch of salt on the floor. While you mop and scrub, chant the following:

With fire, water, air, and earth,
I bless my home,
My heart and hearth.

Visualize what you want to bring into your home. See your family and your guests happy, healthy, and whole. Feel the inner peace that comes from the fiery protection of winter herbs as it soaks into your spirit, home, and heart.

Yule blessings to you and yours.

Mountain Selkie Longing for the Sea

2009-11-25T14:17:00.003-07:00

What do you long for? Desire, whether of a person, a special place, or a thing (chocolate!) is such a visceral thing, even when it's not sexual in nature. The current issue of SageWoman includes many wonderful articles written by Goddess-loving women about all kinds of desire. My own article in this issue is about my desire for two places: the Pacific Northwest and Colorado. I hope you'll enjoy it! You can find SageWoman at good bookstores and newsstands.

"I have learned to live at the base of the Rocky Mountains instead of the feet of Mount Baker. But I am like a selchie who leaves her watery home to live on dry land." - "The Resonance of Home" by Clea Danaan, SageWoman issue 77

Selkie by Forest Rogers

2012 - Rebirth and Renewal

2009-11-21T09:16:00.005-07:00

I've enjoyed receiving information from 13moon.com on the lunar, Mayan-based calender, and now they are offering useful, positive information on the Mayan Prophecy of 2012. The website is "A website in service to the Art, Science, & Spirituality of Natural Time and the emergence of a Global Culture of Peace." I discovered them after reading The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology by Jose Arguelles.

About 2012, Eden Sky writes:

"[T]he Maya in Guatemala ... want the world to know the completion of their calendar cycle DOES NOT POINT TO THE END OF THE WORLD, and they wish for people to NOT BE AFRAID. ...The essence of the 2012 prophecy is not about doom and gloom, it is about transformation, renewal and re-birth. It is about us waking up to our true human potential; it is about us coming into our power as planetary citizens, conscious of our interdependence, working together in respect for all of life. It is about us changing paradigms so that our global culture can find a way to live in Harmony, with ourselves, each other and all of Nature. It is about us living from our Hearts. It is a calling for us to expand our perceptions, sense of reality, and context we place ourselves in and awaken to ourselves as galactic beings."

Sounds like the very work I'm committed to! Very exciting. I read this and feel expansion and love. I hope you'll enjoy reading what else 13moon.com has to offer.

Hope for the Healing of the Earth

2009-11-21T08:33:00.003-07:00

Ecologists are discovering that when wetland areas are restored, having been used for nearly 100 years for agricultural purposes, that the land bounces back amazingly quickly. While some native species are reintroduced, many spring back to life on their own, having waited all this time in the soil seed banks.

This shows us the wisdom of the planet. She can bounce back - if (a big if) we can follow her ways and let a wetland be a wetland, she can gracefully and fairly quickly restore balance. The question, of course, is how to let a wetland be a wetland when we need to grow food, build houses, and pave streets. We - and she - have to share.

Providing habitat for native species in yards is key. Get rid of lawns, plant native plants, provide water features and shelter. Building paths for wildlife where there are freeways helps, too. Urban permaculture offers exciting opportunities for integrating food with everyday life and reducing our impact. Of course green building, habitat restoration, and simple things like riding bikes all helps.

Finally, for those of us who honor the earth as sacred and alive, prayer, ritual, and attunement with non-humans also helps heal our relationship with the planet. In conversation with the earth we can be given ideas and tools for sharing and balance. Right now, as you read this, look out the window. Rest your eyes on a tree or another natural being. Let your mind relax. Let your energy and attention reach out to the tree. Sit with that feeling for as long as you like. What happens in your body? What might happen in the world were we all to relate to non-humans this way?

For further reading:

Teaching Children Gratitude

2009-11-07T11:27:00.002-07:00

Two of my friends and I have a little co-op homeschool preschool for our three four-year-olds and their younger siblings. This month we are focusing on gratitude and giving. I've been giving lots of thought to how we teach our children these core values. The first step of course is to model gratitude, thankfulness, and charity by giving to food and clothing drives, giving what we no longer use to others who would use it, and giving thanks for our blessings like food. We say thank you at our house. We express joy when we something wonderful comes to us, from a ripe peach to a new pair of shoes. And we take care of our belongings and those we love.

'Tis the season for food and clothing drives, so several times during the month I will let my daughter pick out a few extra nonperishable groceries and drop them in the box herself, discussing that this food is for people who maybe don't have enough food right now. We do, so we can share. At preschool next week we are going to play "store," one of my daughter's favorite imaginary games, and our store will have a food drive. My daughter loves to give things, so this will be fun and natural for her.

Throughout the year we discuss if we are "done" with a toy and ready to give it away, either to a younger child like her cousin or to the ARC for someone else to play with. I think this Yule we will do something more formal and buy a new toy for a toy drive.

Generosity is part of gratitude and giving; the other piece is appreciating what we have. I want to include saying grace at our table more regularly. When we do, we remember to thank the food itself. Since we garden and raise chickens, thanking the garden and the chickens who laid the eggs has a reality about it that my daughter gets. As she get older we will discuss where the rest of our food comes from as well. For now we thank the plants, the meat, the earth, the Sun, and the people who prepared the food. Since she is four, my daughter will go from a genuine "Thanks for cooking Dad" (yes she really says this sometimes) to grumping about the food because it's all mixed together. She has been known to say that eating is boring. I want to say, "Tell that to those who don't have enough to eat," but I don't. I don't want to scare her, just instill the foundation for her figuring this out on her own as she grows older.

I'd love to hear other ideas from you, reader. How do we raise our children in a culture of gratitude and compassion?

May you and yours have all you need and more.

The Playful Garden Art and Decor

2009-10-12T12:01:00.003-06:00

A fabulous artist friend of mine told me about her sister's store, The Playful Garden, in Napa, California. Their mission is "to bring laughter and playfulness into the home, garden and workplace through the sales of garden decor, as well as garden related products and services." They feature fabulous artwork and whimsical garden decor, some of which is featured for sale online. While shopping for Yule gifts for the gardeners in your life, check out The Playful Garden!

Creating a Memorial Garden

2009-10-10T18:18:00.004-06:00

Samhain, also known as Halloween, is a time of year when we honor the souls of those who have passed over. One beautiful way to honor a loved one who has passed is through a memorial garden. This is a great time of year to plan such a commemorative garden that you will plant in the spring. You might consider using a corner of your existing garden, or use this opportunity to plan out that garden you've been meaning to create for years. Or if you have little or no garden space, you might create a potted garden or window box. The size is not important - it really is the thought that counts. As you tend your memorial garden you will be able to commune with your loved one, remembering her or him through renewed life.

My father passed away a year and a half ago. When we returned from his service, which was at the beginning of May, my new grape plants had sprouted. I dedicated them to him. Now every year we will eat grapes in honor of my dad, an avid gardener who always wanted to grow grapes. The magic of vines is that they keep growing, reaching always for more light, just as our spirit does after death. In this way, too, I honor my dad.

To plan your commemorative garden, consider plants or fruits and vegetables your loved one liked. Perennials, plants that return year after year, are best for the central parts of the garden, as they honor eternal life and rebirth. Roses are a nice option if you have the space and inclination. A tree would also be lovely in your garden, such as willow, said to help us conquer the fear of death, or apple, ripe just before Samhain and offering love and healing. Annuals like flowers and vegetables might also be in your memorial garden, especially if your loved one was a gardener or loved a certain fruit or veggie. I bet as you read this several plants that you associate with him or her spring to mind.

Statues or stones can also be included in your garden, from a big ornate angel to a tiny fairy in a window box. Garden stores offer many different styles and sizes, or you could make your own using a stepping stone kit from a craft store. If you have something of your loved one like a piece of jewelry you don't wear, you might bury it in the garden under a plant. The energy of your loved one will infuse the plant as it grows.

In a larger memorial garden, be sure to include a bench or chair for meditation and prayer. When you miss your loved one, go here for solace and to commune with him or her. This chair, and certainly the whole garden, might be a nice place to hold a simple Samhain ritual, or a ritual on the anniversary of his or her death.

Wishing you peace this Samhain and always.

Cat memorial courtesy Kitty Memorial

The Magic of Fall

2009-10-06T15:29:00.004-06:00

I made it to fall! I write to you now with a three-week-old baby boy sleeping on my lap. Big sister and Dad are running errands. Sun streams in through my office window, and I can see the just-yellowing leaves of our box elder outside. I love fall. I love that it rained last night and the yard is pasted with yellow leaves. I love that we've a few carrots and small bunches of chard, spinach, and broccoli greens in the garden. We started another compost bin, made a run extension for the chickens so they stop wrecking the rest of the yard, and drained the pond (we've a very small pond - more of a water feature). I have so many plans for spring (like a plum tree to plant over my son's placenta, now sleeping in the freezer), but I'm content to let them sit. I am thoroughly enjoying the cooler days and the promise of snow. Life is good.

I tend to be a busy-body, especially when it comes to the garden. I like projects. I like homesteading. I love my miniature farm (which frankly I don't want much larger). But this fall is about slowing down. About letting myself rest. I'm so not good at that - but the sweet little man sleeping in my lap is teaching me how much I must. As the Equinox came and passed I was learning to balance two children, a home, and a career. I will continue to strive for such a balance over the next many years, but right now, with the balance of autumn outside in the garden, the extreme need for balance and rest press me into place. Let go. Let be. Trust. All is well. That is the magic of this fall for me.

