• About
  • Herbal
    • Angelica
    • Calendula
    • Carrier Oils
    • Chamomile
    • Dandelion
    • Elderberry
    • Ginger
    • Greener Cleaning
    • Herbal Infusions and Preparations
    • Herbs for Yule
    • Infusing oils…
    • Lavender
    • Lemon Balm
    • Lemongrass
    • Luffa
    • Peppermint
    • Poppy
    • Rose
    • Sage
    • The Herbal Code
    • This Kitchen Witch’s Library
    • Valerian
    • Yarrow
    • The First Thing You Need (an article)
  • Magic & Ritual
    • Chakras 101
    • Defining Magic
    • Defining Witchcraft
    • Sacred Time (article)
    • Spellwork (article)
  • Paganism
    • A Book List for Contemporary Paganism
    • Defining Paganism
    • Hellenismos (article)
    • Nature Religion for Real, an article by Chas S. Clifton
    • Pagan Apologetics (article)
    • Pagan views of deity
    • Paganism’s Traditions and Paths
    • The Delphic Maxims
    • The Druid Path(s)
    • Walking With Your God
    • Wheel of the Year
      • Tales for the Longest Night
  • Parenting
    • A Book List for Pagan Families
    • A Children’s Herbal
      • Bee Careful (tips for parents and kids)
    • A Pagan Student in Your School
    • Baby Sling Types
    • Crafts & Projects for Kids
      • Alphabet Book
      • Mermaid Wrap Skirt
      • Sleepy Spell Bear
      • Underwater View-finder
      • Yarn Dolls
    • Mealtime Prayers for Pagan Families
    • Nature Prayers for Families
    • Nightey-Night: Bedtime Prayers for Pagan Babies
    • Our Afterschooling
      • Copywork & Recitation
        • PreK-1st Copywork and Recitiation
    • Pagan Pregnancy Correspondences
    • Raising Pagan Children (article)
    • Reading Myths with Kids
    • Ritual ideas for small children
    • The Sabbat Faeries
  • About me

bay witch musings

~ thoughts on parenting, paganism, science, books, witchcraft, nature, feminism, unitarian universalism, herbalism, cooking, conservation, crafting, the state of humanity, and life by the sea

bay witch musings

Tag Archives: fallow time

Blog Sabbatical

17 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by thalassa in blogging

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

blog sabbatical, fallow time

I’m taking some time off blogging.  You may have noticed I’ve not had any new content in the past few weeks…its been hectic.  Sharkbait’s been having difficulty transitioning to school, he’s also had ear infections, my asthma has been acting up, the car’s transmission went out and we had to get a new car, we’ve started the IEP process for Sharkbait, Chickadee has been missing her friend since we moved, and I’ve had a ton to do at work lately.  On top of that, the Hubby started working out of state two weeks ago on a year-long project, so its just the kids and myself.  And, now that I’m working full time again (plus, I don’t have much vacation time built up yet), and the kids are in school (with homework), I just don’t have the time to do everything.  Blogging has fallen by the wayside.

I’ve been feeling a bit like I’ve not only been burning the candle at  both ends, but the flame has finally met up in the middle, and there’s no more candle.

So, I’m taking some me time.  Or fallow time*, as I like to call it.  Its the perfect time of year for it.  I find that when I have spent some time doing this, I usually get really inspired and finish everything in my drafts, and a dozen other posts to boot…not to mention crafts and cleaning projects and all that sort of thing.

Its time to expend less energy on outward expressions, and to tend to fires of the inner cauldron for a bit.

IMG_0121

* I used to call this “being in a funk”, and I’d sort of wallow in it for a bit, and then feel guilty for it, and then finally yank myself out of the rut in a mad frenzy of activity before wearing myself out again.  Then I decided to change my view of my funk into something that is more constructive in the long run.  Fallow time.  The time when farmers allow their fields to be unproductive and renew its nutrients and capabilities.  Most of us live in a world that is far removed from the natural rhythms of nature–of fertility and productivity punctuated by rest and renewal.  Such an idea is almost…radical (to borrow a phrase).  It might be a time for all of our activity to take a break, but seeing as most of us lack the resources for doing that for any real length of time, I choose to think of it more like crop rotation.   Fallow time isn’t truly unproductive.  Its about giving the soil time to rest, to let it become healthy again.  Sometimes we need to do that in our lives, and there is no shame in it.

(I will still be on FB & Twitter & Instagram, because its easy and quick–something I can do during my lunch break or on my phone (and if I don’t my family nags me for pictures of the kids and info), but I probably won’t have another blog post up until after Yule…unless its a post about Yule)

(plus, I’ve been itching to make some changes to the blog in the upcoming year…this gives me a chance to figure out how I want to change things up a bit)

36.768209 -76.287493

Share me with your friends!

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Mother’s Day Musings

12 Sunday May 2013

Posted by thalassa in blogging, children, family, food, paganism

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

cooking, fallow time, gluten-free, mother's day

First off, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!

