December, Fourth week :: 2021

The chair where the owl perched is covered in snow now, but I don’t ever pass it without a tiny uptick in my pulse, a split second when I wonder if that blocky brown shape will be waiting there, will fool my eye again. At first, I’d thought a limb had fallen from the apple tree in the night and somehow landed upright on the arm of the adirondack chair, but a moment later, it swiveled its impossible head and fixed me with an amber stare. Twice this autumn, it came to this spot; two days in a row I stood frozen, pinned like a moth under its gaze until at last, it blinked, unfolded its wings, and disappeared into the trees.

Biologists say that an owl sighted during the day means that a disturbance has occurred - it has suffered a loss of habitat, a disruption in hunting patterns, or maybe, a lost mate - an affirmation of the folklore of North American Indigenous peoples who say the owl is a bad omen, a messenger of death. I joked about it with friends later, my own early morning harbinger of doom perching on a pink adirondack chair.

I don’t know if the owl I saw is one who regularly lives in our woods. During most of the year I can lie in bed and hear several calling through the open window. Their whoo-whooing among the night trees is as reassuring and comforting as this daytime appearance was unsettling. Despite my joking, the weeks after the owl showed itself to me were a storm of loss. Our new dog was hit on the road and killed instantly, relationships frayed, depression stalked loved ones, plans upended and collapsed, I lost months of writing and I couldn’t find the nerve to sit down and write again. I’m not particularly susceptible to omens and signs, but the owl unnerved me more than I’d like to admit. I feel the ghost of it hovering around that chair every morning I go by. Its remembered shape is a fixed point, a talisman of my own vulnerability, but also a symbol of another year of disruption and loss for all of us. It hovers over all the breakdowns we’ve endured, the painful exposure of our true beliefs, the shock of our disconnections and malaise, the revealed power of the market, the media, and the moronic, our fear of getting sick, our proximity to death. Of course I flinch when I think of seeing it again - how much more loss will we face?

A great deal, most likely. I feel the world I once knew passing by, receding into the past. It is not the owl I flinch from, it is the demand that I look truth in the eye and see it as it really is. I want to continue on in my comfort, believing untenable beliefs, assuming my neighbors and I agree, feeling confident that someone somewhere will make disease and extinction and turmoil go away, but that luxury is past. The owl stares at me without blinking and it won’t look away.

Strangely, now that the shock of these realities has settled in, I arrive at the end of the year feeling a little steadier. The owl has come. Change is here. Death has arrived. But I am strong enough to live within it. I know what lies ahead requires courage, as well as creativity and hope, and that’s what I want to mine in 2022.

As MFK Fisher wrote: “When the wolf is at the door one should invite him in and have him for dinner.”

I’ll be writing more about that and the image/theme I’ve chosen for the new year later. In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying this quiet-ish week between the holidays. I’m looking forward to a new year of sharing and learning with you all.

Happy New Year!

tonia

a list of things to keep, for the Solstice

Sunday morning we got up early and went for a walk to watch the (near) Solstice sunrise. The sun was hiding behind a solid bank of stainless steel clouds, so it was more like an awakening than a rising, but we were glad to be out of doors to welcome the turn of the year anyway. It had been raining for hours by then and the path was littered by the last of the fallen leaves and long pink earthworms drummed up from their hideaways; egrets made patient stalks of the farm fields, arrows of geese passed overhead going north and south and every direction in between. I try always to be out in nature near the Solstice. That’s when the carnival of my mind can settle down and I can start thinking about the new year ahead and what I want to bring to it.

I’ve had so many conversations with friends lately trying to make sense of the world as it is, going over and over the possible whys and hows and wondering if it will ever be healed, but this morning watching the light on the winter grasses, I thought how weary I am of the striving, how ready I am to move forward. Not just from 2020, but from a lifetime of carrying too much weight that was never meant for me. Perhaps you can relate.

The lovely Niamh at Fairlyand Cottage posted a video yesterday about the 10 habits she was going to keep in the new year, and it just fit my mood. Let go the striving and focus on carrying good things forward. I thought about it quite a bit last night and made myself a list of things I have been consciously working on and want to continue in the new year.