Sacred Sister Mary Jane offers great organic farming advice

2009-08-20T13:02:00.002-06:00

As I wind down towards the birth of my baby boy (due in four weeks), I'm just in an incubating stage. So I thought I'd just share a link I found that might be of use to my dear readers. In my book Sacred Land: Intuitive Gardening for Personal, Political & Environmental Change I profile several "sacred sisters" who are women making a difference in the gardening world. Here is another, Mary Jane Butters.

I discovered her magazine and website MaryJanesFarm. I like this page offering seven tips on tons of organic topics. Her magazine and website are geared towards women living an organic lifestyle and running a farm - small like mine to rather larger like hers. (Well, my homestead isn't really a farm, but I can dream. How would you define a farm anyway? I'm thinking 100 sq feet of organic garden space and four chickens might count for something?)

Have you any inspirational women whose stories you would like to share here? Please feel free to leave a comment!

Letting Go of Garden Losses

2009-08-13T17:41:00.003-06:00

Maybe next year I'll follow my own advice. I gave it to myself last year, but apparently I wasn't listening.

Last year I swore I would not plant any gourds - no squash, melon, or pumpkins. The squirrels eat all of them. No matter what. I wrap them in bird netting and cover them with blood meal (or menstrual blood, but this year all that is nourishing my babe - don't mean to gross anyone out, just telling it like it is). I can't spritz them with pepper spray because I fear it would get into my child's eyes and mouth.

I also told myself not to plant corn. Takes up tons of space, uses lots of water, and fertilization is spotty.

Much of my garden right now is squirrel-ravaged gourds and short, spotty corn. Also green tomatoes that are just thinking about turning red. Maybe. Tiny carrots and beets that don't seem to want to get bigger. A teensy patch of fall spinach in the middle of a bed I over planted with seeds that never germinated, or maybe got scratched by chickens.

The garden actually looks pretty good because all those squash and pumpkin plants have huge, vibrant leaves. With sunflowers (minus the actual flower) poking up in their midst. And corn that looks like it's getting somewhere. And huge bushy cherry tomato plants. Dotted with lots of little green orbs. But we're not eating much out of the patches right now. Oh well.

Being 35 weeks pregnant gives one a certain dose of accepting reality. The garden is what it is. We've had lots of lettuce, the carrots and beets and chard may be smallish but are yummy. The tomatoes will ripen, or in early September I'll make green tomato soups. The squash plants get added to the compost (probably why I have so many squash plant volunteers this year - last year's squirrel food!).

And next year I am planting only the things my family eats and squirrels don't, like green beans, tomatoes, and more carrots. Maybe. I'll let you know if I actually manage to follow my own advice to myself. By then I'll have a four year old and a baby starting to crawl. In addition to chickens and squirrels. Hmm.

Ack! The Chickens are Drving Me Batty!

2009-08-01T14:40:00.005-06:00

So I love my four renegade chickens. Renegade because we're kind of violating zoning laws to have them. But they are much quieter than our neighbors' dogs, we keep the coop safe and clean, and they will, I hope, soon lay eggs.

Meanwhile.

They love more than anything to do their little diggy chicken dance in bare dirt. Which in my garden means where I have just planted fall seeds. My daughter and I put in cabbage, spinach, carrots, mache, peas and chard. The chickens watched, blinking from bottom to top (did you know chickens blink upside-down?) with their orange eyes thinking, yes, my pretties, yes.... and then as soon as my back was turned they danced their happy selves across the dirt. And the bird netting we put up to keep them out. Then they ate the leaves off my only Brussel's sprout plant, which was only three inches tall and not getting taller, but still.

And then. They waddle over to the back patio and poop as all grazers do, randomly, prefering the same spots we prefer to walk. Like the door mat and under the patio table. My daughter shouts, "Just look out for the slimy poo right outside the door!" So I use the hose sprayer and spray down the patio and the mat, feeling bad for using so much water (the broom us just a mess for this task). I set the mat on the grass to dry. Ten minutes later it has three chicken turds on it.

They've been staying in the yard so far, but the other day it was cloudy and cool, so the driveway at the side of the house wasn't such a hot desert. Chickens like shade. They stay away from hot sun. They also like to explore. So once the driveway was not so hot, they thought they'd go check out the neighborhood. Did I mention we're not really supposed to have chickens?

So I, big pregnant belly and all, rigged up a makeshift fence between the garage and house. My materials included a rotted, nail-infested old porch banister and some leftover lengths of hardware cloth from the chicken run. It won't keep them in if they really want to go exploring (only a matter of time), but it will slow them down. Not safe for when the baby starts crawling, though.

Time for some real boundaries. Such a theme in my house these days, what with an almost-four-year-old princess, two spoiled cats, and now four cocky chickens.

My plan is to get some flexible fencing like deer netting and fence off a section of yard extending their run. It won't be safe from predators like the run and coop are, so we'll still have to put them in at night and keep half an eye on them, but it will keep them contained, give them more room to roam, and give them a shady area to play in.

Now I just have to do that project. After I do a few loads of laundry and bake some bread. The homesteading dream!

Fall Planting! Tips from the garden...

2009-07-26T19:08:00.003-06:00

"What're you doing, Mommy?" my three-year-old daughter asked, finding me sifting through seed packs in the hallway.

"Getting ready to plant fall veggies."

"Can I help?"

"Yes! We'll plant them tomorrow." Both of us smiled in rapture. My girl loves planting as much as I do.

I picked out spinach, carrots, peas, broccoli, cabbage, parsley, mache (aka corn salad), and chard. We already planted some seeds in a cleared bed - mostly mustard greens and beets - but since they haven't germinated I'm going to do the paper towel technique with this next planting. Put your seeds - just as much as you want to plant or slightly more if your seeds are a few years old - between a fold of damp paper towel and put into a plastic bag. Keep checking them and in a few days they will have germinated. Then carefully transplant to the garden (you can do this in summer because the soil is not freezing) into soil amended with compost (a tweezers works well for this task, picking up teeny rooting seeds and plopping them in the soil). Our compost is very high in nitrogen because of all the beautiful chicken poo we've been blessed with this year.

On a side note, if you have chickens or plan to, I highly recommend putting your compost in a shady area and either doing it as a simple pile as I do or in an open cage that is accessable from one side. It is our chickens' favorite hang out: cool, buggy, and speckled with little kitchen scraps. They turn the compost for us as they scratch and they poop all over the pile, adding nitrogen. We also toss all the cleanings from their run and coop on the pile and turn it in. Their poop is so high in nitrogen that a once a week cleaning of the chicken area yeilds a perfect balance of carbon (wood shavings) to nitrogen (manure). The compost breaks down very quickly and we can use it on the garden in a month or so. I have not had any problem "burning" my plants with manure that has not broken down enough with this technique even though it hasn't been composting long.

Anyway - tomorrow we will cover the beds with compost, weed, and get everything ready for seeds. We'll put some seeds in right away - carrot, parsley, peas (which I will soak tonight) - and others in a few days after they have germinated in their paper towel blankies.

Whee! So much fun.

Summer Heat in the Garden

2009-07-12T12:26:00.002-06:00

This is, ironically, the hardest time of year for me as a gardener: high summer. Partly because it's just so freaking hot here in eastern Colorado, but also because all there is to do is weed. And fertilize. And clean up after the chickens and heavy rains. No planting (though soon I will put in fall crops like broccoli and kale and parsnip). No planning (besides thinking about all the strawberry plants I want to add next year...). Very little harvesting as we are between the cool and warm season harvest - we still have lots of lettuce and a few carrots, but mostly it's wait for the baby pumpkins and tomatoes to ripen.

The heat makes me whiny.

This year my garden is doing far better than the last two years. I used a ton of compost to amend the soil last spring, I fertilized my plants with organic veggie fertilizer (I've been something of a fertilizer snob in the past, wanting compost to be enough, but in my leached soil it just isn't), and we've had a lot more rain. So I really have nothing to complain about. I'm just impatient for action. And cooler temperatures.

Interestingly, about the time of the harvest, I'll be harvesting a pretty sacred fruit from another of my gardens, my family: My baby is due September 15th. So again the veggie garden and the life garden align: we enter the horse latitudes, the dog days of summer, ripening, waiting, and dreaming of cool sweetness with the fruits of my patience and love.

I wish you peace and lemonade this summer, dear reader! I'd love to hear how you are spending your long summer days in the gardens of your life.

The Goddess of Always Enough

2009-07-05T19:15:00.003-06:00

Bee Smith writes, "As I have grown older and my spiritual practices have matured it has been shown to me to have faith in the Goddess of Always Enough. She is always able to provide what one needs right on time. Generally, it seems wisest not to try and second-guess Her or try to tell her what she ought to be doing." (1) Reading this was timely for me. It's been a challenging year, with a lot of doubt about myself, our finances, our health, and whether or not we (as a family) are in the right place, doing the right thing. When I get scared about money, I tend to turn to attempted manifestation, and I tend to try to be very clear about what I feel I need. Then when my prayers are answered but not in the way I specified or envisioned, I get frustrated. When I read Bee's bit about the Goddess of Always Enough, something clicked for me. As always, we are okay. We have enough - even more than enough! All is well, even though by conventional terms I feel on a slippery slope of dept and doubt.

