A Crunchy Life - September 2023 Newsletter
Think of this as a letter from a friend with a deeper look into this month's post. I share more thoughts and resources for tapping into a simple, intentional life filled with Earth-based practices.
Hello friends!
I hope you had a wonderful summer. As I alluded to in the quick email last week, its been a busy couple of weeks here. Lots of transitions, and the one affecting A Crunchy Life the most is that the blog and the monthly newsletter have migrated to Substack. I am so excited about Substack! As a reader, it is so clean and crisp. It makes reading and navigating an absolute pleasure. As a writer, it is so much easier to use and best of all, everything remains free.
I’m still committed to The Monthly Newsletter being more like a letter from a friend than formal writing. I’ll continue to share more thoughts and resources for tapping into a simple, intentional life filled with Earth-based practices. I’ll also continue to share more about the hand, head, and heart practices that I'm focusing on to nurture myself, my family and our connectedness with this amazing web of life. There will always be one recipe or activity with directions included in each monthly newsletter. With that, welcome to the September 2023 newsletter!
The September blog post is up and it is all about transitions. Adjusting to change is exciting and unnerving at the same time. My favorite seasons are the times between the seasons. Right now there are so many transitions to live in. Summer to Fall. Light to Dark. High School to College. This blog post talks about how I am using my hand, head, and heart to drink in each moment and navigate this new stage.
Here is what I am exploring this month.
Hand…
When our oldest left for college she had a big decision to make - which plants to take with her and which to stay in her bedroom. Most of her succulents stayed home, all of the baby plants rooting in water, the very large plants, and ones deemed too sensitive for travel also remained in her bedroom. Interestingly, of the plants that she did decide to take - which numbers about 12 - most were succulents. With her dorm room having only one very small North facing window, this was going to be a bit of a challenge.
In my regular podcast perusals, I came across Maria Failla and her work. Maria is a self-described “plant killer turned happy plant lady.” She has a website, blog, and podcast, and provides tons of information including product reviews, tutorials, and recipes. One area of her website I knew would be helpful for this succulent loving college student is the freebie section. In that section Maria has two free guides that speak to the college dorm room - Understanding Natural Light and Green Up Your Workspace. (I’m betting our college student took the Plant Parent Personality Quiz first, before even looking at these two guides).
As to me tending to 28 plants, I mentioned that there is a lot of research that shows that tending and caring for houseplants eases signs of stress and increases positivity and mindfulness. I sure hope so. If you want to dig into this research I suggest two websites and two studies to get you going:
MDPI https://www.mdpi.com/
There you can find research such as: Effects of Indoor Plants on Self-Reported Perceptions: A Systemic Review
PubMed https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
A fascinating study is: Interaction with nature Indoor: Psychological Impacts of Houseplants Care Behaviour on Mental Well-Being and Mindfulness in Chinese Adults i
Head…
As a family we are joining our oldest in reading The Optimist’s Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age by Bina Venkataraman. Her college assigned The Optimist’s Telescope as the summer reading for the incoming class of students. This shared reading experience for all entering students, not only sets an academic tone for what is to come once they are on campus but also endeavors to foster a shared sense of community as they move through their first year together.
The guiding questions the college wrote for the entering first year students are questions that, with revision, are utilitarian and can be used for any transition. For me, these questions apply most recently to moving into retirement. I’ve appreciated that unexpected result of reading this book. Here are the revised questions:
On page 2, Venkataraman states: “Every day, each of us faces decisions where we must choose between what we want right away and what’s best for us - and others - in the long run.”
As you prepare for this transition, how has your process of decision-making developed?
Think about goals you have set for yourself during this transition. What challenges do you face when you balance short term rewards and longer-term goals?
Think about how communities have shaped your life. How might you use your strengths to help communities be more effective - both your local community and beyond?
For more on the book visit: https://bookshop.org/shop/acrunchylife
Heart…
As I think about transitions, the lack of rites of passage and the importance of intergenerational relationships go together in my mind. The more time the different generations spend together the more understanding, empathy, and care are developed. This in turn leads to trust. Trust only comes from developing intimacy which in turn develops deeper trust.
