Sneak peeks.

Just a snapshot of a couple of crafty projects for the wedding.... which is.....

THREE WEEKS AWAY!!!

Toms shoes for the wedding party

I am so very grateful to have found TOMS, a beautiful company started by Blake Mycoskie. I found them when I began my search for vegan wedding shoes. TOMS has an entirely vegan line. For every pair of TOMS you buy TOMS will give a child in need of shoes thier own pair. What an important company to support. I knew the moment that I read about them that I wanted to wear TOMS on our special day. My heart swells with joy and tears flow from my eyes every single time I watch a shoe drop video or read an article on the TOMS blog.

Watch this video to learn more about their history.

You will Love TOMS too. Order a pair today... order three.

I'll be wearing these beautiful TOMS

Olive Vegan Women's Wrap Boots

Brooklyn will be wearing these

Silver Morocco

and the Love of my life will be wearing these gorgeous shoes.

Love is the New Black

Can you imagine how very difficult it would be to live without shoes?

Please watch one more video created by TOMS - about an event that they created to spread awareness by living one day of their lives without shoes.

TOMS is an abbreviation of the Shoes for Tomorrow program. They are a for-profit company with giving at their core. They have changed the lives of so many children all over the world.

They use great materials and ensure human rights in all their practices. Here is a link found on their website regarding how they regulate the production of their shoes.

How does TOMS ensure its manufacturers adhere to human rights standards?

We require that the factories operate under sound labor conditions, pay fair wages and follow local labor standards. All factories sign a code of conduct. In addition, our production staff routinely visits these factories to make sure they are maintaining these working standards. We also have third parties audit the factories at least once a year to ensure they adhere to proper labor regulations. For more information: http://www.intertek-labtest.com/services/auditing/intertek_compliance/?lang=en

Glorious Garlands and Beautiful Bunting

The house has a great deal of natural light. I can just picture all of the decorations strung up on high! I've got a lovely afternoon of cutting paper strips, mod podge, glue, staples and tea ahead of the ladies with this project! Just look at all of these beautiful buntings and glorious garlands!

Adventure to Pagosa!

Quinn, Cole, Sharon, Brooklyn, Jakob and I took a trip to take a tour of the lovely Chimney Rock Adobe. What a wonderful journey it was. The house was as amazing as I had imagined it. The energy was warm and welcoming. Quinn took lots of pictures. I've posted a few here for your viewing pleasure. My handsome King.... taking a picture of this stunning image in a mirror.... which is hung in the entryway. I just felt so at home when I saw the bells by the entrance. What an auspicious sign!   What a gorgeous iron candelabra! I'm thinking of some making some small paper lanterns with battery operated led candles balanced upon the candle holders.   The kitchen.... such a glorious place to create! It will be so wonderful to spend time with my Loved ones preparing and infusing our delicous meals with Love and light. I am really looking forward to my time here. The grand staircase.

From wedding thing

The staircase is gorgeous. I am thinking of lovely ways to decorate it! The ladies and I shall gracefully descend on the wedding day ~ to meet my Lover under the chuppa.

My darling friends Melanie and Seneca shall be staying in this amazing bedroom on the first floor.

Upstairs

That fairytale daybed is Jenn's little corner of heaven!

 

My Daddy's bedroom

The Master Suite

Downstairs there is a delightful game room. I figured this space would be an excellent place for the children to comandeer.........

The Best Man's Suite

I have a much better idea for planning the ceremony now that I have been to the house. I am very grateful to Nora, the owner for her suggestion of taking a trip to view it before our big day. The family time and the adventure was fun and I have fond memories of our big weekend!

One Thousand Butterflies

Everytime you are near you give me the butterflies.

Me and my lovely fiance are going to participate in the sembazaru, tsuru no warren tradition - but we are not going to do cranes.

Butterflies it is.

Check out this great tutorial on Create with Me!

We are going to have a 'wedding date night' and sip tea and watch samurai movies and fold butterflies.... might even slip some vegan sushi n sake in there!

Daydreams and Doodles.

My friend Christina recently launched a new blog to help pay the bills and to express herself. She is very very talented and intelligent and well versed. Christina is hillarious and a brilliant creative writer. I am always thoroughly entertained by her personal blogging.

Christina and I were discussing how lately she has been trying to come up with a plan to market herself and to make money off of her art... and it hit me! BLOGGER! She could easily build up a marketing network here in this fabulous blogging community we are all so glued to! She has what it takes. She's whip smart and has sass and savy... so I sat back and waited for her to put something together and show it off. Check it out! Psychodoodles is up! I am so happy for her... AND - I've been inspired by her to doodle. Yes - this DOES have something to do with the wedding planning and is NOT just a shameless plug for one of my best friend's blogs. ;)

please be advised - there is one nsfw image on her blog so proceed with caution round the office.

Remember the days when you were in school and you used to daydream and write hearts all over every notebook with your initial and the "love of your life's" initial? Well today I made a personal promise to myself after finding another kind of motivation. I decided to spend more time giving to my practice. More time in meditation. More time in ritual. Today while daydreaming and doodling I spent time making these super cute hearts! (insert image of hearts I made)

I'm not quite sure what I will use them for, but I really like Sarah and Michael's use of these hearts at their wedding! Check out their wedding over at Love and Lavendar!

Aren't these stunning?

While I was making these I cleared my head of any thoughts and filled my heart with Love for Quinn. I spent the time making these hearts from the catalogues piled up around the office that just get thrown in the trash eventually... there's me... upcycling again! /pat on back. Thank you thank you! It's important to me! With each letter and each line I sent forth a Loving vibration. As I started to allow thoughts to come back into my mind I created a space in which I was completely open and accepting and free from desire. Just giving Love. I repeated these words by Khalil Gibran... a sort of Love Guru for our relationship.

"Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself" ~ Khalil Gibran on Love

I am lost in the daydreaming and the doodling. It feels nice to be young at heart.

The Chimney Rock Adobe!

one of the homes built by Jim Hallock

It has been quite some time since I have had any doubts about vibrational, universal harmony and spiritual alignment. I know that when one opens oneself to an adventure, completely and entirely, giving of your true self, your highest self - the universe will deliver great and glorious things. Even still - it is always so warming, so wonderful and humbling to receive such gifts. At this moment I am overcome with gratitude for the turn of events for our new ceremony site.

I've been speaking to the owner of the Chimney Rock Adobe. I felt a connection with the woman who answered my inquiry right away and was certain that the house she was renting was 'the one'. When I contacted her to draw up a contract for the house I found out some very interesting information that makes this place resonate in perfect harmony with our life and dreams! I no longer believe that moving the ceremony was a 'bump in the road' it was a necessary detour. I feel so blessed to be going on such an amazing journey. Every discovery that has been unearthed about this couple and their home creates a deeper sense of gratitude and personal connection to them.

The home was built from earth blocks! Which are made from machine pressed adobes. Our dream to one day run an eco-resort has instilled me with the desire to learn about a plethora of earth friendly sustainable building practices earth ships, dome homes, geodesic domes, etc. Melanie first introduced me to compressed earth homes a few years ago. I read about them and thought how great it would be to build some of those at our resort one day. Discovering that the home we would hold our ceremony at was created with compressed earth blocks was an exciting discovery indeed, but it wasn't the only one!

The owners of the home are a couple that have been together for 31 years. The husband Jim Hallock built the home after discovering that Nora Hallock, the wife - had a chemical sensitivity. Jim has developed an international reputation and likes to refer to himself as a "trout in a puddle" due to the fact that there just are not many earth block builders out there! You can read all about earth blocks here at Jim's website. The numerous custom homes he has built have been featured in several national magazines. He participated in the creation of the nation's first compressed earth block building code for the state of New Mexico. Jim has 37 years of experience in the construction industry, is a pioneer in the industry and has dedicated the last 14 years to the promotion of earthen construction as a solution to many environmental and global housing concerns.

He is a charitable man who has spent the last few years focusing his efforts on providing affordable eco-friendly homes to the poor people of Zambia, Ethiopia, South Africa, Chiapas, Mexico, Guatemala and Chile! Jim was sent by the USDA, on several trips to Honduras, to assist with rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Mitch. Documents containing guidelines which he created for compressed earth block construction were disseminated by the USDA in Central and South America. He also founded the company Tierra y Cal, Proyectos Sustentables which works towards providing healthy, high-quality housing to people in need. Tierry y Cal is an institute located outside of San Miguel de Allende, in central Mexico which offers workshops on earthen construction, natural plasters, and sustainable living. I want to goto there!!!

Just this past year Jim's institute forged an alliance with Mexico's branch of Engineers without Borders. Jim and Nora hope to land a spot with the International Engineers without Borders program at their annual meeting in March as their first global training site! So... keep your fingers crossed and send forth as much positive energy as you can for them. They seem like tremendous folks!

After a few short virtual conversations I know that we were meant to come into each others lives and am excited to have made new friends. I am looking forward to working with Jim in the future and am happy that I've gotten one step closer the journey to building an eco-resort! I highly recommend taking a few minutes to look at these pictures of Jim's work in Deslandes, Haiti, where he is training local crews in the construction of a school. I really Love seeing the smiles and the warmth of these people. There are more pictures of Jim's work all around the world here.

