Imbolc-First Post

Brigit pours out her Blessings

I really like this time of year, when the sun starts coming back, the spring flowers start poking their heads above ground and the frenzy of the mid-winter holidays are behind us. I especially love snowdrops, often the very first blooms of the season. I sometimes use old Catholic name for this holiday, Candlemas
. I like to celebrate it by making a Brigid's Cross, to hang over our threshold during the year (you can see examples in the background in the picture above); put away or burn any remaining mid-winter decorations and renew New Years resolutions.


There are several holidays that fall around this time as well:

1. Valentine's Day - Apersonal favorite as this is when my husband & I celebrate our "anniversary" - even though we were married in August.

2. Imbolc/Oimelc, a Wiccan/Pagan Sabbat (Holy Day); Often a day when new initiates are accepted into covens or begin individual studies with an elder. It also celebrates the end of Winter and the first day of Spring (despite Ground Hog Day stating "4 more weeks of Winter" usually!)

4. Mardi Gras! - Link takes you to the official New Orleans website...Party time!

Six Random Meme....

Six Random Things About Me
Swinebread didn't really tag me, but it seemed interesting, so here goes

The Rules

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me-

1) I have visited Palenque in Mexico-awesome. Wished I'd had a camera....

2) I was an evil older sister...but I got better!

3) I love Alan Moore...and his work! Can't wait for the next League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to come out (Top Shelf!)

4) I do several kinds of embroidery: Punchneedle, Hardanger, Brazilian, Cross-stitch, Neeelepoint, and the plain old kind...

5) I've never mowed a lawn, and by Goddess I never will!

6) I have the best husband in the world...forever and 2 years at least...

No Tags for anyone, if you feel you'd like to do this, great!

An Epiphany

The first weekend in January is the time when the French eat a special cake called "La Gallette", a pastry-wrapped disc enclosing a delicious almond paste interior...and a little ceramic item called a "feve" (there is no English equivalent). Here is a great authentic recipe, along with picture of the cake with a paper crown. Whomever finds the "feve" in their piece becomes King or Queen for the day.

The picture above is from a book I've read to my daughter's classes for many years...it's basically a Gingerbread man-type story "Run, Run, you can't catch me!" but of course he's caught by the sly fox in the end!

This time of year is also a nice wind down from the hectic holiday season; I had an "Epiphany" of sorts also...I've decided to make some simple daily practices...like a 5-minute morning meditation on the (Majors only) Gaian Tarot Deck I received as a Yule gift. My two other commitments are to redo my resume in order to get a REAL job in the next 3 months, and to either do yoga, or take a walk every single day.

Three things, three Kings - hmmm kind of fits, doesn't it?

Can't wait to work up some inspiring endeavors for Imbolc/St. Brigid's Day!

San Francisco!

I went down to "The City" the weekend before last, by myself to visit an old college friend who was going to be in the Bay Area. SO MUCH FUN...Bought tons of books and magazines at the Borders near Union Square...where they were putting up a huge Xmas tree and had a little skating rink!
"MEN AT WORK!





















My hotel was just 1/2 a block from the Chinatown gate, and one of my fave restaurants,Cafe de la Presse. The hotel I liked alot - all the guests were very friendly and always struck up a conversation in the ONE very old slow elevator. The only caveat I have is that it did not have air conditioning...which was needed for the unseasonable warm weather they had. In the picture below, I'm looking out on the backside of the Chinatown gate at one of the pretty window displays..the restaurant is on the other side of the street in the background. I bought something for my new nephew at one of the quirky tchotchke-crowded stores...

Tourists!



Hmmm, the Cafe had some great tomato soup, blissful chocolate & strawberry gelato, and a great steak! Plus there are lots of magazines and books (in many languages too..so you can brush up on your French or German) to read while waiting for your meal. Mostly my friend and I walked around downtown, went window shopping and talked - alot! We also had a Dim Sum lunch down near the waterfront with another friend...very good! It's always great to catch up with someone who you're not able to see often enough...speaking of window displays - here's another one that caught my eye. Don't you just LOVE the colors on this lamp!



I want this one in my dream house!



