Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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code red (book review & shark week talk for ladies only)

Did you catch the title of this post, that it’s intended really for ladies only? Okay, maybe also for guys who care about their women so much that they can handle some decidedly feminine-centered material. But anyway. You have been warned…xoxo

Ladies, friends and loved ones, I have discovered a school of thought that I wish I had discovered in my twenties, all about feminine health and well being, centered around our moon cycle. It’s not new exactly, in fact it’s quite ancient and completely natural; but as with so many things in life, our modern constructs have pulled us away from ancient and natural truths. How nice to take that step back and reconsider things a bit.

Almost exactly two months ago I stumbled on a new-to me-author, on a day that I had woken up surprised to feel less than great. The synchronicity of how I discovered her and the fact that it happened on that exact morning feeling the way I did, after having a certain dream about a lion, while the moon was crossing Leo, well, obviously there’s a very long version of this story. Today we will cut to the chase.

Introducing Lisa Lister, author of Code Red and much more.

Long story short, someone I respect and admire posted on Instagram about charting her own menstrual cycle and referred to Lisa Lister. I explored the author’s online posts and became more and more enthralled. She writes enthusiastically (irreverently too, haha, check her IG) about the multitude of precise and far-reaching fluctuations women experience from day to day during our cycles. And by cycle I do not just mean “The Curse.” She illustrates beautifully how those few days are just a part of the natural, full-spectrum, month-long healthy cycle, and how (this is my favorite part) a woman’s moon cycle can be viewed in four distinct seasons. Four unique ways to live, month after month. That’s a lot more interesting than just “PMS” hell followed closely by “Shark Week,” implying that the rest of the time is the only time you’re normal. Agree?

Your menstrual cycle is way more than just a biological process; it’s a cycle of ever-changing spiritual, emotional, creative energy, a road map that leads right back to the very essence of you.

Oh man. Ok you might have been reading here when I was studying the moon and its effects on farming and gardening? How ancient wisdom holds various chores and tasks as more profitable on certain days of the month, or at certain times of the year? I have been long fascinated by the powers of the waning moon compared to waxing, traditional energy grabs at the new moon, letting go of regrets at the full moon, etcetera. I already believe in this stuff. So then you see how I was so easily hooked by this train of thought about our own health.

Who is still here? Haha

So. Intrigued by her alignment with the phases of the moon and inspired by her very detailed suggestions to chart lots more than just the worst days of each month, I immediately downloaded the electronic version of her book, Code Red. I consumed it greedily and printed the circular chart she provides to begin my own experiment.

Some context: I am 43 years old and plenty healthy. I had two wonderfully pleasant pregnancies in my twenties and have had little to no disruption of life since then, physically. I feel pretty in touch with my own thoughts and feelings, and I had always assumed I was knowledgeable enough about feminine health. I mean I took sex-ed in middle school, right? And later read “What to Expect When You’re Expecting?” LOL.

But this book revealed nuances I had just not considered. Lots of subtle but powerful truths that I have been struggling with since my twenties, stuff that as I read fired up light bulb moments and washed me with relief over and over again. Which is why I wish I had discovered this school of thought earlier. It’s more than just mildly comforting to know certain things are normal; it’s vital to realize you have untapped potential and actual insight available to you about your own life. It’s liberating and exciting to think of using your energy from day to day in more profitable ways, resting when needed, and behaving in sync with nature. 

That right there might be my favorite theme or take away from this book: The notion that a woman’s cycle is far more (so much more) than just 4-8 days of pain and inconvenience, at best. That a woman’s cycle is, actually, a powerful and beautifully orchestrated mirror to Nature herself. Women hold unique sources of life, love, creativity and regeneration that we often neglect in favor of competing to be more masculine and independent.

Do not get me started on that.

Feminine energy is fluid, it’s not consistent.

This book offers a vivid, seductive invitation to walk away from modern (masculine) ideas about what it means to be “on your period” and instead reconnect with nature. 

This is the way of the feminine and when we work with her and not against her, we actually become more productive while nourishing ourselves in the process.

