Becoming Myself
By · CommentsI ran across a brief note to myself today, a sentence from a seminar I took awhile ago. “We are here to flourish and bloom!” What an interesting lens to look at my current life through and to look at what I want to create. January is a month for focusing on the theme for the rest of my year, and this little sentence may be a key to a change in emphasis for me.
As is true of many women, my family has been a primary focus in my life. First it was as a sister and daughter, then as a Mother and wife, and most recently as a Grandmother. These are roles though, not who I am. Sometimes these roles have created a time of blooming and flourishing; sometimes there has been strife and angst. After all of that though, they are still roles I play and have played, not the truth of who I am.
Speaking with a very dear friend today brought some of this into sharper focus for me. What if we cannot become as powerful and useful as we are supposed to be unless we are able to leave behind all those roles and push off into the unknown terrain of Wise Woman/Crone? Maybe the ties that bind me to a definite place in my family of birth and origin actually keep me from becoming myself? Can I step into my own wisdom and power as an elder if I do not loosen the tethers I have to the roles of the younger me?
Another statement from this same slip of paper is equally intriguing. “The extent that the world is working is the extent we are stepping into our power.” Applied to the previous ideas, this speaks to me of allowing my deeper, wiser self to emerge and be as powerful as I can sense her to be. I have gifts and talents that can be of use in the world and they have remained under the proverbial bushel for fear it would make someone else seem ‘less’ or take the spotlight off of one of my own.
The ‘everyone else comes first’ idea is from a time when we didn’t live this long with as much health as we have now. In many ways we are on the very edge of the known Universe looking into an unknown future. It occurs to me that we are the elders that have the life skills, the time, the health, and the wisdom to step fearlessly (or not so fearlessly) into what CAN be instead of what has already been.
Dream your dream of how the world can look and feel! Allow the juiciness and passion of the best Earth has to offer us fill your thoughts, and picture a future we can all prosper in. What have you learned by living that allows you to see into a future of beauty? What didn’t work and what brought you gifts beyond expectation? Where is love found and how do you and I cultivate our lives so that each one of us flourishes and blooms? Create a vision of healthy foods, clear, clean water, and vibrant communities that care for the Earth we live in. Dare to breathe in these possibilities above all others, and we can go there together.
We each know the qualities and attributes that are present inside us that give our lives deep meaning, joy, and beauty. We also know that these are the very things that create a peaceful and prosperous world for us – regardless of possessions, position, and cold hard cash. Now, finally, this is what is important in my life. I have lived long enough and lived through enough situations that I do not fear being ‘thrown out into the cold’ so to speak. Been there; done that and I’m here to tell you it’s just another curve in the road. Wait a minute and this too will change.
My true power is within, and I have been funding it all of my life – with all of my life! Now I am ready to claim what I am, and use all the power that I have, to help create a world flourishing and flowering with the best that we have to give. Walk in beauty, my friends, flourish and bloom.
Fermentation
By · CommentsOne of my favorite gifts this Christmas is a book by Sandor Katz “Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods”. I had forgotten how much I love all those fermented foods, and how easy it is to make them at home. What I didn’t know was how very good they are for our digestive tracts! However they have to still be alive to help us out. This means unpasteurized, and fresh so that these little organisms can re-populate our systems with the good stuff every day.
We don’t realize how dependent we are on these good guys until we start having them again – whole and living – and feel the changes for the better in our guts. There are many different ones in every culture around the world (pun intended). There are the vegetable krauts and kimchis, miso, tempeh, yogurt & kefir, cheese, pickles, meads, wines, and beers. There are also breads, vinegars, soy sauces, and fish sauces. The reason that they are always found on the table in many cultures, including ours just a few decades ago, is because they aid in digestion and elimination – not to mention helping manufacture B vitamins!
But those little organisms have to be live! So it being winter and loving all the heavier foods of winter, I decided to start some sour kraut in a crock on the counter in the kitchen! I’ve made kraut before, years ago, in a #10 crock with a large number of cabbage. It was for the whole winter and little did I know that by canning it, I was killing the best part! So this is a very small batch, less than one large cabbage, layered with sprinkles of sea salt and kosher salt.
