A Royal Banquet

Jasmine has been planning a tea party ever since she checked out Come to Tea: Fun Tea Party Themes, Recipes, Crafts, Games, Etiquette and More from the public library several weeks. She's been copying down recipes and planning menus. She finally decided on a Royal Banquet of Beef Chow Mein, Fruit Salad and Refrigerator Cookies and picked a date, and invited the guests. Planning, preparation, cooking and cleaning have joyously been done. Decorations made.


...and a schedule planned. First is crafts, then dinner, and then PLAYING.

Everything went beautifully. The girls enjoyed themselves immensely.

Doing crafts in the garden

Some eagerly shared results

Artwork by Jasmine

....and then dinner with entertainment....

....and then mom was so busy with washing up no more pictures were taken, but much fun was had with chickens and wall-walking and playing hide-and-go-seek. You never know what those royal princesses will be up to.

Aiming for Bigness

Again, today, Scott Noelle's Daily Groove e-mail was particularly inspiring--enough that I'm posting it.

Small Body, Big Spirit

Mother Nature doesn't aim for mediocre. She imbues every child with HUGE creative potential.

Children are born *knowing* they're supposed to be BIG -- innately powerful, free, and continuously expanding to new horizons.

Today, no matter how physically small your child may be, notice and appreciate his or her BIGness in spirit. That spirit is easy to see when your child is expressing pure Love and Joy. But it's no less present when s/he's "misbehaving." In those trying times, remember...

Our children are always doing the best they can to stay connected to their BIGness -- in a world that expects them to be small.

In getting the links for the above, I ran into Scott's article Transforming Anger. I get it. Today I get it. I've read it before but today it sank in deeper and I did it. I remembered that my anger is here to uplift me--and everything else for that matter--and used the energy to say "I'm not going to let that little condition get in the way of my joy".

I've been working on an Astrology Chart for a friend. Something I haven't done for quite a while and I checked how the transits are influencing my chart. Wow! Two pretty major planetary events have been occurring this year. One is the Saturn-Uranus opposition and the other Jupiter-Neptune conjunction. These both happen often enough that you've experienced one in your lifetime--unless you're a lot younger than I. But having two at a time is quite rare.

Everyone is influenced by these transits but where in your life and to what degree depends on where and what they trigger in your chart. Both have triggered major planetary configurations in my chart--and two of the three midlife crisis transits. That's right--I'm 41! I've haven't been thinking in terms of astrology for quite some time and--well--I didn't remember. And these wonderful life-changing transits have been happening and delightfully I was able to appreciate the immensity and importance of the changes occurring in my life without consulting astrology.

While I'm busy playing with an astrology chart or two and blogging, Jasmine is preparing for a Royal Banquet. She wrote invitations and picked out an outfit and took pictures of them for me to post.

This weekend was fabulous--I went to Phoenix with friends and Jasmine and Grandma planted a new garden full of alfalfa and clover for the chickens. And Grandma helped her sew a doll dress. Of course I got to spend the next day putting away and dealing with all my veggies.

Chicken Garden

New doll dress

She also discovered ironing with a passion, begging to iron anything in sight.

And learning happens........One of Jasmine's favorite things to do is to take out a stack of field guides (e.g. butterflies, insects, flowers, birds) and peruse them.

International Day of Peace

International Day of Peace is a big event in Ajo due to one woman's efforts, Mimi Phillips. This year I contributed little to the effort as my focus has been creating peace in my own mind. But Jasmine and I helped paint the Peace Day mural last month and I helped with the solar oven demo yesterday and today I spent an hour and half painting children's faces at an after-school festival. I was reluctant to go and wished I hadn't committed to it but once I got started I loved it and wouldn't have missed it for the world. Painting faces is an intimate experience and I enjoyed getting to know some of Ajo's children a bit better.

The Peace Parade started from the after-school festival at the school and wound its way to the Plaza. The parade included several large peace doves and many desert creatures. Groups from Sonoita, Mexico and the Tohono O'odham nation participated.

Kenya Masala, who later led a drum circle with 200 drums, leading a group

in front of a giant peace dove from the O'odham Nation.

Women from Sonoita, Mexico carrying a headress later used in by a

high school Aztec Dance group from Sonoita.

A desert tortoise

Crows in the shadow of a giant peace dove.

Upon arriving at the plaza a festival commenced. Jasmine's Folklorico group danced.


Other acts included Native American Basket Dancers, an amazing Aztec dancing by a group from the high school in Sonoita (the little town across the border in Mexico), a community drumming circle, the high school band from Sonoita, and a Hispanic musical group. And through it all wandered stiltwalkers from Flam Chen, out of Tuscon.

