Weeping...TRULY!

This is Dingle, Ireland. I've been looking at study abroad programs to give some "umph" to my graduate school applications. Since I want to go into Irish studies, the best thing to do would be to study there for at least a semester. So I found this school in a most beautiful location. I can study Irish folklore, anthropology, language, music, literature, arthictecture, theology & spirituality, etc. I've never wanted to do anything more...I read through the website and started weeping (yes, I've always been a bit dramatic). Wouldn't you love to go to school here?! I can hardly stand it!

WWI: Dulce et Decorum Est

Dulce et Decorum Est-Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all bling;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someon still wasw yelling out and stumbling,

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth--corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est

Pro patria mori.

I first read this poem when I was a senior in high school. I have never forgot it. We read it recently for my 20th Century Britain class as we discussed the effects of World War I on men, and the change in belief about masculinity. This poem is so vivid and horrible. The title and last lines, "Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori" are Latin for "it is sweet and right to die for your country." Owen was a soldier for Britain in WWI, he spent a short time in a hospital being treated for shell-shock. He was sent back onto the battle field, and was killed on the front only four days before the war ended. War is indeed an ugly thing.

Back & Forth

I am oh so bewildered at how quickly my moods can change (maybe many of you have already noticed this about me!). For example, this morning I met with one of my professors in hopes she could help me figure out what to do with my life...M.A. or Ph.D? Teach high school or university? I told her that ideally I would teach at a university....BUT...I feel way too inadequate to even apply for graduate school. Her response: GET OVER IT! So, I went away from that meeting feeling that I could do anything. By my third class of the day, my thoughts did a complete turn-about. Old fears siezed my heart, and I almost stopped breathing just thinking about the catch-up I'd have to do in order to be a competitive candidate for grad school. Double gulp. Am I crazy? Just get your B.A.! Just be grateful you could complete a measly undergrad degree. Who do you think you are? Wait a minute...I can do anything! I think. No wonder I have been getting headaches lately...too much battling going on inside my brain. Yes, you can. No, you can't. I'm hoping those words GET OVER IT win out, and I take things one day at a time...before you know it I'll be leading discussions about early twentieth century British societies formed to protect the countryside, and helping other confused students find their ways to dreams!

photo by gala collette

Nerd

So I love spending my days in the library...I like studying...I love completing an assignment...I love quizzes and tests...I'm even learning to love writing papers (previously my biggest fear!)...

Good thing all my friends are nerds...which makes it cool to be one.

Zora Neale Hurston Night!

WHEN: Friday, January 30th
TIME: 7:00 PM
WHERE: Mama Peck's
FOOD: Bring a traditional Southern dish to share if you'd like
WHAT: Our 3rd annual Zora Neale Hurston night. We'll be watching a documentary about her life and work, listening to some of her stories, reading some of her stories ourselves, writing our own stories, and making music. (If you play a musical instrument(s) please bring them along).

everyone is welcome!

Manifesto Monday (on Tuesday): Neighbors

I believe that we need our neighbors. This morning we awoke to a foot of new snow. I was happy to see such beauty, but knew it would take a toll on my back (and my schedule) to shovel it all by hand. I worked for maybe 20 minutes, and cleared only 15 square feet of my mom's HUGE driveway. Then the phone rang. It was our good ol' neighbor, Norma Lynn. She and her husband have lived next door to us for almost 30 years. Norma Lynn informed us that Riley, her husband, would be right over to snow-blow our drive for us. Hallelujah! My back and schedule were saved! I was no longer doomed to three hours of shoveling. And in return for his good deed, we made him some of our very vest chocolate chip cookies, and we'll take them over warm and fresh on this cold, snowy day. How would we get along without neighbors? We just can't do it alone. This I believe.

photo taken by me...this is my mom's little orchard.

$3-Dollar-Yoga

Staring tomorrow, Monday, January 26th, I will be teaching yoga for $3 per person, per class. The details are below:

WHERE: My mom's basement (in Sandy)

SCHEDULE:

Mon, Wed, Fri 6:00 AM, 7:15 AM, and 8:30 AM

Tues & Thurs 7:00 PM

We will be practicing astanga vinyasa, flow, and restorative styles of yoga. If you are interested, and need more info, you can email me at lady.of.lorien9@gmail.com, or leave a comment on this post with your questions.

Hope to see you there!

visit my yoga blog to get more thoughts on yoga.

