It feels like every single year goes a little bit faster. The blinks get closer together. I blinked and it was spring. I blinked and it was midsummer. Another and now not only is it fall, but October is essentially over and Samhain is here. The holidays are approaching at a rate that would alarm even an Olympic sprinter. This year went faster than most of them because I feel like this year for me, has been packed with more monumental or life-altering changes & milestones than many of the recent years combined.

That sense of time speeding by in pockets might make me feel melancholy, but at the same time, this is the gateway to my favorite time of year. The shifting of seasons is always an interesting time, but autumn makes me feel such a specific way that it stands out in my memory every year. It’s something I try to savor.

I’ve tried to describe to several people over the years- and I don’t know if I’ll ever do it in a way that truly conveys the sense of wonder that I feel. Even spending most of my life in Phoenix, Arizona, a place that we jokes has 2 seasons: hot and dry cold; no snow, no changing colors and falling leaves, no spring bulbs. Just prickly trees, greens that still look brown, and pollen such a violent shade of yellow that you know its going to make you sneeze.

Don’t Blink

No matter where I have been in the country, October somehow brings this one specific day. You wake up and the air smells different. It doesn’t matter that 2 days before it was still 92 degrees outside, or the summer flowers were still in full bloom here in Washington. All of a sudden it’s crisp, the air somehow looks cleaner and less dusty; it’s not as heavy. Colors seem brighter, and sunshine looks less oppressive, more blue. All of a sudden there are more people outside in the park; telling you that even if it sounds goofy in a way, other people feel it too. We’re all somehow still running on the same primordial clock. That was always the morning that I knew Summer had said goodbye for the year.

Here in Washington, it’s a much easier thing to describe, because it’s such a visual change- and I treasure it even more. There are big crunchy orange and red leaves on the ground. I wake up to crows between the sleepy trees along the trail outside my apartment. The sunlight is extra sparkly on the mornings it’s out between the growing days of grey clouds and rain. All of a sudden, it smells like mulch and harvest. Its much different than Phoenix, but no less specific of a feeling.

There’s this anticipation in the air. The long hot days are over, and we’re entering a season of rest and closing. Of quiet evenings in warm homes, and soon of louder nights filled with laughter, family, and glittering lights. This is my favorite time of year. It’s the quiet deep breathe before I get to fill my cup with chaos, joy, family, and connection. I get to take quiet time for myself to rest before the big outpouring of myself over the holidays.

Tomorrow is Samhain again already. Given my current contemplative mood, I thought today would be a good day to discuss the history of Samhain and share some easy ways to celebrate at home- if you so choose.

A Festival of Fire:

Not be confused with Halloween, Samhain (pronounced sow-win) was originally a pagan festival celebrated by the Celts. Samhain was the most significant and largest of the Great Feast days and the most important of the four Fire Festivals; traditionally the only day of the year that the Hearth fire was allowed to go out while the final harvest was collected, before being relit as part of the communities celebration after being blessed by the Druids. It was a sacred time. Certain accounts even mention death sentences for people who violated rules or committed violent crimes during this time. Prayers were said, blessings given, cattle were sacrificed, and community bonfires were used to sanctify the Hearth’s for the upcoming year.

A Festival of Souls

Originally it was celebrated as the day that the veil between the physical world and the spirit world was at its thinnest, allowing more interaction with the beings of the otherworld. (Samhain – Celtic Origins, Rituals & Halloween | HISTORY)

Offerings were left outside of doors, villages, and fields for the Sidhe, to protect them and earn goodwill from anything crossing the barrier between worlds. People often wore animal or monster costumes so the fairies would not kidnap them.

During the middle ages, carvings on turnips and pumpkins were used to ward of fairies and other wicked beings. It was during this time that the “Dumb Supper” became a tradition. During which spirits were invited to dine with the family as a way to interact with ancestors and other deceased friends and relatives.

Christian Involvement in Samhain:

Over time, and through the rise of the Christian Church, Samhain traditions became intermingled with other Christian practices. First adapting to “All Saints and Martyrs” in the 5^th Century, and then as “All Hallows Eve”, “All Saints Day”, and “All Souls Day” in the 9^th century by Pope Gregory. Eventually, many of  Samhain’s practices and traditions became synonymous with the modern celebration of Halloween.