We also saw a live version of the Rocky Horror Show, which was tons of rolicking fun! We met a cute French guy who was taking two girlfriends to the show....even though it was technically "sold out", they managed to get tickets-Yay!. The play is a little different than the film, but I liked seeing what the Victoria Theatre did with it...and OMG the shoes! They were the highest stilletto fetish heels I've ever seen (mostly red instead of black this time around); I was contantly afraid some actor was going to get a terribly sprained ankle or land flat on his/her ass!...(it nearly happened once..the entire audience audibly went "aaaaggghhh"!).


We also visited a newer shopping mall (mostly for the temperature factor), The Westfield Centre, right on Market st....it's got a beautiful dome, 5 floors of shopping, a movie theatre (saw Quantam of Solace..). It's a bit on the chic spendy side...did find an interesting Japanese tea shop Lupicia, (link takes you to a short review)...bought some Pommier for a gift too!


Finally I'll leave you with an early morning pic out of my hotel window of "The City" on the day I had to leave (sob!).

Coit Tower & Chinatown

PS. I can't say enough about BART and MUNI...the FANTASTIC public transportation is one of the main reasons San Francisco is such a joy to visit.

Spiders...and the Day of the Dead

Well, I haven't posted in awhile...actually have been very busy on the home front. It's not that I haven't noticed what a wonderful fall we've been having here the the Pacific Northwest...it's just I've had a little bit of "ennui" for some time. I ended up watching Serenity only about a million times, along with any other movie Sean Maher has ever made-(spoiler alert DO NOT watch the end of Living Til the End!) and just generally just having the blahs...Then I realized I was similarly obsessed with Hugh Jackman and The Fountain last year...just about this same time, (yes, we bought the movie AND the sound track...) Then it hit me...the thinning of the veil upon us, and I will remember our stillborn son, and all the other friends and family who went before, again.

I also started re-thinking my whole volunteer schedule..and I believe I'll be pulling back and spending some time on family and "wintering in" (fancy wording for working home projects, which sounds more poetic I guess); and may be seriously looking for a job in January. (In case you haven't heard, the economy's going in the pooper...and hubby's job may go the way of the dinosaurs...we'll see how Wall Street handles the 700 billion the taxpayers have SO nicely donated to their suffering cause...cynical snicker).

I digress! This post is actually about the exceptional autumn we've had...cold nights and clear sunny days. The perfect weather to produce color splendors worthy of an East Coast fall foliage tour. It's been so spectacular that when our usual rainy, cloudy weather appeared a couple days ago, I was a bit disappointed our Indian Summer had finally come to an end.


This picture is from my ancestral homeland, Champoeg. It's a nice time to be there now as the Park has very few visitors. It's got lovely views of the Willamette, and great biking/walking paths.

I've also observed (a la Waverly Fizgerald's School of the Seasons) the plethora of spiders during this season. They've been all around outside, in every nook and cranny in the garden...and some of them managed to sneak inside the house too! We have a very fat pregnant one just outide the kitchen window. Without realizing it, Waverly found out this natural process is called phenology-the science of tracking seasonal changes. She's got lots of links to some very interesting sites here ,(you'll have to scroll down to her phenology article first).

Until just yesterday, (several days WELL after All Soul's Day), I still had all the Day of the Dead decorations up, (I find I prefer the Mexican take on this holiday...); I had wanted to do something more elaborate for a family ritual (my inspiration is this one done by Joanna Colbert)...but our daughter had Marching Band Championships that weekend, the weather didn't cooperate and we had already planned for a Firefly party (yup, we're Browncoats!)...so there just wasn't time for the entire family to come together and prepare anything. We barely got our pumpkins carved on Halloween day! I did the the traditional one on the lower step...

In any case, I was musing about, feeling a little unsettled...couldn't resolve it until I hit upon the idea of just lighting all the candles and doing a Goddess Rosary (I can already tell after reciting it this one time, I'm going to tweak it for my own purposes!). Now I'm not praying for the restoration of Avalon...-No, I'm much more focused on the here and now... the needs of my immediate family and the mysterious desire for communion with our Sacred Dead. After I had done all that, I felt a sense of closure and was able to put it all away for next year.



PS. I'll be going to San Francisco in a week or so to visit an old college friend, so there'll be posts galore coming up!