So, the day is mostly over…and my list of what I wanted to do hasn’t changed from last year…

What I would like this Mother’s Day:

  • To go for a jog on the beach, without kids banging on the door as I walk out of it
  • To take a long, hot bath without kids banging on the door to get in the bathroom
  • To take a nap without kids banging on the door to wake me up
  • A hug, and some original artwork, from the munchkin, a magically clean house and a dinner I didn’t cook
  • To have Daddy Man magically realize all of this, and make it happen
What will probably happen this Mother’s Day:
I’ll end up taking the kids to the beach so Daddy Man can clean house.  He’ll insist that I take a bath and a nap, but both will be interrupted because the kids cause a ruckus trying to color on the walls instead of on paper (or something similar) while he’s trying to cook dinner.  And I’ll be the one doing the dishes.

The day started out pretty well…I got a bath, and a back rub.  But, as some indication of how the day has progressed, I’ve just finished steam-cleaning after tripping over and spilling an entire glass of fruit juice that a small child left on the floor.   Oh, and I’m reading this parenting article, and quite enjoying it.

Oh, well…at least the hubby has taken the kids to the park so I can have the chance to blog!  Its been awhile since I’ve done one of these hodge-podge, potpouri style posts, so lets see what I can dig up to chat about!

What’s for dinner:  We’ve been continuing our gluten free dining explorations and experimentation.  Today, I baked a quick bread from a GF flour mix I mixed and matched today.  It was delicious, but I think I need to mess around with the ratios a bit more, and add a wee bit more baking soda next time.  I’ve figured out how to make a couple of flours from scratch, which has drastically reduced the cost of GF baking–making your own rice flour, for example, about halves the cost of buying pre-made (more on this to follow at a later date).  Here are some of our culinary forays:

IMG_0001

Bean burgers with guacamole and greek yogurt in a lettuce wrap

IMG_0023

Marshmallow-free “rice crispies” made with puffed rice (gluten free!)–click the pic for the recipe

IMG_0027

Strawberry-mango-apple fruit roll-ups in the making

IMG_0028

We found a huge patch of wild onions to add to our dinners!

And in other news, we are entirely unpacked in the apartment.  We need to pick up another bookshelf or two, and I think its time to bunk the kids beds, but otherwise, its pretty cozy.  We can’t just pick up an stroll to the beach whenever we want anymore (now its more of a 15 minute bike ride), but there is a huge park right across the street and a pool here at the apartment (as well as a year-round pool at the park).  Chickadee won’t be changing schools til the fall, since there are only 6 weeks left in the school year, and Sharkbait is in the lottery for a spot in pre-K.

And an announcement: I was offered a job at the beginning of April. I haven’t started it yet, and I’m not sure when I will, because I’m awaiting the completion of my security clearance screening. I’m going back to working for the Navy, but as a civilian this time, as an industrial hygienist. The security clearance process takes about 6 weeks, as a minimum, and can take more when there isn’t a rush on it and/or they are backlogged. In one way, its a awesome–the job will make us much more financially comfortable, and it has good advancement potential and pays fairly well in the civilian world as well. In another way, I’m bummed, because I really love my job now…but the part-time thing is barely keeping us afloat financially. Its been a wonderful stop-gap, an amazing learning experience, and I’ve met wonderful people (and I’m not just saying this because my boss reads my blog), but (as my boss told me when I told her about the offer) its an opportunity that’s too good to pass up.

Meanwhile, we’ve changed our altar a bit.  It’s all ready for the transition of spring-into-summer.  Here’s a couple of pics:

IMG_0072IMG_0073

The burn block is a 1oo+ year old piece of teak from the door of a 19th century sailing ship that a friend of mine from work gave to me when I mentioned wanting to find some teak to burn incense on. Teak, if you are not aware, has the some of the densest fibers of any tree and is fire retardant (not fire proof, but the fire has to be pretty darn hot for it to catch–its one of many reasons that it was used on the decks of ships.  Magically, teak is a symbol of longevity and resilience.

This week’s recommended (Pagan blog) reading:
By Candlelight: Celebratory Ritual (blog post)
How Persephone Killed the Gods for Me (blog post)
How Can a Naturalist Emerge in Paganism? (blog post)

What (book) I’m reading now: 1493 by Charles C. Mann 

Quote for the Week:

 “We still carry this primal relationship to the Earth within our consciousness, even if we have long forgotten it. It is a primal recognition of the wonder, beauty, and divine nature of the Earth. It is a felt reverence for all that exists. Once we bring this foundational quality into our consciousness, we will be able to respond to our present man-made crisis from a place of balance, in which our actions will be grounded in an attitude of respect for all of life. This is the nature of real sustainability.”

—Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Moment of Zen: Fallow time

I didn’t really get a chance to talk about Beltane, and I’ve been about sparse on the blogging for the past week or so (still have to make up for the I week for the Pagan Blog Project, lol).  It wasn’t intentional, and it wasn’t because we haven’t done anything or because I’ve ran out of things to say for the moment… I’ve just needed some time to let things marinate in my brain and germinate below the surface.  As a result, blogging has been a bit like a trip to the dentist.  Plus its been a bit busy around here.

I used to call this “being in a funk”, and I’d sort of wallow in it for a bit, and then feel guilty for it, and then finally yank myself out of the rut in a mad frenzy of activity before wearing myself out again.  Awhile back I decided to change my view of my funk into something that is more constructive in the long run.  I’m not the first person to make this connection either (and they’ve said it better than the level at which my brain is functioning right now):

Technically, fallow refers to not planting seed on a field, allowing it to rest, to be unproductive.

These days, being unproductive is a rather radical suggestion.

But it’s one worth considering. Who are you when you’re not doing, producing, creating a future in the present? Is it possible to try, even for a few hours, not to achieve anything? What might happen?

There’s a beautiful image from the ancient texts of a still pond in the middle of the forest where eventually all sorts of animals come to drink. It might be interesting and informative to see what visits you when you’re quiet and still.

Fallow time can be a Sunday afternoon, or it can be an entire phase of one’s life. But it’s important to allow for it and to respect it as part of a process, a part of life. I used to feel anxious in fallow times and it’s only been recently that I’ve been able to consider the possibility that the anxiety is extra, that there’s wisdom and trust in pausing. It’s worth trying out.

Source: theKitchn, Weekend Meditation: Fallow Time

It might be a time for all of our activity to take a break, but seeing as most of us lack the resources for doing that for any real length of time, I choose to think of it more like crop rotation.  Right now, blogging is my crop being rotated out of high production, and once its phased in, something else with marinate for a bit.  Fallow time isn’t truly unproductive.  Its about giving the soil time to rest, to let it become healthy again.  Sometimes we need to do that in our lives, and there is no shame in it.

Parting Thought (set to music):

(Sweet Honey in the Rock performing “On Children”, the lyrics of which come from the writings of Kahlil Gibran)

P.S. The hubby is nagging me to go to bed (lol, I started writing this around 2 this afternoon, on and off between doing stuff!), so I’m proof-less posting.  Please forgive any boo boos on my part!!

36.768209 -76.287493

Share me with your friends!

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...
None is as free as one born on the wave, Born on the wave to the song of the sea; None can be brave until they are free, Free of all, but the call of the sea.

Month By Month

topics

About me

*Just an FYI: If you are wondering why there's not been a new post recently, new posts have been a bit slowed down by the new job...*

I am a (occasionally doting) wife, a damn proud momma of two adorable and brilliant children, a veteran of the United States Navy, beach addict, (American) Civil War reenactor and Victorian natural history aficionado, lover of steampunk, canoeing fanatic, science professional (and amateur in my preferred field), graduate student, and semi-erratic blogger.

If you have found this blog, you have also figured out that we are a Pagan family.  More aptly, I would describe my theological belief as a pragmatic sort of pantheism with a polytheistic practice and my religion as Unitarian Universalist Pagan.  I practice a bioregional witchery and herbalism (foraging ftw!), mainly working with domestic and elemental magics, and I have a thing for sea deities. For the most part, my blog covers a bit of all of these things, with a bit of randomness tossed in from time to time.

I enjoy playing with my kids, chillin with the hubster, swimming, being nerdy, the great outdoors, NCIS re-runs, chai tea--iced or hot, yoga, trashy romance novels, singing off key, kitchen experiments (of the culinary and non types), surfing the internet and painting.  I also like long walks on the beach and NPR's Science Friday and Neil deGrasse Tyson.  I love to read, sleep in on the weekend, and make the Halloween costumes for my kids every year. I am passionate about watershed ecology and local conservation efforts and vehemently anti-disposable plastics. But most of all...I'm just trying to take extravagant pleasure in the act of being alive.

Follow Musings on Facebook!

Follow Musings on Facebook!

Tweeting Randomness

  • Spicy veggie pancakes with Greek yogurt (but made in the waffle iron), fried potatoes, and smoked tofu & zucchini s… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 20 hours ago
  • RT @JacquelynGill: #MakeAPlanet I’m essential for life; rare in 🌎’s crust, but the most abundant element in our atmosphere. Eons ago, 🦠 evo… 22 hours ago
  • The best reminder... twitter.com/chelseakenna/s… 1 week ago
  • RT @carlhannah: @GrantGinder Via @stormygailart https://t.co/PcLNoWwEfz 1 week ago
  • Brendan Fraser was a favorite actor of mine...finding this out (a few years ago? Idk exactly when) was such a shock. twitter.com/ask_aubry/stat… 1 week ago

RSS Feed

Goodreads

Pagan Devotionals--seeking inspiration everywhere
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • bay witch musings
    • Join 1,624 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • bay witch musings
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: