Pick Up the Pace

Spring is giving me new energy to get things done! 

Monday is my day to reset for the week and get my ducks in a row - make some plans for health and home, and prepare for Grandson fun.

Agenda this week:

1. Read "The Spirited Walker"

2. Walking script
3. Spring cleaning and Home projects

4. Spring plastic round up!
5. Grandson fun

Hamaspathmaidyem

Hamaspathmaidyem is the sixth and last gahambar. This gahamber is the most significant to Zoroastrians, because it's devoted to remembering the fravashis or guardian angels. According to Zoroastrian religion, each of the 6 creations was created during one of the gahambars. Mankind was created on this last one. 

This is the start of the second half of  Farvardegan, which means “days of remembering the Fravashis" (guardian angels). It's a ten day Zoroastrian festival that includes the five days of Hamaspathmaidyem, which concludes with Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on March 21.

Monday is my day to reset for the week and get my ducks in a row - make some plans for health and home, and prepare for Grandson fun.

Agenda this week:

1. Spring cleaning and big home projects

2. Grandson fun

Monday

Monday is my day to reset for the week and get my ducks in a row - make some plans for health and home, and prepare for Grandson fun.

I especially want to get a handle on walking - how to get myself out the door more often.

Agenda:

1. Devotions

2. Read Spirited Walker

3. Step into spring

4. Spring cleaning and Home projects

5. Grandson fun

Monday Fire

Monday is my day to reset for the week and get my ducks in a row - make some plans for health and home, and prepare for Grandson fun.

Agenda:

1. Devotions

2. Beingness 

3. Earth Action

4. Ongo journal

5. Make choice cards

6. Spring cleaning and Home projects

7. Starting a fire

Third Sunday of Lent

At Lent I allow myself to be slow, simple, and thoughtful. I spend time each day in focused study and prayer, and then take action to bring my vision to fruition.

My theme this year for Lent is Active Hope and Resilience: 

Active Hope requires that I maintain a clear view of reality; identify what I hope for - the direction I’d like things to move in and the values I'd like to express; and take steps to move in that direction.

Resilience is a set of practical skills that allow me to be strong, flexible, creative, hopeful, and positive, and to successfully adapt to stressors, and bounce back from difficult experiences.

Agenda:

1. Read Everyday Simplicity
2. Simple food plan

3. Make cheese spread
4. Spring cleaning

Spring Equinox and Nowruz

Spring equinox occurred this morning at 2:01 a.m. PDT. The word equinox comes from the Latin words aequus (equal) and nox (night). This is a moment of balance - the sun rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west, and we experience twelve hours each of light and dark. From this moment on, we gain more light each day, until the summer solstice.

And Nowruz is the Persian New Year, which begins each year at the time of the spring equinox in Iran, and is celebrated for two weeks. The word Nowruz means New Day in Persian. It’s an ancient Persian belief that creation of the world took place on the first day of spring.

Agenda Today:

1. Journal queries

 2. Spring cleaning and decorating

3. Dye a few eggs

5. Make Koloocheh Cookies

6. Set up a haft sin

7. Nowruz Ceremony

Farvardegan

Today is the start of Farvardegan, which means “days of remembering the Fravashis" (guardian angels). It's a ten day Zoroastrian festival that includes the five days of Hamaspathmaidyem, which begin on March 16, and concludes with Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on March 21.

Hamaspathmaidyem is the sixth and last gahambar. This gahamber is the most significant to Zoroastrians, because it's devoted to remembering the fravashis or guardian angels. According to Zoroastrian religion, each of the 6 creations was created during one of the gahambars. Mankind was created on this last one.

Agenda this week:

1. Read "Hope in the Dark"

2. Spring cleaning

3. Welcome the angels
4. Offer thanks
5. Recite prayers

Hina Matsuri and Clean Monday

Hina Matsuri is a Japanese festival that falls every year on March 3. It began in ancient times as a Shinto effigy ceremony to prepare farmers for the planting of spring crops: They would rub their negative energy off onto a doll, then float it down the river.

