the sunday slowdown

Is it almost Spring yet?

I have a hankering for flowering baby buds and warm window panes and

I'm tired of fending off colds that are coming for me left, front and back!

This morning I scooped up my book, pens and writing paper and escaped to the coziness of the coffee shop for a few hours of reading and writing therapy.

Works a charm on me every time.

My soul is craving some good outdoors time, but for now the snow and the frost have me running for cover every time I venture out of the apartment.

I have to remind myself the deeper we move in to February the closer we inch toward Spring and warm air and good changes.

When I think back to Spring last year, when I was home at my parents house in Ireland, taking long walks every day, spotting wild horses in the fields and taking photos of old churches, I realize now just how happy a time that was for me.

As much as there is a hermit in me (incidentally, The Hermit was one of the first cards I pulled at my Tarot reading) who loves the hibernation involved in Winter, there is another part of me that loves the freedom and call of the outdoors that Spring offers.

I hope that Old Man Winter is being sweet to you, he is a charming old wizard after all...but I am ready for a little bit of change ^^

castles in the air

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I've been dreaming up visions lately, of a place I'd love to spirit away to and bury myself during this season of frost and snow.

A perfect hideaway deep in the forest where I could read Kerouac and Nin by day and sip on Jack Daniels and listen to the hell hounds howl at the moon by night.

Wrap myself baby blanket-tight in huge woolen throws, spin the Doors, smoke woody cigars and flip through black and white photos found inside dusty old boxes.

Read Tarot in front of the dancing fire, smell the pine and sage and the outdoor fog.

There would be a big old wooden porch with a worn out rocking chair where I'd sit in my jacket and boots shelling lentils for soups and stringing dried herbs to hang over the door to keep the place safe.

A place of peace and isolation, endless water boiling for mugs of tea and hot stew bubbling in an iron pot... meditating, night wandering, moon gazing and star counting, deer hoof tracking,  story writing and forest trinket gathering.

Just me and the silence of the ancient forest... nature at her mightiest.

What a great escape.

                                             
                                                    

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peek at my week// winter warmers

Beomgye High Street

The Korean winters can be long and brutal.

The deepest freeze can come along and take your breath away, red your nose and numb your ears in the blink of a night time.
If you squint your eyes and turn your head to the left you can semi make-believe you're living in Narnia.
But I don't much feel like an arm-circling ice skating lesson every time I put a foot out the door!

There's so much about this part of the year that invites the seasonal blues but I say blues are for the birds and I'm gonna keep some warm winds in these sails of mine!

This involves warm woolen socks, making blanket caves in the bed, cranking the heat and spending an extra ten minutes under the hot shower...

... it also takes wool lined slipper-socks for padding around the apartment....

...belly warming bowls of banana and almond butter porridge before work...

...treating myself to a soy chai tea latte date, wrapping my mittened hands around the hot cup for extra warmth in a classroom not yet heated by muffler-clad energy balls...

...and opening care packages filled with warm pajamas, marmalade, chocolate and all the things only an intuitive Momma could know that I need most in the world right now.

Hope y'all are keeping cozy ~.^

∆ old man winter ∆

The year is officially entering it's solstice, marked by the angel white dusting that began this week, leaving nothing but little green blades and gnarly brown stalks and stems peeking out of it.
It's like mother nature is wiping the slate clean for 2013, polishing the globe ready to start a brand new year on a clean blank canvas.

It's beautiful to look out the window and see the mountain tops capped with snowflakes, my eyes dazzled by the low winter sun, to go outside and catch falling white crystals in my hair and eyelashes. 
Clean clean smells and a red red nose and footprints leading in a million directions.
Glitter falling like a snow-globe that's been tipped upside down.

There's something about the freezing air after a snowfall that shocks the lungs and opens them wider and reminds you that you are alive.

We run by the moon these days, waking up with it smiling through the crack in the blinds and scuttling on our path home under it's bright, benevolent eye. 

Winter is the most mystical of the seasons, cloaked in darkness and frost, foggy breath and frozen earth.
Children believe in magical things, homes are ornamented with glitter and baubles...peace, thanks and love warm the lips and hearts of even the stiffest of souls.


Winter is the wizard who makes this wonderland.
Perhaps he's my new favorite,...but I say that about them all.