Laura Perry's Blog, page 26
February 14, 2014
Book Review: The Casquette Girls
If you're looking for a bit of fiction to take you away from the dreariness of winter (or the exhaustion of summer, if you're in the southern hemisphere), I recommend The Casquette Girls by Alys Arden.
I have always loved stories that combine the mythical with the mundane, the historical with the modern. The Casquette Girls delivers, in spades. New Orleans in post-hurricane devastation is the setting for this intriguing tale that weaves together the history of the city with the experiences of one young woman whose life turns upside down thanks not only to the storm damage but also to the eruption of magical forces – both benevolent and malign – in her life.
This gripping novel could easily be categorized as paranormal suspense, young adult fiction, fantasy, even thriller, but I think it transcends all those genres. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that the city of New Orleans itself is the main character, in all its entrancing, charismatic timelessness. The city draws the reader in, the same way it draws Adele and her friends, twining us around the tendrils of its myths and legends, mesmerizing us with its magic. I admit, I fell under its spell as I read this story, eager not only to know what happens to each character as the story unfolds but also hungry for every new glimpse of the city in its mysterious splendor. I have only visited New Orleans once, but now I feel I have participated in many of its secrets, with Ms. Arden as my guide.
The usual compliments for a novel of this sort include ‘couldn’t put it down’ and ‘enthralling’ and words to that effect. Those are all accurate, but to me, the most striking aspect of The Casquette Girls is its ability to collapse both time and space, to hold centuries of history together in a few words, and to make magic believable in a modern-world context. The next time you want a gripping read that draws you in and holds you there, pick up The Casquette Girls. You won’t be disappointed.
I have always loved stories that combine the mythical with the mundane, the historical with the modern. The Casquette Girls delivers, in spades. New Orleans in post-hurricane devastation is the setting for this intriguing tale that weaves together the history of the city with the experiences of one young woman whose life turns upside down thanks not only to the storm damage but also to the eruption of magical forces – both benevolent and malign – in her life.
This gripping novel could easily be categorized as paranormal suspense, young adult fiction, fantasy, even thriller, but I think it transcends all those genres. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that the city of New Orleans itself is the main character, in all its entrancing, charismatic timelessness. The city draws the reader in, the same way it draws Adele and her friends, twining us around the tendrils of its myths and legends, mesmerizing us with its magic. I admit, I fell under its spell as I read this story, eager not only to know what happens to each character as the story unfolds but also hungry for every new glimpse of the city in its mysterious splendor. I have only visited New Orleans once, but now I feel I have participated in many of its secrets, with Ms. Arden as my guide.
The usual compliments for a novel of this sort include ‘couldn’t put it down’ and ‘enthralling’ and words to that effect. Those are all accurate, but to me, the most striking aspect of The Casquette Girls is its ability to collapse both time and space, to hold centuries of history together in a few words, and to make magic believable in a modern-world context. The next time you want a gripping read that draws you in and holds you there, pick up The Casquette Girls. You won’t be disappointed.
February 10, 2014
Book Review: The Handbook of Urban Druidry
Today I'm reviewing Brendan Howlin's new book about following the Druid path in a modern urban setting. The official publication date is March 2014 but you can pre-order it now from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk as well as all the other Amazon platforms.
The term ‘Druid’ brings to mind groups of people in long white robes chanting in circles in the middle of the forest. How on earth is it possible to be a Druid in the middle of a concrete-and-steel city? Mr. Howlin explains exactly how it is not only possible, but valuable and even pleasurable. There is life everywhere, even in the most built-up of manmade places, and learning to truly see that life and connect with it is the start of a special kind of spirituality.
Rather than outlining the tenets and practices of Druidry in encyclopedic form, Mr. Howlin takes the reader through a series of exercises which bring recognition of the living world and connection with it as well as the ability to relax and focus on life as it happens in each moment. He also stresses personal responsibility throughout the book, a focus that I find both refreshing and helpful. Overall, the book is a practical introduction to the path of Druidry that requires no specialist paraphernalia, just your own eyes, ears, hands and heart. Definitely worth a read.
The term ‘Druid’ brings to mind groups of people in long white robes chanting in circles in the middle of the forest. How on earth is it possible to be a Druid in the middle of a concrete-and-steel city? Mr. Howlin explains exactly how it is not only possible, but valuable and even pleasurable. There is life everywhere, even in the most built-up of manmade places, and learning to truly see that life and connect with it is the start of a special kind of spirituality.
Rather than outlining the tenets and practices of Druidry in encyclopedic form, Mr. Howlin takes the reader through a series of exercises which bring recognition of the living world and connection with it as well as the ability to relax and focus on life as it happens in each moment. He also stresses personal responsibility throughout the book, a focus that I find both refreshing and helpful. Overall, the book is a practical introduction to the path of Druidry that requires no specialist paraphernalia, just your own eyes, ears, hands and heart. Definitely worth a read.
February 4, 2014
Book Review: A Modern Celt by Mabh Savage
A Modern Celt
is my favorite kind of pagan book: one that makes historical traditions and sources relevant for the modern reader. Mabh Savage has turned out a useful work that will resonate with anyone interested in Celtic spirituality.
Steeped in Celtic lore and mythology from an early age, Ms. Savage understands that not every person will connect with every deity, but that the Celtic tradition as a whole has deep meaning for many modern Pagans. To this end she introduces us to the Irish gods and goddesses, not just as they appear in the ancient tales, but as they have shown themselves in her life and the lives of those close to her.
In addition to discussing the deities, Ms. Savage takes the reader through the wheel of the year from the viewpoint of modern Celtic spirituality, offering glimpses into the meaning of each major point on the circle and inviting us to explore them more deeply ourselves. She also shares wonderful stories from her fellow Celtic Pagans, showing us that magic is very much alive in the world and that it touches those who are open to it.
I was especially moved by the chapter about the ancestors. My personal spiritual practice revolves around my ancestors, which is unusual in today's Pagan community, as far as I have been able to tell. Ms. Savage's conversations about the ancestors, on whose shoulders we stand, offer helpful advice and information about how to approach this aspect of spirituality and incorporate it into modern Pagan practice.
The book includes a useful set of appendices in the form of a little encyclopedia of Celtic lore, from sacred trees to symbolic animals to the major figures of Celtic mythology.
I'd like to share a quote that resonates with me:
"I don't so much 'believe' in gods and goddesses, but accept their existence; I've always found that belief implies doubt, and I have no doubts about the beings that share my world with me."
Ms. Savage experiences the Celtic deities as living beings, as current and relevant as you or I, and she shares this experience in vibrant, approachable prose. This is real, current, living spirituality, a connection from the deep past to the most recent moment.
Read the first chapter for free HERE.
Preview A Modern Celt on Google Books.
Steeped in Celtic lore and mythology from an early age, Ms. Savage understands that not every person will connect with every deity, but that the Celtic tradition as a whole has deep meaning for many modern Pagans. To this end she introduces us to the Irish gods and goddesses, not just as they appear in the ancient tales, but as they have shown themselves in her life and the lives of those close to her.
In addition to discussing the deities, Ms. Savage takes the reader through the wheel of the year from the viewpoint of modern Celtic spirituality, offering glimpses into the meaning of each major point on the circle and inviting us to explore them more deeply ourselves. She also shares wonderful stories from her fellow Celtic Pagans, showing us that magic is very much alive in the world and that it touches those who are open to it.
I was especially moved by the chapter about the ancestors. My personal spiritual practice revolves around my ancestors, which is unusual in today's Pagan community, as far as I have been able to tell. Ms. Savage's conversations about the ancestors, on whose shoulders we stand, offer helpful advice and information about how to approach this aspect of spirituality and incorporate it into modern Pagan practice.
