More Gratitude

October is a feast....of color, abundance, bounty, beauty. Every year I try to gorge myself on it like a child who knows that birthday cake only comes once a year and so eats until sick. Of course, unlike that child, I never get sick of or from October; I want more and more....and its inevitable passing breaks my heart.

Ah, but then, cooling balm to the riotous color, peace to the frenzy of activity, November arrives. Its winds blow away the warm Summer evenings' haze, and there's a delicate, naked beauty in the blue-black night and bare trees adorned only by the waxing Moon and Venus.

November can be harsh and intense; even as I began to write this yesterday,  the stiff breeze had the wind chimes calling out in alarm and the sun shades banging the window frame. The fire was up, we wore double layers, and I was tucked into red alpaca socks all day. It was a gray day, but the kind of gray that is unmistakably November, the perfect backdrop for the golden browns and and lingering yellows, a day that requires the simmering of soup & burning of cedar incense, and so I embraced November with nary a glance back at October. A farm market visit was followed by the making of an amazing roasted squash and apple soup (with bacon!), not a creamy and refined soup; no, this soup is hearty, chunky, beautiful and comforting.

I will say the recipe has a few vague moments, and the end result was a tad too sweet. I recommend leaving the bacon in large pieces and removing once the simmering part is done. The recipe uses "white wine or water"; water seemed a bad plan, and I didn't have white wine in the house, so I used cider. Next time I'll use a dry white wine, and tarter apples, and perhaps a wee bit of ginger. I also suggest not mincing the garlic, but instead throwing in a generous amount of halved cloves (I think I halved about 10 good sized cloves) with the apples and squash and onions. I mashed the veggies just with two big spoons, purposely leaving some chunks. Oh, and I added a bay leaf to the simmer pot. It's a soup worth experimenting with, and will go well with grilled cheese sandwiches for a comforting dinner tonight.

We took a ride through the encroaching dusk, dogs in the back of the car watching the world pass by; our destination was the piece of property we're in the process of buying. We have a contract but it's an odd and convoluted story that may take quite a few months to iron out. It's several acres about 40 minutes from here, elevated just enough to change horticultural zones from 5b to 5a, and just a wee bit cooler, 5 or so degrees, from our own house. The wind blows nearly all the time there, sliding off the slopes of the northern Catskills, a living being ever present.  We've yet to manage photos that truly capture the beauty, 

so it will have to be enough to say that the mountains are right there, so close they look like you could walk to them, so close the land feels nestled into their lap. I'm learning alot about patience and trust (as my sister & I say about patience & trust--blech!, although she's so much better at them than I) as we wait to see if it will all untangle. 

This morning I stood out on the porch, coffee in hand, surveying the yard and the vast amount of buttoning up left to do, telling Linda it'll be easier to just move than try to get it all done. And then I realized that the back yard was filled with birds: gold & house finches, bluebirds, chickadees, juncoes, at least three kinds of woodpeckers, and more....gorging on coneflower and black-eyed susan seedheads, in the weeds and trees and quince bush, in the raised beds and tomato pots. I love watching the birds; next weekend's chore list includes setting up the feeder stations in the front yard, but to see so much activity in the back was such a gift, and an affirmation of our plan to begin turning part of the back yard from lawn to meadow. I can watch birds for hours, but alas, too many tasks are lined up for the day, from creating storage for a large quantity of Winter squash to making room in the freezer for several more quarts of soup, roasting veggies for dinner later this week, and cleaning two cupboards to make room for the plethora of spices we purchased while on Cape Cod.  But the window shades will stay up so I can watch the birds as I work. If you're not seeing so many birds today, perhaps a visit to this webcam will make you smile and give you a taste of November's peace. Because amidst the chores and the impending holidays is an oasis of calm. November (in this hemisphere, anyway) invites us to prepare for Winter but also to begin hibernating, snuggling in, to sit by a fire and take time to watch the birds; to simmer soups and stews; to knit and spin, sew, read, write; to dream and plan; to savor this moment. November has moments of such quiet, almost the hushed whisper of a Winter snowfall but not quite...November is our chance to catch our breath, recoup, and prepare for the months ahead. And for that, I'm deeply grateful.

