Run.

Woodland by The Paper Kites

Run, Run
Don't Trail Behind
Keep Moving
The Beast Wont Stop Till We're Dead
All The Scrapes On Our Knees
Will Tell You Where We've Been
Where We Have Bled

Are We Placed High
In The Autumn Days
Ahhh

Wont Stop Moving Our Hips
Until The Day Is Done
We Wont Stop Running
Till We Reach The Sun
Ahhhhhhh

Chasing All The Things
That'll Keep Us Young
We Wont Stop Running Till We Reach The Sun
Ahhhhhhh

Ow We're Building A Home
With Some Mud And The Stones
And The Branches We Find

We're All Just Searching For Something
Bigger Than We're All Able To Find

Are We Placed
In The Autumn Days
ahhhhh

Wont Stop Moving Our Hips
Until The Day Is Done
We Wont Stop Running
Till We Reach The Sun
Ahhhhhhh

We Are All Creatures Of The Sunlight
We're All Children Of The Day
We're Just Chasing What We Get

Wont Stop Moving Our Hips
Until The Day Is Done
We Wont Stop Running
Till We Reach The Sun
Ahhhhhhh

Peace and Love.
Katelyn

The Bee Charmer

Photo by me.

 For years I have been thinking about being a beekeeper. When I first brought it up to Joey, he thought I was batty. But then you-know-who became a hobbyist mead maker, aka HONEY wine, and he rethought my beekeeping plans. Hopefully by next year we will be able to move to a small farm where we can have animals and bees. I am not sure I want to try urban beekeeping where we live at. For now, I'm still just dreaming about the day I become a bee charmer. Bee inspired photos for you.

You better believe my colonies will be painted funky! Source.

Cut honeycomb I got on our trip to New Orleans. Um, YUM!

Two of my favorite things. Bees and mandalas. Check out this awesome store!

Gorgeous honeycomb ring by Roots and Feathers.

Source.

Source.

Ahhh, someday. The honeybee makes me happy. The other day, a bee came into our house and as Joey rolled up a workbook to smack it I stopped him and asked him to guide it outside. As a child when I got stung I was so upset because I knew when bees stung that it was a death sentence. One year my dad dressed me up as a honeybee for Halloween. However, my older sister was a flower and my oldest sister was a can of Raid. Tacky? Maybe but it was hilariously awesome.

 Peace and Love.

Katelyn

The "Not" Wedding

I got the honor of capturing memories for a facebook and now real life friend of mine. We've been chatting online for a few years now by meeting through, what we guess, a birthing group on facebook. I have a love/loathe relationship with that dang social media site. The great part about it is I get to share our lives with our family around the United States and keep in touch easier with my good friends. But, you all know how facebook can get. Joni told me about her plans to get "not" married in New Orleans and I offered to go out to photograph it for her. I really wanted to meet this gal that I've connected with for so long. I just wanted to share a few photos from that day. This was one of the cutest couples ever. You could tell how much they loved each other and um, hello! They were hilariously funny. Plus, the reception place was chosen by having the word "rum" in the name. My kind of people.

Congrats you two crazy kids!

 

Peace and Love.

Katelyn

Wandering

"Wanderer, there is no path, the path is made by walking." -Antonio Machado

 Life is not straight lines or well marked paths. Life is about meandering. Wandering. Skipping. Falling. And trying. We can not fully live without experiencing heartaches and sorrow. If there were no heartaches or sorrow, there would be no true appreciation of the beauty we are blessed with.

The path to enlightenment is a windy one. Hit the ground running. Truly live.

Peace and Love.

Katelyn

My Green Smoothie Praise

Some people have wondered about how I started with eating healthy. First I decided to go pescatarian. I only eat fish out of the "meats" and I'm trying to eat less so now. The next thing I started doing was green smoothies. This really propelled me into a healthier lifestyle all around. I recommend to anyone looking to start changing their lifestyle to start with this. Green Smoothies. After that things just may fall in place, like eating barely any, if at all any, processed foods. Baby steps get you far and before you know it you have clarity of mind and of body.

To make green smoothies, yes the fancy Vitamix or Blendtec blenders are great (can't wait till I can afford one of my own), but any blender will do. I mean, I've been using an Oster cheapo $25 blender for over 2 years for green smoothies (and I can get them smooth, it just take patience) but we've had it longer than that even!

Up until about 2 days ago my green smoothies consisted of water and a blender full of greens, spinach being the default green, blend blend blend till smooth then I would add my assorted fruits and add ins. I, however, got Vitamineral Green a couple days ago, a powder of dried and ground greens, for donating to the HoneyColony and am loving it so much!

It makes my blending so much quicker and easier. The powder is chalk full of so many more greens than I would normally get adding just spinach or a mixture of kale, spinach, swiss chard, etc.

Ignore the plastic straw. Someday I'll have a nifty glass one.

