Daffodil Bulbs

The temperature has dropped down into the 50’s Fahrenheit today here in my corner of the world in southern New England. It is looking like it will go down into the low 40’s tonight. It isn’t freezing yet although, there was some frosty dew laying down on parts of the property this morning. Cold in October means it is time to plant more bulbs. I picked up some bulbs a few weeks ago to plant. I have been planting bulbs in the woods and the edges and out of the way places in the wood over these past years.

Bulbs

We planted about 35 bulbs in the woods by edge of the driveway and next to an area that I began planting after my mother passed away two years ago. She did like daffodils very much. I plan to plant daffodils every year for her. It makes me so glad to see them pop up in the spring and also makes me feels a bit melancholy thinking of her. Life is hard like that sometimes. Our hearts are so big - they can hold both kinds of feelings all at once. Planting treasured plants in a loved one’s honor is a kind thing to do.

So, after we planted the bulbs we purchased - I decided to divide up some daffodil bulbs that have been here next to the house foundation since we have lived here. They have never been divided - so today was the day to dig up those clumps of daffodil bulbs and bring them to other places. It turns out a very small couple of clumps of daffodil bulbs was actually 400 bulbs once they were divided! The below photos don’t really show the sheer amount that came out of the small clumps of daffodils that have bloomed here every year. I would lament getting them dug up every year and never found the time to do it. It was almost passed over again today. It is absolutely amazing how many bulbs were needing division.

200 Bulbs

We can be a bit like those clumps of daffodils hiding under the surface of the soil. Each year passing by as we in the underneath of ourselves maybe are left somewhat untended. Things can proliferate unchecked. It is a good thing to dig into the soil of ourselves and find what needs tending. What do we need to divide and conquer? We could find some pieces that need cutting out and spread to other places.

I do like how gardening - planting - tending brings me metaphors to pay attention to. Even if it is unheeded - a growth lesson can be found for the taking. Those bulbs have been blooming for 3 decades. Each year showing up. Before that they most likely were blooming after being planted by the very old woman who lived here before us. She lived to be 100 years old. Despite our never dividing the bulbs they still brought their yellow smiling faces each year for us to enjoy. I had some lamentation over how many bulbs there would be now - if only we had divided them. Such is life. We get to things when we get to them. There is not much use in regret in the long run.

300 bulbs

After all was said and done there were about 400 bulbs in the division of labor. A bag load and a box load of new bulbs to spread around. Daffodil bulbs to tuck into secret places and surprise corners to be forgotten about until next springtime. I can’t wait to see them push through the soil in the warmth of a sunny spring day. I am certain many others have said this - planting these bulbs in the ground is an expression of hope for another year of life. I wish my Mom could see them all blooming here in her honor. She probably knows.

Tea Kettle

Today I am thinking about Life Ways. At The Bone Lines - we talk about simple - rustic - ancient - time honored - ancestral - worn. This is a place to come to settle and trust in yourself. It is a step away from the over culture that we are living in. I offer a slow moving way into developing insight about our own biography. The cloak of story is what we are here to carry and let unfold. I hope that you will find that you are most welcome here. It is a place in the woods where Life Ways with an edge is offered. Are we not all walking on some sort of edge? The edge of somewhere else. The edge of becoming. We find the edge is where the most diverse things can be discovered. Along the edge - things come and go. We walk from the edge of the wood out into a field. From a fields edge perhaps we find ourselves walking among the thatch of our own internal edges and how these rub up against the world.

Think about the edges of a map. The curving lines and patterns are really just random places that have been drawn on a piece of paper and declared “a place”. This is just a thought line made to keep containers of organization on land ownership. We are on the edge - visiting a place. In reality - we are all one place. A beautiful vision of ocean and land. It is here we walk and live and breathe - are born and die one day. All together we are here. If we take this to heart in our every day lives - we will find that the edge is - our bodily outline carved into the sky. The sky blankets around our shoulders as the stars twinkle in our eyes.

I want to share with you here the Life Ways that I have lived. It is a story that is outside of what is typical. It is a story of weaving a folk way of living. An embrace of healing ways is woven throughout. A basket holds a harvest of tools to make a life out of your own marrow. My frame is held in place by poetry and myth. Building a simple life made by hand is at the center of what we do here. We build our meaningful lives over many years. We have taken our life in our own two hands and wrangled it this way and that. Shaping and molding - adding to and taking away the forms that might need to change. It isn’t always easy. It is rewarding though. To live this way requires a giving up of some things. There is no such thing as having it all. Don’t let anybody tell you that. You do not need to know everything all at once. Is is a slow living orchestra happening within each of us that lives here.

