The Writing Cottage

This morning I sat on a pile of pillows and wrote my first journal entry from inside the NEWLY RENOVATED SHED. (Which a friend kindly suggested I begin calling "The Writing Cottage.") While that certainly sounds more dignified, I'm not sure Eric and I will ever be able to call it anything other than "The Shed." I owe a huge thank you to my husband - speaking of Eric - who not only agreed to the renovation, but also painted the walls for me, the floor for me (2 laborious coats) and then assembled my desk for me, after it took me nearly two hours to just assemble the drawers. Incidentally, we have decided to launch a lawsuit against the people who okayed the phrase "Some assembly required."
Ladies, if there exists a better definition for the term "knight in shining armor," I don't know what it might be.

When I was a little girl, my room was a cluttered mess of stuffed animals, toys, books, rumpled clothing and paper that stretched from wall-to-wall. I can still remember the dark gray afternoon, humid with thunderstorms in the lazy stretch of summer, when I decided I was going to clean out my closet and make it my very own special hiding place. It was probably only 2' by 3', but after a long days work I had managed to dump everything out of it and clear out a place big enough for a stool and a lamp. Inside the closet, with the door closed, I sat cozy and dry in the cheery light of the lamp reading A Wrinkle in Time. When I was fourteen and began to get interested in things like writing and Runes and meditation, I can remember closing my eyes and wishing, from a quiet place inside myself, that someday I would have a room of my own, just like Virginia Woolf had written of,  a room to dedicate solely to the pursuits that mattered most; a room that could be kept pure from the pain, clatter and clutter of every day life, a room just for me, with a lock and a key and cushions on the floor.

I turned the knob and swung the door of my room open this morning. I lit a stick of incense and sat on the cushions, looking out the window at the thick trunk of the Longleaf Pine, the tender shoots of Canna lily rising from their bed of pine straw and heard the clear call of a cardinal. I felt an unusually cool May morning breeze blow in through the screens, rustling the leaves of the wax myrtle. I could feel images from my new book beginning to usher themselves in, I could feel the possibility of it all. And I cried a little (hence no video tour, as my friend Alex Bledsoe had suggested. I was far too emotional!). Because all I could think of was that wishes really do come true.

They do, they do, I promise you.

We may not know exactly how we will get there, but the magic is in trusting that someday, it will come to pass. Our only jobs are to be good and kind, trust, and then let the rest go. Someday, when our wish has almost been forgotten, you may move to a house in a suburban neighborhood in a new land, and you see it has a dilapidated old garden shed...

I'm so excited to share some pictures with all of you. Not just because you have read my story and become a friend, (or are already a friend or family member) but because I want to share with you this feeling of possibility.

Believe.
I'll be wishing that all of your deepest wishes come true.

Before

After

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My father's old nightstand

The Longleaf Pine from my writing desk

Cardboard moose head from Steamboat, CO

A crow on my writing chair pillow to signify my connection to black feathers

The brass chandelier was a gift from friends that I then painted

Lynne Wallace-Lee, I found the perfect place for the gift you brought me in December

Messages from Beyond: The Power of Timing

Standing at the edge of Mt. Brandon's waters

"The higher we got, the thicker the mist became, soaking our hair, our faces...it made me feel fresh, somehow clean, rugged...We reached the eastern ridge, where the lakes began, a silver chain up the spine of the mountain, silent and still. The only other sound was the haunting call of  a single bird, trilling from nowhere and everywhere at once. The breath off the water was ancient.
At the top of the mountain the wind whipped.... it was then that I realized the entire time I'd been hiking, I'd been seeing them in my mind. Lines and lines of people, trekking up the hill, their feet coming before mine on the ancient stones. I could see their faces. They looked like Celts. Up and up, but only in certain times of the year. Something whispered, This was a special place, a place of pilgrimage, just as it is now, in Christian times. But was it really? Or had I let my imagination get carried away?"- Faery Tale, "Climbing the Lost Druid Mountain" (US paperback edition, p. 240 -241)

Timing.

