I love planning. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Which is why I spend the whole month of January figuring out my goals for the new year. This year I’ll be doing it along with the students in my online class called New Year Dreams. I’ve been seeing an upswelling of posts on the Internet with great ideas for New Year planning and thought I’d point out a few of them. There’s the one word approach. Christine Kane is known for this method and proposes a list of good words at her site. (My word isn’t on it though) My friend Christine Valters Paintner has a lovely blog about this one word concept too. My word for 2010 (which I got from... (more...)

WAVERLY'S BLOG

I really liked my friend Joanna Powell Colbert’s idea of declaring Friday (or Freya’s Day) as Link Love day and posting some of her favorite links from the past week. (Love because Freya is the Norwegian goddess just as the name for Friday in Latin and other Romance languages refers to Venus.) So I’ve been collecting some links that I loved this past week and wanted to share them with you. Almost all came from following the threads... [Read more]

SIGNS OF THE SEASON

 Read More →

Holidays

Ascension Thursday is one of the oldest festivals in the Catholic Church, having been celebrated since 68 AD. Water is the primary element of this holy day. The Armenians believe that on Ascension Eve, stones, stars and other soulless objects are said to receive the gift of speech and to share each other’s secrets. And in Poland, “the dragon who guards hidden treasures throughout the night, exposes them to view on Ascension, when he sets them out to air.” The sun is said to dance on this day when it rises. In Armenia, girls tell... [Read more]

Nature in Place

First in a series of plant profiles by herbalist, Corinne Boyer of Opal’s Apothecary In the autumn and wintertime, the hawthorn tree with her gnarled bark covered in grey green lichens and her gangly branches reminds me of an old woman. She is a small tree that can usually be found on older homesteads. But in the spring and early summertime she boasts vibrant green leaves that surround many small bouquets of white blooms, often tinged with pink.... [Read more]

Seasons

This idea for attuning with a season comes from William Whittmann, a Seattle therapist, who sponsored pilgrimages on the equinoxes and solstices to sacred sites in the city. He chose to align himself with the solar markers of the seasons, those days when the season shifts (or reaches its peak): the equinoxes and the solstices. During the six weeks before the pilgrimage date, he meditated on the season and its metaphors (such as the element (earth... [Read more]

CRAFTS

My collage for 2009 One of my favorite rituals of the year is my ritual of review. I reserve the time between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve as a time of reflection on the year past. (I share this ritual through my 12 Days of Christmas class and also a book I’ve put together that contains the ideas below and much more.) I go over my records of the past year (my journals, my planners, the photos I’ve taken, my financial records) to get a sense of the year. My journals contain dreams, writing logs, kvetches, reviews of books read, and new... [Read more]