Hedgehogs are one of my virtual therapy animals or totems. Hedgehogs have the ability to protect, and their medicine is one of being “untouched” by the dreadfulness of unsafe situations. Hedgehogs are supremely cute, I think, and I delight in these little creatures.
“Chuang Tzu was a philosopher in ancient China, who, one night went to sleep and dreamed that he was a butterfly. He dreamt that he was flying around from flower to flower and while he was dreaming he felt free, blown about by the breeze hither and thither. He was quite sure that he was a butterfly.” (Philosophyfoundation.org)
I dream I am a hedgehog, or maybe I am a hedgehog dreaming that I am a human. There you go. It makes sense to me!
All the above photos are from Unsplash a free for use photography site. Speaking of splashes, it’s time to give my kiddo a bath! Happy Peppering Tomorrow!
Under the golden, full moon the mouse yawned. She gazed up at the moon from the terrace wall, her eyes aglow with the magic of its fullness. As the now-amber moon rose up, it was low on the horizon, and the mouse looked but a speck of dirt on a luminous disc by size in comparison.
She gave a little cough and then tapped her tiny podium with her tiny wand. Another petite mouse came from the fire escape nearby, scurrying along quickly, nearly breaking a sweat, and he had on a bow-tie. The two mice sang for a while, mostly covers.
Then, the tiny wand winked up and down, drawn by the mouse’s swift outstretched hand. Tracing a triangle into the dark air, there popped a cello with a player (and this one was a cat!). Then, she traced a rectangle right straight out in front of her, and there popped a snazzy piano!
The night lights twinkled and the moon grew dizzy. After all the hours gone by, there formed around the moon’s crown were grey clouds, stirred up from hours of the night, filled by her imaginings as she reflected down into the distance, listening to the melody from the marvelous mice during the night.
See the link down below for just some of the mice music.
This post was created for Nano Poblano, the world’s least-official November blog writing challenge. I’m participating in the blog challenge this year, trying to post every. single. day. for the month of November. The plan is to be random about what I blog about. This is the first time I am using the new editor on the computer, and I’m not sure how to change the font size yet for the link and block below. Feel free to click on it to learn more about Nano Poblano!
These are tasty and make a fun and nutrition- packed treat for everyone. My toddler loves them, and I make them differently just about every time. I cook food from my heart, so I basically measure only about 50% of the time. Here’s my creation:
Here’s what’s in them:
Almonds 1 cup
Dried apricots 1 overstuffed cup
Rolled oats 1 cup
Almond extract 1/4 tsp
Goji berries: handful
Dried mulberries: handful
Golden flax: small amount
Unsweetened coconut shreds added during rolling.
So the pictures above are from the batch I made today. They all have different levels of beauty. This might not be my most pristine group of yums, but I know they are yummy and so does everyone who tries them! If I were doing professional food photos, I would have probably been more selective and taken my time and used a filter.
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I signed up for posting daily. I don’t know why. I am already quite busy, and I probably won’t post every day, but it sure seemed like fun to try to make a post everyday about something random. Random is my style for this, I like to have some free flow and no pressure type of activities, so maybe you will see a lot more of Fiestaestrellas in November! WE shall see!
Today’s infographic comes from life and well-being coach Shawn Fink. She’s the founder of the Abundant Mama Project. I regularly get her newsletter in my inbox. She was talking today about her 14 year old daughter who struggles with boredom and how her daughter is an extrovert while the rest of the family tends to be introverted, and she an ambivert.
Do we want to thrive?
I was going through a difficult time several months ago, and I was working with a coach (a different one than I mentioned) who wasn’t hearing me out. She kept asking me to say I wanted joy. At the time, the pandemic had just started and her organization was in the denial of Covid camp. “It was like the flu,” they insinuated. No, it is not. I was having trouble with the “stay positive at all costs” belief systems in my New Age communities. I wanted/and want to see real action and sincerity in the response to this viral threat. Being “high-risk” myself, I wasn’t walking around acting like “well, I have my spiritual bravado to protect me.” For me, I experienced all the humility of being a person who is in charge of being healthy for a young family. I took it (and take it all) very seriously. Spirituality aside, we live in a world where these threats are real, just like the possibility of any other danger, such as fire burns.
Do we want to thrive?
Yes.
Even in the midst of the pandemic (and the life changes because of the worldwide pandemic), even when our most inner self-sabotage can come out to get us, even while struggling to make ends meet.
Yes, we want to thrive.
When so many are suffering, are we even allowed to thrive?
I say yes, and I consider how wonderful and simple the above infographic is, knowing I’ve inwardly been using the above strategies without that coach who I was better off without for the time being.
How are you thriving in ways you don’t even know it? How have you indirectly benefited from the pandemic? What changes have you made that turned to be better for you since you had to make the changes?
We can see that our busy, bustling lives and economies are not in best with the environment. It doesn’t even take all the data and science to see and witness how the environment is affected by our human habits, waste, and extravagances.
How can our environment thrive with us thriving, too? Maybe we can reach up and reach out to our environments? Maybe we can take small steps in social action, maybe we can focus on what brings us joy today. I’m ready to talk about joy, again.
Once again I have been inspired to share from my private grimoire, a small piece from my 15 month body of work, during the Rite of the 12 Celestial Regents. Here is my ode to Mercury at the retrograde station. I am still in review process/month and soon the moon will be new again, and I shall have moved on…
This interview popped up in my YouTube feed for some reason. Many of us from the United States remember the president well from the 1980s and 1990s and we are well-acquainted with his character. I’m sharing this post for many international viewers who might not “remember” back to 1994.