Oh So Happy!

My favorite man in the entire universe is in town for a few days for a visit!

SCHOLASTIC Roundup: A Room of One's Own

We read A Room of One's Own written by Virginia Woolf in 1928 for my Twentieth Century British History class this week. What a beautiful and insightful reading! She writes this book only a few years after the women finally get the vote. Though women were finally considered equal citizens, they were not allowed to get the same university education as men. In this book, Virginia discusses why it is that there has been no literature or poetry written by women that has been able to equal the genius of Shakespeare. Then she goes further to try to figure out what it is that women need in order for their genius to be freed: they need a room of their own (for peace and quiet uninterrupted), 500 pounds a year (we'd need much more nowadays), and time. When women can obtain these three things they can be as successful as men have been in their writing. Of course, she goes into detail about these three things...here are some  of my favorite excerpts:

If only Mrs. Seton and her mother before her had learnt the great art of making money and had left their money, like their fathers and their grandfathers before them, to found fellowships and lectureships and prizes and scholarships appropriated to the use of their own sex, we might have dined very tolerably up here alone off a bird and a bottle of wine; we might have looked forward without undue confidence to a pleasant and honourable lifetime spent in the shelter of one of the liberally endowed professions. We might have been exploring writing; mooning about the venerable paces of the earth; sitting contemplative on the steps of the Parthenon, or going at ten to an office and coming home comfortably at half-past four to write a little poetry.

But what still remains with me as a worse infliction than either was the poison of fear and bitterness which those days bred in me. To begin with, always to be doing work that one did not wish to do, and to do it like a slave, flattering and fawning, not always necessarily perhaps, but it seemed necessary and the stakes were too great to run risks;...what a change of temper a fixed income will bring about.

For it is a perennial puzzle why no woman wrote a word of that extraordinary literature when every other man, it seemed, was capable of song or sonnet.

Shakespeare's sister [Judith, who Woolf speaks of hypothetically] as I had made it, is that any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at. For it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled assunder by her own contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty.

What are the great poetical names of the last hundred years or so? Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Landor, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Morris, Rossetti, Swinburne--we may stop there. Of these, all but Keats, Browning, Rossetti were University men; and of these three, Keats, who died young, cut off in his prime, was the only one not fairly well to do. It may seem a brutal thing to say, and it is a sad thing to say; but, as a matter of hard fact, the theory that poetical genius bloweth where it listeth, and equally in poor and rich, holds little truth. As a matter of fact, nine out of those twelve were University men: which means that somehow or other they procured the means to get the best education England can give. As a matter of hard fact, of the remaining three you know that Browning was well to do...the poor poet has not in these days, nor has had for tow hundred years, a dog's chance...we may prate of democracy, but actually, a poor child in England has little more hope than had the son of an Athenian slave to be emancipated into that intellectual freedom of which great writings are born.

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters.

Friday SCHOLASTIC Roundup: Beowulf

Since I'm in school right now I have little time to study up more on current issues/events. So I'm modifiying my weekend roundups to include things that I've enjoyed learning at school throughout my week. Perhaps you might find these things interesting too.

This week in my Medieval British Literature class we read the heroic poem, Beowulf. I L-O-V-E this poem. I love the story. I am glad I had this class to help me analyze and understand it more. I've always loved the nostalgic overtones...the feeling of loss for days when society had heroes of epic strength and virtue. I L-O-V-E hearing the language of Old English--made me really want to learn to speak and read it.  I don't have anything particularly insightful I want to say here. I just want to urge all of you to read it. Below, I've included a passage of one of the many reminders in the poem that we will all eventually die...that we are mortal.

It is a great wonder

how Almighty God in His magnificence

favors our race with rank and scope

and the gift of wisdom; His sway is wide.

Sometimes He allows the mind of a man

of distinguished birth to follow its bent,

grants him fulfillment and felicity on earth

and forts to command in his own country.

He permits him to lord it in many lands

until the man in his unthinkingness

forgets that it will ever end for him.

He indulges his desires; illness and old age 

mean nothing to him; his mind is untroubled

by envy or malice or the thought of enemies

with their hate-honed swords. The whole world

conforms to his will, he is kept from the worst

until an element of overweening

enters him and takes hold

while the soul's guard, its sentry, drowses,

grown too distracted. A killer stalks him,

an archer who draws a deadly bow.

And then the man is hit in the heart,

Wishing for days of heroism, courage, reverence, and custom. 