Here it is.

I want to continue:

• moving away from a culture of suspicion and distrust and into my more natural state of openness, belief in the goodness of others, and hopefulness.

• releasing myself from relationship and association with those who want to stay in that culture (this is boundary setting for me, not a prescription for anyone else)

• releasing myself from dogmas

• healing my relationship with the feminine by cultivating friendships with women, removing internalized patriarchy, and believing myself

• finding middle ground. Avoiding bandwagons, slogans, labels, and easy jargon. (Work In Progress, for sure)

• not internalizing judgement or criticism from people who are not in relationship with me or who have not taken time to understand me

• cultivating generosity through deliberate giving, deep gratitude and presence, and a mindset of abundance (another very much Work In Progress)

• celebrating the ordinary year with small observances (the Wheel of the Year follows the natural world and makes it easy to be present to the time and place I’m in)

• nurturing myself through

  • daily yoga (I’m doing yin yoga every other day and it is life-changing)

  • walking (I’d like to double my mileage this year)

  • herbal infusions (which help balance hormones, mood, and energy levels)

  • Ayurvedic practices like abhyanga

• making small, daily efforts in writing (I’ve tried a lot of schedules, but this is the thing that works best for me, and it’s how I’m jump-starting my practice again after a long Covid-hiatus)

• building efficient and sustainable systems in my home and work (more permaculture principles, less waste, less consumption, more focus)

• beginning the day with poetry (I copy one poem by hand and read at least one other)

• learning new skills (currently: knitting, sourdough, and herbal studies)

• delighting in whatever feels magical to me: stories, music, art, nature, friendships, and more

• growing flowers everywhere

• challenging myself with books and movies that force me to pay close attention, be patient, and stretch my understanding and comfort level (with lots of room for entertainment too, of course!)

• working on an ebook version of my first novel to share with everyone

It was such an encouraging practice to sit down at this turn of the season and think about what is already working for me and see that I have actually put many good things in place. I don’t really need to make aspirational lists for the new year. I just need to carry on, a little bit every day. What a good feeling at the end of a year that often felt really bad!

I’d love to hear from you too. What is working for you? What good things have you done and want to keep doing?

Sending my heartfelt wishes for a lovely Christmastide to you all.

Happy Winter!

tonia

Writing soundtrack for this post: Henryk Gorecki, Symphony No. 3

Synchronous:

“My work: to do more than reproduce the toxic stories I inherited and learned…My work: to write poems that make my people feel safe, seen, or otherwise loved…”

Jose Olivarez - Ars Poetica

christmas, in twelve days

It's the middle of the third week of Advent and despite my well laid plans, I am as unprepared for Christmas as I've ever been.  This weekend we'll get our tree.  (One advantage to waiting this long is the tree farms usually start discounting their trees; the biggest, most perfect ones are picked over, but we live in a hobbity kind of house anyway and we just want something small and natural looking, so it works in our favor.)  After a month of everyone else's lights and decorations, I'm so looking forward to the arrival of Christmas at our house!Christmas lasts for twelve days, from the 25th of December through Epiphany, on January the 6th.  There are several saint's days in that span and lots of different ways to celebrate, but I promised to share a bit of what we do here.  Honestly, it's nothing dramatic.  So much of the excitement of Christmas is simply the build up that comes through the waiting of Advent.We usually attend a church service on Christmas Eve, then wake up Christmas morning and celebrate in the usual way with gifts (if there are any) and breakfast and spending the day with family.The 26th is St Stephen's Day (or Boxing Day).  "Boxing" refers to an old English custom of masters filling the banks or "boxes" of apprentices with monetary gifts.  It's a day to think of charitable giving.  You could box up some things to donate or open a piggy bank to make a donation.  We'll make sure to play "Good King Wenceslaus" that night and talk over our giving goals for the next year.The 27th is St John the Evangelist's Day.  Tradition says he was served poisoned wine and survived!  We'll make mulled wine that day. (I love St. John's Day!)  You can mull apple cider instead, for nondrinkers and children.

