Category Archives: Spirituality

Hearthcraft Book Update

Total word count, hearthcraft book: 8,800
New words today: 1,250

Five hundred words before a two-hour nap (the nap bit was intentional, the two hour part was not), the rest in the hour post-nap before I went to get the boy. The five hundred took longer. I’m remembering that my most productive work hours are between four and six. The problem now is that I have to leave at 4:45ish to collect Sparky.

What I’m currently struggling with on this hearthcraft project is the balance between spiritual and practical information. Ideally, one would explore the spiritual associations of each practical bit of information, but that’s just not possible. I’m at the throwing information down on the page stage of the process, and I keep thinking in the back of my active brain that it all should be much more meaningful. There is plenty of time to go into the spiritual aspect of all these practical things once that practical things are down. Baby steps, brain. One thing at a time.

Today’s amusing tyop: ‘crate the ambiance’. Because you can’t let it be catching, goodness no.

A Discourse Upon Vehicles And Food (With A Multitude Of Parenthetical Remarks)

This morning, I opened the front curtains to see the minivan next door parked on an odd angle in the driveway. So odd, in fact, that upon closer examination we saw that the back end of the van had slipped sideways on the ice, coming to rest against the back bumper of our car.

HRH inched our car forward and cranked the wheel, easing it back and out past the crooked van bit by bit, manoeuvring past the upstairs neighbour’s car on the other side. He parked it across the street for me and left to catch the bus to work.

When the next-door neighbour came out he stared at his van and walked all around it, as if he suspected someone of hitting it. Then he looked across the street at our car. I wish he’d looked out his own window half an hour earlier and seen his vehicle leaning on our back bumper; things would have been a lot clearer.

Anywhats, the boy had a lovely outing this morning with his caregiver (during which, I am told, he happily sighed ‘Oh…kissmas!’ while gazing at a Budweiser advert), the car now has the winter tires on (take that, winter!… except it’s a balmy five degrees above zero now), I have (useful) stocking stuffers for Sparky, as well as the new ornament for my annual ornament exchange with HRH, and one for the boy, too. I also treated myself to a Happy Meal on the way home, one of the approximately two McDonald’s meals I have in a year. (Did you know that one cheeseburger — a plain cheesburger, not a Quarter Pounder or anything larger — constitutes one-third of your daily recommended sodium intake? Yeah. Bleargh. Why I wanted it, I do not know.)

While we’re on the topic of (quasi) food, last night I made a huge pork roast that was juicy and tender. It was so successful, in fact, that the boy actually picked pieces of pork out of his bowl and ate them, along with a lot of gravy and corn (kernel by kernel, of course). This is huge, because he doesn’t like meat very much. And I did what Nigella suggests in one of her books: I cut the fat off before I pulled the roast out, put it in a separate pan and roasted it alone while the pork was resting in order to make crackling. I have been craving crackling for about seven years now. And after eating a piece the size of a pink school eraser, I’m done for the next seven years again. Instead of warming the corn on the stovetop or in the microwave I tossed it in a Corningware dish and slipped it in the oven while I roasted the crackling. If I’d been thinking I would have done the same with the mashed potatoes to make the top crisp.

We did an elevation ritual last night that was a lot of fun and felt really good. I’m realising that shouldering a lot of ritual work over the past few years has really burned me out. I enjoy ritual with others, but being the one to come up with and/or lead a disproportionate number of them takes away from that enjoyment because I’m busy facilitating everyone else’s experience. It’s always nice to participate in someone else’s ritual for a change.

Thoughtful

Symphony

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common — this is my symphony.

~ William Henry Channing

What I need to work on: acting frankly (I second-guess myself all the time and think myself to death), talking gently (I tend to snap when I’m irritated, although thank goodness this has decreased over the past month), and hurrying never (there is always so much to do that I rush things sometimes and make them more stressful for myself).

Huzzah!

Now that I’ve made sure the news has been appropriately posted elsewhere…

NEW BABY!!!

To be specific…. NEW GODSDAUGHTER!!!!!

We are so happy for the Preston-LeBlancs. We spent the day scurrying around collecting things for them, because we of all people know what having a premature baby is like. Not that anyone else doesn’t… just that, well, we’ve been there in a way most people haven’t. And we were honoured to have been called for help last night. It’s wonderful to share good news; it’s harder to call and ask someone for help. We know what that’s like, too.

And while HRH was off helping in one way, I was pulling off one of the strongest magical workings I’ve done in a while. Wow.

It’s great to hear of everyone scrambling to do the food assembly thing — we did it today, too. I love how our chosen family pulls together when one of our own is in need. “It makes us all weepy,” Jteethy said to me on the phone today. I know exactly what he means.

We toasted the newly expanded family at dinner tonight, and Liam eagerly volunteered his milk cup to clink against our glasses of Jackson Triggs Proprietor’s Reserve red. He knows there is a baby, but she is much less important at the moment than his beloved Devon. Once he’s seen the baby things will be different, I’m sure; she will be real to him then in a way that she isn’t just yet.

And now, the rest of that wine calls me, as do some freshly baked cookies. Good night.

Break Time!

Liam woke up at 5:20 this morning, and because I have begun doing Clocks-Back-Math in preparation for Sunday (later bedtime, later nap, later getting up… the latter is still theoretical at the moment but the to-sleep times seem to be going well) it meant it would have been 4:20, and there was no way I was going to let that become a precedent. I got up and asked him if he needed to go to the bathroom, and he did (the night-time diaper was only a teeny bit damp, too!). Then we went back into his dark room and I read him a quiet story, put him back in his bed, and said night-night. He played quietly until he fell asleep, and slept almost two more hours till 7:45. (Well, 6:45 if I carry the Clocks-Back-Math through properly.) The one good thing about the sun not rising till seven-thirty these days is you can tell a toddler it’s the middle of the night and he believes you.

