Category: Winter

The call for wise, old women

31/7/2019

"A village without elders is like a tree without roots."
- African proverb

Winter, 2018

I'm frustrated.

I crave the presence of old, wise women. The sage, the elder, the crone. The wise old woman, or man.

Like an open wound craves soothing balm and mending and tenderness, I crave the smell, the words, the energy of the mature feminine archetype. And of actual old, wise women.

Where are they?

We have an ageing population, but - as Michael Meade, host of Living Myth podcast so eloquently states - instead of getting older and wiser, it seems people are just getting older.

Spring energetics - moving from darkness into light

12/10/2018

Wild edibles have been popping up everywhere in our hood - check out these bitter dandelion greens. Perfect with some sour lemon juice, olive oil and salt for a simple spring salad.

Spring is here, and although I LOVE it, the transition has been rough...

Winter just isn't my thing (as nice as all those warm cups of chai tea are!) Spring is my favourite season of the year - and not just because it's my birthday season. As the weather started warming up, our little family enjoyed daily expeditions to a local mulberry tree. It seemed our hands and faces were perpetually stained purple, and life was sweet.

Then we had a car crash.

And it was as if our whole world was turned upside down.

Someone rear ended us on the highway. Miraculously no one was hurt, but it shook us all up. Since then, my family and I have encountered battle after battle. Physical, emotional, mental, you name it.

It started with that car crash involving all of us (such a scary experience with babies in the back). Between us we've been through a bout of hospitalisation for appendicitis, some heavy repressed memories resurfacing, a shitload of emotional processing (with anger, shame and vulnerability at the forefront), the extreme physical fatigue that accompanies such emotional processing, a teething baby (aren't they just always teething?!) and learning about the "tantrum explosion" stage of a certain ginger haired three-nager.

5 Legit Ways to Improve Your Body Image

20/8/2017

It's the end of winter, nearly spring. This is Imbolc - the time of metaphoric rebirth. Half way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, this is traditionally a time for purification and spring cleaning in anticipation of the new surge in life approaching.

We may well still have a few cold snaps ahead of us but the energy has shifted.

Both energetically and in the natural world, now is the time we see new growth following the seeming dormancy of Winter. Imbolc is a time of hope, a time filled with the excitement of new possibilities for the future, the time for manifestation of whatever dreams we've been seeding over winter.

And troublingly - but not surprisingly - there are plenty of body-shaming industries ready to capitalise on the collective feelings of hope and excitement that coincide with the change in season.

One industry that plays a huge part in forming the mass constructed social expectations placed on bodies associated with this time of year is, of course, the diet industry.

Being late winter when the growing warmth is reminding us of the bikini season 'just around the corner', this is when we hear an escalation of mantras like, "Summer bodies are made in winter" along with increased pressure to buy those programs and products that employ this infuriating rhetoric.

The marketing strategies of those selling diet plans, weight loss products, 8- or 12-week training regimes and body-beautifying yoga challenges adopt this kind of tagline in order to incite a feeling of urgency or even panic in those who, shamefully, 'still haven't started working on their summer body.'

Well fuck that.

I say, "Body shame is perpetuated by stupid sayings like 'Summer bodies are made in winter.'"

Your body is not the problem. Your belief that your body is the problem, is the problem.

Dieting your sex drive away?

21/7/2017

I have a question for you.

Which one factor is absolutely fundamental to women having a healthy sex drive?

Is it having "the ideal body", which we're convinced will make us the desire of every man?
Is it owning and wearing the most exquisite lingerie you can buy?
Is it being a yogi - gymnast so you can act out the entire Kamasutra without breaking a sweat?
Is it re-training your brain to think, breathe and live sex by mulling over your sexual fantasies and doing libido-boosting visualisations daily?
Is it having a sexually adventurous, Samantha Jones-esque personality and not being afraid to search sex shops far and wide for the latest and greatest toys?
Is it being comfortable with and well-practised at masturbation so you're familiar with what your body likes?
Is it being assertive and vocal in bed, and being able to confidently ask for what you want?

It's NONE of these. Whilst some of these are important ingredients to a healthy sex life, there's a HUGELY fundamental sex drive-promoting necessity that's glaringly absent from this list.

The most important thing you can do as far as your desire for sex goes?

It's having enough fat on your body.

Yep, having enough or ample fat, not as little fat as possible.

If, like most women, you're weight loss dieting... if you're partly starving and/or overexercising your body to get down to or maintain the levels of body fat approaching that of fitness and fashion models (the official body type desired by the average woman in our culture because we think it will buy sexuality)...

... then your fertility, your sexual desire, your fitness, your energy levels, and of course your overall health, will actually suffer.

And without these things, even the most dedicated Kamasutra practitioner, sex toy aficionada, "perfect" figured gym-bunny, or modern woman with sex communication skills of steel will not be able to get it on... let alone get off.

Avocado Honey & Lavender Face Mask

18/7/2017

I've been doing some pretty heavy duty, socio-political, ideology challenging, emotionally fuelled writing lately, and there's plenty more of that to come. So I thought this blog could do with an injection of good old fashioned, light-hearted silliness.

Don't worry, this post won't be all tangelos and cartwheels. Neither will it be totally devoid of anti-capitalist cynicism. You can rest easy!

What do you do when your shithouse hot water system turns off half way through washing your hair, the bag of expensive organic avocados you swear you just bought suddenly goes from rock hard to frustratingly over-ripe in 5 minutes, and you have a very active toddler to care for, feed and entertain? Why, you make an avocado face mask and pretend for a fleeting moment that you actually have some time to yourself again!

(Bonus points for creating a false image of financial freedom and ample recreational time invariably linked to some MLM scheme you've gotten yourself buried under, by posting photos of you making and wearing said natural face mask containing and mentioning as many of the products you're trying to sell as possible, all over social media.)

My Second Trimester

4/7/2015

25 week baby bump

Today, I'm nearly 28 weeks pregnant. But it seems as if it were just yesterday when I saw two lines on the pregnancy test, confirming what I had intuitively felt for some time before that. I've since learnt that pregnancy is a sifting of the unsorted material of one's psyche to reveal the dross. Dross that must be burnt before a new life can enter the world under your care. A process as necessary as it is painful, uncomfortable, thrilling and insight-revealing.

Pregnancy: a sorting of the psyche, a polishing of the soul.

3 Wintery ways to build self-love & acceptance

18/5/2013

Over the last few weeks I've noticed a distinct climb in the number of women who aren't giving themselves the love and compassion they deserve and need to function healthily.

Blame it on the fast approaching Winter (natural hibernation time for us warm-blooded mammals) where many men as well as women have a natural tendency to store fat and reduce exercise. Or blame it on the stars - whatever the reason, this seems to be a time where our poor, hard-working bodies are copping a lot of flack as we don't meet our own expectations of what we should look like, feel like, and how we should be performing.

For the last few weeks I've personally felt more and more overwhelmed by life in general. Work, health, relationships and friendships, family - it all started feeling thicker, heavier and less manageable. For weeks I've tried to figure out why. And I think I've got it.

It has to do with cycles.

Casey's blog

The call for wise, old women

Winter, 2018

Spring energetics - moving from darkness into light

5 Legit Ways to Improve Your Body Image

Dieting your sex drive away?

Avocado Honey & Lavender Face Mask

My Second Trimester

3 Wintery ways to build self-love & acceptance

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