Lara Vesta's Blog, page 6

Myth and Moon: Why Write

Yesterday was the first snow of the season.Drifting and diving.Hush, over the trees, the cars, the cares.It's time.I've been holding on to the firstMyth and Moonletter, cradling it in cyberspace.For many of the past years these letters have been about promotion, but for the first time ever I've been able to write without that impulse hanging on me.  It feels good...and also, oddly, hard.Why write?  Why write blog posts in a world that seems beyond blogging?Why write letters to hundreds of people I hardly--or don't at all--know?Why reveal pieces of life, mind and thought which leave me feeling immensely vulnerable?And the answer is a simple and complex as snow:  I write because I care.I care about sharing with you my journey to understand the Water Protectors at Standing Rock, indigenous rights, colonization and the sacredness of the waters close to my home.I care about making resources available that have helped me grow in understanding and directed action, like theNYC Stands With Standing Rock syllabus, which explicates a necessary colonial history, so long invisible, that should be required education for every American.I care about the true natural world, connecting and grounding in the place where I live, in spiritual practice and self-care.  I long to connect with others by the way of Myths and the Moon, to share wisdom and memory, to make new threads of belonging.I care about the stories, the fragmented threads of myth that hold more than they hold.  My art, my work, is weaving, with reverence and patience.  Re-membering a past obscured by structures of power irreverent to earth, faith and the feminine.  It is imperfect, this art, this telling, but to make it whole requires sharing.We do what we can do.  Myth and Moon is a tiny gesture, an offering.  It in no way replaces my activism, or root work.But with enough stories, we change THE story.What stories do you wish to shape?The next Myth and Moon will arrive between Imbolc and the Equinox.

Womb Wisdom is for Everyone

Today a young woman told me of her fear that Planned Parenthood, her only health care, would disappear.  And I've been thinking for days, months, moons, as I heal my own womb from fibroids (another story) how powerful acts of social solidarity are often, necessarily, embodied.When I was seventeen I saw myself as physically empowered thanks to the sweet Planned Parenthood doc who completed my first pap and counseled me on effective birth control.At thirty-three, as an uninsured single mother, Planned Parenthood witnessed my two young children clinging to my legs while sending me home with essential supplies.  I couldn't pay, and that was all right because in the eyes of Planned Parenthood care comes first.  Period.There are other stories, painful and uncomfortable that I won't write about this yet.  Planned Parenthood saw me through those, too.Self-full-ness and sovereignty are more than just visits to a clinic.  They are long term, holistic care for sacred bodies.  They are supported and nourished by freedom and access, and they are rooted in our awareness of our own holy being.With this in mind, on the full supermoon day, I invite you to reach out to everyone you know and reach, teach, research, understand the cycles of feminine fertility, of the womb, the ovaries, this sacred anatomy.  The more empowered we are in our wholeness, the more power we can channel into direct meaningful action.Some Resources for this journey (these are just the beginning--if you have more recommendations please list them in the comments!):The Moon Divas Guidebooktouches on womb wisdom, menstrual cycles, self-care and is always available as a.  You may also choose to purchase a hard copy of the Guidebook throughInkwater PressorAmazon.  I will be donating 50% of all profits this quarter to Planned Parenthood.Women's health advocate Samantha Zipporah has a host of resources, including aWomb Sovereignty Schooland Ovulation Awareness E-Book. She is rooted in work on natural fertility and holistic healing.Author Tami Kent's books,Wild Feminine, Mothering from Your Center and Wild Creativemake a beautiful trilogy on the relationship between embodied awareness and all aspects of women's lives.Moondays Portlandoffers monthly Red Tent gatherings to help women honor their cycles.Things to remember:Womb wisdom is for everyone.Every person on this planet was born from the womb of a mother.  The womb is source wisdom, both immanent and transcendent.  It is humanity, our literal birthright.  Womb connection nourishes all who seek to align with the sacred rhythms, the natural cycles, the power of creativity, growth, birth, death.The more we are ready to receive the unity and wholeness of our origins, the more we make peace with the mothers---our own, those in divinity, and the mother in ourselves--the more transformation is possible.Root strong.FromThe Moon Divas Guidebook

Celebrating the Sun

New work completed just today!  I was thinking about dappled things, neonic trees and the sensuality of warmth.  I have much to share, it's been a big couple of months, but this will have to be enough for the moment.Her name is Sunna or Sol, and she is the feminine personification of the sun.  In Northern Europe and the Germanic tribes there is evidence of sun worship, which makes sense given the dark days.  Her stories are few but her presence resonant.With every moment I feel her warmth in these waning days, I'm grateful.