The book includes a useful set of appendices in the form of a little encyclopedia of Celtic lore, from sacred trees to symbolic animals to the major figures of Celtic mythology.
I'd like to share a quote that resonates with me:
"I don't so much 'believe' in gods and goddesses, but accept their existence; I've always found that belief implies doubt, and I have no doubts about the beings that share my world with me."
Ms. Savage experiences the Celtic deities as living beings, as current and relevant as you or I, and she shares this experience in vibrant, approachable prose. This is real, current, living spirituality, a connection from the deep past to the most recent moment.
Read the first chapter for free HERE.
Preview A Modern Celt on Google Books.
January 30, 2014
Book Review: Where the Hawthorn Grows
Morgan Daimler’s book Where the Hawthorn Grows is an unusual entry in the growing marketplace of books about Celtic and Druidic spirituality, and I was very pleased to read it. While Ms. Daimler talks about being a modern Druid in North America and keeping ancient beliefs alive by bringing them into the modern age and allowing them to change to fit the current world, her main thrust is a reasoned effort at remaining true to the ideals of the ancient Celts as we know them through the texts and other historical sources that have come down to us. Following the threads of an ancient tapestry of spirituality and culture, she discerns the pattern the Druids wove centuries ago and exhibits it to us as a practical underpinning for modern pagan life.
To begin with, Ms. Daimler clarifies her own stance as a reconstructionist and Druid, including a clear definition of reconstructionism since it’s so often misunderstood, so often the source of argument and dissent within the broader pagan community. Then, based on the ancient texts and historical sources, she shares a discussion of ethics and beliefs, an extensive description of Irish deities and a lovingly composed set of seasonal sabbats and rites of passage.
Where the Hawthorn Grows is not the romance of Victorian neo-Druid fantasy but the reality of a spiritual and cultural tradition that can work well for modern pagans who want to connect with their Celtic cultural roots. This is not a beginner’s book; Ms. Daimler assumes familiarity with terms such as geasa and blot, so be prepared to look up anything that’s new to you. But for those who are interested in Celtic and Druidic paganism, it offers real substance and a comprehensive look at historically-based spirituality. Ms. Daimler provides references at the end of each section and an extensive reading list at the end of the book, which is helpful due to the heavy historical content of her text.
All in all, Where the Hawthorn Grows covers a huge subject well, providing a great deal of information and real substance on which the Celtic-leaning modern pagan can easily build a personal spiritual practice.
If you'd like a little taste before you buy, you can read the first chapter for free HERE.
To begin with, Ms. Daimler clarifies her own stance as a reconstructionist and Druid, including a clear definition of reconstructionism since it’s so often misunderstood, so often the source of argument and dissent within the broader pagan community. Then, based on the ancient texts and historical sources, she shares a discussion of ethics and beliefs, an extensive description of Irish deities and a lovingly composed set of seasonal sabbats and rites of passage.
Where the Hawthorn Grows is not the romance of Victorian neo-Druid fantasy but the reality of a spiritual and cultural tradition that can work well for modern pagans who want to connect with their Celtic cultural roots. This is not a beginner’s book; Ms. Daimler assumes familiarity with terms such as geasa and blot, so be prepared to look up anything that’s new to you. But for those who are interested in Celtic and Druidic paganism, it offers real substance and a comprehensive look at historically-based spirituality. Ms. Daimler provides references at the end of each section and an extensive reading list at the end of the book, which is helpful due to the heavy historical content of her text.
All in all, Where the Hawthorn Grows covers a huge subject well, providing a great deal of information and real substance on which the Celtic-leaning modern pagan can easily build a personal spiritual practice.
If you'd like a little taste before you buy, you can read the first chapter for free HERE.
January 28, 2014
The Bread of the Grandmothers Project Part 3: Grandma’s Cornbread
As I explained in a previous post, I have embarked on a bread-baking project to honor two of my female ancestors and, by association, all the women whose DNA I carry and on whose shoulders I stand. My first recipe in the Bread of the Grandmothers Project was the biscuits my maternal grandmother made. This post details my adventure in cornbread-making, just the way my great-grandmother did it.
Like her daughter-in-law and all the other women in their families, Grandma Crews was a farmer’s wife, which is a job in itself. She raised six boys, took care of the garden and the chickens, and cooked three meals a day, every day. She also gave me my very first lesson in folk magic.
On one of the many days I spent with Grandmother during my childhood, she and Granddaddy needed to go into town to take care of some business. They didn’t want a fidgety five-year-old tagging along with them so they dropped me off with Grandma Crews, who was more than happy to have me for company. She was doing laundry that day and I followed her out to the clothesline, pleased that she offered me the job of handing her the clothespins as she hung the garments out to dry.
When she had finished hanging the clothes she twisted her apron around and showed me the ties, commonly known in folk custom as ‘apron-strings.’ She had tied the apron around her waist with a big bow but the ends of the strips of fabric sported several overhand knots, loosely wrapped and spaced closely together.
She held one end out for me to see and explained, “If you want something to happen, you think about it real hard, then you put that thought into a knot.” She demonstrated by tying another knot in the apron-string. “You leave that knot there until you get what you want, but you better be sure to undo it as soon as your wish comes to pass or something bad’ll come to you. If it’s something big you want, it might take two or three knots to hold that thought.”
Like my grandmother, Grandma Crews married beneath her, at least according to her family’s values. Her husband’s family was not exactly white, as the locals put it, and visibly so. Though the shame many of my relatives feel at this heritage has made accurate genealogy difficult, it appears that Grandpa Crews’ family contained a sizeable dose of blood from the local Seminole population, which included a number of escaped or former slaves as well as Native Americans.
Though Grandpa was happy to dispense with his local/native heritage as far as society was concerned, he hung onto one tiny aspect: the cornbread. Grandma made cornbread the way he liked it, which was very much the way the local native people cooked it. This ‘corn cake’ contained just three ingredients: plain cornmeal (NOT self-rising cornmeal mix), water and salt. The equipment: a kettle, a bowl and a well-greased cast iron skillet. The result: the crispiest brown crust surrounding a moist, creamy center.
Like all the other farm folks in that time and place who grew Silver Queen and related strains of field corn, Grandma Crews always used white cornmeal. My local grocery doesn’t carry white cornmeal and I haven’t had the time to travel up to the Nora Mill to buy some of the real, stone-ground stuff, so I’m going with the plain yellow cornmeal I can get close to home. The next time I can get my hands on some stone-ground white cornmeal, I’ll make Grandma’s cornbread again.
Most cornbread recipes call for combining the dry ingredients with the room-temperature liquid ingredients to make the batter. Grandma’s cornbread was different. She used boiling water to ‘bloom’ the cornmeal, a standard Native American cooking technique familiar to many people from the method for making johnny cakes.
Like Grandmother with her biscuits, Grandma Crews never used a recipe or measured her ingredients. She knew how much cornmeal to put into her mixing bowl for each finished corn pone, and she ‘measured’ the boiling water by eye as she poured it from the kettle onto the cornmeal. Her batter tended to be a little thicker than most cornbread batter, so that’s my guide for this project.
Grandma’s first step in preparing cornbread was to grease her cast iron skillet. She used whatever she had on hand – bacon grease, oil, butter, rendered lard, tallow – and her choice affected the flavor of the finished bread. I’ve chosen corn oil because it has a high smoke point, an important quality given the temperature at which this bread cooks. In my memory Grandma always made several small pones rather than one great big one; I’m guessing the smaller ones cooked more evenly and were less likely to be too damp in the middle. So I’ve chosen my eight-inch cast iron skillet for this project.