The image of the Goddess of Always Enough helped me to reflect on the challenges we've dealt with over the past few months, and see where She helped us, even though it was not what I thought She "ought" to be doing. A few days after we discovered our eroding plumbing needed to be replaced asap, we got low-interest-for-the-life-of-the-loan checks from a credit card. These were a lower rate than your standard equity loans - and since we haven't savings or equity, a bit of interesting timeing. Then we had to replace our only car. A few days before our old car got picked up by the insurance company's scrap yard, a friend got a new car and was able to loan us her soon-to-be-donated beater (but very functional) car. We found our replacement a week before the insurance was due to run out on our friend's loaner. We were able to get needed repairs done on our new used car just weeks before taking an eight hour road trip (sixteen round trip) that had been planned for months. I'm happy to announce that the car, and the plumbing, are doing great!

Then health concerns hit. I am a little scared and frustrated that we have spent our beefed up flex spending account half way through the year - and three months before our baby is due - but isn't it interesting that I had *just* enough in there to get the chiropractic work I desperately needed?

Speaking of new baby, today my husband and I sat down with the clothes, accessories, and toys friends have given us, and we were both totally overwhelmed. Such abundance! Such a community we have! I do not have to buy anything for this baby. Not even shelves if we can get around to using the last of the scrap wood we have (given to us by a friend) to put some shelves in the kids' closet.

And in case this weren't enough reminder that All is Well and She Watches Over Us, I flashed recently on a memory of about nine years ago. We had just moved to Colorado. I had just finished massage school and barely had a part time job, my then boyfriend had just started graduate school, and his father had just passed away. We drove to Wisconsin for the service, a sixteen hour drive with no air conditioning, paid for by credit card. We found out that my boyfriend had a disbursement coming to him from his father's IRA of about $23k. Recalling this time, I thought, "Things may seem scary and tenuous now, but compared to that time - whew! Life is settled, grounded, and all is well."

I can get so caught up in what I think things are supposed to look like, as in no debt, a fancy (if modest) house, and other wants, but really, if I step back and let my perspective shift, I am amazed at how blessed we are. There is always enough. Always.

Blessings, dear reader! May you too be blessed with the realization of always enough!

(1) Smith, Bee. "Seasons of Change: Gaian Rhythms for Positive Living." SageWoman No 76. 62.

Trusting the Inner Goddess

2009-06-24T09:58:00.000-06:00

Whenever I teach a Reiki class (and when I received my own Reiki attunements) I always go through some sort of deep challenge or shift in energy before the attunement. Once I broke up with a boyfriend – an amicable breakup that just needed to happen; several times I got sick; another time, just before attuning a Reiki Master, I started a new and serious relationship (ended up marrying the guy).

I’m going through just such a shift now, I realized. Not because I’m going to teach a Reiki class but I because I am about to have my second child. Several mamas have told me that the transition to child number 2 was a biggie. I realized that must be a large part of the stressors and health challenges I’ve faced (and my husband has dealt with) since the beginning of the year.

If you’ve been following my blog at all you know we’ve had a few snafus regarding our house, health, and car lately. Last week I encountered another upset. I’d been struggling with moderate back pain, and then bam! My sacral/lumbar vertebrae went totally out of whack. I couldn’t drive, walk, sit, stand up… it sucked. Lots of metaphors here: paralyzed by life, feeling the total lack of support, sick and twisted (ha, ha). I found a fantastic chiropractor who also does acupuncture and kinesiology, who was able to straighten me out and helped me get at the emotional issues underlying what feels like the biggest health challenge of my life so far. The issue? Trust! You may know my other challenges of this year have dealt with Faith – well, this one went even deeper, to trusting those in my life and even my self. I saw how I have difficulty trusting people, and how this year with my graduating (pending, anyway) with my MFA and publishing a second book and writing my first novel I’ve been struggling with my deepest issues of self trust, like doubt, disgust, and lack of faith in my talent and abilities. Funny how success can make one feel both proud and simultaneously totally freaked out and inept.

The issue of trust goes so deep and can be so transformative. Trust versus mistrust is one of the basic foundations of the self according to Erikson. I don’t know if I didn’t develop a strong enough sense of trust in the world as a preverbal infant and toddler, and frankly I don’t care, but I could see in the present how hard it was for me to trust my chiropractor, my husband, my friends, and my work. And underneath all that, my self.

Something a friend said came to mind as I struggled with trusting myself and others. She said, “A goddess doesn’t look to others to give her love.” Something shifted as I inserted “trust” here: A goddess doesn’t look to others to prove their trustworthiness, to prove the trustworthiness of the world. She knows it, because her sense of trust and faith comes from an inner connection to the divine. I can’t go back and change what I might have felt as an infant (if that was even the problem), but I can cultivate a sense of trust in my inner divine nature, and go from there.

This realization paired with the EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and kinesiology my chiropractor used helped me clear a whole lot of old crap standing in my way.

And then guess what happened? We had a clog in our main sewer drain and had a guy come and rooter it! Talk about crap (and, yup, roots) being in my way. All cleared out.

So: I’m clearing energy to move to the next big phase of my life as an author and as a mama and as a person. I wish you, too, dear reader, clarity and insight and health on your own path. I hope my journey helps to illuminate some of your own.

Weeds and more weeds

2009-06-13T12:33:00.005-06:00

The garden has me contemplating weeds and their lessons. I know - sometimes a weed is just a weed - but as I pluck bindweed from my yard over and over only to see it return with a vengeance I can't help but feel that maybe there is some lesson or opportunity here. All is holon, all is connected. I admit I am having a hard time with this one, though.

I was not acquainted with bindweed, Convolvulus arvensis, until I moved to Colorado and noticed the pretty white flowers of the vine growing alongside my beans. Ah, but now I know. "Field bindweed is more than a nuisance; it's a pernicious weed. Like many nonnative invasives, bindweed is a tough plant that threatens to take over once it gets a toehold. Its cosmopolitan presence in many temperate climates has earned it 84 names in 29 different languages — most of those names are not kind." Writes Sue Dockstader. (1)

My daughter (age three) had the solid suggestion that we should fill up two buckets of weeds a day, no more and no less. Unfortunately I have others things to do in life than pull up bindweed. And sadly my chickens don't eat the stuff. It grows through our weed cloth. I am tempted to buy weed killer - but then I read that herbicides actually don't work all that well. They say the best approaches to the noxious plant is solid weed cloth combined with steady pulling and the possible addition of bindweed gall mites. Lovely.

The thing is, I am not anti-weed. I pull dandelions and mallow if it gets too tenacious or thick in an area, but these plants are edible and return nutrients to the soil. They are not out to cover my entire yard and house. Bindweed is. And I don't feel safe putting it in the compost, where it will spread even more. So it's not even food for compost.

So... I am left trying to take a positive spin on the stuff. What has it to teach me? That life is full of weeds like credit card debt and leaking seals and dead branches? That we have to take a sense of humor and get a good pair of garden gloves? That life's bounty comes in unexpected places? I'm not sure. I'm reluctant to accept the suffering and hair shirt approach to growth, though I have yet to see the point of bindweed through any other lens.

I suppose weeds in the garden, especially noxious ones like bindweed, have something to offer about tenacity, as my daughter innocently decided. Maybe I need a bumper sticker that says Weeds Happen. Hmm.

(1) http://www.pesticide.org/bindweed.html

Chicken Meditation

2009-06-08T13:54:00.003-06:00

Another thing I didn't know about chickens: watching them poke about my yard is a calming meditation. Thought I'd share it with you here. The film quality is a bit choppy - kind of reminiscent of old film footage, but in color!

Enjoy...

As these four little free rangers, Maisy, Millie, Sylvie and Tallulah, wander about my yard, pecking, picking and clucking, time slows and life is good.

The Law of Attraction Comes from the Heart

2009-06-06T09:32:00.004-06:00

My husband and I were discussing our three-year-old daughter's stress level that she is clearly picking up from us. It got me thinking about how I broadcast my stress to my daughter, and how she is not only picking up verbal and nonverbal cues from me, but also swims in my electromagnetic field. The heart is the strongest producer of this field. "[T]he magnetic field produced by the heart is more than 5,000 times greater in strength than the field generated by the brain, and can be detected a number of feet away from the body, in all directions." (1) Via entrainment (2), anyone inside my heart field (as my daughter is most of the time), would pick up on my vibrations (I'm speaking literally here, not just esoterically) of frustration, fear, anger, and stress. She would vibrate with me. As would everything else in my field, to an extent.

This, I realized, is the key to the Law of Attraction. How I vibrate attracts like vibrations. If I am clenched and stressed, I draw constriction and fear. If I vibrate peace, abundance, and gratitude, I draw these energies to me. This includes wealth and success.

We can use our strongest field creator, the heart, much more effectively than just the brain (mind) to create a world we want to live in. Literally. The Law of Attraction requires the heart, not just affirmations said by the brain (though it is all connected, I realized how vastly powerful working with the heart directly can be).

This became my meditation, to feel these powerfully pleasant energies in my heart, creating a powerful field of attraction. What I discovered about myself was stunning.

I live a great life. I have an amazing, beautiful, healthy little girl. I'm pregnant with a strong, healthy little boy. My husband is a music therapist at a major children's hospital. I have published two books, one ebook, and dozens of articles in magazines I believe in. I have a truly amazing group of friends and family. We live in a more-or-less affordable house we've made into a sweet suburban homestead with an organic garden and chickens. In many many ways I am living the dream. But financially we are always strapped; the stress my husband and I have struggled with recently has been due to increased credit card debt to pay for a necessary and rather huge plumbing job, followed by a car accident that thankfully resulted in no human injury but meant replacing our old car. With another old car. We have money set aside for the birth of our baby, but that money has dwindled due to a tooth crown, new glasses, and other health necessities. Though we live fairly frugally, we are always scrambling financially. We have no savings (beyond meager retirement savings) and a big chunk of debt. We keep asking ourselves, what is it that we need to learn here? Why is money always uber-tight? In what ways, for instance, am I holding myself back as a financially successful writer? If money is an energy, an exchange of time, love, and human energy, then why are we chronically strapped?