Friends, even if you you choose not to read this book, here are some things I hope you will consider:

  • Begin charting you month with greater precision and insight. Use the circular pie chart and observe how your cycle intersects with the moon’s cycle. I have now deleted the phone app I had been using for years. It does not hold a candle to the insight available through circular charting. 
  • Know that while you will have lots of wonderful things in common with all women throughout history, your cycle is unique. Small differences do not necessarily mean you have something wrong. (Mine, for example, is only 24 days long, which used to bother me for some reason.)
  • On your chart, divide your cycle into four seasons and seek to understand the swells of energies between them. Know that your mind, body, and spirit are all designed to wax and wane just like the moon, and every day has a beautiful purpose. What society calls “mood swings” is too generalized. Get in touch for real. (And by the way men have this to a degree, too, so chill baby-babies, chill.)
  • Allow yourself to embrace all kinds of cravings, way beyond chocolate but yes including chocolate, haha. You may notice days every month that you crave meat, raw nuts, chocolate, or later fruit, extra water, or very little at all. Some days you may crave lots of activity, other days introspection and reading. Do you have days when you can’t wait to throw a huge party, but other days, inexplicably, you can barely hold a conversation? Very natural. Resisting nature is futile, and over time it can cause some serious health problems. Learn to reconnect with yourself and to live more fluidly, even if it means rejecting modern constructs and ignoring some cultural nonsense.
  • Take a deep breath and be really happy that you’re a woman. (I could talk for hours about this and know many women who hate being women, which I do not understand, except that our culture has made it so weird to embrace true femininity.) If you are healthy, be especially grateful for that. If you have some health obstacles, know that you have lots of power to heal yourself.

I have been secretly pushing this book and its charting advice onto some girlfriends, anyone who will listen, who I think might be receptive to these ideas. Why secretly? Why do they seem so radical? Mostly because the author’s vernacular has kind of a pagan flavor. She writes freely about tarot cards (definitely not my thing, ask my husband how I cope with New Orleans) and refers heavily to the divine feminine (I know this contradicts traditional Christian thinking). But it’s all just semantics around a worthwhile topic.

I strongly urge all of my beloved women, at any age, to explore this. Try this approach on for size and see if it fits for you. She offers an ocean of nourishing thought and lots of research into ancient cultures to demonstrate how practices have changed over time. So interesting! In the book, each of the four “seasons” is celebrated for its super powers and unique opportunities. And each of those chapters comes stocked with special encouragements on how to make the most of that time. Ideas of how to work with nature, not against Her. I just love that!

We ignore our deepest needs as women because we no longer trust that we know ourselves better than anyone else.

I read the book cover to cover in those first couple of days, and I began my own charting experiment immediately. Since then I have been re-reading each little section as my own cycles ebb and flow, and it’s been so helpful. I’m already a pretty heavy journal keeper, but you might not believe how much understanding this has provided me. Moods and energy, tolerance for dishonesty or falseness, overall friendships and deeper relationships, sex and domestic stuff, ambitions, even my running! It’s been eye opening to say the least, and having the visual circular representation of each month is just plain fascinating. 

One more thought to share: Not everything in this book is bent toward the mystical. She includes plenty of science and talk about hormones, too, but in really precise explanations. She zeroes in, for example, on what is happening on day 3 or day 22, on the relationship between testosterone and estrogen, all of it. So amazing. I love understanding the body better!

Please share your thoughts! Have you read this book yet, or have you ever seen her online posts? What do you think of viewing your own cycle like phases of the moon, does it make sense to you? Does it alleviate some of the pressure or does it reveal some things that had been mysterious?

from Everyday Tao: Living With Balance and Harmony

I hope that some of you do explore this school of thought and get back with me. I hope it is helpful to you, because it certainly has been to me. As always, the more closely we can live with nature, the better. And the healthier and happier we are as women, the better off our families and communities will be.

Ok. Gotta go now, thank you so much for checking in!

XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

scaling back & happy about it

Does anybody else have the disease where you cannot just learn and enjoy a simple skill without wanting to launch it into a massive community effort, or maybe a career, or under the right circumstances… a life calling? I for sure have that. It took me many years to admit it to myself, and I could do lots of armchair self-analysis to explain how I got to this point (hello leaving the public work force and still feeling guilty 17 year later)…

…But the bottom line is that I’m withdrawing from the Farmers’ Market and textiles business for a while. And yes, I definitely use the word “business” loosely here. Generously. Ironically. With loads of rainbows in my eyes and that haze of imagination around my head.

Why can’t I just have yoga deck and occasionally enjoy it with friends without brainstorming how to develop it into a yoga retreat space?

Why can’t I just cultivate the max amount of fruits, herbs, eggs and veggies that our family will eat without thinking I am morally obligated to sell enough to pay off our house?

Case in point: I made a gorgeous, decadent small batch of jelly yesterday from plums grown here on the farm and basically thought my name should be Smuckers. I agonized for three and a half hours over the economics of scale and what was wrong with me. See what I mean?

Why can’t I just sew gifts for people here and there without thinking I need to make an apron name for myself and compete with Jessie Steele or, more recently, the PW herself? Ha. Yeah, I know she doesn’t sit at home and sew those herself, but you get the idea. It’s a defeating train of thought and ultimately a grand waste of time and energy.

