Love = Life

We all have wishes, wants, desires, needs - but what about those intangible things that make you smile and just plain feel good? Mostly inspirational, all are based in love and beauty

Here I am taking a moment in the day to remember what makes me happy and appreciate a few simple pleasures that life is all about for me! In no particular order, but all equally in the number one position:

Fresh running water in a babbling brook
Spring blooms in rainbow hues
The songs of the early morning birds
Wafting children laughter
The swaying leaves in lofty trees
The smell of good earth ready for planting

Indian Rose oil and Orange blossom together
Free time to paint and create
Staying for the sunset after a day at the beach
Dreaming of lost souls
Chasing clouds and adventure

Healthy children in mind and spirit
Experiencing true love
Dancing in freedom
Great live music
Indian swoony spices!
A road less travelled

Sculpting in wool
Bathing in colour

Sharing..

hard to see the scale but this is about a foot high and nearly 4 feet wide Winter scape

I am by nature pretty impatient, I have learnt more about this curious trait over the years from my children and more recently through my work in school, however I cannot be relied on to wait when I'm eager to share...

In the past few months after inviting a dear and talented friend, Scissor Girl, with me to create some fabulous 'Freescapes' or playscapes that will be featured in a book due out hopefully next year. This one is our current winter offering and is far from finished, but I am quite pleased with how it's coming along. We started with an adapted Spring scape, but will return to that one soon for updating and developing in the season, and others will be created to encapsulate Summer and Autumn. Hopefully these scapes will inspire and lead the reader/artist into a world reflective of their inner self and qualities.

I am feeling drawn to creating some scapes that mirror some of the lost beauty of the world that is not always experienced in person, maybe I'll have to travel more to gather my inspirations but that wouldn't be so bad either!

Marching on...

The Romans made March ( a favourite thing to do) the first month of the year in their calendar. Both Ovid and Plutarch said that Martius, was named after Mars, the Roman god of war. Indeed, it often is a month of firsts—the first daffodil, robin, earthworm, skunk, cabbage.

Spring itself starts with the vernal equinox on March 20 this year ( My 14th wedding anniversary is on the 21st!)

This beautiful wet felted wall hanging was made with healing love by the students in Donovan Boy's 5th grade earlier this year.

Apart from being notoriously temperamental weather-wise. According to weather proverbs:

If March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb.
If March comes in like a lamb, it will go out like a lion.

Make this stone gnome in a class- Sunday March 13th, click here for details

Wake up sleepy

I've been quietly busy taking some online course to support my Waldorf teacher training and development as a human and this surprised me this morning as I was studying. A glimpse into the universe through this woman's experience mirrors so many ideas of others that came before her including Rudolf Steiner. Worth sharing, get a tissue.

It's about 18 mins long but worth watching I promise....a wake up to the 'reality' of life.

Weather anyone?

Not if Groundhog Phil is on the nose this year it seems with the prediction of an early Spring around the corner, maybe more of an up and down a few blocks and a train ride away?! With horrendous storms brewing and colder weather snaps all over the US, one can only presume Phil had a snifter before popping out? Even here in sunny California, where truly we cannot complain about any smattering of awful weather that may flounce around for a few days, I've even had to wheel the old radiator out in the evening, gather my bedsocks and nightcap, and wish we had an open fireplace and some actual reason for doing all this!!

Of course I'm going to talk about the weather today of all days because it's always polite and easy to start a conversation this way, but more importantly today is the festival of Candlemas, also known as Imbolc. The ancient Celtic goddess Brigid was honored on this day, and even after she was absorbed into the Church as St. Brigid, celebrations for her changed very little from their Pagan roots.

The name "Imbolc" has it’s name derived from the Gaelic “oimele” which means “ewes milk.” This major Sabbat lies opposite Lammas, and represents the very beginning of spring. This festival is for the Maiden, her renewal and has strong roots with the festivals for the Irish goddess Brigid. The name “Candlemas” is from the adaptations of rites for the Virgin Mary that the European churches held at the same time of year.

I didn't check but I also think it's the exact halfway point in the year between the Winter solstice and the Spring Equinox, making it one of the four cross-quarter days. Special, right?

