Home blessing

Last weekend a few friends gathered at our apartment with a truck and a trailer. In half an hour they loaded our furniture (Tig and I had moved the smaller stuff over during the week), cruised over several blocks and loaded us in. Then we celebrated with some donuts and coffee. A big thanks to Stacia and Ray, Gretchen and Danny, and Liza. And also a big hug to Diana for kid-wrangling while the move was happening. We’ve been slowly unpacking–even slower now since summer has been beckoning us outside.

At the moment we are living in the back addition and the kitchen plus a bathroom while the rest of the first floor is being renovated. It’s cozy, but doable. Here are some pictures of our abode. I didn’t even bother tidying up–just keeping it real.

Back room addition, which serves as bedroom and living room.

Kitchen

Hallway/dining room.

Deck outside.

It reminds me of our junior one-bedroom/studio days in Oakland, CA…except now with kids….

After a few days, we decided to have a celebration. I adapted our home blessing from the book Circle Round.

We made a flower blessing water…

…a mud brownie cake for the fairies.

We drew all the things we wish to experience in this new chapter of our life.

O asked me to draw a baby elephant, a monkey, chickens, and a Sizzles (dog). His drawing is off the side of this picture. Then we took a walk around our house and sprinkled the blessing water on the ground while talking about our wishes and desires. V said she hopes for lots of love between all of us.

After the walk, we set the mud cake outside for the fairies and started a small campfire in our fire pit.

We burned our drawings so that our wishes would go up to Mother Sky…

…and because we like fires.

Then we wrapped up the evening, content that we had blessed our new home.  In some ways, I think the kids were comforted by the ritual.

Postscript: We are super excited for our friend Dan and his partner Allyson, who will begin their cruising adventure in the late summer. We met Dan several years ago when he was our next slip neighbor at Constitution Marina. He helped us shrinkwrap our boat, ate many dinners with us, and helped us on our first overnight passage. I’m looking forward to reading about their adventures at seachangessailing.blogspot.com.