Dress-Up Therapy

In my life, I have been a bad judge of character. When I meet someone, I'm certain they are good, they are honest, making their way in the world in the most thoughtful, honorable way they can. Why indeed would you intentionally live your life any other way? I don't know exactly how she got there, but PollyAnna is at the controls.

My way of learning about the world was to lead with my whole heart, to put the squishy sentimental thing right out there on its own and see what would happen. Sort of a Knight in Shining Armour complex I guess - put myself as Distressed Damsel #1 in front of a speeding train to find out if I was smart enough, strong enough to save me from doom. As is easily predicted, I've had my heart squashed several times.

And I think I've finally gotten the message - my heart loves, that is what it was put in my breast for - to feel, to communicate with others on a sympathetic and empathetic level. It is not for seeing or hearing or thinking or analyzing. It should stay tucked away until I've atleast taken some precautions to make sure the coast is clear. If I am to to choose and hold a partnership with the Logue Mathias family homestead for all the generations to come, I need to be able to employ the right tool for the job. My heart is the long-term liaison, not the advance scout. Back behind a breastplate it goes. Actually, I think I'll make that a full kevlar vest as I'll not tolerate any more knives in the back either. Piece #1 of my Halloween costume. (Though I totally wish it were so, this is not a picture of my breastplate but a lovely example of the offerings at www.schmitthenner.com)

In my life, I have been an alcoholic. I used to believe it was a disease that I had contracted in college but I know it was really a tool I purposely used to navigate in a world where I did not belong. I used the terrible medicine to confuse my senses, to blunt the sharp edge of truth so I could walk across where I shouldn't oughta be. Six years ago, Schick Shadel Hospital helped me back from the railroad tracks. I've learned to untie myself before being totally run over and lately, I've been able to steer clear of those dangerous rope salesmen altogether.

If my heart is going to stay disengaged for awhile, I absolutely must rely on other tools for gathering and evaluating information about my world and those who would come into it. To be able to clearly hear hidden agendas. To see all the fine print rather than just a rosy glow. To scent the smoke before I walk into the fire. I would feel right about offering myself as a partner with such skills. Pieces #2, #3, and #4 of my Halloween costume.

When I was a teenager, I treasured my subscription to Seventeen magazine. I would pour over the glossy pages everyday for thirty-one days until the next one arrived. Each page, each day, each month built to the single delicious ad tucked in the back: a Finishing School For Girls. I just knew the six P's of comportment (Persona, Packaging, Positioning, Promotion, and Passion) would grant me entry into the glorious, glossy Seventeen world. Alas, I never made it there.

Near the end of The Fasting Path's preparatory exercises, I was dropped headfirst back into that world with questions about my body image:

"Let yourself sit and get comfortable. Then imagine, standing in front of you, the ugliest part of your body. How do you feel seeing this part of you? Look carefully at this part of you; what messages do you tell it every day? Is there something that this part of you wants to tell you? Is there something it wants from you? How do you feel about what it wants and says to you?"

Well, shit howdy. Right there in the middle of transcribing the questions to my journal, I realized I didn't think any part of me was ugly, or fat, or diseased in any way. About fifteen pounds overweight, yes. The same fifteen extra pounds, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less, that I've carried since my youngest daughter was born. But the truth is, I'm done. I don't have any more of the epidemically common body issues we women who grew up in the 80's were infected with. I've still got pounds to lose, but no issues to process.

The same applies to unwarranted trust and alcoholism. I've already done the work necessary to root out and correct emotional and behavioral imbalances. I'm not recovering, or healing, or finding myself, or uncovering any repressed wounds or unrealized potential. I'm 42 years old and finally who I've always wanted to be. Not perfect. But finished.

I'm certain there was never a glossy, glorious invitation to attend the School of Hard Knocks but I'm going to give myself a diploma anyway. Piece #5 of my Halloween costume.

What a shift in thinking this Halloween Costume challenge has become. Generally, you just pick what you want to "be", put together the outfit, maybe some facepaint and special jewelry and Voila! , you are a gypsy, queen, bum, cheerleader, cheetarina (cheetah ballerina) or even a witch. But to try to draw what you most desire to you, well then, you have to get into the very essence of that thing itself. To discover what it most desires.

Rae's wish for an Akbash puppy became heartbreakingly appropriate for this assignment. She has been helping to care for a litter of eleven puppies for the last couple of months. On the days that Jeff works at the small dairy, Rae goes with him, spending hours cuddling, romping, feeding, communing with these amazing animals. Just a few days before they were old enough to leave their mama, the pups contracted a very fast, very deadly illness. Seven of the eleven puppies died, including Tongka the runt puppy Rae had named before she even saw his precious face. For the first time in her life, the abstract concept of crossing over is brutally real.