DIY: Silk Flower Pins

Last weekend, I made these lovely pins.

Bought some cheap artificial flowers...

Cut off the stems...and glued on some clasps...

What it looks like

I'll be wearing them ALL THE TIME!

Here's the inspiration. Their cost: $50-$200.

My cost: $5

Bye, Bye Party

To celebrate the outgoing former-president...

we made....

P I N A T A S

Why I am Sick

Photo above taken January 20, 2009

Photo taken April 2008.

Isn't this inversion disgusting?! Hoping for a storm SOON!!

Made In Italy

May 2006 we were in Italy. A dream come true. We went from Rome, to Florence, to Venice, to the Amalfi coast & Capri, down to Sorrento, and back to Rome. We took a day to explore Capri. Oh so beautiful! Oh so Mediterranean! In each southern city we visited I lusted after cameos...the real deal, made from local materials by local people. Capri was where CJ decided to surprise me with this little beauty...a cameo ring. I LOVE it! I wear it only on special occassions, or when I'm missing Ceej. I'm wearing it today.

Andiamo a Italia!

Thank the Heavens

So thankful for a kind and thoughtful husband--my favorite person in the whole world! Thanks for the pretty flowers that brightened my hazy day.

Happy Birthday Sista!

Today is Jen's birthday!! This is a picture of her family last summer at our cabin up Weber Canyon (isn't it beautiful!!!). Jen is hard core. She the toughest spit-fire I know (I think she gets it from Celia Jane). She knows what she wants and she sticks to it. Jen also loves to be outside. I think this is where I am her copy-cat. I always wanted to go hiking, skiing, and camping with her, but I was always too little. Alas! Now she has some of the cutest kids I know. I am so happy to have Jen for a sister!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JEN!

Manifesto Monday: Silence

I believe that silence is healing. I have noticed that when I have had uncomfortable experiences in life--the kind that break your heart and spirit--I seek out solace. I need time to think and process how to heal. Indeed, the best remedy is meditation as I go throughout my days. This past weekend I got a bit discouraged about my schooling, and the goals I have attached to it. (Wishing Ceej was around!). I found peace as I didn't say as much as I usually do in groups of people. I listened. I watched. I rested. I'll probably take a couple more days of solitude to reclaim my enthusiasm for the present and the future. I can feel the silence putting me back together. This I believe.

photo by me. fall 2007. 

Issue 2: Echo

This is Emmeline Pankhurst. She and her daughters organized the WSPU in the early 20th century in England. They advocated violent acts as protests in order to get the vote for women. They were also the first group known to use the hunger strike. 

I want to share with you the following passage from a speech she made in 1913:

To-day, women are working very hard for it [the vote]. And there is no doubt whatever that very, very soon the fight will be over, and victory will be won. Even a Liberal Government will be forced to give votes to women. Gentlemen with Liberal principles have talked about those principles for a very long time, but it is only just lately that women have realised that so far as they are concerned, it began in talk and ended in talk, and that there was absolutely no intention of performance. To-day, we have taken off the mask, and we have made these gentlemen realise that, whether they like it or not, they will have to yield. People ask us, "Why force it on just now? Why give all this trouble to the Liberals, with their great and splendid programme of reform?" Well, we say, after all, they are just the people to whom we ought to give trouble, and who, if they are sincere, ought to be very glad that we are giving them trouble, and forcing them to put their great principles into practice.

Sound familiar to anyone? How about all the hoorahs that Obama and the democrats are about to "change" things? I'm still quite pessimistic about what Obama will actually change. As far as I'm concerned his promises "began in talk and ended in talk, and there was absolutely no intention of performance." I wanted to remind all of you that he did promise to bulk up the military...he is not the person who will release us from war in the Middle East as everyone assumed. He is not the person who will help the poor and destitute of this country...he seems only concerned with the "middle class." He will not solve any environmental problems. I could go on and on...but I'll get to my  point:

Now is the time to "give trouble" to the "liberals." (I guess "liberal" is defined by most people as anyone but an Evangelical Christian). We need to continue protests for what we as an American people want. This is not the time to just sit back because our savior, Obama, will enter the Oval Office on Tuesday. We need to, echoing Mrs. Pankhurst, force "them to put their great principles into practice."

