“Never to categorize, never to separate one thing from another-intellect, the senses, the imagination,…some total gathering together where the most realistic and the most mystical can be joined in a celebration of life itself.

Woman’s work is always toward wholeness.”

-May Sarton

I’ve been living with my guiding word for almost two years because this year’s word-weave-is just a more poetical version of last year’s-integrate. And I begin to wonder if it will take another year, or more, before I really feel I am living it? It seems to me that this current iteration of the modern world is bent on the opposite of May Sarton’s guiding wisdom. . .we are constantly prompted to take quizzes, count our followers and unfollowers, move quickly from one thing to another, one piece of advice or another dozen, focus on our bodies or our souls…but not focus on anything for long because. . .look! here’s something else you might like, based on your recent search…

It is so easy to feel like my thoughts and my days are unraveling, rather than weaving together, as is my aim. Tho’ at the same time that I am aware of the unraveling, the scattering, I am also aware of a deep weaving at work within me…I just lose the thread of it so quickly, so easily. A gentle reckoning is coming, I am aware of that, as well. Time to pull back from much of the allure of the online, find my way back to my quieter, more spacious online ways. Something like it was ten years ago, if possible? It would be much simpler if one didn’t have to make a living. And simpler still if one had some kindreds nearby, for isn’t that what we are often seeking when we wander here? Some company along the way?

Someday I will have that again, I trust. In the meantime, there are the hens who are inside and out in these days-of-open-doors-to-warm-the-house. And there is the mockingbird who sings down our chimney and takes baths in the rain outside my studio doors. There is the companionship of a fire, large or very small. . .and the garden. My cabbage and kale and collards are thriving and beginning to be added to our uncomplicated and delicious autumnal meals, with sweet potatoes to come. I’ve been mulching the paths and beds, with cut grass and hay and it is so soft and peaceful to work in it now. . .gathering the last of the green beans and peppers and tomatoes. They will join the jars in pantry and freezer that bring me so much satisfaction and comfort. Small harvests and preservings, to be sure, but riches all the same. The steeping blackberry vodka is in the store cupboard, too, now joined by a large jar of persimmon vodka just beginning its alchemy.

This is what feels like the best and strongest parts of my weaving, the noticing and cherishing, but that is only because the rest just little off at the moment. It’s all a part of it. . .I don’t want to separate or categorize now, do I? : ) I suppose it comes down to choosing the threads that will make the most harmonious weaving. . .and understanding that there will always be some weaving that needs to be taken apart and done again.

Ah, the crows are circling and calling, as they do throughout my days. . .and the mockingbird is perched on the same forsythia branch, quiet in the sunshine. I will go out to the garden soon and find a pepper to add some sweetness to my solitary supper (and some Great British Baking show) and keep “gathering together” all those threads of the realistic and mystical and all that is life, as best I can.

How is your own weaving these October days?

P.S. The last several photos are of the “rocket stove” I built on Sunday. Just watch a few videos on youtube and you are a few minutes away from your own. It was a little dream come true to manifest the boiling of water outside under the wide open sky…tho’ I have some learning to do to make it happen more easily, with less blowing on embers. : ) It is trickier than a fireplace or woodstove, but I wasn’t using any pine and my twigs were a bit damp, so. Hoping to make it a weekend tradition, at least!