Grandma Crews preheated her skillet in a very hot oven (I’m going with 500º F) while she mixed up the batter. Unlike Grandma in her log farmhouse (built by hand by her father-in-law from the trees on the property), I have a smoke detector to contend with, so I’m taking the battery out as a precaution. Don’t worry, I’ll put it back in as soon as I’m done with the cornbread. I remember how smoky Grandma’s kitchen got when she was cooking this stuff.
For this size pan, I’m going to use one cup of cornmeal with half a teaspoon of salt stirred into it. That should give a fairly thin pone like the ones Grandma turned out. I’ll mix the batter in a metal bowl that won’t be harmed by the heat of the boiling water as I pour it in. I’ll eyeball the water amount like Grandma did, stirring it in as I pour, until the batter reaches the right consistency.
So here are my steps:
Grease the pan with oil and put it in the preheated 500º F oven while I mix up the batter.
Put the kettle full of water on the stove to heat.
Measure the cornmeal and salt into a mixing bowl and stir them together well.
Pour the boiling water into the cornmeal in a slow stream, stirring all the time, until the cornmeal ‘blooms’ and the batter is a good bit thicker than conventional cornmeal batter. I eyeballed it, but I think I added about two and a half cups of boiling water.
Transfer the cornmeal to the preheated pan - it's thick so it takes a little spreading with a wooden spoon or spatula - and return it to the hot oven. I was in a hurry so I didn't smooth the top down as much as I should have (the rest of dinner was ready and we were only waiting on the cornbread).
Bake at 500º F until the top is evenly browned. I cooked this pone for about 15 minutes. I think next time I'll give it another 5 minutes to thicken the crust and brown it more, though it was pretty tasty this time. As you can see, I've flipped the pone over to serve it with the smooth, crusty-brown side up, the way Grandma Crews did.
The method of eating this cornbread varied from one family member to another, from the conventional slice-and-butter style to breaking off chunks and dipping them in whatever liquid the meal offered, pot likker being a favorite. And no, I did not misspell that word.
Personally, I’m fond of butter on cornbread, and the crust on this particular pone just begs for it, so that’s what I’m having with it. If there’s any left over, I may have it for dessert the same way Grandma and Grandpa did – topped with honey (I’m out of cane syrup).
Here’s to our grandmothers, and their grandmothers, all the way back in time to the first woman. May we be worthy of them, and may we always grateful that it is their shoulders we stand upon.
Like her daughter-in-law and all the other women in their families, Grandma Crews was a farmer’s wife, which is a job in itself. She raised six boys, took care of the garden and the chickens, and cooked three meals a day, every day. She also gave me my very first lesson in folk magic.
On one of the many days I spent with Grandmother during my childhood, she and Granddaddy needed to go into town to take care of some business. They didn’t want a fidgety five-year-old tagging along with them so they dropped me off with Grandma Crews, who was more than happy to have me for company. She was doing laundry that day and I followed her out to the clothesline, pleased that she offered me the job of handing her the clothespins as she hung the garments out to dry.
When she had finished hanging the clothes she twisted her apron around and showed me the ties, commonly known in folk custom as ‘apron-strings.’ She had tied the apron around her waist with a big bow but the ends of the strips of fabric sported several overhand knots, loosely wrapped and spaced closely together.
She held one end out for me to see and explained, “If you want something to happen, you think about it real hard, then you put that thought into a knot.” She demonstrated by tying another knot in the apron-string. “You leave that knot there until you get what you want, but you better be sure to undo it as soon as your wish comes to pass or something bad’ll come to you. If it’s something big you want, it might take two or three knots to hold that thought.”
Like my grandmother, Grandma Crews married beneath her, at least according to her family’s values. Her husband’s family was not exactly white, as the locals put it, and visibly so. Though the shame many of my relatives feel at this heritage has made accurate genealogy difficult, it appears that Grandpa Crews’ family contained a sizeable dose of blood from the local Seminole population, which included a number of escaped or former slaves as well as Native Americans.
Though Grandpa was happy to dispense with his local/native heritage as far as society was concerned, he hung onto one tiny aspect: the cornbread. Grandma made cornbread the way he liked it, which was very much the way the local native people cooked it. This ‘corn cake’ contained just three ingredients: plain cornmeal (NOT self-rising cornmeal mix), water and salt. The equipment: a kettle, a bowl and a well-greased cast iron skillet. The result: the crispiest brown crust surrounding a moist, creamy center.
Like all the other farm folks in that time and place who grew Silver Queen and related strains of field corn, Grandma Crews always used white cornmeal. My local grocery doesn’t carry white cornmeal and I haven’t had the time to travel up to the Nora Mill to buy some of the real, stone-ground stuff, so I’m going with the plain yellow cornmeal I can get close to home. The next time I can get my hands on some stone-ground white cornmeal, I’ll make Grandma’s cornbread again.
Most cornbread recipes call for combining the dry ingredients with the room-temperature liquid ingredients to make the batter. Grandma’s cornbread was different. She used boiling water to ‘bloom’ the cornmeal, a standard Native American cooking technique familiar to many people from the method for making johnny cakes.
Like Grandmother with her biscuits, Grandma Crews never used a recipe or measured her ingredients. She knew how much cornmeal to put into her mixing bowl for each finished corn pone, and she ‘measured’ the boiling water by eye as she poured it from the kettle onto the cornmeal. Her batter tended to be a little thicker than most cornbread batter, so that’s my guide for this project.
Grandma’s first step in preparing cornbread was to grease her cast iron skillet. She used whatever she had on hand – bacon grease, oil, butter, rendered lard, tallow – and her choice affected the flavor of the finished bread. I’ve chosen corn oil because it has a high smoke point, an important quality given the temperature at which this bread cooks. In my memory Grandma always made several small pones rather than one great big one; I’m guessing the smaller ones cooked more evenly and were less likely to be too damp in the middle. So I’ve chosen my eight-inch cast iron skillet for this project.
Grandma Crews preheated her skillet in a very hot oven (I’m going with 500º F) while she mixed up the batter. Unlike Grandma in her log farmhouse (built by hand by her father-in-law from the trees on the property), I have a smoke detector to contend with, so I’m taking the battery out as a precaution. Don’t worry, I’ll put it back in as soon as I’m done with the cornbread. I remember how smoky Grandma’s kitchen got when she was cooking this stuff.
For this size pan, I’m going to use one cup of cornmeal with half a teaspoon of salt stirred into it. That should give a fairly thin pone like the ones Grandma turned out. I’ll mix the batter in a metal bowl that won’t be harmed by the heat of the boiling water as I pour it in. I’ll eyeball the water amount like Grandma did, stirring it in as I pour, until the batter reaches the right consistency.
So here are my steps:
Grease the pan with oil and put it in the preheated 500º F oven while I mix up the batter.
Put the kettle full of water on the stove to heat.
Measure the cornmeal and salt into a mixing bowl and stir them together well.
Pour the boiling water into the cornmeal in a slow stream, stirring all the time, until the cornmeal ‘blooms’ and the batter is a good bit thicker than conventional cornmeal batter. I eyeballed it, but I think I added about two and a half cups of boiling water.
Transfer the cornmeal to the preheated pan - it's thick so it takes a little spreading with a wooden spoon or spatula - and return it to the hot oven. I was in a hurry so I didn't smooth the top down as much as I should have (the rest of dinner was ready and we were only waiting on the cornbread).
Bake at 500º F until the top is evenly browned. I cooked this pone for about 15 minutes. I think next time I'll give it another 5 minutes to thicken the crust and brown it more, though it was pretty tasty this time. As you can see, I've flipped the pone over to serve it with the smooth, crusty-brown side up, the way Grandma Crews did.
The method of eating this cornbread varied from one family member to another, from the conventional slice-and-butter style to breaking off chunks and dipping them in whatever liquid the meal offered, pot likker being a favorite. And no, I did not misspell that word.
