Cyber vs IRL

Tell me about the Insta-story? It's basically snapchat on Instagram, right? It's not like Facebook live where you can catch up and watch later if you take a few weeks off from social media, right? If you miss the story within 24 hrs it's gone, right? You missed out on part of whoever you're following's life because you took a break from whatever reason (I usually take breaks because I need to clean my house and hug my kids.)


So... How do we have real life interactions with people when we have to keep checking their live feeds and stories to "know what's up with them?" How do we learn to be kind, tactful and truthful when we're constantly seeking the connections we crave on a tiny screen? How can we learn to trust our selves when we are constantly distracted by the pizazz of another's way to do life?


Blech!


I'm all for having a cyber tribe. They're super helpful and lovely in times of isolation and distance, but I don't believe humans were meant to be isolated or to develop relationships with the world through a computer in their hand. I want an IRL (in real life) tribe who will get dirty in the woods, who will come over and bake or paint, whom my children will grow up knowing as safe people, role models and other trusted adults when mom's not available. I want backyard cookouts and singalongs. Those can't happen when we're all staring at our phones trying not to miss each other's lives. By doing that we are actually missing out on each other's lives! It's easy to type "I'll pray for you" but it takes work to bake a meal or clean the house of someone in need. It takes work to truly connect with other humans. And I get it, connecting can be messy. We have to apologize from time to time instead of pretending we didn't see the message that said we hurt someone's feelings. We have to roll up our sleeves and put our deeds behind our words for more than the 10 seconds it takes to snap a pic and post it. we get held accountable when we have IRL community, but its a beautiful thing to know those people also have your back should trouble find its way to your door.


I commit to working in my relationships IRL. Cultivating a tribe is just as much work, and therefore just as rewarding, as cultivating an herb garden. Each plant has a personality and a skill, each person in my life does too. How do we work together? Some of us grow well side by side daily, others are delicious when stirred together in healing teas or soups. Others need room to grow tall and spread out in order to gain the deep wisdom of a life lived in the clouds. I am thankful for our time together in stillness, embracing the cooling quiet moments in the shade, of the wisdom found in being still, together, and listening to loved ones in real life.


My Cyber tribe is all over the world, full of exotic spices and flair and I wouldn't trade them for anything! My IRL tribe suffers every time we move. They get pushed into Cyber tribe and i fear my Cyber tribe doesn't get to see the real me, the me that can only be seen by looking each other in the eyes, through all the many ways humans interact when in the same room: energetically, emotionally, telepathically, hormonally. I love the idea that when women are gathered together there is a natural release of oxytocin in the space. (I say "idea" because I haven't fully researched the claim and don't like to make scientific statements I can't backup. But still the idea is beautiful!) It so much harder to pretend that "thing" isn't bothering me when a trusted someone is looking me in the face. Its so much easier to hide behind a screen and pretend I got my shit together. You know what? I don't have my shit together. I don't think I ever have. I am constantly rearranging ideas and plans and modifying even up to GO time. It works to stay flexible sometimes, but to say I have my shit together would be a lie. And a trusted friend looking me in the face would be able to catch me in that lie much easier than in a text message or a well framed and edited Instagram post.


So I'm not gonna fake my life with you guys. I may not have my shit 100% together, I have piles of baggage to sort through and discard, I believe I will never stop growing, but I will keep coming back to myself (and hopefully this space) along the way and keep what is still working and throw out the rest. Unclutter your life, that's a hashtag movement, right? But my favorite is #unfaketheworld and that starts with un-faking me.


So cyber and IRL tribe, let's be real with each other. Social media, while helpful, can be distracting. Let's get there and see each other (especially this time of year when the darkness makes us feel even more alone than usual) and hold each up, practice active listening and truth-telling. Be together and feel your energy shift. There's magic when people get together in love (side note, love doesn't mean mushy, gooey, see-it-in-the-movies BS, it means mutual respect and adoration that genuinely cares for the other's well-being). Now text someone and make plans to walk in the park or get coffee or whatever you love to do that won't break your budget, just put down the phone and look them in the face!


Do it!

Today

Today started with finding a small flood in the back hallway. There were/are no explanations for this flood or signs of its origin. Therefore clean-up ended with mimosas, because floods equal a great excuse for using the New Years champagne we never opened.

This flood, plus Pete's need to watch football today, naturally escalated into Aoife pouring coffee down my back, Pete creating smoke in the oven for the second day in a row, and a bowl of popcorn getting tipped and flown all over the kitchen. Before noon.

