Lesley

from the archives…redecorating

*I am writing this on Monday morning, after a lovely solo business retreat I had upstairs in my sons’ bedrooms over the weekend. It was so fruitful. And also very sweet to be in those rooms again, with room to spread out and ponder and plan. I’ve know for awhile that I wanted to get back to blogging, to be a part of a blogging renaissance (what do you think? Shall we try?) and designed a pattern of posting to follow that I believe will make it possible, amongst all my other creative, business endeavours.

Today’s post is from the archives (with twelve years of posts, there is much to choose from) which is one part of my new pattern…and there will always be a monthly recap of my reading and watching…a post from the heart of my days…and a joining-in sort-of-post focused on the small, domestic discoveries and ways we are finding to live more gently upon the earth. Delivered each Monday to this post-office-in-the-hedge.

Deeply glad to have sorted this out! If you would like to receive these weekly posts in your inbox, you may sign up at the bottom left of the page. And to take first steps towards that blog renaissance, there is a new link at the bottom middle of the page to my archives and my own blog roll…

P.S. I chose this post in honor of the just-passed St. Brighid’s day…goddess of the hearth. And because I am a Hestia at heart…and because it is winter and the finest place to be is by whatever hearth we find or make.*

january-kitchen-corner

…seems the best course of action, at this time of year when action, in general, is not at the top of my list! And as it is too cold in the house to do much real redecorating, I’ve decided that my online homes will receive some refreshing for the next while. So don’t be surprised to see things come and go in this space until I find a place for everything and then put everything in its place.

When I began my online journal nine years ago, I called it my “bower”, which is an old word for home. I’ve casually called this newer space my “rosehip bower”, but just lately I’ve felt that this is more my Rosehip Hearth…a place to come and warm yourself…stare into the fire…be in each others company.

I wrote this last October, when we were reading the book Serving Fire together at Wisteria & Sunshine…

candlemasbrigidaltar

“Honoring the hearth is a state of being that radiates outward, nourishing other parts of our lives. The hearth keeper holds both the inner and outer worlds simultaneously. Daily actions, thought, and feelings provide kindling for the fire of the hearth.”

-Anne Scott

Serving Fire

“Tending the hearth”…one of those thrilling phrases for the domestic heart. But what does “the hearth” actually signify, for each of us? In Serving Fire, it mostly means the kitchen and cooking and nourishment….but before we move more deeply into our book, I wanted to get clear on what, and perhaps, where, our hearths really are. I have a fireplace, a woodstove, an oven and stovetop in my home…are one or all of them my hearths? Or is the hearth mostly a spiritual thing?

Does the hearth begin once you cross the threshold of home? Or does it revolve around warmth and sustenance…material or not? Like so many things after mothering, it is harder to put my finger on, now that our home is so much emptier than it used to be. How can one tend the hearth in solitude? And what might that look like? If “hearth” means center, does it reside within me?

-October 2014

solsticefire

I suppose I shall be trying to answer those questions here, in and amongst all of the “tragedies and cravats, poetry and pickles, garden-seeds and long letters, music and gingerbread, invitations, scoldings and puppies.” (Louisa May Alcott’s words about the post office in the hedge in Little Women, which I’ve long likened blogs to.)

Now I am going to get back to creating some new corners, moving some pixelated furniture and putting a cosy chair to two near the fire…

real

There is a four-year-old post here with the same name, and when I read it and wandered back through what I was sharing then, I see now the beginnings of what has deepened into a way of life. Those first years after my mother died and my caregiving ended was the same time I became aware of the rosehip-colored glasses I had donned. And in the same way that reading glasses have become my constant companions (not that I am quite used to those yet) these rosehip glasses have changed the way I see so much.

On the night of the New Moon, I had a small ceremonial, one I’ve enjoyed many times in the past. The elements are simple, darkness and warm light, a stack of old magazines, perhaps some scissors and paste. Tho’ I have come to prefer tearing, not cutting, for the softer, ruffled edges. And I didn’t intend to paste that evening’s gleanings onto pages, but to pin them to my studio wall to inspire me. But instead of finding pictures that spoke to me, I found myself sifting through old tearings and hearing not a whisper from them. The pile for recycling grew and grew. When I finished, there was a small scattering of pictures that I may or may not keep, pictures of something I am challenged to bring into being in my life…pictures that are Real to me, not so obviously staged, styled or arranged.

I half-heartedly turned to the magazines and leafed through a few, but felt the same disinterest. It was curious to me, at first. But then I knew what was behind it…

The same something that makes me turn away from the computer-generated scenes in movies…and the plastic-surgeried faces of the elder-women I hope to look to out in the world…the lovely, meaningful artwork heaped with plastic paint…the charming front-porch decorations that soon overwhelm my spirit which seems to feel all of the plastic packaging and shipping boxes and striving for a look behind the pretty tableau…

It’s not that I don’t understand the longing for a cosy front porch…or to express myself through creating. And several times a day when I see the age spots appearing on my face, or my jawline soften, or my eyelids lower, I notice and feel…taken aback for awhile. My mind follows little trails of pondering what benign treatments there might be, what herbal skin oil might help. But this different sort of striving, to stop or mask what is a natural process, I also soon notice. And I think, instead, of the beauty I saw in my mother’s and my grandmother’s wrinkled, spotted faces. And I shift back towards acceptance…sometimes even peace, and occasionally…joy.

I would just be so grateful to find this acceptance more often in the world than I do. I begin to feel curmudgeonly with all of my noticings…and rather lonely. For it is not just about acceptance of aging, it is about seeing the connections between not accepting and the journey women have in this shiny, new century. And it is also about seeing the connections between all we unthinkingly buy to answer lovely impulses of creativity and nurturing and the cost of it all to our earth…and to us. How few have discovered that the acceptance of the limitations that keeping the earth always in mind (and its natural, needful rhythms and beautiful, complex relationships) …can also bring peace and joy.

For awhile now, I’ve been trying to find a word or phrase to encompass it. The ones in use don’t really satisfy me…making do…sustainability…stewardship. In the past, I would have come up with a poetic phrase for it, but others don’t catch on to one’s own poetic phrases very easily. And it feels important for more and more to catch on to seeing what we are each creating, day by day…with what we notice and what we don’t. So, I’ll just keep trying to describe it in words and pictures, here, there and everywhere. And keep trying to live out my own response to that noticing…however imperfectly.

This line from that first “real” post in 2014 sings out to me “During midlife, the desire to be real to ourselves, which comes from our soul…” I can see now how I have been struggling to express both this desire to be real and to find more of it in my world. It’s not a message that is exactly welcomed with open arms, or so I find. Yet quieting one’s soul-voice is the opposite of what the world…and the earth…need right now. And as my rosehip-colored glasses seem to be on as often as my reading glasses are these days, I suppose you may expect much more sharing of my own Real in the year to come.

A few notes…

  • Please know that you have to scroll back up to the top of the post to find the comment form…just click the word “comments”
  • Wisteria & Sunshine closes for new membership the evening of the 31st, Wednesday. Getting Real, in lovely ways, is one of our compasses there. We will reopen in the Spring…
  • And I’ve finally setup a way for you to receive new posts here in your inbox. It is surprisingly complicated with a self-hosted blog! At the bottom of left of the page you may find the box to click to signup, if you are interested.