Fallow Ground

In farming, there is a practise known as letting a field stand fallow - where the land is given a year to 'rest' in between cultivating crops.
In the Jewish tradition, farmers leave the fields fallow every seventh year, known as shmita - this allows the soil to rejuvenate.
And so with the soul, sometimes there is a need for a fallow year; a time of rest and rejuvenation, allowing the spirit to regain strength.

We let the forest grow wild

And then the rains come to wash away all the collected detritus of the soul; the hurt, the pain, the challenges one must traverse in the journey of life is washed away.

Seasons come and seasons go. Time changes everything.
And then it's time to wake, blossom from the cocoon
 

I become a butterfly, the me who survived. The one left standing in the butterfly graveyard of all the parts crushed and shed, destroyed and broken down.



In that process, one day it's time to wake up and clear some space. Take back what's mine and clear the garden.



In the strongest of storms, sometimes there is nothing you can do but let the wind tear you apart, let the rains scour you clear, and finally, when the sun shines,  begin to pick up the pieces, repair the damage, and learn to live in the new landscape



It is a new path I walk; a new landscape, new beginnings, new horizons, new dawn. 

It's okay to be broken - it's good for the soul to take some time for fallow fields, only to begin anew; a butterfly.

I will never hide again. I will not live in fear.
I am a butterfly.

Winter Solstice

So it's the shortest day of the year; the start of winter.

Aptly, our clear, warm days have abruptly turned into BloodyHellit'sFreezing cold and pouring rain.

Yes, oh scoffing northerners, we do have winter here. Today only got up to 18 degrees Celsius! That's only 64F!!

Thankfully we have a roaring fire to snuggle up in front of.

 

Miracles Every Day

As we lit the eighth candle last night, I talked with Littletree about the miracle of Channukah - about 2000 years ago, the temple was destroyed and the people needed specially prepared sacred oil to keep the sacred lamp burning. But in the ruins of the temple, all that remained was one little jar of oil; barely enough to last for one day, and it would take eight days to make more.
By a miracle, that small jar of oil lasted for eight days - long enough to make more, and to keep the flame burning.

For me, this is a true story; one that I've experienced in my real life. So many times I've been in the communal kitchens at Rainbow Gatherings, where communal vegetarian meals are prepared for sometimes up to 5,000 people twice daily.

The whole shebang is run by volunteers, without any structured leaders, workers or organisation. Everything from the collecting of donations, the writing of shopping lists, the shopping, the storage, the kitchen hygiene and the food preparation is done by self-appointed volunteers.

And sometimes we get into the kitchen to prepare food for hundreds or thousands of people, only to find that there's no oil left to cook with.
So I get an empty oil bottle, and I go around the whole festival to people's individual camp sites, and ask: can anyone donate a little oil from their personal food stash.

Even just a splash of oil, every little bit helps. Some people don't have oil, some people can just spare a little, some people give up half a bottle... but I always return to the kitchen with enough oil (or salt, or potatoes, or whatever) to make the meal for everyone to share.

It's a true miracle. When people work together and share as a community, everything is possible.

Chag Sameach.

Costume Preparation

So, it’s All Hallows Eve and Littletree has been hard at work getting ready for the big home schoolers Hallowe’en party.

If you’ve been reading along, you’ll remember she’s been working on designing her Were-Cat costume for a while, starting from the first step of fashion design and scouring op-shops and dollar shops for materials and props. We even dyed her hair.

The amazing goddessmother Lady Demelza of course helped her a lot with working out the sewing of the costume and getting it all together, and the results are… well, I’m biased, but I’m intensely impressed.

They found fluffy black material, sewed it into a vest, just like in Littletree’s design, managed to get cat ears onto a headband. So, all prepared, Littletree did her own make-up

And her own hair

Which turned out amazing!

And the finished product

Which bears a striking resemblance to her original design

So then it was time to team up with her friend Indie, and away we go to the party!'