Flam Chen stiltwalkers

The evening ended on a perfectly peaceful note. Our local utility company is replacing and moving waterlines in our part of town and last week the construction crew came through our yard. One of the workers enjoyed our garden telling me it reminded him of his grandfather's garden in Mexico. He wanted to give me some heirloom seeds from that garden. Tonight as we left the festival he ran up to let me know he had left some seeds for me in my mailbox.

Heirloom seeds from Mexico--Fava beans and some sort of pea

Friends and rainwater

My mom's house is in the historic district of town and for some reason no families with children live here. Several monthes ago, Elizabeth (age 7 just like Jasmine) and her family moved in a block away. Lately Jazz and Elizabeth have been spending a lot of time together on weekends.

Elizabeth's family is quite different than our--a lot of media and not much else--and she used to get bored really quickly at our house and want to go home. Lately however she is enjoying all kinds of new experiences with us including playing with chickens, going to the library and getting her very own library card, going to paint murals, going to the public swimming pool, and climbing trees. A whole new world is opening up for Elizabeth and Jasmine has a playmate that lives close by.

I finished taping Arnold Patent's You can Have It All. I can't say enough about this book. I am so grateful that it entered my life, that I had the idea to tape it, and that I can listen to it often.

And again I can't say enough about Arnold Patent's book, You Can Have It All. Beg, borrow, steal if need be, but get this book. Or do as I did and order it through Interlibrary Loan at your Local Library and read it into a tape recorder and then listen to it often.

This evening Jasmine went off to a sleepover at Elizabeth's house and I decided to work on one of my latest projects--actually a somewhat on-going project. Last winter, I wanted to give a set of talks at the local library on sustainable design. To this end, I started creating some Power Point presentations. Thanks to Brad Lancaster, author of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond Vols 1 & 2, and his website http://www.rainwaterharvesting.com/, I have developed a fairly complete slide show on passive rainwater harvesting. A few days ago, a friend showed me around the Ajo Community Garden and I realized they could really use this particular presentation. So now I'm completing that slideshow. In this process I found a couple of videos that give a great overview of using earthworks to collect rainwater.

May you enjoy an A-bun-dance of water--free, beautiful, healthy rainwater.

Writing the Natural Way

Today Jasmine wanted to play school. I was busy with something or other and told her to write a story. She's been working on it with a lot of intensity on and off all day. Jasmine went to school for four months starting almost a year ago (at her own request). This is the first time since that she has written anything without worrying about spelling. This story is written completely phonetically--so the spelling is "atrocious"--but she is using complex words and ideas and rewriting sentences to prevent redundency (on her own initiative).

In school, writing began with learning to spell simple words. She was expected to write a sentence everyday using a new spelling word (ex The cat sat in a box.) This induced both a concern about spelling correctly but also a crimp in creativity. And I believe it is the root of many people's writing block.

In her own natural process she writes what she is passionate about and plays with how sentences sound and how they go together to create a mood. As she reads more and more the spelling will become more natural and she can write creatively and spell correctly. David Albert wrote in one of his books about his daughters' writing process. He told them at an older age (maybe 11 or 12) that people judge someone who spells incorrectly as stupid irregardless of whether it is true. At this age his girl were ready and motivated to learn to spell correctly. This makes perfect sense; spelling is introduced after much writing has been done not before.

Absorbed in writing

Jasmine took breaks to build a little house out of twigs, to play cribbage with her mom, and of course to dance.

And mom...well I've been helping grandma prepare for her first ever back-packing trip by dehydrating food for the trip including green smoothie fruit leather. I have not yet published my post on green smoothies, but hold tight. Between my living foods and my mom's back-packing food, the dehydrator has been going for days.

Cooler weather

The heat is less in intensity today. When I went out to water the garden I noticed it. We have just adapted to spending most of the day inside. I just checked today's weather; high 102/low 82. Who would have ever thought I would consider that cooler (I am a Northern girl after all--raised in Idaho and Montana)

Today was the first day we collected three eggs from our three chickens. Bess, our Auracana, quit laying during the worst of the heat and Grace (a Wyendott) hadn't begun laying yet. Grace and Gweneviere (a Buff Orpington) laid like troopers through the heat.

We went on bike ride this evening and quite a number of people were out walking enjoying the cooler weather. It was our first ride to the park in several weeks. Yeah.

I taught Jasmine how to play cribbage today. Cribbage involves a fair bit of adding and I've been waiting to teach her until I thought she was ready. And today was the day. My little math wiz did just fine.

I took pictures of Jazzie dancing her way through cleaning her part of the living room. And believe or not, she did a fine job, the living room really did get as clean as she ever gets it.