Have a great day!

Giving Thanks

Do you ever catch a recurring theme out of the corner of your eye? Maybe you're bringing in groceries and catch a glimpse of shirttail as it disappears behind a tree. Perhaps it flits past your window just as you look up from your desk. Or you're outside watching the sky at sunset, hear a rustle in that pile of leaves, and it's gone. And yet, each time you spy juuust enough to recognize and name it. In this particular case, its name is Gratitude. Suddenly a call to this particular grace is appearing like pumpkins in October, glowing without a word, waiting peacefully if not patiently for me to sit up and heed the call. There was this post by one of my favorite bloggers. There was an invitation in my email inbox for another 21 day meditation challenge (I admit, i never get farther than a week and a half, but this invitation came at just the right time) dedicated to 21 days of....gratitude. I was working on a post for Sagewomon blogs on resolutions for the spiritual new year, and the one that was most insistent on being included was--come on, say it with me--gratitude.

I like to think I'm good about being grateful. But when I'm being honest, maybe I'm sometimes a tad cursory about it, flipping off a thank you in the same vein as saying "have a nice day" to someone when you honestly couldn't care less about that person's day....not that you wish them a bad one, just....not invested in whether their day is good, bad or indifferent.  I've never been all that fond of Thanksgiving day, believing that what we learned about it in grade school 'history' class was a revisionist fable, and self-righteously declaring that we shouldn't need a government-appointed day to give thanks. But November really is a big lead-up to that day; it permeates the air like wood smoke this time of year. So it seems I need to take the not-so-subtle hint and take some serious time to revisit gratitude, to learn from Kelly at Minding My Nest, to take part in the (free)
21 Day Gratitude Meditation Challenge, and work on honing general thankfulness into something rich, deep and tangible, to experience Gratitude as a state of grace, and share it with you, if you'll allow me to.

Yesterday's meditation thought  (please note; you can pick it up at any time, even if you 'missed' the first day or two or ten...) was "With profound gratitude, I live my purpose." Well, this may not be the most thankful of thoughts, but as soon as I heard that, I was in a tizzy.  Purpose?!  Live my purpose?! Not by a long shot, buster! What I do to make a living is most definitely not my purpose and I'm not doing it with gratitude, that's for dang sure! 

Sigh. There goes the enlightenment train, speeding away from the station, me waving my arms like a fool as I run and trip along the tracks behind it.

But then my brain stopped clamoring. I let myself take in the glorious photography that accompanied the meditation, let the words roll over me, and then, like a butterfly landing in my open palm, I knew. I knew what I've known since I was--seriously, not making this up--eight years old. My purpose is a version of translation and expression: observing and taking in the world around me, processing it and then expressing it in a way that lets others--even just one person--recognize it & think that's what I felt/saw/thought but didn't know how to say! Forgive me if that sounds like hubris, because it isn't meant to be. I want to be.....am meant to be....a voice. I judge it, belittle my efforts, hide from it, but that is my purpose. And today, with profound gratitude, I'm claiming my purpose. Living it will come, perhaps in baby steps, but owning it here and now is worthy of heart-felt thanks.

How about you? Interested in sharing this gratitude journey? What is your purpose, and are you living it yet? 

Home Sweet Home

Home….the four letter word stuffed with so much meaning it looks like an ‘after’ photo in one of those flex trash bag commercials. It can be as simple as a shelter, as complex as love. It can warm the cockles of your heart (wherever cockles might be located; beside the left ventricle, perhaps?) or chill you to the marrow. 

