The Rites of Spring

Well, Spring kind of blew up on me.

I worried about it all through that harsh winter, waiting for warmer temperatures and cursing late frost that killed some of my early plantings. I had lists of things that had to be done and projects that I wanted to try and I considered myself halfway organized but, as usual, I found myself juggling a huge to-do list within the confines of an impossible schedule.

I got the garden in the ground. I got the fence around the garden to stave off marauding deer. I got the chicken coop put together and the new chickens settled in. Next came the container plants on the back porch and a couple of loads of pottery to get fired with new glazes that needed testing. I also got behind in my mead making and had to scramble to get some jugs brewing so I'll have good stuff for the holidays in six months.

And I finished my 200 hour yoga certification and picked a class to teach one night a week. Oh, and I changed jobs. Which, if all goes as planned, could leave me with more time for all of these projects but we'll have to wait and see.

So now we are deep into Summer and I have a freezer full of squash and green beans and the chickens are laying eggs and the grasshoppers have finished off the garden. I'm still buried with a to-do list as long as my arm but it will be alright. I'm taking each day as it comes and letting the Universe decide what needs to be at the top of the list each day. I'm pretty spastic towards the to-do list anyway, often ignoring carefully laid plans when I suddenly realize that I have a perfect storm of materials, time and energy to move a project to the top of the list with little warning. It's an annoyance to many who have to associate with me. I say I'm going to spend the day on pottery or drawing and I'm found hip deep in a whole in the ground because I heard about a simple design for a hot box to help sprout seedlings. And I can understand the annoyance but I can't really let it slow me down. If the energy is right, it's time to move and get something done. Plans be damned.

But things still get done regardless of the order I do them in although some projects do fall to the wayside occasionally. And that's ok. A lot of times the elements of the wayward project crop up in another project and it's like I planned it that way all along.

But moving on, I think it's time to shake the list up a little and see what else comes up. With the yoga course finished and the new job and the energetic Spring behind me, I'm starting to peruse some new ideas and revisit some very old ones. As it turns out, a lot of the ideas I've been working on for years have some fancy names and catch phrases. Apparently I've been working toward simple living all these years and didn't really know it. If someone asked, I said I was looking for a simple, artistic lifestyle. Also, I've always wondered about living within the ecosystem and either having a positive effect or no effect at all. That's called "permaculture" which actually has more to do with just the utilizing agricultural systems within a natural system and therefore guaranteeing sustainability. Which is interesting because sustainability has always been an interest as far as trying to make or grow your own stuff.

Now I'm not selling everything and moving to an off-the-grid cabin in the mountains just yet. But I want to explore the possibilities and see if someone can get closer to a simple, sustainable lifestyle without eschewing all forms of modern convenience. Which means, I just realized, that nothing is really going to change. I'm just moving forward under the banner of fancy words and pretty catch phrases. But knowing those fancy words and catch phrases does make coming up with meaningful search phrases a bit easier. The benefit of the internet is that what used to take me a day of finding the right book hither and yon now takes about ten minutes.

So forward unto long lists and unknown projects. There are a lot of ideas to explore and things to make.

Universe willing, of course, and in the order she dictates.

She does seem to be pretty good at getting things done after all.