Well, in tuning into the energy of my heart, I discovered some very interesting things that probably have something to do with our challenges. And are very interesting, too, in light of my family's medical history of heart disease and defects.

What I realized is that my heart is always clenched. Low-level anxiety always simmers, which I can feel as a tightness around my heart. I breathe into my belly, but almost direct my breath around my heart, rather than through or with my heart, as if avoiding the fear held chronically in my chest. When I pay attention to my heart, a panicky or sad feeling rises up my throat and into my eyes. I notice the clench of my jaw. I feel these things when sitting, doing chores, driving, and otherwise going about my day.

Then there is the added frustration I feel when doing something with my daughter. Like trying to get shoes on her feet or bake cookies. She is three. She does things in her time, and messes happen. While I am usually outwardly patient, on the inside, my heart waves are moving more and more towards frustration, impatience, and even rage.

I do not want my daughter to soak in this miasma of energy. Nor my unborn son, nor my husband, nor myself, nor anyone else.

So I breathe into my heart. I focus on the beauty of my daughter and my love for her. But sometimes, this is not enough to "turn off" the chronically clenched feeling. Baby steps, but not the huge shift I was going for.

Anyone who has dealt with anxiety (most of us to some degree), knows you cannot just dissolve the anxiety with deep breaths. Yes, it gets better, livable, but doesn't go away. To really heal the pain, to really find tools for a new relationship with anxiety, fear, and anger (3), we have to go into it. Not an easy task.

I won't tire you with all the details of my own "going into it." I highly recommend for your own journey tools like a journal, an art therapist, a shaman, or other support to help you do your own going into it. But I will share with you a deep insight I had in the process.

I was lying awake in bed one night, thinking. I was contemplating my family history of heart problems. As is easy to do when one is near sleep (and one is either morbid or prone to anxiety or both), I was imagining being in the hospital for heart surgery, which is how my paternal grandmother died when I was an infant. In my fantasy, I am telling the doctor I don't want to die - not because I am afraid of death, but because I didn't want to leave my children. I said I wasn't ready (am not ready) to leave this life yet because it's such a wonderful gift that I am not yet done enjoying.

My heart flooded with peace, abundance, gratitude, and joy. The anxiety stepped aside. The stress over money became moot. Life is bigger. Love is bigger. These are the energies I want to broadcast, to stew my children in. These are the energies that can attract to me the life I want, above and beyond the beautiful blessings I already enjoy. I found the tool I needed to change my relationship with my anxiety: focusing on the gift of life when wrapped in the loving arms of death. Forgive me for sounding morbid, but I can't think of any other way to say it.

What do you carry in your heart, dear reader? What tools do you need to create powerful fields of ultimate potential? I invite you to join me as a heart mediator. Let us see how our bodies and lives change as we go into the "darkness" (via negativa) and embrace the "light" (via positiva) (4). Truly anything is possible, and I'm excited to see where this path leads.

Namaste.

(1) Institute of HeartMath. "Science of The Heart: Exploring the Role of the Heart in Human Performance." 2009.
(2) See Entrainment at Institute of HeartMath.
(3) I don't mean eliminate it. Anxiety can be normal and valuable when directed well. See One Less Thing to Worry About: Uncommon Wisdom for Coping with Common Anxieties by Jerilyn Ross.
(4) The four fold path of Creation Spirituality: Via Positiva, Via Negativa, Via Creativa and Via Transformativa. See Matthew Fox's Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.

10 Things I Didn't Know About Chickens

2009-06-04T19:59:00.004-06:00

...Until I raised four of my own in our suburban backyard (and this is pre-egglaying, so there is more to learn). In no particular order...

1. They put themselves to bed at night. Come dusk, they hop up into the coop and tuck in. Our four pile up on each other in a corner of the coop, though I keep adjusting their roost to see if I can entice them on to it. We shall see.

2. They are totally fun to just watch. A running chicken is really one of the funniest things ever. And no, I don't have to chase them, they run all the time as they poke around our yard. They sit in funny poses, they take dust baths, they do a little chicken dance to scratch at the dirt. Totally entertaining. Anyone who has chickens knows what I mean, and anyone who doesn't will think I've gone off the deep end. Which maybe I have.

3. They cost almost nothing to keep. I bought a fifty pound bag of chicken feed for less than $25. That will eventually get turned into eggs (the freshest there is!), and is already turning into awesome compost. My cats cannot boast such economy.

4. Along the compost theme, the nitrogen/carbon ratio of chicken poo to wood shavings we get from the coop, which we clean less than once a week, is ideal and breaks down very quickly. And it doesn't stink. I can smell it, but it's not unpleasant. (Poor cats. Can you see a theme here?)

5. They are really soft. Chickens look all tough and nearly reptilian, but their feathers are very soft. So are their legs. Who knew?

6. They make sweet crooning noises when they come over to say hi. Which they do whenever I sit in one place. One of our chickens is more imprinted on us, and therefore more friendly, but they all come over and croon. It's probably a plea for treats, but it's a very sweet sound. I also love the way they look at me: part curiosity, part affection, part wariness. All chicken.

7. They are fascinated with my cats. And not afraid of them at all. In fact, my boy cat is afraid of them. He is twice their size (but they're catching up to him). They are actually fascinated with just about everything, though somewhat easily spooked. They are chickens, after all.

8. I thought all chickens loved earthworms. Not ours. But they can catch a small green spider in the blink of an eye, and apparently they eat mosquitoes, too.

9. They eat dandelion seeds. Since I don't use any weed killer, this is a nice bonus. I have four chickens and a thousand dandelions, so you can guess who is winning, but it's a start. They also love pansies. Sigh.

10. They are really quiet. Apparently when they lay an egg they like to announce it, but for now the loudest squawk is quieter than a crow or a jay. Can't say the same for my neighbors' barky dogs. And no, we do not have a rooster, which you do not need to get eggs, so we do not bother the neighbors.

Can you tell I'm hooked? If you're considering chickens, I have three words of advice: Go for it! You'll love them!

The Family as a Garden: Conscious Co-Creation of the Day-to-Day

2009-06-03T17:07:00.005-06:00

I wanted to share with you Machaelle Small Wright's definition of a garden:

"According to nature, a garden has just three criteria: It is initiated by humans, given its definition, direction, and purpose by humans, and maintained with the help of humans. Well, managed forests, landscaping, farms, and potted plants would also be gardens that grow in soil. Soil-less gardens could include waterways, ponds, the atmosphere, aquariums, livestock ranches, trout farms, a landscaping business, a swimming pool, a home, large and small business,.... [W]here there is form, there is nature. Where nature and humans interact, there is a garden. Where there is a garden, there is an implied co-creative partnership" (22-23, Co-Creative Science: A Revolution in Science Providing Real Solutions for Today's Health and Environment).

By this definition, I co-create several gardens. There is what I call "my garden," soil in set areas with plants growing in them. This is the garden I usually refer to in writing and talking. But I also cultivate a family, a writing business, a community of mothers who support the ways I parent, a marriage, a home.... I'm sure the list could go on and on. I would say, though, that the most important "garden" in my life is my family.

My family consists of a husband, two children (one unborn), two cats, two fish, four chickens, a home, and a "garden that grows in soil." It is surrounded by a larger garden, my extended family: My mom, my brother, my aunts and uncles, my sisters- and brothers-in-law, my niece-in-law and her family (who is my age and also has two children), and other relatives. My family garden is also supported by my friends.

I find it valuable to think of my family as a garden, because first, the garden is a powerful metaphor of co-creation, support, faith, patience, and love. I can relate to this metaphor in a way that makes parenting and homemaking manageable. For instance, I know that some days are for weeding (aka vacuuming or doing laundry) and others for harvesting (aka sitting on the back porch and laughing with my family). I no longer feel guilty for putting up my feet when there is "work" to do anymore than I would feel guilty about picking a luscious, ripe tomato.

The second reason I find this a valuable naming of the process of "family" is that I can see my role as wife, mother, homemaker, homeschool teacher, etc., as Gardener. Rather than being at the mercy of a pile of laundry or bills to be paid or a cranky toddler, I can see it as one part of the whole, a whole I value deeply. Once I am not feeling victimized by my slave status, I can then choose to grow my garden consciously. I can honor the process of cooking dinner. I can appreciate the time it takes to get shoes on my three-year-old. I can take time to play with my husband. All with gratitude and self-awareness.

I'm certainly not saying life as a stay-at-home mom becomes easy, but using the image of Garden (which is not just a metaphor here), I can re-frame my experience of the most challenging and most rewarding job on earth. Instead of saying Life's a Beach (or a similar phrase that plays with the sound of beach), I can say Life is a Garden and breathe in deeply as I explore the path.

What new life is sprouting in your garden today?

Gardening is Easier Than You Think

2009-06-02T14:35:00.005-06:00

Many people ask me when it is the right time to plant in their gardens, how to make compost, and other detailed questions to help them get started. They feel overwhelmed by gardening, which feels like this huge undertaking that will quickly pull them under. But gardening really is easier than you might think. All you're doing is playing with nature, and getting dirt under your nails and greens on the table in the process.

