Rachael Caringella | Talk2TheTrees: sterling and rachael

This is going to be a fairly picture heavy post.. and I apologize if it makes this page load slowly, but I enjoy each and every one of these photos enough to keep them on the blog. One day I'm going to look over my history here, and be in love with each and every moment.

Yesterday I woke up in a funk. I was emotional, sad, depressed... the usual of what I've been feeling lately.. I'm still working past it, and treating it on a daily basis. Seeing what I need each day to combat this depression. Yesterday Sterling and I were having coffee and deciding our day. We had a few errands to run, but that was about it. I was prepared to go back to bed, and just be done.. I remembered that it was the full moon, and a super moon. So I didn't want to just give up on the day..

Sterling and I like to celebrate each full moon and New moon by making goals and holding mini little ceremonies. I had the idea to go up to our field, hike with the dogs, take some fun photos and end it with a short moon ceremony as the sun set.

Meko and Wicket are trained to know what the word "Adventure" means. Whenever I ask, do you guys wanna go on an adventure?! They both leap to the door. Once we got up to the field, I kept them off their leashes. They are familiar with the field enough to get by, and they know not to wander off too much.

Sterling and I had the idea to take photos of us. Something we try to do every couple of months, as his hair grows longer and will eventually dread, and my hair goes from short to long from purple to pink. It's fun to keep up with our ever changing styles.
After taking a few photos I got bored.. I felt silly and awkward. I said "How else can we take fun pictures?" We only had a tripod and a remote.. no photographer to tell us what to do.. so we decided to take some fun photos..
Pretty soon we were both laughing beyond control, due to missed timing we got some pretty happy photos. I couldn't be more delighted.

(Now lift me!)

(Wicket wanted in on the photos)

We took photos just as the sun was setting, during the golden hour under the full moon. As the sun's light began to fleet we decided to do a quick ceremony. The dogs usually sit in on our moon ceremonies, but this is the first time Meko was so involved he drank the Water Element. We kept a careful eye on our two candles, and burned some intentions for the month. I have a lot of heaviness I'm trying to shed, a lot of acceptance of myself I'm working on. Remembered to treat myself one day at a time, and move forward one step at a time.

After our ceremony was finished we extinguished our candles and packed up. I chose to leave the pups off the leashes until we got to the car. The pups did amazing on their own and stayed within 15 feet. Trusting that we wouldn't leave them, and we trusted they wouldn't leave us. (I also kept a watchful eye out for predators... I'm terrified of a bird scooping up Wicket!!) But I trusted my intuition, and my pups. We all made it back to the car safely and feeling a lot lighter having danced away the heaviness.

(On the walk down I felt something sharp poking my foot, turns out I had a crystal stuck in my boot!)

We didn't hike up with the intent to get these kinds of pictures, but I'm glad we were open to taking silly pictures and laughing at ourselves, because I think the pictures turned out fantastic.

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We've been making a goal to get out more. It kind of all started with thinking the dogs were bored from not going on adventures and staying home all day.. then I realized I was bored from not going on adventures and staying home all day! Getting out into nature was something I used to do regularly! I would go out, find beautiful places, take fun photos of the adventures and my soul would soak up the tree's whispers. But, winter happened, and lots of work projects piled up, and before I knew it, I was too busy! What nonsense. So, we've been going out multiple times a week, and it's been wonderful. Just yesterday I fell in a river!
Here are some photos from the field we went to this last week. Meko has never been to the field before. He loved it. So much freedom for the Meko. We kept him on a pretty tight leash most of the time, since he is still in training... and starts just running and running and barking with excitement.

We spent about an hour in the field letting the sunlight kiss our noses and the wind play with out hair. All of the stress from the weeks melted away and we felt free. The dogs were allowed to be wild, and so were we.