I am somewhere beautiful

Right now.

and the solstice

Happy solstice! 

Yesterday was my family's first solstice celebration. During breakfast earlier in the week, I mentioned to Curly Sue that I was excited for the solstice. She became sullen and asked why we were celebrating it, anyway? After all, we've never celebrated it before. I said we were celebrating it because I wanted to. My response wasn't fair because I was intentionally dodging the pagan issue. I will discuss this with Curly Sue in a few years when I'm certain this isn't some passing thing I'm doing right now.

Still, I think the entire family enjoyed the celebration. We started earlier this week by making many food plans. We thought there should be strawberry shortcake, lemonade, sun tea, grapefruit soda made with juice from our grapefruit tree, some kind of rosemary parmesan bread, salad with raspberry vinaigrette and vegetable shish kabobs. 

In the afternoon we had "solstice bowling". This was Ms. Red Hair's idea. We live within walking distance of a bowling alley. 

the shortcakes were made by Curly Sue. We used a sun-shaped cookie cutter. 

The bread was made by me. I'll post the recipe some other time. It was good but I'm going to try a different recipe next year. We grilled slices of this bread with olive oil and garlic.

Curly Sue decorated the patio area around the table with chalk suns. We live in LA so practically our entire backyard is concrete. I'm a midwestern girl and my parents' backyard consists of a half acre and a creek, so the concrete is really appalling to me. But I love our home and I love where we live so this is something I'm learning to deal with. 

There were four lit candles on the table. The candles were symbolic of the earth and sun simultaneously (fire for the sun, and one each symbolizing an element and a direction). 

We had a fire in the fire pit, which is not a pit at all but a bowl on legs. 

After the dinner, we lit the fire and got back into the pool. By 8:30 we were sitting in the pool by the fire pit, eating strawberry shortcake. The backyard was lit by the fire and by the white lights under the patio umbrella, so in my memories everything was orange and blue, and we were visible only in silhouette. 

The meal started around 6:30 and went into the night. In the dinner I incorporated peppers and blueberries from our garden. As I mentioned previously, our backyard is concrete, but there's a substantial flower bed lining the walls of the yard. And we have a plethora of container plants. We are growing tomatoes, pumpkins, basil, zucchini, peppers, blueberries, strawberries, corn and a variety of flowers. We're new home owners, and until now have always lived in apartments, so gardening is new to us. Neither Ms. Red Hair nor I have any idea how to care for most of our plants. Some of them are faring better than others. So far we've had the most success with the blueberries and some of the pepper plants. Our tomatoes are spindly. The zucchini refuses to grow. 

This makes me feel like an inadequate witch. I should have a blooming garden with lush, healthy plants. But I am still learning. 

Solstice plans and a visit from the not-quite-inlaws

It's been a very busy few days. Ms. Red Hair's parents are coming to town at the end of the week. Besides the usual cleaning one must do when expecting guests, we've been making a lot of last-minute improvements to the house. Ms. Red Hair had me under the sink in the 2nd bathroom yesterday, replacing the ugly faucet.

If you've never replaced a sink faucet, this is one of those "box of chocolate"-type chores: you never know what you're going to get. Be warned, it's unlikely to be as easy as they make it seem in this video:

Doesn't that guy look like the dharma-initiative video guy from Lost?

I like to do things myself, but I hate plumbing. I hate plumbing even more than I hate electricity, and I hate electricity. I hate lying on my back with my arms above my head, staring at the underside of a 1980's vanity and sink with water dripping on my forehead. Smelling the damp. Realizing that the wrench I have is too big or too small. That I have to undo all the work of the last 15 minutes so I can find a work-around for the fact that the cabinet drawers are in my way. (should I just chop off that section with a jigsaw? I don't have a jigsaw. how much would something like that cost? what if I took the drawer out? I'll have to take off the drawer face and that probably won't help. maybe if I stick this rubber pipe deal through the hole in the top of the sink. Ahh. yes. f'ing plumbing.)

I said a lot of nasty things yesterday that I'm not proud of. Like about mother-f'ing sinks and leaks. There was a lot of yelling.

In the last few weeks I've made a fence, replaced a faucet, taken down old towel holders and put up new ones, installed a valance and assembled an umbrella holder.

Curly Sue is just about done with the school year and she's been spending a lot of time at my office. I took her to the special 15 minute commune spot on Friday. Ms. Red Hair told me in bed on Friday night that CS said I had taken her to my special place. That there was an ant freeway up a tree, and you had to crawl around a thorny bush, and that I had picked up some litter from the creek. I was touched that she told Ms. Red Hair in such detail--it seems like she really liked it there. I admit that bringing her there was kind of a beautiful experience... she seemed appreciative and respectful. And I felt closer to her for doing it.

Ms. Red Hair has been helping me to plan for the solstice on Wednesday. Our plans so far include:

1) bonfire in the fire pit
2) a rosemary/parmesan bread with a sun on the top (Ms. Red Hair bought a sun cookie cutter!)
3) strawberries and blue berries from our garden (which has only so far produced like 5 of each, so there won't exactly be a feast:)
4) grapefruit soda made with grapefruit from our grapefruit tree
5) a meal of salad and possibly grilling on the back patio, with strawberry shortcake for dessert
6) wearing light clothing, and a toast or thank you
7) bowling.

