Children's magic.

The day of the full moon Leena drew a picture of "Mother Nature wearing a rainbow dress." She asked me if she could bury it in the yard to give it to Mother Nature. I thought it was a wonderful idea. She helps dig the hole and put the picture in the wet earth along with one of her crystals she had. Then Penelope and her covered it with the soil and Leena went and picked off a flower from her climbing tree to put on top.

Children have this pure and innocence magic innately inside of them. As a child myself I felt this being stifled, because how would one practice magic while being raised in the Christian religion? It didn't work. It's so redemptive to be able to nurture that which is natural to my babes. Kids know how to love on the world. We need to honor that. Honor the rituals they seek to perform. Let them commune with the fae folk. Run barefoot through the wet grass. Feel the breeze kissing their cheeks.

I promise you my dears, I will nourish your magic. You are free to be.

Katelyn

Hiking

Yesterday I took the girls on a hike at the local state park and we did some exploring. It was so fun seeing the excitement on the girls faces as we saw locust after locust and a family of racoons. Penelope rode on my back for most of it. It was so special to just be in the woods, listening to the birds and wind through the trees. We all could've done without the mosquitoes though. Oh Louisiana and your mass of mosquitoes.

I love that it's starting to cool off just a smidgen. That means a lot of hiking and exploring on the horizon! What fun adventures have you gone on lately?

Here's more photos from the day: 

Katelyn

Shifting. Settling.

Waking up to the soft autumn-esque breeze, the cool, comfortable air these last few days makes my body calm. It relaxes any tension and settles into the familiar. The humid, the sticky, the downright uncomfortable days of this year are numbered. I've gone inward, even more so these last couple weeks. I've become a shadow, lurking in the corner. Listening to the great mama universe. Honing in on Gaia. 

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I've been distracted and thrown onto a new course. And I am grateful for this shifting. I never expected it but it's truly welcome. I was doubting and unsure of what I was supposed to be focusing on. Where to channel my energy. There was a brief moment where I felt in my core that I needed to change the schooling plans we have had for Leena, the girls, for the last couple years. I seriously contemplated sending Leena to public school. But when I really sat with it, it just didn't sit well with me. With our family. And when I sat with it I got the answers I needed, the confirmations, the drive.

I've been worn down. And in that process Leena has been too. So when I cried out my woes to the universe this last weekend the answers I needed where always there, right in front of me, just waiting for me to really have the drive to take this homeschooling journey to the wind. And we have, together. I understand her again. How to help her grow and learn in a way that fits just right for her. And Leena is enjoying herself more lately than I've seen in a long time.  

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I am a bit unsure of who this woman is, flitting through the house, picking up, washing, doing laundry, putting items in their place. I don't know, but I'll keep her. I guess this change in my homeschooling approach has naturally changed my housekeeping approach and mindset. I actually enjoy it now. And what's even better, Leena does now too. She looked at me while I was putting Penelope down for a nap, after willingly putting her folded clothes away in the right drawers, and said, "Momma, I'm doing so great at keeping my room clean! I'm going to keep it clean all day!"

This may not seem huge, but for me, for her, for us, it's major.  

Katelyn

Observing. Listening.

I'm watching Leena run around in the yard. In her bathing suit. Chasing dragonflies and picking flowers. I am not a perfect mother by any means and lately I've been at a loss on how to parent her wildly untamed soul. As she smears berries from the yard all over the outside of my studio window I realize I never want her to feel her beautiful free spirit breaking. To know that pain. I never want that. And I have to be honest with myself and look into the mirror because lately in my own exhaustion of life and impatience I've been the one breaking her. Slowly.  

Giving her a set of rules to live by as if they'll somehow be the key to order amongst the chaos in this world. I'm feeling out of control so I try to feel a bit of power by being in control of her. I've listened to so much unwanted advice on how to parent her. Knowing deep down it wasn't right for her, I tried anyways. I didn't listen to my intuition. And I have days where I cry on the floor feeling as if I've dulled her.  

She is a rainbow. She's one fiery gal with energy to spare. At night, as we crawl into bed, she can't still her body. She wiggles and moves. She spasms and talks. She is always talking. And sometimes I hear my mind screaming for a break. But why? Why do I want her to stop talking? Why do I want her to stop asking questions? 

It's true. I don't know how to be the best parent for Leena. I am confused as to how to work with her, through her pain. Her pain of losing friends and trusts being broken. The pain of feeling all her emotions all at the same time, with so much ferocity and intensity at times that it is frightening. She is a child that feels others emotions with every fiber of her being. And it manifests in anger and the inability to control her body. With kicking and screaming. Without even knowing why.

She also loves deeply. She is so beautifully sweet and caring. Watching out and loving on the world around her. On mother nature. On perfect strangers. She trusts to the point of recklessness because she has not yet learned, and I'm not sure I want her to, that some people do not have your best interests in mind.

I'm learning from her. From watching her. From figuring out the puzzle of parenting her.

While dealing with my emotions and hurts, broken trusts and pain, I find myself struggling. And realizing there is more of a lesson here for me than for her. She's teaching me about the world. She's teaching me about letting go. About moving on and bouncing back, because lord knows she doesn't stay down long.  