Gluhwein recipe:1 bottle cheap red wine3/4 c water1/2 c honey or sugar2 cinnamon sticks1 orange10 cloves2 star anise (optional)Orange liquer, brandy or rum (optional)Put water in pan to boil. Add honey or sugar until dissolved.  Put the cloves in the orange, slice it into halves, squeeze in the juice and then put the squeezed halves in.  Add cinnamon and anise.  Let simmer for ten minutes or until it begins to thicken a little.  Pour in the wine, heat gently.  DON'T BOIL.  Remove peels, cinnamon and anise.  Serve in mugs with an optional shot of liquor.

The 28th is the Feast of the Holy Innocents.  Honestly, by this time, I'm ready to quit observing things for a few days, so I don't plan anything big for this.  Gertrud Mueller Nelson celebrates children in some way on this day and I think it's a good time to bless your children - or children you know - with an actual blessing, or at least by telling them you love them.

A Celtic children's blessing:Grow gently, (name of child),in love of God.We bless you,and prayChrist be near you,now and each hourof your life.

My husband's company closes down for the week between Christmas and New Year, so we'll use this time to rest, hike, visit the ocean, do puzzles, etc.   I also like to finish writing the Christmas cards and send them out and prepare the new calendars and journals for the upcoming year.We celebrate New Year's Eve/Day pretty quietly.  We sometimes gather with friends or family, sometimes stay home.  Almost always though, we write out plans and hopes for the next year.January 5th is Twelfth Night.  There are a lot of fun traditions for Twelfth Night parties.  We don't usually invite people over, but we do make a cake and hide a bean inside.  The person who receives the bean in their slice of cake gets to be the King/Queen for the night (if you make a paper crown and find a scepter for them, all the better) and choose when to have more mulled wine, what movie to watch or game to play, etc.  This is also a traditional time to pack up the tree and put away the decorations. (Except for the creche!  The wise men are just arriving to meet the newborn King!)January 6th is Epiphany.  Depending on how you count, technically the 13th day after Christmas, but it's the day when the light of Christ is revealed to the world (the Magi have arrived!)  Some families save their gifts until this day.  Personally, I like to have the Christmas decorations put away the night before so that this day feels light and clean and fresh.   Apparently, I just discovered, in Ireland, this is also called "Women's Christmas" because all the work of celebrating is done and women can get together for high tea (with wine!) I mean...yes! I may just invite some ladies over and celebrate that day!Hope that gives you some ideas for an easy, beautiful Christmas celebration!  I'd love to hear how you will celebrate these twelve days!Merry Christmas, friends!tonia

advent, the tender season

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Gertrud Mueller Nelson says that Advent comes to us when "Nature seems asleep. The season is dark, and all that is becoming is hidden from our sight."  Much of the church year has a martial, triumphant feel, but Advent, I think,  is a woman's season - deeply quiet, patient, and tender - and that is probably why it draws me so.  It is a time of waiting, nurturing, and anticipating, more than celebrating and doing; the antithesis, almost, of the cultural Christmas season.

In order to enter into this contemplative time (which for us begins on December 2nd) it helps me to work backward mentally from Christmas and imagine how I want the arc of the season to go.  Like many people, I grew up celebrating Christmas as a stressful, exhausting month of spending that culminates in one bloated and excessive day.  When I began to understand the cycle of the church year and how it was designed to focus the heart and mind, that pattern became very dissatisfying.  But because the pattern is so culturally ingrained and difficult to change, we found we had to opt almost completely out of parts of it in order to regain our perspective.  (We are still in the process of shedding old expectations and habits, so what I share here is just a snapshot of our process, not an answer for everyone.)