MMX1

A year to remember it seems, 2011, 4708, 5771-2 if you are really counting.....we embarked upon another Andy Goldsworthy inspired hike, into the Temescal mountains once again with some eager friends and left behind some whimsy building projects and took home some poison oak rash apparently...poor little Gandalf is as miserable as can be, dipped with calamine and doped with antihistamine..


Major holidays ( not exhaustive) and some useless facts...
January - 7th Orthodox Christmas and our Wassail party!!!
February -1st Imbolc a cross quarter day. 3rd Chinese New year
March - 9th Ash weds, 21st Vernal equinox & Persian New Year
April 1st - Space Shuttle's last scheduled flight, 18th Passover, 24th Easter
May- 1st, cross quarter day Beltane,
June - 7th Shavuot
July - 10th Neptune completes it's first full orbit since discovery in 1846!
August - 1st Lammas, cross quarter day
September - 23rd Mabon, Autumnal equinox, 28th Rosh Hashanna
October - 7th Yom Kippur, 26th Diwali
November - 26 Islamic New year
December - 20 Chanukah, Christmas, 31st - All US troops scheduled to leave Iraq!

Bah humbug!!

A Christmas Carol is one of my favourites to read at this dark time of year, and 2010 marks a first time hearing for my children! They have not yet seen any of the more formidable movies (1951 Alistair Sim or even the George C Scott version), that have made so well, the tale of Ebenezar Scrooge, but dear Donovan Boy - who still believes, and Little Gandalf - who can hardly contain his excitement, only lay listening to the richness of the written word by dear Dickens. Tonight they hear the final chapter, so apt of course of this eve.



We wish you a Merry Christmas and remember those who are not with us in this life and bless those who are far away. Magic is all around us always and at this time of the year, it is thinly veiled.

Peace.

Luna

The Winter Solstice is here at last, did you get to see the lunar eclipse early this morning? The rain is still pelting down here in soggy California, with those that live in the hills on 'storm watch' for flooding and possible mud slides, which can be quite devastating.

Something about the holiday season brings either the best or worst out in people I've noticed. So when I'm out an about doing errands in the nasty weather, I'll try and smile, wave and be gracious in traffic, because we all deserve a little kindness in times of stress, right? Pass it on! I still live in hope that these little offerings will come back around!

Some magical new items to match the Winter line up of starry constellations, will be up in my online shop tonight, please stop by there to check them out. Great for 12th night gifts ( January 6th).

Scoping scapes

I've been wanting to make many things recently, but seem intent on making playscapes that I like to call Free-scapes, because they can inspired by a hike, a place or just your imagination and it's a very freeing endeavour ( for me at least!).

work in progress...inspired by a hike to Temescal Canyon

firepit and retreat cave with back exit

mushroom hideaway for faerie folk with spiral pond

I will have - fingers crossed- many mini offering at this years Winter Faire at OCS next Saturday December 11th from 10am-4pm.. but they are unique and cannot be saved! You can request a custom scape but please not after December 17th! I will post a custom request order in my etsystore or maybe you'll stop by to visit the holiday bazaar and spot The Phoenix Gift booth!

Happy shopping, remember supporting your artisan community is good for your soul!!

Happy T Day!

many mini playscapes, will adorn the booth at this years
Winter Faire December 11th at OCS

Pops flies in each for the said bird each year for alas, old Blighty has no such excuse for early Turkey before Christmas and more than often it's a Goose!

Here in the U.S. of course, it's a great traditional get together of gratitude, fellowship and thanks. One of my favourite holidays actually. We have time off work to travel, share some cozy nesting time with family and friends, get our warm clothes out and on and play some games! Unfortunately it's also becoming an insane consumerism frenzied spend a thon.

I don't think I preach out here very much, but this seemed important enough to share a thought for how we choose to act during the holiday season.


This letter was sent to me today......

Each Thanksgiving, I think of Marie Tellismond. Two years ago on Black Friday, Marie lost her 34 year-old son, Jdimytai Damour. Jimmy-as his friends called him-was trampled to death while trying to protect a pregnant woman from a stampede of bargain shoppers at a New York Walmart.

