Of Grain and Grain | Tactile Explorations of Flour and Wood

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New Moon, New Spoon

Pleiades Slotted Wooden Spoon

I’m pretty focused on fresh starts right now and with a new moon upon us and spring around the corner, I’m starting to shift gears. Unfortunately, change doesn’t always arrive lockstep. It feels as though I’ve swapped one holding pattern for another, and waiting and time remain the constant backstory. After four years of sitting idle caregiving for my parents, they have both now passed and yet I remain. Even the dog is no longer company and so the question of home feels foreign as I remain in their house but lack everything else.

There’s an emptiness here that I hope holds space for a new beginning. However, cold starts are a struggle and the days are slowly slipping into months. It’s hard to grasp the slowness though. Whereas before the nothingness dragged, I am now consumed by the clock ticking and yet, I have nowhere to be. No job, no curfew, no obligations to be accountable to… Just me and again, this strange relationship with time.

The Pleiades Slotted Wooden Spoon is available in the shop. Click here.

If you read my father’s obituary then you know Space was a big deal for this household. Like, as in “lunar landing/ satellite telemetry ” big deal. Growing-up with a human calculator was no easy task for a girl afraid of math. But somewhere along the way I gathered the significance of measurement relative to his passion for Space. I remember him giving me a gyroscope once as a gift and forever trying to get it to spin upon a string. Only now, as an adult, am I making sense of it. In watching this gyroscope video and seeing one in action do I realize how planetary this gift was and his own interest in celestial movement.

Time often accounts for change and those changes parlay seasons. And now, amid all the change that lays so heavy in my air, I am reminded that the seasons of life can account for nothingness and without much attention, life just passes by. So, if you have ever come to this page and wondered about the Full Moon Baking Club or my obsession with time it’s probably worth noting that the space-time continuum is some complicated mathematical model that I’ll never truly understand but thanks to the gyroscope, I can trust that this time will pass. Nature is cyclical… Seasons are cyclical… And if there is ever a clock worth trusting, it’s not the one that tells the time; it’s one that tells where we are in the cycle.

It’s understandable that the seasons of life can be difficult and if you are anything like me, you might find yourself far from one that brings a good harvest. The growing ain’t good right now cause I have nothing much to sow. I’m just now sorting seeds. It’s not realistic to assume life will magically fall into place. But time itself is a kind of magic and so a little intentional seed planting now will surely grow into something later. What better time keeper than the moon? (I think my dad would agree.) And what better way to track change than pursue a craft? Time lends itself to the artisan maker and good craftsmanship can take a lifetime. For the moment all I have is seeds. Time will tell but until then… new moon, new spoon!