And it's time for me to pick myself back up. Because there is an answer waiting. The answer is me. Fully present. Living recklessly. Loving without abandon. And always getting back up. 

My little spirited one, she always gets back up.  

Katelyn

Be Liberated.

Usually changes happen slowly so small over time that you look back and wonder, how did I even get here? Where did I start? Wasn’t I always this way? But this was not one of those times. The moment all the fear of cursing, the stigma of it all, went out the window, the door flew open so hard and fast that it caught my husband off guard and left me slightly embarrassed, only for a moment.

There I was, laying in the bedroom of a man I just met, face smashed into a massage table yelling obscenities as my husband looked over in slight horror at the man stabbing me repeatedly with a needle who was mouthing to him, “Should I stop?” My husband blankly dazed at him, shrugged his shoulders and mouthed, “I. don’t. know.”

It was the rib tattoo I was getting. The symbol of my daughter ironically enough, that kicked down the door that was hiding all my cursing behind. After I left that night, they’d slowly slip out here and there and with trepidation. I’d still try to hide the fact that I wanted to say, “This fucking sucks.” Or, “Quit being an asshole.” in times that it was justified and there were no other words to really get my point across. At least not without sounding like a Shakespearian play.

And I don’t know what the conversation that happened where I realized this, but it was saying how, “We don’t say that word, it’s a bad word.” And it hit me. How is a word inherently bad? It’s an inanimate object. It’s something we created. So how then is it bad? It’s implying that anyone who says said “bad word” is also bad. A deviant. Someone who is not worth getting to know. It’s placing a stereotype on someone simply for the adjectives they choose.

Society asks you to fit into this neat little mold. To make yourself smaller in order to be an accepted person. To tone down your life and your speech. To wear mundane clothing when you really want to wear a rainbow. To keep your hair “natural” and your skin clean of tattoos. And definitely, most definitely, society asks you to stay within your given gender role. Society doesn’t just ask you this, it demands it a bit quietly and a bit in your face. From early on and far into your nineties. And it has to stop.

Does this require cussing and telling someone to “leave you the fuck alone?” No. Not at all. It requires you to live YOUR life. Live your messy, colorful, life that only belongs to you. Cuss or don’t cuss. Wear dresses if you are a guy, or don’t. But don’t stop living the life that brings you ultimate happiness simply to fit into a smaller you. Someone else’s skin, chosen for you.

Katelyn

To those of you that have purchased the Fuck it ebook, I would love to send you a copy of my "Cording" ritual ebook as a thank you. Please email me at gypsymothsol@gmail.com with your receipt and I will get it out shortly. Thank you for all who supported us. I am so very sorry for the turmoil a lot of us are going through at this time. Let's release this all back into the ether, okay loves?

Say Something

I'm crying on the floor. Heaving this song into the universe.

Listen.

Just trust me. And believe me, the photo above has everything to do with this in my own life.

 ::Say Something:: by Sucré

Please say something
'Cause everyone thinks you're gone
And they were right baby, you're gone
I'll never see you again
Unless you wait up, holding my hand

You stole my heart and in the dark
You say that you were right there
But you're not
I can't believe you again
And so I wait up, I have to pretend

So I say oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

Hit where it hurts
Is this what I deserve,
A mouthful of dirt?
Well I curse the very day that we met
So now you'll go and lay in the bed that you made

Hey oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

Katelyn. 

Uncle.

Calling out into the sky. I cry uncle for the birds to hear. Please carry it will you? To the wind. Please send my cries up to the clouds. Fill them with my pleas. Filter it into the rain. Rain down on me, sweet peace. 

Please swift river, please carry me away. At least for a bit.  Let my worries flow downstream. Let them swirl from me. For they are too heavy and I can no longer float.

I'll whisper my cries for protection, down into the grass. So it grows into the roots. Filtered by the soil. Surround my heart, dear universe, with protection from this. Protection from those things I have left myself open to.

Clean the wound, dear worms of the dark. Clean the decay of death from me. Stitch me up with blades of grass. Call it good. Call me healed. For I need to believe in something.

And I'd like to believe in healing. 

Katelyn

Becoming

Suddenly I'm here. On the verge of tears and the verge of change. Not sure just what yet. The pull of the waxing moon. The energies intensifying as we make our way to Summer Solstice. And I find myself here. Sitting in a room of people but feeling so alone. More so, out of place. As if I've outgrown a too tight skin of mine and it's starting to shed itself through my waterways within. This perpetual changing over the last two years, mainly, is tiresome and I just want to sit and be. I want to be done growing for a limited time. I want to be content in the place I am at. With the person I am.  

It's exhausting, being in a place of becoming all the time. And I would like a break. A break from being worried I was too transparent. A break from feeling the pain of everyone else. A break from feeling inadequate over superficial things like a clean house and that having some sort of relevance to my worth. A break from apologizing when I shouldn't. A break from unexpected events that  can so easily derail me. A break from crying. Mary Magdalene, I'd love to pass the torch of weeping back to you love.