I'm writing this to remind myself to breathe. Most days have been like this lately. I wake up running and I don't really get a breath until Aoife goes down for a nap and then it's time to power clean or prep dinner. While standing near my kitchen windows in a pile of Aoife's lunch offerings rejected by the dog, I stopped long enough to notice and count the 18 eastern bluebirds in my front yard busily turning over leaves looking for treats brought out by last night's rain. That short 2 minutes brought a little calm to my shoulders. It helped keep me from screaming like my children have for the last month straight. 

Living in chaos is not my favorite way to be. lately my family seems determined to turn our house into a disaster zone, added bonus if someone goes down screaming. Triple points if the focus of the war breaks, mom'll fix it. My life is chaos since all my time is focused on repairing everything around me with barely any time to breathe before the next meltdown or mealtime.

 It may feel as though all i do is clean, repair toys and tend to injuries, but I know that's not true. Life and parenthood can seem overwhelming (and I know this seems like a lot of whining) but it is not the truth. The truth is I live with caring people who love life. They have big emotions and imaginations to match. Cleaning up after a fairy balloon ride over the mountains and through the woods of my living room is not on their radar. I do get help with fun chores like mopping and making vinegar volcanos in the bathroom sink and replacing puzzle piece 'cookies' on their baking sheets. I do get a few minutes to read real books when i ignore the state of my floors. And lately reading books with pages full of text is more appealing than the Internet, than dishes, than playing princesses, editing photos or journaling. Reading and gathering in, sitting quietly and absorbing knowledge is appropriate for these cold winter months. 

Now if only my children would learn to read and we could spend hours each afternoon doing just that. It'll happen soon, or so they tell me. For now, I have to keep them from strangling each other as they fight over plastic beaded necklaces and clean up all the spilled food. It's a small moment in their lives, a small moment in mine, and how easy it is to get stuck in these small moments. 

Today, I choose to get stuck in a small moment watching little birds splash in puddles and turn over leaves. What do you choose?

Sundays

At our house, Sundays are our family day. I would say "day off" but what does that mean to parents? We don't turn off our alarms or the chickens would remain locked in without access to food or water, so someone has to get up and take care of the animals. We don't seem to ever turn all screens off for a whole day. Pete never truly has a day off from work; people are always calling, reporting how tests went, complaining about a broken plane, adjusting schedules. The children stay by our sides throughout the day.

Sundays are the day when we get 2-person fixit jobs completed. For example, I clean the hen house, he keeps the toddler from eating the poop. He mends the pergola while the older one hands him screws and I keep the little one inside. He replaces insulation in an outside accessed closet that a squrril fell through. (That's a fun story!)

Some Sundays we go to the pool because the indoor slide is open. Some Sundays we bake or visit the library or a park and we all go together. Sometimes I wish Sundays happened on Wednesday and we could visit a zoo or an art museum as a family.

Sundays are usually free of time constraints and outside demands. We pick what we do or don't do. We eat an awesome brunch because we tend to go back to sleep after feeding the hens. Apart from the occasional work call, we have time to slow down, to look each other in the face, to be completely engrossed in play, to read not just at bedtime, to be together. 

Sundays are my favorite. I actually feel more On on a Sunday. If my Sunday is stressful or my Monday morning solo time is messed with, I feel Off the rest of the week. I have become a fan of slow living. And you know what? I'm okay with that.

There's always more paper

So i used to write a blog, fairly regularly even. This blog to be precise. I know I warned you it might be quiet for a bit while I tended to other creative areas in my life, but I didn't mean to go dark! Sorry!! 

I did put a pause on practicing my photography skills and since the painting class has an online discussion forum, I've been focusing my energies there and completely blowing off this space. The baby has hit that toddler phase when all photos are blurry anyway and the big girl has been in school so when she's home she's been painting with me and we haven't had much to share here. 

I did want to share about a recent project we completed. Our library sponsors a preschool art workshop once a month that currently doesn't allow paint brushes. Basically, the librarian reads a book about brushing your teeth and we paint with toothbrushes. That sort of idea. This time we heard a story about a girl who doesn't want to comb her hair and then we used combs to paint with. As we sat waiting for our turn with the bowl of purple paint, I decided to follow my intuition and just grab the bottle and squirt a glob on each of our papers and see what happened. I noticed some of the other participants were having a hard time releasing the need to make recognizable shapes with the edges of the comb in a similar fashion to using a artist's brush. I grabbed the nearest comb and said loud enough for the frustrated patents to hear "let's see what happens when we use this side of the comb. There's plenty of paper." My daughters and I started combing the paint up and down and back and forth across the page watching deep lines appear. On a hunch I grab a few other colors and squirted more globs on the page and combed the colors together in a square fashion. As I did this I double checked that my oldest had enough paper and was okay staying firmly in her Purple Phase and that my youngest hadn't eaten any of the tempura. As I glanced between the two I noticed the little boy sitting near us abandon his need to make purple stars and blue rectangles. He grabbed a new piece of paper and used a spoon to slap down a glob of red paint and began to experiment. The stress that had been building in his mom's shoulder melted as she noticed him engaging thoroughly into the activity. We kept adding more colors and started swirling the colors in a big circle. I stopped just before everything completely mixed to brown and began washing all the chairs that bore the mark of a visit from my youngest.

