frontiermidwife

I hav e completed the independent study and am now learning about fundamentals with a small group (8 of us). I find it interesting what my classmates want to do. Two of them, for example, intend to study funerals and ceremonies about loss. People from Canada say it’s difficult to get qualified to do weddings there legally so they intend to do a wide variety of ceremonies. I know that I ma going to do weddings so that I can be of service to my nieces and some other young people I know, but really I’m not that interested in weddings I find. I want to learn about “other” ceremonies, especially the ones that aren’t really named in our society. I think maybe I’m going to do two specific ceremony classes at the same time next spring. It will be work, but others have done it, and I know I can too.

I’m back in the city now for the winter. I’v e been pretty good about going out every day. I’m doing the coffee shop thing daily. I have no coffee at all at home. Right now it’s lovely weather, just right and my favorite time of year.

I’m reading this short book by Peter Lawrence called the Happy Minimalist. He makes the good case for simple living, but by now I’m not reading much that I don’t already know. But by comparison the the author, I live in a cluttered mansion. For example he says he has almost no furniture. He uses a sleeping bag very happily. I think he may be suggesting we all do the same. Or at least he challenges the notion that a bed and all the bed related stuff is something that everybody “needs.” In that I have to admit he is correct. We need some kind of protected place to sleep securely, and in most places simply being indoors in “enough.” The author says he can and has moved cross country all packed into a very small car and that he could pack up and move within an hour or so probably. There is a certain virtue to that, I guess, but honestly, that is not how I want to live.

For myself, I prefer sleeping in a bed and I appreciate my sofa, dining table, and chairs. I have a bookshelf, a sideboard and a dresser that I find to be pretty and that I am glad I own and intend to keep for a long time. I have several light fixtures so I don’t have to be moving a lamp around the place all the time. I do own several books that right now I prefer to keep. And then there is the art. I have art work and art objects all over the place. I think that is the part of my place that would make me very unhappy if I couldn’t have it. I could sleep on the floor as long as there was some art on the walls. It could be less than I have now….a serene Japanese scroll could be enough. But I need art around me.