Pre Raphaelite Tarot Valeria Menozzi Artwork by Giuliana Costa

The Pre Raphaelite Tarot Deck. From The Little White Book: The art and life of the Pre-Raphaelite painters were wholly devoted to the pursuit of beauty in the sense of the divine essence intrinsic in every aspect of creation. With their ability to transport us to distant worlds and through their symbolic language, these incredible artists still manage, even today, to fascinate us, arouse profound emotions within us and put us in touch with our intuitive side.

Pre Raphaelite Tarot

Pre Raphaelite Tarot

Archetypal Life Cards

Archetypal Tarot by Mary Greer : What Your Birth Card Reveals About Your Personality, Path and Potential. From the Back Cover: Who are you in the tarot? The tarot cards associated with your birthdate and name form a pattern of personal destiny. They describe the theme of your life - the challenges and the gifts. In Archetypal Tarot, tarot scholar and teacher Mary K. Greer connects astrology and numerology to the tarot to create an in-depth personality profile that can be used for self-realization and personal harmony. Archetypal Tarot is a valuable tool to learn how to use the tarot to interpret your strengths and challenges. This is a fascinating book that allows you to go into a deeper study of how the tarot can be used for further exploration.

Vintage Finds

At this time of year often we are evaluating things about our lives. A new year can bring a sense of wanting some changes made in different areas of everyday living. A fresh slate before us can be exciting! Offerings are advertised to us. There are new classes to take - trainings to sign up for - decluttering ideas along with how to reorganize nearly everything - lifestyle habit changes are offered - starting new journals - healthy living programs - new ways to eat - the list goes on. Because we are surrounded by messages telling us we need to start whipping ourselves into some kind of shape - it can feel a bit overwhelming. At least, that is how I feel.

I am not a fan of suddenly setting up expectations for myself just because it is a new calendar year. The winter time in New England does not feel to me like a new beginning. New beginnings to me feel more like a springtime happening. The winter feels more like a hibernating time. It is useful to look into what works for you as an individual rather than following the crowd of culture that dictates how we might direct our own lives. This seems like something to look at during this time of year. We have just come through a holiday season and perhaps looking at how that time was valuable to you is worth writing about in a journal.

Something I do here is evaluate how things are for myself. How are things going for me? What do I wish and hope for? Is there anything I might shift in how I am carrying out routines? Where am I at creatively? Your list of questions to ask yourself will most likely be different. I think taking the time in these first few weeks of this new calendar year to just simply sit and ask yourself questions is a useful practice. It brings to the forefront what is on your mind. I gives you a window into what feels most important to you right now.

Exploring in the beginning of a year is a creative way to review your biography. Of course you can do this at any time. I do think that because the energy of the culture is looking into what it hopeful or expectant - one can ride on this energy a bit and search out ways that life is needing a bit of a review. I recommend getting out a piece of paper - nothing fancy. Fancy puts too much pressure on you. Just begin to write down random thoughts that come to mind regarding a life review. Let’s call this an evaluation epistolary. This is for your eyes only.

Create a bit of writing for yourself that begins with maybe just of one thing your were pleased with that went well this year. It can be as big or as small as you like. You are not trying to impress yourself. Maybe you are happy that you were kinder this year. Perhaps you followed through with something important to you. Or - you were less hard on yourself this year. You pick what is the first thing that comes to mind for yourself in your relaxed wandering mind. I think this gets you started.

Your writing can - your list - will bring you to surprising places. Stick with it. You could also begin to write a bit - take a break - come back to your writing later on that day. The point is - find the places where your mind is landing right now. Not in a future place in the year. Or sometime five years down the road. Land just here in this moment and see what your heart and mind are sharing with you. It is worth listening to. Let me know what you find out.

