Making Maple Syrup

While in Vermont, I loved that everyone seemed to know how to make their own maple syrup, so I was inspired to call up my neighbors, Doug and Corinne, once I reached Indiana and see for myself how it was done.

Doug and Corinne have been making maple syrup for decades, but I never took the time to ask what it takes.  They graciously took me back to their trees and their charming sugar shack, steamy with boiling sap straight from the trees and smelling incredible!

Chatting with neighbors in a shack in the woods while making a food product straight from the natural source was right up my alley.  They showed me the whole process, from the tap to the jug, and I even walked away with a souvenir.

Is there someone in your area who grows or makes their own food?  Ever think about calling them up to learn about the process?

My Creations This Week

I believe that creativity has very little to do with artistic ability and craftiness.  Creativity, pure and simple, is the expression of who we are, no matter how that is expressed.  We are all creating, all the time; we're usually just not conscious of it.  But the more conscious I've become of my own creative acts, the more of them I bring into my life.  And the more I bring creativity into my life, the more I express myself.  And in expressing myself, I find myself.  So creativity, to me, has become a strongly spiritual exercise.

Here are a few things I created this week:

1) This temporary home for my new air plants
...and why am I just finding out about air plants?

2) This baby hat, joining the booties and mittens I knit from leftover yarn after making myself a poncho.

3) A digital copy of this picture - because looking at my grandparents in a water gun fight will always bring a smile to my face. 

4) The decoration and script on these note cards

5) A swaddle for a fake baby in my newborn care class

6) Shadow puppets, made with a small playmate

7) Scribbles in my daily gratitude journal

“I think everything in life is art. What you do. How you dress. The way you love someone, and how you talk. Your smile and your personality. What you believe in, and all your dreams. The way you drink your tea. How you decorate your home. Or party. Your grocery list. The food you make. How your writing looks. And the way you feel. Life is art.”
— Helena Bonham Carter

Dying for New Life

I'm rarely in the US for the changing of seasons, so this week, as the snow melts and the weather starts to warm up, I find myself drinking in this transition into Spring. 

A couple of days ago, I walked around our yard to see what beauties of nature I could find.  I noticed a few straggling leaves on each tree - leaves who had refused their time of death in Autumn and instead clung to their life as they knew it on the limb. They had somehow made it through a brutal winter, still stubbornly hanging on.  But new life is coming soon, and these old guys are in for a big wake-up call when they'll be forced to finally give up the fight and let the new buds spring forth in their place.

I also have a new life on the way, set to arrive in about 6 weeks.  I've noticed patterns in my dreams, revealing the fears tucked away in my subconscious about all I must die to in order to let this new life really thrive.  Even as I write a list in my journal of these things I know I must let go, I feel a deep resistance to it all. To...

Letting go of a spontaneous life. Letting go of my precious sleep. Letting go of my body as I know it. Letting go of my youth.  Letting go of how I desire to use my time.

The wise have always told us that Death is always required if New Life is to enter, and all of nature seems to be telling me this, too.  I cherish the fact that my baby will be born in Springtime and in the Easter season - a whole season dedicated to New Life after a winter of hibernation and death.

“Love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. We let go of one phase, one aspect of love, and enter another. Passion dies and is brought back. Pain is chased away and surfaces another time. To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many many endings, and many many beginnings – all in the same relationship.”
— Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves
 

So I also write down all that will be brought forth if I choose to let go of the old and usher in this New Life.  I will gain...

A kind of love I've not yet known.  A growing relationship with Eric. An opportunity to question and learn and grow in myself. A connection with every other parent on the planet. An added piece of my identity.

I know I must let go in order to gain.  I look inward and tell myself not to be like those stubborn leaves, hanging onto their old lives and refusing to fall into what is.  So I let myself die to the old things in order to give birth to something entirely new.

Is there something you must die to in order to bring forth something new in your life?

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them.”
— Ecclesiastes 3:1-5

Nesting

I promised myself that I would take my pregnancy as a time to rest and as an opportunity to reflect more on my inner life; but looking back at the last 7 months, this baby has been in 8 countries and 11 US states in utero, a great indication that my intention for rest has certainly not been achieved.

But last week, I arrived at my Hoosier home, my final stopping place before little Toto*, our baby, makes an appearance in this world.  There is a cabin next to my parents' house, filled with the cabinets and furniture from my grandparents' old home, stocked with their dishes, and decorated with my grandmother's quilts and pictures of my extended family. 

Upon arrival at home, I began unpacking my things and nesting in this cozy place.  I now spend my mornings in quiet meditation, looking out at pond, now frozen, where I spent so much of my childhood.  In the evenings, I knit by the fireplace while listening to a podcast or audiobook.  I have no internet or television and I like it this way.  Finally, I'm getting the rest I've promised myself from the beginning.

This place symbolizes family and heritage for me.  It gives me a sense of grounding in my life that is literally all over the place; it is, to me, a place where I take off my wings and I feel my roots.  This is where I will stay for the next 3 months, where Eric will soon join me to await Toto's birth, and this will be the very place where Toto is welcomed into our family.

 
 
 
 

*Toto means "baby" in Swahili.  It is the name we've chosen to refer to our unborn baby, since we've decided not to know the gender.

The Charm of Vermont

I had a day in Vermont with a colleague-turned-friend, who graciously gave me a tour of the area's charming towns and countryside.  These places and spaces were dreamy, even in the wintertime, and we had a great time together on our whirlwind winter tour.

The words 'quaint' and 'charming' describe almost every place we visited, from her own wood-heated cabin to the tavern across the street, the covered bridges, the diner, the farm, and the yarn shop.  It was small town America at its best, with local shops lining the streets, neighbors chatting it up wherever they run into each other, and the beauty of the countryside always accessible.