We are at a critical point in time when women are still trying to be recognized as equal citizens on the planet. There are a lot of differences of opinion out there. I believe in women. I believe in the future. Please consider voting him out. For my international friends, please consider who you trust when you are researching and looking around online. Many of us are alive long enough to know a person’s story longer term.
Well, I have been away from blogging for a very long time. I am only around here and there and quite infrequently because I have been busy with motherhood full-time and graduate school full-time, finishing up my last semester in my Master’s program with only 7 more classes to complete my doctorate in Traditional Chinese medicine. If I choose to do that. I also have some straggling onsite clinic work to do when the pandemic becomes less threatening. Meanwhile I’ve been a senior intern in our telehealth and finishing classes.
Also, I am finishing up my 15 month Medicine Woman certification for Rite of the 12 Celestial Regents. As you know, I haven’t had time for my other hobbies like art-making: painting, poetry, or sketching, blogging or photography. My outdoor garden (which is only an urban tower) has been silent and nothing happening there, either.
Oh, but I have been cooking so much and experimenting and having the best time with it!! There’s been no time to prepare posts to my food blog, so I don’t. Life has been pretty darn good during this pandemic despite all the craziness that is around. I’ve enjoyed celebrating Mabon this year with one of my tribes over zoom and with my family. I’ve always been a member of so many different communities. So here I am, back with my own community, on my blog. I love you all so much!!
I wanted to share one of my odes that I wrote for my certificate for Medicine Woman studies: Rite of the 12 celestial Regents. It was an intensive program full of self-development and unveiling shadows, and it was truly a blessing. Here is my ode to the Moon recorded from my private grimoire I created during these last 15 months.
Mother moon I cannot lie
Under you I cry
For in the night I’m fearful and shy
But your love’s not for reason or for whys
You keep my heart safe and wise
And you gently remind me where my true love lies.
Deep inside surrounded within pure prize
Lots of gratitude to my daughter for napping peacefully while I quickly transcribed this message. Wishing you all a beautiful rest of your week! Looking forward to seeing you over at your blogs!
I interpret astrology, though I haven’t for a while, because it hasn’t been enjoyable. I do NOT channel. While I’m an intuitive, and practice forms of shamanism as taught to me, I do not have “visions” that come in without me asking for advice or input.
While I have “guides,” I see them as a “higher aspect” of myself. They are also quiet unless engaged. I have zero intrusions into my consciousness from spirits or beings without invitation. And often I wait in silence. For years.
I am mostly Buddhist, but I’m also not religious.
I do not believe that we are “awakening” in the same way as people speak of “ascension” in popular culture or anywhere. I do not have a direct line of insight into this, and I do not prescribe to it directly. We hope we are developing as a human species, overall. I do not have and direct info into this being guided by “God” or ETs, etc…” I don’t believe in these channeled ideas.
I am hopeful that we can turn around the current corruption in the United States government.
I am upset about racial injustice.
“Anarchy” and “socialism” are used as hypothetical myths that politicians are using to bring on fear and sew tremendous distrust in citizens. People are being pit against each other in the name “winning.”
There is a tremendous amount of misinformation being broadly distributed by very popular social media people; some of them are bots but many, many are not.
We need to form a just society where character matters and leadership is not corrupted by “bullies,” and political and financial favors behind the scenes.
If you’ve read this far, maybe you care somewhat about what I have to say. Let me know you care and leave a kind comment.
Tara Brach is one of the most grounded, compassionate, and sensible people I have been listening to lately. This is how I prefer to spend my time.
Here’s her talk about “our relationship with anxiety”
1). broken cement threaten tiles
2). shoes don’t fit
3). pictures are in folders along with cards awaiting labels and books
4). dishes are chipped
5). plastic cups soon
6). learn to hem and make time
7). sort the sock drawer
8). heat wave is ending, get back into walking routine.
Ra Avis from Rarasaur came up with Blog Bingo for August. I’ve only posted when I was inspired to write, and/or the universe pried open or carved out time for me to eke out some content. But, besides being such a wonderfully potent writer, Rara’s inspired me with gentle ideas like “blog bingo.” I applaud the simplicity and brilliance of such a possibly achievable idea.
I’m devastated by a lot of things that are happening, one of which is the fires 🔥 that are burning up North California. Beautiful places where my husband and I lived and enjoyed our weekend adventures are currently under evacuation. The old growth forests are threatened.
Basically what I’m saying, is that I need the intensity dial turned way down on the atrocities of the world right now. And basically, I’m interested in cultivating my tiny bubble of ease and comfort. I want to expand and propagate “ease” and “satisfaction” with where it’s doable.
So, where am I at? I’ve blogged 3 times in August, but haven’t been playing to “win.” We are in the last week of August. Since it’s Virgo season and a little bit more “time” is leftover at the tail end of “a month included in the outrageous 2020 year,” I thought maybe I’d assess my current bingo card and attempt to at least try to connect some space: strategize.
Three posts would be 3 spaces, theoretically. We have the serious and expressively (and vulnerable-revealing) post “Committing to the Moment. We have “Recipe for Freedom” and then (because all month long and lately I’ve been so focused on food) the surprisingly named poem about food/poetry, “Ah hah”. Interesting fact is I named the last poem with my “gut,” by using sounds. Sounds are so important in many healing modalities for processing, healing, and moving through pain.
I didn’t explain that all before (and I still haven’t done anything but point to it) because there’s always so much to explain and discuss but such little time to do so. I digress.
Today’s post can be “photo” space. I’ve got “recipe” and “poem.” As you can see, this isn’t gonna cut it for Bingo! So I will have to think about it. I can only use one space per blog post, so I can’t use this blog post as “unfinished.”
I also wrote about “sound” with “poem” as you can see my explanation above, but I know it won’t count for both…
Fiesta Estrellas 
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