I overheard her talking with Zoe about "recreation ". My mama heart jolted when Zoe corrected her term, "Do you mean reincarnation?" For the last week, we have explored death, heaven, spirit, reincarnation, redemption, God, religion and atheism. Rae has gone from calling Tongka back exactly as she knew him to trying to find the essential spirit of the pup that she cherished most - what he needed to feel safe, what he would have loved to do with her, what would invite him to come back into her life. I do believe the pain of death is for those who are left behind. This assignment gave Rae the chance to stop thinking about the hurt of being left behind and explore the exquisite choice of being born.

This is how Rae began exploring the spirit she wants to attract to herself in this shifty time:

"Akbash dogs need work, herding, protecting, and to help others. Akbash dogs need love no matter what age. They need at least 5 acres to run on. They are loving, and independent, as well as loyal to their owner. They are attracted to "Puppy Wuppy Wuppy Wooo!" They love to chew on things, and that's a fact! If and when I get a pup I will train him for search and rescue. If I ever get lost I want to be found, and I want a friend."

Zoe had more difficulty choosing what she wanted to draw to herself. When I asked what her costume might be, she replied "Myself. I will go as 'content'". Gotta tell you, this soothed quite a few fears, atleast for the day. As mom to a young teenager, I keep looking for those neuroses all the parenting books tell me I'll have to be vigilant for, to nip in the bud, early intervention and all that. "Content" was a nice thing to hear. It didn't however get her out of the homeschool assignment! As we explored what skills, talents, landscapes, people, or events she would like to experience, we kept coming back to animals. Seeing how our place is already home to a dog, cat, 22 chickens, a horse, a cow, and a bull calf, I wasn't sure I was ready for her to be calling in more animals just yet.

A barn though, now that would be a blessing. We have rehabilitated the shed on our rental property as best as we can but it definitely lacks spirit. It just plain feels temporary. Zoe spent some time reaching into the essence of Barn and came up with this:

"A barn is built to shelter, to keep warm those who seek it. A barn wants to smell of hay and animals. To sound like chickens clucking, the soft low of a cow to her calf. A barn wants to last centuries, to house ones who need protection. To softly creak and groan in the wind. A barn wants to be lit with yellow sunlight, or cozy lantern shadows. When the night turns cold and frosty, and you can see your breath, a barn will shelter you from the cold, will capture your heat, but will let you walk across the threshhold at your will. A barn wants to be filled with life. And I want to pour life in to it. To fill it with laughter and hay, and red bows."

As for designing a physical costume to attract the spirit of what you most want, I've found that to be more complex than I had originally thought. For example, I desire to draw to myself the Logue Mathias Forever Home. I've mentioned that it isn't just any piece of property but the one I believe is out there just for us, ensouled with a spirit that will be our true partner for generations to come. I will know it is ours because I will not have to repair the bathroom. I kid you not, we've had to repair, rehab, or completely rebuild the last four bathrooms - in one house, we had to do two bathrooms. So, I'm asking our land to deal with its pipes before it becomes ours by dealing with my pipes before Halloween. For the next week, I am working with Steven Harrod Buhner's "The Fasting Path" to clear out old business and enable a clean slate for vital living. Good dreaming!

Living Tradition

Our family loves everything about the Halloween season. Learning that our dear friends do not celebrate the holiday made me take a closer look at why and how we tend to honor this time of year.

In the ancient Western world, the Celtic calendar was divided into the light half of the year, May 1st to October 31st, and the dark half of the year, November 1st to April 31st. Mind you, these dates are not exact as most of the old "holidays" were based on seasonal transitions and moon cycles rather than specific, rigid dates on a paper timekeeper. Further, the traditional activities absolutely followed real life seasonal tasks - harvest, preserving of the harvest, breeding and birthing of livestock, planting, and planning. Halloween falls at the beginning of a long season where most food plants go into dormancy in the Northern hemisphere. What you've managed to ripen and preserve is all your family can hope to get for several months.

Such was the reality of life before cheap energy and multinational corporations allowed us to expect tomatoes and bananas in January. This was the primary reason our family began consciously celebrating Halloween as a sacred season rather than just a candy bonanza. When we shifted our grocery shopping from big chain stores to local providers and our own garden, we became intimately aware of the Celtic halves of the year.

This is certainly not to imply that we find Halloween to be the first night of six months of deprivation and misery. Paradoxically, it is my undisputed favorite time of year, the time when I most feel a burgeoning hope. I love the rainbow of canned beets, beans, jellies, and sauces. My eyes feel so good traveling over the green, orange, brown, red, and tan of Winter squash - colors and shapes that words cannot adequately describe. Potatoes, onions, garlic, apples, beets, and rutabagas provide the base of all our winter meals. They mimic the glorious variation of our Autumn landscape before Winter snows disguise all the edges and gullies in a soft white blanket. The cold air seems to sharpen each smell until you can almost navigate from one single scent to the next. Variations in temperature are like the stroke of different hands against my cheek. To me, these are promises of long Winter nights spent reading and sewing and talking and laughing.

