Tonight is the full moon. Give your monthly preventatives!
Note: If you have another way to remember to give your preventatives, that’s okay too! Do what works for you. I thought it might be fun for us to all give it together.
February is Dental Health Month for Pets and People!
To celebrate we are taking you virtually inside the hospital and letting you see what happens during a dental cleaning procedure. We are sharing some videos of Millie (our ace technician Leah’s dog) getting her dental here at the hospital. The video’s start with Millie under anesthesia and ends with her awake after her dental cleaning. They give you a sense of what happens when your pet is admitted to the hospital for a dental cleaning. The link expires March 9, so look now if you are interested!
*Dr Janet Mack is BACK! She starts seeing appointments on March 17th, so if you’ve been waiting for her to return, call now to book an appointment!*
Avian Influenza A (H5N1) in Cats
This is the “bird flu” that you’ve been hearing about in the news. It has been detected in a flock of birds in Washington County. That’s us folks! Cats with access to dead birds or to raw poultry or to unpasteurized milk are at risk. This risk to humans is small but it’s not zero. This disease is fatal in cats. Here is a link to more information published by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA)
RAW DIET WARNING!
Unpasteurized milk or raw or undercooked meat – including retail pet diets that contain raw meat – have been linked to severe illness and death from H5N1 in pet cats and captive big cats.
Personally, what do I want to share this month? My husband has officially retired. As I am writing this, we have big plans to make and eat snacks and watch the superbowl. I love getting outside with my horse almost daily. I love the dry heat and cozying up to the wood stove. I am continuing my class on spiritual companioning. I now have two folks that I am companioning and I’m taking two classes each week in the evenings this month. My class meets two Saturdays each month. The evening classes are open to the general public, but are part of my requirements for graduation.They are on Spiritual Activism and on The Seasons as a Soul Map. I was falling asleep during class. My husband was yelling at me from across the room and joking that the teacher was going to throw an eraser at me to keep me awake.
Here are some ideas for enjoying the winter season, used with permission from my class:
Preparation for winter:
- Observe a day of silence.
- Clear/clean your altar – leave it empty for a time.
Winter:
- Light a single candle, every morning or every night, to remind yourself that light is returning.
- Intentional rest – Wrap yourself in a cozy blanket, put on soft music/sounds, and close your eyes.
- Conscious dreaming – journal, sculpt, draw, dance, sing your vision of an ideal future, for yourself, your loved ones, your community, all life.
- Keep a collection of seeds (or seeds buried in earth) on your altar that you can bless with your visions or as a reminder of the unseen good, hidden by snow and darkness. Plant the dirt in the garden come spring.
- Begin or renew a practice of meditation or contemplation.
- Dedicate the period from Christmas to New Year for reflection/contemplation/silence.
- Visualization – You are the seed. Allow yourself to be held by the earth or by the Creator. Imagine Spirit pouring comfort, nourishment, permission to rest, into you. Imagine Spirit pouring strength, potency, power, into you. Imagine Spirit pouring shimmering stardust, the building blocks of all you will become and create in the coming year. Imagine Spirit pouring guidance and vision, like liquid love, into you where it will mix and swirl, brewing the future to be slowly revealed and manifested in the coming weeks and months. Rest now, and let what’s inside you steep.
- Surround yourself with the scent of pine or smoldering wood or citrus.
- Bring evergreens into your home – wreaths, boughs, Christmas tree
- Plant bulbs or herb seeds in small pots and place on a window sill for light and warmth.
- Bake on low temperature sliced oranges, sprinkled with cinnamon. Hang dried oranges around the house or put them in an open jar.
- Keep a bowl of oranges on the table as a reminder of the coming sun. Eat oranges with conscious remembrance.
- Cook a big pot of soup and nourish yourself for days on it or share it with neighbors and loved ones. Bless each ingredient as it goes into the pot.
- Prioritize root vegetables in your diet – parsnips, carrots, potatoes, ginger, celery root (celeriac), turnips, rutabagas, fennel, radishes, beets, cassava, jicama, turmeric, garlic, onions, sweet potatoes…
- Prioritize cooked foods over fresh/raw foods.
- Create a community. Invite a small group of people to your home to share a meal and tell stories about your lives. Dream the future together.
- Write your hopes for the future on small pieces of paper, then attach the papers to a long piece of twine or rope, making a kind of prayer flag. Hang it in your home. Or fold origami cranes out of the papers.
- With children (and adults), bundle up and read stories by flashlight.
- Eat dinner by candlelight.
- Take a yuzu or orange bath.
- Sit by a fire and look into the fire. Keep some white lights up around the plants and keep them lit.
- Make time for quiet and silence after December – going into January is quieter time, time to just “be.” Be a human being instead of a human doing, more time to think – intentional rest. Creating luminaria.
- Make homemade soup – chicken with root vegetables (with a whole chicken) simmering for hours… also a hearty root vegetable; bonfires when we are allowed to, given dryness.
- Do ocean cold plunging, finding solace in the natural world in response to grief. (Just like our polar plunge!!!)
- Get up very early and walk towards the sunrise, marveling at the variations in the sky
- Each weekend make a big pot of soup to share; eat lots of cooked veggies; write and read more; sleep in when able; walk in the snow, and make snow angels
- Sleep more, go to bed earlier, hibernation, intentional rest
Here are the links if you want to join me in class (you’d have to listen to the class recording for the first class as it has already happened).
Happy Winter!
Happy full moon gazing!
Remember your monthly heartworm and/or flea and tick prevention!