Personally, I’m fond of butter on cornbread, and the crust on this particular pone just begs for it, so that’s what I’m having with it. If there’s any left over, I may have it for dessert the same way Grandma and Grandpa did – topped with honey (I’m out of cane syrup).
Here’s to our grandmothers, and their grandmothers, all the way back in time to the first woman. May we be worthy of them, and may we always grateful that it is their shoulders we stand upon.
January 27, 2014
Book Review: Shaman Pathways Web of Life
Today I'm reviewing a book by Yvonne Ryves that offers some fascinating do-it-yourself ideas for finding connection with the natural and spirit world. It's well worth your time to read it.
Do you feel a connection with the natural world around you but don’t know how to incorporate that feeling into your life in a tangible way? Have you encountered any number of medicine wheel or web-of-life spiritual traditions that feel familiar but aren’t exactly the right fit for you? This little book has some practical answers for you.
I was gratified to read Yvonne Ryves’ book Web of Life, part of the Shaman Pathways series by Moon Books. It offers a set of exercises for finding your own way, your own unique connection with the natural world and the spiritual world within it. Instead of prescribing a pre-fab tradition, Ms. Ryves takes the reader step by step through the process of developing their own spiritual practice that has meaning and purpose for them, from connecting with the sacred directions to contacting spirit guides or teachers. One chapter even includes instructions for creating your own set of cards to use for working with your personal web of life. This can be a daunting task to undertake all alone, but Web of Life sets the method out one piece at a time, allowing the reader to absorb the new experiences at their own pace. Ms. Ryves offers plenty of background information about worldwide traditions and modern science that incorporate the concepts of connection, circularity and webbiness. But ultimately, the path is an individual one, and this book does an excellent job of showing the way. It’s exactly the kind of book I wish I had found years ago.
Do you feel a connection with the natural world around you but don’t know how to incorporate that feeling into your life in a tangible way? Have you encountered any number of medicine wheel or web-of-life spiritual traditions that feel familiar but aren’t exactly the right fit for you? This little book has some practical answers for you.
I was gratified to read Yvonne Ryves’ book Web of Life, part of the Shaman Pathways series by Moon Books. It offers a set of exercises for finding your own way, your own unique connection with the natural world and the spiritual world within it. Instead of prescribing a pre-fab tradition, Ms. Ryves takes the reader step by step through the process of developing their own spiritual practice that has meaning and purpose for them, from connecting with the sacred directions to contacting spirit guides or teachers. One chapter even includes instructions for creating your own set of cards to use for working with your personal web of life. This can be a daunting task to undertake all alone, but Web of Life sets the method out one piece at a time, allowing the reader to absorb the new experiences at their own pace. Ms. Ryves offers plenty of background information about worldwide traditions and modern science that incorporate the concepts of connection, circularity and webbiness. But ultimately, the path is an individual one, and this book does an excellent job of showing the way. It’s exactly the kind of book I wish I had found years ago.
January 21, 2014
The Bread of the Grandmothers Project Part 2: Grandmother’s Biscuits
As I explained in a previous post, I have embarked on a bread-baking project to honor two of my female ancestors and, by association, all the women whose DNA I carry and on whose shoulders I stand. This post details my adventure in biscuit-making, just the way my grandmother did it.
My maternal grandparents, James and Noreen Crews,
on the front step of their farmhouseMy maternal grandmother learned to make biscuits as a young girl. This ability was a basic life skill for her, an expected activity for girls and women in the rural South in the early part of the 20th century. First her father then, after she was married, her husband expected freshly-baked bread on the table at every meal, three times a day, 365 days a year. She started out baking her daily bread in a wood stove and eventually graduated to a gas oven, but her recipe never changed.
When I was that young I called her Nana; being the oldest grandchild apparently gave me the right to choose her name. But when my first cousin came along and grew old enough to talk, my aunt judged that name to be insufficiently classy. She insisted that we call her Grandmother, so Grandmother it was from that point onward, no matter how difficult that word was for very young tongues.
One of my earliest memories of Grandmother centers around a vision of her hands working the biscuit dough, forming the individual rolls and sliding the pan into the hot oven for the midday meal (dinner, not lunch – lunch was for city folks). I still remember what the kitchen smelled like – the pungent aroma of greens cooking long and slow on the stovetop, the lingering salty scent of the home-cured side meat she had fried for breakfast that morning, the very faint odor of the kerosene that fueled the heater at the far end of the room during the winter. When I was very small, the spot in front of that heater was where the washtub went for my bath, with Grandmother adding hot water from a kettle until I judged it was the right temperature.
My grandparents were farmers, eking out a living on a small property in north Florida. Most years they did all right, some years were tough and every now and then they had a really good year. When I was young they still grew almost all their own food, as they had their whole lives. Their typical shopping list included only flour, sugar, salt, coffee and tea; in good times they might add other store-bought items as well. Everything else – vegetables, meat, corn for the livestock and for the grits and cornmeal the family ate – came from the land.
Though Grandmother made cornbread from the grain she and Granddaddy grew, her usual bread was biscuits. Like many other rural women, she bought her flour in large fabric sacks and reused the material to make clothes and quilts. I can’t use up 25 pounds of flour nearly as fast as she could – I have only a husband and daughter to feed; she fed a husband, five children and any number of relatives and friends who worked as farm hands during the busy season. But I have chosen her brand of flour, White Lily self-rising, in an effort at accuracy. Grandmother used corn oil, the store brand from her local IGA grocery, in her biscuits so I have chosen the house label from my usual supermarket.
The only ingredient I can’t replicate is the milk she used; it came from the cows on the farm. She taught me to milk a cow when I was about five years old and I always loved helping her with that chore, then bringing the milk into the house and straining it through a dishcloth into the gallon jug that went into the refrigerator for safe keeping. The only thing I didn’t care for was cow-temperature milk to drink, so I waited for the milk to chill or asked for an ice cube in my glass. Since I don’t have a milk cow handy (though I dearly wish I did) I have opted for organic milk from my grocery store.
Grandmother kept a ‘working amount’ of flour in a wide, shallow wooden bowl that she stored, covered with a cloth, in a kitchen cabinet. When it was time to make biscuits she brought the bowl out of its storage place and made a well in the middle of the flour with her knuckles. She always computed out loud how many people she had to feed for that meal and always managed to make exactly the right amount of bread, no matter how empty or full the table was.
Into that well in the middle of the flour she poured corn oil and milk, estimating the correct amount by eye. She used about twice as much milk as oil. Then she stirred up the dough with her bare hand, gathering in just enough flour to make a very soft dough. When I have attempted her biscuit method in the past, I’ve always ended up with biscuit-flavored hockey pucks. I think I was drawing too much flour into the mixture, so this time I was careful to stop mixing while the dough was still soft.
To form the biscuits, Grandmother pinched off pieces of dough and rolled them around in her palms until they were round and smooth. I still remember the practiced motions she used, oddly similar to the way Granddaddy used to roll a cigarette in a single slick movement with just one hand. Grandmother baked her biscuits in a round metal pan (a 9-inch cake pan, if I recall correctly) that she had greased with the same corn oil she added to the dough, setting the raw biscuits right next to each other so their sides would be soft and tender when they were done.
The one detail I don’t recall is the oven temperature. I remember her telling me the oven had to be ‘hot-hot-hot’ for the biscuits to rise well, and all the biscuit recipes I’ve ever used call for a 450 º F temperature, so that is my best guess. Apparently it’s a good guess, because after 14 minutes I had soft biscuits that were gently golden on top.
