
I’ve always put up a Christmas tree. Despite the halfhearted participation (and groaning) of my boyfriends, I’ve faithfully, right after Thanksgiving, headed out and bought (or here on Vashon, cut down) a tree to lug home. It’s a ritual I rarely miss.
I remember after visiting India some years ago I returned home in the winter and the notion of putting a tree on display seemed absurd. This is a rite of passage for anyone who ventures to India: All of your brain cells are rearranged and you never view your world, or its customs, the same way again. I know that was true for me as a Westerner. Christmas in America, after the dust and squalor of India, felt like a gluttonous indulgence. So I skipped the holidays that year — though I missed having a tree in the house. Read more

Astroinquiry.com is on a temporary hiatus and will begin republishing and journaling (maybe) shortly.
Thank you and love,
Frederick

“Midsummer is the sexiest time of year. The word itself conjures images of luscious fruit, eternal twilight, warm nights dotted with the firefly’s peridot lights and feverish days punctuated by bursts of thunder and warm rain. It is a time when romance wanders freely in the mind, and when the bounties of earth are so plentiful, they are intoxicating. Life seems to spring eternal.”
“The green of the trees begins to take on a darker, more exhausted verdancy, animals go about the business of rearing their growing young, instead of birthing them and the nights and hottest days are filled with the gnawing presence of insects. Lammas, or Lughnasadh (pronounced: loo-NAH-sah), the sabbath which celebrates the beginning of the harvest year, is a time of maturity and of age. It is also a surreal moment in the year when death and life coexist in physical manifestation.”
A vibrant tribute to this verdant time of the season over on Planet Waves, by guest writer Genevieve Salerno. Beautiful! Thanks Genevieve.