Mabon

 After 19 weeks I'm back. It is not easy at all, mostly because a few hours after my last post post my life has changed forever. I got the most dreaded phone call from Italy telling me my mother had suddently and tragically passed away. We left in a rush on the first plane available to find out once in Italy that she has been sick with an unknown illness for months and she basically refused to fully investigate her condition, but she commanded everybody to let me out from all this. This has been so heart breaking for me, to be kept at distance. To add some more pain, while emptiying her apartement I found old love letters and finally I have been told by some family friends that those were my father's old letters to my mother. She told me he was dead before I was born. But he was alive and much interested in my life until I was around 20 ... I feel like my mind has been shaken in a blender and my soul has been drained to the last drop. I feel a sort of 'silence' in me, like if something is switched off and I can't find the way to get my inner self started again.
Anyways after her death we have traveled Europe for two more months trying to get back to some kind of 'normality' again, but it is not easy.
Now, beside my own family, husband and children, I'm alone. I've been lied for all my life by all those who saw me growing up. I've been kept at distance by my own mother, not worth of her last goodbye. I need to find out now, who I want to be from now on.
We came back in the north one week ago, just in time for Mabon season. I'm trying to find comfort in the nature, but even the outdoors can't really heal my soul. I hope this dark season will help letting me go of the grief, and blame and sadness to shine again when to solstice will come.

Eight weeks: back to life

Yesterday some technical problems didn't allow me to post, so here I am today, exploring how is life 8 weeks after the equinox. First of all I have to say that next sunday, 21 of may, we will be leaving and hit the road for approximatively 4 months, so I will have to stop my light tracking and mostly I won't have any internet connection, so my posts from around Europe will be very seldom. For the first time in years I feel so heart brocken at the idea to stop my life, my projects and go away. I'm not sure if I should be worried about my gypsy spirit being tamed or happy because that means that I'm finally enjoying the 'here and now'. But my family has been organizing this trip for so long, way before I could find my own peace of mind and so next sunday my life will have a turn and change to the core for several weeks.
Here we're experiencing the most cold spring in years, or possibly ever. Temperature just rised a couple of days ago above zero, but never more than 12-15 C in the sun ( it means maybe 8 ? ). It feels good on our frozen to the bones bodies, but still watching last year's nature journal, we were way over 20 this period of the year. The trees are amazing. They're still bare, but yeasterday's rise in temperatures is making blossom all the buds so the tiny leaves start making their shy appearence on the branches. Life goes on, Mama Earth is shouting, and I try to make her braveness my own, to face the colder moments of my own life. But let's track the light:

Sunrise has been at 4:35

Sunset will be at 21:53

Lenght of the day 17h 17min

( + 5h 1min of daylight in eight weeks, + 39 min since last monday)

 

A few of the older stats can be found here (equinox) and here (three weeks) and here (seven weeks )

 

 Can you spot the raven on the fence ? We have been bringing him food for two months now, and he is becoming our 'friend'. He waits for us and while we are in the park he sits on the fence and looks at us. I will miss him like a crazy, as silly as it may sound.

 

Woodworking

It has been a long while since I last showed some of the things I'm doing with wood. It is very exciting to me since I'm learning everything 'hands-on' so to say, but even without any guidance but trial and errors I can see getting better and better all the time. I'm learning to master our new-to-us stand drill, chisels and wood-burning iron and I'm looking for a good carving knife to test myself on a new level of the carving experience. But here the last things I made ...

Flower-shaped pen holder (or brush holder). It is quite fun if you look at the first two pictures, the toys around the stand drill ... house full of (unschooled) kids that's it heheheh ....

Candle holder out of a branch

 

Pyrographed dread or beard beads

 

All the wood i use is either recycled ( the pen-holder ) or out of fallen branches that I find in the forest, so everything is extremely eco-friendly.

Seven weeks, back to life

Almost two months since the equinox, it is already time to look forward at the solstice and the mid-summer celebrations, incredible.
The light is nowadays our mistress, this part of the north has been blessed by several sunny days in a row now which feels so good after a winter so long which lasted way after the vernal equinox. Life now is in full bloom, animals are nesting, trees are showing the first tender leaves or buds so big ou can tell they're about to burst. Yesterday as I was outdoors with my two youngest we experienced something amazing. We usually go in this playpark which happens to be basically in the forest. From the short wooden fence we saw an hedgehog coming, and that is rare enough already as the little ones tend to be very shy, and 'burying' very close to us under a pile of dry leaves. We could hear the little thing grunting and moving and startling and all of a sudden it came out litteral dragging another hedgehog ! They started an epic fight ( from what we saw they looked to be two males ) that lasted almost 20 minutes, when one of them gave up and run away to let the other one go back in the pile and fall asleep almost on the spot. For once I had my cell phone with me so I could take a few pictures and make some videos. We didn't disturb them at all, just watched them from the fence of course.
But let's track the light now...