 

 Something about that experience didn't agree with my typical recycling of my paper afterwards- discarding coffee filter hats and recycling ice paintings usually leave me guilt-free but this one wouldn't let go. So I brought it home with me to find that the assignment for my painting class was to paint from my center, or from my natural state. 

I believe my natural state is one of curiosity as I find peace, joy and fulfillment in searching for answers to questions, even unspoken questions. I also enjoy watching children explore, guided by their curiosity, uninhibited by what they "should" be discovering. That said, I used the piece we started at the library for this project. I sat down at the kitchen table and just began to fill in the empty spots with whatever color called to me. My oldest came up to me and started suggesting which shapes to include, saying it needs more pink. I followed her lead and when she asked if she could help me paint I knew we were on the right track. 

I have a hard time letting her help me with my creative projects. I wasn't encouraged to explore painting or other drawing activities as a kid and so I am conscious of accidentally discouraging her creative interests. I want her to feel free to express herself however she needs to but at the same time I want to own my own creative needs and paint according to my own intuition and spirit. So when she asks' "mama, can I help you?" I have to answer carefully. "What shapes should I paint?" "Would you like to try this on your own paper?" But in this case, i let her help make some embellishments and this was our result

And so with that, I want to encourage you to try something new guided by that little voice that says "do it!" Some times it's hard to hear this voice under all the negativity and demands on your time, but it's there. Trust it. Amazing things are inside your spirit waiting to get out. And there is always more paper.

A beautiful mess

"What a beautiful mess. What a beautiful mess I'm in." ~ Diamond Rio

Lately I'm finding myself feeling comfortable in the fullness of motherhood. I do miss the free Maiden of my youth from time to time but I'm willing to bet this is normal, healthy even. Every so often tapping into that youthfulness helps me remember to laugh, puts household stress in the appropriate place and renews my creativity and playfulness so I can better connect with my children, my partner, my Self. 

But ah motherhood. The nurturing of others, the constant raw emotions that hurt for children the world over, the moving into wisdom that only comes through experience. I do have to remind myself to let my inner Crone, that contentment with staying home and doing things my way all that time and getting stuck in routines, I have to let her stay asleep just a bit longer. My children are small. Yes, they benefit from routines and wisdom and the security of knowing momma has done this before, but I benefit from not getting stuck.

I am curious how, now that I have two, I feel more comfortable with this role. With the coming of motherhood and my first child I was not comfortable being at home all the time, allowing boredom to sneak in and force inner quiet and personal creativity. Now that my second child has enter toddlerhood and doesn't need me as much as she did in infancy (and boy do they NEED you then!) I feel a little more space in my days. A little more spontaneity returning. A healthier blend of maiden and mother energy. It's freeing, like the feeling of coming of age with new horizons to explore. 

So, with this new accepted growth comes a new adventure. I'm taking an online painting course that is challenging not only my creativity but also my psyche. We are exploring metaphysical themes, having philosophical discussions and painting through our questions to our answers.

It has already been a beautiful experience highlighting just how unbalanced my home life truly  is! Food is being prepared, laundry and chores are being maintained, sick children are being tended to, but yet the house is a constant disaster. I'm taking a few minutes to read assignments in the morning, Emagene and I paint and create through Aoife's nap, and then I join in the online discussions while Pete bathes the girls. All times when I used to run around putting up toys and folding other people's laundry and other general tidying. You can imagine the state of my house! Why does including daily self care mean the highlighting of everyone else's need for MY care? Ah motherhood. 

I wish you could see the state of my soul! 

It is healing. Reconnecting my maiden and mother, searching for a way to include the crone so the rest of my family doesn't implode from the stress of living in chaos.  It is a beautiful mess. I may be absent a bit from here and from Facebook during this month-long class but I will return, hopefully full of bliss and ready for a more balanced, creative approach to life, especially now that the weather has changed to perfect and the children have learned how to play together.  

May your soul find wings and laughter in every day!

the inner workings of my mind, part 1

An old college roommate's mother used to say "you can do anything for a year." Its true. I lived in London for almost a year, I've been on the verge of penniless for a year, I've tried so many different forms of religious expression for roughly a year each. I've blogged for a year. I've studied theatre, art history, world religions, American history, farming, birth, parenting, unschooling and other interests for about a year each. (If I keep listing things, I'm gonna sound really old, so I'll stop the list here.)

