miscellany. is a motley collection of moments + ruminations from my week.
+ Sipping | This Elderberry Hot Toddy from my book Our Kindred Home on the second snow day of the week after nearly a month of no snow. A forecasted twelve inches today. It’s all or nothing in climate chaos, no?
+ Remembering | The spiritual practices I find I neglect through the landslide of the holiday season. Rituals to quiet my mind and come home to myself. It often just looks like the little things I forgot I wasn’t doing anymore, the things that had fallen off my too long lists: hydrating, moving my body more, remembering to mediate, pulling tarot cards for the year ahead + to ground into my intuition. I feel myself wanting to run ahead, the time spent visioning a picture of what I’d like this year to look like growing clearer in my mind’s eye but these slow days and snow days of midwinter put the breaks on for me. Although we have the new year on the calendar, spring is really the time to make moves forward, for now it is still time to dream, envision, rest, and begin to think about structures for growth.
Energetic reading for twenty twenty four.
Sometimes I just like to pull cards for the energy of a situation or time rather than trying to obtain an answer to a specific question or having a specific spread. Here was my reading from January first for the year ahead.
First, I pulled the Sun, illuminating a brighter path ahead. Maybe it’s the culmination of something or the end of a struggle, this card indicates alignment, imbuing strength and energy for forward movement. The Hierophant, is a card of my astrological sign, Taurus, and its meaning to me is diffusive. I’ve wrestled with understanding it significance through many seasons of my adulthood. The Hierophant, is an interpreter of sacred texts, and for me, outside of the context of religion and hierarchical structures, I think about how I can embody the archetypal energy of connecting with the spiritual guide within. Staying true to myself by looking for wisdom and guidance within rather than traditional structures. The Ace of Wands portends a burst of new beginnings and ventures. The Queen of Wands points to awakening to who you really are, following your instincts to bring the astral into the physical realm through a balance of intuition and intellect. This reading was done with my absolute favorite deck the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot deck by Uusi.
+ Leaning into | Full hibernation mode here, I’ve been tucking into bed earlier and earlier (than I’d like sometimes) with that, early to bed, AJ and I have been trying to implement, early to rise: to have coffee together in the morning before waking the kids for breakfast and school. I find when the snow begins to fall and the nights are dark, I’m moving less, like a stone in my favorite armchair. I didn’t grow up with snow days and snow storms, in California, if you wanted snow, you had to drive to visit it and it wasn’t apart of our family life. I’ve been learning how to sink into the magic and joy of it, to bundle up + play in the snow with the kids. Building snow forts, rolling giant snow balls and just falling into a mound of snow. It still feels like foreign territory after 9 years here in the midwest, but even more so, how often do we as adults allow ourselves to truly surrender to a state of spontaneity and wonder? It is truly enlivening, although being outside in blustery snowstorms seems antithetical to hibernating; the movement, the play, and the cold are what my body needs in the depth of winter. A reminder we are alive.
+ Enjoying | Driftless drives and snow encrusted trees.
+ Watching | I don’t watch a lot of television, to be honest. But I do love having a series to watch in the winter time, but I’ve blown through all my favorite go-to’s The Gilded Age and Bridgerton. AJ and I just started watching Julia. It’s really bringing up all the feels around what a mountain it felt like to write my own book, part cookbook. And a wonderful reminder of the power of slowing down and the ethos around cooking a good meal for family and friends.
What is helping you through these midwinter days?