My good friend and teacher Shaman Jon once said to me that when it comes to the world of spirit, everything is unveiled in perfect time - not always when you expect it, but for reasons often unknown to us, always exactly when you need it. As a native Hawaiian and Cheyenne Indian, Jon believes that spirit cannot be demanded of, and I believe he is right. This was a lesson I had to learn (and many readers graciously came to terms with) by the end of Faery Tale. All I could do was interpret my journey with the tools and information I had on hand. Mount Brandon in Ireland has been a place that particularly vexed me.

I remember writing to my friend, Peter Guy:
I have a crazy hunch that mountain was an ancient place of pagan worship...

I did extensive research, but in the end, all I could discover was a glimmer of a connection, flimsy at best: the largest lake on the mountain was known as Loch Cruite - "Harp Lake." I made the leap (since the lake was in no way geographically shaped like the musical instrument) that Harp Lake may have been a place name connection to the ancient Bards of Ireland - a class of Druids who specialized in recitation of the epic poems and histories of the Celtic people.

WELL. This past week I had a truly inspiring experience that urged my fingers back to the keyboard in my eagerness to share it with all of you who are familiar with my book. It's a beautiful example of the ways in which a hidden world reveals itself to us, always in perfect timing. Theirs, not ours, of course. Three years after the publication of the book, that another piece of the puzzle slipped into place - and it was with a conscious-shattering jolt, not a click.

I've been reading broadly to research the historical novel I'm working on. Currently on my desk is Nikolai Tolstoy's non-fiction title The Quest for Merlin, (Hodder & Stoughton, 1985) which actually contains a great deal of information on the ancient Celts in general, and specifically in the time period I'm researching. He was discussing the fact that high points were often visited by entire communities for the festival of Lughnasa, (Aug. 1st) that venerated one of the most central gods in the Celtic pantheon, the sun-god Lugh. (Lleu in Welsh.)

It was then that I saw this:

"..Most dramatic of all sites associated with the celebration of Lughnasa in Ireland is Mount Brandon, on the Dingle Peninsula in Co. Kerry. 3,127 feet high, it is the second highest mountain in Ireland...Pilgrims at the season of Lughnasa ascended at dawn an old road leading to the peak. There they prayed, passed nine times around the pillar stone, and drank from the sacred well nearby." (p. 181-182)

Those of you who have had intuitive flashes (which all of us are capable of) that are later verified by actual information can understand the feeling that shot through me. If I hadn't been sitting on an airplane I likely would have screamed in delight. It had to suffice to tap a sleeping Eric on the head and say, "Honey. You will not believe what I just read."

Tolstoy's source was an Oxford paper titled "The Festival of Lughnasa: A Study of the Survival of the Celtic Festival of the Beginning of Harvest" (1962).

What I'd seen in my minds eye so vividly on that mountain climb wasn't just some flight of fancy. I'd believed that in my heart, and now, four years after having visited the site, here was my "proof." The feeling was nothing short of elating.

But why now? Why couldn't I have discovered this source amidst the hundreds of other books I'd scoured in researching my book at the time? Why hadn't this information come to light in time for me to include it in my publication of the memoir? It was maddening to consider. But in light of what I've been experiencing personally in working on the new book, it completely made sense.

I'm in the midst of planning and preparing for a six-week research trip abroad for the novel. While I experienced incredibly mystical (and mystifying!) things in the writing of Faery Tale, time passes, and then, and then.... everyday life sinks in, the mundane, the grit and work of it, and the sheer passage of that time - suddenly those experiences can feel woefully far away. We can find ourselves thinking, Well, that was then. Or, Things like that don't happen here, or Things like that don't happen to me anymore. This reminded me that all that worry is nonsense.

The unseen world is always there, regardless of whether we pay attention to it or not. It doesn't hold grudges, and it doesn't keep score. We are always magical, inherently so, and though we may at times feel distant, that never fades. It doesn't pass away, it doesn't fray, and neither does our link to that essential translator that exists within all of us, that umbilical cord that links that world to our own reality: Our intuition. I needed to be reminded of the power of my own intuition once more before I set out on this new journey. The places I will go this summer, the people I will meet, the impressions I will get from sitting in the wilds, all of these will be integral parts in telling the story that only I can tell, just as many of you have stories to tell that are unique to you. I was having a crisis of faith in myself, and this one paragraph served to restore my belief in myself just at the time I needed it most. Trust your intuition, this lesson reminded me. Trust, trust, trust.