“The Farther we’ve gotten from the magic and mystery of our past; the more we’ve come to need Halloween”

Paula Guran

That doesn’t mean that the original spirit of the festival isn’t still there. The growing season is over, the harvest is complete, the long nights are approaching. Now is a good time to reflect on what you have accomplished this year, and settle in for a rest, while blessing and protecting your home for the upcoming dark season.

Celebrating Samhain at home:

Just because most towns are no longer holding massive feasts and community bonfires- does not mean that you cannot acknowledge the significance of this time in the natural world. Samhain is not about devil worship, black magic, or the macabre and grotesque. It’s about harvest and celebrating the role that each season plays. It’s a time to honor those that are gone, with maybe just a smidge of the magical and mystical peaking through the thinning veil for those of us that are superstitious. Below are my favorite ways to have intentionality in savoring this time.

• Take a nature walk: you’ve probably seen me say this in any ‘celebratory’ holiday post. That’s because many of these holidays center around the changing of the seasons, and one of the best ways to experience that and appreciate it is to get out in it. See it, touch it, taste it, smell it. It was particularly easy for me this year, being in a new space with vibrant colors and so much to soak up.
  Make sure you aren’t glued to your phone while you’re out. Look at the leaves, or the clouds, or whatever it may be. Smell the crispness in the air. Let the wind sit on your face and focus on what right now feels like.

• Set up or refresh your altar: Yes there are the stereotypical symbols or Halloween, but so much more can go into the sacred space this season. Symbols have power. Skulls, ghosts, I tend to decorate with my favorite leaves that I’ve picked up on the aforementioned nature walk. allspice berries, broom, catnip, mountain ash berries, mugwort, mullein, oak leaves, acorns, rosemary, sage, pine cones, and straw are also good symbols.
  Taylor tends to merge this a little bit with her appreciation of Dia De Los Muertos. She always puts up pictures of people we loved and lost, with a special focus on any recently significant losses. We light candles for each loved one and spend time talking about them together, honoring their part in our lives.

• Host a Dumb Supper for yourself and your family: This meal is traditionally mostly silent, thus the name. Leave an empty place at your table to honor the deceased. Focus your meal on products of the harvest: dark grain breads, the darkest of summers berries, root vegetables, game meats, cider or wine. On this day the table is a sacred space. Before sitting down to eat, gather everyone for a prayer:

“Tonight we celebrate Samhain. It is the end of the harvest, the last days of summer, and the cold nights wait on the other side for us. The bounty of our labor, the abundance of the harvest, and the success of the hunt all lie before us. We thank the earth for all it has given us this season, and yet we look forward to winter, a time of sacred darkness.”

• Visit a cemetery: I know- this is where I lose some of you, or you think I’m going to tell you to perform seances in disrespectful places. Not so. But this is a time of honoring the dead. Now is a good time to visit graves of loved ones. If I was home, this would be the time I would go to my grandfather’s and grandmother’s memorial; or stop to chat with my Uncle Alois. Its another way to feel close to them and honor their memory. To let them know that I’m still thinking about them.
  Since I can’t be home this year I instead visited a local cemetery.
  There are two where I live, and the old historic one is no longer active and doesn’t get a lot of visitors. I spent some time walking rows and reading names, I can’t help but wonder who they were and what they were like. I like to lay flowers at some of the ones that catch my eye or feel right. I like to think that this way, they aren’t forgotten.
• Reflect: look back on your season of growing. Review Journals, planners, photographs, evidences of your growths this year. Look back on whatever goals you set yourself and assess how you faired. Meditate. When you are done introspecting- write down your thoughts and feelings about your experience.

• Clean and reset your hearth space: homes have certainly changed since everyone had a functional hearth. The concept remains the same. The hearth was the center of the home. A place of nourishment, gathering, and safety. The touchstone that grounded most families. When I did have a fireplace, this was the time I would deep clean it and pull it apart in preparation for winter use. If you don’t have a fireplace, it is still a good time to deep clean your kitchen. Spend some time caring for the space that nourishes you. On a practical note: you’ll thank me when the holidays roll around.
• Bonfires: Samhain was the greatest of the fire festivals. Go outside, light a fire- a firepit will do if a bonfire isn’t an option. Let the smell of woodsmoke seep into your skin and relax you. Let the heat from the fire keep away the growing snap in the air. Spend time welcoming the chillier evenings and long nights. This is a good time to meditate.