When I was a child, home leaned more to the cold bones side of things. It wasn’t usually a safe haven, a place of warm fuzzies. Oh, there were moments, but home was found in the branches of the willow tree, or in the hollow behind a big lichen-speckled rock, hidden from view by shrubs. Always there was a book involved, and my refuge was in those pages. Every year my family loaded up the car: parents, three kids, camping gear, luggage, and set out at 2 am to head for some mid-Atlantic beach. It was a migration my parents—and I—lived for, landing somewhere between Ocean City, MD and Topsail, NC and we’d settle in for the week. I anxiously awaited the moment we hit the sand and I made my way to the water’s edge, standing juuuusst out of reach of the tide, imagining that with each wave that hit the sand the Sea was rising up to greet me; that first moment chilly, foamy water hit my toes I was being greeted, welcomed…..welcomed home. I would dip a finger into the water & taste it, a sacramental wine that was more communion than anything I’d felt at church. In moments I’d be up to my waist, then diving under, floating on my back, riding the waves to shore and heading back out again, a mermaid restored to the sea from whence she came. Sure, there were rough moments when She got a tad rough, and I felt like a cigarette butt being ground into the sand, but mostly I felt cradled, safe, at peace and joined, blood to salt water, like I belonged there above all other places. I always, always intended one day to live in sight, sound, smell….soul….of the ocean. As an adult, responsibilities conspired to keep me from the sea. There was a day here & there, but an awkwardness prevailed; it didn’t feel quite right to abandon the family to spend hours in the water, turning into a happy prune. Still more years later, I fell in love with the place I’d always lived, this river-kissed valley punctuated by assorted mountains.

I came to know sprawling farms, sunset mountains & dappled woods as my shelter, my place of peace. I’ve mentioned in other posts how, during the year spent living in Baltimore, I longed for the Hudson Valley, how we came off the Thruway on a house-hunting trip, came around a bend in the road, and suddenly tears poured down my cheeks as the snow-draped Catskills came into view, because I had so missed this place. Fast forward to this past week. Linda & I took our first vacation in four years, and went camping on Cape Cod. 

The weather was good, the Moon was full our second night there, we laughed long and hard at Kate Clinton & Karen Williams, ate fish and roasted marshmallows, snuggled under blankets and listened to fog dripping off the trees onto our tent. 

We bought spices, herbs and more at the Atlantic Spice Company, watched the sun set over the salt marsh, 

meandered Fall-bedecked New England roads. And on Saturday, we finally made our way to Herring Cove Beach. In season, this is Provincetown’s most popular beach according to the brochures, but on this cool, sunny late October day, we saw maybe two dozen people. It was mostly just us, sun, sky, breeze, sand, cormorants, a seal…and the sea. As we strolled at the water’s edge, I dipped a finger in the water and touched it to my tongue. The briny cool was as familiar as if my last visit was days ago, not years. 

But later, sitting in the sand with Linda, I realized it no longer felt like home. It was lovely and peaceful, but like visiting….a friend’s home, not mine. I looked at my beloved, wind-blown and lost in thought, her mind spinning with inspiration and plans. We’ve been together 9 years now….we’ve dreamed, planted, painted, learned, worked, laughed, cried, shared dogs, cats, chickens, bees (okay, we don’t actually share the bees!), planned, imagined, risked, sowed, reaped….together. It doesn’t matter whether we’re snuggled in a moon-bathed tent or sweating in the garden, caressed by a blanket of fog on the piece of mountain-view property we’re trying—hoping-- to buy or smushed on the couch with Yeti, Lola, Pip & Elf—one happy, eclectic pack. Home is no longer a place; it’s a state of being, a state of grace. Home is with…no, home is this womon. She is as simple as shelter, as complex as love, and the only home I’ll ever want.

She's Here!

And She's most welcome: Fall...Autumnal Equinox...that time when changes fly through as quickly as flocks of Canada Geese...

Local apples are becoming sauce in the crockpot, sweetened with local maple syrup. Yesterday's root veggies, gathered from assorted local farms, are about to start roasting in the oven to be enjoyed through the week. Linda is up working with her bees,  I have wool calling my name, the wind is blowing liquid gold light through the already-turning leaves. 

Blessed Fall to all whose hearts sing and souls dance this time of year!

Cuspin' It Up

I don't know about you, but for weeks it's felt like I'm balancing on a cobweb thin line, teetering and slipping, one foot landing on this side, the other foot landing on that side....back & forth, over & under. Everything feels like it's living on the cusp, not quite here or there, then or now. Some of it is the seasonal seesaw; in one morning we picked Concord grapes to make jam

and bought a half bushel of San Marzano tomatoes to make batches of pomodoro sauce to freeze, a culinary preservation of two seasons in one day.

