Monthly Archives: July 2013

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salon of the senses

298382_10150340284802527_2727975_n Last night was pure magic.  These two friends of mine, Briana and Laura, they each hold a certain power.  When we get together, the world changes in a tangible way.  When I am with Briana, men turn up out of nowhere and shower us with flowers.  I end up feeding strangers truffles with my fingers.  When I am with Laura, heads turn and people deferentially ask  if they may photograph us.

Yes, both Laura and Briana are phenomenally beautiful, but this is Santa Monica, California.  Every third person is blonde, buxom, blue-eyed, and bikini-clad.  It’s not external beauty that draws this magic in.  It’s Laura’s radiance, Briana’s creative passion for life, that diffuse out into the world like cartoon fingers and beckon everything in so that life, ideas, intention, pleasure all magnify and swirl around them in clouds of color and joy.

We all got together on Skype a few months ago and set an intention to create a pleasure workshop combining all of our talents–Briana’s jawdropping gift for milking the pleasure out of every moment, Laura’s boundless and inspiring artistic abilities, and my love of plant medicine–into one evening of sensuous celebration.  Last night that intention bore fruit. Continue reading →

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July 26, 2013 · 7:32 am
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joy, guilt, laughter

Three years ago I participated in Level Five, a performance art piece designed by Brody Condon (with assistance from Bjarke Pederson and Tobias Wrigstad.) Level Five took the form of a 1970’s era EST or Landmark-style forum, with one caveat: all of the participants attended in character.

Over the course of one hauntingly memorable weekend at the Hammer Museum, I sat in a room full of strangers simultaneously playing roles and undergoing (ostensible) personal transformation.  I cannot explain to you how odd it is to make acquaintances, learn, write, eat, shout, grieve, and even fall in love while in character.

Continue reading →

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July 24, 2013 · 7:39 am
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hydrosol & facial recipes

20130722_185400As promised, here are a few of the recipes we created last night at the hydrosol workshop.

A hydrosol is a steam-distilled essence of a plant.  If you do not have a still, you can create your own hydrosols by piling fragrant, fresh plants (rosemary, lavender, fennel, elderflower, rose petal, calendula…) into a stainless steel or enamel pot with a domed lid.   Continue reading →

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July 24, 2013 · 3:03 am
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Just Jump

20130722_101830Yesterday I took a walk with a friend.  We walked through scented valleys, among heartrendingly beautiful groves of ancient oak and sycamore.  This land has always been sacred, a source of constant water in an arid range. When I walk here, messages are so close to the surface.

Here is what I mean:  when I lift my water bottle to take a drink, the wind rushes across and sounds a low, perfect note.  Or, lying back in the cool water of the creek, watching the herons dive for fish, setting the waterlilies trembling, I melt completely into the water until there is no difference between my heartbeat and the bend of the cattails in the wind.  Here there is water, shelter, food, joy, an abundance of everything.  So too there is an abundance in me. Continue reading →

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July 24, 2013 · 2:30 am
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women’s joy circle: thank you, it’s true

Sparkling wine for two.

Last night, for the first time, joy circle met in public, on the outdoor patio of a downtown restaurant.  We were surrounded by tables of young hipsters (the men bearded, the women in cateye glasses and/or handmade purses), fairy lights, and fountains, the sky slowly darkening over the busy park opposite.   We opened circle as we traditionally do, left hand palm up, right hand palm down, connecting palm to palm all around, breathing deeply together.  I passed around the goddess cards and everyone selected an archetype to ponder while ordering bruschetta and wine and creme brulee. Continue reading →

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July 17, 2013 · 5:43 am
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every day is poetry

cropped-fairy-house.jpgI’ve been leading a morning camp for four-year-olds this week, pressed into service with little warning as a last-minute substitute.  I had only two days to prepare a curriculum and acquire supplies.  Through the years I’ve been an environmental skills teacher, a land steward, a preschool teacher, a daycare coordinator, a Waldorf teacher, and a K-5 art teacher.  I should have had this easily covered.  And yet—it’s been years, and several iterations, since I last identified as a teacher.  I feel—not rusty, but as though I’m trying to slip into an old skin.  Like a cicada squeezing into the case it shed.  I don’t really fit as a teacher anymore. Continue reading →

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July 11, 2013 · 3:13 am
July 3, 2013 · 12:42 am

Women’s Joy Circle: Sacred Circles

1049059_10151531378135749_496021118_oI have been remiss in posting lately, and I apologize.  Summer is gardening and long days at the stream picking mulberries and creating new herbal infusions and cordials and rosemary cakes and wonderful kombucha pickles, summer is leisurely visits with friends and watching the children catch fireflies.  My laptop just doesn’t even begin to figure in.

This week has been full to overflowing with laughter, realizations, music, dance, and incredible food, courtesy of my adored friend Anja who has been visiting from New England.  There is nobody like Anja.  As a child she used to bike several miles to her school, collecting apples and pears from wild trees along the way, then joyfully handing them out in the city.  When she was 15 she decided never to wear shoes, and went barefoot everywhere.  She sewed skirts out of old scarves and traveled all over Europe collecting folk songs and studying herbal medicine.  Now she leads circle dances, teaching ancient steps that peel away everything but the sense of sacred time.  She uses laughter about as often as words to communicate.

She traveled down from new england to help us dance the summer solstice in.  We gathered candles and torches and cakes and kombucha and scarves and guitars and packed them all into the car, merrily traveling toward the outdoor pavilion where the dance was to be held.  Then the heavens opened.  I mean it.  It was as though someone had slashed a hole in the sky and instead of space, there was an ocean up there.  The car was not driving, it was swimming along the road, and there was no airspace between raindrops.  There was only water. Continue reading →

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