Finding our Place

Aries 2 // adventure and fruitful waiting

Yesterday was the first taste of true springtime here in Ohio. It was balmy and sunny for most of the day and the yard was bubbling with spring energy. The birds were singing and splashing in the bird bath, chipmunks ran circles around the yard from wood pile to patio, and I couldn’t resist pulling a few early weeds and tidying up the garage. Today, unfortunately, is gray and chilly again and tomorrow is thunderstorms. This is what we can expect for at least a few more weeks until we near Mother’s Day (the frost-free milestone for gardeners in this part of the world). It’s hard to remember that I will probably still need my warm coat for a few more weeks, but yesterday was a welcome reminder of what is on the way!

We’ve moved into a second ten degrees (decan) of the sky through the sign of Aries¹. The theme of this decan is growth and anticipation, and the card that corresponds with this week is the Three of Wands. I find the two and three of wands to be confusingly similar - each has a figure with their back turned, holding wands and looking out over a precipice. According to T. Susan Chang, the Two is planting the seed, and the Three is the seed actively sprouting². What a perfect card for this time of year in the northern hemisphere! This week’s full moon is traditionally called the Budding Moon or New Shoots Moon! As I type, I can see my lilac bush, full of bright lime-green buds and hosting two friendly robins in its branches. Even my indoor Norfolk Pine is sprouting tiny green tips of new growth!

Tiny lime-green new growth on my Norfolk Pine!

When I wrote about the first decan, I was focused on stewardship as a way of being in the world - the quality of our approach. This week I am challenged to put that posture into practice. The threes bring creative, active energy. It’s not enough to have an idea, we have to do something! So that our ideas, dreams, visions can grow in the warmth of the sun. The figure in this card has sent out ships, and she patiently awaits their safe return. Susan Chang calls this a card of “fruitful awaiting.” I love that language: have faith in the efforts that you are making. What am I looking forward to? How can I have hopeful expectation of the world I am trying to create? What adventure awaits?

The Three of Wands from Gentle Tarot and the Modern Witch Tarot // I love how she’s looking out over the land

I just started reading the book The Open-Air Life, by Linda Akeson McGurk. The subtitle says it all: “Discover the Nordic Art of Friluftsliv and Embrace Nature Every Day.” Yep, another Nordic word that Americans will mispronounce. But seriously, friluftsliv (free-loofts-leev) comes from the Swedes (words for free + air + life) and it is more than saunas and jumping in icy lakes. It is “for those who long to get away from the noise, stress, crowds, pollution, must-haves and must-dos, and - more recently - the incessant pinging of our smartphones. Those who strive to live simpler, more sustainable lives, deeply connected to nature.” Yes, please. I feel like this is exactly what the woman on the card is thinking as she looks out over that cliff’s edge.

The first thing I loved about this book was the cover. Something about it just drew me in - the soft color, the soaring birds. The second thing I loved was the table of contents. The book is broken into four parts, one for each of the elements: Air, Earth, Water, and Fire. The open-air life is characterized by enjoying nature for nature’s sake, getting outside (often) without agenda. It’s not just about leisure, but about really putting roots down into the place you live. A few of the very practical ideas I’ve picked up so far from the book and that I plan to do with my family very soon:

• Enjoy local nature - you don’t have to travel to find wild places and the more you know about your local plants and animals, the more rooted you’ll be.

• Enjoy unstructured time outdoors - my aim is 100 hours through the summer!

• Cook and eat outdoors!

• I’ve already written about how much I love walking - but this book suggested switching it up: Barefoot walk! Moonlit walk! Flashlight walk! Forest walk! Quick walk (even when you don’t feel like you have the time)! Rainy Day Walk!

• Go on a hunt for a Trollskog or “troll forest” - the best ones are full of knotty old trees and lots of moss and ferns and magic.

• Visit the lake when it’s frozen to hear “ice singing”…can’t wait to try this.

• Find someone to take me mushroom foraging!

My spring inspiration: book & 100 hours tracker! We’re going to stick with 100 hours for now - a realistic goal I think for our spring/summer adventuring.

Over the winter I attempted to find ways to spend time outdoors. I went on many bundled-up walks and did a few family adventures, but honestly life happened and I didn’t make it out as much as I wanted. Deeply cold Ohio temperatures, illness over our school breaks, kids struggling with anxiety, snow + wheelchairs...and the list goes on.

An Irritable Métis

has been inspiring me recently to find creative ways to spend more unstructured time outdoors. In our modern world, it takes effort. He packs a folding chair in his truck for outdoor lunches, writes outdoors, and is even attempting the 1000 Hours Outside³ challenge! He recently wrote (and does often) about attention, and place, and land. One line that has stuck with me is, “We live off the surface of things and places.⁴” My dream is to help my kids root deeply into this place we call home. To let their roots go deep down into the loamy soil with every walk, every bird call we enjoy together, every meal cooked over a fire under the cottonwood trees, every sunset over the rippling lake. I want the Great Lakes to feel like home, and like the gift⁵ that they are. So my task is to spread the feast, to make time and space for outdoor adventure, to make nature the backdrop of our days (because of course it is, even though we try to pretend its not!), and to wait with hopeful expectation for the world they are going to make.

1. If you’re unfamiliar with astrological decans, you can read more here. Each 10 degrees around the zodiac corresponds with a unique tarot card, and I am using these as my writing guides. If you read the zodiac for personal growth, this is a way to break down the major signs into more specific personalities - so if your sun sign is in Aries, figuring out which decan you were born under would give you a little more insight/specificity. Similar to the enneagram subtypes, if you’re into that sort of thing.

2. Reference: T. Susan Chang’s book, 36 Secrets.

3. We are going to attempt 100 hours so I don’t get discouraged and quit early, but I also saw this post which has an awesome infographic for spreading out your time to take advantage of the warmer weather seasons!

4. This line comes from a collection of essays and poems by John Haines about homesteading in wild Alaska. The full quote is: “I learned that it is land, place, that makes people, provides for them the possibilities they will have of becoming something more than mere lumps of sucking matter. We today who live so much from the inheritance of land and culture do not understand this as well as we need to. Few of us these days are really residents anywhere, in the deep sense of that term. We live off the surface of things and places, the culture as well as the land; ours is a derivative life: we take what we find without thought, without regard for origin or consequences, unaware for the most part that the resources, both natural and cultural, are fast diminishing.” (bold emphasis added)

5. The Great Lakes are a TREASURE and in my dream world kids would spend less time cramming for (and taking) standardized tests and more time falling in love with our lakes.