white-cloud pear

My six year old names everything.  I always love her creations.  For Christmas this year I got a new juicer - she named it White-Cloud Pear.  White-Cloud Pear is going to be a huge part of 2014.  I find the things that hook me are as much about process as product - something addicting about the process of juicing. 

- I'm doing a juice fast with this bunch to start 2014.  It's pretty powerful to think that there are hundreds of us (thousands?) across the country doing this new moon cleanse together (you can start anytime, of course.)  Last night at my local market, noticing my tell-tale cart full of produce, the women helping me check out prompted a chat.  One of them had also just gotten a juicer for Christmas and was starting a cleanse, too.  Soon we were swapping recipes and sharing offerings of support - not super common in this neck of the woods, so all the nicer.    

 - I'm pinning a lot of juice recipes and information on cleansing.  

- Doing this amazing meditation. I plan on doing the walking-grounding portion at least weekly this month. 

-  On New Year's Eve I finished this book by Judith Duerk.  Then went to a neighborhood New Year's day gathering at the home of an older woman across the street. We've been neighbors for almost four years, but this is the first year I felt social enough to want to go.  I'm so glad I did.  I sat in a circle of women, all in their sixties and seventies, sharing and bonding.  It's an invigorating and comforting energy found amongst women in their wisdom years.  One of them was an early graphic designer and artist for Ben and Jerry's - shared stories of Jerry fire-eating at company parties.  One of them was an avid traveler and photographer, having just returned from Ireland, and another a passionate environmentalist talking about the importance of replacing lawns with food bearing plants and wildflowers, the importance of all wild things - in and out.  

- And my neighbor, Joan, hostess of our party, was recently the subject of this film, about her journey as a civil rights activist in the 1960's.  Never knew this part of her.  We have so much to soak up from the lives of our elders, now more than ever.  They began a lot of our current movements and can offer us the guidance they didn't have in their time, which we can then pass on during our golden years.  (amazing - *just* as I was linking to the film about Joan, a knock on my door - it was Joan, bringing butterfly art, stamps and books to the girls for our studies next week.) 

Since moving here to the dc area, I've really felt like a fish out of water - it's been lonely.  Even my therapist urges me, "Kristen, you're in the wrong place."   She's right, but I'm starting to see this particular challenge as an opportunity, too.  Yesterday, I removed some of my self-imposed blockages regarding what social connections should look like, what friends should look like.  I learned more about what I'm willing to compromise and what I'm not - Age, for example, or geographic proximity is less important than shared values and kindred connection, a place where you can bare yourself honestly and be affirmed.  I experienced, yet again, the benefits of sharing oneself and the intimately personal, something I still find challenging.  I am so grateful to those who embolden me, by encouragement and example, to trust in this sharing we do. 

which reminds me to end with this quote by Neil Gaiman:

- "the moment that you feel that, just possibly, you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That's the moment you may be starting to get it right."  Found here.   

 2013 was absolutely transformative for me and my family.  2014 is off to an even more promising start.

Happy New Year!