Snow changes everything

As I sit at the breakfast table, soaking up the morning sunlight coming through the window, JF notices how different my mood is since there is snow outside. "Of course, I say, the light is so different!" It is so luminous and joyful when there is snow, so... white!

I will take a sunny snowy day over a gray rainy one anytime! Even when we lived in Costa Rica, I noticed how my mood was different when there was a gray rainy day... You would have thought that with all the sun from the previous months, my solar batteries should have been charged, but it seems like they don't keep their charge very long!

The first snow was such a treat to all of us. My Yukon-born girls were so thrilled after 3 years without a real winter!

When we walked outside today along the same path we take many times a week, Mathilde said: "Mama, everything is so different when there is snow! It's like a new place that I want to explore!" It's so true. Everything looks so different, the smell in the air is not the same and we notice new things, as if we were seeing them for the first time...

As the wind bites my cheek and my thighs burn from the cold, I remind myself to relax into winter. My body is one big contraction, my shoulders are up to my ears, my fists are clenched in my pockets. If I am not careful, the cold hardens me and I end up hating it for that, but if I pay attention, dress properly, choose the right time of day to be outside, I can see winter through my girls eyes, I can truly revel in the joy and playfulness of that season.

When the forest is quiet...

We live in the backyard of a beautiful National Park in Quebec and that means that going there on the weekends or anytime during the high season means hiking trails that feel like highways... 

This specific park is especially known for his Flambée des couleurs (a festival that celebrates its beautiful colors during fall). Now that all the leaves are on the ground and that the days have grown cold and wet, the trails are all ours to explore!

There was ice on the puddles along the trail and beautiful frozen branches over the little river...

And the best thing is that the little wooden shelter that we love is almost always empty at this time of year. The kids each claimed a bed and loudly played while we chatted by the stove and served lunch.

It was so quiet in the forest, that we almost felt like we were intruding on those two young deer meal.

:: On the way back, a little someone was very proud to be the train leader... ::

And each time I set foot in the forest, I am reminded that this is where I belong, where I heal, where I breathe more deeply. Its quietness helps me connect with my inner wisdom, my peace.

Light and darkness

My friend wrote to me the other day saying something that really touched me. She said: Et j'ai tellement peur. Peur de moi, peur de ma lumière, peur de mes ténèbres (And I am so afraid. Afraid of myself, afraid of my luminous side, afraid of my dark side).

I know I struggle right now with finding peace with my luminous side as well as with my darker side. My bubbly, impetuous, unsettled and adventurous side is partly what lights my fire... It is also draining to be me in the humdrum of everyday tasks, in the midst of real dailiness... Unsatisfied with routine and the usual flow of life, I feel like my fire is dying... Which easily brings me to the darker side of myself... My stubborness to create a life I feel is worth living for. Life easily lacks purpose for me; it quickly gets boring and tasteless...

Of course, wherever I look, I see purpose, love, meaning... It is joy that I struggle the most to find lately.

I know however that discomfort needs to be embraced. And this is where it gets tricky for me: discomfort prompts me to act. It is a driving force that motivates me to be better, to reach for what is calling me. But sometimes, I wonder if my discomfort-o-meter is not too sensitive... 

I want to be content with life, but not settle for what it is.

And as I try to embrace my dark side, I am reminded that it is inseparable from my luminous side. They are truly only one. The many complex facets that make me, me.

The voice of fear and the voice of wisdom

My friend Renee wrote this beautiful piece on change. She and her family are leaving in the Spring to hike the entire Appalachian Trail (AT), a little over 2,000 miles. She says:

What if many "things" I've held onto as security and comfort - routines, beliefs, possessions - turn out to be just optional? What if the things we think we need to be rooted, healthy, and happy are just things in the end, and what really matters is much deeper and harder to cultivate than a garden on a piece of property we call a "homestead"?