Nature Altar - Daughters Home

A walk through the moments I am living through. A new year upon us on this day. The creatures are stirring in the brambles. It has been a year of slow moving and wide wondering. I wonder why we are all trying to make our lives more. More busy - more scheduled - more striving. There is something to a slow way of living. If the opportunity to reflect upon our lives is something we are given - then perhaps we might look into what things matter the most to us. I think for me - it is a self-study of self. This is always present. Will I get it right or understand? More often than not - no, not so much. The everyday of living is such a rich opportunity for reflection and deep study. What will I study this year…

Shaker Firewood Box

Home Ways. Home is my place. A sacred place of becoming each day. I am more myself as the years go by. I am more the brightness that lives inside of me. Is it perfect - there is no such place. I think though - that all of the many imperfections allow a more natural and comfortable way of living at Home. This Shaker Firebox settles in here. The lovely ash floors hold it up - laid down by my husband. Look at all the work there is to do in putting new oil down to protect the floors. It is hard to fit all of it in. Home is not a museum of keeping. It is a tableau of living out the moods and ways of our ever evolving humanity and personal development. Are the floors not finished? It might just mean that I am not finished.

Wood Haus

Helping. Here is Rand helping Pat with building of a Firewood Haus. There are always things to build in our lives. Building a life means the activities are generally the making and creating of things. Projects - structures - repairs - redoing - a life of making is in our own hands. Do we do everything for ourselves or do we help one another? If we build together in all the ways - the Hand Built Ways are stronger on the handmade foundation of togetherness. I am glad filled that we make many of our living ways.

Cultural Emergence Design Deck - Looby Macnamara

Design Ways. As we make our way through the days - designing with intention with our hearts and our minds gives us a creative way of moving through the world. This new Cultural Emergence Design Deck by Looby Macnamara is an offering to help us create in imaginative ways. I like that designing can be interesting and shaped by layers of understanding and openness. It makes our Living Ways feels so much more intentional to focus into Design Ways that have been developed over years of study and exploring. Feeling stuck - in need of a new framework - taking a moment for reflection, joy and creativity - brings about a whole new perspective. It is there for our taking. An offering of beauty and flexible opportunity is a blessing that we can take up - leave behind stale thinking. Designing into the New Year feels like an exciting story to be looking into.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - Oxford World’s Classics

War and Peace Ways. I read War and Peace last year with Benjamin McEvoy and The Hardcore Literature Book Club. There isn’t another Book Club like it. Ben is a wonderful guide and mentor in the works of classic literature. I am joining in again this year with the wide variety of books that will be read. You can find more about it here in The Hardcore Literature Book Club. I am reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - this time with Simon Haisell of Footnotes and Tangents in his slow read with people all around the world. We read just one chapter a day for the entire year. He ran this last year and this is the second time he’s hosting it. If War and Peace feels too big a task to take on all at once then perhaps a chapter a day slow read is the ticket you need. My entire family is reading it this year. I highly recommend this book! Until you discover it you do not know what you are missing out on. It’s all of life in one incredible story.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

I am ending this year with Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. It is a good mood read with a fascinating cast of characters. Here is Ben McEvoy speaking about it.

Freight Train

Finally - here is a freight train coming through this week while I was out driving. Trains coming through seem filled with significance, romance, hard work, story, travel and mostly the picture of going from here to there. It seems a good final image to share with you as the year is moving into the next calendar year. It can feel suddenly expectant and exciting - like a party inside of a longing for change. To me - this train feels like a moving forward in a solid way. Life feels like it can be similar in the day to day - and yet - wrapped in the continuous journey of walking forward in the best way that we can.

I wish for you the best beginning of this New Year of 2024. The movement holds you in its arms. I hope you feel wrapped and surrounded by a sense of grounded belonging. We need you here in all the ways. I am sending you tender care. May all good things find you.

