Finding Joy on Valentine’s Day

I feel joy when I walk in the rain, when raindrops coalesce, clinging on my eyelashes, and when I listen to the sound of rain falling , dancing across my windowpane.

I feel joy when I find  heart shaped crystals and other goodies that I tucked away for a rainy day ~ waiting … forgotten in a drawer until I find them again.

I find joy in eating chocolate on Valentine’s Day.

And most of all I find joy in having a quiet moment to myself ~ a moment of quietude to appreciate and reflect on the sacred in my precious, ordinary life that I share with my family.

~ Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you.~

In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery.
It’s the place of reflection and contemplation,
and it’s the place where we can connect
with the deep knowing, with the deep wisdom way.

~ Angeles Arrien

“Everyday Goddessing  is about sharing magical techniques and sacred wisdom with other beautiful Goddess women. I believe that within every woman there is a goddess, a wise woman, beautiful, creative, powerful, with a deep soul, and that everything we need and are looking for is already inside  each of us.” – Rose Arizmendi

Inspirational Friday~You Are Worth the Time

The alchemy of creating art comes from your heart, the deep places within you and your response to what is going on around you. It is an expression of your heart and soul. I find that creating art is a profoundly healing act in itself, and feeds me on every level: Physical, mental and spiritual.

I found this great video on YouTube and loved it.

“Creativity is a shapechanger. One moment it takes this form, the next that. It is like a dazzling spirit who appears to us all, yet is hard to describe for no one agrees on what they saw in that brilliant flash.” ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

“Everyday Goddessing  is about sharing magical techniques and sacred wisdom with other beautiful Goddess women. I believe that within every woman there is a goddess, a wise woman, beautiful, creative, powerful, with a deep soul, and that everything we need and are looking for is already inside  each of us.” – Rose Arizmendi

Listening to the Sacred

Early this morning before dawn I found myself wide awake, I didn’t really want to get out of bed. I laid there  beneath soft, warm flannel sheets willing myself to go back to sleep. Needless to say it didn’t work.

With great effort I managed to crawl out of bed and make my way to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. By the time I finished I could see traces of light slowly seeping over the hills. I stood quietly watching the play of light and shadow dancing across the roof tops ~ bare tree branches ~ light spilling over my fingers ~ mesmerized.

Suddenly bird song filled the air and the deep rich scent of mother earth wafted up. In that one moment, I was finely attuned to every scent, movement, color and shape around me. Listening ~ listening  to the sacred language of mother nature.

Later, when returning to the kitchen for another cup of tea, I noticed that our prayer lily had bloomed. Such grace, the long slender stalk reaching towards the ceiling ever seeking the light. What a wonderful gift on this day of celebration ~ Happy Imbolc Everyone!  So grateful that winter will soon give way to spring.

“And that is just the point… how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. “Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”
~ Mary Oliver

“Everyday Goddessing  is about sharing magical techniques and sacred wisdom with other beautiful Goddess women. I believe that within every woman there is a goddess, a wise woman, beautiful, creative, powerful, with a deep soul, and that everything we need and are looking for is already inside  each of us.” – Rose Arizmendi

In Between Times

On these cold wintry evenings as shadows grow long and bare tree limbs glimmer softly in the moonlight I often find myself curling up with books and a mug of hot chocolate.

Lately I’ve been re-visiting books on fairy tales. A couple of my favorites are the Norwegian folk tale ” East of the Sun and West of the Moon“, and the Celtic folk tale  “Connla and the Fairy Maiden“. The story of “Frank Martin and the Fairies” by William Carleton inspired the collage above.

I have always loved this time of the year ~ the twinkling of starlight on freshly fallen snow ~ the north wind rattling our wind chimes and the deep quiet silence of the season.

For me, winter is that in-between season of the year when mother nature pauses, the natural pattern of rest between the inhalation and exhalation. She is resting between the last exhalation of autumn and the next inhalation of spring ~ waiting for life to awaken beneath the frozen earth.

The four seasonal stages of earth;

Spring ~ inhalation ~ birth

Summer ~ pause ~ youth

Autumn ~ exhalation ~ middle age

Winter ~ pause ~old age

Here are a few of my favorite things;

• Taking a walk and being mesmerized by the details of the everyday world at my feet.
• Stepping out on the balcony at sunset to bathe in the last lingering rays of honey, golden light.
• Spending hours tucked away in the sweet messiness of the studio working, creating and playing.
• Writing, sketching and painting in my art journal.

What are some of your favorite things? What do you love most about winter? How and where do you find inspiration in the winter?

“Our senses are indeed our doors and windows on this world, in a very real sense the key to the unlocking of meaning and the wellspring of creativity.” ~ Jean Houston

“Everyday Goddessing  is about sharing magical techniques and sacred wisdom with other beautiful Goddess women. I believe that within every woman there is a goddess, a wise woman, beautiful, creative, powerful, with a deep soul, and that everything we need and are looking for is already inside  each of us.” – Rose Arizmendi

Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice ~ What seeds will you be planting on the shortest day of the year?

The long nights of winter ~ when all life sleeps beneath a wintry night blanket ~ precious seeds cradled within the earth… sleeping …. waiting for the sun to return.

Sipping a cup of  earl grey, watching geese fly overhead and thinking about the ebb and flow we call life. I’ve been enjoying this holiday season on a deeper level …  letting gratitude and hope flow over and through me like a river.

I find myself giving more attention and focus to things that are really important and making deeper connections with mother earth. The best gifts of this season are family and community. A season to forgive and mostly to love each other and turn the wheel once more.

Mosaic mandala of reflected light ~ pulling me deeper into to the circle of life.

I live my life
in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

-Rainer Maria Rilke, poet and novelist (1875-1926)

“Everyday Goddessing  is about sharing magical techniques and sacred wisdom with other beautiful Goddess women. I believe that within every woman there is a goddess, a wise woman, beautiful, creative, powerful, with a deep soul, and that everything we need and are looking for is already inside  each of us.” – Rose Arizmendi