So timing.

We may not always understand it, but it has shown itself, at least in my life, to be perfect in its delivery.
Once again.

I hope my sharing this story will help you believe that something you need, a piece of your missing puzzle, will come to you in perfect timing.

Most of all, I want to thank you all for joining me - on Facebook, Twitter, and here on my blog. Thank you especially for sticking with me and being so patient in waiting for this new book as it develops. I appreciate your patience and support more than words can say.

And I hope you'll trust in me that when it comes to this novel, all will be done in perfect timing.
That's my promise to you.

With love,
Signe

The mists cleared on our descent

Brandon waits for pilgrims of every religion and belief system 

The Idea is to Write for 15 minutes and Not to Stop.

I've done it, now you do it. It is torture, it is fascinating, and there is something in it, deep down, like freedom, like joy. 

Here's mine: 

The idea is to write for 15 minutes and not to stop. No matter if I can’t think of what to say, to hear the thoughts and let them flow; I have silenced my flow, I am beginning to understand, and I edit it down before it can come out. Even now I am doing it; delete delete rewrite better. My hands, the tendons in my hands, begin to burn already, carpel tunnel at 32, and I think, I cannot think if I cannot write. This is how I do it, typing. Long hand is all wrong, too slow. I love that satisfying click click click. I remember being a little girl, in my mother’s study that overlooked the deck. I would sit in her chair and hit the keys on the type writer, clickety-click-click-click, I am a writer, a newspaper woman, a very important journalist. Mary Alice Monroe said that our children tell us, between the ages of 3 and 5, who they are going to be. It’s just that we only realize it in retrospect. I was telling myself that more than anything, I wanted to be a writer.

Now I sit, nearly 30 years later, at my keyboard going clickety-click-click, feeling the beast of the novel that is not getting written lurking in the closet. He will shred my heart. He has long claws that rip and tear and oddly enough, I see him often times, sitting for lunch with my inner critic. I’ll begin the work and you finish her off, she’ll say to him, their heads leaning close because she’s not afraid of his terrible gnashy monster teeth and rotten breath. She’s had tuna for lunch anyways, so who is she to judge?

I begin to think that maybe even though it’s crap, my crap isn’t as bad as other people’s crap: Ego. It makes a fleetingly brave appearance after monster, after inner critic. It shows its true colors quickly as nothing to be relied on by saying that perhaps it is wrong: Fear has arrived. Perhaps this is all a huge plastic waste pile floating in the ocean of Never. What I tried to do but couldn’t. That time I tried to write a novel but could never finish it. Just like my old man.

Why is non-fiction different? It is easy to say the things you think are true when you’re telling people about things you experienced yourself.

But novels are one step removed. And now you’re not being honest, are you, really? You weren’t there, fiction writer. You are only pretending. And what right have you to pretend? Stop the flow. Stop the flow. Go go go. I spend long moments envying imaginations. Other people’s. Wishing I knew where mine was but when I look for it, there is blankness. Can I be okay with blank? That is what I am trying to understand. Blank makes me feel stupid. The nothing. The empty.

The Runes say, Blank the beginning, blank the end. I miss them.

Keep the fingers moving, clackety-clack clackety clack. Who are these faces who have a story to tell from out of the mist? I see their outlines but not their details. They stand there, and I can feel their gazes on me, heavy with meaning.

Then help me, dammit, why don’t you?

You want your story told? Come on in here and do it for me.

This is atrocious.

All these efforts at channeling and finding nothing but blankness.

I want to write about the sunlight through the blinds that finds my puppy Lucy sprawled on the bed, her brown eyes rimmed with short blond eyelashes, she looks at me and I wish I could get lost in the now with her and just breathe and forget and not think about the nothing anymore. Fifteen minutes gone and the chatter continues.

