NO-vember

 

Welcome to a new month! Can't believe that 2014 is 5/6 over! But I'm ready for two really exciting things that are happening in the month of November.

Paganically, November is the first month of the winter quarter (in the natural year).  The first day of the month is Samhain (pronounced sow-ain), and All Saints day.  Until Yuletide, this is a time of increasing darkness, of awakening and letting go, when the seed falls to earth from its mother plant.
Interestingly, November was the ninth month on the Roman calendar, but the Anglo-Saxon name for November was Blatmonath, the month of sacrifice- the time for killing livestock that could not be kept through the winter month. In the Frankish tradition, it was Herbistmanoth, or “harvest month” also referring to the third harvest of animals.
From 13 November, the rune Nyd rules. This is the rune of necessity, urging us to accomplish the tasks we need to fulfill before the coming wintertime renders them impossible. Although I haven’t delved much into the philosophy of Runes, I identify with the need to get starts on projects before the fading light and cold weather requires caffeine to carry out any sort of activity. It’s with all this in mind, along with a break in usual business that has encouraged me to take on a couple of projects this month that promise to keep me quite busy.

 

Firstly, I’m hoping to put the NO in November, by eating NO sugar this month. I managed to do this for 12 days during a cleanse in August, but since I came off the cleanse away from my home, I had limited access to foods and slipped back into eating added (cane)sugar. This time I hope to push myself to go a whole month without added cane sugar on anything. I’ll allow myself agave and maple syrup this time (hoping to cut that out too next year) so I can satisfy my sweet tooth, but I’ll mostly be trying to eat fruits and natural sugars. I’ve cut out high fructose and regular corn syrup for the last few years, so this is my next big push…we’ll see how I do in a month trial.

To distract myself from the missing sweets that I’m sure I won’t really miss, I’m going to participate in National Novel writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. I was introduced to NaNoWriMo in college, and dabbled for a few weeks in a novel of my own. After 2 or so weeks I only had about 1/10 of the expected 10,000 words, so I gave up. I tried another version of the same idea, for writing screen plays, and wrote a 50 page screen play. But the next year the organization that hosted the April-screen writing event closed down. Now I’m going to attempt to focus on a 10 page screen play for a New Mexico Women writers organization contest, but still use the NaNoWriMo forums and resources. Woo!

I'm also hoping to enter a collage into a contest for illustrators. I have no idea if it's what they're looking for or interested in, but I think it will do me some good to practice creating art for a contest, and to submit and all that. I'll be sure to post the final project.

Another event that's sure to keep me busy this month is a workshop I'm leading called Putting the Experience in Experiential Education. I have to write an article for it, too, so I'm probably post that up here soon.

I look forward to falling leaves and temperatures, chilly nights with warm beverages while typing or cutting/pasting away in our little Casita. This month also promises a little travel. I've booked a train to California to work for a week back in the San Bernardino Mountains. We might go up to Utah for Thanksgiving. And I hope to do a considerable amount of exploring around here. I look forward to some inward reflection time and some intentional events. I also have some fun ideas for blog posts, so stay tuned!