Take planting dates. While there are certain general dates to follow, like the first and last average frost date, or general seasons like spring or fall crops, the timing of planting is not as regimented as one might think. This is especially true if you live in a climate like mine, Eastern Colorado, where you just never know what the weather is going to do. I planted peas in February, for instance, crossing my fingers and asking the pea fairies to do their magic. Now at the beginning of May the plants miraculously did not freeze but are just now putting out peas. But other cool season seeds I put in, like chard and beets, didn't really germinate the first time. I think - though I'm not totally sure of course - that the second planting took. Which is to say I planted in a warm spell in February (way too early by the calendar) and then again at the end of March when we had lots of rain (unheard of here) and one of those plantings took root and are now finding their way into our salads and stir fries and soups.

But if in Coloroad you haven't planted greens by May, that's okay! You still can. When that 100 degree weather hits in a few weeks, the plants may need some shade cloth, or may bolt (which does not mean run around the garden like chickens, it means set seed really fast), or might just be fine. You just never know. Again, gardening has much to teach us about faith, patience, and letting go. It's not a set of hard and fast rules, but a relationship with the earth. Give your garden healthy soil (or help it build its own healthy soil, really) and make sure it has a balance of light, heat, and water, and you're good to go. All the other fancy stuff like nitrogen ratios and planting guilds and coldframes can come, and will be easy when you get there.

It's all about taking the plunge and learning as you go. A friend of mine tried lettuce in her garden this year for the first time. She couldn't believe how easy and yummy it is and was aghast at all the sub-par salad greens she's been buying at the grocery store for years. I think much of gardening is like this. You try something new that seems impossible, overwhelming, and confusing, and you find that a) it wasn't really so hard as you thought, and b) teh results taste awesome. Another friend is new to gardening altogether, and she is tentative but very excited. She asked me about composting the other day when she saw my very un-fancy pile of weeds, chicken poo, and kitchen scraps. I told her that in our climate (where it is usually very dry), you can't mess up compost. It may take a long time to break down if you don't have enough nitrogen (chicken poo, blood meal, fresh grass cuttings) or you put exceptionally large things in it (whole broccoli stalks, entire tomato plants). But that's okay - slow compost is actually just another style of compost. (Now, in Seattle I had really soggy gross compost on a wetland, but that's a different story and not hard to fix.)

If you are still feeling overwhelmed, simplify and think common sense. Like for planting dates: find out the average last frost date (online or ask at a local nursery or friend), then after that date you can put in warm season veggies - think summer tomatoes, snap beans, hot peppers, corn - the hot, summery foods. Before that date you need to wait until the soil is soft enough, then plant "cool season" things - think spring salads, peas, cooler stuff. After the average last frost date, cool season plants like spinach and lettuce can go in a protected area like under the corn (mache loves this) or in the shade of a tree. Keep the soil gently wet, mulch with compost, add a little organic fertilizer if things are looking slow or the soil is a bit thin, and give thanks to the fairies for helping everything along.

When I was in high school I went on a mountain climbing expedition. I hated it. I was terrified. But determined. My guide kept saying, "Trust your boots." I did my best, and my boots did keep me to the rock and the trail. So I pass on to you the same advice: "Trust your garden." Watch, listen, learn, play. You'll be so glad you did.

Cultivating Persistence and Faith in the Garden

2009-05-31T10:28:00.004-06:00

Gardening is all about letting go and letting the Powers That Be run the show. I am reminded of my preschool-age daughter, who is learning to play with other children. The challenge for her is letting go of being in control; when she plays with me or Daddy, she can tell us what to say and direct the show. Not so much with other kids. Gardening is exactly like this: we are co-creators of the garden, playing with the devas, the weather, the Goddess, the plants. Sometimes this can be frustrating, as when hail or squirrels or who-knows-what destroys the pumpkin seedlings. But then in another corner of the garden some of the tomatoes you grew from seed will be flourishing, partly because you doted on them (just as you did the pumpkins) and partly because of invisible forces supporting your gardening dreams.

Maybe that balance between frustration and joy is part of why we garden. Certainly these feelings mirror most of life, from learning to play with others to facing life's greatest stressors. Lately I've been facing a lot of invitations to cultivating deeper faith: I'm pregnant, we had to incur more debt to care for our house, we're in the process of buying a used car, and of course, my garden grows as it grows. Through all of these experiences I continually have to let go and trust, while simulataneously keeping to my path. I have to cultivate both faith and persistence. I have to keep watering and fertilizing and weeding (and paying credit card bills and visiting used car lots and taking my prenatal vitamins), while letting go and letting Nature or God do Her thing. Requires lots of deep breathing.

One reason I want to spread the word about the power of gardening to change the world and change ourselves is that I think the lessons of the garden, like persistence and faith, can be applied on a much larger scale in a profoundly positive way. Practically speaking, this can mean changing the way our economy is structured through local food, bartering, eating in season and other garden-centric practices. Emotionally and spiritually a garden-centric way of life might mean even greater shifts. What would happen, for instance, if we all honored the dirt in our back yards and in our neighbors' yards? What would the world be like if we celebrated the harvest not as a historically questionable holiday in winter but as a real-life go-pick-the-corn-as-a-community in July or August? How might our foreign policies be informed if everyone in the United States, Mexico, Iraq and Somalia had a garden plot that they tended and we understood as individuals and a culture what that meant to people on the other side of the planet?

The garden can be a deeply powerful tool for change in your life, your community, and the world. I have faith that this positive change will continue to grow as garden plots and garden-centric thinking spreads in our culture. I hope as you cultivate and weed, water and feed, that you will feel inspired to offer up prayers to a world of faith through gardening. And... I hope the squirrels stay away from your melons.

Little Farms Can Change the World: Leah Gauthier's Sharecropping Project

2009-05-18T15:52:00.003-06:00

I read about artist Leah Gauthier's Sharecropper project in the September/October 2008 issue of Natural Home Magazine, and went to check out her site. What a fantastically cool idea!!

From her site:

"Sharecropper, is a micro farming installation, by Artist, Leah Gauthier happening in New York City, summer of 2009.

"I am stitching together a working micro farm, (total size yet to be determined) for one growing season, from parcels of donated land or growing spaces, located in assorted environments in each of the five borroughs around the city. Possible sites include, private residences, office buildings, schools, small business, non-profits, hospitals, galleries, museums, community gardens, government facilities, and vacant lots. Working under a traditional sharecropper agreement, rent will be paid with a portion of my harvest, and the balance shared with local soup kitchens."

This is EXACTLY the kind of project that can reshape the way we live on the planet.

Check out her site and blog at http://leahgauthier.com/sharecropper/ to be inspired!

Happiness is Living the Farm Life in the Suburbs

2009-05-17T08:32:00.004-06:00

This moment comes awfully close to my dream life. It's Sunday morning, the chickens have been fed and let to range, then shooed back into the run to get them out of the seedlings doing so well in the garden. We had buckwheat gluten free berry pancakes with organic yogurt for breakfast. Our bathtub is being remodeled, so we're heating water on the stove to give my little girl a bath outside. My husband started a little fire in our portable fire pit. He's going to get some yard work done (thank you!) while I get in some writing. I have to finish my thesis, the beginning of a novel, by the end of the month.

It's been a crazy time: hubby needed a crown on his tooth, I need new glasses, we'll have a hospital birth to pay for by the fall, we had to replace all our plumbing (small houses can really be a blessing) and our bathtub (credit card promo checks only way to go with no equity right now), and hubby got in a fender bender - his fault - last night. On one income, all that is deeply stressful. It's easy to feel overwhelmed. And I can't even take a soothing bath right now to de-stress!

But I turn on the news and hear about swine flu, flooding, genocide...; I hear my neighbor yell at his kids, and they yell back; a dear friend is still reeling from her brother's suicide. Life is hard. Yet here I sit, smelling campfire, watching chickens and children mature, we're healthy, the garden is growing (we've had RAIN this spring!), and I'm writing to you, dear reader. The sights and smells make me feel like I'm a writing mama on the farm, though we live in working class suburbia. I feel so very deeply blessed. And despite the overwhelm, so very happy.

Blessings to you, dear reader.

Happy Beltane from the Danaan Suburban Homestead

2009-05-01T17:09:00.002-06:00

It's actually overcast here in Denver metro, which makes me the Pacific NW girl rather happy. I've been loving the warm spring days interspersed with rain (rain!) and cool. Perfect. The garden is doing well, and in a few weeks our chicks will go outside. In my garden so far I have spinach, carrots, lettuces, peas, garlic, and chard. I also have a whole garden-worth of seedlings here in the office under florescent lights ready for the Mother's Day planting. We're also excited to get the chicks out around then as well - maybe earlier. One is ready (she has all her feathers), but the others are a week younger. And... the coop isn't finished yet! We built most of it out of free scrap wood from a friend, and purchased $150 worth of additional lumber and hardware. Can't buy a coop for that.

I also learned recently that my intuition was right: I'm gestating a baby boy! Our daughter will have a little brother this fall. We have his first name picked out and are working on the middle name. Right now for the middle name I like Colum, which means Dove (I think that might be his animal guide, as we were gifted with two dozen lovely mourning dove feathers in the back yard - but not harmed dove!), and Loren, which means Laurel, a powerful magical herb offering protection and Sight.