On the way, we talked a bit about the old Celtic traditions and Beltane… and Littletree interrupted me to give me a lecture on the spread of the Bubonic Plague and the importance of hand-washing. She somehow manages to bring everything back to microbiology.

The Next Step

The Hallowe’en preparations continue – in the last post I shared Littletree’s costume designs, which she is working on avidly.

So the next step was a big one – one I had to think long and hard about. Littletree wanted to dye her hair black.

Yikes.

We considered black hair spray, because it just rinses out, but Littletree didn’t want the hairspray effect with stiff hair. We ruled out a permanent dye, because I wasn’t willing to let her have those chemicals on her head, nor she deal with the growing-out process…

So we settled on doing a rinse-out dye, of the kind that only last a few washes, but don’t do dramatic changes in colour. Littletree, being a redhead, her hair did come out a LOT darker, but the red still shines through

Still, it looks good, and she’s really happy with it – we did it two weeks in advance so we’d have time to do allergy tests (Littletree has had mild reactions to several ingredients in body lotions), and to fix it if it turned out a disaster. Luckily, neither were a problem.

I think it makes her look more grown-up and sophisticated. In any case, it will soon wash out.

The next next step is to find her some fangs.

Faerie Mischief

I’m sorry to admit that Littletree has picked up some terrible habits from me. I know, I know! I should have known better than to give her such bad examples; I should have known that she would see me and want to copy.

But I was weak, and I let her see me… baking. Oh the shame! And it wasn’t just once or twice… I made cakes and muffins and cookies and puddings and pies; but I didn’t stop there! Oh no! The horror of it is that I even let Littletree help me some times.

Imagine my dismay to come into the kitchen to find her standing at the oven with a measuring cup and whisk in her hands! I rushed in to stop her, but it was too late… chocolate and butter were already melting on the stove, eggs were cracked, flour sifted.

What could I do? I figured, if she’s going to start experimenting with baking, she should at least do it with me, here in the home, where I can supervise her and answer her questions. Far better that way than to have her out in the streets, trying cakes from unknown bakeries – those places are nefarious with their free samples of sugar-coated pastries that get you hooked.

So I helped her make brownies. Don’t judge! I know there’s a lot of evidence to show brownies are a gateway cake that just leads to gateaux and tortes, but I think we can keep this under control.

And she seems so happy in the kitchen. MMMMM brownies!

Since we’ve been having trouble with pesky pixies lately hiding things about the house, and inspired by The Spiderwick Chronicles, Lady Demelza suggested we make a tea party for the faeries and give them sweet offerings of brownies and other delectable treats.

Littletree loved the idea and set about making a beautiful table setting out in the faerie garden

We made cute little offerings around the garden of brownies for the brownies and honey on crackers for the pixies

And then enjoyed a most luscious afternoon tea – brownies, fairy juice (elderflower cordial), fruit tea, ginger beer, cheese and crackers

Hopefully that will restore some order to the house, so we can get back to baking!

The darkest day of the year

Happy Solstice to all! Here, where the world is upside down and we live in the future, it’s the winter solstice – the shortest day of the year. Or the longest night of the year, depending on how you look at it.

We rugged up warm – it’s about as freezing as I can bear it! Only 21°C (69.8F) today! We lit the fire, and we prepared a special feast – fresh fish, prawns, hand-cut potato wedges and a big salad.

Yum!

Equinox

At this moment, the Autumnal Equinox is upon us (Vernal Equinox for those in the northern hemisphere).

Mabon. The celebration of harvest, the coming of cooler days.
In this moment I am observant, the length of days and nights in balance. I honour the Green goddess of the forest, I offer libations to the trees, and to the faeries.

And this is the view from my hammock.

Purim Sameach

It's Purim again! The classic example of every Jewish holiday which boils down to: They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat!  Remember all the fun from last year?

Since Purim fell mid-week, we didn't doing anything much on the day, but tonight night we're all going out dancing at Glo Dance, and then Saturday Littletree is going to a kids dress-up party down the street and there will be a Rocky-Horror party at my place - we'll all get dressed up as our fave characters, eat a feast, drink a lot of caipirinhas, and watch the movie :)

Meanwhile, here's a gorgeous photo of Littletree (then aged 3) and Butterfly, after a full day at the Tel Aviv Purim street party, 2006.