The thing is, none of these impulses are borne of wanting to fill a gap, not exactly. I mean maybe just a little. Really, it’s that my daily and weekly and monthly routines are so indulgent, so extravagant and satisfying, that keeping it all to myself feels weird. And yet, adding a variety of outbound, money-focused projects to the mix is just too much. It spoils everything.

Maybe I should just open a hippie commune.

I am kidding!

Mostly.

Enough for now. I just wanted to check in and say that, despite so many enthusiastic Facebook posts and private conversations lately, I will not be at any local farmers’ markets this summer. Nor am I likely to do a bunch of sewing unless you contact me privately for a special project. I have my hands full at the farm and am also happy to see some family changes coming down the road, for which I want to keep my time open.

Life is beautiful. So beautiful I just want to share it more often. That’s all.

Love you, friends. Thank you as always for checking in. I hope that however you spend it, you have the most satisfying day.

Carpe Diem
XOXOXOXO

going by feel

I had scribbled this down in my notebook a full week before it all clicked. Our friends Mickey and Kellie visited the farm on Memorial Day, and together with my sister Angela and brother Philip we all luxuriated in some pretty great conversation. As the golden hour grew purple and the honeybees were going to bed, we explored the vegetable garden together. I was pulling errant weeds, and Kellie asked how to tell the weeds from the plants. Our visit was nearing an end, so I just tried to answer briefly. You know that feeling when starting a brand new conversation would have been too much? But she and I had shared thoughtful vibrations about so many other things, how I wished to explore this with her that night!

Private note: This has both of my grandfathers wrapped up in its sentences: My paternal Grandpa Dunaway who was a sharp-witted, light-hearted writer and has always been my personal Will Rogers (also son to Papa Joe the slightly famous beekeeper), and my maternal Grandpa Rex, who you know by now was the world’s best gardening mentor and given to much puttering in exactly his own style.

bare-handed & going by feel

Assuming all basic safety from garter snakes, burrowing frogs, and other deadly creatures, the best way to pull weeds is bare-handed. After a brief re-acquaintance between the inner edge of the forefinger, the first pad of the thumb, and the exact dimensions of every upwardly mobile green thing in the garden, the task becomes commonplace, an easy old dance, even more familiar (and I will say more useful) than riding a bike.

The fuzzy, round barrel chest of a cucumber vine is easy to distinguish from the skinny weeds growing thick against it, though the weeds are also fuzzy. Another fuzzy-stemmed neighbor, the tomato plant (blunt and wounded thanks to a llama without borders) has a somewhat squared off base, and is woodier. Alpha and well rooted. Vastly different except for the green and the fuzz.

The gardener should be able to go at the task with eyes closed, flicking gingerly from one thread of life to the next, deciding which can stay and which should be plucked out. Just a swift, underhanded twist of that well informed forefinger, and the cooperating palm is filled with chlorophyll and potential energy, one tiny decision at a time.

If, in a fit of momentum, the gardener grazes too near a bed of arugula, crushing a few leaves or maybe even uprooting a thread like seedling or two, then the sharp, peppery fragrance will announce the misstep quickly. A friendly alarm to redirect, so that no more than a trace of food is lost. And even that bit of green will find its way to a happy chicken’s belly.

This is one of my favorite things about easy gardening moments. Pulling weeds bare handed and getting really up close and personal with every shape and texture, usually with my eyes closed.

And it points gently to so many Universal messages I have been receiving lately. Messages about being quiet, going about my work more privately, relaxing into the moment so much that I can keep moving with my eyes closed. Trust and steady movement, knowing that nothing is wasted. Believing that every detail in this complex life is beautiful and useful. Acknowledging that as different as I feel from people near me, we have some things in common.

Most of all, the message that it’s okay to operate by instinct once you are informed and practiced. That is exciting. 

I love you and miss you Grandpa Dunaway, I love you and miss you Grandpa Rex, and I love you too Kellie. I am so happy to know you better and better.

Go by feel and trust in Love
XOXOXOXO

,

literary saturday may 27, 2017

Hello, and good Saturday morning to you! I am up extra early, caffienating and foam rolling before a little group run with friends in Midwest City. I have another running meet-up planned for early Sunday morning, too. Twice in one weekend? Who am I?

Besides starting two of our long-weekend days with running, my guy and I have some fun stuff coming up. Lots of sunshine-related fun stuff. Hopefully fewer wasp stings than we had yesterday (because can we all agree than one is enough). A sushi group date. A bonfire party. Some movie watching, to be sure. More sunshine. Less cerebral books than I have chosen lately.

