November

How we spent the 4th

Clearly, my daughter's double major in

Global Studies

and

Sexuality and Gender Studies

was worth every penny.

Remember sugaring time at the store?

Winkytoes the Elf Goes Skating

Almost worth mentioning

Mt. Ellen, yesterday,

my last Vermont peak over 4K ft.

News From The Store

Friday: OMFG I AM HOME BRING ME A GLASS OF WINE I AM GOING TO VEG 'TIL I DROP

And make as many stupid blog posts as I feel like. 

 

First Day: The Rose Ceremony Cafe

Making Friends In The Neighborhood

I spent a morning trying to get close to butterflies and bumblebees with one of my soon-to-be new students.

It was royal.

And golden.

And magically delicious.

Making Friends In The Neighborhood

Liriodendron tulipifera!

In the centre of the road stood an enormous tulip-tree, which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air.

(Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow)

Making friends in the neighborhood

Last week he loved me and we shared dinner.

Then his family came home.

Tonight I eat alone.

W A I T!! I hear meowing.

He is here!!

I swear. I am not making this up.

Probably he smelled the salmon cooking.

shiny

Breaking Free

How's your May been so far?  Anything like you expected?  Well, that is, assuming you have any expectations left in this process.

If May is a messy month that you just can't figure out how to clean up, then welcome to the misery of "breaking" free!

We are in the process of literally...and in some ways, suddenly... breaking off from our old selves & lives, dismantling the remaining outworn vestiges of our past and with seemingly no support to fix anything.

If this is happening for you, if the bottom is falling out of your life and you see/feel/know of no way to fix what's broken, no worries...new supports are always on the back end of the dismantling process, but first we are forced to sit still one final time and take solid inventory of our lives and wants, all that needs to go, and all that needs upgrading.

In other words...this is IT...the last hurrah from this insane cycle to deal with, face, release, and break free from our mis-created goo before a new cycle of creation begins.

I am hearing that the most important thing to consider during this time is:  "What do I want for my new life?"

Now, granted we have been pondering, imagining, speculating and contemplating these desires for a decade. However, at this time...from mid-May until July...we need to revise our desires one last time to be sure they are the absolute highest version of what we want as we begin to take the logical steps to creating and implementing them in physical form over the next several years.

This breaking free business has been no joke this month... much in our physical lives is undergoing radical and rapid transformation.

It's easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of things to "fix", tend to and pay for without knowing what's next on the horizon or how we will make it happen, but keep in mind that endings & beginnings happen simultaneously. 

Luckily, life is a circle...an upward spiral of evolution...which means each time we come full circle we are not only at the end, but at the beginning again.  The only glitch in this system is that the end arrives first.

So you are hanging on by a thread, and swimming in seas of uncertainty...we must wait patiently and wait with detachment.  And not by choice... fight the urge to "make things happen" daily...but until support arrives, there really is just no point.  In the meantime, we just have to hang on, stay focused on our new creations until they manifest, and manage the chaos.

We must master the art of "waiting" and "watching" our own lives crumble beneath us.

And just to be clear here...its not as if we are waiting for any THING to happen, we are waiting for universal and energetic alignment and support in the form of inspiration, clarity, motivation, ease, grace, opportunities, etc....all those things that come TO us in the natural flow of forward movement as opposed to reaching out and forcing things to happen.

The reason so much is crumbling at once, is because it's crunch time!  Anything unresolved that needs our attention will be rapidly surfacing until late June so we can tend to all practical details and tie up loose ends.  And know too that it doesn't let up until we've resolved it all...the last week of May the pace will increase even more prompting us to clear the clutter for the incoming wave of new energies from the new cycle before us, where we take our first solid steps in our brand new lives.

(written by Not Me)

Things I thought were true when I read them

When another person makes you suffer,

it is because he suffers deeply within himself,

and his suffering is spilling over.

He does not need punishment,

he needs help.

Thich Nat Hahn

The End

How can it be a wonderful world
when almost every pic on my blog disappears?

HOW?

Still --

there is something about this.

Something about how

even when you fall in a puddle of cow manure

it is STILL a wonderful world.

Five years worth of meticulously culled and edited photos GONE.

 It is google's fault.
Remember I told you that.

Maybe it is time for the wild boar to find a new den.
Or maybe it is time to leave the woods altogether.
Sigh.
I just want my blog back.

Things I Don't Understand

I don't understand why I like the idea of jello so much.

Look! English jello!
It is a brick of concentrated jelly-like stuff.
This little brick makes 4 servings.
 It is about the same size as our boxes of powder.
You make it the same way, with some hot water, then add some ice cubes or cold water, and cold-i-fy it to make it gel.
(Cold-i-fy is the aphasic's word for refrigerate, which didn't come into my head right away, but I left it in so you could get a glimpse of what it is like to have a brain with cloggy synapses.)