Now, I've never met Marie Tellismond, but as a fellow mother, I am pretty sure she would give anything to have a day with her son again. Losing, or even coming close to losing someone we love, makes us get our priorities straight really, really fast.

Most of us have a choice this Friday that Marie no longer has. We can chose to leave the warmth of our beds before dawn, to sit in our cars in a parking lot at some mall and to spend the day searching for low prices on products which we don't really need and often don't event want, but getting them is all part of the Black Friday Frenzy. Or we have a choice to stay put with loved ones, to play board games and eat leftovers and maybe even play a game of football together.

If we're going to figure out how to build an economy and society that is healthy for people and the planet, this Friday is a good place to start. Let's opt out of the frenzy this year.

Please help me spread the word this Thanksgiving week.

With Gratitude,
Annie
Story of Stuff.

Suess-ical tree in La Jolla....truly though, he lived here!

Ahh Autumn!

I hope you enjoy this poem, it so perfectly captures the feeling essence of Autumn for me.

To Autumn
John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

We went recently on an autumn hike to be inspired for playful free scape building in wool and to try and experience the feel of the new season. Treasures, not unlike the acorn pig nose, were found in the forestry route by the disappearing children along the winding pathways. A perfect walking staff for later carving in the winter was mine to have and hold, as was the breathtaking beauty of the playful wind painting with leaves that day! Though somewhat rocky in places, the children ranging from 2 -11 picked their way to the goal and were rewarded with a cool paddle in a small stream and some dried fruit.

treasure #1

treasure #2 and Little Gandalf monkeying around

hunters of forest treasure gather to plan their next steps..

On a completely different note, I have started writing a book that will hopefully be shared with the wide world upon it's completion...it's largely woolly in essence but will have some great creative and artistic goodies to share with felting fanatics!

in the works, quite large collaborative free-scape

Poe Port and Potter

Glorious is the season that begins for me, with a lovely excuse to buy some monster cereal, read some favourite stories and dark poems, feel abundant in smooth dark chocolate and drink hot cider and warm port (Oops, nothing's actually new here!)

I hate to admit it but when I saw a poster of the newest Harry Potter movie, I was all excited at the thought of donning my witchy wardrobe to attend. I'm perfectly well aware this is lame and I had even toyed with the notion, of not going at all and waiting until its double feature time....we shall see....

The "Switch Witch" is the perfect example of none knowing where this started- or where indeed it will end, but nevertheless we have been doing this for quite a few years and it's still working on Donovan boy age 11 and Little Gandalf age 8! I hope they laugh with me about it later on......


These are our Switch Witch house rules:

1. You must leave out your candy to receive a decent switch, i.e a small toy, book etc. a few pieces don't really do the trick with her hagness. ( see #2)
2. You may keep only as many pieces as you are old if you really must have more candy.
3. Please leave all candy in a cauldron or other suitable receptacle ( bag will do) to be easily swiped whilst riding a broomstick.
4. You may not ask for something in particular for your switch, you never know what you will get, but hopefully it's something interesting and not a pair of old socks!

Have fun!!

good news! My witchy cat arrived today....
she does follow at my heels, but is a little sleepy most of the time!

Traditionally I like to hunker down and read different stuff at certain times of the year (like Sherlock Holmes in December!)... poetry is an all encompassing medium for conveying just the right insight or capture a mood. Here are some to get you started...

I'd start with some serious Edgar Allen Poe if you really want to jump in the deep end!

Halloween poems for you to enjoy...

Last but not least..Lady Autumn comes wafting in on the blustery winds. A far more gentle creature who comes to the young at heart to remind them of a special shared secret and maybe a special hand made gift to remember her in the deep winter, the Gnomie Homies are back once again thanks to a great pattern by Carle for her acorn gnomes. I wonder when she will wander through our park to visit the wee ones at Seeds of Joy?

Pinktober

Yes it's true I've been wearing pink recently and even a shade or two of pastels... Not really sure what's come over me but apparently I've matured enough to don the fairer colours of the hues, after a lifetime of strong vivid's and bold prints - what's that all about eh?