Intergeneration relationships have the ability to teach us how to mark moments and how to prepare for and navigate transitions. Wisdom doesn’t spontaneously emerge. It comes from interactions and experiences that teach us compassion, empathy, openness, adaptability, intuition, self-reflection. When we interact with our elders we are provided with the opportunity to learn from their wisdom, born out of their interactions and experiences. When all of that comes together, our own wisdom and intuition are able to guide in our own personalized rituals (rites of passage, in this case) can emerge.
As I retrieve the memory of our oldest, sitting on her floor, diffuser on, pulling things out of every drawer, off every shelf, and out of her closest, touching them all, knowingly reflecting, and then making a decision, I wonder if her intuition to move through this liminal space came from having observed her elders in similar moments. I wonder if the wisdom from her elders seeped into her heart and mind and intuitively emerged, in her own way, when she needed it.
An interesting study on intergenerational relationships can be found at: National Library of Medicine - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ - The Benefits of Intergenerational Wisdom-Sharing: A Randomized Controlled Study.
What I’m looking forward to…….
Autumn Equinox and Michaelmas.
With the Autumn Equinox, change is in the air. We take a big pause on this day. Light candles. Read stories. Go easy into the world. Feel into the change. And, of course, there is cake! An apple cake for breakfast since the apple is a symbol of plenty and the harvest.
Friday is Michaelmas, and its a full moon day, too. Someone once asked me if Michaelmas was a German tradition I had grown up with. Truth is, I don’t remember many “traditions” outside of those surrounding Christmas, Halloween, Easter, and Valentine’s. There were no traditions that we were aware of that ancestors had brought with them to this land. But I was always searching for ancestral traditions, and as I opened myself to learning about them, I found them.
Michaelmas kicks off one of my favorite times of the year: Michaelmas 9/29 until Candlemas 2/2. There’s at least one festival/holiday each month during this time. What I really love are all of the transitions during this time.
I love the act of putting up the harvest for winter. This year, that’s garlic, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, herbs.
Collecting wood for fires yet to come.
Ensuring an abundance of blankets and pillows for snuggling with a book and a cup of tea or hot chocolate.
The growing darkness brings opportunities to bring light into each day - candles, twinkle lights, and also a lightness of spirit. This is a time to awaken our inner life, to reflect and look inward, to find hope in our internal strength and courage that will support us in the coming dark months. Hope. Strength. Courage.
Our children are older now. Gone are the days when they would hunt for dragon tears, make dragons out of felt, act out a play about St. George and the dragon, or perform feats of strength and obstacle courses a la St. Michael.
The youngest and I will still read The Shooting Stars by Christine Natale and stories of the Cailleach because it wouldn’t be Michaelmas without them. Other than that, it will be interesting to see what each of us brings to the day. A carrot cake may be on the agenda this year.
The Cailleach’s Herbarium has a great section called Gathering Carrots in the post entitled, LA FHÉILE MÍCHEAL – MICHAELMAS – AUTUMN EQUINOX. In this section, he discusses Carrot Sunday which falls right around Michaelmas. It is worth the effort to click the link, scroll down to the heading, and read it. Plus, there’s lots of other great information in this post.
Here’s a recipe for Courage Salve that is perfect to make on Michaelmas. When they were little the kids called it Courage Salve because they always felt better and stronger after using it on a bruise or a scrape. Calendula has that soothing manner. For more on the properties of calendula visit: The Herbrarium
Courage Salve:
1 cup Calendula (Calendula officinalis) Oil
1 ounce (28 g) beeswax, pellets or grated on a box grater if it’s in a large chunk
Optional – Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) or Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) Essential oils, a few extra dried calendula blossoms.
Combine both ingredients in a double boiler. Stir over low heat until the oil is melted. If desired, add a few drops of essential oil. Carefully pour the hot oil and wax mixture into clean and dry containers. I like metal tins, but you can reuse old jam jars, tea tins, etc. Let the mixture partially set before topping with some petals if desired. Once the wax is set the salve is ready to use. Be sure to fully clean the area before applying it.
I allow the radiant figure to shine
into my heart and soul and mind
And so gain the strength to
vanquish the dragon.
Powerful, wise spirit of the will,
Weaving in the far reaches of the
spirit over all,
Working through spiritual beings -
Surely you are working too
In the depth of my soul’s being
So, in loving working, bind fast
My inner life to your illuminated
strength
In finding you, I find myself.
-Rudolph Steiner
Love,
Karen