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Wood Stove Time

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This year I have switched to burning larch. Last year for some reason I had a difficult time with the stove. I think some fir wood that was too “pitchy” was the culprit. I had been getting soot on my windows and ceiling. Horrors.

So far I have lit two fires. Successfully.This morning I noticed I had left the kitchen window open all night and the kitchen was not cold. A wood fire warms my trailer up like no electric or oil-filled heater can. I dried my laundry in the living room on a rack.
 
This year may be a cold one. Who knows? The price of electricity has gone way up out here over the past year. I paid a lot for the larch wood, but it will be less smoky and burn more efficiently.
 
I have been reading a meditation from Divine Intimacy almost every day and hope to soon start writing about them. My daily meditation is an important part of my day.

 

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Simmering Summer

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Suddenly it really is summer. Not false alarm early summer any more. But regular early summer. Days so hot I am now spending afternoons inside. Plants are growing more quickly. My first ripe strawberry yesterday! I bought bedding plants. A little late for seeds. Last night I put in kale. Tonight I will put in chard and maybe celery.

Unlike other summers, the mosquitos are fierce in the evenings. Too much long grass in the yard this year perhaps. I may try preparing the earth earlier in the day so I can transplant more quickly. 

Trinity Sunday was amazing. I got to sing one of my favourite old hymns “Holy, Holy, Holy“. I spoke to the celebrant briefly about St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. I chatted to others at fellowship time about my love for trees. 

Sewing project is to embroider some sort of Trinity symbol on a t-shirt. I have an embroidery machine. I have the shirt. I have the pattern. I have the backing. All I need is the nerve. I am afraid of the machine. For years I used an older dewing machine for embroidery and I didn’t really know what I was doing. Some disasters occurred. 

Readings from Divine Intimacy are pretty amazing right now following Trinity Sunday. My meditation phrase yesterday was:

“Even…when our heart is cold, and our mind in darkness, the Holy Spirit is praying within us…”

I keep my meditation phrases short so I remember them if I wander off from the book to do garden chores or housework. Also I try to remember it throughout the evening and the next day until I make another meditation. Out of context the phrase itself loses meaning, but I vaguely remember the content of the entire meditation in Divine Intimacy. I think it is wonderful that the Holy Spirit is there for us, in us, like a coach, guiding and encouraging us towards holiness.  

Of course it is up to us to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. We still have to work at being good and at being prayerful. How grand, though,  to have such a loving, powerful helper “within”. How kind God is to us.

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Keeping balanced

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Life seems very fragmented at times. There are so many demands… Home, family, community, church to name a few. Life seems very fragmented at times.  And one more– faith. Faith is related to church, but not quite the same. I know that if church became difficult for some reason, I would consider staying away. However I would never, I hope, set aside my faith.

To be more specific, I am attending an Anglican Church regularly now. And if I had to stay away,  I think I would go “off grid” and just pray and sing and try to live a good life on my own so to speak. I would carry on with my short daily meditation and with my spiritual reading too.

Yes, I still try to keep a sentence of my reading in my mind through the day. Today it is from Divine Intimacy again: “…the interior apostolate of prayer, love, and sacrifice…”. That seems to be the best I can manage these days. 

As always, I am not claiming to be advancing spiritually or working very hard about it. No delusion about that. Every day I turn from opportunities for charity and self denial. 

That seems to be the best I can manage these days. 

 

Firewood

A rainy day! Good for working on websites. Of course I plan to do some vacuuming too. And researching for Rozsa the cat’s favourite freeze dried morsels. And check online to see what my electricity bill is. That takes courage.

I did read just yesterday in Divine Intimacy that “…courage will come from the Holy Spirit…” My electricity rate has increased considerably. And I have been using electric heat still. There are some other matters that require courage now too. Family relations and health matters.

 

drylarch

Back to electricity… Since the weather has been warming I have not been using the wood stove. I was thinking about next winter though.

And… last week one afternoon I was walking down the street and a truck passed. The driver waved. The truck was loaded with firewood. I thought “hey!” to myself but by the time I turned around, the truck was gone. 

I walked up to the next cross street and saw no sign of the truck.  Up to the lane next where I saw the grass was flattened. And I heard the sound of wood being unloaded. Two houses in I found Edward pitching wood off his truck. 

We agreed on 2 loads of larch. He delivered it all within days. Beautiful dry larch. I have put some away and the rest is under tarps just inside the front gate. When the sun comes back, I shall resume moving it into the woodshed. And when the shed is full, I can arrange it on boards and a pallet that is still usable. 

It is a great relief to have secured wood so early in the year. 