• Connect with your community: This might feel harder in the anti-social, demanding, fast-paced world we currently live in. But in times past, Samhain was an important time to connect with your community because everyone relied on everyone during the long winter months. Now is a good time to check in on friends and relatives and make sure they’re okay.
  Find a local organization to help- lots of communities will look for volunteers at this time of year to help with food and shelter for the homeless, or under privileged. There is a need for community now more than ever. Get out of your house- go to a fall festival or a pumpkin patch. Make new connections and friends in your community.

However you choose to celebrate, make sure you do so with intentionality. Focus on the feeling in your heart as this season closes. Take time to rest, recharge and prepare before the glitter and sparkle of the holidays suck us in for another grand finale. Take a minute to make sure your eyes are wide open before you blink and its spring again.

When black cats howl and pumpkins gleam, may luck be yours on Halloween.

Happy Samhain!

Mikaela

I hope you know it is with 100% sincerity that I say we are so sorry that we have not been as active recently on our social media accounts or our blog. It’s not that we have not been thinking about it, RavenWerks is forever on our mind. Honestly, more so than ever lately.  

But the truth of it is we have been getting sucker punched by the universe one after another lately and have been reminding ourselves to give each other grace. Between losses in the family, the move, the new job, the final stages of wedding planning, then the wedding (yay!), and an exploded water heater that has since turned into a mold-meets-asbestos demolition zone; we have just been taking everything one day at a time and reminding each other constantly to take the day as it comes. That sometimes just getting through the day IS the win. Not a win, or part of the win but the whole and only win. 

Which brings me, weirdly, to my topic for the day. I don’t mean to come at you from left field, because I feel like its not my usual sort of topic. It’s something that has been coming up a lot lately for me. With everything going on in my world I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on life, and the cycles it offers us.  

Life Has Seasons

Only so much can happen in a brief period of time before you must stop and ask yourself “What is the universe trying to tell me? What is this season of my life trying to teach me?” Sometimes, in seasons like this, I have to think about it for a while and search for the answer. Other times, someone might as well have screamed it in my ear. I feel like this has been one of those times.  

So, in case you are experiencing a season like me, I thought I’d share. Because I’m beginning to get the feeling that this is what she wants me to do. 

Discover the Freeing Power of Giving Yourself Grace to be Human

Sometimes, you just have to be happy that you made it through the day. I know that sounds backwards from the woman trying to build a huge multi-level all-inclusive safe-space, creative center, and nerd zone. I feel like I have a purpose. And I am passionate. About a lot of things.  

BUT what I learned this season is that it’s hard to convey passion about things you ARE passionate about when you are over-extended, burnt out, and drained. You end up feeling mad and disappointed in yourself because you don’t feel like you did something justice or gave it the room or attention it deserved. That to grow healthy roots for a tree we mean to nurture for a long time; sometimes you need to take a step back and nourish yourself so you can grow correctly. Even trees go dormant in the winter. Grow when you are able. grow in your spring. Listen to your body and acknowledge that life has seasons.  

I have learned that sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is give yourself grace and move forward when the time is right to do so. I’m not saying don’t work for things or don’t try to work through things. Heaven’s no. growth happens in the area just outside your comfort zone and I want you to be all that you can be with reckless abandon. But it’s okay to do what you can and give yourself grace with the rest. 

A “Higher Calling isn’t Required

Finding your “purpose” or having a passion is great. It’s an amazing feeling to feel like you have “found your calling”. But you were not put on this earth to have a ‘purpose’. Your life is not a waste or somehow worth less if it takes you longer to find it. Some people never find it. Or when they find it, it’s not what they thought it would be. You don’t have to save the world, cure cancer, or even get a degree.  

Those things are noteworthy and amazing. But dial your DNA back a bit and look at humanity as whole. Just a few short centuries ago. Your purpose is to survive. Your purpose is to wake up , look at the sky, fill your lungs with air, smell flowers, feel the earth, eat food, and survive. You are not a machine. You are not a worker bee. You are not a cog in a clock or a gear in an engine. You are a living, breathing, human being. And that is magic enough.  

So, if you are in one of those seasons where you are treading water, and just trying to keep your head above water: that is okay. Take deep breaths and remember that floating sometimes saves a lot of energy.  I know that it can be hard in the fast paced, achievement based society we live in. Consider starting yourself the practice of “Mindfulness Minutes” first thing in the morning before the chaos of the day begins, or maybe right before bed if you’re a night owl. If you haven’t heard me talk about mindfulness and medititation, that’s okay! You can check out my intro post on the topic of mindfulness and medidation. Its got some resources for anybody looking to start.