And she ends by saying:

Someone asked me recently, about our AT adventure, what I was most afraid of, to which I replied, "the changes that will take place in me".
Then they asked what I was most excited about, to which I replied, "the changes that will take place in me".

And the other day, there was a great exchange on coming back home after a long trip in the traveling families group I belong to. Jennifer Pearce from Pearce On Earth said this:

I think some of the unsettled feelings we have when we're "going home" from traveling have to do with wanting our experiences to have made a difference in deepening our feelings of love and connection with ourselves and the world around us. We want it to matter and have a lasting impact, and we even want more of the same where that came from. Maybe we fear that by going home, we're going back into our old familiar bubble, and maybe we feel like we'll lose what we've gained outside of that, to a certain extent.

I felt that way when we came back. Slowly, I am trying to not let all there is to do at home hinders that connexion with myself and the world around me... I am striving to be as connected to my family as I was when we were traveling together, but truth be told, it requires more effort...

At home, there is so much that pulls us apart; it is so easy to disconnect from each others... and from ourselves. It is a daily practice... or more like an hourly one. Checking in with myself, listening to the voice of grumpiness, the voice of fear, the voice of wisdom... They have a tendency to speak on top of each other since I came back and I am trying my best to tend to each of them. Give empathy to the grumpy one, reassure the fearful one and trust the wise one...

Pumpkin hunt, 2013 edition

When I woke up yesterday morning, I couldn't help but think of our last Halloween, in Arches National Park, in Utah. The moon was still up in the sky when the girls put on their costumes and climbed on the orange sandstone cliffs behind our campsite... 

This year, it was great to be back with our friends for another edition of our pumpkin hunt!

 :: My favorite knights ::

  :: Laura Ingalls ::

   :: Pippi, of course! ::

  :: Robin Hood ::

:: The organic fruit and veggie box ::

For the pumpkin hunt, he adults hide pumpkins in the wood (a little further each year) and stand by them, asking the kids to solve a riddle, and then hand them handmade treats. This year, the rain stopped just long enough for the pumpkin hunt to happen!

  :: Vampire blood: Nini's homemade kombucha and pomegranate juice ::

For more homemade treat ideas, check the past editions of our pumpkin hunt: 2011, 2010 and 2009 (don't miss Julie's amazing troll mushrooms).

Harvest potluck and pumpkin carving 401

Four homeschooling families on a Sunday night, lots of great homemade food, many pumpkins of all sizes and colors and good carving tools: the perfect recipe for a really good time and incredible creations!

Some fairy houses, of course...

 A police station with a balcony...

 And many more unique creations!

Steph inspired the girls with her beautiful pumpkin house and helped them create what they had in mind...

 ...topped with curtains on the windows!

Some of the dads playing music...

 I love that one-eyed pumpkin!

 And that little squash bus!

Uncertainty

And just a few more quotes from Katrina Kenison because they resonate so much with what I feel these days...

"How ironic, to realize that maturity brings not more conviction, but less. At twenty-two, I still believed I could make a life plan and then set about executing it; that there were answers to all my questions, and if I just worked hard enough, I would find them. What I feel now is both a greater sense of fragility, knowing that life is both unpredictable and finite, and at the same time, an awareness that, no matter how long I live, I'll never get things all figured out. Uncertainty is part of the human condition; perhaps contentment comes as we learn to get comfortable with it."

"Life, as I'm finally coming to see, isn't all onward and upward after all; it's also wide-open plateaus and shadowy thresholds, the lonely liminal spaces between what's ended and what has yet to begin. It is here that the darkness can feel most acute, our anxiety most intolerable. But perhaps it is also here, in the wild borderlands of our soul journeys, that we begin to trust our own inner compass to guide un onward. I wonder if I have the stamina to endure this silence, to allow what's next to reveal itself, rather than to grasp too quickly at some new thing just because it's there."

 "There is restlessness and fear, impatience to get a move on, and doubt about where to go, a sense of urgency and, at the same time, confusion about just what it is that's so important."

"Going away taught me something about what it means to stay."