Brrrrrrr!

Last November got cold quickly and here we are again cold the first week of November. Over the past four years the entire growing season has shifted from March to October to April - November. We are shifting back here in November, but we still are very cold through March. We are losing a month of the growing season. It was a hot Summer, it may be a very cold Winter.

I am on my way to Myami in a week and when I return I will take a break from Blog until Winter Solstice, my New Year. I have been writing since April and I welcome the practice these days. I’m studying copywriting and I enter American Writers and Artists Inc. Barefoot Writing Challenge monthly. I began writing my annual assessment in September and will most likely finish it in Miami.

I went to Junior HIgh and High School in Miami and this trip will be our second Thanksgiving without Mum who passed one year ago July 22. “Memories light the corners of my mind.” It is a gift to hold her in my heart.

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I have a sketch pad and being a shy artist, it is the closest I get so far to a canvas. Canvas will be a next level of development for me - a next level of commitment to Art.

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I am an Herbalist in the Wise Woman Tradition - Susun Weed and the Wise Woman Center. Our premier herbal wisdom on the East Coast along with Rosemary Gladstar. Susun’s teacher, Juliette de Baraicli Levy returned the Wise Woman Tradition to the world. Susun brought it to North America. The symbol of the Wise Woman Tradition is a Spiral. We are not linear beings, we are every growing, expanding, becoming without end. I have taken the Spiral for my business name, Wise Woman Spiral because I believe as a third generation Wise Woman, we have the privilege of being the Spiral now. Let’s Dance!

I am playing with pastels in my sketch pad here. Maybe these sketches will just be housed under glass in a frame as finished pieces.

I ran out of black pastel. These works are from 2013, the year of the Two Row Wampum. As I have mentioned, I produced a Dreamcatcher in 2012, my first exhibited art piece. It was hung in a tree for Two Row. I must have purchased the sketch pad then fancying myself an artist. Today may be the first time I’ve looked at the sketch pad since.

The sketches are me as a spiral. My journey through understanding this body. We get to change and transform on a spiral, ever growing, never the same. What a release from linear time. What an embracing of the variable. Of course this image is 2013. I wonder what it would look like now?

The Wise Woman Tradition evolved naturally in the human experience. We dwelled in Spirit “In the beginning.” We were one with our Plant, Animal, Insect and Rock families. There was no abandonment and separation, no superiority, no dominance - Oneness. As gatherer/hunters, we engaged in Spirit that runs through all things to guide us to wholeness.

The original woman, the black woman, the aboriginal woman gave us all these gifts. Taught us to heal, to become whole to become holy. We know the teachings instinctively when we engage, we are opened up to intuition and visions of health/wholeness/holiness. The plant medicines are whole. They teach us the dance of ourselves. It is an individual practice, a practice of courage and faith.

The Wise Woman Tradition is the undercurrent that has and always will flow under the Establishment. We always have been and always will be like the ocean tide. Never ending. There may have been efforts to silence us, but here we are still and evolving. We are nourishing, building the system and preventing extreme measures. We spend our lives in nourishment.

I was raised Catholic/Pentecostal/Southern Baptist. Moving through each belief system I realized Spirit was the abiding force. Stepping out on faith and moving 1100 miles away from home, I knew that Spirit would be with me. That there is a higher power who wants what’s best for me., When I engaged the Wise Woman Tradition in 2001, I learned of the Void. When I left my job in 2009 to become an Herbalist, I met the Void. It was a Tuesday and I remember initially being unnerved, frightened, until I recognized the Void and decided to play in it. I had had experience with Kundalini in my twenties, so I understood the faithful place. One is lost for sure, but only to the self that has been created by our human experience. All the labels, categories, biases, etc. fall away and one is free. All I have ever wanted in my life is to be free. So I let go and let the day show me, me. Show me its power and strength, love and compassion. It was a delight.

The season has come to an abrupt end. Just like that. I had two beds left at Sargent-Downing to clear and lay straw, but it looks like I will only have the chance to clear one. Not only was it cold, but it was also raining. I ran up to the garden just to pull out the Tomatoes and stakes. I will finish next week. I wanted to clear Echinacea bed at Hiddenbrooke and lay straw, but all I could do was wrap up the hoses. Good night, my beautiful gardens.

Happy Holidays! May the joy, love and light of the season fill you with peaceful, soulful, peace. Ache!