Big Sur

hello delicious friends...

i am feeling the inwardness upon returning from a 10 day retreat to san francisco, esalen, and santa cruz.  bare with me as i regain my footing in reality...i am a bit dizzy as of now.

i am holding space for myself in near silence and darkness, in order to do the work needed before my new ideas, visions and dreams burst through the earth.

much wants to be birthed but we are still in incubation with just the tippy tops of succulent new tendrils pushing through.

it's almost time. 

for now i will leave you with impressions of Big Sur and the california coast.  be still my heart.

missing the warming heat and wild brightness of the sun

xoxoxo

jennette

Herb Shops

here are some photos of the herb shops within the super mercado in san jose, costa rica.  what's labeled is in spanish but most of it is not labeled.  you just have to trust that what you ask for is what you get.  i read the book sastun: my apprenticeship with a maya healer in the first few days of our trip and i wanted to see if i could find some of the herbs mentioned in the book.  also, being a community-centered pnw herbalist myself, i had a small list of items i wanted to see in this setting, like copal, palo santo, wild yam, linden, and so on.

these shops were amazing with all manner of flower, leaf, root, bark, seed, tinctures, potions, dried, fresh, concoctions galore.  i could spend a whole day, especially with a translator, asking questions and stocking up.  that would be a good business for someone to do there: bilingual herbalist guide to white herbalist tourists eager to spend dollars in the herb shops!

i came home with some crazy looking hairy twigs that don't match anything on my list.  everyone thinks they look like nasty dreadlocks but they don't smell like nasty dreadlocks.  believe me.  i would know.  chad had them. not nasty ones. but some big fatties that could get a little ripe, let's say.

the second to last photo up there of chad and jasper came about when i asked one of the herb shop keepers, who i bought copal and hibiscus from, if it was ok to take a photo of the shop. he grabbed chad and jasper and shoved them inside and said "yes yes, take photo" all jolly and friendly like.  chad and jasper were a bit stunned i think but we all thought it was really funny.

the last photo is one of the nutmeg/mace we found on the property we were staying on in puerto viejo on the caribbean coast.  we rode our bikes back and forth through a jungle garden several times a day and there was a nutmeg tree, apparently.  if you stood where we found the nutmegs and looked up, you couldn't see anything that look liked nutmegs.  i couldn't tell what tree they were coming from.  but there were a few during our time there that we found on the ground with the mace still intact.  they smell amazing and are stunning to behold.  the first time i saw one on our path i thought i'd won the lottery!  i was fascinated.

the new year is in full swing around these parts.  i am hosting a weekend retreat in february for 15 women at my house.  that will be a blast.  half are flying in from out of state.  we are gathering for imbolc and to share creativity and entrepreneurial insights in support of one another and to simply commune and fill up on each others wild woman love. a few weeks after that i will head to san francisco, big sur (for matrilumina) and the santa cruz mountains for a week of 40th birthday bliss (it was january 1 but this is THE gift!). so it's busy, as usual.  life is full.  and life is grand.  2013 is going to be amazeballs.  i can feel it, and i have systems in place to ensure it!

what do you have planned for 2013?  in what ways are you looking to expand?  do you set goals?  resolutions?

i am currently exploring and researching the intersection of post traumatic stress from adverse childhood experiences and the healing of it that can emerge from a daily creative practice of hand-making. this is my "new" work in the world and i will have a lot more to share about as i birth it.  watch for a due date near you.

escaping with the family fang,

xoxo

jennette

Doors & Paint

if you've been around here a while,

you know i have a thing for doors.

last week jasper and i went to visit our dear loves in port townsend and they took us to visit fort worden state park...

where i discovered all these neat doors and cool old paint.

i am such a sucker for a good ol' vintage patina!

i wish every surface of my house looked like this:

aged, worn, old, historical, like it has a story of it's own to tell.

i've checked out all the paint technique books from our local library.  it doesn't seem like you could get it to look this good.

this old.

i'm fascinated with doorways.

always have been.

for me they have a myriad of meaning:

access, exploration, discovery,

opportunity, opening, transition,

transcendence, a veil between the worlds, mystery,

the unknown, surprise, enlightenment.

and colors!

oh how i love these random bits,

not meant to be art but to patch and spackle, here and there

again, i would adore having any of the walls in my house look like any of these old, rusty, random and patched up walls.

i like the touch of pink

could these curious spatters simply be there to cover up unwanted graffiti...

perhaps so, but thank goodness they used random colors, and every one under the rainbow, never any two cover up jobs looking twinish.

love the drab colors too.

does anyone else besides me want the outside of their house to look like this?!  look this good?!

yes, please.  i'll take a random wall niche.

some graffiti that hadn't been covered yet,

thankfully.

this is one of my favorite photos in this set:

doorways and stairways...

don't get me started!

i want hallway walls like this.

fort worden is only one of a million cool places in port townsend to visit.  there are the beaches, the farms, the shops, the food, the friends!  we hope to spend a lot more time exploring PT this summer

and if you ever find my current house deserted upon arrival, come search for me in PT, where you'll likely find me setting up home and splattering paint every which way!

in the spirit of adventure,

xoxoxox

jennette