Alas! It appears I have reached the email length limit yet again. You can click “view entire message” if it gets cut off and you wanna see the memes at the bottom of this.
One other note before we get into the messiness, I’ve got a class this Sunday! Mystery Plant Meditation, this Sunday, 3 pm, at Mountain Massage Wellness in Staunton. Cost is $20. You’ll get a take home bottle of the essence that we meditate with. Come join!
Hello friends, I write to you once again, reporting that once again, it has been a doozy of a full moon over here. I think my PMS hitting me so hard is a factor worth mentioning for fullest context. So if you’re here too, edges feeling raw and crying a lot, hello my friend, we’re in this boat together.
In other news, I got a new sketchbook. When I put my previous one on the shelf with the others, I noticed that they all span 10 years. 10 years of sketchbooks! I am so pleased by this. I love record keeping. I keep my journals, notebooks, sketchbooks, calendars. And then when they accumulate I admire how much time they cover. I’ve been thinking lately that maybe my sketchbooks are some of my most precious objects. They’re definitely some of my favorite work I’ve made. My new sketchbook is half the size of the previous one and I’m hoping this will make it easier for me to keep it by my side more often. My creative practices ebb and flow, the rhythms change, and I think right now I’m hearing a call to sketch more. And I want to start drawing my dog.
Speaking of my dog, I’ve also been thinking about positive reinforcement training and how I’ve basically been positive reinforcement training myself to work through anxiety. Bear with me here. My dog trainer told me once that positive reinforcement is not species specific, and she was saying this in the context of training our cats with pattern games alongside the dog, but now I’m thinking about how I’m also a species and this pattern of conditioning works on me too. Ha! I tried to explain this to my therapist and she was like Okay, sure…so hopefully I’m doing a better job explaining here. If not oh well, I tried. I don’t have the brainspace to edit today.
It started out with thinking about responding to my anxious self the way I respond to my dog when she's anxious. And I've also been thinking about the concept of thresholds, another idea from positive reinforcement training that I've been applying to myself. What's my threshold and what are the subtle signs that indicate I'm getting close to it? For my dog some of the signs are ears back, wide eyes, latency in responding to known cues. For me, I know now that the big sign is getting a headache. And since I’ve been looking for more subtle signs that come before the pain comes on, I also now know some of the signs are losing patience, not being able to make a decision, a change in appetite.
Another concept I was thinking about was rewards to reinforce behavior I like. For the dog this looks like giving a treat for coming inside when I ask, for not chasing the cat. For me this looks like my therapist telling me to celebrate my wins and successes with anxiety challenges, and I like to celebrate with food, and I realized that's a treat. Literally the same kind of treat since I give both myself and my dog food as the reward.
So yes, I'm positive reinforcing myself, and it’s working!
Things are changing, one other thing that has shifted during my saturn return is that I’ve started occasionally wearing bras again (I feel I must note that I am speaking of the least bra-like bras available, I’m not trying to change the whole shape here). My body has changed—is always changing, a different body every day as Anna and I say—my boobs look a little different in my clothes, like, boob-ier, than I’m used to, and sometimes I’m more comfortable with an extra layer between the precise shape of my nipples and the world. I am truly shocked at this development given that I’ve been anti-bra, anti-any extra layer that covers my breasts, for the better part of the last 10 years, and shocked even further that on some days I find myself yearning for the days of my flatter chest. Especially since during those days all I yearned for was a less flat chest. Oh! The surprises never cease. May acceptance please come my way. The ebbs and flows go on and on. Is there anything that isn’t a practice of being present???
One way I practice being present is by looking at flowers. Tis the season of flowers, y’all, and morels. Actually as I write it is seeming like the it’s the close of morel season on the hill I’m on, according to my neighbor who’s been in relationship with the mushrooms for 70 years or so. Anyway, we had ourselves a little mushroom snack and it was glorious, one of my favorite spring rituals here, and each one feels like such a gift. Let me paint the picture—
It’s a cool, early Spring morning, the air is misty from yesterday’s rain, the clouds haven’t lifted all the way off the mountain yet. It’s crisp, and sweet. We’re wandering through the woods, walking slowly and touching trees, scanning scanning scanning. A pinecone tricks you, and then a walnut tricks you too. You wonder, Do I even remember what these mushrooms look like? You try to let go and trust the pattern recognition part of your brain. You step slowly, pausing a lot to look around. You see a turtle, still muddy from brumation, you assume. You scan the area near the turtle, wondering if they eat mushrooms too. Suddenly! A treasure revealed! You see the morel, leaning up out of the duff. You shout, I found one! We all cheer! You thank the Turtle, the Mushroom, the Land, as you pinch the mushroom up and into your hand. And, after tucking it into your mesh bag, your search continues. Stepping slowly, looking around. Wide, wide gaze.
A few more Spring Flowers:
In the garden, things are happening, transplants and flowers and lettuce being harvested. And most favoritely, essences being made. I made 4 essences, Flax, Tulip, Strawberry, and Thyme. This is the second Flax essence I’ve made, the one I made last year was interrupted by a black snake falling from the gutter and an ensuing snake relocation (to a very nearby field, no worries snake lovers), and I’m just not sure that’s the vibe I want in my Flax essence, it’s a little much ya know? So I made another one this year. Still got the snake one on the shelf though, just in case.
From my Tulip notes: emergence, some stiffness, graceful movement, expressive, like ballet
From my Flax notes: old lineage of relationship with humans, nourishment, clothing, fabric magic, persists all winter, flowers only open for part of the day
Thyme notes: small patterns that create bigger scale, pointed leaves, ants
Strawberry notes: an easy connected love, little gems, dog come up to see me right as I was thinking of her
Okay, I’ll wrap things up. Thanks for reading these newsletters! I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I’m doing it! And that’s what counts, I tell myself. Signing off with elderberry flower buds, lilac honey, and more,
XOXO,
Katelyn
PS, the one song on my mind:
PPS, aforementioned memes
PPPS, Flax flowers, and Lilac Honey that infuses for a year (ish), both absolutely divine
OK BYE :-)