This evening marks Rosh Chodesh Tevet, the new month of Tevet, a perfect time to reset my intentions for this blog in the month ahead.

This Eastern Europe theme has me all excited and my mind is a great big swirl! I have been reading a lot, both from my personal library (books that I've always wanted to read but have never gotten around to until now) and online. I joined a Jewish genealogy site to do some research on my great-grandparents' birthplaces, and best of all, my mother located my grandfather's write-up from his roots trip in 1979.

I have so many questions and ideas that I could easily immerse myself in all this for days on end, but alas, family life is demanding as always, and I can hardly find the time to spend even a few minutes most days.

I am also finding that these inquiries do not lend themselves well to blog posts written late at night after I am done with all my parenting duties. The scope of what I am working with is just too big. With that in mind, I am setting a new intention to write anyhow...about my process, wherever I happen to be.

The Swirl

(a.k.a. a little window into why things have been quiet around here)

1. I have a little series of artwork that I am not sure how to share. The series is based on the text from the MAGI process, an imagistic meditation developed by Jason Shulman with 38 steps. It is a meditation that I have worked with for many years now and that I have found to be very powerful and helpful when encountering conflict, big decisions, and anything else that is looming large in my life. It is presenting itself as an excellent companion to my Eastern European explorations. My little pieces each include one line of the text from the meditation, and I don't feel right sharing this text that is copyrighted material. I may yet figure out how to attribute it properly, but for now it seems to be an offline activity.

2. I am still getting used to my new camera. I am far from perfecting the easy transfer of new photos from camera to the blog. I'll get there, I'm sure, but who has time to figure such things out??

3. Dreidels, dishes, and more dishes! Cooking festive meals generates a lot more dishes than usual. I love to entertain during Chanukah. This year has gone by even faster than usual, probably due to the overlap with Thanksgiving. I haven't taken many photos, but it's been a delight watching A. try to spin the dreidel before sitting quietly to watch the candles burn low.

Happy Chanukah!

1 Tevet 5774