Friday Issue Roundup: Birth

The Business of Being Born. A documentary made awhile back about birthing choices. There are more options. Better options. My cousin showed this film to me while I was with her in NYC this fall. It makes you cry. It's just so beautiful. This is what it means to be a woman: strong, creative, and awe-some.

The website is great because it has a recommended book list, articles that you can read for more study, how to contact a midwife, etc.

Happy Birthday Sista!

Today is my sister's, Liz's, birthday! Liz is one of the kindest people I know. She is always thinking of others and brings us little treats and gifts. She cries when she sees people eating alone. And she LOVES family! Liz and I have spent many-a-time with my mom visiting all the family, and making sure everyone is taken care of and feeling love. She is a fantastic sister to have around. Did I mention she's super smart? Well, she's practically a genius. 

AND Liz used to play games with me when I was little...why is that such a big deal? Because I was the youngest girl, born amongst the boys, and I needed some sisters around. She would play "Uno" with me over, and over, and over again. She always took time to hang out with me and my little brother--even when she was dating her husband! They'd take us around with them...even though we were just little kids! 

Liz has been kind beyond what was needed. I hope you have an absolutely lovely birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LIZ!

The First of the Last

Today was my first day of school...the first day of my last semester. My first class was a history of Latin America class. I've had the professor before. She's one of my favorites. As she was going over the syllabus, I couldn't stop myself, and I began to get a bit teary-eyed!! Ya, I'm a bit pathetic. BUT, I am just oh so happy to be in school. It feels so right. My other classes are great as well: History of 20th Century Britain, Medieval British Literature, and the not-so-great-Quantatative Reasoning (that's code for math that is way over my head, and I have to pass it in order to graduate).

The photos above I took of the newly renovated Marriott Library. I think it's quite pretty there now...much more motivating to study there. Lots of windows, and cleaner mod design. I'd still prefer studying in a medieval castle or 18th century British university...but I'm not complaining.

Here's to a wonderful (and BUSY) final semester!

Manifesto Monday: Distance

I believe that distance makes the heart grow fonder. CJ and I have been married for 1,845 days. We've haven't seen each other for maybe 60 out of those 1,845. When we first got married I feared the day that we'd spend a night or two without each other due to work or travel. I tried to avoid it, and swore I'd NEVER spend a night away from CJ. Well, our first  night apart came after we had been married nine months...CJ went for a boys trip to Southern Utah. I cried. He offered to stay. But I wouldn't have it. I could be strong. Yes, indeed. Needless to say, we survived our one night apart. Since then, we've survived 2 and 3-week stints. Now we're looking at a regular 2-week separation for the next four months as I live in SLC to finish my BFA. I don't like being away from CJ...it's nice to know that at the end of the day you'll have someone to talk to, vent to, to cuddle with, and that will let you know you're not THAT crazy. But, this I know, that reunions are oh so sweet--there's nothing like it. Hugs have never been so comforting, eyes have never been so bright. This I believe.

Driving...Again

Early tomorrow morning Ceej and I make the drive back to SLC...the 4th drive in two months. We don't drive much in the city, but we're certainly making up for it when we drive the 600+ miles to Utah so often. Sheesh.
Here's some of the scenic driving views.

Salt Flats. Of course.


Sometimes treacherous roads with high winds.


I happen to love the drive across the desert. It seems that every time we mention to people that we're driving to/from SLC they get this pitiful look on their face, and tell us how sorry they are for us that we have to drive across the Nevada desert...but I happen to really enjoy this drive. It is so nice to see miles and miles of nothing but brown and gold against a blue, blue sky.

Then we hit the Sierras...winding roads that never fail to make me carsick OR hours of stopped traffic during a snow storm. Pretty, but I'm always glad when the winding is done.

Traffic from Tahoe skiers. Boo.

When CJ drives I sit in the backseat, directly behind him. This is my new strategy because the passenger side of the car blows a nasty cold draft (even when the heater is on), and I freeze to death. So I moved over to the warm side of the car.

The stuff.

Sunset. For some reason now whenever we see a sunset in California I think of trapper-keeper scenes--you know, the ones with palm trees and the sunset colors of orange, pink, and teal? So California.

And, my good companion, the moon.

So next week I start my semester away from Ceej. I don't think it's quite hit me yet. We're both going to be lonesome for sure. This college degree better be worth it (I'm sure it will be, hopefully). See all of you in SLC!