Except for the young children, we do not give many gifts at Christmas.  Each year is a little different, but for the most part, we have found this area to be the hardest to change and to maintain any kind of balance.  Buying a gift for one person inevitably leads to buying for a second, then the worry about whether the gifts are equally valuable, and will someone else's feelings be hurt or will that person feel slighted and if we're buying this for one person shouldn't we also buy it for that other one and oh no! I forgot your Aunt Martha!  It's relentless.  So we began to opt out from all of it.  Some years, we pool our money and rent a beach house as a family.  Some years we just spend the day together.  But until we feel free of the consumer pressure and hysteria of it all, we will not add gifts back into our Christmas celebrations.

As you can probably imagine, once you remove most of the pressure of gift-shopping/buying/wrapping/presenting you have released a lot of time, money, and energy and it's easier to consider a month of simple, contemplative practices.

Our Advent was a little different when we had children at home.  We lit candles each night and read prayers and scriptures; we also unwrapped and read a different Christmas book each night; we kept a Jesse Tree and hung ornaments on it; we moved Mary and her donkey around a wooden wreath.  (Kortney outlines a really similar practice in her beautiful (free!) e-book. It has many more resources. I highly recommend it!)  Our children LOVED this time and it has been a little sad to move on from it, but that is the reality of life.  These days our Advent-keeping is much simpler.  I purchased four candle holders from Goodwill and some plain beeswax candles and I will make a little wreath with greens and succulents.  We'll light the week's candles and pray from The Divine Hours each night, maybe read from  Child In Winter.  Our church is holding weekly contemplative services on Wednesdays, so we'll go to some of those as well.  For me, Advent is a time when I reconnect with the idea of goodness and hope waiting to be born into the world, of the sacrificial love that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus all represent.  What am I bearing into this aching world?  In what ways am I loving outside myself?  Am I sharing God's love with others?  Are we as a family reflecting light and hope?   In what ways do I need God to heal and rebirth me?

In the still of Advent, the questions of the soul can begin to be answered.

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It's not all contemplation though, we do celebrate a few days during the Advent season:  mainly St. Nicholas' Day, St. Lucy's Day and the Solstice.

St. Nicholas Day is December 6th and he is, of course, the inspiration for most of the Christmas mythology we have now.  He's a joyful, pure-hearted saint and we love taking time to remember him.  For years now, I have used this day to give books to my family.  I love, love, love to give books and I spend a lot of time thinking through the year what I'd like to share with each family member.  This is a tradition unique to our family, but one I hold very dear.  In addition, we are having a little party for friends this year.  In keeping with the St Nicholas traditions, we'll collect socks for the homeless and do a fun sock exchange and I ordered fair trade chocolate coins to hand out.

St. Lucy's Day (Santa Lucia) is December 13th.  This was an especially fun day to celebrate when our daughter was young.  Traditionally, the oldest daughter gets up early and makes saffron buns and coffee for the family and serves them while wearing a candle wreath on her head.  We never managed a candle wreath, but we will still do the saffron buns and coffee, of course!

Solstice is the longest night of the year and the beginning of winter and we typically observe it very simply by keeping the lights off and only using candles, accepting the darkness of the winter and the gradual return of the light.

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creche

Christmas itself is a full twelve days and there is plenty to celebrate there too,  (St John's day gets mulled wine!  Yay!) so I'll write more about Christmas as it nears.  It can be difficult with everyone else around decorating their hearts out, but we do wait until as close to Christmas Eve as possible to get our tree and decorate it.  I can't tell you how much I love waiting.  It makes the anticipation of Christmas day so much more exciting when all these little events slowly unfold each in their own time.  We'll bring out the creche around the same time as the tree, and start to slowly fill it with the various figures.  First Mary and Joseph, a few animals, then on Christmas Eve the angels and the star, the shepherds and their flock.  The wise men have to wait for January 6th - Epiphany! - but they are on their way too and sometimes they show up on a bookshelf or in another room, making their way to God in their own time and on their own path.

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There are so many resources online to help you understand Advent and Christmas, but I hope this gives you an idea of what it can be like.  My main encouragement is to slow everything down and strip it back to something that feels life-giving and hopeful for your family - that's the whole point of this season anyway.  Please feel free to ask any questions!

Much love to you,

tonia