A few weeks ago my friend Jessica of Cast & Bind was over, and somehow our conversation turned to Tasha Tudor.

I had never heard of her but was very intrigued, especially when I checked out the website above.

I got the book The Private World of Tasha Tudor from the library last week, along with a couple of her childrens’ books, and I am smitten.

Ever since childhood she knew what kind of life she wanted to live- simple, homemade, self sufficient, and suffused with the spirit of old world goods and methods- and she did it. (She died two years ago at age 92).

The best part of the book for me was about her clothing collection. Here are some quotes:

“Why do women want to dress like men when they are fortunate enough to be women? Why lose our femininity, which is one of our greatest charms? We get much more accomplished by being charming than we would by flaunting around in pants and smoking. I’m very fond of men. I think they’re wonderful creatures. I love them dearly. But I don’t want to look like one…

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Take my black and rainbow striped beach cover up dress and favorite burgundy boots, throw some sort of black lacy crochet spider web looking piece over it, and you got yourself (or I got myself rather) two killer 100% thrifted going-out-on-a-summer-night outfits.

Now to find something to do…

This Saturday was the much anticipated Bunnyhenge, a one day music festival and camp out that Sasha of Astral Boutique and her husband Chris organized just in the last few weeks. They cleared weeds around their home for tent pitching, set up a stage, and coordinated musicians from Grass Valley/Nevada City, Sacramento, and the Bay Area.

Sasha, of course, looked amazing. And rocked the fuck out.

Cynthia with the disco ball while everyone is setting up.

Chris gets pumped, shows off the world recognized rock n’ roll bunny ear hand gesture.

My outfit was heart themed.

Even the shirt!

Greg Moore of The Moore Brothers, who asked me “Do you think Sasha just dresses like this every day, doing work around the house and yard and stuff?” To which I replied “Yes.”

And Thom Moore. Completion of The Moore Brothers. Best brothers in town.

As I’ve written many times here before, the kindness and generosity that I have been shown from my online friends never ceases to open my heart ever wider and leave me feeling gratitude on a scale I have never experienced before, not just for the gifts but for the interconnected world I am a part of and the serendipitous and synchronous connections that I have been blessed to make.

A year or so ago I googled “Appalachian wisdom” or something like that. I have always felt an affinity with the lore of that land and the people who reside there. My kinfolk on my dad’s side come from North Carolina, and England some generations before that. They perfectly fit the profile of the emigrants who first settled the Appalachian region, and I am sure that somewhere deep down this is why I respond so primally to Appalachian music, herbal knowledge, and general folkways.

So anyway, what came up when I googled that was Foxfire. I perused their website and realized that all the old time learnin’ I sought had been ingeniously sought out, thoroughly recorded, and beautifully presented by this group, which was started as a magazine in 1966 by some high school English students who wished to record the old ways of their elderly Appalachian neighbors before they passed on.