You see? How large this problem is for me? Do you see the size of the monster I have hidden in my closet? He breaches the walls, his back strains against the roof, he rifts house and home with his monstrosity! I have it worse than anyone. We are all the same.

In the trenches.

Nothing is easy. Accept it. Invite it. Sit with it until it becomes something, for however long it takes.

I have always wanted to be a writer. I told myself this between the ages of 3 and 5 although at the time I did not know it.

Even in all the blankness, there is something, some glimmer of light.

It flashes like fish scales in the water.

There is nothing else for me to do but stay. 

Sacred Sights Guide Peter Knight

I hope everyone is having a beautiful 2013! I'm sitting in my sunroom as I type this with Lucy and Willoughby lounging nearby, sunshine, blue skies and all the windows open. "Winter" in South Carolina is my favorite time of year.

Many of you who read Faery Tale write sharing your wishes to take your own adventure. To that I say, please do it, do it, do it! No matter where you go, if you set out with clear intentions and an open heart, adventure and transformation are guaranteed to find you. Some of you have also written wondering if I'll be leading any more retreats - I loved planning the retreat we ran in 2011, but I'm taking some time to focus on my writing and as much as I would love any excuse to travel Europe with inspiring people, I've got to buckle down and get my new manuscript done!

Return to Faery Retreat, June 2011

To that end, I promised some of you that came to the Faery Lunch in Ithaca this Christmas that I would post information on Peter Knight. If you're drawn to any of the sites in England, Peter is available for tours. (You'll find his rates are quite reasonable.) Those of you who came on the magical "Return to Faery" retreat with myself and Raven can attest to the contribution Peter and his vast knowledge on things both ancient and mystical added to our trip. He took us on a tour of Glastonbury that included Glastonbury Tor, Wearyall Hill, Glastonbury Abbey and the Chalice Well, and we also traveled with him to Stone Henge and Avebury, stopping off to see the Uffington White Horse. 

(This video of Peter discussing scones and the mysteries of Silbury Hill brings me right back to that fabulous trip.) 

The Uffington White Horse

The Merlin Stone, Avebury

I hope if you plan a trip to England, you'll consider contacting Peter. He surely knows a heck of a lot more ancient sites than I could hope to learn in a lifetime - You'll be in the best of hands. 

To contact Peter, visit his website:  www.stoneseeker.net
You can also join him on Facebook: www.facebook.com/stoneseeker 

(To read more about Silbury Hill, click here to check out this article from The Guardian) 

(To see more pictures from our Return to Faery Retreat, click here) I haven't yet had a chance to caption them all, but will be working on that! 

West Kennet Long Barrow

Peter Knight of Stone Seeker Tours

A Winter Solstice Walk

December 21, 2012
Ithaca, New York

Ithaca in winter

I woke up this morning in my sister's old room to the sight of a gray wintery sky and the dark graceful bend of bare branches. Home. It's a feeling more than a word, isn't it?

The way that the call of a crow can make you feel rooted to the earth, like you belong, or the way you can look out a window you used to gaze out years ago and feel at once so very much changed and so very much the same. It's an intimate relationship between person and place, and sense of belonging that nobody can take away from you.

Being here this time of year, tears are always close to the surface. The last time I saw my father was December 27, seven years ago, and yet even now, when I come home, he is everywhere. It's as though in passing away he expanded into this place that he loved so much, in the quiet paths that run the endless acres of forest, in the cold shimmering reflection of our winter streams. The creek beds, the dark stacked towering cliffs of shale, the gnarled tree roots and in the rich scent of decaying leaves. It is here that I feel closer to him than ever, as if I could turn on the trail and he'd be right there beside me, breathing it all in.

Frozen falls in Six Mile Creek

On this day, thousands of years ago, people gathered to usher in the light half of the year. Bonfires were built, and we circled round them and celebrated the dark days of winter coming to an end - from here, the days grow longer, and with them will arrive the promise of new life, of spring.

A few weeks ago I had a dream about my father. We were walking in the winter woods, the rim trail at Treman Gorge. I had on a winter hat and he was wearing his battered old anorak, just like he always did. Suddenly, I looked down to see a big brown feather sticking straight up out of the trail. I bent to pick it up. And at the same time, in this dream, I remembered that I couldn't be walking with my father, not really, because he was no longer living.

