Y6 – Day 10 – Goddess Book Club 2023

Posted on March 20, 2023 by Cecilia Steger

Book club has changed and grown. We started before Covid and then went on zoom and now we just stay online since we have some out of the area participants. It’s just easier. We try to read women writers about women’s issues usually. Therefore many of the books we read shine a light on how marginalized, difficult and unfair our female ancestor’s lives have been.

Our first book of the year was “The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek”, by Kim Michele Richardson. A lovely written book about the hardships endured by the Appalachian mountain folk of Kentucky and the existence of blue people therein. I don’t want to give anything away but if you like books and have never heard of the blue folk of Kentucky then this is one well researched historical novel on your list.

Our February title was “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” by our own CA author Lisa See who joined our discussion on zoom and added much rich background info to how she researched the book, visited its historical location and even interviewed villagers with a translator to get precise memories and data so she could spin her tale around the true events. This was an extremely well written and prose like account of a secret language Chinese women once used many centuries ago. Her explanations were invaluable and we were all unanimous we want to read another one of her books next year.

We are so lucky to have writers who investigate little known facts, ferret out detailed experiences and circumstances so traditions we could have lost forever are made real to us the reader via skillfully creating stories around them so we can examine, digest and discuss amongst other trusted women; our thoughts, feelings and even our dedication to making it better in some small or large way just by our having our Goddess Circle Book Club.

Y6 – Day 9 – Forager Crafts

Posted on March 19, 2023 by Cecilia Steger

Today I went to visit and support my daughter as she set up her first new business booth at an artisan faire in old town Pasadena. Although she’s been active and had previously resuscitated a crafts and events firm, this is her newly formed sustainable and eco-conscious company she owns completely on her own. We are very proud of her and her impeccable taste, common sense knack for what folks desire to create and hard work ethics combined with hard earned business savvy has skyrocketed her off to a superb start and we wish her nothing but success and happiness as it takes off!!!!

Y6 – Day 8 – Garden Time

Posted on March 18, 2023 by Cecilia Steger

Time to plant some flowers before the rains come again.

Some purple and yellow color for the front door, including 2 early girl tomatoes and 2 organic zucchini. Lavender, mums and drought tolerant plants may be moved from pots to ground later next month. Meanwhile, our winter scene in Running Springs is dour. Another snow dump of maybe 2-3 feet expected this coming week.

The evenings as of late are deliciously sweet and intoxicating with the pink jasmine and pittosporum Victoria box variety fragrance and during the day they are both full of bees. Freesias from years gone by blossom but do not scent the air anymore. Their light purples, lemon yellows, vanilla and coral colored blooms still big and hardy for vase cuttings. Meanwhile, the azaleas in all hues are bursting and our many geraniums are ramping up for the warmer weather with early budding and blooming.

The rains have been good to wild flowers too; especially yellow sour buttercups, orange poppies and any number of dormant seeds including angelic blue lupines hills covered in malachite green grasses. The snow capped mountains beyond form a backdrop of white dripping down as the elevations lower like melting ice cream. All of this against the bluest skies dotted with bright cotton clouds. It’s a springy, lovely day for gardening and I can hear birdsong calling me to wrap this up and join Mother Nature outside.

Time to plant some flowers before the rains come again.

Y6 – Day 7 – Green Day

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Cecilia Steger

I am blessed to be surrounded by the garden of the soul. As I linger under the glow of the spring sun, I give thanks for all that breathes and lives on this earth. I sing the song of the whale and the chirp of the swallow. I bow to her creatures. I gaze in awe at her landscapes. Blessed be the day as I revel in the elation of being alive.

My little doggie makes me happy and is our sunshine. Thank you.

Y6 – Day 6 – A Prayer Reflected

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Cecilia Steger

Dear Goddess, Thank you for awakening my heart, allowing me to grow and showing me the way of love.

Dear Goddess, Thank you for the opportunity to help other women who appreciate or need and want to hold my hand on this path to divinity.

Dear Goddess, Thank you for placing divine creatures and environments all around to encourage, support and enhance my spiritual development on this earth.

Blessed BE! And so it is, Namaste and Amen.

Y6 – Day 5 – Back in 2018 at the cabin – A big bear flying squirrel encounter I will call Rocky

Posted on March 15, 2023 by Cecilia Steger

I’m sipping hot chocolate enjoying the fresh air on a May early evening up on our treehouse balcony. I am delighted it’s neither warm nor cool, it’s just Goldilocks right. There’s no kids or noise across the street. There’s no cars driving by our busy road. There’s no neighbors on either side.

I recognize the white bright light of Venus in the sky. It’s low between the sugar pine branches to the southeast of where I am lounging.

And just like that, in a snap of a second, in an instant and flash of time, something flies from behind the east side of the house and whizzes past me and smacks into the bird feeding tree trunk. It’s another flying squirrel and this time I see it glide in full flight and I think to myself this one has to be the male because this guy slams, thank you ma’am, scrabbles up and down and causes havoc.