I can offer here a pictured story of a family that lives within a wide ethos of curiosity and exploration. We accept that life is nuanced. We are excited by the idea of growing in our learning each and every day. Dialogue and discussion opens up our very own Chautauqua - leading us in divergent directions. One way of thinking about this is Home - School. How we have gone about learning in our own way at Home. This is not to imply that being a self taught individual is what I am discussing here. Though self-led learning is our ethos. I am simply saying that Home is where our Life Ways take place. It is where we have grown into who we are. It is the base of all our wild exploration.

It is a place that has arisen out of a lifetime of experience. I hope to grow this space into a community of like minded people looking to wander in similar ways of interest. Story - Myth - Imagination - Magic - all hold a strong presence here. It is through this lens that offerings will be shaped and released into the wild. A strong belief in our own ability to learn and find the answers to what we need also lives here. That most likely looks different for everyone.

a window in

So, a window in - a beginning. Writing here will be varied, as that is how I live. What begins to form will embody a life unfolding. I hope that others will join in with the interest that they have in living or moving toward living a life of slow growth. The layers that can exquisitely exist is a vision that I tenderly hold for all of us. May kindness and good things find you.

The Herbcrafters Tarot

Hard Knot

Gather up simple tools of lifeways - teapot, herbs, kettle to cook in -
Pestle to grind away at the hard knots of rumination -
Carried communion - linen shroud will cover ignorance -
Heat - steam dilates a question to essential point - it simmers -
Distillation - contemplation - excavation - dig into marrow -
Embrace internal wisdom of priestess - people’s wisdom is not captured -
Turmeric - earthen colorway - warmth carried - dyed escape across oceans -
If rooted footsteps find - possible freedom - embodied -
Road side mandalas created - sign posts of what is to come - measured -
Forgotten - disagreement etched into memory - permanence -
Hat removed - carry the tablets across arid landscape -
Sweat pours down furrowed brow - rankled - wronged - wretched -
Blood pools - ask the question - another moon night glimmers across - Time -

~Linden of The Bone Lines

The Herbcrafters Tarot

Today the Moon is in Virgo. Wednesday is named for the god Woden, who is paralleled with the Roman god Mercury - both gods shared attributes of eloquence, the ability to travel, and the guardianship of the dead. The gods Woden (also known as Odin) and Mercury have been associated since Scandinavian and Roman cultures crossed paths. Under Woden’s supervision, the earth and sky were created from the dead body of a giant named Ymir. Woden also created the first man and woman from an ash tree and an alder. Woden also established the laws of the universe. Mercury was the messenger of the gods, alson with being the patron of science, the arts, travelers, and athletes.

Of course words, story, myth and meaning have a wide ranging deep well to draw from for our own lifeways. Creating our life as its own story or myth, is a magical way to live. It is not escapism but, a very intentioned way to live. We can work with a story for a period of time - to see what bubbles up from its essence. One way of working with story and biography is too look at images. When we take in an image in a dream like gaze - its own journey may begin to unfold.

Artistic Exercise: Browse through the images here today. Slowly look through the photographs and find one that your eye is particularly drawn into. You can begin by just gazing at the image. Perhaps save the image and print it out to look at a later time. Write down some quick impressions. What awakens in you. Write about a time in your life that this image reminds you of. It can begin as an exact moment - later switching to a bit more abstract.

Does the time in your life that you are recalling relate to the image in a particular way? Look more closely at both the image and what is coming up in your minds eye. Write this down. Perhaps a story begins to form. This is an activity to help you wander through your own storied life. Attempt to write in a continuous fashion without editing as you go. What is showing up? How does this resonate with your life today? Are you feeling good - are you feeling badly? Bring to the page what is speaking to you the most in this moment. The importance of looking at this later on can reveal hidden layers of beauty and surprise for you. I hope that this finds helpfulness for you. You also might explore an image with a particular idea in mind. Sort of like an oracle today. What does your business need more of from you currently? At the upcoming family gathering - how might this image give you some new ideas to approach a challenging family member?

* Remember as always - take good care of yourself with these Biography Exercises. Keep going as long as feels comfortable. Try to take a break and come back to the image and exercise later on if you are feeling discomfort - that you feel unable to handle. Ask for support if you need it. Please do not attempt to work with emotional feelings that feel too overwhelming for you to handle alone. Find a trusted support person.

*I think that we are resilient beings. All people deserve the right to self exploration and creative expression. Trust in yourself. The resources for this are not always present. These exercises I offer here are for you to work with on your own - in the privacy of your own space. See what comes from them. Part of developing resiliency in a time when resources are often lacking is finding ways to self-develop in strength. Of course mental health support is often needed and required. However, as human beings - for millenia humans offered care to one another. A time may come in the future when - we have developed ourselves enough - to hold one another in caring support. I trust that you will do what is needed for you in this time.

““Story, as it turns out, was crucial to our evolution — more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to.” ”

— Lisa Cron

The fire will hold you. It is an elemental part of who we are. We work with our story of our own life - our biography. As we find embers to work with - the bits of our life story that need tending - it is a gift of warmth of what often appears to us. May the home fires create a warm place for you to gather your thoughts.

