back and forth conversations and collaborations through the years
wonder | wander | women's word for the year so far is "deluge". Between grey or freezing weather, natural disasters, and the man-made disasters of our collective governments, the year has barely started and it already feels like we're being swept away.
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| Kalachuchi (Frangipani) in ballpoint and watercolour |
For the Triple Goddess - Maiden, Mother, Crone - alive in every cycle of becoming.
A celebration of returning light, Imbolc is a Gaelic festival that marks the beginning of spring. Also called Candlemas (Christian), New Year (Tibetan, Chinese, Iroquois), Tu Bi-Shevat (Jewish).
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| maiden, mother, crone painting by Beryl Noyce |
As millions of families worldwide prepared to celebrate for one of the year’s biggest festivals wander | wander | women had our bags packed to head back to the Philippines after being away for some years.
Chinese New Year 2023 falls on Sunday, 22nd of January 2023. Although celebrations last up to 16 days, only the first seven are considered a public holiday (January 22 to January 29). Culminating with the Lantern Festival on the 5th of February.
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| travelling in style |
This lunar new year marks the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit according to the Chinese zodiac, which assigns different animals to years over a 12-year cycle.
It's nearly April 1st! The flowers are growing, the trees are in various stages of bud, and the clock has flipped forward so we can have more hours of daylight...to work. We suspect it's actually so that people who have to attend work can end early and have a spare hour or two to gather their share of Vitamin D.
This week we are still celebrating the Lunar New Year of the Ox which started on February 12. Born and raised in the East and now living in the West, wonder | wander | women shine the spotlight on another Asian event as we continue to take you on yet another virtual tour.
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| A Pair of Horses - Xu Beihong, Asian Civilisations Museum |
Living with Ink: The Collection of Dr Tan Tsze Chor at the Asian Civilisations Museum presents highlights from the collection of Singapore's renowned art collector Dr Tan Tsze Chor.
A celebration of returning light, Imbolc is a Gaelic festival that marks the beginning of spring. Also called Candlemas (Christian), New Year (Tibetan, Chinese, Iroquois), Tu Bi-Shevat (Jewish). Goddess festival of Brigit, Brighid, Brigid (Celtic). It is our mid-winter celebration, prophecy, purification, initiation.
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| Our Lady of 10,000 Names, Suzanne Grace Mitchell, 2018 |
Stir in the silence that winter gifted you. Touch new skin, the surprise aliveness, the contours winter revealed. There is an echoing silence that precedes every new thing.
It is the restlessness of birdsong, the persistence of the sap. It is the dark that folds around all that is stirring, saying: Pace yourself, love.
We have nothing but what winter left us. We have nothing but our own stirring heartbeats and desires. Nothing but the fire in our bellies that warmed us through the deepest darks.
To clear, clean, hone. To stand in the barest simplicity of our aliveness and promise ourselves to service, to spring.
Make a simple promise.
To our wholeness, to becoming. Find the seed inside you, swollen with its own longing, that insists, with all the force of life, that it will sprout when the time is right. Simple, naked, clean, fiercely alive.
~ Maeanna Welti © Mother Tongue Ink 2020
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| Back home on Negros Island |
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| East Coast, United States |
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| London, United Kingdom |
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| Chinese Food for Good Luck |
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| Happy Chinese New Year! |
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| Orion Nebula M 42 Celestron C 14 |
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| Images from Chiswick House & Gardens, via Time Out |
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| An assortment of moon cakes laid out prettily. |
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Houyi helplessly
looking at his wife Chang'e
flying off to the moon after she drank the elixir.
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