It's a strange time of year, one day crazy hot (a week ago we had a heat index of 104), two days later we're longing for a fire in the pellet stove. The hummingbirds are more prolific than they were all Summer, and the chickens are calling it a day before 7:00. I'm antsy for Fall to begin, but those cuspy weeks between late August and the first day of Autumn are my busiest, most stressful at work, leaving me too exhausted to enjoy the aforementioned chilly evenings. I was at work before the sun was fully up, and arrived home after it had settled in for the night. Incidentally, that's why I've been absent from the Land of Bloggers; I've been thinking of so many of you but have scarcely been on the computer for anything but work in weeks. This evening I finally had time to start meandering through your worlds again, trying to catch up with all I had missed.

The purple asters and goldenrod have created a symphony of color, the opening act for the foliage fireworks to come, but some tree disease has pre-empted the maples' show; all over our part of the Hudson Valley the maples are spotted and wilting, leaves falling with every breeze, not with the grace of final bows but with a dread finality of lingering illness. 

I'm grateful to be returning to hearth and home at a more reasonable time, to reacquaint myself with the menagerie (Linda is currently fostering two litters, several weeks apart in age), but antsy to make our escape to Cape Cod in 4 weeks. This past weekend we wandered to a neighboring county and began daydreaming of a life spent waking up to this view:

I'm restless, yet tired, longing to be out in the crisp days and curled up near the fire with wool and tea. There's work to be done, garlic, kale, snakeroot & a spice bush to plant, soups to cook and freeze, apple & pumpkin butter to be made and preserved, but I'm aching for the hibernation of the seasons to come, wanting to just sit somewhere and allow body, soul and mind to knit themselves together again.

I want it all, kids....and I'm not even sure what all is.  Are any of you feeling this same betwixt and between tug these days?

Never Enough

Time, that is.  A staffing issue at work as September marches relentlessly closer and we get busier daily, and days lost to feeling crummy (in part because of the prescribed antibiotics which are almost worse than the illness!) have left me wishing I'd planted at least one bed of seconds this Spring. Why, imagine if I could be out there right now pinching off a few minutes here, digging up an hour there! How awesome would that be???? 

When time gets short, writing is the first thing to fall by the wayside. I come home too tired to do anything but stare into space and hug the critters. But having made a commitment to the Sagewoman blog channel, I snuck a little time away from chores to do a post. And now I'm going to cheat a bit, and rather than write new content today for this blog, I'm going to do a cross post. I know many of you aren't of the Pagan persuasion, but I like to think this post below has something to offer, even if you change Goddess to God, Her to Him.

And I promise to do an original Confessions post later this week! Wishing you a gentle week...

A Different Harvest

We're researchers, Linda and I. We don't just grab a bunch of seeds, stick 'em in the ground and wait. No...we think it to death, researching heirlooms, tracking down companies with organic seeds, amending our soil, measuring rainfall. We were the same way with getting chickens. I knew what breeds I wanted because I spent hours comparing the merit of Australorps versus Orpingtons. We built the coop to ensure the appropriate roosting space, and spent hours discussing placement of the nest boxes versus the roost. I have this idea I need to do things perfectly. A mistake at work costs me lost sleep and spiking blood pressure. A botched dinner prompts numerous apologies to Linda (who honestly couldn't care less), and when my sons run into life's walls, I just assume it was a flaw in my parenting that is causing them anguish. As for my writing skills, well, no one is a more brutal critic than I. Yeah, bring on that cat o' nine tails and hair shirt!

So when all that research is done, when we've planted things just so, in perfect organic soil, with organic fertilizer, watered exactly as we should, provided just the right sunshine, it's kind of a rude slap when the harvest is...well, nada. This year forty heirloom tomato plants yielded a grand total of a dozen cracked and blemished tomatoes. Our peas barely produced. Heck, even my kale tanked!  Seriously-who can't grow kale? The gardening year started with such promise, and is winding down with anything but a fireworks display of produce. 