The bowling thing is what Ms. Red Hair really wants to do.

Ms. Red Hair seemed so interested in the planning that I asked her if she thought maybe she was becoming a pagan. She said that she might be a very apathetic one.

For pain

I have a white quartz crystal, for pain. My 15 minutes today was spent focusing on the crystal, and performing a little reiki in some special uncomfortable areas on my body. No words seemed appropriate for the situation--where do I get off asking for relief if I have nothing to offer in exchange?--so I sat there and ran through the thoughts in my head. While performing reiki, since I had to set the crystal down, I wrapped a piece of my own hair on the crystal and laid it on the photo of my driver's license. I left the hair tied around my favorite tree in my favorite spot. So I guess I did have something to offer, however small. 

Feeling great now, actually. Hungry too. 

It's a gray day today. Here are some pictures from my 15 minutes.

prayers

I've been writing prayers during the commune time. Writing them and then repeating them, in my head. It's unclear why I don't want to speak them aloud, but it feels better to say them in my head, and so I do. 

In the books I've been reading, I've been seeing recitations to speak during spells. These recitations always feel 1) random (because I have yet to see a spell that is the same spell from one book to the next) and 2) too long and awkward to remember. These prayers, which could just as easily be used in spells, as I believe that spells are a kind of prayer, are short and written by me and they feel more genuine. 

For Strength:

as the ants work, so do I

industrious and persistent 

unfailing

my call to you

strengthen me

an offering of bread

life for us all

my hard work

shared with you.

an offering.

In Thanks:

in thanks

to you

for this moment

and my many blessings

in thanks

I come here

in thanks.

of bread and blood

Here are some more photos from the spot where I do the 15 minute meditations, or commune, or whatever you'd like to call it. These pictures were taken yesterday in the later afternoon, so the quality of light is different, very sun dappled.

Yesterday during commune time I gave a loaf of bread as an offering. I left it at the base of the tree where I sit. Oddly, I'm not sure yet who the offering was for. This is all new to me. It just felt right, so I did it. I was excited to give something back. I want to give more back. Do more.

The day before, I skipped commune time altogether in order to give blood, which is its own type of giving back. I have one of the very useful blood types, like one of the O's or something, so the people at the blood and platelets center call regularly and remind me that my blood saves babies and emergency victims or something...

On my way to the blood donation center, I practiced walking meditation. This is something I haven't done in a while. I'd forgotten the method and I was out of practice, but like other forms of meditation, you can't focus on doing it "right". Basically, as you walk, you breath in and out, recognizing your breath, saying thanks to yourself, and focusing on the details of the world around you. The smells, sights.

The link I provided is an article by my man, Thich Nhat Hanh. In it, he advises to focus on the words "I have arrived" and "I am home" as you walk. This turns walking into something you do not to get somewhere, but just another way to live in the moment. Breath in, breath out. I like this line from his article:

"If you want to meet the Buddha, if you want to touch God, if you want to touch the ultimate dimension, that is the address: the here and the now. It is very special."

The bread I gave for the offering was gone yesterday. I looked at the ants crawling up and down my favorite tree and asked them, "did you do that?"...  One of the ants crawled up my foot.

Thank you to the lord and lady

Thank you for this.

spells, $800.

I've been calling my morning events "commune," but I've realized that most people would probably interpret that to mean commune the place (a community of hippie types), when what I mean is the verb, to communicate or talk.

Another word for the commune events might be meditation, except that I think of meditation as a quietening, where as this is more of an awakening. This morning during commune I said my first prayer, a kind of made up thing. It felt natural and good. I wrote it down. I'd like to bring an offering to my spot, the next time I come. I'll be making a lot of bread this weekend anyway, so I'll make an extra loaf, or half loaf.

At home, things have still been hard. Ms. Red Hair is at her wits end with work to do for her job, Curly Sue has been killing us with her behavior. I've been doing the "eastern healing" with CS on weekday evenings while I talk to her about her homework, but last night's really didn't do anything for her--or me, really. I was distracted by her homework, as was she. Ms. Red Hair has told me on occasion that she doesn't feel like the eastern healing ever does much for her, but she tolerates it willingly in the evenings, before bed. She seems to like it regardless of the ineffectiveness of it, because it's a time for us to talk.

It's hard for me to imagine why the eastern healing does so little for Ms. Red Hair. I feel like she must not be open to the experience, rejecting it somehow, except that I know she believes in it--she was, after all, the person who encouraged me to do it in the first place. Perhaps it is affecting her in ways she doesn't realize. Last night's session felt very good for me, refreshing.

Yesterday I cast my first spell; I need to earn $800 this June. I placed sunflower seeds in a tin, with my wish written on a paper in the tin. I placed a yellow crystal in the seeds, to signify the sun, helping it grow.

I said something small and I placed it on my desk. I have not made up the alter yet; one little thing at a time...