Reflecting on the Full Harvest Moon

Fires are beginning to be needed, now and again, as the colder weather slowly 

creeps over the land. Its a funny time of year, this transition. One day it is cold 

and raw, air scented with woodsmoke as I walk out in the early morning, the next 

it is warm and slightly humid, dragonflies flitting about. The forest is still full 

of late summer crickets, and squirrels and chipmunks busy with foraging. The oak 

trees are dropping acorns that ping off the metal roof as loud as gunfire. With 

the first few weeks of teaching and winter preparation, the most I've managed in 

the studio is a few more teeny tiny paintings. 

I enjoy these small, dreamy forest paintings. I like taking time with them, creating 
tiny worlds that invite me deep inside to explore their mysterious realms. Two are
framed and sitting by my dining room table offering me somewhere to travel as 
I eat my meals. 

Outside, I wander close to the house, looking at the layers of green 

textures and finding great joy in the small moments of beauty here. 

Its the time of black-eyed susans, and fall-blooming asters and perennial 

sunflowers and obedient plant practically obscuring the old studio.  

There is still plenty of magic to be found if I bend down and look inside things,
and the dragonflies and phoebes continue to patrol the garden looking for prey. 

Some flowers have gone to seed, 

while others are still offering up their pollen. 

Crumbling, dried flowers begin to top the stalks, and 

hopeful seeds fly away on the wind. Hints of the last 

blast of color are beginning to show - I mourn the flowers, 

and celebrate the decay, too. 

Autumn work is upon me, this pile is almost stacked in the shed, but another 

one was just delivered. This Equinox weekend will find me working outside 

with the squirrels, stacking my winter heat away. 

And today I'm reflecting on a life - today would have been 

my mother's 77th birthday. In a month, a day before my 

fiftieth birthday, it will be a year since her death. 

After I post this, I will go the moss garden, and sit 

with the full harvest moon 

and maybe hum a bit 

- close the earth -  

where my mother's ashes 

have become 

the land. 

Magic & Transformation in the Forest

There's always a healthy dose of mystery and magic in the forest, but August at 
RavenWood was an enchanted month. First, the amazingly talented Lauren Raine, 
artist, mask maker and ritual performer came to the studio to share her wonderful 
creations. A few folks gathered to see a collection of Lauren's masks and to listen 
to her speak about her work with the archetype of the Goddess and her traveling 
mask project. What an evening! The studio was alive with the charged energy of 
her amazing creations. See her web site here, her beautiful blurb book on her Masks of the Goddess project here and her blog post on her visit, here. 

Lauren now lives in Arizona, but for many years, lived not far north of here in Vermont. We met originally through our blogs, but soon discovered that we have many people in common. It was wonderful to have her here to share her masks and to walk with her in the forest that she had come to know a little in photographs. Lauren's masks are very powerful and travel around the country to be used by performance groups. She is 

quite generous to share her extraordinary creations with groups working with the 

Goddess archetypes, and what transpires because of this generosity is amazing. Do 

follow the link to her web site and go to the "Gallery" and follow links to some 

beautiful images of her masks in performances. 

I enjoyed seeing my paintings behind Lauren and her masks, and wished I might 

be able to make an enormously large forest backdrop for a mask performance... 

I love that idea. 

I took most of August off from the studio enjoying a nice long visit from my 
father and a quick one from my sister and niece. The weather was glorious - 
warm, sunny with low humidity. Though I wasn't in the studio, I completed a 
big project that I have been dreaming all summer - a stone patio in the 
Woodland Garden. With stone from the neighbor's stone pit and several trips to 
the river, a patio took shape.   

Pasha took on the role of the overseer, when not sleeping, that is. 

Eventually, smaller river stones will fill more of the cracks along with mosses and 
some alpine plants. Just a bit of edging stone to do still, and another trip to the river 
for small stones. The transformation of this area from mostly post-construction sandy 
soil to stone patio is quite amazing. I'm looking forward to the softening the mosses 
and plants bring.

Being so busy with guests and outdoor projects kept me out of the forest for a bit, 
but last week, Pasha and I wandered amongst the mosses, giant ferns and a huge 
variety of mushrooms. Days and nights are filled with the droning hum of crickets, 
and though it is loud and inescapable, it seems soothing and grounding to walk in 
the thick of it. 

Truly a magical August at RavenWood - I settled into a peaceful flow, forced myself 
to take weeks off to restore and renew before my teaching year resumed. I did  
a newsfast, was only on the computer for short stints, and spent most of the month 
outside working, or sitting in the filtered sunlight under the big beech, sipping kombucha and allowing the humming cricket sounds to do whatever magic it does.