This January new moon marks the beginning of the Jewish month, Shevat. Trees are honored this month as they begin a new cycle of life. In the midst of winter's stillness, their sap starts flowing to the tips of their newest branches, brightening their color and ever so slightly causing their buds to swell. We quietly honored our cycles too. Darwin painted with watercolors for the first time with her older friend Margaret and with Margaret's older friend Rachel (Darwin's mother) as Rachel's older friend Debra (Margaret's mother) took pictures.
Rachel stitched a dowel into a weaving done by Debra's mother Jean to give it new life as a wall hanging.
Dody and Lynn stopped by and Dody took up trying to churn cream, (that wonderful gift from our cows' lactation cycle) into butter. When its unwillingness became apparent, she took it home to make into luscious cheese (with the help of microbial life cycles).Rachel continued her sewing theme and created a hand-stitched maxi-pad out of fabric from one of Debra's old sheets, giving new life to an old "rag" while honoring her own cycle of life.