The tradition of dressing up in costumes for Halloween grew from the belief that during this shifting season, the veil between what is living and what has died is very thin. We are just starting to realize that the garden does not need tending, that everything that can be harvested has been, and nothing new will grow. It is the vulnerable time between the abundance of life and the composting of death. Those things that have died are still finding their way to the next stage. Halloween, or the older name Samhain, celebrants disguised themselves so that those dead spirits couldn't find them.

Some texts say they disguised themselves so that "evil" spirits couldn't find them. I guess I have a particular idea of evil - that it is anything that is supremely out-of-place. Sins are actions that, under other circumstances, have different connotations. Adultery = Sex with a culturally inappropriate partner in a culture that views marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Actually, there are a whole lot of other "sins" that are the act of intercourse with inappropriate partners but the act of intercourse in itself is considered sacred, that which ensures the continuation of life. One of the hardest things about being human is trying to pin down, in black and white, what is evil. There always seem to be exceptions to the rule. During this time of year, all spirits are transitioning. Essences only become good or evil through our human expression of them.

This review has prompted me to shift our Halloween costume tradition a bit. What if rather than hiding from the spirits we don't want to find us, we dress to invite the spirit we do want to welcome into our life? One year, Zoe dressed as Autumn and Rae dressed as The Little Teapot, short and stout. In the ancient Samhain context, we were saying, "Go away evil spirits, there is nothing to see here but some fallen leaves and an old kitchen kettle." How would you dress, advertise really, so the spirit of a beautiful painting would find you, to fill your imagination with such inspiration that you spent the entire Winter season pouring forth its expression? What do you most want to draw to yourself?

I'm going to have to work with this one a bit. I want terribly to live on our own land, to work with it and pass something full and mature and sustainable to my children and their children. If I just wanted land, I suppose I could dress as a real estate developer or property manager. But what I want is to be a steward. I want the land to grow and flourish and find a stable, self-regenerating expression under my care. I suppose this makes me servant of both land and my descendants. But I am no martyr. I love to be joyful, to taste, feel, and move in ways that are sensually pleasurable. And truth be told, I've a good streak of lazy - I could spend hours laying on a grassy hillside, letting the sun warm my body and the plants all around me until I can barely tell what is me and what is hillside.

I don't want just any land. We've owned and leased property before that I'm certain needed me to help heal itself. I was glad to do that but I am not looking for a wounded spirit that needs a healer so that it may move on to other purposes. I want land that will nurture and shelter generations of Logue Mathiases, giving and demanding that each person step up to the challenge of their own unique gift. I can imagine what that piece of land would look like. Now I just have to imagine what it wants me to look like!

I invite all of you to create a costume, a visual expression, that is a classified advertisement for what you want to draw into your life. My girls are getting this one as a homeschool assignment and we will get back to you later this week with our ideas.

In My Sister's Garden

Last weekend, the girls and I made a wonderful marathon trip to my brother's home to meet the newest member of our extended family. Of the 48 hours we were gone, I got to hold the baby atleast 12 hours. Joy, Joy, Joy! There is nothing in the world like a new baby to make old memories and emotions fresh again. I was ten years old when my brother was born and I was certain he'd come straight from heaven just for me. His son looks so much like he did, my heart was doing weird time-warpy stuff.

In fact, the whole weekend felt like a long carnival ride but instead of the funhouse mirror doing fat/thin, I kept bouncing child/adult. It's happened to me other times visiting my family: they all still live in the same area where we grew up, each have children that look very much like they did
when they were little, and take their children to school with the children of the kids we graduated with. I'll find myself giggling about one of our old friends and be almost shocked when my teenage daughter comes in, asking what's so funny. It's not always fun and games - those old hurts seem to jump to mind just as quickly as the sentimental snapshots. Some trips, I frequently reprimand myself, "Lisa, how old are you?" just to get a grip.

This time however, my feet kept finding solid ground. I'd been prepared to have to struggle to keep my mouth shut. I've been branded the black sheep of the family, the weird sister, the "hippy". When it finally occurred to me to question the nature of that label, my brother graciously changed it to "the free-spirited" sister. Still, we live very different lives and I, being the big sister, worry. If my crazy worldview really does turn out to be accurate rather than wacky, I don't want them to be hurt. However, I promised myself that I wouldn't inventory their pantry or check their flashlight batteries or update their first aid kits - I was going to be "normal".

Living tucked away in your own reality can really warp your perspective. I am grinning now to imagine that I could have kept my mouth shut even with the best discipline. Lucky for me, it turns out my family is going to be just fine. Each of them, in their own lifelong way, has developed a support community. They all look very different from mine. None of them would label themselves prepared for disaster, sustainable, or free-spirited. But if the shit does hit the fan, I think they will have the courage and the brains to take care of their families with the same honor and commitment that I will take care of mine.

