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Showing posts from April, 2011

Dandelion Wine

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Tis the Season! Well, for wine making anyhow. My two favourite times of year to begin a brew are Beltaine so that it will be drinkable by Samhain and Samhain, so that it will be drinkable by Beltaine.  Luckily for us, our neighbours abandoned their house when the new road went in, so it has sat empty for over a year now and with Spring being here, and the Spring showers as well, their grass, and other foliage, is growing quite abundantly. They have MANY dandelions, so my husband hopped over the fence today and 'borrowed' 2 quarts of dandelions. Actually, he filled half of a Home Depot bucket, but once we removed the greenery we were left with the full 2 quarts called for by the recipe. Here is the recipe, taken from  http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/dandelion.asp The conversions are as follows. 1 qrt = app. 1 litre (or 4 cups) We will be popping out tomorrow to grab some bee pollen from the Chilliwack Honey  http://www.chilliwackhoney.com/retailers.html  . Bee pollen

Divine Grace

Our ideas and perceptions of God are unique and varied. If we were created in God's image, then it would stand to reason that God is multifaceted, diverse, complex and all encompassing.  Anyone who has come across my many shared thoughts and opinions knows that I don't identify as Christian, or Jewish, or NeoPagan, or any one definite path such as those. Rather I am a Divinaturist. I find different commonalities within many different religions and spiritual thought. I do thoroughly enjoy the Hebrew/Bible Old Testament though, because I find much pleasure in reading about the experiences and understanding of God from times long ago, and seeing how they relate to different circumstances today. I had a really bad day last week. I hit these spells where I just feel overwhelmingly angry and irritable. The toddlers fighting, the dog whining, messy kitchen, piles of laundry, argumentive teenagers, unpaid bills etc etc... some days it all just comes at me at the same time... you kn

Fun times.

Okay, so... both boys are sick, the two youngest. Found out on Sunday that we are getting sued to the max for a TINY nudge that may or may not have been our fault while stopped at a light behind someone in a standard that didn't seem to know the difference between forward and backward - no, there were not witnesses. My hard drive crashed and I lost about 13gb of photos. Yeah, I know... I should have made a back up, but the comp was only five months old.. I didn't expect it. Stupid me. Other than that, been working on the constitution for Divinaturism. I think it's coming along well. I have 5-6 people willing to sign for the lealization of it as a society.  Hopefully starting some classes on Mindfulness at the Mental Health center. How cool is that? I spoke with the nurse who is teaching it, and I swear it was like talking to someone well learned in the verse of Thich Nhat Hahn, Meister Eckhart etc... shes been teaching it for five years. I know the process, I work on it

Some thoughts on the season

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rainbow

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Tree in April

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This tree stands at one of the little community parks. Something so majestic about the way the branches splay against the sky. So very far from simple, yet completely natural.

Tree in April

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Same tree, different angle. The whole sky takes on a different hue from this angle, due to the sun being directly behind the tree, albeit hiding in the clouds.

Odd

The Divine is manifested within this, the natural world. Mystical in the Mundane. The cup which holds the elixer. The negative charge which draws the lightening bolt.  Divinus in Natura. So.... when the natural world is destroyed, how will It communicate. Unless we are all champion meditators, and expertly 'enlightened', will we still be able to sense the Divine? In the blades of grass. The petals of the flower, the smell of spring on the wind.... as living nature falls away, will I still be able to hear God? When I moved to this valley, I started having strange nostalgic tugs and pulls. Spiritually new thoughts and ideas. Moving to a place with less people, still quite a few, a city... but we lie inward of the coast, considered Fraser Valley East where the mountains which encompass us are almost humanless.Just trees and sporadic dwellings here and there perhaps... but for the main part, uninhabited. Being within this nest of nature is almost like being within the center of

Silly Me

sounds much better than "stupid me". The laptop was only five months old, I knew I should back up my files, but that thought REALLY hit home when my computer booted up with a "Failure to detect hard drive". Thirteen gb of photos, images and documents, gone. The rest of the stuff, programs etc, are easy enough to replace, but the photos of the family, and images i worked on... yeah, okay STUPID me for not backing up. Luckily Ive uploaded many pics to my websites and social networking places. So, until I get my pc back from Dell with new hard drive, Im surfing with my android. (On my acer-e liquid... nice phone, well priced but I hate touch screen keyboards. Makes typing a true excercise in patience, lol.)

Civilization gets ugly

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It does. Only months ago these houses were absent from atop the hill which overlooks the river. And these houses are huge. No yards. Yuck.