a nightime ritual

I know we are not supposed to love the long, dark winter nights, but I do anyway. (Especially now that we finally have our little hobbity wood stove installed and every night means curling up by the fire.) The only thing I don’t like about winter really is trying to get up in the dark, cold mornings. I’ve been working on waking up at 5 am for quite awhile now and I’m doing much better, but I do find that what happens the evening before is really the key to an easy wake up.

Right after Thanksgiving I noticed I was feeling stressed already about the holidays, so I wanted to make a little more effort in keeping to a nighttime ritual in December. When I keep to this ritual it makes such a difference in my sleep and my mind is clearer the next day to get right into work:

• Dinner together and conversation

• Clean up kitchen / make fire (usually my husband does this)

• Get things soaking: beans or grains for the next day, my herbal infusion*, seeds sprouting

• Put away screens

• Turn off overhead lights, turn on lamps

• Light candles

• Choose relaxing music

• Wash face and put on pjs

• Knit (with tea and my two squares of dark chocolate - such an old lady)

• Read

• Go to bed by 9:30 (my daughter is waking up in France at this time, so we usually text a little, even though that means looking at a screen. I sleep better after talking to her. <3)

Other things that help are exercising during the day so my body is tired, not eating too much at dinner, and sleeping with an eye mask.

What about you? Any nighttime ritual tips?

(Obviously, I don’t have little ones at home anymore, but when we did, I kept a pretty similar routine but instead of having personal time, I would read aloud to everyone for a good half hour or more while the kids drew or played with legos. Those were some of our favorite times and we read a lot of good books! We kept it up until they were older teenagers - although at that point they would mostly just fall asleep on the floor. :) )

For more inspiration:

Niamh at Fairyland Cottage has some videos about setting the tone for sleep and waking up early that are so lovely I’ve watched them multiple times.

*I do a quart jar with nettle and red raspberry leaf overnight and drink it over the next two days. Sometimes I add oatstraw or red clover or hibiscus too. I find the raspberry leaf helps even out my hormone swings quite a bit! You can read more about infusions here.

what i do with myself

October feels like returning home from a long and tiring trip. Home again to writing, early mornings in the dim little room next to the stairs, view of the woodpile. Cup after cup of tea, laundry humming in the dryer, garden slowly dying outside, to-do lists stacking like cordwood in my journal, breath prayers to keep it all from toppling. // In the morning, cold, my hands ache and the chickens’ feet are mottled red. Summer’s banishment was swift and I wonder about winter, feel the presence of it looming heavy, brittle, just out of sight. More wool socks, I think, another pair of waterproof gloves. Soon I’ll be breaking ice on the water buckets, scurrying to get back inside, my glasses fogging up when I cross the threshold. // France lives nine hours ahead. We text from our beds: her waking, me settling in for sleep, and again at midday, when she says goodnight. The afternoons are the loneliest. // At dinner we talk about the justice of various world economic systems - pick your poison, they all need to be vigilantly humanized - and wonder how to be free and just within our own. I want this in my bones. // I clean the pantry, scrub away the trail of some little creature who came looking for warmth and a meal; my husband lays a trap, rightly so, but I wipe peppermint oil on the shelves and secretly hope it will be deterrent enough. // The youngest discovers 70’s folk music and it plays all afternoon, I make bread out of buckwheat and sunflower seeds. The hippies were right about everything, we say, and laugh. // Someone asks me what I’m going to do with myself now, empty nest and all. Love, tend, grow. There is no economic system for that, it has to be carved belligerently from the one you inherited. // Once, many years ago, we pulled up an old log in the forest and under it curled a clutch of newborn mice, fat commas shuddering in the naked air, their flesh translucent and rose brown, their unopened eyes a tiny violet gem swelling beneath the skin.

hips and haws for the equinox

Today I brought a basket and clippers on my walk and gathered some rosehips and hawthorn branches for the Equinox altar I talked about in my newsletter. It was a cool, rain-free morning, and the sky was the perfect shade of grey to make the greens and reds look deep and vivid. (I never know why people complain about the grey skies here…they make everything else glow!)

I also gathered a jar full of hawthorn berries to experiment with. Did you know they are good (emotional and physical) heart medicine? I plan on trying a hawthorn cordial and I will dry the rest for tea. Maybe next year I’ll make a jelly with them.

My simple altar, honoring the gifts of the season, the softening light, and an attitude I want to take into these next weeks.

This print was a gift from Lesley and it captures what I’m longing for in this time of life so well. I’m learning that I do best when I focus on small, seasonal goals, a week or a month at a time, instead of big, ambitious goals (like say a no-shopping year….sigh). It makes more sense, doesn’t it? Realizing we are tidal in our own way, ebbing and flowing out of attentiveness, circling over and under the same ideas but responding to a changed shoreline each time we approach. Most of this year has been gathering, building, sending, and now I approach the quieter months with a need for rest and contentment, a time of trusting that what we have is enough.