Issue Roundup: Catching Up

Confession: During the holidays I made little time for listening to/reading anything about what's going on in our seemingly broken world. I've heard bits and pieces about the crisis in Gaza (which seems oh so horrible--read more about it here), Obama's latest appointments, the supposedly tanking economy, and the upcoming inaugural party. And since I've been consumed with trying to wrap up my thesis, all I really have on the brain is 19th century American political thought and ancient Greek virtue ethics--and if you ask me, both of those topics have everything to do with what's happening today. But I won't get into here...yet. So let's all take some time today and read/listen to good sources for what's going on in our world, and do something about it.

XO!

Resolution #12: Find more ways to say "I Love You" to Ceej.

How about 6 dozen of his favorite homemade chocolate chip cookies, frozen for rationing while I'm away this semester?

Love you, Ceej!

Thank You!

Thank you, Mom, for the prettiest tea set EVER! The floral pattern reminds me of Celia Jane.

AND it's made in England...the real deal. So Perfect and Pretty.

Thank you, sister Jen, for such pretty glass plates.

We'll bring out these fancy dishes for fancy occassions.

Thank you, John & Diane, for our Nikon D90. How did you know we needed it?! Ha!

A Little Gathering

Awaiting the yummiest chocolate fondue ever! My favorite was the amaretto. Mmmm.

Eating at Mazza in SLC. Proposal: Anderson girls, can the Whittaker family officially adopt you as sisters? We could use a little more girl vibes. Just think about it.

Poem of the Month

One of my New Year's resolutions is to memorize one poem each month. I've chosen a long one to start out with. It became a favorite in high school while in Ms. McAllister's English class. She was the first person who shared her passion of poetry with me. She could read those poems like no one else I've ever met. She had our undivided attention. If you'd like, take the time to read the poem that I'm memorizing this month below (note: It's most famous lines, I think, are the last 5-6 lines).

Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,--cities of men,
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming ment that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; form my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are:
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Unexpected Gift

CJ and I returned home to Sacramento late Sunday night. I immediately went to the mailbox because I was worried how stuffed it would be after two weeks of vacation (we forgot to put our mail on "hold"). There was a package among the unusual amount of mail. What could it be? Had I ordered something long ago and forgotten about it? Hmm. So we opened it up. Immediate confusion. Who would send us THIS?! Whoever it was made me laugh outloud. Turns out it was my cousin and wife from NYC...thanks Ryan and Bea!! This will probably be passed around at next year's white elephant parties.

Manifesto Monday: Slow Down

Every year the holidays leave me happily dizzy. There are parties to attend (sometimes more than one in a single evening), people to catch up with, gifts to be made and wrapped, recipes to try and taste, lists to check, bags to pack, and cards to write. By New Year's I am overwhelmed, and ready to crawl back into hibernation. For the past few years I have come to realize how easy it is to run faster than is healthy...there is oh so much to enjoy on this earth, so much to learn, so much to share! How can one say "no" to anything?! So, I have to remind myself that "less is more", "do not be hasty", and "don't bite off more than you can chew." I think I could use just a tad bit more "yes" in certain places in my life...however, I think I could honestly use more "no" right at the moment. No, I do not have to spend hours brushing up on photo skills. No, I do not have to cook three amazing meals every day. No, I do not have to attend every yoga workshop available. No, I do not have to go out on the weekends. All I need nowadays is Ceej, a couch, a blanket, and a good book. Yes to deep breaths. Yes to a slower year. This is what makes me fulfilled. This I believe.

photo by aya padron

Resolved.

I know my resolutions are a few days late, but I wanted to really ponder on my resolutions this year...to go beyond my usual "stop eating junk" and "more yoga" etc. So here it goes...

I hereby resolve to:

1. Walk slower and bow more often.

2. Commit one poem to memory each month.

3. Lengthen each inhale and each exhale.

4. Give thanks for the fruits of the earth.

5. Write one hand-written note to someone I love each week.

6. Be slow to offense and quick to forgive.

7. Arise each morning with awe and wonder.

8. Take a walk outside everyday to feel the air.

9. Photograph at least one thing each day.

10. Buy only things that are needed, and remember: "Make do, or do without"

11. Learn how to knit.

12. Find more ways to say "I Love You" to Ceej

13. Namaste for every living being.

I chose thirteen as my number this year--for its feminine symbolism. And I've also added another element to my resolutions this year: a "wild" word, the idea adopted from Terry Tempest Williams. My wild word for 2009 is "Speak."

Photo by nicholas lorden.