Grandmother always disliked butter, a legacy of being the youngest girl in her family and therefore being stuck with the responsibility of churning the butter every week until she left home to get married. As soon as she could afford it, she started buying margarine and that’s what I remember at her house, what I always had on those biscuits she baked. But I prefer butter and I even enjoy churning it, never having had that job imposed on me by someone else. So I’m serving these biscuits with butter; I think Grandmother would understand. I even had one for dessert, drizzled with honey (I’m fresh out of the kind of cane syrup they always had on the farm, made from the sugar cane they grew on the land – the closest facsimile that’s available around here in north Georgia is sorghum).
Next time, I'll make my great-grandmother's cornbread, as I explained in the previous post. I hope it goes as well as the biscuits did.
Here’s to our grandmothers, and their grandmothers, all the way back in time to the first woman. May we be worthy of them, and may we always be grateful that it is their shoulders we stand upon.
My maternal grandparents, James and Noreen Crews,on the front step of their farmhouseMy maternal grandmother learned to make biscuits as a young girl. This ability was a basic life skill for her, an expected activity for girls and women in the rural South in the early part of the 20th century. First her father then, after she was married, her husband expected freshly-baked bread on the table at every meal, three times a day, 365 days a year. She started out baking her daily bread in a wood stove and eventually graduated to a gas oven, but her recipe never changed.
When I was that young I called her Nana; being the oldest grandchild apparently gave me the right to choose her name. But when my first cousin came along and grew old enough to talk, my aunt judged that name to be insufficiently classy. She insisted that we call her Grandmother, so Grandmother it was from that point onward, no matter how difficult that word was for very young tongues.
One of my earliest memories of Grandmother centers around a vision of her hands working the biscuit dough, forming the individual rolls and sliding the pan into the hot oven for the midday meal (dinner, not lunch – lunch was for city folks). I still remember what the kitchen smelled like – the pungent aroma of greens cooking long and slow on the stovetop, the lingering salty scent of the home-cured side meat she had fried for breakfast that morning, the very faint odor of the kerosene that fueled the heater at the far end of the room during the winter. When I was very small, the spot in front of that heater was where the washtub went for my bath, with Grandmother adding hot water from a kettle until I judged it was the right temperature.
My grandparents were farmers, eking out a living on a small property in north Florida. Most years they did all right, some years were tough and every now and then they had a really good year. When I was young they still grew almost all their own food, as they had their whole lives. Their typical shopping list included only flour, sugar, salt, coffee and tea; in good times they might add other store-bought items as well. Everything else – vegetables, meat, corn for the livestock and for the grits and cornmeal the family ate – came from the land.
Though Grandmother made cornbread from the grain she and Granddaddy grew, her usual bread was biscuits. Like many other rural women, she bought her flour in large fabric sacks and reused the material to make clothes and quilts. I can’t use up 25 pounds of flour nearly as fast as she could – I have only a husband and daughter to feed; she fed a husband, five children and any number of relatives and friends who worked as farm hands during the busy season. But I have chosen her brand of flour, White Lily self-rising, in an effort at accuracy. Grandmother used corn oil, the store brand from her local IGA grocery, in her biscuits so I have chosen the house label from my usual supermarket.
The only ingredient I can’t replicate is the milk she used; it came from the cows on the farm. She taught me to milk a cow when I was about five years old and I always loved helping her with that chore, then bringing the milk into the house and straining it through a dishcloth into the gallon jug that went into the refrigerator for safe keeping. The only thing I didn’t care for was cow-temperature milk to drink, so I waited for the milk to chill or asked for an ice cube in my glass. Since I don’t have a milk cow handy (though I dearly wish I did) I have opted for organic milk from my grocery store.
Grandmother kept a ‘working amount’ of flour in a wide, shallow wooden bowl that she stored, covered with a cloth, in a kitchen cabinet. When it was time to make biscuits she brought the bowl out of its storage place and made a well in the middle of the flour with her knuckles. She always computed out loud how many people she had to feed for that meal and always managed to make exactly the right amount of bread, no matter how empty or full the table was.
Into that well in the middle of the flour she poured corn oil and milk, estimating the correct amount by eye. She used about twice as much milk as oil. Then she stirred up the dough with her bare hand, gathering in just enough flour to make a very soft dough. When I have attempted her biscuit method in the past, I’ve always ended up with biscuit-flavored hockey pucks. I think I was drawing too much flour into the mixture, so this time I was careful to stop mixing while the dough was still soft.
To form the biscuits, Grandmother pinched off pieces of dough and rolled them around in her palms until they were round and smooth. I still remember the practiced motions she used, oddly similar to the way Granddaddy used to roll a cigarette in a single slick movement with just one hand. Grandmother baked her biscuits in a round metal pan (a 9-inch cake pan, if I recall correctly) that she had greased with the same corn oil she added to the dough, setting the raw biscuits right next to each other so their sides would be soft and tender when they were done.
The one detail I don’t recall is the oven temperature. I remember her telling me the oven had to be ‘hot-hot-hot’ for the biscuits to rise well, and all the biscuit recipes I’ve ever used call for a 450 º F temperature, so that is my best guess. Apparently it’s a good guess, because after 14 minutes I had soft biscuits that were gently golden on top.
Grandmother always disliked butter, a legacy of being the youngest girl in her family and therefore being stuck with the responsibility of churning the butter every week until she left home to get married. As soon as she could afford it, she started buying margarine and that’s what I remember at her house, what I always had on those biscuits she baked. But I prefer butter and I even enjoy churning it, never having had that job imposed on me by someone else. So I’m serving these biscuits with butter; I think Grandmother would understand. I even had one for dessert, drizzled with honey (I’m fresh out of the kind of cane syrup they always had on the farm, made from the sugar cane they grew on the land – the closest facsimile that’s available around here in north Georgia is sorghum).
Next time, I'll make my great-grandmother's cornbread, as I explained in the previous post. I hope it goes as well as the biscuits did.
Here’s to our grandmothers, and their grandmothers, all the way back in time to the first woman. May we be worthy of them, and may we always be grateful that it is their shoulders we stand upon.
January 16, 2014
The Bread of the Grandmothers Project
My ancestors have a special place in my life. They provide a focal point for my shamanic practice and they give me a sense of purpose and direction. I know who I am because I understand who they are. The earliest religious traditions probably centered around the ancestors, those on whose shoulders we stand.
It is not necessary to have a good relationship with your living relatives or even to know who they are (adoptees, take note) in order to honor your ancestors. The people you come from live on within you, in your blood, in your bones. Your DNA is their DNA. In fact, your mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA for short) traces back through the female line in your family to the ultimate grandmother of all your grandmothers. If you are a man, your Y chromosome does likewise for the grandfather of all your grandfathers. They live in you.
There are many different ways of honoring the ancestors, many varied traditions from around the world and across time. One of my personal favorites is the Ancestor Tree we put up every year for the winter holidays. On it we display photos of family members who are no longer living, along with one empty frame to represent the ones whose faces we will never know.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about two particular ancestors of mine, two women who had a major positive impact on my life: my maternal grandmother and her mother-in-law. Both of them have passed on but their legacy lives in me. In order to honor them, I am undertaking a project to re-create the breads the two of them made on a daily basis all their lives. The baking of fresh bread with every meal was a tradition in their households, and the particular types of bread these two women made represent, to me, who they were and how they lived in the world.
My Maternal Grandmother
Noreen Crews might as well have been my mother; I spent much of my early childhood with her. She is the person from whom I learned my life values and the only one from whom I received unconditional love. She never thought of herself as a hero, but she was mine, and she had more strength in her 4-foot-10-inch frame than anyone ever guessed.
Every day of her life, Grandmother made biscuits. She never used a recipe, but simply poured the liquid ingredients into a big bowl of flour and mixed the dough up with her bare hands until it felt right. Then she pinched off the dough into biscuit-sized pieces, rolled each one in her palms until it was rounded and smooth, and plopped it into the pan.