Sunrise has been at 4:55

Sunset will be at 21:33

Lenght of the day 16h 38min

( + 4h 22min of daylight in seven weeks, + 37 min since last monday )

 

here the Equinox stats and few more here, here, here 

 

And now a few evidences of our adventure yesterday ....

Beauty

I see lately I have only been pointing out how beautiful is the nature out there, and what a great amazement Mother Earth ways ignite in me; but I can't help that. Nature in this moment of my life is a balm, a companion, a meditation and a prayer alltogether and I can't help bowing in front of her as she is really keeping me sane in a moment of great confusion. Here a few pictures of some wild flowers in my yard, taken just a couple of days apart. At the moment the situation is again at 'square one' since after the snow the sun has been shining for three days now and the temperatures have risen to the 'warm' point.

 

... same flowers same place ...

Beltane, Vappu, Walpurgis Night : six weeks

Today is a rather special day as most part of europe are celebrating 'something'. It is kinda sad in my opinion, how much the ancient traditions have been litterally wiped away and most of us are totally unaware of what we're actually doing or celebrating, but hopefully this is the time of a paradigm shift and the ancient knowledge will be known again without fears or prejudices, giving us the chance to track a new path made of connection and not of distruction. Today is Beltane, an ancient Celtic festival which marked the beginning of the 'light half of the year', when the darkness of winter months is now just a memory, the Pleiades descend to the lowest point in the sky where they're no longer visible and the earth and animals are ready for re-birth, for a new cycle to start, half way between the Equinox and the Solstice. It has ever be so true here like this year, as on the 29th of april we have been hit by a snow storm, yesterday it has been cold and rainy all day just to have a sunset on fire ( a true bonfire set up in the sky by the Highiest Powers ) and today it's warm and the sun is shining. Metaphorical and metaphysical I'd say. Here in Finland today it is called Vappu, and the name brings  back to the Walpurgis Night of german tradition, where the night between the 30th of april and the first of may was considered the ''Witches Night''. So it is indeed a special day. And it's the day in which I keep track of Father Sun and the gift of light.

Sunrise has been at 5:14

Sunset will be at 21:16

Lenght of the day 16h 1min

( + 3h 45min of daylight in six weeks, + 31 min since last monday )

 

Here you can check on the Equinox and Here last week.

And now a couple of pictures from yesterday's evening sky's bonfire ...

April Snowstorm

I have been quite sick all the week long (hence the total silence here), now it seems I'm getting back to my normal self even if I'm still a bit under the weather. Also my feelings have been quite upset lately so it's no wonder that my body reacted with an illness. I'm trying to figure a way out from this, and of course I look solace, inspiration and peace of mind in our Mother Earth, watching the Highiest Spirit express their power through her. Yesterday it has been amazing, I really felt like bowing to the nature as we have been hit by a snow storm that lasted several hours. As usually I should have understood that something was coming from the odd behaviour of the wild birds dwelling in my yard and sharing their daily living with me, but as often happens to us humans, I was too blind to see the obvious. Looking outside it is hardly possible to think we're about to celebrate Beltane.

Five weeks, back to life

When observing the nature and trying to tune in with Mama Earth, every new week means extraordinary things happening and filling your days with beauty and awe. Even if this season is much more colder than any other in the last (at least) five years - I have been living here that long- many signs of the nature waking up and enjoying the warmer sun and the longer ( and longer and longer ! ) days keeps showing up. Trees are still bare, even if the buds are swollen and seems just on the verge of bursting in the greenest leaves you can think of, but the first brave flowers are blossoming in the fields and in the forest.
But let's track the light right now ...

Sunrise has been at 5:30

Sunset will be at 21:00

Lenght of the day 15h 30min

( + 3h 14 min of daylight in five weeks, + 39 min since last monday )

 

To see the situation of the past weeks you can check here, here, here, here, here. And now please, follow me in a walk in the forest ...

Smoking Mushroom

A few days ago in our daily walk in the forest we came across this mesmerizing mushroom. It looks like a rotten potato with a small mouth-like hole on top. Unfortunately beside a couple of kind of edible mushrooms, I don't know anything about these creatures ( I'll provide to start educating myself as soon as I find a good handbook ), so I have no clue if it's poisonous, edible or what, but non the less it is amazing. We spent quite some time with my two youngest poking gently the mushroom with a long stick (just in case it is not healthy ) just to see a cloud of smoke coming out from its mouth. My almost five years old have been laughing and giggling so much at the sight while me and my doughter were taking pictures over pictures.