A week later when I remove the weight and the plate which keeps the kraut under the brine, it has begun to ferment. The taste is a little bit sharp, salty, and still definitely crunchy to the teeth. Already the kraut tastes yummy and I can hardly wait to see how it tastes next week. I may have to try it every day!
After reading this book, I’ve discovered why my beet borscht was never the right amount of sour. I fiddled with the lemons and the yogurt or sour cream, and still not quite right. Now I find it contains saueruben, or fermented beets, done just like the cabbage kraut! I’ll let you know how it turns out after I’ve fermented the beets for a month or so…
Consider this to be another way to get back to basics and begin to enjoy real, live foods again. We all know the industrialized, factory foods are making us sick; now lets get some real and healing foods back in our lives and on our tables. Start anywhere, making sure the yogurt you buy is alive, making your own sourdough bread, starting sour kraut, eating unpasteurized and/or raw milk cheese. Or there is always making beer at home!
Happy New Year!
By · CommentsA Happy New Year to you! It’s the end of a year and the end of a decade. All of the planets are direct (no retrograde planets – not even Mercury!) It’s the end of a Lunar cycle as the moon is in the last quarter and is waning. This is a good time to be very still and become clear about what you want to release , let go of, weed out of your life. This is also a time to ask yourself what you want to take with you into the next year and the next decade.
The ceremony I do tonight calls up my gratitude and joy for the lessons learned in 2010, honors all the pieces and parts I am leaving in the old year and then I write them on a piece of paper which I burn (safely). The smoke carries them into the past.
Now I write what I want to acknowledge, receive, explore, and create in the new year – a manifestation list. I write it in my journal so that I can look at it and read it during the year. I also throw very tiny pinches of sacred herb into a flame as I read each item out loud. This smoke carries my words into the future.
Next I light a new candle and I do a reading for the New Year: with Runes, Medicine Cards, and/or Sacred Path Cards. Any Personal Oracle will do in whatever combination works for you: I Ching, tea leaves, Angel Cards, etc.
This is another way to bring in the New Year…and it deepens the New Years Eve experience into something that contains a lot of personal awareness. When no time is taken for self examination, course corrections, and allowing beliefs to change, we are in ‘default’ mode. That means the same-old-same-old on into the future. That is going to become very uncomfortable from now on! Right now rapid change is inevitable so we might as well go with it and surrender as fast as possible.
Calling in what you want in the New Year has two parts this year. Right after mid-night (or first thing in the morning of January 1st if you go to bed early) I read my manifestation list; then again 12 hours after the first new moon (night of Tuesday January 4th or the morning of Wednesday January 5th). Remember to say the list out loud and breathe after each item.
As you know, when steering something you are constantly making corrections with the steering wheel or tiller. Remember to do the same with your life’s journey. Steer it to avoid the potholes, the speed bumps, and that cliff up ahead! Keep your eyes on both the destination and the moment. Change only happens in this moment so make very good use of it. That’s what will finally deliver you to your destination, or not!
So Happy New Year! Remember that all is sacred. Here is a poem sent to me by a very dear friend and I want to share it with you. It is from the book I Send a Voice, by Evelyn Eaton, 1978:
Great Spirit,
Whose voice we hear in the winds,
Whose breath gives life to the world,
we would restore what greed
has taken from the Earth.
Great Spirit,
we are blind and deaf,
Open your eyes to us
that we may see.
open your ears in us
that we may hear compassion
open your compassion in us
that we may have compassion
upon the Earth.
upon our Mother Earth.
Great Spirit,
may our feet walk gently,
may our hands respect her,
may we learn the lessons
in every leaf and rock,
may our strength restore her.
Great Spirit,
When we face the sunset
when we come singing
the last song, may it be
without shame, singing
‘it is finished in beauty,
it is finished in beauty!’
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