A reading first. Jasmine went to get the lyric sheet in order to sing along with a song. OK someday soon I won't take pictures of her reading but it's so exciting to watch the process of natural learning unfolding.

I'm still cleansing my mind of old beliefs. Today I realized that so many of these beliefs center in "not enough". I'm not good enough, I don't do enough, I'm not successful enough, I don't have enough etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. When I look inside myself with curiousity--Who am I?--I find only beauty, joy, and love. I am happy to give up my little nightmare of "not enough".

I'm playing a new game with myself--an abundance game. I got the idea from Carol Look's book, Attracting Abundance with EFT. Whenever I catch myself complaining or judging something negatively in my own head, I pretend I am writing a blog post about that condition changed to what I want. (An example blog post. I'm so excited. I've noticed how easily the house stays clean. It used to be quite a struggle but now it is just a joy....)

Loving what is

This morning Jasmine had another dentist's appointment. I spent my time in the waiting room practicing loving everybody and everything. I caught myself in non-loving thoughts often but did catch them and did move into love. It was a beautiful experience.

We did errands on way home, one of which was to drop off stuff at second hand store. Aren't second hand stores lovely? I found 4 wide mouth quart mason jars for a dollar and Jazzie found two new elegant dresses. One of which she wore for her ballet performance later in the day.

We picked up and dropped off books at library and came home with Billy Elliot. Just in time for an after the dentist movie party.

...followed by a ballet performance--inspired of course by Billy Elliot.

I read to Jazz as she cleaned her things in the living room from the third book in the Wizard of Earthsea series, The Farthest Shore by Ursula LeGuin, a series my mother read to me when I was a child. Until it rained--yeah for more rain--and Jazz went out to float little plastic lids down the torrent at the edge of the street. I felt too heavy with sadness and dispair. I couldn't feel any love for anything but I tapped (EFT) while she played and now I can feel love again.

Just now waiting for the computer to load, I understand fully that it is all perfect, that the world around me is a mirror showing me just what I need to love and heal. And I do have infinite support of the Universe. I want to hold on to this knowing. I have known it to be true previously, but to know it so deeply in my body. What a gift!

Feel the Music and Dance like No one is Watching

This morning as I played the piano, I experimented with experiencing the music in my body inspired by Touch the Sound (an absolutely amazing documentary about Evelyn Glennie), which might be my favorite movie. When I really pay attention, I feel the notes vibrate along my spine and into the center of my body going up as the notes went up and down as notes went done. The lowest note on the piano was at the lowest point on my spine. This is simply amazing. The top few notes on the piano I'm playing are not sounding real notes, but the top note that had a pure tone resonated above my third eye. Could it be that the piano has the range of our chakra system?


I looked up Touch the Sound on You Tube to post the revelant part and the whole movie is there. I also found this--a TED show on Evelyn Glennie--that I've decided to post instead. She is simply amazing, one of my heros.




This afternoon, we played around with a bellydance DVD and the put on music and danced free-style bellydance. My little dancer is simply amazing.




Some wonderful things occured in my life today. I have much to be grateful for, yet my mind is heavy with old belief and the habit of negativity. I think it is the same as usual but now feels unbearably heavy. At times this inspires me to use the tools I've been guided to to change my thinking. I belive this is a time of clearing on fundamental level. In eating living foods my body is clearing toxicity and the rest of my life is ready to clear also. So my own negative beliefs are in my face ready to be dealt with. Thank you. All is so Perfect.

I finished one tape's worth of Arnold Patent and got to listen to it while I played in the kitchen this evening. I filled another load in the dehydrator with sprouted buckwheat apple cinnamon granola and butternut squash cookies.

....and more about watermelon rind...it is absolutely delicious cut up with just a bit of dressing (mine Olive oil, apple cider vinegar, a bit of agave syrup and a bit of salt) and sea salt. Absolutely divine and it feels so vital. I've been eating it all afternoon and I can't wait to cut into the next watermelon so I can eat the rind. Ha ha.

SoulCollage® and creativity reign at our house

This morning, I wrote up the answers to the "I Am the One Who..."
exercise for some of mySoulCollage® cards. It was wonderful. (More about SoulCollage® here)

Jazz woke up and joined me, sewing a pair of shoes for her play.

Grace came over to play and yeah it finally rained! Not a lot but enough to play in.

Running in the Rain

Never know what a couple of palm branches could become

The girls came in to dry off and try out the costumes Jazz has chosen for the play she is writing. Jazz has decided to give Grace the part of the highest and most beautiful princess because "Grace is really into that" and herself as a tomboy who doesn't quite fit the princess role.

Jazzie and Grace decked out in their costumes.