The term “blogger meet up” doesn’t even begin to do justice to the weekend I just spent with these (and a few others) lovely ladies. Sister women. Creative Goddesses. Beautiful souls.

I won’t be able to upload my own photos until next week, but for now am content to see (and steal) Heather’s photos. And to read her perfect description of our time together in her post Sisters of Grandmother Moon… Or, the Long Story of the Sisters’ First Gathering.

Clover and Mycelia doing some bedtime reading.

Beautiful vintage dresses and lots of smiling were amongst the themes of the weekend.

I’m off to visit my grandparents, here’s hoping that our new camera battery arrives before I return so that I can get back to a life of obsessive photo documentation and sharing. In the meanwhile, my heart will be floating in an ocean of joy and love, recalling the deep bonds made with these heretofore strangers during one magical weekend in the verdant hills of Northern California…

Last summer Graham took Mycelia to a folk music camping festival for a night, and I stayed home and did what I do when I have the time and space to do just what I want to- watched free PBS videos online. A film called Into The Deep: America, Whaling, and the World came up in my search. Even though I’ve enjoyed every other American Experience episode I’ve watched, I was very hesitant to watch this one.

Watch the full episode. See more American Experience.

As I have blogged about before, I feel a deep affinity with cetaceans. Especially whales. I have generally avoided the subject of whaling throughout my life, but then I watched the above interview with filmmaker Ric Burns (who, btw, also made the New York documentary I recently blogged about). When he spoke about how the story of whaling was related to so many other historical events and  cultural trends I knew that I could no longer let that glaring blind spot in my own knowledge remain.

And I have to say that I found the film absolutely riveting. It just satisfied my soul. Through all the blood and gore and savagery and inhumanity, somehow I felt exuberant, buoyed by these people’s lives and experiences and even by the human/whale relationship throughout time. Somehow (that’s a whole nother blog post), it is deeply important.

While the dirndls in this post are certainly authentic, I can’t say the same for the aurochs. Calling these small Dexter cows aurochs would be like calling elephants woolly mammoths. Today’s cattle are the descendants of the ancient aurochs, who were much bigger and stronger.

They went extinct in the 17th century.

I never felt much of an affinity for cows until last year, when three forces convened at once and changed my whole outlook on all things bovine. One was reading the Earth’s Children series of books, which follows the life of Ayla, a woman living in Europe during the last Ice Age some 30,000 years ago. Aurochs were a major part of people’s diet (and clothing and housing, etc) at that time and place, and I loved the descriptions of them. (I could write a thousand blogs about why you need to read those books. If you haven’t yet, please pick up Clan of the Cave Bear at any thrift store and do so! And for those who already have read the books- the 6th and final in the series, The Land of Painted Caves, comes out on March 29th!!!).

The second was reading a short piece in National Geographic called Ox Redux about how scientists are selectively breeding modern cattle in order to recreate the Paleolothic aurochs as closely as is genetically possible. Coolest thing ever! You can read more at The TaurOs Project: Rebuilding The Aurochs.  Continue Reading... (535 words + 9 images, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

Last night Graham’s mom Sandi fulfilled my deepest heart’s desire and made me real Italian lasagna for my birthday- greasy, meaty, cheesy, delicious. Sandi’s maternal grandparents came over from Italy, and she (and Graham!) very much inherited their love of food and their gift for cooking.

Mycelia wore this dress, which Graham got for Mother’s Day when she was one year old. It was a maxi dress on her then!

I wore this super simple outfit all day. Throughout the day I pulled different cards from different Tarot and Oracle decks, and one that really stood out to me was the Ordinariness card from the Zen Osho deck.

It just struck an immediate chord. Now that my turbulent twenties- when I was striving so hard to be someone, to be special, to make something of myself, to “find myself”- are officially behind me, I feel like I can sink a little more into ordinariness, into just-myself-ness. I guess I sort of felt that is sweet and simple outfit was a reflection of that. Nothing flashy, not channeling my inner Vintage Maven, not displaying any sexiness, just warm and comfortable and wearing some of my favorite colors. Next step- Mom jeans.

Mycelia & Jasper- BFFs.

As mentioned a few days ago, this little girl is playing a lot with words and writing and spelling at the moment. Half the time her words are written backwards and/or upside down, it’s pretty cute. She was stoked on some new alphabet stickers from Nona, and quickly put them to use.  Continue Reading... (322 words + 9 images, estimated 1:17 mins reading time)