Women In-Spirit

Buckeye Cookery Book.  I remember when my Mom brought this particular book home. Unwrapping it carefully, she held it in her hands as she looked upon it with absolute love and adoration. I could almost hear the celestial voices singing in the background...yes, it was one of those kinds of moments. When it came to collecting and reading cook books in particular my Mom had a "kid-in-a-candy-store"  glee about her.  She told me once, when she was very young, that someone asked her which of her teeth was the sweet one. She thought about it, then opened her mouth wide and pointing said 'all of them'.  It was much the same with her cookbooks when someone asked which one was her favorite. The ones though with the splattered and liquid dimpled pages, the ones with the handwritten notations and recipes in the margins, with cutouts from newspapers glued on the inside covers, the old ones, those were the ones that made her heart pitter-pat...the ones that had been used a

    Within the past few weeks I have been finding nests, empty nests. So many in fact that I began to think, "OK Universe, what message are you trying to send to me?"  I found them here and there blown from trees, looking empty and sad. One day I kept going back to one in particular. I looked at it again and again, thought about it and finally felt compelled to go pick it up. The nest was well woven, thick and strong in my hands. It had good bones. Instantly an idea popped into my head and that thought was that I needed to  fill this nest with something, something positive and happy. It was to be an act of intention. So the nest went home.   Later that same day I also found a perfect little wren egg nestled in the grass, it was speckled and dear. There was a small hole pecked into the side so perhaps another bird stole the precious life before its time in order to sustain its own. I couldn't help but feel that this too was another message. Eggs in many cultur

Grave stone of Mary, Mrs. J.E. Townsend, Mammoth Lakes, CA.   When I lived in the town of Mammoth Lakes, CA, high in the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains, I came across this lone grave nestled amongst the pine trees up off the road on the way to the lakes basin. It was near an area called the old Mill site, an area that once hosted a large mining operation in the late 1870's. Intrigued as to why this young woman was buried by herself on the side of a mountain I decided to do some digging, and no not literally but rather into her history. It saddened me too that she was only referred to as "Mrs. J.E. Townsend:," I needed to know her name. There is power in your name and she was obviously a strong woman if she found her self in these remote and high mountains in the 1880's. In a book that I picked up from a local antique store called "A Child Goes Forth" (now known as "Doctor Nellie" published in 1934) I came across the story of  Mrs. Townsend

Rose Mallow, Wegerzyn Gardens, Dayton, Ohio.  Flowers have always held me in a state of inspired fascination. It is much more than just a surface admiration for their beauty and charm. With me it runs deeper still, it's a spiritual connection if you will. Flowers and representations of flowers have been at the fore front of my life; early childhood memories spent in the garden with both Grandfathers and my Mom; thirty plus years as a professional floral designer; even to the beaded Native American medicine bag that came into my hands years ago. Flowers have become a personal symbol and extended expression of my journey.  Rose Mallows, Wegerzyn Gardens, Dayton, Ohio. My Swedish Grandfather was three kinds of an engineer, an inventor, an artist, a blacksmith, and an avid gardener and gentleman farmer. The family farm was in upstate Massachusetts and it was where he artfully designed and planted his four acres of gardens and orchards. White picket fences acted as bac