As each full moon approaches the pressure behind my tear ducts intensifies. The words that I've been too afraid to say, the boundaries that I've been setting in place. They are all there. Under the surface. Coming to the surface.

And I'm not backing down this time. 

This year is the year for crying. The year for leaps and bounds in my growth. And I just hope that soon it will be the year for rest. For settling in. I ask this of you universe. 

Light a candle for me, love? 

{Katelyn} 

Little {crazy} farm.

Last night we welcomed 4 little gals into our lives that were generously given to us from friends. Her husband brought them over last night after plucking them off the roost. He gave me the advice of perhaps leaving them in the coop, which has a small space underneath to get food, water and peck for bugs, for the first day just so they get acquainted with their space and where they should roost.  

This morning when we went to check on them and give them food and check their water, they were all still up in the top portion of the coop, unsure of how to use the ramp to get down below. We left them for a bit to pick up our co-op food order and returned to chickens still in the top of the coop.

We opened up the door on the top portion and lifted the roof up to just give them some space to try to figure this ish out. Well, they all ended up jumping from the top of the coop down to the group. Like the very top where the roof normally sits. Three made it just fine. The fourth got some serious air and flew completely over the fence for their area into our seriously overgrown ditch.  

For the rest of the day Joey and I tried catching this chicken. Running through the ditch. Getting stuck and torn up by thorny vines. Stopping to pick some wild blackberries. Leaping over logs and falling in hidden holes in the underbrush. Chopping down the plants with a dull machete, being careful to not end up with a chicken dinner. We'd see her in one spot then seconds later she seemed to be on the entire other side of the ditch, getting past the both of us without a sound. We would take breaks to let her rest, and our sweat drenched selves rest. Come back out to find her up at the fence with her sisters just at the other side.  

A couple times getting her into the carport, getting our finger tips on her and then having her fly over us, out of the carport and back into the ditch. I had the brilliant idea of "Let's catch the other chickens, you know the ones IN the designated chicken area, and stick them back under the coop, close their door and then leave the gate open to hopefully have the Houdini find her way back to her sisters." Nope. Not happening. We tried luring her in with a mixture of oats, wheatgrass seeds and dried split peas, my homemade version of "scratch." Nope.

So then as the sun was setting we found her back up by the gate. It was go time. Now or never. Joey corralled her back into the carport which ended up being a back and forth dance (picture the Elaine dance from Seinfeld really, it wasn't pretty) of not letting her escape past us again. But then it happened. She got herself caught in the corner between the wall and some bags we have in there. I was able to walk up slowly and calmly but firmly grab her and waltz her fluffy butt back into the "run" to be with her sisters, who she was more than happy to run off with.

My body is jello. If you've seen Howl's Moving Castle I'd describe the feeling in my body as when Sophie and the Witch of the Waste are going to see Madame Sullivan. Then the Witch of the Waste's bodyguards/chauffeurs start melting. That. Exactly. 

I went to check on them after showering as it was starting to thunder outside to make sure they got back into their coop to roost. I found one in there, perhaps Miss Houdini but the other three were not there. I didn't see them roaming around either. I moved to the side and heard one make her chickeny noise. They were roosting. In a tree. Right next to the fence. I came in and got Joey to help. There we were, thunder rolling and the sky flashing incessantly in the pouring rain and strong winds. Joey holding a baby on one hip and a kiddie pool up at the fence to keep chickens from flying over it, because we were not playing THAT game again, while I plucked them one by one out of the tree (and off of one another since one chicken found it perfectly acceptable to roost on her sister) and put them on the roost in their coop.  

What a first day of chicken ownership for this family. You know, maybe I should have just listened to George when he suggested I just leave the coop shut for a day. Maybe. 

Houdini girl's name is Amelia, as in Amelia Earhart and Leena named her twin Laura Lisa. Our all black gal is named Sue, also courtesy of Leena. When my brain is not mush we'll name the fourth. But right now? Right now I am going to go enjoy sparkling moscato with my husband. We've declared it "date night at home" tonight with baked brie, fruit, glutinous bread, because I earned that freaking gluten tonight, perhaps chocolate and scrabble. And candles, of course.

Only jiggly jello love, 

Katelyn

P.S. Did I mention the heat index today was 115? Yeah. 

Crawling out.

The hermit in me is coming out again and this part of my world has gotten neglected. It's not a bad thing. Just a wave. And I'm learning to go with them. Not gracefully, mind you. It's been messy and tiring but I wouldn't say unnecessarily. But it's time to start documenting again. Writing and photographing.

And documenting on my skin.

Thank you for bearing with me and my hermit ways. It's become a bit hard to navigate the internet and all it's relationships it brings. And thank you to the ones who reach out to me through emails and private messages with some of the sweetest, cup filling messages to share with me. I sincerely appreciate it all and it touches my heart deeply.  

I've also contributed to an ebook. It's with 7 other soul(full) women from the group I'm in, Daughters of Earth, with a story to share. Our fuck it moments, where we choose to see the light.

$5 loves.

Only love,

Katelyn