Okay, just to put things in perspective...as soon as I wrote my preachy "simplify" post preceding this one, I became a frantic holiday mess, over run by the Christmas train and bleeding money with an ongoing pang of more. Jeez. So much for my enlightening commentary. This year I simply feel overwhelmed and overdone.
Here is an edited version of an article I wrote for a recent newsletter: Every holiday season, whether those occurring in spring, summer, fall or the most boisterous season of all, winter, I am astounded by the buying power of a celebration. As my children were born I began to question the rush and bustle of our cultural traditions and ask, “How can I make each season meaningful and nourishing for myself and my family”. Most of our holiday celebrations revolve around the seasonal shifts of nature, because nature is something that a child can deeply connect with. In winter the nights are growing longer and the days are getting shorter. The deciduous trees stand bare, while the evergreens alone remind us of greener days to come. The beginning of winter coincides with our most widely celebrated holidays, whether Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or Solstice. If we are interested in making seasonal celebrations meaningful, personal and nourishing, we can employ an inquisitive lens to our existing holiday celebrations.
I did this a few years ago after a particularly manic holiday. My family celebrates both Hannukah and Christmas, often throwing in a dash of solstice here and there for good measure. A few years ago the frenzy of buying and wrapping, baking and stuffing led to a holiday that vomited gifts with a spasm of “more”. I was horrified. After opening presents for hours, I was spent. I watched my eldest son drunk with presents and asked myself, “Why?”. I realized that I didn’t have a reasonable answer. I spent the next year asking a lot of questions and I came up with a short list of goals that I hoped to achieve through family celebrations. The list included: peace, connection to nature and family, cultivating a sense of magic, etc.
Now, as I meet the winter holidays, I have several new holiday traditions that honor these goals, while incorporating some deeply nourishing family traditions. One important change revolves around my holiday mantra, “simplify”! Children don’t need chaos to experience the magic of the season, nor do we. In simplifying our seasonal celebrations I find peace, connection and a meaningful celebration with my family. In asking ourselves, “why” we do a particular thing or celebrate in a particular way, we begin to clarify our deeper intention and cultivate a seasonal celebration that is personal, meaningful and deeply nourishing for the whole family.
Happy Holidays!
Here are a few captured memories from my recent trip to Arizona with Owen.
The most bella Grande' Cia in all the world!!
Grandma Oni (aka my mama) and O in front of our favorite greasy spoon.
Laughter at 98, I love this woman whose arms held me and now mine get to hold her.
Happy Holidays!
'Tis the season and once again Owen has asked me, "Is Santa real", I answered with the same vague assurance that "Magic is real". This year it fell a little flatter than last, which fell flatter than the year previous. He is almost 10 years old and is asking a sincere question, hoping for an answer that he has already stopped believing true. Owen is growing up and although I have never been a proponent of holiday hype, the loss of Santa IS a rite of passage. I pondered Owen's question for a few days and realized that he was ready. 
"Be patient towards all that is unresolved in you and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms, like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Live the questions now."
I have been in a bramble of my own making lately...too immersed in my own glimmering reflection on the glassy surface of life to enjoy the wide horizon beyond. Like Narcissus, I tumbled into the clear water and for a while I floated uncertain in its murky depths and then something unusual happened...my gaze cleared and I found that where I once imagined myself isolated and alone there was now a feeling of buoyancy all around... a feeling of expansion...as if the wall of self expanded opening, breathing, letting go...and the petty "I" seemed like a dissonant chord in the distance amidst a mighty symphony of infinite beauty. AAAAHHHH! There is beauty all around.
Snow, snow and more snow. Oh my! I must say that I have so little appreciation for all things cold and with winter dawning enthusiastically, I find myself dreaming of balmy nights and the swaying ebb and flow of sea on sand. Now I know how unproductive and un-present that is. I am not so far immersed in self pitying to miss my rebellion against what IS and yet when the snow falls in cascades of white, blanketing the city, I can't help but appreciate the beauty with a melancholic longing for Spring.
I woke up this morning to the busy chirping of 3 nine year old boys, talking Pokemon, talking girls, TALKING- at 6AM. I crawled out of bed and opened the door to tell them to keep the sound level down. I stumbled into the back room and my jaw dropped as I passed the window. The sunrise was extraordinary. As my eyes grew accustomed to so much beauty, I wondered how many take-your-breath-away-moments I have slept through. I savored this one alongside three oohing and awing boys and hope to wake up in time to enjoy the next one.
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
This incredibly gorgeous woman is my mama and the fabulous dog trainer and founder of Dandy Dawgs Nine Lives for Canines. I just wanted to show her off, to let her know that I am so proud of her and to tell the world how glad I am glad to call her friend and mom.
We went for a hike up in Evergreen at Alderfer's Three Sister Park and it was LUSCIOUS. The weather was utterly dreamy and the constant visual feast of moss and snow, field and wood was satisfying in a way that only nature can be. 
Bodhi was dressed in his Pirate best and yelled "ON JARD (close to 'on guard')" to any passerby worth their salt. 