"Look, Dad. It's a feather from you!" I said to him, smiling.

He reached over and playfully flipped the edge of my winter hat away from my eyes, to make sure he had my attention. His brown eyes, when they met mine, were welled with tears, and he was smiling at me as though I had made him quite proud in noticing:
Feathers come from my father.
Thank you, he mouthed. Embarrassed by his tears, he gave me a wink.
I woke.

There will be no bonfire for me this year. Instead, I will go to the woods to be close to him. My mother and I will walk the same trail that we've all walked hundreds of times before, arm in arm, wrapped against the cold, our faces feeling clean in it, looking up at the evergreen trees, the gray winter sky, and the delicate naked branches that feel like home. On Sunday we will welcome the new life, little Haven Mae, the grand-daughter he never knew, now sixth months old, on her first visit from Seattle to the lands her family have so loved through the years. She will see the thick wooded hills, hear the gurgling of the water as it runs over smooth rock, and begin to understand something of home.

Ithaca Falls in high water

Happy Holidays to all. I hope this year will burn brightly for you, in all aspects of your life, and that wherever you travel, you always remember home.

Ancient Burial Mounds of Sweden: My Visit to the Mounds of Solleron

On more than one level, I'm still processing the trip I took to my ancestral homeland of Sweden this past summer. It was beautiful, mysterious, intriguing, expansive. This is, perhaps, why I have been slow to write of it. Quick to post photos, (click here to view the album), slow to write of it. My father's entire family hails from Russia, but my mother's father's family came over from Sweden, and her mother's family came over from Finland, thus making me 50% Scandinavian. People often ask me about my name - Signe is in fact, a Scandinavian name.

So when the opportunity came up to visit our good friends Brad and Cecilia in Stockholm, we jumped at it. Top on my list was to sleep or hike near some ancient burial mounds, and lucky for me, Eric is as interested in ancient places as I am, so we planned a 3 day side trip up to the area of Dalarna, and more specifically, to a tiny island called Solleron. The true writing of the experience isn't done justice in the time I can allot to a blog entry, but I do hope to tell the whole tale in a proper way someday.

Road trip!

Swedish countryside

I'd come across Solleron on our Lonely Planet guidebook. Two different sites on the island together accounted for somewhere between 100 and 150 different viking graves - the graves themselves date from 800 -1050 AD. Historians believe that the place name (Solleron) indicates that the place was perhaps dedicated to sun worship of some kind. For over 250 years, Solleron was an incredibly holy, sacred place where the dead were laid to rest.  Farmers living in the area had discovered the graves quite accidentally when clearing land for farming, and had come together to preserve them - many of the goods discovered, swords, jewelry, ended up in Swedish museums. But there are still several mounds that have not yet been excavated. And there was a 3 km trail that wound through the sites we could hardly wait to visit.

The trip from Stockholm to Solleron on lake Siljan, was only about four hours or so, and the scenery was all fields and grey skies and brick red painted farm houses, green, green trees and pools of water where river met land. At long last, the road narrowed and we found ourselves pulling up to the open air museum where the walk began. Pamphlets in 3 languages were stocked nearby, and we grabbed one, changed into our hiking shoes to combat the muddy fields, and took off on our journey. The humps in the land instantly reminded me of was the strange raises I'd noticed near Stone Henge in England - many of which, according to tour guide Peter Knight, were grave sites themselves.

The museum wasn't open, but we explored the 18th & 19th century farmstead buildings, complete with a replica of a Viking Long Boat that had been discovered nearby in an archeological dig.

Exploring the open air museum

As we started our walk, I spotted the 1st grave site right away. "Eric, look! That's a mound!"

"I don't think so," he said. What a Doubting Thomas. We looked at our map, and sure enough, I was right. (I love you, Eric, but..IN your FACE!) I have a sixth sense when it comes to details of ancient places, and I have yet to be wrong. To his credit, if you haven't seen burial mounds before, it looks like a clump of trees on a pile of earth and rocks. This is because it is very, very old. And you have to remember that the actual hight of the mound would have been much taller - much soil has deposited on top of it in the passing centuries.