I can’t count the number of times I watched her make those biscuits, but I never learned her method. I used the ‘citified’ recipe on the back of the baking powder can, cutting the solid shortening into the flour with a fork then adding measured amounts of the remaining ingredients. It’s high time I learned to do it her way, not just to ensure that this particular tradition doesn’t die out, but as a very tangible way of honoring her in my daily life.
My Great-Grandmother
Grandmother’s mother-in-law was a feisty little woman, more than a little eccentric. Family tradition has it that her waist measured 17 inches on her wedding day and I don’t doubt it – she was tiny all over. Among other oddities, she was rarely willing to go out of the house with a bare head. If she needed to run outside to pull a shirt off the clothesline and couldn’t find a hat close at hand, she would toss a handkerchief over the top of her head. I used to giggle at her, trotting around the yard with a piece of cloth draped over her gray hair, and she would offer me a handkerchief of my own to cover my head as well. I can't tell whether or not she has something, such as a small crocheted doily, pinned to her head in the photo above; if she does not, it's a rarity.
Like all the other women of her region and era, Grandma Crews baked cornbread on a regular basis. But her recipe was unique, more a method than a formula, and it generated a beautiful, golden-brown round pone with the most delectable thick crust I’ve ever eaten. She died when I was six and I often wish I had more time to spend with her. I still remember looking at her in the pink-satin-lined coffin as it sat on display in the front room of their farmhouse the day of her funeral. They had put her best hat on her and I knew she would be happy, since I also knew they would be carrying that coffin out of the house in a little while and she would want her head covered.
Over the next week or two I will do my best to recreate the biscuits and cornbread these two remarkable women made and I will share my adventures with you. In the meantime, you might allow your mind to trace back through your memories, to the foods the people in your life made. Do you have the recipe? Would it be meaningful for you to cook those foods yourself as a way of honoring those individuals and the gifts they gave you by being a part of your life? I wish you wonderful adventures of your own, and your ancestors’ blessings upon you.
It is not necessary to have a good relationship with your living relatives or even to know who they are (adoptees, take note) in order to honor your ancestors. The people you come from live on within you, in your blood, in your bones. Your DNA is their DNA. In fact, your mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA for short) traces back through the female line in your family to the ultimate grandmother of all your grandmothers. If you are a man, your Y chromosome does likewise for the grandfather of all your grandfathers. They live in you.
There are many different ways of honoring the ancestors, many varied traditions from around the world and across time. One of my personal favorites is the Ancestor Tree we put up every year for the winter holidays. On it we display photos of family members who are no longer living, along with one empty frame to represent the ones whose faces we will never know.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about two particular ancestors of mine, two women who had a major positive impact on my life: my maternal grandmother and her mother-in-law. Both of them have passed on but their legacy lives in me. In order to honor them, I am undertaking a project to re-create the breads the two of them made on a daily basis all their lives. The baking of fresh bread with every meal was a tradition in their households, and the particular types of bread these two women made represent, to me, who they were and how they lived in the world.
My Maternal Grandmother
Noreen Crews might as well have been my mother; I spent much of my early childhood with her. She is the person from whom I learned my life values and the only one from whom I received unconditional love. She never thought of herself as a hero, but she was mine, and she had more strength in her 4-foot-10-inch frame than anyone ever guessed.
Every day of her life, Grandmother made biscuits. She never used a recipe, but simply poured the liquid ingredients into a big bowl of flour and mixed the dough up with her bare hands until it felt right. Then she pinched off the dough into biscuit-sized pieces, rolled each one in her palms until it was rounded and smooth, and plopped it into the pan.
I can’t count the number of times I watched her make those biscuits, but I never learned her method. I used the ‘citified’ recipe on the back of the baking powder can, cutting the solid shortening into the flour with a fork then adding measured amounts of the remaining ingredients. It’s high time I learned to do it her way, not just to ensure that this particular tradition doesn’t die out, but as a very tangible way of honoring her in my daily life.
My Great-Grandmother
Grandmother’s mother-in-law was a feisty little woman, more than a little eccentric. Family tradition has it that her waist measured 17 inches on her wedding day and I don’t doubt it – she was tiny all over. Among other oddities, she was rarely willing to go out of the house with a bare head. If she needed to run outside to pull a shirt off the clothesline and couldn’t find a hat close at hand, she would toss a handkerchief over the top of her head. I used to giggle at her, trotting around the yard with a piece of cloth draped over her gray hair, and she would offer me a handkerchief of my own to cover my head as well. I can't tell whether or not she has something, such as a small crocheted doily, pinned to her head in the photo above; if she does not, it's a rarity.
Like all the other women of her region and era, Grandma Crews baked cornbread on a regular basis. But her recipe was unique, more a method than a formula, and it generated a beautiful, golden-brown round pone with the most delectable thick crust I’ve ever eaten. She died when I was six and I often wish I had more time to spend with her. I still remember looking at her in the pink-satin-lined coffin as it sat on display in the front room of their farmhouse the day of her funeral. They had put her best hat on her and I knew she would be happy, since I also knew they would be carrying that coffin out of the house in a little while and she would want her head covered.
Over the next week or two I will do my best to recreate the biscuits and cornbread these two remarkable women made and I will share my adventures with you. In the meantime, you might allow your mind to trace back through your memories, to the foods the people in your life made. Do you have the recipe? Would it be meaningful for you to cook those foods yourself as a way of honoring those individuals and the gifts they gave you by being a part of your life? I wish you wonderful adventures of your own, and your ancestors’ blessings upon you.
December 18, 2013
Library of Dreams - publishing for charity
Today I'm sharing with you two excerpts from the short story anthology Library of Dreams, a lovely collection whose entire profits go to charity. These dream-themed tales were concocted by a writers' group I'm a part of; I donated my time as an editor and I can tell you, I really enjoyed these stories. All profits from the sale of this collection will go to LitWorld, a 501(c)3 non-profit literacy organization fostering resilience, hope, and joy through the power of story. Library of Dreams is available in both paperback and e-book format. What a great way to give yourself, or someone you love, a holiday gift while also doing good in the world.
Click on the book cover for more information
From Ribbon Chasers by Len Webster:
It was a dream he had every night, a dream that made his heart pump, his sweat drip and his head hurt. The same damn dream every night. He remembered the squeal and then the gunshot. He watched those brown eyes flash before he heard her final scream, and then silence.
He tried. As much as he tried to change the outcome of his dream, it was always the same. He couldn’t fix the ending. It was set, though he tried desperately to save her. He remembered the day he took the case. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t. Maybe another agent could have saved her......
“You’re talking like you’re not going to do these things,” Patrick said. He could see it all for her. He could see her in university and he saw her living her life. He had to make sure she lived. “Sadie, they aren’t going to get you. Dawson and I will make sure you get to the trial safely and become Rachel Sims. You will become a psychologist, and even if you don’t want to be one after all of this, you can be whatever you want. You will live a long and happy life, Sadie.” Silent tears fell down her cheeks and she gave him a tight smile.
“You weren’t there,” she whispered. Patrick kept quiet and his silence gave her the cue to continue.
“Dad and I, we were talking about my upcoming final exams. We were out for lunch and I already had an early acceptance into Melbourne University. I hadn’t told him because I thought I’d save the good news for when he was down. But I never got the chance, because the moment we hit the corner a car stopped in front of us. I felt Dad try to push me back, but then shots were fired and I felt blood hit my hand. He was shot five times. Five. Dad fell backwards on the concrete and I just stood there. That gangster pointed the gun at me and smiled. Told me that he’d get me when he was good and ready. For being the daughter of the crown prosecutor, I had to die as well. My death would be slow and torturous because I was pretty and innocent-looking. He’d enjoy killing me. Bring me back to life if he had to, until I got to the edge of death again. He promised I’d be begging him to kill me.”
