Blogging Al Fresco
Hello my blogginng lovlies!
The Urban Abbess has been sorry to be gone so long, long, long. But I’m afraid I’ve submitted to the call of the wild – which being the urbanite that I am, means I’ve been lured into the “great outdoors” of our front and back yard. Right now I’m writing to you from the porch swing, wearing my floor-length India-print wrap around skirt ($5 at Goodwill) and a tank top — and I am not even cold! It’s 80 degrees and breezy, last night we slept with the windows open, and people have been boldly venturing out in sleeveless things and flip flops without fear or trepidation. If you live in Phoenix, or maybe Alaska, you might hate me right now. You just go right ahead and do that, darling. After all, I am in fact, rubbing it in.
Everyone in the Abbey House has becoming raging outdoor enthusiasts. Paul and Bompa (my Dad) spent last weekend adding all the bells and whistles to the girl’s backyard playhouse. It now has a front porch, vintage doorknobs, window trim, and a drop down window hatch/puppet show/blackboard/lemonade stand contraption. Our new housemate Rebecca took one look at it and said, “Rachelle…you know that African Savanna exhibit at the zoo? That playhouse is nicer than the teacher’s hut.” Trust me. I recognize that the children’s playhouse is better than most third-world housing. But it’s so damn cute! I promise to write a guilt-money check to Habitat for Humanity ASAP.
I’ve been scratching my outdoor itch by gardening up a storm. The girls and I have put in our annual vegetable garden. It’s in the front yard so we can chat with our neighbors while we weed and water. This year’s fun crop includes purple bush beans and a whole bed of variously-colored sunflowers. Today, on my way home from yoga I scored some roadside freebies: an aquamarine Jetson-style chair for our bedroom balcony and a matching salmon-and-turquoise planter on a metal stand for the morning glories I want to grown over the balcony railing. The sign on the chair said “We’ve been kicked out! Take Us! Free!” I’m postively jazzed about expanding the garden to the balcony deck. Yes dear readers, the Abbess is just shallow enough to take deep bubbling joy in these material goods and pleasures.
The sun and good vibes are also the signal that it’s nearly Summer Solstice. Already it’s light past 8pm and we’re dinning al fresco at least twice a week. Two weeks ago the organizers or the Solstice Parade asked me to blessing the Powerhouse workshop space before the float building kicked-off. Jen M, Eden, Cate and I led people in a five part blessing rite. (Posted separately here.) I had just read a blog by PeaceBang about what is appropriate garb for the hip-woman-minister. I’m not sure the cleavage-bearing high gypsy priestess garb would have met muster with this clever pedicured priest, but it worked for the neo-pagan crew at the Powerhouse.
I was completely energized by acknowledging and blessing the holy space at the workshop, and Liza and the other regulars were pleased with the ritual. Liza said that some people had been skeptical when she floated the idea, but afterwards she got nothing but positive feed back.
Now it’s time to start logging hours at the Powerhouse as Workshop Mom. I’ll be there 3 or 4 hours every Sunday from now until Father’s Day, finding lost tools, brainstorming costume ideas, and trying to prevent power saw injuries. This week Liza and I will be setting up the sewing loft for a Rainbow Spinners workshop. (Yes, it’s that hippie.) Woo hoo and pass the patchouli!
So now that the Summer sun has broken through, what can you expect from the Urban Abbess? Probably not a lot of serious writing. I’ll be saving that energy for the first annual SoulSister-UrbanAbbess writing retreat on the Oregon coast in August. Instead, look for posts 1-3 times a week, hopefully something like:
Mondays: What we did at Monkfish Abbey the Thursday before.
Wednesdays: Shitty first draft practice where I write about random things that I’ve been inspired by.
Fridays: Clever tips from the cheapskate House-and-Garden Diva; Lazy Gourmet (Jen L’s term); and Urban Travel Guide that lurks within.
Much love to you and yours. May Summer strike you soon!
Rachelle
It’s great that you mentioned JenL as THIS post reminds me so much of one she would have written. Thanks for sharing your great ideas and journey with us!
Arizona, Alaska? Just imagine how cold and rainy us English folk are feeling!!
Rachelle, your heart is in the right place, but Habitat for humanity is not, IMO, a good place to put dollars intended to alleviate the shortage of affordable housing. H4H is a feel-good charity that ultimately subverts its own best intentions by bringing more people into a housing market that is the major cause of the problem in the first place. It also targets individuals, when we should be working on neighbourhoods, regions, societies.
I suggest that you donate instead to such agencies as Rooftops International (a Canadian-based housing cooperative initiative: http://www.rooftops.ca/), and/or find housing cooperatives (not co-housing; that’s different) in your region and learn how you can support them. Rooftops International is helping people in Africa, Asia, the southeast US, and other regions with housing shortages, to create cooperatives and build neighbourhoods along with the housing.
I live in a housing cooperative: it provides a real answer to the affordable housing problem. Check us out at http://www.castlegreen.on.ca/ . And btw, I wrote the History section.
It’s good to know this blog was not forgotten. After the move, I was sad that the updates had dried up. I really liked seeing all the recipes earlier on and am glad to see that there well be more.
Just an update, I’m the really tall guy that was at the Atlanta NYWC and asked you what steps one could take if they were interested in communal living but had a wary spouse. Then I was in the creative worship workshop right after that. Anyway, regardless of whether you remember me or not, my wife and I now share our home with another young woman. We’ve known her for a while and she helped us take care of our son. It was just a situation that sort of happened. She was in a bad spot at home and was ready to move out but not yet very well established, we had extra space available and had been disucssing all the ways we could form intentional communities (actual communal living or not). My wife was the one who picked up on the timely fit and suggested she join us. My wife’s dad just finished making a secret bookshelf door for her room, affording her some much needed quite space of her own and us a place to put some of our relocated belongings. Anyway, I think this ended up being more rambling and less informatitve than originally intended. I hope your summer goes well.
Hi Rachelle,
Hasn’t this sun been schweet? Unfortuantely, on the morning of my first day off (Tuesday) I threw my back out and have been mostly immobile for 3 days. Arg.
Anyway, wanted to say Hi and also thought that you and some of your readers might be interested in the recent pagan/’trying-to-follow-jesus’ guy intercast/dialogue podcast I did. Its broken up into two parts, and gets particularly interesting towards the end. Jeff Harris is the ‘high priest’ of the ATC pagan church in Seattle and we met at a Seattle Podcaster’s meetup and decided to do this gig.
You can find the first part here: Part I
And the second part here:
Part II
I ramble for 10 mins after the second part as to my current thought on the nature of ultimate reality –yeah, I know it all sound pretty abstracts, but it does connect back to everyday living and loving for me –believe it or not. (:
Warmly,
Leif
www.wonderosity.org
you go girly!
i feel all the good energy you’re sending out to the universe!
lots o love
hey from portland, oregon. so i’m interested in the writing retreat you mentioned. is that open to whoever? details…I checked out the soul sister site but no updates there. i’m truly interested and would love some more info……
jamnperry@comcast.net
thanks!
sorry pam, it’s just a working week aux deus for jen and i. maybe in the future we’ll be mond organizers…
Hey, that was a really interesting read. You sound like a very enlightened individual. All the talk of Yoga and gardening, on top of the intillectual vibe one gets from reading well written “blogs”. Just a gentle ‘thank you’ for paying attention to the intelligence I wish everyone in the world could tap into. Good luck with all your endeavours.
Jim.