It's breast cancer awareness month and you don't have to look very far into our circle of friends, family or community to find those who have battled.

Jumping Jupiter!

Taken from the Farmers Almanac this month....
The giant Jupiter is closer than ever. Not since 1963 has Jupiter been so close, so bright, so easily seen—a result of its slow, oval orbit around the Sun that will take nearly 12 Earth years!
With two planets Uranus and Jupiter coming to opposition both on the 21st, they stand side by side this Equinox!

Finding Jupiter should be easy. Look halfway up the southern sky for the night’s brightest star. This is Jupiter and at it's best at midnight!

our very own Jupiter, who is in fact a great jumper, but likes to do this more...

Upon a shiny planet I wished for ....

dreamless sleep
space to think
starry nights
exotic travel

You can find the instructions and kit for these pumpkins right HERE!

However much one tries to rationalize it, the overwhelming sense of life fills the air after the spirited energy of the children from this years' Summer camp has long gone and Autumn is knocking at the window. I had the pleasure of sharing some thoughts with some Moms, at his years California Home-school Expo, thank you to those who attended the 'Zen and the Art of Handwork in the Home' session and the follow up felting class. I enjoyed meeting all those who attended and hope to be back again next year with more to share.

Perfect reminders of summer and fit for a pocket! Mermaid kits are easy and unique!
On SALE now at www.phoenix420.etsy.com

Schleptember....

Gosh, It's already the end of Ramadan, start of Rosh Hashannah, back to school for the kids and Summer officially is gone ( although we suspected that about two months ago).

I'm behind on my post, felting and laundry duties, well what can I do except wish really hard on a star for a hardworking doppelganger or PA to show up on my doorstep sometime soon? I find myself making stuff in my dreams or planning books, stories, landscapes and travel itineraries whilst I drive around without a radio, so all is not lost, someday I will be creatively fruitful again!!

In the meantime, I try my utmost to avoid the mainstream news, common colds, unfriendly drivers and dust ( makes me wheezy apparently). These avoidance's do not include and are not limited to particularly dark chocolate, Friday night ice cream that's on sale, valued friends who don't mind that I'm never around, and playing the new frenzy game of Ticket to Ride!!

Oh and football season is starting and so is WISC, so I'd better make my picks quick ( go Vikings) and stay on target ( said with star wars inflection)

The summer playground hunting quest with a 2 hour radius, was met with much gusto, off we trekked from highest peaks to rocky shores. It was the jammiest trip ever as I think summer shone upon those days we were away from the chore beasties and the computer.....:-)

summer playground #1
Big Bear mountaintop hiking fun..

yep, I found the place where the sea fairies live...
I may have to felt this one....

summer playground #2, pond weed lake - stripped and dipped!

A quick trot over the southern border for a hot lunch!

Little Gandalf contemplates the surf in la Jolla Cove...

Magic and Myths

The moon tonight will be the farthest and smallest of the year, but only those close to the ocean will notice the weak pull upon the tide. In preparation for this years astoundingly beautiful curriculum of geometry, Ancient civilizations and botany, we are drawn into the mythology once more of India, Babylonia, Egypt and of course Greece. I spent much of my childhood exploring various greek islands, and can see than an immersion of food, culture and stories will bring an important year of learning to the ever growing fount of knowledge - Donovan Boy!

The magic is already built in!!

All this while Little Gandalf will delve deeply into his fables, animal myths and a large quotient of knitting I suspect! In the meantime, off we go for one more short family excursion, this time to the farthest south of California, and after the recent return from the mountain top of Big Bear, we are happy to have breath to do so!

Ray of Light, always seems to find the prefect spot
( my photo shoot area this time)

Summer is finally here and I haven't had a single Margarita yet! The legs may even see a light shade of brown before I'm done, I may even finish the trashy vamp book :-), snooze outdoors in the middle of the day and possibly, just maybe, not answer the phone for a few days!
Happy Day!

some of my favourite summer colours - in the dye pot of course!!

I proudly managed to get into trouble for this lovely array of silk hanging on my balcony!!