From Lovers' Fugue by Charlotte Ashley:
It had been twenty-two hours and six minutes since Evie Lancaster had gone off the Dimorphazine. So far, she hadn't noticed anything different.
“The symphony is over three hours long,” Rochelle said, waving Evie's concerns away dismissively, “you'll peak sometime in the second movement. Relax, sweetie. Even if you are only half Awakened by then, you'll pick up the projections on display tonight. Believe me, this is gonna be wild.”
Evie tried to affect an edgy, carefree grin and failed. She didn't really want wild. She was pretty sure she was too tightly-laced to appreciate wild. She was so terrified of not just the psychological, but the legal consequences of what might go on tonight, she wasn't sure she was going to enjoy herself at all.
Evie glanced nervously down the road. They couldn't enter the Opera House for another half-hour. She, Dex and Rochelle were slouched on a street corner, sticking out like a trio of lizards in an egg carton. Dex and Rochelle, veterans of the Opera House, were dressed to the nines in slick black corsets over neon blouses with pagoda sleeves and elaborately embroidered silk pantaloons, with brightly-dyed wigs sculpted precariously around Rococo headpieces featuring birds, fish, glass balls, and the guts of scavenged twenty-first century electronics.
Evie was, herself, dressed in a skin-tight, deep-purple dress studded with the remains of a shattered mirror, a flowing starscape over which her bare shoulders and blonde hair rose like the sun. She felt ridiculously exposed, but Rochelle assured her the best projections came when you gave the imagination something to work with.
For more information about buying a copy (paperback or e-book) anywhere in the world, have a look at the PSG Publishing website. You can also enter to win a free copy through Goodreads, but hurry - the contest ends December 22. Happy reading!
Click on the book cover for more informationFrom Ribbon Chasers by Len Webster:
It was a dream he had every night, a dream that made his heart pump, his sweat drip and his head hurt. The same damn dream every night. He remembered the squeal and then the gunshot. He watched those brown eyes flash before he heard her final scream, and then silence.
He tried. As much as he tried to change the outcome of his dream, it was always the same. He couldn’t fix the ending. It was set, though he tried desperately to save her. He remembered the day he took the case. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t. Maybe another agent could have saved her......
“You’re talking like you’re not going to do these things,” Patrick said. He could see it all for her. He could see her in university and he saw her living her life. He had to make sure she lived. “Sadie, they aren’t going to get you. Dawson and I will make sure you get to the trial safely and become Rachel Sims. You will become a psychologist, and even if you don’t want to be one after all of this, you can be whatever you want. You will live a long and happy life, Sadie.” Silent tears fell down her cheeks and she gave him a tight smile.
“You weren’t there,” she whispered. Patrick kept quiet and his silence gave her the cue to continue.
“Dad and I, we were talking about my upcoming final exams. We were out for lunch and I already had an early acceptance into Melbourne University. I hadn’t told him because I thought I’d save the good news for when he was down. But I never got the chance, because the moment we hit the corner a car stopped in front of us. I felt Dad try to push me back, but then shots were fired and I felt blood hit my hand. He was shot five times. Five. Dad fell backwards on the concrete and I just stood there. That gangster pointed the gun at me and smiled. Told me that he’d get me when he was good and ready. For being the daughter of the crown prosecutor, I had to die as well. My death would be slow and torturous because I was pretty and innocent-looking. He’d enjoy killing me. Bring me back to life if he had to, until I got to the edge of death again. He promised I’d be begging him to kill me.”
From Lovers' Fugue by Charlotte Ashley:
It had been twenty-two hours and six minutes since Evie Lancaster had gone off the Dimorphazine. So far, she hadn't noticed anything different.
“The symphony is over three hours long,” Rochelle said, waving Evie's concerns away dismissively, “you'll peak sometime in the second movement. Relax, sweetie. Even if you are only half Awakened by then, you'll pick up the projections on display tonight. Believe me, this is gonna be wild.”
Evie tried to affect an edgy, carefree grin and failed. She didn't really want wild. She was pretty sure she was too tightly-laced to appreciate wild. She was so terrified of not just the psychological, but the legal consequences of what might go on tonight, she wasn't sure she was going to enjoy herself at all.
Evie glanced nervously down the road. They couldn't enter the Opera House for another half-hour. She, Dex and Rochelle were slouched on a street corner, sticking out like a trio of lizards in an egg carton. Dex and Rochelle, veterans of the Opera House, were dressed to the nines in slick black corsets over neon blouses with pagoda sleeves and elaborately embroidered silk pantaloons, with brightly-dyed wigs sculpted precariously around Rococo headpieces featuring birds, fish, glass balls, and the guts of scavenged twenty-first century electronics.
Evie was, herself, dressed in a skin-tight, deep-purple dress studded with the remains of a shattered mirror, a flowing starscape over which her bare shoulders and blonde hair rose like the sun. She felt ridiculously exposed, but Rochelle assured her the best projections came when you gave the imagination something to work with.
For more information about buying a copy (paperback or e-book) anywhere in the world, have a look at the PSG Publishing website. You can also enter to win a free copy through Goodreads, but hurry - the contest ends December 22. Happy reading!
December 5, 2013
Winter Solstice Blog Hop: Healing Midwinter Ritual
Today I’m sharing with you a healing Winter Solstice ritual. The holidays can be a hard time for many of us. You may feel stressed out by unfulfilled (and unfulfillable) expectations, or be upset by unpleasant memories of past holidays, or be missing loved ones who have passed on. It’s hard to enjoy the season when something heavy weighs on your heart. This ritual is simple but it’s powerful. I hope it helps you find a way to feel more comfortable and more whole through this time of the year.
Read through to the bottom of this post to find out how to enter a giveaway for one of two signed copies of my latest book and to find more participants in the Blog Hop and more giveaways!
* * * * *
Winter Solstice Healing Rite
What you will need:
- Small pieces of paper or card you can write on. Old holiday cards, cut into pieces the size of the palm of your hand, are a good choice. Have at least a dozen of these on hand.
- A pen, pencil or other writing instrument in a color and style that remind you of the holidays.
- Earth. If you have access to an outdoor area where you can dig in the ground, and the ground isn’t frozen solid or inaccessible because it’s covered with several feet of snow, that’s your best choice. But the dirt in a potted plant will work just fine, as will a bucket or bowl full of potting soil. The important thing to remember is that, once you have completed the ritual, the soil needs to remain undisturbed until the holidays are over, preferably until Spring Equinox (watering the potted plant is fine but digging in the soil around it is not). You will also need a tool with which to dig a small hole – a trowel will do but you can get away with using a large spoon if your Earth resides in a potted plant or a container of loose potting soil.
- A time and place where you can be undisturbed and can feel safe and private. Turn off your phone, shut the door, ask family or roommates to go out for a while, whatever it takes so you can feel comfortable. If you wish, light candles and incense, turn on soft music or whatever else will help you relax and focus on the task at hand. You can perform the first part of the ritual indoors and then go outdoors to complete it if you’re using an outdoor area for access to Earth, or you can do the whole thing outdoors, provided the weather is agreeable.
The ritual:
Set the pieces of card and the pen out in front of you. If you feel a connection with deity you may call on that Power now, either aloud or silently. Earth gods and goddesses in particular can be very helpful for this ritual. You may also ask your higher self, guides, guardians and the universe itself to aid you. Take a few deep breaths, relax, and allow your mind to roam over the subject of the winter holidays. Let the feelings, thoughts and memories come up as they may. Do not judge them but just observe them.
After a few minutes of this, begin to focus on the aspects of the holidays that bring up feelings of sadness, discomfort, anxiety or anger. As each aspect defines itself in your mind, write it down on a piece of card. Be very specific here. Name names, include dates and locations, and specify the emotion that accompanies each one. Teasing out exactly which sentiments each aspect triggers can be difficult but it is also a healing act just to define and acknowledge how you really feel.
