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May your Samhain be blessed with Magic and Love,
May your cupboards be filled, your loved ones be near,
and may your bed always be filled with magic & passion,
and for those whose beloveds have passed
through the veil in this year
it is my wish for you that tonight brings you the joy
of seeing their spirits dancing freely in the light.
Happy New Year and much love from
The Windesphere Witch.
Today even if you're not in the path of the storm , please remember those who are and help out wherever you can. Even a text can make a difference in someones life. Good luck and Godspeed to all.
I answered the most fascinating question on Facebook yesterday. It was asked by a lovely young friend of mine, a beautiful young woman who is learning about herself and how she falls in love. The question was about honesty and how important it was to health of a relationship? It was provocative and really got me thinking about the very nature of man /woman relationships. I gave her this answer.
For me honesty in my relationships is paramount and to be sure because I’m human, it’s not always easy... especially when the truth is an awful tale to tell.. when my husband tells me something about myself that I don’t want to hear or when I have to do the same for him. Honesty in the face of real fear takes a serious choice of courage but that’s what feeds the roots of a healthy relationship. Knowing that your friend or partner will always be that honest with you is what builds the foundation of your hearts true home. My husband and I use a tool to communicate that we learned long ago, a technique we call RAFT which simply means Reluctant and frightened to share. If one of us has something to say to the other that we are afraid will wound we’ll say, “I have a RAFT” and then the other knows that what’s coming is something that we want to share but are deeply concerned about it’s effect on the relationship. Knowing this makes it easier to listen to each other because using this technique frames the words in love, not anger. Sharing in this way leaves the opportunity to be truthful but also receptive. It’s a delightful exercise in enchantment for your mind. Try it for yourself and watch what happens. You'll thank me.
All that being said... A woman has to honor her mysteries and sometimes withhold that which isn't yet ready to be shared... It's essential to our very natures. The thing I notice that's interesting and consistent with so many of the young women I work with? They feel the need to dump everything about themselves all at once into a new relationship as if somehow that helps the man to know or understand them. My experience is that it overwhelms the relationship and doesn't nurture the deeper shoots of trust and caring so that they can root and blossom. I’ve listened to my son and many of his friends talk about this over the years… “It’s just too much, I end up feeling like her therapist instead of her lover and even when I want to get closer, the ghost of all of that leftover emotional baggage that somehow I’m responsible for right now, in that very moment seems like just too much. What about me? I want a woman who can grow up without me, who can take responsibility for herself and then we can enjoy learning about and sharing life with each other. I wish that she was actually hiding something because then I could have fun finding it!”
In his own way he’s pointing to something that I’ve definitely noticed over the last few years. The last several decades have spawned chronicles of self help books, workshops, vast amounts of diet books, new age books, religious dating books, body image books; basically anything and everything that you wanted to ever know about the cult of “ WORKING ON YOURSELF”.
To be a woman is to have our very own mysteries; we bleed every month, conceive life and turn ourselves inside out to bring that life into the world. Even if we adopt our children the experience is just as potent. We feed our children with milk from our breasts or that we’ve created with our loving hands. We know how to love them, heal them and wipe their tears. We know instinctively if something is wrong with them. When we reach a certain age, we hold our blood and instead of being mothers to our children, we birth our power into the world. I know that I’m going to probably take a lot of heat for this comment, but I believe it’s true…Men are naturally the hunters, we are intuitively the healers. I don’t think that it’s the other way around and knowing this doesn’t make us subservient to them in anyway. It make us the yin to their yang. It makes us receptive , elegant and mysterious and it compels them to search out the truths that we already know because we act as their muse.
In my experience it's in the quiet, dark spaces that a relationship becomes full as well as the shared, lovely knowing each other that happens when you pour your heart out. It's in the quiet places where your inner knowing can listen well enough to discern fact from fiction. If you're lying to each other, that silence is awkward.... If you're just being quietly together and simply perceiving the space between, then that’s where the magic can begin to quietly happen....
We can't have Halloween without a little Practical Magic!
Tuesday night my friend Bethane and I decided to carve our pumpkins. We had a blast, sprawled out all over her kitchen floor like kids, laughing and drinking wine and reminiscing about times shared.
With the exception of one gory fight that left us not speaking for over 6 months we've been friends for over 30 years and I always say that she's more like my sister which means that we always have loads to laugh about over the many shared bottles of wine and mischievous escapades.
My pumpkin's on the left and her's which ended up looking just like her cat Thistle is on the right:)
Now...what to do with all of those seeds. Both of these pumpkins were full of them and the walls were incredibly thick and fleshy. I predict a long , cold winter but at least we'll have roasted pumpkin seeds!
One of the loveliest kitchen alters that I've ever seen...
Simple and perfect from Spice Bar and Kitchen in Cleveland, Ohio
These days it's so pretty in Northeast Ohio that I can barely resist doing anything but driving around all day long with my cameras. So here you go..... Some of the loveliest fall colors that I've ever seen, brought to you by Mother Nature herself!
Last week a good friend of mine posted a recipe for homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte's. While fairly intriguing, the recipe had a bit too much white sugar in it for my liking. However, my husband loves Starbucks Pumpkin Latte's and looks forward to them all year, so I was determined to take a stab at creating one that might be a wee bit healthier. This is the result and judging from his truly satisfied expression I succeeded! Happy Husband..Happy Life..Happy Life..Happy Wife :) My guess is that this would be even more bewitching on a chilly autumn night with a warming jigger of brandy stirred into it, a crackling fire and maybe a piece of pumpkin pie!
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I always love New York, but the city that never sleeps takes on a special aura come autumn! Here are a few scenes from this last weekend courtesy of Nello, Bergdorfs and Agent Provacateur....
Tazo lists ingredients as: Lemon balm (Relaxation and good cheer) , rose petals (Love and affection), honeybush, orange peel (Beauty ,Luck and Joy), lemon myrtle (Love and peace) , lemon verbena (Love and Protection), licorice root (To attract love and relaxation), lavender (Sleep and peacefulness), valerian root (Relaxation and love) , natural flavors, ginger (Psychic growth and success), orange essence oil and Chinese geranium oil (Happiness and protection).
I'm glad to know the ingredients because seeing as they've discontinued it, I'm going to need to make my own! If you've never made your own tea, please tell me you'll try. Tea made from herbs and flowers that you've grown yourself is always just that much better for you because you're already in tune with them. I've got huge patches of lavender, lemon balm, verbena and rose petals in my garden just waiting to harvest for the teapot!
However if you see a few boxes of this delightful tea please treat yourself and buy it. The valerian and lavender will insure a blissful nights sleep and the rose petals just make you feel spoiled rotten. I've tried it iced, but the beauty of this tea is in its spellbinding rose perfume which doesn't really get released unless the tea is hot.
And while you're enjoying your tea, why not let Alan Rickman read you a pretty little lullaby:)