Today girl's set up displays of dolls, have a tea party, and - yes - some people still send dolls down the river.

Today is also Clean Monday, the first Monday of Lent, in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. The clean originally referred to the purification of the soul for Lent. Today it's customary to clean the house thoroughly, and, in Greece, people go on picnics, eat shellfish, and fly kites!

Agenda today:

1. Make hina dolls and paper boats

2. The hina-okuri ceremony

3. Prepare to plant

4. Spring cleaning

5. Make hishi mochi and have a tea party

Spring Equinox

Spring equinox occurs this evening at 8:06 p.m. PDT. The word equinox comes from the Latin words aequus (equal) and nox (night). This is a moment of balance - the sun rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west, and we experience twelve hours each of light and dark. From this moment on, we gain more light each day, until the summer solstice.

 

Agenda Today:
1. Journal queries

2. Spring cleaning and decorating

3. Plant my straw doll

Farvardegan

Today is the start of Farvardegan, which means “days of remembering the Fravashis" (guardian angels). It's a ten day Zoroastrian festival that includes the five days of Hamaspathmaidyem, which begin on March 16, and concludes with Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on March 21.

Hamaspathmaidyem is the sixth and last gahambar. This gahamber is the most significant to Zoroastrians, because it's devoted to remembering the fravashis or guardian angels. According to Zoroastrian religion, each of the 6 creations was created during one of the gahambars. Mankind was created on this last one.

Agenda this week:

1. Spring cleaning

2. Plant the sabzeh
3. Welcome the angels
4. Offer thanks
5. Recite prayers

Sabbath for Sanctuary

A sanctuary is a sanctum, a sacred and protected place of beauty, grace and refuge. Our home and garden is a sanctuary for body and soul; it embraces us and brings us back to center. When we take sanctuary, even for brief moments, we are re-created, recharged, healed, soothed, comforted and at peace.

One of my New Year's resolutions is: 

Sanctuary: I intend to care for my land with discipline and ritual, and create a home that is a peaceful and well-ordered sanctuary for those I love, because maintaining my land in good order is the honorable and sustainable thing to do, and is one way that I show reverence for the Earth and for God.

What I like about this resolution is that it encompasses my home, my land, my family and friends, the Earth and God. It helps me to de-compartmentalize my life and see it as a whole.

I hope to continue to define and upgrade our sanctum, an ongoing discipline of inner work (seeking inspiration, and upgrading my habits) and projects (creating a place of peace that expresses who we are).

Agenda:

1. Read Happier at Home

2. Spring tidying

3. Spring cleaning

4. Spring gardening

Spring Equinox

Spring equinox occurred this afternoon at 2:24 p.m. PDT. The word equinox comes from the Latin words aequus (equal) and nox (night). This is a moment of balance - the sun rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west, and we experience twelve hours each of light and dark. From this moment on, we gain more light each day, until the summer solstice.

 

Agenda Today:
1. Journal queries

2. Spring cleaning plan

3. Decorate for spring

4. Plant my straw doll

Spring Equinox

Spring equinox occurred this morning at 8:22 a.m. PDT. The word equinox comes from the Latin words aequus (equal) and nox (night). This is a moment of balance - the sun rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west, and we experience twelve hours each of light and dark. From this moment on, we gain more light each day, until the summer solstice.

Agenda Today:
1. Journal queries
2. Plant my straw doll

3. Our huge garden project

Farvardegan and Hamaspathmaidyem

This is the start of Farvardegan, which means “days of remembering the Fravashis". It's a ten day Zoroastrian festival, and it includes the five days of Hamaspathmaidyem, which begin on March 16, and concludes with Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on March 21.

Hamaspathmaidyem is the sixth and last gahambar. This gahamber is the most significant to Zoroastrians, because it's devoted to remembering the fravashis or guardian angels. According to Zoroastrian religion, each of the 6 creations was created during one of the gahambars. Mankind was created on this last one.