The gardens are lush and making progress. I could be very happy spending several hours out there, “puttering” as my grandparents used to say, and adding another block of seed to the Three Sisters market garden.

In case you are up on Saturday morning with some great coffee and an appetite for reading, here are a few sweet spots on the internet:

This mini modern bohemian space in Philly, via Apartment Therapy. So nice. Plants like a jungle. Natural light. Colorful artwork. Did you see that tiny kitchen, but so neat and tidy? And the blue velvet sofa? And the interior brick wall? And the iron bracket, open shelving? It’s all a small version of my favorite aesthetics here in the farmhouse Apartment. And the smallness and coziness remind me so much of my daughter’s cabin in Colorado. Nice.

(( she has added a fridge & made some cool changes since this photo was taken ))

I am a sucker for research into and advice on how diet affects us, inside and out, physically and otherwise. This article at The Chalkboard shines some light on Omega fats and how they could impact our moods.

Nester shared a guest post by her friend Tsh titled, “When You Love to Travel & You Love Being at Home.” I thought it was written directly to me, ha. Then I read the article and was entranced by this woman’s life story. So fascinating! As different as our lives have been, she offers lots of relatable insight. I happened to read this close to some travels of our own, which was nice.

Travel is the one thing you can buy that makes you richer.

(( oh new orleans… xoxo ))

I love the Bon Appetit network of media. They pack both their website and magazine full of great ideas and gorgeous photography. And so upbeat! This article, though, especially got to me. The woman’s smile first caught my attention, then the title: “Transplanting Traditions Farm, a Place Where Refugees can Grow a Bit of Home.” Oh man. This is amazing. And inspiring. And humbling.

Have you noticed that inspiration almost always comes as a package deal with humility?

I have a still very long list of good reading to share, but the skies are brightening up a bit. Time to move on. Can we talk about S-Town, soon? Also a book called Lincoln in the Bardo? And Kite Runner? Okay thanks. I am a mess over them all.

Happy Saturday!! Tell me something you’ve been reading!

XOXOXOXO

looking around to improve your perspective

Yesterday afternoon I stumbled into the weirdest funky mood. It lasted maybe 90 seconds and had the effect of a low, dark cloud crawling meanly across an otherwise brilliant sky. It was so distinct and forceful that it literally stopped me in my tracks. I was walking downhill toward the vegetable garden and paused, looked around like maybe I heard something behind me? Klaus stopped too and crooked his head to wait for my next step. His face and the green lawn and a few other beautiful things reminded me that I was home. That the moment was good and the context was magical. 

I’m grateful for awareness when my perspective is shifted negatively and for the power to bring it back to center. It’s often just a small exercise of noticing physical beauty, then maybe indulging in the quiet, inner messages some of them bring:

Fallen tree branches that resemble antlers. I cannot resist collecting them and inserting them into every flower pot, and it gets me thinking of the hundreds of patterns in nature, in the universal patterns of the human experience, from one generation to the next.

A stout gray and white horse who loves to scratch the hollow of his chin against every T-post on the farm. Oh Dusty, I love you.

That weird but pleasant summertime fragrance combination of latex paint, sweet clover, and manure, all warmed by the sun and stirred by the breeze. It’s just nice.

Watching our German Shepherd (I can no longer in good conscience call him a puppy) and our llama play together like little boys. Remembering the girls when they were little and prone to indulging in “Mud Monster” afternoons. Dreaming of their futures. Watching the dog and llama again, best friends on the muddy edge of the pond. 

The pond is still so high! Exceeding its banks, our own small lake, all these weeks after the heavy rain. Grace is abundant. We are fattened by it.

Walking around the bee hives, seeing the Honeymakers float and parade near their respective porches. Each colony is so unique, and all three of them are so entrancing. This is an endless metaphor.

Raking up great, thick, heavy clods of crabgrass, recently tilled, and shaking loose the dirt. Looking up just enough to visualize the food that will soon be growing here.

Checking for the day’s newly laid eggs, having to gently lift each hen to find them. Feeling the warm, sticky film on eggs that stay in the nests, waiting to hatch. Learning to trust the life cycle without counting chicks too early.

The lingering smell of marigold blossoms and arugula, the rough texture of kale, the jewel toned petunias and geraniums near the kitchen door. Oh man I had the best Grandpa…xoxo

Neatly pruned trees that had once been a chaotic black jack grove. Peace and strength that have brought some order to a fearful heart. Order and more beauty.

Frozen things are long thawed, mountains are moving, fear is losing once again to Love.

“Most people think it takes a long time to change. It doesn’t. Change is immediate! Instantaneous! It may take a long time to decide to change…but change happens in a heartbeat!”
~Andy Andrews in The Noticer
XOXOXOXO