Today the sun rose here at 6:59 am and will set at 7:06 pm. The midpoint again. Tonight after the sun is gone, I’ll make a simple supper of brown rice, mushrooms, some kale from the garden, and roasted sweet potatoes. Earthy things, dark and full of life. We’ll have apples and pears for dessert, some good wine, and welcome what Keats called the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.”

“The hedges are full of berries now, Hips and Haws; Elder-berries and Black-berries are the most conspicious, also the bright crimson berries of the Bitter-sweet. There is a plentiful crop of Acorns and Chestnuts.”

~ September 22nd entry, Edith Holden, The Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady

Happiest of days to you. I’d love to hear how you are celebrating your own place on earth and its particular beauties.

Peace keep you,

tonia

September, just this side of the Equinox

I got outside this afternoon in a break between rain showers. It gave me a chance to read a little and see how nature’s been handling things without me the last few weeks. Just beautifully, as it turns out. She’s a little less tidy than I tend to be, but I think she knows what she’s doing.

Easing back into this space with some images from today and a current read.

Growing flowers instead of vegetables may be the best decision I’ve made all year. Look at how happy they are!

I’ll always grow kale though,

and cherry tomatoes,

and big, fat garden spiders. (Big love to my hardworking organic pest control crew!)

Abby (who now, at 13, and getting weirder by the day, is known as Miss Havisham)

Current read. Ugh. Necessary and eye-opening.

a franciscan year

I can't seem to shake off the monastics.  I'm continually drawn to their disciplined rhythms and focused intention in attempting to make an outer life that reflects their inner lives.  A couple of years ago I came across the Third Order Franciscans - an Episcopalian order that commits to live by Franciscan principles in their every day lives.  I love their aims of love and simplicity.  Looking over their Rule (guidelines for committed living) again this last month, I realized it could provide a container, of sorts, for the various threads I want to pursue in this coming year.

The last few years I've been looking for ways to integrate financial discipline with my concern for our (personal) middle-class disconnect - the distance between my pursuit of comfort and my neighbors' daily need, the condition of the planet, the growing class disparity in America, the mental and spiritual plague of consumerism, etc.  I've tried various ways of tackling this, but the Franciscans brought it all together for me:

"Saint Francis...[desired] that all barriers set up by privilege based on wealth should be overcome by love. [...] we avoid luxury and waste, and regard our possessions as being held in trust for God. Personal spending is limited to what is necessary for our health and well-being and that of our dependents. We aim to stay free from all attachment to wealth, keeping ourselves constantly aware of the poverty in the world and its claim on us. We are concerned more for the generosity that gives all, rather than the value of poverty in itself.""Acknowledging that everything belongs to God, we seek to use his gifts wisely and to be good stewards of this fragile earth, never destroying or wasting what God has made. We provide the things necessary for ourselves and our families without demanding luxuries. We seek never to forget the needs of others."

The Rule for the Third Order encompasses several areas other than just finances, but they all braid together to support and enable each other.  I think this is what I've been missing, a cohesive vision that addresses all the various aspects of how we make decisions and what motivates us.  This is a brief outline of the Rule (found here):

The Holy EucharistPenitencePersonal PrayerSelf-DenialRetreatStudySimplicity of LivingWorkObedience

I've written some guidelines for myself that fall into each of these categories (although not always exactly as they are meant for actual members of the Order).  They include praying the Divine Hours 3x daily (as able), periods of silence each day, reducing social media interaction to 1 hour/day (sounds like plenty, but it goes very fast between posting and answering comments, etc.), a no-shopping year, and regular hospitality.   I'm calling it my Franciscan year, and while I know it will be a challenge, I also feel a sense of calling and peace.

"Humility, love, and joy are the three notes which mark the lives of Tertiaries." (Third Order members)

In this context, it does not seem burdensome to keep a routine of prayer or create space for silence or refuse to buy.  It seems like opening a door and entering into the rhythm of the real world, where we work and yearn and make space for each other instead of mindlessly pursuing our own comfort and pleasure.  I'm entering the new year with a lot of peace and assurance.

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Since I know some people will have questions about what our no-shopping year will look like, I'll offer a brief outline of our plan here. Please remember, this is a journey toward integrity, not a competition about resources or stewardship.

2019 No-shopping Year.We will not shop/order/buy anything outside of the following:

1. Regular household expenses. (I have reduced our food budget slightly but this is a broad category overall and we have talked through what we need and what we can go without.)

2. Already scheduled home maintenance projects (this includes building a pole barn and some subsequent landscaping.)

3. Seeds/supplies for a small garden.

4. Replacing any necessary items that break or are lost.

5. Gifts for others (reduced budget).

6. Books necessary for work.

I'm sure there will be exceptions to these guidelines, because that's the way it goes in a large, busy family, but we do have a way to evaluate those needs as they arise.  Mostly it involves talking, waiting, and considering whether it complies with our commitment to simplicity.  I'm so looking forward to using what we have, making do, and learning new ways to meet needs.

As always, I love to hear your thoughts. 

I'll leave you with this version of St Francis' famous prayer for peace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agPnMxp5Occ