Sending All the Love Your Way…

Woodstove Ways

Hearth

Life surrounds fireside - eclipse worldly time
Slow light enters corners - cobwebs need not be swept away
Dust of life lingers against hard edged granite -
Dry air cause heat fluctuations - measure the room -
Imagined mountain flakes off into baked brick -
As I look upon material gained - a world is seen past -
Hauled by most likely a man - inside - outside toil -
Reward not seen immediate - held together by hope -
Infused particulate - stone - wood - metal - elements molecular -
Wind past the forest whisper of - fell the trees - warmth stands tall -
Is it simplicity - work of matter and muster it up -
As seasonal light transforms hardened worry - glow exists -
Edge of granite quarried - hard enough to know better -
Sharp sees along a geometric encounter of - pattern -
Hang clothing cut from material somewhere grown -
Field of wearing ripples in a wind song - howl of winter -
Everyday sound - feet on wood - clothes on wooden hanger -
Creak the door open - creak the bones that grown worn as years go by -
It is a task of keep - the fire going - the warmth arising -
Gaze into a woodstove window - recollection ancient ancestors - carry out -
As moon rides a curl of sky stars - arc of star asters shine into my eyes -
Walk past iron stove - holding heat - feel warmth of comfort -
Safety comes in panels unfolded - is the work sufficient -
Meaning found in a study of wood - wood work - present day -
See into growth of tree - heart of labor - an etched life -
Winter light casts a hope of glimmer seen - back through all the years -
Solstice ways found in the slant of sun - revealed tale eternal -

By Linden of The Bone Lines

Otto and the Secret Light of Christmas by Nora & Pirkko - Liisa Surojegin

Children of the Northern Lights by Ingri & Edgar Farin D’Aulaire

The Christmas Eve Tree by Delia Huddy illustrate by Emily Sutton

Here are three lovely children’s books for you to track down at your library or in a bookshop. I am a great lover of children’s books. I have saved some books over the years from my daughter’s growing up days. However, I still do occasionally purchase children’s book because they are beautiful. These three books are magical and you might enjoy sitting down in a quiet moment to read them this week. I hope you love them!

Letter Writing Workshop

I hosted a letter writing workshop at my local library this past weekend. We had a small intimate group attend which gave us the opportunity to share in our small group. People shared the letters they wrote - memories about writing letters - what writing letters meant to them personally.

I used the framework of More Love Letters - which I have been writing letters with for years. In December More Love Letters brings us 12 Days of Writing Letters. This time of year is challenging for many people. Writing letters to people who have had letters requested for them allows us the gift of sharing ourselves - reaching out to bring some comfort and care to others that are in need of encouragement at this time of year. The secret to writing letters is that - you as the letter writer receive just as much personally as the letter recipient.

Letter Writing Supplies

I provided materials that were for the taking. This is not necessary as you can use whatever letter writing materials that you have on hand. It does not need to be expensive at all. I choose to offer up holiday themed paper and cards as inspiration. I also did this as a holiday gift to the community. Going forward it is best if people provide their own writing materials. This way people can pick out what most resonates for them and also keeps the cost down for any one person as a host. I wanted to offer up ideas of things that might be used in letter writing. In the middle of one display was a vintage holiday puzzle that I did in keeping with the theme of sending hand written letters by mail.

Letter Writing Workshop

More Love Letters - founded by Hannah Brencher has a book she wrote about the founding of her organization. It is a hopeful and inspiring read showing us that a small act can in turn offer so much care to the world. Your library can most likely get a copy for you!

Letter Writing Workshop - My daughter Emma and Myself - Handmade Hat by Emma

My daughter Emma came to join me which was a great surprise and delight! We did not plan our color scheme of clothing. This often seems to happen to us through the years - most likely not by accident or chance. I made kite paper stars that were on all of the tables for people to take home with them. I made the Christmas Tree book from an old Charlotte’s Web paperback at a craft workshop at our library the day before. We had a Holiday Tea from Harney & Sons with gingersnap heart shaped cookies for the theme of More Love. We all decided that we had such a nice time writing letters together that we will do it again soon in another upcoming workshop. Have you enjoyed writing letters in your life? I hope that you might find that you also begin or renew your letter writing practice.

I opened the workshop with the following poem by David Whyte

Everything is Waiting for You

by David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice. You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you courage.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the

conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.