But we did have a harvest. You know what grew this year? The fruits and flowers we didn't touch. As I write this, I'm snacking on sweet, juicy grapes, that aside from a March pruning, never received a moment of care. We never even got around to covering them to keep away Japanese beetles. In the freezer, there's a tray jam-packed with blueberries from the bushes we haven't fertilized or pruned. The garlic hanging to cure above the living room window was planted last Fall, covered with straw, and untouched (except for harvesting their scapes) until two weeks ago. Coneflowers, black-eyed susans and morning glories fill the yard with color, but we didn't plant them this year or last. We just let them be.

And so it can--and sometimes should--be in our walk with Goddess. Many of us have created or shared in elaborate rituals; even when solitary, we've smudged, cast the circle, invoked the elements, tossed in more than a few thees & thys. We've chosen the right colors and written poetry, researched which aspect of Her to call upon. Perhaps the ensuing ritual was profound and mystical, took us to a deeper place with Her and ourselves. and that's good. But it's so easy to over think, to strive for the perfect prayer, perfect ritual; it's easy to lose sight of what we seek because we're lost in the planning. 

There's a peace that comes with stepping outside with your coffee first thing in the morning and raising it in toast to the One that gave us that morning. There's a simplicity and contentment that comes from taking a walk in the woods and just having a conversation with Her. The whispered thank you breathing from our lips as we fall asleep can be the perfect prayer. The mundane can become the sacred with our intent; as we put our gardens to bed and preserve our harvests for the Winter to come, we can ask Goddess what in ourselves, in our lives, can be preserved or put to rest. We can wash the dishes or organize our desks while singing our favorite Goddess chants. I'm blessed with a short commute to a less than ideal job, and often use that morning drive to say a prayer and ask a blessing for the day (sometimes, it's simply Goddess, give me strength !). 

Don't let your mind shout over your heart and soul. Choose one small act to bring Her into your here and now without perfect words or the right incense blend. Just one. Maybe tonight, when you lock the doors before bed, whisper a hello to the waxing Moon and ask Her to shine on and protect your hearth and home. Take just one moment to see and feel Her with no preparation. I promise, you'll reap far more than you've sown!

Harvesting

Thursday was Lughnasadh for those of us who call ourselves pagan. It's a holy day in honor of Lugh, an ancient Celtic god often represented by light and a powerful sun. My path is Goddess-centric, and so I acknowledge the day as the first of the three harvest festivals (the second is the Fall Equinox, the third, Samhain--Halloween). The very first seasonal ritual I consciously observed as spiritual practice was Lughnasadh, about 17 years ago. I remember rising at dawn so I could go into the park across the street from us before the neighborhood awoke, and there I made offerings of corn muffins, gave thanks, and rejoiced at the turning of the Wheel. This year I honored the day in part by slow-roasting and then freezing tomatoes from a local farm, giving thanks for the bounty that will sweeten Winter evenings. 

But I don't like alot of things about Summer; it's a season that leaves me squirming in discomfort, languishing in heat and humidity. I'm deeply grateful for the bounty of this time of year; I know this morning the farm market will yield apricots and plums, tomatoes and zucchini, herbs and corn. And I love that the place I work is closed on Fridays most of the Summer. Friday mornings on the porch, drinking coffee while soaking in the glory of the morning glories and the songs of the birds are a blessing I don't take for granted. I'm kind of backwards; this is my hibernation time, the time when I have little choice but to dream and plan. I come awake as the days grow shorter and the nights cooler, when pumpkins and apples replace tomatoes as farm market staples. But still, there is a harvest here in our corner of the world....

We gathered our first garlic today!  We've never grown it before, and got 28 heads for 72 cloves planted, but there it is, hung in a never-gets-direct-sun north-facing living room window, with a window fan below, our very first homegrown garlic! We have several notes of things to do better in the future (remove the Winter straw mulch and fertilize come Spring among them), but for a few months, we'll savor this very first garlic. 

Garlic is a fascinating thing; for those who haven't grown it, you plant individual cloves. About nine months later (!), after it has lived in the dark, put out tall green shoots into the world, and those shoots have danced in Summer breezes and then died back, you get big heads of the stuff, and you plant individual cloves from the best of those heads....if you get it right, you sow what you reap and then sow the best of that harvest. Isn't that a great metaphor for spiritual growth?  

What are you harvesting this month as Summer begins her final songs?