The economy has affected us in funny ways that teach me about faith. We got our property assessment today, and our property lost $60k in value last year. To me this is a sign we need to stay put, build our wealth in other ways like our suburban homestead and a healthy family, and ride the waves of unfolding. All is well.

My Beltane Blessings to you and yours! I'd love to hear updates from my readers on how you are celebrating this May Day by living your life to the fullest.

Urban (and Suburban) Agriculture Article

2009-04-22T15:46:00.001-06:00

A great article on urban agriculture like keeping chickens and bees can be found here. Check it out!

Reflections on Family: Spirit Lives On

2009-04-21T12:22:00.002-06:00

It's been nearly a year since my father crossed over into the next phase of his journey. His spirit has been sleeping since then, recuperating and reenergizing. I sense he will awaken soon for a life review and next steps. I feel him close often - not the least through the unfolding of my own life.

My father dreamed of homesteading, of having a large garden, small farm animals, living off the grid. Today, a year after his death, I am a suburban homesteader. He got to see my garden (in pictures, he never was able to visit this house), but in life he did not see my chickens or the publication of my second book, which is all about living in harmony with the land. Nor will he be here in body to see the birth of his second grandchild. I believe, though, that he will be here in spirit.

My dad died a frustrated and disenfranchised man, unable to garden, feeling "gypped" by the machine, and unsure of what he wanted out of life. But he passed on to me a sense of love for the earth and Spirit, and a desire to make the world a better place. I wish he had lived a happier life in his last thirty or so years, but I feel he is in a much better place and I am grateful for what he gifted me.

In many ways I have striven to grow beyond my family, in terms of emotional communication for instance, but in many more ways I am proudly and fully a product of my parents and ancestors. I find that a beautiful blessing in the ways of Spirit.

Magical Bride: Craft an Interfaith Wedding for a Goddess available from Wyrdwood Publications

2009-04-04T11:06:00.005-06:00

My book Magical Bride: Craft an Interfaith Wedding for a Goddess is now available from Wyrdwood Publications. I wrote this book while planning my own wedding, an interfaith hullabaloo integrating Christian, Pagan, Buddhist, and cosmological approaches. Anyone who loves the contemporary fun of a gorgeous dress and a sparkling location, but can't swallow the usual "traditions" will find this a valuable guide for planning her own wedding.

Some pictures from our wedding:

One of our ministers, Acutonics Sound healer Donna Carey, smudges us during the ceremony. Behind her you can see my brother one of the groomsmen and one of the gongs used.

I made my own cake, and my husband made his groom cake. My friend April helped.

Me and my ladies being sexy and silly!

I'm excited to be working on this project with Wyrdwood Publications, who publishes Pagan and Heathen Fiction and Non-Fiction eBooks. Check out their other ebook titles!

Baby chickens!!

2009-03-28T14:33:00.003-06:00

The first of our small flock of chickens arrived last week! Her name is Maisy, and she loves to hang out with us. When we put her back in the brooder, a dog kennel, she chirps her tiny head off, begging to be let out. As you see in the photo, she likes to "help" while I work at the computer.

Next week her flock sisters will arrive. They were all due last week but two didn't make it after two days on the truck, and one was never shipped. I'll post their photos next week.

For anyone considering raising chickens, I highly recommend it. Even three days in I'm getting more joy out of the experience than I ever thought possible. Who'd ever imagine the fun of typing up a blog while tiny little feet dance over your fingers?

Learning to Live in the Now and Go with the Flow

2009-03-28T14:24:00.003-06:00

I started my daughter in one day of preschool last January. It became apparent pretty quickly that it wasn't time yet, and the more I thought about it the more I like the idea of homeschooling. Then a week or so ago she started talking about "her school" and wanting to go again.

I live in Colorado but hail from Washington. I miss my family, miss the green and damp and salt water. Just as we begin to make plans to move their, we get a dream job here. Just as I settle deeper here (by planting fruit trees or starting a small flock of chickens), I have a dream about my mom that makes me want badly to move home. Or I hear about a super cool farm near Portland, Oregon. And then I see my future there - at least until I am faced with what anamazing community I have here when a friend offers to lend me her entire cloth diaper stash for my baby due in September.

It can be seventy five degrees here, urging me to put peas in the ground, and then snow, pulling me to hot cocoa, tea, and blankets.

I drive myself crazy with my planning sometimes, and my restlessness (Sag rising, for you astrologers). I can tell the universe is trying to remind me to live in the moment and go with the flow. We may live here for another twenty years, or only another three. I may homeschool or not. Peas may sprout or not.

That's my meditation these days. Breathe. Live now. Have faith. It's hugely challenging for me. But when I can breathe into those spaces, it feels so, well, spacious.

New Life: Early Spring and Inner Stirrings

2009-03-07T20:22:00.004-07:00

I've a stow away growing inside, a thirteen-week-old fetus who already has a name and for whom we looked at bunkbeds today. As humans we plan. We get caught up (I get caught up) in the next few years, living in this house with two small children, with a bunkbed and a single income (not mine) and thoughts of schooling and college funds and all-important middle names.

Meanwhile, in the garden the garlic my daughter and I planted last fall is three inches tall, erect and proud and bright green. Daffodils and tulips have taken courage from the garlic sprouts, and are also a couple inches tall, braving the still freezing nights. It's been warm during the day, so I who sleep in a heated and insulated house at night find it hard to believe more hasn't sprouted - and yet I am also held to the truth of time and natural unfolding by the plants' tentative gestures. All in good time.

I think of my babe like one of the pea seeds I planted at the end of February as soon as the soil could be worked (a tease in Colorado, since we can still have several hard freezes). I wanted to peek, so I dug up one of the seeds and YES! it has germinated, just a teeny bit. Though it still may very well freeze and not sprout.

In a few weeks I will probably peek at my baby with an ultrasound, too. Oh, how I long to probe the secrets of the world and peek beneath the soil... but: the pea is not ready to sprout. I tucked it back beneath the composty soil, and I give thanks my little fetus is safe in my womb, undisturbed. All in good time.

Such are the lessons of patience, faith, and waiting for all good things to pass. February and March are impatient times for me. So too is the first trimester of pregnancy. But I'm learning, slowly. The Goddess offers much to gently remind me that all in good time will things flourish and bloom. Maybe some year I won't put out seeds a month early. At least it's not tomatoes, like I planted three months early my first spring here... and again several springs later. Oh, do I get restless. Trust. I need to learn some trust and faith and patience. It's a good thing babies come exactly when they are supposed to.

May your garden and your health be blessed this early spring.

Announcing Voices of the Earth: The Path of Green Spirituality

2009-02-28T09:57:00.004-07:00

March 1 is the official launch date for my new book, Voices of the Earth: The Path of Green Spirituality (Llewellyn). Publisher's Weekly wrote, "the author's gentle optimism about human relationship to the Earth and earnest care for the planet in all its particularity is a welcome contribution to environmental advocacy." Voices is a prayer for the Earth, a guide for a new way of living on the planet - or rather, a very old one brought into modern culture - where we humans know the voices of the land, the spirit of the animals, trees, stones, and rivers, and in doing so are able to craft a world of harmony and respect for nature and each other. I offer stories of my own experiences with nature, including song birds, trees, Puget Sound, and even mama marijuana, just to name a few. Then I suggest specific ways you might deepen your relationship with the world through art, meditation, and practice. Voices of the Earth is a must for anyone who loves nature, is drawn to a spirituality of any path that embraces the land, and yearns for a more harmonious world.

You can purchase Voices through any independent bookstore (or any bookstore, for that matter, but I always suggest supporting your local indie!), or online at Amazon.com.

Read an interview with author Clea Danaan (that's me!) here.

Crossing My Fingers - Early Spring Planting

2009-02-24T19:43:00.003-07:00

It's been warm this week - seventy degrees yesterday and today. But it's February, and that means fickle weather at a mile high. We could stay mild, freezing at night, until May, but likely we'll get a spring snow. We hope. It's been so dry... but the long range forecast (by a local weather guy) suggests warmer and dryer than usual for March. Since I get itchy and depressed when it's spring-like and I'm not in the garden, I push my luck and plant early.

I have finally learned after years in this climate that even a Wall of Water won't keep tomatoes happy. My first garden here I actually put in tomatoes in March. Since our last average frost date is Mother's Day, well, you know that didn't go well. And then I tried it again a few years later.

This year I'm sticking to cool season plants. I turned a bed yesterday, dumping some poor unsuspecting and very sleepy earthworms into the sun (and then burying them again of course). The soil is very much "workable" so I planted carrots, beets, peas, chard, and mache. And I put in rhubarb plants! My back hurts and I'm tired, but oh, am I happy. I hope that if it does snow, it will be a nice warm blanket of moisture for my baby plants, and that they will be warm enough in the cool night soil to germinate.

I'm reminded how gardening is such a balm for my heart, mind, and soul. I've spent so much time writing about this phenomenon of the healing, spiritual garden, that I have gotten rather in my head. Getting dirt under my nails and teaching my daughter about the garden returns me to myself. And here I am writing about it - but I'm not going to analyze it, just enjoy the afterglow of a day in the dirt.

Happy planting!

Review for Voices of the Earth: The Path of Green Spirituality

2009-02-09T15:41:00.003-07:00

My first review for Voices of the Earth - I'm thrilled. I've included an excerpt below. To see more new Nonfiction reviews or read the entire review (it's the last on the page), click on the link to Publisher's Weekly.