Books

A Working Life by Eileen Myles

Painting Is the Sky

That’s not a new thought
& every single thing u
Built is a perch
6 black crow
And one tiny bird
On a wire says whatever
We own the sky
And half of us
Cat our blackness
Over there
The orange & pink
& yellow where the road
Ends and it doesn’t
End. Mountains
Fill the view & disappear
When night falls
What’s that word
About gathering the future
It means this
p.161 a “Working Life” by Eileen Myles

- from prolific poet, activist and writer Eileen Myles, a “Working Life” unerringly captures the measure of life. Whether alone or in relationship, on city sidewalks or in the country, their lyrics always engage with permanence and mortality, danger and safety, fear and wonder.

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg

p. 8 - First Thoughts (An Exercise)

1.Keep your hand moving. (Don’t pause to reread the line you have just written. That’s stalling and trying to get control of what you’re saying.)
2. Don’t cross out. (This is editing as you write. Even if you write something you didn’t mean to write, leave it.)
3.Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. (Don’t even care about staying within the margins and lines on the page.)
4.Lose control.
5.Don’t think. Don’t get logical.
6.Go for the jugular. (If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.)

These are the rules. It is important to adhere to them because the aim is to burn through to first thoughts, to the place where energy is unobstructed by social politeness or the internal censor, to the place where you are writing what your mind actually sees and feels, not what it thinks it should see or feel. Explore the rugged edge or thought. Like grating a carrot, give the paper the colorful coleslaw of your consciousness.

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

In this classic essay, Woolf takes on the establishment, using her gift of language to dissect the world around her and give voice to those who are without. Her message is a simple one: women must have a steady income and a room of their own in order to have the freedom to create.

Let me know what you are reading in the comments!

Entering Phantoms By Firelight

We visited Old Sturbridge Village for the Phantoms By Firelight event. It was a gorgeous night outdoors as we gathered with many others to walk throughout the Village. Old Sturbridge Village is a recreated 1830’s rural New England town. I have been coming to this museum since I was a child. It has been here for 75 years now. As it is not far from my home, I have visited here many times during all seasons over all these years. I often took my young daughter her to museum classes where we would spend the day living as people in the 1830’s did. Learning about daily life and participating a bit in the experience of OSV is such fun if you are interested in history. More recently there has been an effort to create a more inclusive picture of history in the US that includes Black and Indigenous People’s history and exhibits.

The daily home life of people of this time period is a draw for me as it portrays the simple lifeways of people living in a rural village at this time. The pursuits of gardening, home keeping, farming, weaving, basketry, hand sewing, herbalism, crafts are all shared and discussed here. Often there are workshops to attend to learn and study more.

Tonight our visit was a bit different. OSV has a Phantoms by Firelight event throughout October that includes an entertaining version of spooky.

Cyrkus Vampyr

Cyrkus Vampyr was the troupe that came to entertain us. It was a magical experience with little ones and adults tromping about in costumes to celebrate the night.

Hair Mourning Weaving

Inside this house was a woman weaving and creating mourning pieces out of hair.

Here we talked to the shop keeper about the goods available during the time. The gorgeous baskets above are all handmade. People back then would do side projects to try to earn money or trade goods with others to fill in with things that they needed. The shop keeper said - try not to think of things as - something costs this much money. Often things were traded to acquire what was needed. It is different than today where we just spend our money on what it is needed. You might have a couple of baskets - not many. Somehow it seems if we as a culture could embrace slowly made, handmade - we might begin to appreciate having beautiful, long lasting items - just fewer - in our home. Instead of the desire to want more. When I visit Sturbridge Village - this living picture always stays with me in the days afterward.

Bonfire On The Green

Story by firelight. This is something that people just naturally gravitate to. Still - we draw up to the fire. The warmth of a fire and good company seems to be something we naturally seek together. We as humans have been telling stories for as long as we have been on earth.

Coffin Making In The Woodshop

Coffin making by a resident woodworker. This man is 6 foot four! He said that perhaps this would be his coffin that he was making. They make a couple of coffins each year in the village. Long ago coffins were made individually for a person when they died. A simple coffin shown here that is completely handmade would have cost about 1 dollar. That would have been a couple of full days wages. The How Many Nails jar was a traveling game that people could participate in the village for the event. Oh, the scent of wood is one of my all time favorites!

Candlelight

Lamplight

Handmade Lantern

It was a lovely night. Meteor showers were up above in the clear night - just after nightfall which isn’t commonplace for meteor viewing. The village isn’t typically open in the night time so it was special to be able to walk around in a quiet place in the dark - only lit mostly by candlelight in hand made tin lanterns. The shadows and squeals were a moving wonderland of color and dream like pictures. A home diary of perhaps a bit of what the world looked like in one corner of the world in rural New England for white settlers in the 1800’s.