Preparing for Transition

Dear friends, clients, sisters, soul mates and students--I want to thank you all for four years of incredible self-employment.  I have learned and grown so much during these permutations.  I am working on a deep project right now and will be stepping away from a consistent online presence for the next thirteen moons.As some of you know last year I started a PhD program in Philosophy and Religion with a Women's Spirituality emphasis through CIIS in San Francisco.  This fall I will be teaching again at Pacific University.  These twinned paths are guiding me and nurturing an ever-unfolding journey that culminates, always these days, in the sacred creative unknown.Of course, this means I don't know where the embodied, expressed synthesis lies just yet.  I have an unpublished manuscript about ready to go to the printer, the threaded beginnings of a community nonprofit organization (The eclectic, multifaithCenter for Ancestral Wisdom) forming, a new garden calling me daily out of the head and into the world and this thicket of a (secret!) project I am undertaking for the year.  All I know for sure is I start teaching next week, have three teenagers headed back to school the week after, and life is beautifully undulant.The best way to find me, connect with upcoming events or receive information in the moons ahead:Sign up for the quarterlyMyth and Moon letters.  These old fashion letters in digital form will present whatever I discover in the journey through each season.  Gathered for autumn already:  homemade apple cider vinegar, sourdough starter with grapes, mugwort and earth based etymology.  If you are already on my mailing list you are already added and will receive the first letter on the equinox.Or, send me a real--yes, snail mail letter!  I will write back! You can reach me atLara VestaEnglish Departmentc/oPacific University2043 College WayForest Grove, OR 97116Emails will be rare and social media pretty much nonexistent for now.And blogging...I'm not certain.  There isn't a clear answer on whether it feels right in the flow of things yet.This could all change.However, I am for sure not scheduling sessions, ceremonies or teaching community classes until 2017.Moon Divas Certificationgoes offline in two weeks time (if you haven't bought the course this is your last chance for the inexpensive self-study program.  The reboot next summer will be live, and thus more...Note that Vestal University is becoming the Wild Soul School--more on this in the autumnal Myth and Moon.)  After this there is a bend in the road beyond which I cannot see...Accepting and loving my transitions is part of my path and work in life, living in the unknown, unseen, uncertain.  From here I wish you all joy and love and look for you in the myths, the moons, the gathered threads.Into the next----Lara

Transition/Transformation

Dear friends, clients, sisters, soul mates and students--I want to thank you all for four years of incredible self-employment.  I have learned and grown so much during these permutations.  I am working on a deep project right now and will be stepping away from a consistent online presence for the next thirteen moons.As some of you know last year I started a PhD program in Philosophy and Religion with a Women's Spirituality emphasis through CIIS in San Francisco.  This fall I will be teaching again at Pacific University.  These twinned paths are guiding me and nurturing an ever-unfolding journey that culminates, always these days, in the sacred creative unknown.Of course, this means I don't know where the embodied, expressed synthesis lies just yet.  I have an unpublished manuscript about ready to go to the printer, the threaded beginnings of a community nonprofit organization (The eclectic, multifaith Center for Ancestral Wisdom) forming, a new garden calling me daily out of the head and into the world and this thicket of a (secret!) project I am undertaking for the year.  All I know for sure is I start teaching next week, have three teenagers headed back to school the week after, and life is beautifully undulant.The best way to find me, connect with upcoming events or receive information in the moons ahead:Sign up for the quarterly Myth and Moon letters.  These old fashion letters in digital form will present whatever I discover in the journey through each season.  Gathered for autumn already:  homemade apple cider vinegar, sourdough starter with grapes, mugwort and earth based etymology.  If you are already on my mailing list you are already added and will receive the first letter near Samhain in late October/Early November.Or, send me a real--yes, snail mail letter!  I will write back! You can reach me atLara VestaEnglish Departmentc/oPacific University2043 College WayForest Grove, OR 97116I am for sure not scheduling sessions, ceremonies or teaching community classes until 2017.  Moon Divas Certification goes offline in two weeks time (if you haven't bought the course this is your last chance for the inexpensive self-study program.  The reboot next summer will be live, and thus more...Note that Vestal University is becoming the Wild Soul School--more on this in the autumnal Myth and Moon.)  After this there is a bend in the road beyond which I cannot see...Accepting and loving my transitions is part of my path and work in life, living in the unknown, unseen, uncertain.  From here I wish you all joy and love and look for you in the myths, the moons, the gathered threads.Into the next----Lara

Not Social--an experiment in real life

For the next year I will be reclaiming a life I remember.If I can live here I can live anywhere.Since I started my business four years ago I've grown increasingly comfortable with technology, which is a good thing...mostly.  I see the beauty in the web work, the intricacy of possibilities.  And I see the vast distraction, the movement away from a life my children have never known:where we didn't carry our phones with us everywherewhere the phone was simply a phone, not a computer full of news, games, social status and photoswhere we had to send the film away (!) and there were no filterswhere letters arrived, tactile and handwrittenwhere work ended sometime and began sometimewhere responses could take thought, pauses, days and breathI realize this sounds fuzzily nostalgic.  And isn't that what we've chosen to believe?  That the life of the screen is more valuable than life lived?Yes.No.I see signs of a pendulum swing.  I feel it in my soul and heart.  So here is the intention:limitationsMore time in real life than on the screen. A seed, sprouting, hopeful.  Into more connection, more gardens, more art, more conversations.Beginning...where