Nonfiction Reviews

-- Publishers Weekly, 2/9/2009

Voices of the Earth: The Path of Green Spirituality Clea Danaan. Llewellyn, $15.95 paper (240p) ISBN 978-0-7387-1465-3

"[T]he author's gentle optimism about human relationship to the Earth and earnest care for the planet in all its particularity is a welcome contribution to environmental advocacy. (Mar.)"

Garden Plans on Chilly Imbolc

2009-02-01T14:23:00.003-07:00

It's a perfect Imbolc day - sunny but chilly, with warmer temperatures forecast. I've been feeling exactly what we're supposed to feel this time of the year, a pull between going outside and welcoming spring and a push to stay cuddled up inside. The holiday is named for Ewe's milk, as this is the time of year ewes start birthing. I've never seen a lamb born, but (this will sound silly, but if you know me personally you'll understand) I grew up watching All Creatures and I associate Imbolc with the image of being on a frigid windy hillside catching baby lambs. One would really need a cup of tea after that.

Anyway, I have big plans for my own little "farm" this year. I want to get chickens. It's been on the want list for some time, and I'm dedicated to making it happen this year. First step is to build a coop. I'm going in on a shipment of chics with a friend, and we should have our babies in March. Also by then my book will come out and I'll be (Goddess willing) entering my second trimester of pregnancy - in many ways I'll be ready to come outside and turn the garden, rather than huddling inside and feeling sleepy.

Not sure what I will plant this year, though I have expanded the garden. With grad school, a three-year-old, a growing fetus, and my writing, I'm letting the garden be a little more go-with-the-flow than in past years. Gardening keeps me sane and grounded, and I need it to be a process rather tha a big project.

What are your thoughts for the garden this spring?

For my friends Down Under, how is your Lammas harvest? Tell me what worked well this year.

Namaste to all!

Gardening in January!

2009-01-02T15:31:00.003-07:00

Today is warm and windy, the usual snow-is-coming winter tease in Colorado. My daughter and I began our garden today! Those of you in zone 5 or cooler will think me daft, but in fact we started seeds that require cold stratification. We planted organic peach and apricot seeds I saved last summer. We also planted perennials in covered recycled plastic pots.

To learn how, check out these articles:

Mother Earth News - Free Fruit Trees

Wintersowing

We planted lots of xeric (drought resistant) flowers like echinacea, columbine, penstemon, and bee balm. I can't wait for the teeny sprouts to come up in a few months. I have a vast spread of mulched yard that needs a good xeriscape garden. Since buying enough seedlings to fill the space would be cost prohibitive, I'm going with winter sowing my perrenials. Easy and fun - and it gave me a much-needed mid-winter boost. It felt so good to dig in the dirt! I'll be ready for the next burst of snow.

New Year's Resolutions About Celebrating Life

2009-01-01T13:16:00.003-07:00

I've never been very excited about New Year's Resolutions. The things we're supposed to resolve - lose weight, clean out the garage, get a new job - all point to our deficiencies. They also seem to be markers of ongoing battles, like needing to take better care of oneself and one's world. They need to be ongoing resolutions.

This year I need a pick-me-up, a little marker of my ongoing journey, so I have set a few "resolutions" for myself: to ride my bike more, do yoga every day, to meditate more regularly. All of these are about taking care of myself.

All of these are about celebrating Life. I resolve to honor my body and spirit here on earth right now. Imagine if we celebrated life and turned ourselves more towards positive interaction with the world and Spirit, rather than beating ourselves up about how fat, lazy or whatever we might think ourselves?

If you want to mark this shift into 2009 (which has such a lovely ring to it, doesn't it?), here are few suggestions of resolutions that celebrate life and our place in the universe:

meditate once a day or once a week or three times a week
spend more time in nature
dedicate x hours a week to your art
join a spiritual community
volunteer one hour a week doing something you love
go easy on yourself
invest in green technologies
pray
play

Remember, these are about being kind to ourselves, the earth, and our fellow earthlings.

Want to share your resolutions?

Solstice, Yule, Christmas: Family Traditions and Spiritual Paths

2008-12-22T14:21:00.005-07:00

In my house we celebrate Yule (the shortest day of the year), Solstice (the first day of winter) and Christmas. This year we have plans to visit my mom and brother for Christmas, so we gathered with my husband's family the weekend before. Much to my pagan heart's delight, this happened to be Yule. I baked a Buche de Noel, a traditional French desert honoring the log burnt through the longest night of the year that will light next year's hearth fire. It is also a symbol of fertility.

We purchased a small real tree this year to celebrate Solstice and give the fairies a place to stay during the long night. My daughter and I undecorated it today, and then redecorated it with bird seed treats and the popcorn chain as a Yule gift to the animals.

How are you celebrating your holidays? How do you honor the earth in your traditions?

A blessed holiday season to you!

Another Earthy Yule Gift: Cloth Menstrual Pads

2008-12-13T10:04:00.003-07:00

"The average woman throws away about 10,000 pads or tampons in her life. In Australia alone this is over 1,385 million disposables per year which are either incinerated (bad for the ozone layer...) or put into land fills (where the plastic backing will take approximately 500 years to partially biodegrade...)." (MoonPads.com)

Here is another suggestion for an ecological Yule/Christmas gift for a girlfriend, sister, or daughter. These will save her money and save the planet. You can purchase a kit of cloth menstrual pads or a reusable cup like the Keeper, Diva Cup or MoonCup from these sites:

gladrags.com
lunapads.com
moonpads.com

Or at your local health food store like Whole Foods.

Or you can make your own cloth menstrual pads. I recommend cute, dark flannel and sturdy snaps. Get a pattern by following the cut of a purchased one, or try Jan Andrea's site (a great place for patterns for all sorts of natural cloth items like baby carriers and nursing tops).

Then make a lovely baggie to hold them in. I love the Velvet Vulva - what a way to celebrate our monthly moon blood! You could go simpler with just some dark velvet or brocade. Make a simple bag with a draw string top. Here's a drawstring bag to knit. What a perfect place to store your homemade or purchased cloth moon blood pads!

If this is for a girl who has just hit menarche or a woman who needs some help loving her blood, you could throw in a copy of The Red Tent or Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing. Or how about a homemade necklace or dark red beads and a goddess pendant? Or a dark red journal to record a woman's sacred thoughts?

This year and always, celebrate a woman's inner power by gifting honor, respect, and blood love. Or make a kit like this for yourself, maybe to celebrate a change of life, or just because you deserve it.

Love to all!

____________
Image of the red tent above from Women Bringing Change to the World.

Dark Night of the Senses

2008-12-04T13:52:00.003-07:00

It's been a challenging year. My father passed away in May, I'm squeezing in grad school around my writing and my seventy-hour-a-week job as mother and house manager, and money is forever tight. Then about a month ago everything started breaking down: the car experienced a mystery problem, our cable connection pooped out for two days (and they couldn't figure out what that was either), expected funds arrived late, I was told erroneously that my financial aid had been canceled, the dryer broke, my hair dryer even died, and various other little things just went kaput. All the while I am trying to deal with these issues my beloved and bright three-year-old is chattering away, telling me stories about her stuffed animals and asking the ceaseless Why. Then I discovered a black widow in the garage while cleaning out an old fish tank to house inherited gold fish.

I've been learning a lot about my warrior spirit.

And I've realized most helpfully that I am in a particularly cleansing phase of the Dark Night of the Senses. This phase of spiritual evolution is marked by the bumps and bruises that occur when one transitions from psychic to subtle levels of development. It is about burning up negative energy and attachments and releasing our attachment to and identification with certain states. For instance, when my father died I faced my identity as Daughter and what that meant for me. Dealing with the screwed up car brings me right into my fear of the unknown, my driving anxieties (and all the lovely metaphors thereof), and my fear of asking for help.

The amazing blessing is (besides that I realize I am going through a powerful spiritual shift) that my husband seems to be going through his Dark Night of the Senses at the same time. We face it differently of course: he gets withdrawn and lugubrious and I fry things and get all anxious. But having someone to talk to, to realize our paths with, is deeply crucial to my sanity. I'm a lucky woman.

I've been reading Jim Marion, Trungpa Rinpoche, and Ken Wilbur to help me through (see links below). Marion is a Christian, Trungpa a Buddhist, and Wilbur an integral guy. I need the blend as my path is not really any one religion, but a blend of Pagan, Christian, and Buddhist. Here is what is helping me right now. Marion says we need to send compassion to our "demons" and to trust God. Trungpa teaches witnessing our anxious behaviors and settling into the sadness that lies underneath. Marion talks about the sadness as a cleansing as the old negativities burn up. Again he says to turn to God and live in faith allowing His grace to soothe and guide us. Trungpa talks about acceptance of what is, the natural unfolding of life all around. I see these as different ways of saying the same thing. Trust. Breath. Feel. Offer compassion and softness to myself and the world.

Does anyone know if there are Pagan stories and guidance through the Dark Night? I'd be very curious to read them.

Blessings to all, wherever you are on your path.

________________________________________________

Here are the books that are helping me right now:

Snow! Peace and Healing

2008-11-29T11:42:00.006-07:00

We have our first real snow, which is to say that it stayed past ten a.m. and more is to come. Just yesterday I was sitting outside in a light jacket enjoying the sun, and today we have snow. Such is life in Colorado, although it has been a strangely warm fall. Nice when the dryer is broken, but the whole climate change thing has me worried.

