Things of Joy, Beauty & Awe
A Random Collection
This week I am taking some time off to put the finishing touches on a summer project which has to go to the printer on Monday.
If all goes according to plan the “55 Flavors of The Feminine” Practice Deck will arrive just in time for our September “Flavor Immersion” in Portugal.
I’m wildly excited about this deck and will post a preview as soon as it is finalized.
So, while I am writing the booklet to go along with the cards, here is a random selection of things I’m loving at the moment. I hope you’ll enjoy them!
Regular articles will be back next Sunday. Until then!
Michaela
A Sudden Crepe Myrtle Explosion
Nourishes the bees and provides awe inspiring beauty.
The Hunter and the Fox Woman
Pre-Pandemic, we would spend a few weeks at a time in Amsterdam teaching our workshops. One night Steve pulled this video by author and storyteller Martin Shaw of The House of Beasts & Vines out of his extensive “post-workshop de-escalation” library.
It’s one of my favorite stories and ever since I watch it on occasion to savor one specific line - like a great song it always delights me freshly. Can you guess which one?
New Album Obsession
I’ve loved Meshell Ndegeocello since hearing her very first album. Way back when - what feels like a lifetime ago - I lived in walking distance to the Viper Room and would go to see her live. Her newest album is my current evening wind down soundtrack.
A Rediscovered Poem
My desire
is always the same; wherever Life
deposits me:
I want to stick my toe
& soon my whole body
into the water.
I want to shake out a fat broom
& sweep dried leaves
bruised blossoms
dead insects
& dust.
I want to grow
something.
It seems impossible that desire
can sometimes transform into devotion;
but this has happened.
And that is how I’ve survived:
how the hole
I carefully tended
in the garden of my heart
grew a heart
to fill it.
Desire ©2011 by Alice Walker
I've really been looking forward to the “55 Flavors of The Feminine” practice card deck!
There's much to love about the story of the Hunter and the Fox Woman. But there is also much to regret about what inevitably happens.
So the Fox Woman says "I will be woman of this hut." and her fur gives off a "strong, regal scent." So her scent "gets into the mind of the Hunter, gets into the clothes of the hunter, it gets into everything." "There's just one thing," the Hunter says, asking her to leave outside the door of the hut the very essence of who she is.
And when Fox Woman is gone. When her pelt is gone. When her scent is gone, "the Hunter stands lonely in his whole body at the entrance of the hut for the scent of the Fox Woman."
So yes, as Martin Shaw says, "Somewhere in history we have exiled the Fox Woman." Some of us have willingly left our pelts "outside the door."
And yet, regrettably, there are attempts to sing across the snow to the Fox woman, to call her back.