Chimney Rock a Spiritual Center and Ancient Celestial Observatory

Chimney Rock in Pagosa Springs is of great spiritual significance. There are ruins of ancient tribal kivas and dwellings that were used to observe great astrological events. The site was a residence of the Pueblo Indians ancestors (Zuni, Jemez, Hopi, Acoma, Taos, Picuris and several other tribes). The spirituality of these tribes is deeply rooted in maintaining harmony with the natural world. They held ceremonies and rituals intended to benefit the the community as a whole. What a great place to hold our gathering, and group meditation ceremony to honor Love!

The ancient tribes gathered throughout the year in celebration, ritual and festivals celebrating events such as the solstices. They were very focused on observation of the movement of the heavens... as their movement is essential for seasonal planning. Chimney Rock was created for the purpose of observing the stars, moon, sun and planets.... and it is amazing to learn about all of the incredible architecture.

Among the ruins seeds of the hallucinogenic Datura plant as well as pottery shaped like Datura seeds were recovered, which indicates that the ancient tribes may have turned to shamans for spiritual guidance. Pueblo priests were usually thought to have an inherited power rather than require halucinogens to create entry into a higher plane. They were also said to have a connection with the spirits realm. Spirit beings called Kachinas (or Katsinas) are important within all modern Pueblo villages. Kachinas are ancestor spirits who bring rain.

The high mesa at Chimney Rock contains evidence of ancient astronomy practices by its inhabitants. There are multiple structures that were obviously designed and erected with astrological viewing purposes in mind. The orientation of the mesa is in alignment with the sunrise on summer solstice. Researchers found that at certain points throughout time the sun appears in a precise gap for viewing from the Sun Tower of the high mesa. The solstice sun also rises exactly along the north wall of the Great House. Chimney Rock Great House was designed to celebrate both the sun and moon.

The majestic natural stone pillars of Chimney Rock are a viewing point for rituals in relation to the major standstill of the Moon. The major standstill of the moon ocurrs every 18.6 years. Seen from the Chacoan Great House Pueblo, Chimney Rocks pillars frame a narrow window of the sky. When the sun sets on the days nearest to the wnter solstice during a major standstill the full moon rises exactly between the pillars and is centered in the 'window'. There was a lunar standstill moonrise in 1988 and another in December of 2004.

Although they did not have the written word, Chacoans left clues to this amazing experience in the architecture of their Great House Pueblo. The longer walls are not parallel and the northerly east-west walls line up with a small basin carved in solid bedrock 2000 feet southwest of and below the Great House. When one stands at the stone basin and looks at the northerly wall of the Great House at the time of summer solstice, one will see the Sun rises centered on this wall. If one Views the southerly point on the Great House from this same stone basin, one will see the Great House wall lines up to a spot in the sky where the Crab Nebula Supernova appeared for over 3 weeks around July 4 in the year AD 1054.

What a special gathering place this was this Great House! It is the one place, the only place which the rising moon can be seen at the peak of the 18.61 year cycle, the lunar stand still, was in alignment with the Crab Nebula Supernova, and marks the rising sun of the summer solstice. Incredible. There are also several other incredible architectural markings of celestial events in the area!

Change of Plans... the first bump on the road and no flat tire yet

We had a chimney fire a few weeks ago. I am so very grateful that the events unfolded as they did, for all went well. No cats, dogs or humans lost their lives or were injured. No structural damage to the home. Just a bit of smoke inhilation and memories of my sexy fiance' running around naked with a fire extinguisher..... (I pulled him out of the shower by screaming "We have a chimney fire!!!") What does this chimney fire have to do with the wedding planning? During the insurance inspection post fire - we discovered that our roof is in need of major repair and possibly replacement. We won't know until the spring when we can get a contractor up there to evaluate. My Father and Quinn climbed up on the roof and did some 'damage control' temporary fixins..... BUT - permanent roof repair takes priority over destination wedding, unfortunately.

I am a bit sad about having to change the venue from Sedona, Arizona to Colorado. I do adore Colorado, but Sedona is so magical! I was really looking forward to traveling there again. Above all I believe in being 'open' and following the river, bending like a reed, going with the flow. I've opened my heart to the idea of hosting our special day here in Colorado and I am now completely warmed by it!

After a brief period of contemplating a variety of locations I settled on Pagosa Springs. There are so very many beautiful places in Colorado, but I wanted to find a special spiritual center. How lucky! Chimney Rock in Pagosa Springs is a grid point and spiritual center! We visited Pagosa earlier this year after Zac and Alan's wedding. It was a very beautiful town and it FELT nice. I'm looking forward to having our ceremony there.

We were lucky enough to find a house for rent right at the base of Chimney Rock as well!

More information on grid points, spiritual centers and Chimney Rock to come! For now.... a peek at the house.