He asked to wear his Incredibles shirt again today. I’m going to have to get transfer paper for dark colours and do a better one for him. I foresee a series of cool personalised shirts as treats, now that we’ve begun. There’s a Totoro one in his future, maybe with soot-sprites on the sleeves.

Newest cool word he uses: ‘dirigible’.

No more Hallowe’en photos as of yet; we didn’t get any more ourselves, but somewhere down the line there may be some from his caregiver. He had a wonderful time with his playmates there yesterday, bobbing for apples (he got one!), watching It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and reading monster stories. He even got a little loot bag from his caregiver at the end of the day; we tried to get him to say “trick or treat!” for it but all he managed was “Please? Treat?” When he opened it at home, it was hilarious to see him pull out the candy and discard it beside him, ignoring it in favour of the Hallowe’en pencil and eraser.

He asked me to draw myself with my cello today while we ate breakfast.

I’m sure some people are wondering when I’m going to get around to wishing the world a blessed Samhain. I’m one of those people who calculates the four fixed-date festivals astronomically, as the solstices and equinoxes are calculated, so my Samhain happens sometime next week; November 8 this year, if I remember correctly. (If you’re curious, they’re as follows: 0 degrees Aries – Vernal Equinox; 15 degrees Taurus – Beltane; 0 degrees Cancer – Summer Solstice; 15 degrees – Leo – Lughnassadh; 0 degrees Libra – Autumnal Equinox; 15 degrees Scorpio – Samhain; 0 degrees Capricorn – Winter Solstice; 15 degrees Aquarius – Imbolc.)

Right; back to work.

Fall and the Still Point

I’ve been kind of introspective lately, and it’s not the kind of introspection that lends itself to journaling. You may have noticed that a lot of my record-keeping lately has been of the ‘we did this today’ genre, and that’s okay by me. I use my online journal as a way to check back and see what we were doing when a lot. But I haven’t felt moved to write down what I’m feeling. Maybe it has to do with that fact that I can’t quite define how I’m feeling – it’s not bad, it’s not wonderful, it’s just me. These days I’m better at releasing or rejecting unnecessary stress, which is miraculous. I don’t feel like I’m trying to keep up with anything or cram everything into my life for once. I’ve been spending a lot of time just being. I’m not trying to fill my days (although it happens more often than not). I’m trying not to overdose on internet-related things, and I find that there’s more to my day as a result of the less-cluttered headspace.

It’s fall, and I love fall. And as usual, thoughts begin to turn inwards during this season. Samhain is only three weeks away. This year I’ve realized it early: it’s coming, I’m slowing down, I’m looking inward, and I’m not having periodic fits wondering what’s going wrong with me. It’s dark when we wake up, which is depressing; what’s more depressing is that it’s still dark by seven AM. Right now it’s sunny outside, which is a blessed break as it’s supposed to be drizzly all week. I love sunny fall days; they make me feel wonderful no matter what. It can be three degrees outside and sunny, I don’t care. Things feel somewhat as if they’re reaching a still point for me. (Of course, this means part of me is looking around for the piano about to fall.)

We visited my parents over Thanksgiving weekend and had a good time mingling with family. It poured with cloudy intervals, and was alarmingly hot for the time of year. Liam is now capable of racing up and down their stairs on his own, which is both a relief and a worry as he chases the cats who really need some time and space to themselves when he’s there. My cousin and his wife came over for Thanksgiving dinner with their little daughter who is about nine months younger than Liam, and it was priceless to see the two of them careening around together, actually having little toddler conversations between all the giggling and crowing. My mother brought some lovely things back from Greece and I got her old olive green pashmina wrap to add to my collection of wraps that I don’t wear anywhere near often enough. I really should just get rid of everything normal in my clothing collection and embrace eccentricity. The good thing is I’ve worn it several times in the past five days, so maybe I’m getting somewhere. There’s a lovely stacked-heel strapped moss green suede shoe coming out in the Hush Puppies November collection that would fit right into the eccentric category too. Sometimes I wonder why I ever buy suede shoes, because I rarely wear them for fear of ruining the suede in the Montreal rain that falls with no warning and no regard for forecast. (Why do I buy shoes at all? I never wear them out. I have a pair of black shoes I’ve worn for the past nineteen years. I hate going shoe shopping, but over the past four years I’ve randomly spied one pair a year that I love. My Buster Brown owly clogs were one such purchase. I’ll look at these Hush Puppies when they come out, but I’ll probably end up nixing them for the height of the heel.)

I got my anniversary gift from HRH over the weekend as well. I ended up buying HRH a DeWalt rotary saw, with which he was thrilled. In turn, he gave me a choice between a pair of Doc Marten boots I’d seen online and loved, and a crimson DS Lite. As Docs are traditionally way, way too wide for my feet and I don’t have enough reason to wear the boots I already own, and the chances of finding the style I wanted still available was next to nil, we went with the DS. (Which in turn means he inherited my original large DS. There is method to our madness.) So I am now the owner of a lovely crimson DS Lite with a snazzy little snap-close case. It’s shiny, and weighs so much less; my wrists don’t hurt from holding it up after I’ve played.

I should be getting rewrites and copy-edits on the pregnancy book around the end of the month. The revised projected release date is August 2008.

See? Here we are, back to a ‘this is what we did’ post. Not a bad thing.