Author Archives: rowangrey9093

When I started filming Imbolc celebrations for my channel, I quickly realized that hands do not celebrate holidays; whole people do. All my videos so far had featured my hands making things, with occasional glimpses of my hair. I couldn’t tell this story like that. Why was I so nervous about showing the rest ofContinue reading “Being Seen & Taking up space”

Yes, I am counting the days. Yes, there are a lot of them. The last time that president was in office, I vowed never to speak his name, and the same goes forward. I won’t give him the childish satisfaction of counting me as another mention of his name. I also believe names have powerContinue reading “One down and 1458 to go”

“When it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive, the rational world is my friend because I amContinue reading “Finding inspiration in the oddest of places”

Wasn’t I sitting in the quiet of my retreat, gently what-iffing about the things I might do come Imbolc and the end of my retreat? First, you choose your seeds and then plant them. Nurture the tender seedlings, and plant them out when ready. Repeat this every year. Isn’t the beginning of winter the seasonContinue reading “I didn’t expect this.”

Each year after Samhain, I start my winter retreat, a slow withdrawal from everything that so many people hold dear. I don’t want the frenzy of the pre-Christmas retail blitz. I want to walk my land in silence and reconnect to the truth. I didn’t have a question to ponder at first. As the daysContinue reading “Deeper and deeper inward”

In the First Berkshire Anthology is a poem that ends with the phrase…people who do everything beautiful twice. That captured my imagination long ago and if giving a possible form to my resistance to everything cruel, bigoted and hateful. Doing something twice or more begins to create a habit and doing it even more startsContinue reading “Everything beautiful twice”

I find that a misty, rainy day allows me to slip gently into the alternate time and space of the Jolly Bungalow. I haven’t been here (or is it more properly “there?) in more than two years. The uncertainty and newness had faded from the new normal of life and I was preoccupied with rebuildingContinue reading “A Homecoming”

Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate the holiday. The cats and I do not observe it at the Jolly Bungalow. Our holiday is the Spring Equinox, called Alban Eilir in the druidic tradition. It is the time of sowing seeds, real or metaphorical, and celebrating the wonderful re-growth in nature that occurs eachContinue reading “Respecting traditions”

Fine powder snow is falling, and that is always enough to make me feel very jolly. Usually it is not enough to make me shout “Woo hoo” to the cats or to feel positively giddy with joy. Apparently, this reaction is typical of what you feel when you were finally able to book an appointmentContinue reading “More Jolly than Ever”