Pocket Photos: December Travels: Puerto Rico

Back when I was in college I used to carry around and photograph with a Holga camera. It used 120mm film with 2 1/4" square frames...a hip, novelty, plastic camera with light leaking from random places. It was an art movement and I loved it. Digital photography (which I initially resisted) is returning to me that which I had lost in the shuffle of parenting. Using an application on my phone, I am having a Holga experience once again . 

I call them pocket photos.

Business at Its Best

Photography has been a passion of mine for almost 20 years. Unbelievable. I feel so amazingly lucky to be able to take photographs that people love and that I love! It brings me such joy to create a really stunning photograph. 

In early December I had the greatest honor of photographing the wedding of an old and dear friend in Santa Cruz, California. I photographed the wedding as a gift and she provided my transport and housing...business at its best.
It was a wonderful, sincere, beautiful and moving experience.

Hopes for the New Year

I have never been one to make new year's resolutions simply because they seem so definite. If the goal is not achieved, there is failure. Failure is scary to me!

This year I have found myself thinking about some hopes for the upcoming year, as I reflect on last year. A hope seems so much more positive than a resolution. Less definite with more room for evolution.

My hopes for 2012

:: I hope that we can be a bit more organized with our farm plans. The progress is there. It is the process that needs work ::

                    

:: I hope to find more balance between being involved with the children and involving the children. Our boys learn so much when we involve them in what we do and we enjoy the time with them ::

:: I hope to make more time to make art ::

:: I hope to enjoy gardening more this year than last year ::

:: I hope to continue to strengthen and nourish my body, mind and spirit. This year was a great year for healing ::

Happy New Year!

Ancestors Altar

This year has brought many changes for our family (as every year does). With the ebb and flow of friends in and out of our community, the  practice of Druidry has slowly come trickling into our lives in a time when finding a name for years of feelings, beliefs and emotions is widely welcomed.

Both Matt and I have been practicing much of this nature based religion without realizing it. Our lives are very much connected to the seasons and the nature surrounding us and we have really noticed it since we bought our little farm in 2008.

I have always been a bit leery of religion, but felt a need for some spirituality.

Since my mother's death in 2007 I have had the desire to make an alter for her. Something small with a few items that she loved, a candle or two and some flowers. Occasionally when trying to fall asleep at night I would think about this altar in my head. What it would look like and where I would put it. I've never made one and don't know why.

October 31 and November 1st marks the Druid holiday of Samhain (Sow-in). It is a time to recognize and honor ancestors in your family. Some make altars, some attend rituals, some just acknowledge this within. I chose to do all three.

Last weekend I attended a Samhain ritual put on by our local ADF Druid group, Cedarsong Grove. Though not my first ritual with this wonderful group of people, it was by far, the most powerful for me. 

Yesterday, the boys and I made an ancestors altar. 

Last night we lit candles inviting our ancestors spirits to come home, as this time of year when the dark takes over the light and the human world is the closest to the spirit world.

I know this sounds like a bunch of hokey crap and there are probably a number of you rolling your eyes at the thought of a spirit world and such. 

However, I invite you to make an altar for your ancestors in a visible place in your home. Put photographs of them surrounded by items that they loved or owned and offer them the foods and drink they loved. Walk by this altar every day, look at them and think about them. Light candles for them at night.

Do this for even a couple of days and then be honest with yourself and disregard what others think and ask yourself if you feel closer to your dead loved ones than you did a few days before. I see no harm in this ritual.

I needed this. I needed to feel close to my dead, loved ones and I needed my children to feel that too. And we are.

Sharing our family stories and memories, whether they are from when Matt and I were young children or from last week, has been really good for our minds, bodies and souls. Arlo seems to be most interested in all the process and discussion. 

I am excited for my sister to see it and I am happy to be able to share with my family all over the country through image. I'd like to keep the altar for most of the month of November and remove it just as Thanksgiving arrives.

In the mean time, if you are in the neighborhood, please come and have a look, add something or not.

Picture Perfect Memory

 

I recently read that the average human only remembers a very small percentage of their lives and that many of those memories are actually images or pieces of photographs from their childhood. I have a few specific memories of my childhood that I am sure are based on photographs and embellished with my vivid imagination and pure romantic view of life (one particular moment where I was playing in a child's pool with my nana, who died just six months after the photo was taken. I was not quite two at that time and too young to actually remember that event.)

As I photograph my boys and their childhoods, I do think about documenting events, every day and extraordinary, in a way that will help them remember, not just people, places and things, but the emotions associated with those times. Because I am usually the one photographing, I am rarely in the photos, and I hope that my boys will one day want to see images of me with them...

...that is why this photograph, taken by my friend Molly, is so dear to me, and will one day be dear to them.

I love this photograph because:

:: it honestly depicts a summer afternoon without make up, fancy clothes or posed bodies::

::Arlo has his shoes on the wrong feet and that is an everyday occurrence::

::Otis is curling his tongue like does when he is saying his "s" sound::

::Sam is looking very calm and grown up and relaxed and freckled and happy::

::we are relaxing in the hammock which is common in the late summer afternoons while we wait for Matt to come home from work::

::there is nature surrounding us which is how we live our lives here on our little farm::

::the chicken tractor is in the background (though I don't think most people would recognize that, we do, and we love it) which is also how we live our lives here on our little farm::

::Arlo's shins are bruised, also very common, no matter the season::

::Otis is sitting on my lap and as the baby of the family he is frequently found sitting on my "wap"::

::you can see just the corner of the book, "To Kill A Mockingbird", which Molly was reading to us as we sat in the hammock::

::I am in a kid sandwich and so happy there::

::the sun is shining and you can almost feel the summer heat as we snuggle in the shade of our grove of cedar trees::

To me this is the epitome of a picture perfect memory. Sam is very likely to remember this day, Arlo might remember, and Otis likely will not, but they will have this image to help and so will I as the years pass and my boys grow too big to sit on my lap and sandwich me in a hammock on a hot summer day.

Arlo's Big Day and My Baby Isn't a Baby Anymore!

Today was Arlo's first day of Montessori PPK (Pre-Primary/ Kindergarten). I am not quite sure how we made it to this day, because the last few weeks have been filled with so much anxiety manifested in multiple potty accidents everyday, tantrums and general foul behavior...stemming from a nasty bullying experience he had last fall at the part-time pre-school he was attending...but, I am so thankful we did! We talked about the new school, we met the new teacher, we read books, we met kids on the playground, we talked some more, we watched "new school" videos...and I knew it was going to take just going to make everything okay. We picked out a special outfit for today, he slept with his "S" scarf, appropriately named Sam and, this afternoon with his sweaty hand tightly clenched around mine, we went head-first into the winds of life together.

Arlo was beaming when I picked him up after school. He told me all about everything and from that moment on I had my sweet little Arlo back. No accidents, no tantrums, no anxiety. Just a happy 4 and 3/4 year old boy. Mama will sleep soundly tonight.

All three boys had hair cuts on Saturday...and it was Otis' first! He is 2 1/2 and was begging me in the salon to get his hair cut. I was a bit reluctant...he still had his birth hair after all...but he also had three dread locks that I couldn't get to go away and yesterday's breakfast dried in his hair. He gave me some of these looks and I agreed that perhaps it was time to have a hair cut. I still don't recognize him when I catch a glimpse of him running from one place to the next...but damn, is he cute!

I love this child so much.