Moving On

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Yes. After a lot of deliberation I decided to just add contact of another blog into this one. After all, my religious life has settled down and I am feeling less tangled up inside. So I have brought some cat posts in from a blog which I cannot afford to keep up. 

The plan is to bring all the different parts of my life together in one blog. It might as well be this one, because I have a few years left on the plan.

Rosza has slept almost all day. I have been inside almost all day. 

Really it is time to get outdoors. But let me just toss a photo in and see how it works out.

It didn’t. Please give me time to sort this out. I’ve got extra pages and extra posting names but I just fixed a very blurry photo. 

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gardencat

Blogged Out

That is how I feel about blogs. I have reduced my little stable of blogs to 3. I am managing about a post every few weeks. I go from this one to that one to that one over there. No favouritism. Two are blogs about Rozsa and I. And one is a kind of spiritual diary. But they all intertwine with each other.

Being sensible to my financial situation (i.e. getting poorer by the second) more downsizing in Blogland is in the works. One domain, 2 add on blogs, or 2 subdomains. Or maybe 2 domains. Or maybe one domain, one blog. One domain is paid up for a few years. The other two are due for renewal early this summer.

It’s not just hosting. Also SSL expenses. And it is absolutely ridiculous to have 3 blogs running. No one reads them anyway. Out of time, out of money, and out of things to blog about, I am. Three strikes and I am out.

Quick think: cut the cord. Dump this one first. Let’s shift it somewhere.

Sure. Okay. Do it.

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Birds

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This clock was a gift from a neighbour. I had one that had stopped singing. Now again my home is full of birdsongs. Having a clock helps me order my life. And I love the songs!

Every day  I have been reading from the writing of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. A few days ago I read Day 16 her Last Retreat. She wrote this retreat just before her death. To me it is like a guide to dying. I learn what is happening, from a spiritual view point, as the soul moves on, away from self and into Christ. 

Hard to think about. I do thank St. Elizabeth for writing this retreat. She draws very much from St. John of the Cross. I cannot make any comment about what I read. It is too deep, too painful, too very beyond words for me. 

I travel through my days busy with thoughts of family, music, daily chores, the weather… outside things, things of the self. Yes, a little of God is in me, and a little of me is in God. But all this spiritual reading is like dipping a toe in the ocean. 

When I get thrown into an emotional murk by something, I try hard to pray, to breathe slowly, to accept what is happening, to trust God and so on. But I still am sleepless, miserable, frightened and unable to feel better for a long time. 

Faith is my only recourse. 

A sunny day helps too. And practising my music. I have started singing again, with the little choir at the church I attend. 

 

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There's an eagle in the tree!
There’s an eagle in the tree!

 

“In God my soul is silent; my deliverance comes from Him.”

I finished the last retreat. Above is a quote St. Elizabeth took from what I think is Psalm 62. 

I must get out of here while the sun is shining. I can pray as I walk. There will be real birds outside to see and hear. The big dump of snow we got last week is slowly melting away. I even dug my way back into the garden yesterday. Lots to look forward to. 

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From My Bookcases

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In a bookcase in my back bedroom (currently my storage room), I found Volume One of the Collected Writings of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. And last week I began a private at-home reading of “Heaven In Faith”, a retreat she wrote for her sister, a married woman with children. St. Elizabeth was a French Carmelite nun who died at age 25 in 1905. She was canonized by Pope Francis in 2016.

“Heaven in Faith”  is crammed with quotes from the Bible (mainly the gospel of John),  St. John of the Cross, and Flemish mystic John Ruysbruck. I have stretched the retreat out to 20 days from 10 by doing only one prayer a day. I am in no rush. 

I do my retreat meditation in the morning. From another bookshelf, I took  Spiritual Reflections for Sisters,  Second Volume  by Rev. Charles J. Mullaly S.J. (Apostleship of Prayer, New York: 1938). Despite its old-fashionedness, I like reading it. Rev. Mullaly has high expectations of religious sisters. I do not in any way pretend to think his writings are directed towards someone as worldly as me.  

My work on clutter has begun. Slowly. One project a week. I am starting Week 6 on Monday, and have chosen one of the bathroom cupboards to work on. Sometimes I finish my weekly project even before my official start date. Then I spend the week on other exciting chores like cleaning, and tidying up, and throwing things out ad libitum.

For inspiration I have been reading  Fresh Start: Overcoming Chronic Disorganization and Hoarding Group Manual by Karen Dennison, Barbara Jo; Kruzan, (The Educational Publisher / Biblio Publishing. Kindle Edition). This manual has given me great insight into the psychological underpinnings of hoarding. Knowledge gave me courage to at least attempt to overcome. So far I have had many small successes.  

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