Owen looked absolutely dashing in Papa's borrowed hat and entertained himself with a constant dialogue of Pokemon sightings and adventures that drove the other members of the party to distraction, particularly those adult members straining for the nourishing sound of silence. 
Maya(the dog) made it all the way through the hike without serious threat of bodily harm from leash weary parents and Mama and Papa were just happy to be in nature with two happy boys on a brilliant afternoon. 
"Don't just do something. Stand there!"
The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
HUH!!! Snow already...yep and we have been quite ill to top it off. Shane and Bodhi had a mild case last week and Owen came down with a meaner version over the weekend and I, being the family canary, had the full frontal flu, respiratory, cold, migraine combo by Monday. Of course I had to come down with it when the boys had two snow days off school..."Oh mom can you please come out and play"...a low groan of descent emerges from beneath a eucalyptus haze of chills and disbelief. I stumble about cladding children in snow gear and wool, then boot them unceremoniously out of doors where they joyously play for a half an hour before re-entering, cold, wet and hungry. Oh the only worse thing than being sick is being a sick mama. The boys mitigated the discomfort by performing an impromptu puppet show on my bed... 
and Owen entertained himself building an elaborate snow fort, complete with an intricate story about another world with castles, secret tunnels, various chambers, villains and heroes. Here he is pictured lying in the King's sleeping chamber. I spent several long moments looking for him, too hoarse to call out, before I was finally relieved to see a hand emerge.
Both boys are now ensconced in the rich fragrant aroma of hot cocoa and I am retiring once again to my warm bed.
So here is a little Halloween preview...a Johnny Appleseed improvisation (one of Bodhi's favorite celebrities)
AND one of Sendek's, Wild Thing's (costume courtesy of Mom- made while Bodhi napped and the sick patient, Owen, listened to a book on tape). As soon as he donned the monster costume he yelled, "I'll eat you up" and within five minutes he said, "I don't want to be a monster anymore for Halloween. I want to be a bat.", to which I kindly responded, "TOUGH!"
We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are.
When I hike, I usually take my camera, it has become one of my greatest teachers. Before I began taking pictures with the avidity of a dog chasing a bone, I wandered through the woods without seeing. I had to remind myself to look, to listen, to be. I remember one horrible trek over Granite Mountain in Arizona, I was 22 and I was beset by the demon of self. I kept trying to see, to smell, to shut up for five minutes and experience the instant in which I stood in the shadow of pinetrees. I began crying in defeat. Eventually I just let go, I listened to my mind babble away, only occasionally looking around with present moment clarity, usually when startled out of my reveries by other hikers, scat on the trail or an unusually loud rattle. Then I was given my beloved Canon Rebel XTi. I began hiking with it's weight hanging over my breast and something changed. I felt more peace, I breathed deeper, I listened, I stood in awe more, I was quiet longer, I smiled mostly and I lingered. I stopped listening to me and began looking for beauty everywhere. I find it there, where it always is, just beneath our nose, beaming. Now I pause in front of a black widow, a powdery branch, a blaze of color, water rushing over stones and looking through my camera lens, I find it- that perfect moment and snap, then it is gone. My camera has become one of my greatest teachers, helping me to remember that although the lens of self may be small, mortal and narrow- it is still capable of witnessing enormous beauty ... if only we keep looking.
At the creekside...
and in the woods...
There really is beauty every where.
What is Angelina's favorite weekend activity? ... Yep, hiking in nature, preferably on a warm day, surrounded by life breathing and buzzing, swaying and being. Today we selected Lair o' the bear, a perrenial favorite. The guys and I walked for the first mile together, winding through dry grasses, tinged yellow and orange by the hand of Autumn.
I always love the way nature doles out one beautiful chance to open after another. This time we ran across a caterpillar. The fuzzy creeper produced a chorus of oohs and aahs. I have never seen Bodhi more gentle. Both boys watched in rapture as the little body edged it's way over extended hands and arms, eventually landing on a blade of fiery grass intent on lunch.
Owen get's so quiet and cool when he is exploring...
Bodhi becomes even more animated, if that is possible.
Shane turns into a child again, eager for play and with the abandon of a Lost Boy he casts off his cares creating boats and vessels from twig, leaf and grass, excited by the possibilities ahead.
After the first mile, Maya and I left the guys playing near a stream and ventured up into the hills for a 4 mile solo trek, armed with a camera and breathing in the fresh air of solitude with nourishing abandon.
Saturday was spent kicking up dust at the Annual Pumkin Festival fundraiser for the Botanical Gardens. WHEW! talk about exhausting. We arrived at 10AM and left at 3PM dragging four weary boys behind us(or was it the other way around). 
In the intervening hours they rode rides, ate corn on a stick, all things greasy and drank gallons of lemonade. 
They wandered through an intricate corn maze for a half an hour before throwing caution to the wind and taking an unauthorized short cut to the exit. 
The youngest member of our party ogled lamas, caressed pony manes and even talked to a real witch, moonlighting as a balloon artist.
We scavenged for pumpkins and looked for the three big boys in our keep. 
In the end we drug our selves home and admitted defeat. There is no way to outlast a child in a battle of fun, you may stay awake longer but you are inevitably far worse for the wear.