The Cycles of Grief

This is my rune wheel for the year.  It began with the dark moon of November last.This is my third such wheel, begun in ceremony with Ingrid Kincaid.  Every dark moon we have a reading.Yesterday I needed to make something.  I felt overwhelmed with the grief of this lunar year.The losses, real deaths, and the completions of cycles begun long ago.Art for me is a means to integration.Writing used to be my primary way to access this synthesis, but now it is only art that gives me the feeling of drift, enchantment, trance.I drew my wheel large, and cried as I drew, recognizing the things that happened at the beginning of the wheel, the pains opening now.Yesterday someone posted a picture of me from eight years ago on social media.  I showed it to my husband and he said, look how young you were.Yes, I was young.These last eight years have held lifetimes of grief, constant transition, continual conflict.  And yet...I've grown.  I am stronger and more sure.  My art reflects this transformation from youth to middle age.Eight years ago I wasn't drawing, only writing stories.Eight years ago my children were seven and four.  I'd been divorced for just a year and a half and was getting ready to start my first semester of full time teaching.Eight years ago I met my current husband after praying in the hazelnut orchard for a whole, reciprocal love.Eight years ago I could not have imagined my life now.I feel a tremendous tenderness for that woman I was, for her innocence and, yes, naiveté.  I also feel pain.  I would change nothing.  What I live is my own doing.But I can grieve for what was lost.  Yes, I can do that.Living in cycle means living without a sensation of avoidance.I can't escape pain, or challenge.  Or loss.  Nor will I remain in it.Change is the rule.  The last eight years have taught me this much.And the next eight?  In eight years future my children will be grown.Beyond that I've learned I cannot see, anticipate or expect.  Only practice, live into the cycles, ask for strength from my ancestors and teachings from divinity.  Root into the earth.  Rest in the rhythms.  Love what is here.Like today.

The Cycles of Grief

This is my rune wheel for the year.  It began with the dark moon of November last.This is my third such wheel, begun in ceremony with Ingrid Kincaid.  Every dark moon we have a reading.Yesterday I needed to make something.  I felt overwhelmed with the grief of this lunar year.The losses, real deaths, and the completions of cycles begun long ago.Art for me is a means to integration.Writing used to be my primary way to access this synthesis, but now it is only art that gives me the feeling of drift, enchantment, trance.I drew my wheel large, and cried as I drew, recognizing the things that happened at the beginning of the wheel, the pains opening now.Yesterday someone posted a picture of me from eight years ago on social media.  I showed it to my husband and he said, look how young you were.Yes, I was young.These last eight years have held lifetimes of grief, constant transition, continual conflict.  And yet...I've grown.  I am stronger and more sure.  My art reflects this transformation from youth to middle age.Eight years ago I wasn't drawing, only writing stories.Eight years ago my children were seven and four.  I'd been divorced for just a year and a half and was getting ready to start my first semester of full time teaching.Eight years ago I met my current husband after praying in the hazelnut orchard for a whole, reciprocal love.Eight years ago I could not have imagined my life now.I feel a tremendous tenderness for that woman I was, for her innocence and, yes, naiveté.  I also feel pain.  I would change nothing.  What I live is my own doing.But I can grieve for what was lost.  Yes, I can do that.Living in cycle means living without a sensation of avoidance.I can't escape pain, or challenge.  Or loss.  Nor will I remain in it.Change is the rule.  The last eight years have taught me this much.And the next eight?  In eight years future my children will be grown.Beyond that I've learned I cannot see, anticipate or expect.  Only practice, live into the cycles, ask for strength from my ancestors and teachings from divinity.  Root into the earth.  Rest in the rhythms.  Love what is here.Like today.

Flower Bath Summer Challenge

The Solstice Self-Care Power Class Prep has been underway for the past nine days, and I am feeling this collective energetic surge from all the women who are practicing togetherGood.I need it.I am undertaking the transformation of a pattern in my life that challenges my sovereignty and autonomy, a place where I have avoided conflict and thus created more and more destruction and imbalance.Whenever I facilitate it doesn't come from a place of expertise.  It comes from a place of practice.  In Moon Divas Deva and I quickly discovered that when we try to hold the space of the all-knowing "teacher" we set ourselves up for misalignment.  But when we create a circle, a teaching-learning community of co-creators on a specific path, magic can happen.The Power Class is becoming that magic.  The curriculum is spirit-led and entirely new, and its freshness has opened my heart.  But the foundation is in the last decade of personal self-care practices, tiny totally accessible acts that change lives.  The drops of water that wear away a barrier of stone.Today I am making Power Class Kits to include natural allies and plant spirit medicine for all travelers on the journey.It has already begun...

The Summer Flower Bath Challenge

The Solstice Self-Care Power Class Prep has been underway for the past nine days, and I am feeling this collective energetic surge from all the women who are practicing together Good.I need it.I am undertaking the transformation of a pattern in my life that challenges my sovereignty and autonomy, a place where I have avoided conflict and thus created more and more destruction and imbalance.Whenever I facilitate it doesn't come from a place of expertise.  It comes from a place of practice.  In