The other beady eyed glider is still, steady, methodical in her bird feeder attack approach and technique and watches the male with I swear, a roll of her beady eyes. So I just assume inside my own judgmental brain, she’s the female.

Y6 – Day 4 – Foraging LA – part 2

Posted on March 14, 2023 by Cecilia Steger

Here’s the list of other plants: Poison Oak (no sampling but did you know it’s there to protect other plants from predators?),

Sticky Monkey (yellow flowers edible and it opens you up energetically making you vulnerable so it’s great for connecting to your higher self and intimacy with others),

Wild Cucumber (not edible but mature seed pods can be cracked open and inside are loofah type sponges used for cleansing long ago by indigenous people),

California Mugwort used as a spirit ally for lucid dreamwork and vision quests, CA poppy which has edible leaves and flowers that help with anxiety, showy penstemon, scrub oak which is not a real oak, Ca sage brush is great for smudging,

Mule fat used to drill willow bark back in the day to create fire, CA buckwheat which is not really wheatgrass at all and its tea leaves helps with headaches and its dried flowers makes reddish pancakes,

CA sage, CA gooseberry, Black Sage with its light blue flowers, Hemlock which as Socrates knows is deadly,

wild mustard which is bitter greens, golden chia that doesn’t look anything like a chia pet from the black seeded variety and finally, thistle which is a lilac colored spiny ball of a flower and grows profusely here in CA.

***Nettle used for a myriad of medicinal purposes but always harvest with gloves – it is very spiny***

***hahamonga watershed park right across the street from La Canada/Flintridge high school(not shown), background is a view of the San Gabriel mountains I believe. gorgeous day***

Year 6 – day three – foraging LA

Posted on March 13, 2023 by Cecilia Steger

Yesterday I went to Hahamonga Watershed Park in Pasadena with V, J, J’s mom and I met I and K whom I have heard about since before Covid. What a pleasant late morning to early afternoon spent on a beautiful California Sunday – Oscar night no less.

This was a small group and a planned educational walk with a certified guide named Andrea who took us through several areas of concentrated native and non-native plants that liberally sowed themselves in plain sight. Her mission was to help us identify and give us background on its scientifically based medicinal benefits, what indigenous folks in the area used it for and even its metaphysical energy properties that have been bestowed on these seemingly weedy plants through the ages and common lore.

If anyone who knows me can testify, I am a devout plant lover. Just search herb in the search box. I am sure I have written on them and my HERB book was the very first book I bought alongside Thomas Maps and the Sunset’s Gardener Guide to plants when I landed in CA. This is back in the day when you actually went to a bookstore and actually lugged the books back to your car to take them home, circa July of 1986. Not like today wherein I just have them delivered on my doorstep so I have since accumulated way to many books (but I love them all) and have read at least 90% of them. But I digress….. Don’t get me started….

Anyways, we gathered some leaves and placed them in our small notebooks and after the third specimen my curiosity was peaked and my adrenaline flowed. I started writing their names down as if I had a report due. It’s contagious and we were all ok with being the studious types geeking out on taking notes and pictures like eager school kiddoes on a field trip.

Plants we were introduced to or familiar with (I don’t believe any of us were first time plant lovers): Oaks, Nettle, Elderberry – Ok this is when I knew I could not stop from taking out my pen and empty journal and start documenting this experience.

Tune in for Part 2 tomorrow

Y6-Day two – you matter

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Cecilia Steger

“Don’t forget that maybe you are the lighthouse in someone’s storm” – unknown

I am everything to Cindi, our dog. We’ve had her now for 9 years and she was probably 5 or 6 when we rescued and adopted her. She has taught me the true meaning of unconditional love. She is greyer, older, a bit larger and more needy than ever and never mind all that, I am so in love with her!

She has been one of the many catalysts in cementing my perspective that superficiality is just that – superficial and that LOVE is everything. Connection, relationship and being of service is the journey, at least for me.

Year 6 – Day one – AND…. I am back

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Cecilia Steger

Somewhere in April of 2019 I hit the wall. I must have needed the break and a year later we had it. Covid locked us all down. Three years have elapsed. Almost to the day. And, I realize I don’t need an MFA to write and to be fair, writing has changed. So has the operation of this website, so please bear with me.

Much occurred and many changes became the norm. You and I operate differently now.

In the air, grief, remains. Our lives and perspectives irrevocably morphed into distance learning and socializing. That has to leave a scar. I most empathize with whomever suffered, those mourning and the students who had their entire little lives shackeled.

There was division and fear and terror. It still lingers. It’s in the back of our heads and we have seen the traitorous in ourselves. The mirror doesn’t lie if you look with the lens of truth. And everyone seems to have their own true facts according to whom they listen to.

On the upside, some folks have found our time in a global pandemic an opportunity to delve into the spiritual, transform into their authentic selves and become more discerning. Those are my peeps.

Cecilia B. Steger

Monthly Archives: March 2023