It's as if I saw, for the first time, two separate Americas. One is what I read on internet blogs, hear on the radio, see on the nightly news. While that paradigm seems so far from what Jeff and I have been able to build in our life, I guess I thought everyone not like us was a helpless victim of the Nightly News Paradigm. But I was blessed to be immersed in the resiliency of regular Americans for a weekend - people I know to be happy, stressed, grieving, poor, well-off, celebrating, struggling, toiling, distracted, hurting, and healing. In short, people fully involved in the business of living.

Whatever happens with the economy, with the elections, with the wars, the great majority of this world will be people more like my family than me or the folks making the Nightly News. I've let my attention focus on what was falling apart and how to protect my family from the shrapnel and missed seeing the durable weave of regular America. Like any fabric, I imagine there will be weak spots that simply cannot hold the weight of the falling paradigm. But the human species has been around for a very long time - I did not invent Adaptation.

The photos on this post are all herbs we found in my sister's garden. She just moved into a rental a month ago and, having not grown a garden of her own, wasn't aware of the incredible wealth she'd inherited. The last couple of hours with my family was spent picking and smelling, identifying and extolling the virtues of her unexpected sustainable homestead. Next Spring Break, maybe she'll let her big sister spend a week playing in her garden and making medicines to soothe the hurts I may not be there to bandage. In the meantime, each picture is linked to its Wikipedia entry. Maybe you will see something here that is in your sister's garden too!

Inward.....the ABC's of Getting a Grip

Apples, Beets and Cheese, much more than just a grocery list! I have had a crazy feeling the last two weeks - like being in the eye of a rushing tornado, its winds choked with semi-trucks, cows, billboards and such that were never meant to fly. And here I stand, as still as I can so I don't inadvertently step in the way of one of those killer projectiles. In the place of stillness, I look around and find near me a bin of apples, two bins of beets, and several gallons of glorious raw milk.

What's a girl to do but go to work? So far, I've made spiced apple butter and honey apple butter. My girls were lamenting that the only jam we have in the house now is rhubarb. Next year, we will do better at making time to visit the u-pick raspberry patch and the wild blackberries. For now, we had applesauce bread with honey apple butter on top for lunch!

The apples were a gift from the small farm for whom Jeff works. He'd pruned quite a few of their trees this Spring and they are just loaded with apples. My heart swells witnessing the intimate pride of relationship this couple feels for their homestead - "Pick apples from this tree - they are perfect for applesauce. Those from the tree in the pasture there? Those are my pie apples, they're not quite ripe yet. Another week or so." It seems so simple and everyday. I guess that's the beauty - the interaction they have with all parts of their home, from the animals to the trees, to the soil and water is an everyday, every season thing. I am inspired and grounded and grateful.

I do love my beets. Everything about them is a piece of who I am and what I strive to bring to my life - their vibrant, deep, lovely red I remember vividly as round stains on our old melmac plates as a child. Just seeing the scarlet jars will make my mouth water as if I already hold their sweet, spicy, tart earthiness on my tongue. But......this is the first year that I've tried to preserve the intense health benefits of the beet greens. I dried the tops of the beets that I am now lacto-fermenting in our crock. Because there were so many, I put the base of our round American Harvester dehydrator in the bottom of our electric oven (after pulling the oven control knobs off!) and filled the oven racks with greens. It worked very well. It smelled very bad. No joke. I am going to be psyched this winter when I am making immune supporting soups that I dried all those greens but I just hope I can forget the smell when it comes time to do it again next year!

And cheese. I am so infatuated with making cheese! Who knew. I'd read books, read webpages, tasted other people's cheese but was too intimidated to make my own. I love to cook but I'm more the stand-at-the-cupboard-door-and-put-in-a-few-sprinkles-of-everything kind of creator. I don't do so well with following directions. Jeff said he would make the cheese and I could help. Great. Jeff is very good at following directions. He was also ready for bed by the time our to-do list got around to starting the cheese process. So I went for it. And it was great! If you have ever wanted to make cheese, I absolutely recommend the Deluxe Cheesemaking Kit from Leeners.com. It is inexpensive, straightforward, easy, and successful. The Farmstead Cheddar is delicious! My best tip is to use a double boiler for heating and maintaining the temperature for your curd. I've found the temperature stays quite steady when I remove the inner pot and just set it next to the pot of hot water on the stove. If it cools too much, I just replace it in the double boiler. Bottom line - if I can follow these instructions with the level of success we've had, anybody can.

This week, our whole family has begun working for a local gourmet potato farmer, harvesting acres of yellow, red, black, and russet potatoes. The weather has been kind and the company has been eminently enjoyable. All in all, not a bad way to ride out the storm.