Snow feels like a respite from the craziness of life, however delusional that belief may be. Life has been a bit nutsy lately, with a broken car, phone and cable outages, broken dryer, and even a mistake by a representative at my school who informed me erroneously that my financial aid had been canceled. I found a black widow spider in the garage. My daughter is three and no longer takes naps. And Spirit has been calling me back to healing and Reiki. So the calm of a silent white snow feels like a balm.

This afternoon my husband took out daughter out Yule shopping at the mall, and I get to sit here, stare at the snow, and write. I'm working on a novel! A dream come true for me. So this snow represents a much-needed sense of peace and being on the right track.

How are you, dear readers, as we sit poised between Thanksgiving and Yule? Or for those of you not in the states, or not in the northern hemisphere, what does this time of year bring for you?

I wish you and yours peace and joy. Namaste.

Green Gifts for Less: Christmas or Yule from the (Green) Heart for Kids and Adults

2008-11-10T17:19:00.005-07:00

This Christmas, make a statement about your love of the earth and your love for friends and family without spending much money. This article includes many ideas for beginner and advanced crafters, plus a few more eco-friendly gifts that do not require any “making” on your part.

First, you probably have more cards to send than gifts to buy. You can save green - cash and the planet – by either writing a blog as your card and emailing a link to everyone on your list, or make your own cards. Here are ideas for both.

Holiday Cards

•Write a blog: Check out blogger.com to set up a family blog. If you have basic computer skills (you’re reading this, aren’t you?), you can set up a blog. You can upload photos and videos and write out your annual letter all in the same blog. It costs nothing (unless you scan pictures at a copy center), and once you set it up, you have it there forever. You can update on other holidays, or just reserve for Yule.

•Make your own: Use last year’s cards cut up, craft paper, pressed flowers and leaves, stencils, stamps, stickers, paint, glitter… you name it! Buy recycled cardstock, fold in half, and cut down the middle to make two small cards (or cut the whole sheet in fourths for less bulk – decorate one side and write on the other). This is a great family activity for a snowy day or even on Thanksgiving afternoon. Take turns addressing envelopes or use your computer to print out labels. Even easier, but possibly more expensive, you can make one card and take it to a copy center to duplicate as many times as you need.

Now on to home-made gifts. Here are some ideas for earth-friendly gifts you can make, organized by age group.

For Infants

•Organic cotton chew toys like simple dolls – Purchase organic cotton (may have to order online) in bright primary colors. Wash once. Then fold in half, and cut out simple shapes of fruits, veggies, animals, or people. Stitch around the edges by hand or with a machine, leaving a small opening. Stuff tightly with organic batting. Stitch up the hole.

•Knitted toy fruits and veggies – if you know how to knit, try making fruits and veggies! These knitted veggies are really cool.

•Bum salve – Good for a baby or new parent, bum salve is really easy to make. Pour four tablespoons of organic olive oil into a double boiler (a bowl over a pot of water is fine) over medium low heat. Add a tablespoon each of dried calendula leaves and lavender leaves. A tablespoon of comfrey leaf is nice, too. Let sit on low-ish heat for twenty minutes. Strain the oil and put it back on the double boiler. Grate a tablespoon and a half to two tablespoons of beeswax into the oil and stir till the wax is melted. Remove from heat. Let cool, stirring occasionally for even consistency. Put into a sterilized (with boiling water) little jar.

Here are ideas for gifts for kids.

•Knitted scarves, mittens, or even sweaters – If you already knit, this a an easy choice. Try some new wools, add in sparkly wools for kids, and go for their favorite colors. If you can’t knit, check out a local class for beginners. Knitting has become very big lately, and is a great way to work with your hands.

•Fleece (buy recycled at http://www.wildrosefarm.com/) scarves, blankets – If you don’t knit and don’t want to, fleece blankets are easy to make. Cut a rectangle of desired size – small for babies, larger for kids. Hem the edges, or just leave plain. Or, cut one-inch wide fringe all around the edge, or on two opposite ends. Leave it just like this, or for an even fancier blanket, choose two complementary fabrics and tie the fringe together. See here for more instructions and pictures.

Kids love to make things themselves. What about assembling them a kit for something they can make, like

•Kits for musical instruments out of recycled materials: Shakers can be made out of paper mâche and used light bulbs or out of clean empty containers filled with beans, for instance. For some really great ideas, check out bashthetrash.

•Kits for fleece blanket – you cut, they assemble (see above link for instructions).

•Garden kit – a little ceramic or peat pot, a little bag of soil, and seeds. Write a little poem about planting seeds and include it.

If you’re looking for a nice gift a child can make, what about:

•Salt dough ornaments or figurines – Mix one cup salt with two cups white flour. Slowly knead in one cup water. Leave plain or color with a few drops of tempera paint. Cut with cookie cutters and make a whole in the top with a toothpick to make an ornament, or mold into figurines. Cook at 250 degrees for 2 hours. Let cool, and protect with gel medium if desired. What about a chess set, chunky beads, favorite characters, or little charms?

•Knitted scarves – Kids can learn to knit at about age five or six. Take a class together or learn from an elder!

•Paint a t-shirt – Wrap a plain t-shirt around a 8-10 piece of cardboard and tape on the back so that the area you want painted is showing. Give your kids fabric paints to decorate. I did this with my two-year old last year with an old white t-shirt for Dad.

•Glittery eggs – Poke holes in the ends of an egg and blow out the insides. Rinse clean with hot water. Glue glitter and gems to the egg, and attach a gold wire to hang on a tree.

Alright, now onto home-made gifts for the adults in your life.

•Knit a sweater or sew a robe or other clothing

•Homemade natural cleaners – Mix a tablespoon of white vinegar and a teaspoon of rubbing alcohol into a 1.5 pint mixing bottle of water. Add five to ten drops of a favorite essential oil, like pine, lavender, thyme or orange.

•Homemade tea blends – The possibilities are endless. For a nice soothing tea, blend equal parts dried lemon balm and chamomile with a pinch of valerian.

•Bath bombs, salt scrubs, salves, or bath salts – see
http://www.teachsoap.com/index.html
http://www.essortment.com/family/homemadebathsa_saej.htm
http://www.glenbrookfarm.com/herbs/saltscrubs.html

•Garden kits – A pretty pot, soil, and collection of seeds. Herbs are good, as are annual flowers. They are usually pretty cheap this time of year, too!

•Handmade Christmas ornaments: quilled paper, decorated pine cones, dried orange slices, painted nuts; there are a ton of ideas here.

•Sachets – sew up a little baggie out of pretty fabric scraps, fill with a blend of dried lavender, rose petals, cloves, or patchouli

So – what if you don’t have time or aren’t feeling crafty or there is a person on your list who is just not into crafted items? Don’t despair! You can still send an eco-friendly gift by giving:

•Money donated to Heifer International or another charity: http://www.heifer.org/
These gifts are in all denominations of money, and help a person, family, or community in need. You purchase an animal or share of an animal or care (like midwifery care or a well) in a loved one’s name, and they get a card thanking them for their help.

•Money into a college savings fund – Have any kids on your list? Ask their parents if they have a college fund like a 529 and offer to put money into it.

•Gift certificate for massage or spa day – This supports small business and healers while offering the gift of joy and relaxation.

And of course an eco-friendly book is always a great idea, like Sacred Land or Voices of the Earth! For more on these titles, check out my website, intuitivegardening.net.

I hope you found some ideas here! Please feel free to post some of your own. This is just a beginning of suggested eco-friendly gifts to make or give. What if we all stopped gifting plastic toys and unwanted chachkas! We could change the world!

Happy happy holidays!

Wreath image from http://giftideas357.com/2008/01/homemade-christmas-gift-ideas-come-from.html

A Murder of Crows in the Druid's Tree: A Meditation on Nature

2008-10-20T20:46:00.004-06:00

The neighbors behind us have a huge oak tree in their yard, a majestic and muscular tree who watches over their yard and ours. This morning a cacophony of corvine caws called me out to the yard: a murder of crows laughing and cursing and who-knows-what-else in the canopy of the great oak. My daughter and I had to shout to hear each other over the ruckus. I couldn't figure out what the crows were up to, but more of their feathered friends came to join them. Over our house swooped more curious crows and a pair of critical blue jays.

I just finished reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, in which ravens figure somewhat prominently. It is a book of Enlgish magic taking place in the early 1800's. If such a topic interests you at all, I suggest that the 1000+ pages are very much worth the read. Anyway - it left me feeling mysterious and magically inclined. The crow caucus in my back yard - in the branches of the sacred-to-druids oak - felt like it might possibly be some sort of omen.

So while I raked the Box Elder leaves in our back yard (the oak leaves haven't yet fallen), I meditated on the possible lessons of this murder of crows. Now, first off, I think the crows were up to their own business. They weren't there for me. Same goes for the tree. However, I believe we can be open to lessons in anything that catches our attention. My attention, my interest is what makes this event a spiritual message.

Crows in the top of an oak tree: Life and death, earth and sky, and a lot of celebrating going on. This seems to me a celebration of the season. This Samhain I honor the passage of two more people: my father and a little boy I barely knew. One lived a long and hard life (my father), the other a short life that ended tragically. They are both on their paths, passed from this life to the spirit realm. The crows tell me to celebrate the lives of these two people, and all the others I have lost. The crows remind me that life is by its very nature transitional. We are at once rooted in the soil and ready to take flight. And that is the party called life.

What sacred messages has nature offered you recently?

I wish you and yours a sacred and peaceful Samhain.