Tag: hot tea

Posted on

March 26: 6:20-6:51 Handwarmer Mug

6:20-6:51 p.m.: My peace rituals are more necessary these days than they’ve ever been before.

Is it because I’m older?

Or because life is busier?

Or because the world feels so different today than it did yesterday?

Some evenings, I take a long walk with the dogs. Other evenings, I light candles. Some nights, I soak in a hot bath. Most every afternoon or evening, I make a pot of hot green tea and my husband and I indulge with local honey and a flavored herb blend. There is nothing that compares to the feeling of togetherness and unwinding over steam rising from a cup. When the world is cold, there is warmth in togetherness.

Steeping Peace

I come home from work

steep a mug of hot green tea

sweetened with honey

grab a tea towel

slip my hand inside the mug

buffered towel warmth

when the world is cold

a handwarmer mug steeps peace

from the inside out

Posted on

A Calm Christmas: Comfort and Joy in Contemplation of Spirit

Photo by Bianca Debisko on Pexels.com

This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2020), and in Chapter 3, she presents ways to seek comfort and joy in winter by seeking our natural rhythms and learning from nature.

To contemplate ways to simplify and nourish our spirits, Kempson encourages us to go gently into winter mornings by tiptoeing to the kitchen, light candles, meditate, or write as self-care measures. She asks these questions:

How could you simplify your home, schedule, digital life? How can you nourish your mind, body, spirit, and loved ones, and what rituals will see you through winter?

So much can be simpler. I once heard that if you feel stressed and need to hit the reset button, spend a half hour in nature. But those who are really busy should spend an hour. Sometimes we don’t have control over simplifying our work schedules or the digital life that work requires, but when home is the haven that allows the respite at day’s end, there is much to be loved. I walk my dogs along a path my husband keeps cut on the farm…and would you believe I go in my flannel pajamas and boots, praying all the while that a delivery truck doesn’t come calling while I’m out in my loungewear? We drink cinnamon orange tea in the evenings in winter, and while we don’t have a real log fireplace, we keep the gas logs going if it’s anywhere below 60 degrees outside. These are the ways we nourish ourselves, and the simple rituals are what will take us through winter. Sometimes, doing as little as possible on weekends is the order of the day, letting the book stacks speak their stories to us as we read the day away.

One of my favorite thoughts in this chapter is “the sounds of winter are cracking in poetry, wind in the trees, rain on the roof, a spitting fire, the thump of a log falling away from the flames, rustling paper, mulled wine poured steaming into a glass, the rhythm of the weather forecast calmly announcing that the storms will rage on.”

That’s the epitome of hygge at its finest – in its best season to be fully experienced as a way to embrace the season of winter.

Photo by Valeria Boltneva on Pexels.com
Posted on

Alien Whatifs On Campsite 231 – The Slice of Life Challenge Day 25, The Stafford Challenge Day 69

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers

My friend Barb Edler and I both made spooky posts Saturday. Barb’s post was about the possibility of aliens returning after their suspected driveway visit when her oldest son was a baby. Mine was about loss of sleep because of messages in a sound machine (probably possessed by evil spirits, because its twin is working fine).

All of this gnawed on my brain last night when the whatifs* started spinning on the midnight merry-go-round of my mind…..what if a tree falls on the campsite and crushes us right here in the camper? What if somebody up the hill forgot to chock their tires and their camper slides down the hill in the middle of the night and lands on us? What if a rogue tornado pops up and slings us all the way to Alabama? What if aliens invade Pine Mountain?

Aliens.

And then that whatif gobbled and swallowed my whole frontal lobe with a poem. 

What Do I Do?

what do I do
if aliens
land here
and
the whole 
campground
nudges me
forward 
to greet
the spaceship,
elects
me their
spokesperson
like some
Hunger Games
tribute?

what do I do
when the ramp 
door lowers
to the ground
smoke spilling
out against
the backlit
silhouettes
of aliens
the 
expressionless
kind
with big heads
huge eyes
and knobby
knees?

what do I do
when they 
confront me
and stop
toe to toe
face to face
expecting a
word or a
welcome or a
warning?

what do I do
when I start
wondering
if this is
what the
Indian 
Removal
Act felt like
for those
pushed off
their own
planet? 

what do I do
when it looks
like they 
start 
speculating
about 
the speed
of all
our little 
earth-anchored
sewer-hosed
spaceships
with lights
over the
doors?

what do I do
when I feel
like the fly
before the
spider says
step into 
my parlor?

what do I do?

I do
what I do
best

I invite them 
into my teardrop
to read 
poetry
and sip
tea


*with a nod to Shel Silverstein for the whatifs in his ear

Images generated by Gemini