The first mound. Rock cairns nearly make it
 look like little more than field rubble to an untrained eye. 

 I was a kid on Christmas morning spotting the next site, this one with an undeniably atmospheric evergreen sprouting from it. I couldn't brush aside the feeling that the tree was somehow another manifestation of the person who had been buried there, names and identities long lost in the annals of history. Somewhere along the way, my blood line had mingled with theirs, and here I was, a walking manifestation in my own way, too, of who they had been and who had come before. We moved from site to site, the mystery of it all so overwhelmingly intoxicating. Who had been buried there? Who had laid them to rest? How had they lived their life? How had they died? What goods had they been buried with to accompany them into the next world? What deeds had they done? Had their death been mourned or secretly celebrated? Most of all, what had they looked like, what things did they hate about life and who had they loved?

A much clearer mound.
Note the gorgeous tree that's grown on it.

Another mound, with the edge of a second
in the left foreground. 

The forests of birch on Solleron

 We walked for a few hours. I soaked it all in. I saw stands of birch trees that reminded me of my childhood in Enfield, New York. There was a subtle feeling of home, though my feet had never before touched these foreign shores. But there would be no answers to my questions.

A fern covered mound in the backyard of a home on Solleron.
The man who owned the house (now deceased) was one of the
biggest advocates of protecting the area. 

Three more graves (and many more) lie un-excavated. 

I didn't want our time on Solleron to end. As it always does, civilization called, with its necessities of food, and a dry place to camp away from the clouds of mosquitoes that were starting to track us like the blood thirsty savages they are. But we saved the best for last.
At the end of the trail, an ancient pagan holy well. Votive offerings of gold, silver, and other prized possessions had been found there. I stared into its waters longing to feel that ancient ancestral magic and realized for the first time that there was nothing more to feel on Solleron except for a feeling of peace, peace, peace. Subtle, quiet, cloaked in peace.

The ancient well on Solleron 

There would be no answers to my questions on that day, but I hoped that answers will unveil themselves on another. I've come to think that perhaps it's the being in places that matters most. If we're lucky, a connection is forged between us and the spirit of a place. From that moment on, exploration can continue from just about anywhere. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of being a lover of antiquity is to let the past rest peacefully, even when you are longing more than anything, to unearth it. This year on Samhain, I did a small ceremony to honor my ancestors. (Courtesy of Raven Keyes. I posted it on my Facebook page.) As I called in the four directions, when I came to the North, I felt the undeniable presence of my Scandinavian ancestors, going back to the beginning of their time. I asked for their help and guidance in days to come, as I moved forward with life and my work and career. I asked to come to know them, in whatever ways I could. I left an apple out, cut into slices, and some honey, in remembrance of those who had come before. And all that I felt was peace, peace, peace.

Looking into the ancient well. 

I'm Not Oprah But I Also Have Favorite Things

Every year, my big fat holiday issue of O Magazine arrives and I'm always curious to see what Oprah's picks will be for the year. I love me some Oprah Winfrey, please don't get me wrong. But listen. The woman is, what, the richest woman in the world? Let's allow her the fact that she has fallen unavoidably out of touch with reality. I'm certain I will never have to worry about having enough money to lose touch with reality, but in this year's Oprah's Favorite Things issue I saw an item she listed and officially found my gauge. If I ever start thinking, "Who doesn't need a pink scooter for schlepping around the winding roads of St. Tropez?" That's when I'll know I must be officially part of the 1%.

I hope you'll find some ideas on this list of something to get for your loved ones, and that I've provided a good balance of items in relation to cost. Some are things I buy just for me, and others are yearly go-to's for friends and family.

When compiling the list I realized that all the things I love have a connection to a part of my life, and thus, have their own wee stories. So feel free to skip right to the list if you don't want to read all my background blathering below.

