Solstice

I hope you had a lovely time celebrating either Summer or Winter Solstice yesterday. We spent it listening to the wonderful Wendy Rule at her annual Midsummer Party. I made this wreath for our front door in honour of the Season and I was really pleased that I managed to use just some grasses that I had pulled out of the garden while weeding, as well as a little string!

Blessings

I have been reading Amanda Blake Soule's The Creative Family, which is a lovely book much like her beautiful blog www.soulemama.com/ In it, she quotes a very sweet blessing that she and her family say before meals. I have decided I am going cross stitch part of it onto a sampler for our kitchen this weekend. I am so enjoying our garden and the signs of spring life at the moment that it just seemed right -

Blessings on the blossom,

Blessings on the root,

Blessings on the leaf and stem,

Blessings on the fruit.

Hopefully I'll have some results to show you on Monday.

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With the wind continuing to whip dramatically around us at the moment, I am reminded very much of Wendy Rule's song, "The Wolf Sky". I'm not quite sure what a wolf sky is, but I imagine it sounds a little like what we have right now. If you haven't heard of Wendy, you have to have a listen -

http://www.myspace.com/wendyrule

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Have a beautiful weekend.

Views from the couch II: What is your gift today?

I have been a fan of local Australian musician Wendy Rule for a very long time. I have had the joy of hearing her sing live several times. Her voice is so evocative and the material about which she sings so interesting. I don't think you have to subscribe to her spiritual views to get something from this lovely, lovely music. This song, "Creatures of a Day", is from one of the first CDs of hers that I ever heard: World Between Worlds. It still remains a favourite of mine for quiet, sometimes melancholy moods.

Yesterday, beset by back pain, I put on her Meditations on the Four Elements CD and just tried to relax. Listening, I realised at the end of each track, she asked of the four elements (earth, air, fire and water): "What is your gift today?" And I thought, what a wonderful way to look at the world around me. What gift is the air giving me today? It's bringing a breeze through the kitchen window or giving me a moment of enjoyable distraction as it picks up some leaves and sets them down again. The earth gives the gift of bringing our veggie patch just a little closer to harvest, the water encourages my parched petunias in the front yard to keep going, fire heats our dinner. Everything gives something, including ourselves. What is your gift today?