The sunflowers are in decline. Our garden is winding down. We leave for vacation in a few days. I cut down some of the sunflowers to dry to harvest the seeds. I thought I’d share what is making me happy before we leave on our trip and August is gone.

There are some nights like tonight when Zoey goes to bed without crying. I went to her Waldorf parent meeting tonight and ate dinner late. After being kissed good night and put down to bed, she came out to the kitchen to ask for another hug. She misses me a lot these days when I’m gone for the day. I gave her another hug and wordlessly she returned to bed and to sleep. A blessing in my world.

I started acupuncture a few weeks ago to treat my digestive issues. For any of you who have never had acupuncture, I highly recommend it. I would go daily if that were possible. After putting in all the needles in my body (head, forehead, sometimes ears, arms, hands, feet, legs, and belly), my acupuncturist says to me, “Have a good rest.” And I do. For a whole hour. I sit in the recliner chair reclining with my eyes closed and I rest. And it’s heaven.

I have three more months of my herbal class. The class is held over a nine month period–the length of a pregnancy. It goes by so quickly. Although it is difficult to leave Stephen and kids for one weekend out of every month, I really look forward to my time away to learn more about herbs. But the class is so much more than just herbs. I sit in a circle of about 22 women. We share our hearts with one another, our strengths and weaknesses, and we’re present to each other even with all our different backgrounds. Some of us young and single, gypsies, wanderers, young mothers, wise older women. All the women are so generous in spirit. We end each weekend making a craft with our hands. We close the circle lying on our backs with our eyes closed as our teacher Donna reads us a poem. And then we sit up, hold hands, and pass a kiss of peace (not unlike the passing of peace in church) on each other’s hands as we look into each other’s eyes lovingly. I realized during my last class that I have finally found what I had been looking for–for so long. I’ve found the feminine face of God in the women I meet each month. For me, this is church. Here’s a song I learned at my herbal class that I taught Zoey:

Woman am I, spirit am I,
I am the infinite within my soul,
I have no beginning and I have no end,
all this I am.