I am a bit of a closet product junkie. As a little girl, I saved my allowance to buy candy (you will remember my candy obsession from the book, I bet!) and, of all things, makeup. So while I may only be 32 years old, please know that my recommendations are pretty legitimate: I have been learning about and experimenting with makeup since I was nine, so technically I have 23 years of experience with it. (I no longer apply lipstick to my forehead.) Living in New York City and working in publishing, you learn some good secrets to scrape by financially. If I ever had to go to an afterwork function, or when I was single, on a date after work, I would swoop into SEPHORA, spritz on perfume and redo my makeup there, all for f-r-e-e. I rationalized that since I bought all my cosmetics there anyway, they were still the true winners of the arrangement. Besides, they love when people come in to play. I now order from them online, since we don't have a store in Charleston. They offer free shipping on orders over $50, free returns, even if a product is used, (say, you break out from it, etc.) and with every order you get to pick from a selection of 3 samples.

It wasn't long after I moved to the city that I had to get a second job just to be able to afford rent and scrape by on credit card bills and groceries. I landed a part time position working at Sabon, an up-market Israeli bath product store that had just opened a block from my apartment. I'd always loved soaps and shower products. Sabon has now become a favorite gift of family and friends alike. (My mother is obsessed with their Grass scented glycerine soap, and we get it for her every year.) Sabon uses salt from the Dead Sea in many of their products, which is known for its healing properties. I got hooked on a few of their products while there, and wanted to share with you.

Prior to moving to New York, I had worked on the island of Nantucket for John Harding of Nantucket Natural Oils, a perfume maker for the stars with a "Nose," capital N. He is a true perfume master, and also was the person who first got me excited about aromatherapy and using essential oils in holistic medicine. While there, I developed my own scent as a gift for my sister. It's a delicate, green, floral and fresh scent. Because we share a love for the mountains, I crafted it to smell like you're standing in a field of wild flowers after a rain storm. I named it "KAIPEI" and KP we both still wear it. He still has my 'recipe' on file and if you like, you can order it too.** Note: You'll probably have to mention my name. The recipe is on my personal card file with him. He keeps track of what customers order on a file because when you buy 4 (whether it be over 1 year or 6 years time) you get 1 free. This way, if you create your own scent, as I did, he also has it on file so he can make it for you again when you run out.

John's perfumes are all in oil form, they don't contain alcohol. A $45 size, the smallest you can buy, will truly last you 1-2 years, and unlike department store perfumes, because there's no alcohol, the scent doesn't evaporate off your body in half an hour either (all the while nearly knocking people unconscious as you pass). It's a softer smell, and it lasts on your skin up to 8 hours. John also offers pretty much any designer scent you can imagine without the alcohol. Right now he's having a "buy 2 get 1 free" special. It's an amazing shop.

My love for single malt whiskey was developed in Scotland, and if you're just getting started, you can never go wrong with Macallan 12 or Glenlivet 12. Subtle notes of caramel in both=delicious. If you want to try something smokey, try Laphroaig. It's like drinking a campfire. (I personally don't enjoy it much. I like the smoother, less peaty single malts)

Lastly, my favorite gifts to give or receive can often be found or made things. My father was known for this. For one of my birthdays, my father gifted me a fossilized trilobite that he found on a gorge walk in Ithaca. In a letter when I was living in Cape Cod for a summer, he sent me a small stick that was naturally formed in the shape of a duck head. Another year he gave me a small piece of granite he'd found in the perfect shape of a heart. These things I treasure.

I'm Not Oprah But I Also Have Favorite Things Guide 

1. Sabon Bath & Body Products:  Sabon Shower Oil ($18) is a creamy shower gel that leaves you smelling like a slice of heaven. Sabon's Body Gel Polisher ($17) makes a great gift for sloughing away dry winter skin. It's a shower gel with beads of Dead Sea Salt so it cleans while it softens. I love both in Patchouli Lavender Vanilla. Not a fan of Patchouli? This scent has made a convert out of more than a few former Patchouli haters, including myself! But they do have bountiful other gorgeous scents. Mom's favorite product is the Glycerine Grass Soap and KP loves the Carrot Body Lotion.