It may take a while for you to define the activities and memories about the holidays that make you feel bad or they may come tumbling out faster than you can write them down. There is no wrong way to do this. Allow yourself as much time as it takes and also give yourself the freedom to feel whatever you feel. Often we make ourselves even more miserable by trying to live up to other people’s expectations about our emotions (You shouldn’t feel that way! or Aren’t you over that yet?). While actions can certainly be right or wrong under various circumstances, emotions just ARE. However you feel is however you feel. Give your emotions some room, then legitimate them by writing them down.
Once you have written down your uncomfortable and distressing feelings about the holidays, look back over the cards. Read each one. Acknowledge that is how you honestly feel. When thoughts pop up telling you to judge your emotions or to blame them on yourself or others, allow these notions to pass on through your mind and dissolve away. This ritual is not about judgment or blame. It is simply about your feelings and giving yourself the opportunity to heal.
This time of year the Earth is dormant, quiet and peaceful. This is the most grounding season of all, the time when the Earth swallows up discordant energy and dissipates it, gifting us the serenity and calmness to move through our lives from day to day in peace. Now take the cards on which you have inscribed your emotions and carry them to the Earth you have chosen to use. Place your hand on the soil and feel its steadiness. We are of the Earth. It provides our firm foundation, our grounding. Offer thoughts and words of gratitude to the Earth as you dig a hole just large enough to hold your stack of cards. Lay the cards in the hole and cover them up, giving those emotions to the Earth, grounding them. Allow the feeling of peace to settle over you. Thank any deities or Powers you have asked for aid and put away your tools.
This ritual will not magically erase all those uncomfortable emotions but it will give you some space, some peaceful room in which you can just be. That, all by itself, is healing. Strong emotions are like live electrical wires, sparking on everything they touch. Electrical circuits have ground wires for a reason. The Earth is our ground wire. Allow it to drain off the excess so you don’t ‘fry’ this holiday season.
I bid you peace.
* * * * *
This post is a participant in the Winter Solstice Blog Hop. As part of the festivities, I’m holding a giveaway of TWO signed copies of my latest book, Ariadne’s Thread: Awakening the Wonders of the Ancient Minoans in Our Modern Lives. In Ariadne’s Thread you will find, among others, a more complex Midwinter ritual that is also very healing.
If you would like to be entered into the giveaway, please make sure you have liked my Facebook page then leave a comment on this blog post no later than December 13 (and please make sure there's a way for me to contact you so I can let you know if you won). I will use random.org to choose the winner on December 14.
Once you’ve left your comment on this post, you can follow the Hop to another blog where you’ll find more interesting seasonal posts and fun giveaways.
Hop on over to another participating blog:
Click on the bookshelf to find all my available titles:
Read through to the bottom of this post to find out how to enter a giveaway for one of two signed copies of my latest book and to find more participants in the Blog Hop and more giveaways!
* * * * *
Winter Solstice Healing Rite
What you will need:
- Small pieces of paper or card you can write on. Old holiday cards, cut into pieces the size of the palm of your hand, are a good choice. Have at least a dozen of these on hand.
- A pen, pencil or other writing instrument in a color and style that remind you of the holidays.
- Earth. If you have access to an outdoor area where you can dig in the ground, and the ground isn’t frozen solid or inaccessible because it’s covered with several feet of snow, that’s your best choice. But the dirt in a potted plant will work just fine, as will a bucket or bowl full of potting soil. The important thing to remember is that, once you have completed the ritual, the soil needs to remain undisturbed until the holidays are over, preferably until Spring Equinox (watering the potted plant is fine but digging in the soil around it is not). You will also need a tool with which to dig a small hole – a trowel will do but you can get away with using a large spoon if your Earth resides in a potted plant or a container of loose potting soil.
- A time and place where you can be undisturbed and can feel safe and private. Turn off your phone, shut the door, ask family or roommates to go out for a while, whatever it takes so you can feel comfortable. If you wish, light candles and incense, turn on soft music or whatever else will help you relax and focus on the task at hand. You can perform the first part of the ritual indoors and then go outdoors to complete it if you’re using an outdoor area for access to Earth, or you can do the whole thing outdoors, provided the weather is agreeable.
The ritual:
Set the pieces of card and the pen out in front of you. If you feel a connection with deity you may call on that Power now, either aloud or silently. Earth gods and goddesses in particular can be very helpful for this ritual. You may also ask your higher self, guides, guardians and the universe itself to aid you. Take a few deep breaths, relax, and allow your mind to roam over the subject of the winter holidays. Let the feelings, thoughts and memories come up as they may. Do not judge them but just observe them.
After a few minutes of this, begin to focus on the aspects of the holidays that bring up feelings of sadness, discomfort, anxiety or anger. As each aspect defines itself in your mind, write it down on a piece of card. Be very specific here. Name names, include dates and locations, and specify the emotion that accompanies each one. Teasing out exactly which sentiments each aspect triggers can be difficult but it is also a healing act just to define and acknowledge how you really feel.
It may take a while for you to define the activities and memories about the holidays that make you feel bad or they may come tumbling out faster than you can write them down. There is no wrong way to do this. Allow yourself as much time as it takes and also give yourself the freedom to feel whatever you feel. Often we make ourselves even more miserable by trying to live up to other people’s expectations about our emotions (You shouldn’t feel that way! or Aren’t you over that yet?). While actions can certainly be right or wrong under various circumstances, emotions just ARE. However you feel is however you feel. Give your emotions some room, then legitimate them by writing them down.
Once you have written down your uncomfortable and distressing feelings about the holidays, look back over the cards. Read each one. Acknowledge that is how you honestly feel. When thoughts pop up telling you to judge your emotions or to blame them on yourself or others, allow these notions to pass on through your mind and dissolve away. This ritual is not about judgment or blame. It is simply about your feelings and giving yourself the opportunity to heal.
This time of year the Earth is dormant, quiet and peaceful. This is the most grounding season of all, the time when the Earth swallows up discordant energy and dissipates it, gifting us the serenity and calmness to move through our lives from day to day in peace. Now take the cards on which you have inscribed your emotions and carry them to the Earth you have chosen to use. Place your hand on the soil and feel its steadiness. We are of the Earth. It provides our firm foundation, our grounding. Offer thoughts and words of gratitude to the Earth as you dig a hole just large enough to hold your stack of cards. Lay the cards in the hole and cover them up, giving those emotions to the Earth, grounding them. Allow the feeling of peace to settle over you. Thank any deities or Powers you have asked for aid and put away your tools.
This ritual will not magically erase all those uncomfortable emotions but it will give you some space, some peaceful room in which you can just be. That, all by itself, is healing. Strong emotions are like live electrical wires, sparking on everything they touch. Electrical circuits have ground wires for a reason. The Earth is our ground wire. Allow it to drain off the excess so you don’t ‘fry’ this holiday season.
I bid you peace.
* * * * *
This post is a participant in the Winter Solstice Blog Hop. As part of the festivities, I’m holding a giveaway of TWO signed copies of my latest book, Ariadne’s Thread: Awakening the Wonders of the Ancient Minoans in Our Modern Lives. In Ariadne’s Thread you will find, among others, a more complex Midwinter ritual that is also very healing.
If you would like to be entered into the giveaway, please make sure you have liked my Facebook page then leave a comment on this blog post no later than December 13 (and please make sure there's a way for me to contact you so I can let you know if you won). I will use random.org to choose the winner on December 14.
Once you’ve left your comment on this post, you can follow the Hop to another blog where you’ll find more interesting seasonal posts and fun giveaways.
Hop on over to another participating blog:
Click on the bookshelf to find all my available titles:
