Happy New Year!!

We all went to my friend's house where she had a huge bonfire and we burned an effigy!

He was the Man of Gloom from 2009, made up of an outfit stuffed with newspaper with an old pair of shoes dangling down.

Each of us gave the man things to take and burn from the past year to make a clean arrival into 2010. Some of us did it silently and some of us pushed him around a bit before he got doused in white gas and thrown onto the fire where he made a huge bright wave of flame.

Champagne and sparklers and dessert followed!
All before 9pm!
Hooray for kid (and tired adult) friendly New Year's Eve parties!

Happy 2010!
Blessings for a marvelous year!

Glowing Owl

The magical owl I bought myself this holiday season.

I had a vision of it. It belonged in a hut or outbuilding that would be my healing room, where I would do shamanic Reiki healings. (I'm reading the book Shamanic Reiki by Llyn Roberts and Robert Levy and really enjoying it.) I imagined the room filled with vines and plants, almost like outdoors, but with twinkling lights suspended above and this owl glowing in the corner.

I was going to hoard the owl secretly downstairs in a box in the basement until that healing place appeared somehow in my life.

But I pulled it out on Christmas morning and set it up that evening.

It's glowing from the top of the piano.
For now, that's a good home for it.

New Year Horoscope

from Free Will astrology

http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/sagittarius.html

I like this horoscope. It's very practical in taking care of the physical: sleep, eat , meditate. I am hoping to create a grounded place for me to take off from this year.

I hope you will get more sleep in 2010. And eat better food, too. And embark on some regimen like meditation that will reduce your stress levels. In general, Sagittarius, I hope you will learn a lot more about what makes your body function at optimum levels, and I hope you will diligently apply what you learn. That doesn't mean I think you should be an obsequiously well-behaved pillar of the community. On the contrary, what I'm envisioning is that by taking better care of yourself you will make yourself strong enough to run wilder and freer.

And here is the card I picked for the coming year.
Hmmmm

All contents © Kris Waldherr 2008. All rights reserved.

Kris Waldherr, the artist who makes these cards said I could put them on my blog as long as I included this link to her facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/l/;KrisWaldherr.com.

Barber

Georgia has been wanting her haircut so we took her to the barber.
He was very nervous and it took forever; I'm not sure if he had ever cut a girl child's hair before, but every other shop was closed and Rob and Georgia were on a mission.

Anyway, she likes it for the most part and we don't have to brush that long hair anymore.

I do miss the curls, but she was ready.

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful day.
Santa was good to us.
So much build-up and anticipation.
I'll almost be glad to get back to regular life.

Georgia's not so sure.

Princess and the Frog

Christmas Eve!
No School!
We made it through an entire movie without Georgia getting bored and wandering the aisles.

Popcorn and twizzlers!

It was a good time. The princess was feisty and the fireflies in the bayou were beautiful.

Crow Lady Herbal Labels

I took the image that Heidi
http://faboolosity.blogspot.com/
created for me to the print shop and got some labels made up.

So exciting to pull the stickers and cards out of the big white envelope; standing at the counter, filled with apprehension.

I love them.

I dressed up my massage oil and pillows.

They all look so official now. The label gives my potions and bags more power and presence. I feel like a real herbalist!

Thank you Heidi!

Happy 4th Birthday Dear Georgia!!

Oh My!
Georgia turned 4 years old.
She loves to open presents and had a very passionate and intense week.

By the end of the week the rest of us were ready for the birthday festivities to be done.

"Is it my birthday? When is my party? Am I going to get presents? I want to open presents!"













She had maraschino cherries on her chocolate cake on her actual birthday. Then we watched baby videos of her and Lily on the TV. She has some sadness and anxiety about getting older. She loves babies and desperately either wants a baby or wants to be a baby. She has a hard time figuring out which. The videos made her cry longingly, "Mama, I wish I was a baby. I wish I was a baby again." she wept in my lap so we had to find more recent videos where we could laugh at her toddling around.


She had a pool party with friends from school and town. She loves to swim and jump off the diving board. Really she just wanted to open her presents the whole time and then was do devastated when they were all gone and the finale of her birthday week was over.



Here she is looking so grow-up!
Happy Birthday dear Georgia; may your wishes come true!

Oh Hogwarts!

As I have mentioned here before, I had hoped that NMH's Northfield campus would be taken over by Hogwarts, the magic wizard school from Harry Potter books. The turrets, the woodwork, the windows are perfect. It is such a gorgeous and magical place; I was really holding out for Dumbledore.

But, alas; I was not consulted. The local paper broke the story that someone had bought the school and an announcement was going to be made the next day!


The town was pretty nervous. The identity of the new owner had been kept a secret so there were rumors and anxieties flying around. I went for a goodbye drive around the campus and planned to take a photo of my favorite lamppost. Because of trees overrunning a walkway, the black wrought iron classic lamppost is surrounded by woods. It reminds me of the lamppost in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, mysteriously found in the middle of the woods by the children in the book. When I pulled up, I was disappointed, because the bulb must have been out or the wires were finally broken by the tree roots, so tonight there was no light gleaming from the dusky woods.

Instead I stood there and paused. I heard something. An owl! A Great Horned Owl was hooting from the ravine.
I stood there listening to its call until Georgia got spooked and wanted to go home.
I decided it had to be a good omen or maybe a farewell of some kind.

The next day I shocked when I read about a CS Lewis school on campus because he wrote The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
They are planning on opening a Christian college in 2012. There are plans for them to pull the place back from ruin and stop the auditorium and Chapel from falling apart.

Maybe that lamppost will get a new bulb!

The Revels!

We had our annual pilgrimage to Sander's Theater in Harvard Square. My sister and I have gone for years, maybe 25?
My mother started coming a few years into it and she was hooked. It's a celebration of the winter solstice through dance and music.

Much of the fun and excitement come from getting dressed up and entering the gorgeous sacred building lit by stained glass.

When we were younger, both my sister and I wanted the magic and ritual of the holidays, not just the frenzied wrapping of presents on Christmas eve. So, as teenagers, we would sneak off to different churches for the singing and the candles.
We weren't really Christian, though. Not raised in any tradition, we would often feel uncomfortable with the service, turned off by the the stiffness of the sermon and the absence of women up on the altar. We would try and squint past all that stuff and enjoy the candles, but we often felt disappointed by our journey out on a cold winter's night.

Then my sister found the Revels! It was warm, welcoming and sacred. It celebrated winter and community through singing, dancing and storytelling. The theater and the soul of the the productions are magnificent. We found a home! We go back every year.






My girls have gone every year of their lives, except for one year when there was a blizzard. They plan the dresses they'll wear all year. We count down the days until the performance.



The intermission is really the most thrilling moment! The people on stage sing a song called Lord of the Dance and invite the audience to join them dancing in the grand lobby.

Here's a youtube video of dancing during a Christmas Revels, but in my experience people are usually more crowded and giddy! It is a delight. The girls really love to be part of such a joyous rowdy musical celebration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6CD5ETkvXU&feature=player_embedded




Hooray for the Revels and Happy Solstice!!

aack!

So busy
No blogging
Bummer.
End of semester paperwork, Georgia's b-day and the holidays have made for no time to blog.
I'll catch up soon!
Happy Winter!!!

Harvard's Peabody Natural History Museum

The girls and I met my mother and sister at the PeabodyNatural History museum at Harvard University. It was amazing. We only had two hours so we sped through lots of it. Georgia got a bit freaked out in The Hall of Mammals; surrounded by dead animals, frozen behind Plexiglas walls, she started to jump at each turn and I had to hold her.

The rest of us loved it, although I did start to feel a bit sad for all the deceased animals stuck in a snarl or gaze for eternity.





The crystals and rocks were enormous and everyone but Georgia was transfixed by the size of the specimens. After looking in every case and only seeing rocks, Georgia gave an exasperated yell/whine. "It's oooonly rocks and rocks are so booorring!"

Lily has been studying rocks in school so she was thrilled to see everything she's read and learned about rocks in a new grand setting.

No School for snow!!

Our first official snow day cancellation!
We stayed home and watched Home Alone, made cookies and finally, near sundown, I realized I'd better exit the house for a bit. (Rob and Lily had made it outside already)
We went sledding at a nearby hill, after I found and blew up our puffy sled!! (I was very proud of myself) On this big hill Rob and I need a puffy sled. The back pain from the jolts we get it in crappy plastic sleds takes away any enjoyment ("ouch ouch ouch ouch OUCH ouch ouch" down the hill.)
Georgia was brave and got over the fear of sledding she's had since she got sprayed with a face full of icy snow last year. After a few runs, she insisted on going down the hill alone. We all held our breath, hoping she wouldn't capsize and spend another year whining to go home, but she went down laughing all the way!


















Then we came home and finished the movie while our clothes dried on the gate of the woodstove.

I thought it was rather idyllic but Rob's clutter alarm and stir crazy alarm went off at the same time or something because, suddenly, he was madly cleaning up and impossible to be around, mumbling under his breath about having no clean surfaces.
Do snow days always end like that? Hmm I'll have to notice this winter.

Sledding

Sledding on the first official snowfall.

The snow barely covered the lawn after a few runs.
Here Lily is pointing to the grass sticking out and slowing us down while we're trying to shoot down the hill.

We did pretty well; going fast and far enough to make it into the prickers at the bottom of the hill.

Lily found a tiny ball of ice on the tip of a goldenrod leaf.

And ate it!