It is okay to say, “maybe not today, because I am tired, or I just can’t yet; but there is always tomorrow, and I will try again tomorrow.” It is okay to ground yourself with the reminder that “I am just one person.” If you haven’t taken time yet today to go outside and breathe, go do it. Take some time, take deep slow breaths. And remember that Existing is enough.  

All the best, 

Mikaela  (and Taylor)

An overview of ‘dirty’ and ‘clean’ crops 

Good morning, friends!  

As promised, today we’ll be taking a brief foray into the Dirty Dozen and the clean fifteen. You may have seen our previous post regarding kitchen sustainability where we discussed being aware as a consumer and changing the framework of your diet. This takes a bit of a deeper dive into one particular aspect of that. 

This is one of those controversial topics that I love. GMO vs non-GMO, organic vs nonorganic, food deserts and food accessibility. Through sheer population, food demand, and economic structure the United States has resorted to and evolved some pretty intense farming techniques and farming alternatives to try and keep up.  

Now I’m not here to bash the system as a whole. We did what we thought we had to at certain hard times in history to make things work and we thought that what we were doing would make food in general more accessible to all. Over time, however we have found that some of those developments may have had unexpected long term consequences. 

Whilst I hate info-dumping and lengthy definitions, some things bear defining. so let’s go over a brief glossary of some of those terms: 

GMO: Genetically modified organism. In food, this refers to the use of recombinant DNA technology or biotechnology to alter foods. This may be to increase yields, or fruit bearing years. It can also make certain crops more resistant to pests or specific chemicals. In animals it can make them resistant to certain illnesses, or be hormonal to help with milk production or egg production. 

Organic: specifically in regards to food, the US requires that all ‘certified organic foods’ are grown without artificial chemicals, hormones, antibiotics, or GMO’s. Now, this can be a bit misleading because not all organics are created equal; and we’ll get to that in later posts if you haven’t yet taken Michael Polan’s Masterclass. But at it’s root means that the food or crop was grown or raised the way it organically would on its own. 

Food desert: a geographic area where fresh food is harder to come by due to drought, geology, or the requirement for import- thereby driving local food costs higher due to demand.  

As science has developed and we now have the data to show the long term effects of some of these modifications, there is a growing demand for Organic or ‘clean’ food. This doesn’t mean washing your strawberries (though you should be doing that still). It refers to the production method of your food from start to finish. This is for a number of reasons: 

1. Several studies are beginning to suggest that organic food has more nutritional value. This is not concrete yet as there are a variety of factors that affect nutritional content at the time of testing, but a lot of the evidence points in that direction.  

2. Organically grown crops do have more antioxidants and vitamins in them. This is visibly documentable. Specifically  vitamin C, zinc, and iron. In fact, antioxidant levels can be up to 69% higher in these foods. Organic plants do not rely on chemical pesticide sprays to protect themselves. Instead, they produce more of their own protective compounds, namely antioxidants. This may partly explain the higher levels of antioxidants in these plants.  (https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/what-is-organic-food#more-nutrients). 

3. Organic crops reduce your exposure to artificial chemicals and pesticides. GMO’s and pesticides have been linked to an increase in childhood allergies, autoimmune issues, cancers, and birth defects.  

In a perfect world, crops would just be able to grow the way they were meant to and everybody would be able to access fresh clean food. But the world isn’t perfect, and not everybody (myself included) can always afford to buy everything organic. It’s pricey. This leads us to the dirty dozen. The dirty dozen is a list put out by the EWG or Environmental Working Group every year to name the top 12 crops with the highest residual pesticide content. 

If you want to start towards a “cleaner” diet, and being more cognizant of what you’re ingesting; but you can’t afford to buy everything organic, I get it. The dirty dozen is a good place to start. If you’re only going to buy a few things organic because that’s what’s in your budget- start there. It’s important to note that this list changes every year because how companies grow crops changes, so make sure you make an annual check in. 

The current dirty dozen is: 

Now, for everything, there is an opposite. The EWG also has what they consider the “Clean 15” this is the annual list of produce crops that are considered to be the lowest risk with the lowest alteration/pesticide rate and therefore safer to buy conventionally. 

If you ever want to check back or look into the EWG farther you can find the link to their organization here.

Keep your eyes open as we move further into food sustainability. I hope this was beneficial and informative. As always, chime in with questions, thoughts, or additions.  

All the best, 

Mikaela