2. Nantucket Natural Oil Perfumes: John Harding offers pretty much any designer scent you can think of, only without the yucky chemicals and alcohol. The scent I crafted is called "KAIPEI" (you'll have to request it and tell him the recipe is on my card, but he can make it) and I also love the Ralph Lauren Romance they offer. The quarter ounce size will truly last you about a year, and it's $45. I buy the .50 oz. size, and it lasts me 2 years. Great for people with allergies who can't wear regular perfumes. The carrier oil is Almond Oil.

3. Maps: Maps as art make an amazing gift. They are also in general one of my favorite things. I framed a 1960's topographic map of Ithaca that I found in my father's desk and it now hangs above our bed. They not only look great, they remind us of all the special places we've been, or places we'd like to go. Etsy.com and local bookstores are great places to look.

4. Single Malt Scotch: A great gift any time of the year. A good single malt will cost between $40 and $50 or more, but you can often find smaller bottles of certain brands and gift them together, too. In fact, why has no one in my family yet thought to make me a "Single Malt Medley"?!

5. Found Things: The price? Free. The value? Priceless. The trilobite my father gifted me was wrapped in this tiny box he'd once received a gift in from one of his students at Cornell. Beautiful shells, stones, or even pressed leaves can make truly special presents. Just remember to "ask permission" before you take something from its place in nature.

6. Made Things: I make mobiles out of painted sticks, fishing wire and shells I find with natural holes. It's a beautiful way to bring the outside indoors. My sister-law Cameron has one of my creations on her screened porch, we have three in our house, and I think I've promised one to my writer friend Mary Alice Monroe so I'd better get cracking! Note: These don't travel well. 

7. My Favorite Cosmetics:  Smashbox Camera Ready BB Cream ($39) is a sunscreen, tinted moisturizer, primer and anti-aging treatment in one. It can be layered to create the look of a dewey foundation, and it is spectacular. Oh, and did I mention it also controls oil? I don't go anywhere without it. One tube lasts me about 6 months. Too Faced Shadow Insurance (Candelight $18) is what I wear instead of eye-shadow most days. It has a light golden sheen that can be worn alone or under another shadow, helps your eye makeup stay put all day. For blush, I'm infatuated with NARS. The shade is... oh please forgive me, but it's called Orgasm ($28). It's been a cult favorite among makeup gurus for a few years now because the shade looks good on nearly every woman's skin tone. After trying several blushes, this one is the only one I'll use. I absolutely love it. For zit coverage, I swear by Body Shop's Tea Tree Concealer ($9). It treats the blemish while covering, and helps it heal up in no time flat.

8. Uggs: They're big, they're fluffy, they're warm, they're made well, and they last forever. These are made to be a big, clunky, sasquatch of a boot and I love them for it. They're great for winter airport travel because they're easy on/off, and look great with leggings, yoga pants, jeans and even some knee-length casual dresses. Eric convinced me to relinquish my very old smelly pair, and I just got these beauties from him for early Christmas. I would sleep in them if I could. This pair is the Ugg Bailey Bomber Boot (Tall, Chocolate Natural $240). They're admittedly pricey, but if they're your thing, they're worth every penny. Especially if you travel often to chilly places or live in cold climates.

You can find both scrap book paper for wrapping and little charms
at Michael's or Hobby Lobby

9. Handmade Soaps: I'm learning how to craft my own from scratch, but you don't need to be experienced or deal with any chemicals like lye to create these beauties. All you need is an organic soap base (which you melt down easily via stove or microwave), a soap mold, your favorite essential oils (I get mine at Whole Foods) and any natural colorant you might want. I process and mix in my own herbs from the garden (rosemary is a nice one to include, chopped) and Ta-da! Beautiful soaps. Easy. You can order it all on my favorite website BrambleBerry.com. Bramble Berry is based in Washington state, and they are an incredible company. They offer many different melt and pour bases, from organic goat milk to aloe. You can buy a book of scrap book paper to wrap them, and yarn or raffia makes lovely bows. I made these for a recent baby shower and they were a huge hit!

I hope this sparks some ideas for you this holiday season, and I'd love to hear about your favorite things too!

With Warmest Holiday Wishes,
Signe