A recipe for you:

(Makes enough for two large glasses and then a kiddo size glass)

Approximately 3 cups of homemade water kefir, you can substitute for plain water as well

3 tsp freshly ground bee pollen

3 tbsp freshly ground flax seed

1 1/2 tbsp Vitamineral Green

1 frozen banana

approximately 1 cup frozen organic strawberries

approximately 3/4 cup frozen organic raspberries

1/4 an avocado (simply because it needed to be used.)

 A squirt of local honey

Blend until smooth.

The bee pollen and flax seed give it a yummy nutty flavor. The importance of grinding the flax seed fresh instead of buying pre-ground flax is because the omegas oxidize rather quickly so getting pre-ground flax you are missing out on a whole bunch of fantastic omegas. I just do my grinding in a cheap coffee grinder, which really is only used for spices. It was odd for a while when everything that came out of that grinder tasted like garam masala.

Eating healthy is not a diet. It's a way of life. I can't stress enough the importance of this. To have a clear mind, you need a clean body. When we put processed foods into our bodies we confuse it. It focuses solely on getting the crud out instead of the important parts of life. We feel foggy and tired. We feel overwhelmed and confused. 

Take care of your body and it will take care of your soul.

Peace and Love.

Katelyn

Excuse me, your soul is leaking.

Sometimes a photograph is so very telling of what is going on inside yourself. Sometimes you can capture something that was not intended and it is the most real photo of you at that time. I was trying to take photos of my crazy hair the other day and captured this.

It blew me away. My camera phone captured a piece of me not even I could imagine. This is the exact perfect way to describe myself right now. I'm piecing myself together and it's not even a conscious act. It's all coming together even if it's a bit messy at times. Life is beautiful. Messes are necessary.

I'm learning to give in to the journey. My thoughts are jumbled but make perfect sense.

Things that once drove me insane I'm at peace with. I find comfort in. I used to hate any drives over 30 minutes long. I was not a wanderer. I was not a traveler. Now, I can enjoy a drive and find the beauty all around me. We are so well provided for in the eye candy we get in this world. Our earth is constantly showing us her beauty. We just need to actually stop and enjoy. Listen.

I'm following your lead Mother Earth. 

Peace and Love.

Katelyn

A New Path

So here I am. Starting over in sense. A new direction. A new shiny blog for this new era of my life. First of all, I need to say thank you to my great friend, Laura Mazurek. She is responsible for this amazing design and for helping me take the leap in this new direction. (Sorry everyone, she doesn't normally do blog design. I lucked out!) This is my first "official" blog post as Gypsy Moth Sol and I am so excited to share more of my life with you all. 

As a thank you for seeing me through this big change, I'd like to offer you a little freebie. A digital download of a henna design I made for my mother blessing I had while pregnant with Penelope.

 Download the full size here.

Thank you all so much for your continued support, friendship and love you share with me.

Peace and Love,

Katelyn

Color Relations

There's this strong connection I have with colors.

As it shows in my clothing, I feel so at home cloaked in color.

Basking in a kaleidoscope.

The couple years Joey and I lived in an apartment, with bare white walls, it nearly drove me insane.

Crawling under my skin was a bug to paint so greatly.

When we moved into our house we lived with tan/brown walls for a bit before I started covering the house in colors.

But along with the colors I chose: orange, purple, blue, seafoam, green, I also chose gray.

Give me all the colors under the sun but gray soothes me as well.

Gray like the thunderstorm rolling in.

The thunderstorm that we will sit at the window and watch.

Every color, even white, has a strong impact on me.

Bathe me in a rainbow.

Peace and Love.

Katelyn

Of The Spiritual

I find myself deep within a realm of change.

Growth.

And exploring my spiritual self.

Growing up I was raised Baptist.

I was taught all I needed to know about the world.

So I thought.

I was always lost and conflicted.

As a kid I would lose myself in nature in a sense that contradicted what I was taught as a Baptist.

I felt attached to it in a magickal sense.

I felt like my thoughts could connect with the wind, like I could almost control it.

That was not okay with the teachings of Christianity. 

I buried those thoughts and feelings.

I lost a part of me.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago.

Leena's birth awakened parts of me I had long lost.

Slowly it started with the way I looked at childbirth.

Then it went on to the change I made in my eating habits.

I changed my lifestyle.

It snowballed and turned into this Spiritual Awakening.

My body was cleaned so my mind is clearing.

This year is the year to explore all these thoughts I've slowly been letting loose.

Penelope's birth has once again shook my core and I'm building up my new foundation.

Honoring my true self.

Honoring Gaia.

When people ask me what it is I believe in I give a short answer.

I believe in God.

I usually do not find myself divulging much farther than that.

God, as the Christians honor, I'm not so sure.

The earth is God.

God is not some supreme being giving us minds to rationalize and then telling us not to use that ability.

I've been so afraid to let it be known that I do not follow the God I was taught to follow as a child.

I've been worried that people will judge me as I've judged others in the past for the beliefs I now hold as truths.

I am no longer afraid.

I do not need saving.

 So, what am I?

I am not a religion.

I am me.

 Peace and Love.

Katelyn

I, in no way, find you or anyone else of the Christian following any less than I.

We all have our own paths and own personal truths.