Hibernation...

We spent the holidays traveling out west and we're just settling back in at home.

Look for a few more posts coming up in the next few weeks, and then I'll be back to a regular schedule on Imbolc, February 1st.

Blue Moon

A blue moon rises tonight as the year comes to a close: a perfect opportunity for a little candle magic.

Maybe a small house with chickens and a goat, gardens, a grove, and a pool, and a view of the ocean and the life this home would support.

Eight Diagram Palm

Tom Bisio in 12 Posture Zhan Zhuang.
I find this breathtaking.

"In practice, the Ba Gua practitioner steps and turns moving smoothly like a swimming dragon, swooping and spiraling like a hawk, coiling like a snake, and changing postures nimbly like a monkey."

Repost: Secrets to a Happy Marriage

When Joanna of Cup of Jo went on her honeymoon this fall, she invited several people to guest blog on her site their secrets to a happy marriage. One of my favorites was by Craig Nova. Don't miss the link to the letter he wrote to his beautiful daughter Abbey on her wedding day.

Fourth Month of Pregnancy

(Art by Shinichi Maruyama)

In the fourth month of pregnancy, the fetus opens to the essence of the element of water. This element constitutes the pool of genetic inheritance, including the "unconsious reservoir of intuitive intelligence, will, and life-force energy". It relates to the "divine love, power, and spirit" that is ancestrally available to the fetus.

In the fourth month of pregnancy, the connective tissue develops, the matrix by which everything is connected in this new being. It is the matrix of "intercellular communication," and can be thought of as the scaffold of the astral body.

Acupuncture during this stage of development can be particularly beneficial to the pregnant woman.

(Primary source: Sui Dynasty Imperial Physician Chao Yuan Fang as written in Energetic Anatomy and Physiology (Chinese Medical Qigong Therapy, Volume 1) by Jerry Alan Johnson)