Water Dragon

Happy New Year of the Water Dragon

There has been such a constant stream of so many beautiful people flowing through my house recently, with Wind and Coola living in the flat downstairs, and our good friends Belle and Anasho have been staying, since they are temporarily homeless, as well as frequent visits from an assortment of random hippies and my beloved Ocean.

As group of us got together yesterday for a sacred ceremony to honour the new moon and the start of the Chinese New Year.

We all wrote out pages of our intentions and manifestations for the coming year, I chopped some wood,

We lit a sacred fire, ringed with the surprise rose apples we found growing in the back of our rainforest.

Then we said some prayers and set our intentions before giving the pages to the fire

Then we sat around playing music and dancing and singing before having a yummy feast.

Awesome start to the year!

Hannukah

Hannukah overview…

I do love the doughnuts and the pretty candles ;)

First Candle

Guess what today is?

That’s right! I’m making sufganiot – jam-filled doughnuts. Which means it’s Channukah!

Home-made organic doughnuts from scratch:

Step 1: create a universe in which the following ingredients are available: Wheat flour, yeast, salt, sugar, cinnamon, milk, water, jam, oil.

Step 2: make up a basic yeast dough with a little milk and sugar, lets say, 4 cups flour, 2/3 cup sugar, a packet instant yeast, pinch salt, teaspoon cinnamon. mix it up and slowly pour in about a cup of warm milk and water (half-half). Keep adding in the milky water till you have a dough you can knead. Might need a tad more than a cup.

Step 3: knead the dough. (Baker’s secret: Make sure you taste some. Eating dough is vital to the process). Then cover it in a bowl and leave to rise for an hour or two (longer for colder temperatures).

Step 4: tear off and roll up small balls of the dough, flatten them into rounds, make a depression in the middle (almost as if you’re starting to make a bowl). Plop in a spoonful of jam – careful to get jam only in the centre of the dough bowl – and top it with another round of dough. Press the edges together carefully to make a nice seal (so jam wont leak out when cooking), roll the whole thing a little into a nice shape, and leave to rise more. Repeat till you run out of dough.

Step 5: Heat oil in a pot and deep fry the doughnuts till golden outside and cooked all the way through. Baker’s tip: don’t have a tantrum and throw boiling oil all over yourself.

Option: instead of a dollop of jam, put a square of chocolate in the middle.

Enjoy!

Presents!

At Littletree’s request, we had a sort of Christmas celebration here… though we did it in honour of Mithras.

Since we now live in a village with established friends and neighbours, Littletree had accumulated a hefty stash of presents under her “tree” (well, I think compared to the average Christmas-celebrating Aussie family, it was pretty minimal, but for us it seemed huge).

I think there was about a dozen presents, though admittedly four of them were from me ;) Littletree was hugely impressed, especially considering the only time she’s ever gotten Christmas presents before was two years ago, when she got two presents (last year we managed to avoid the whole affair by being at the World Rainbow Gathering in New Zealand).

Littletree’s Christmas wish list contained: a photo album; a yacht; a trip to India; and funky t-shirts. We already got her some t-shirts at the op shop last week, and we’re going to India next year… a yacht was out of my budget, so I got her a photo album, and a gift card to have photos developed. She was so happy to get that! I also got her a small box of her favourite chocolates and a coconut

Her godmother sent a chemistry set

 

Our neighbour gave Littletree a Ganesha colouring book

A friend from rainbow sent us all little hanging decorations made from origami cranes

And she also got a few assorted trinkets from her friends in the neighbourhood.

I even got a present! The ever-gorgeous Lady Demelza sent down a magical box full of goodies, including this awesome bumper sticker for me:

Women & midwives united – PEACE AT BIRTH – PEACE ON EARTH – bringing honour & trust back to birth

An excellent sentiment :) Merry Season to everyone!