In all this searching, I've found a handful of constant Truths. The Truth that continues to ring the loudest is We Are All Connected. How I supplement the soil affects the bug population which affects the plant production which affects the food supply which affects the hunger level and food quality of the population which in turn affects the health and peace of the planet. How I treat my neighbor affects his mood which affects how he treats the next person he comes across and so on. From this base, the rest of my convictions begin to take shape.

I was raised in a conservative christian household. Like many "good christian" families we were at the church building any time the doors were open. We limited our interactions to church related activities, "helping" those less fortunate usually by praying for them. And yet I somehow came away from that house with a musical appreciation for the Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Sarah McLachan, Boys to Men, and the other heathen artists of my high school years.

My mother blames my part-time attendance at the public high school for my spiritual degradation. I thank that same experience for opening up my mind to the possibilities this life has to offer. I never would have found my professional passion or my husband without the freedom of mind to explore my convictions. But what I truly learned from that "real world" experience (as real as high school gets) is the simple difference between those two perspectives: blame and thanks. Blaming coats an experience in a blanket of negative assuming the only result is something less than positive. Thanking an experience for the opportunity to learn and grow acknowledges that, while not all the choices made may have been the most helpful, one can come away with profound revelations and know what choice might serve better the next time around. That simple, yet profound distinction set me in a lifelong search for the spiritual expression that makes my soul fly.

And so, here I am nearing the end of a year in Texas surrounded by a lovely group of Wiccans. I have discovered that what I love about Wicca is the same aspect I love about Judaism, Buddhism, Jainism and many tribal ways: the focus on the female in deity and a love of the mystical. It was always hard for me to understand the compassion of an angry Father God, but compassion in a Mother Spirit who holds her children with loving arms while letting them choose their own expression of life without judgment is an easier picture of unconditional love for me to digest. The concept that the energy we put into our deeds comes back to us, found in the theories of Karma or the Three-Fold Rule, which only works when love it spread unselfishly without trying to change or manipulate is such a freeing idea! I don't need to convert anyone to my way of being, I just need to live true to myself and accept others as they are when they cross my path. In doing so, I will inadvertently spread the freedom of simply BE-ing to those around me and spread peace. For when we try to impress others, we begin to let stress into our lives.

While I adore these expressions of love, I do not completely understand any of these faith traditions. I still haven't chosen one that fits me. Chanting in Sanskrit always brings tears to my eyes and releases the tightness in my chest. Honoring the Moon and living by the Seasons is not only sustainable spiritually, it is required if I want my garden to thrive without artificial aides.

At the moment, I am a blend of many things. A little backwoods farmer, a little bit of a country-dweller, a little bit of a city girl, a little bit of a non-Christian. So, according to definition, I must be a Pagan. Whatever label I ascribe myself, I will live fully in accordance to the peaceful nature of my heart. I only ask that you be gentle with my heart, for what faith tradition you choose is your choice and I will not ask you change the direction your heart is set upon.

May we continue our journey together in peace and do our best to understand each other. No one lives the same experience as any one else, therefore we can not expect any one to have the same convictions or be on the same path as ourselves.

Namaste.

Putting' Up

It has been a busy morning at our place!

Old Soul

Sometimes I sit with my little girl and see the old soul in her giving me a glimpse of Emagene in 10-12 years. Tonight, for instance, as she sat in one my tanks fashionably tied back with hair elastics, hurriedly eating tomato soup and kale chips after a day of being outside (chalking, chicken chasing, playground experimenting and hot tubbing) it was easy to see her as a young teen just in from practice or work, starving but needing to get to something else soon. In this case it was mop the kitchen and dining room. The future will probably hold more boyfriends and homework and less voluntary housework. And I'm okay with that because on those nights I'll remember tonight and her thoughtfully whipping each slop off the table and completely ignoring her soaking shirt only to pass out in my arms a half hour later.

Embracing My Inner Hippie

Today I embraced my Inner Hippie by starting a parsley vinegar. We go through a lot of fresh herbs. In the rare occasion that we don't use everything, we bundle and hang dry what's leftover. I recently learned that I can use the dried stems from this practice to make flavored vinegars for salads and cold relief. I'm still learning which herbs can aid in home remedies and recommend you double check anything I say/do with a credible source before trying it at you house. (wisewomentradition.com is a good start)
Anyway- today:
I took a bunch of dried parsley, removed the leaves and stored. Then passed the stems to Emagene to be broken into 1/2 inch pieces and placed in a recycled glass herb jar. Once that was finished, we covered the stems with pasteurized apple cider vinegar and sealed with a plastic lid since we didn't have a large enough cork stopper for this jar (and metal corrodes).
Now we wait a few weeks and viola! Parsley Vinegar! can't wait!