Agenda this week:

1. Spring cleaning
2. Welcome the angels
3. Offer thanks
4. Recite prayers

Clean Monday

Today is known as Clean Monday in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. The clean originally referred to the purification of the soul for Lent. Today it's customary to clean the house thoroughly, and, in Greece, people go on picnics, eat shellfish, and fly kites!

Agenda Today:

1. Read "Becoming Rooted"

2. Prayer of Cleansing

3. Spring cleaning

4. Plastic fast

Mardi Gras

Today is Mardi Gras, which is French for Fat Tuesday - also called Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Tuesday. We've come to the end of the season of Carnival, which starts on Epiphany (January 6) and ends at Lent. Fat Tuesday is always 47 days before Easter Sunday.

Agenda Today:

1. Journal queries

2. Make carnival corn soup

3. Make a screen mask

4. Spring cleaning progress

Maslenitsa

Maslenitsa (масленица) is the oldest of all Russian holidays. It began as a spring equinox festival called Jarilo, named for the Slavic god of the vegetation and spring. Later it became a Christian holiday, starting on the Monday one week before the Eastern Orthodox Lent.

Maslenitsa is the Russian version of Carnival, with eating, drinking, sledding, games, and costume parades. Like many spring festivals it's a melding of Christianity and Earth Religion, and all of its events still focus on driving away the winter and re-awakening nature.

In Russia, Maslenitsa lasts the entire week, and ends with Forgiveness Sunday, the day before the start of Orthodox Lent, on Clean Monday (March 7 this year).

Agenda:

1. Make an effigy doll
2. Make blini pancakes

3. Have a fire

4. Spring cleaning

Songkran

Songkran is the New Year festival in Thailand, officially observed for three days, April 13 - 15, but actually the celebration usually lasts the entire week. 

The word songkran comes from the Sanskrit, meaning "to pass or move into", referring to the passing and moving of the sun from one sign of the Zodiac to another (but it's also taken to mean "moving forward into a better life"). There are in fact twelve Songkrans each year, but this Songkran (sometimes called the Great Songkran) is when the sun enters the sign of Aries the Ram, always near to the vernal equinox.

April is the hottest month of the year in Thailand, and maybe that is why water is a theme for this festival. All statues of the Buddha are ceremonially washed, and then the entire country participates in friendly water fights and street parties that last nearly a week. 

Agenda Today:
1. Clean house
2. Make resolutions
3. Connect with Family
4. Build a sand pagoda
5. Water play
6. Make Thong Yod (Golden Egg Drops)

Third Quarter Moon

Today's waning third quarter moon energy is yin - quiet, internal, heart-driven, intentional Being-ness. The focus for the next few days:

• Third quarter (waning half moon) - Renewal, cleansing, self-care

Agenda today:

1. Renewal plan

2. My self-care routine

3. Cleansing

4. Spring cleaning

5. Spring garden

Holi

Holi is a Hindu holiday that falls on the day after the full moon in March each year. It marks the end of winter in India. Holi is sometimes called the Festival of Color, because on Holi everyone in India throws paint at each other! 

To prepare, folks buy gulal, which are powdered paints in rich colors of pink, magenta, red, yellow and green. Three days before Holi, families get together to sprinkle a little of the gulal powders on each other, to share love and blessings. 

On the day of Holi the whole country goes wild with people laughing and running in the streets; they smear each other with powder, drench each other with buckets of paint, and spray paint with long pistons (like super-soakers). They also fill water balloons with paint! People often show respect for elders by sprinkling dry powder on their feet. 

By the end of the day everyone is covered with color- old people, children, men, women, rich and poor. Holi creates a feeling of equality in a country with strong disparity.

Agenda Today:
1. Make Malpua
2. Have a paint throwing celebration

3. Spring cleaning