Knowing Me, Knowing You

 
If you just wandered here, or wondered what the whole story is, here's a brief introduction to this log-keeper:
I'm Milla, a Finnish girl living on a small Island in the Salish Sea in Washington State, US of A. I share a small house, that's half 100 year old cabin, half old local bar (true story), with my bear-like husband, our cats Kissa and Kettu (Cat and Fox in Finnish), five hens (Emeralda, Rusalka, Smoky, Toasty and Dusty) and two ducks (Daffy and Dilly).
 

 


 

Our homestead is in a county park, if you can believe it. My husband is a park keeper and in the summer hundreds of temporary neighbors share our front yard seashore with us. We live half in the woods, half by one of the busiest roads on the Island and right on the seashore. We love it all the same.  In fact we got married (again) right here on our home shore.


 
We wildcraft, grow, bake, make our own.  In addition to our small flock of fowls, we also keep bees at another location and try to learn as much about self-sustained life as possible. It feels like we're just starting out on a life-long journey in radical simplicity/self-sufficiency/inter-dependence.
 
So far it's been the most exciting thing in my life, learning to milk cows, garden and care for bees and ducks and chickens. 

Both C. and I strongly believe in living close to the land, loving all of its people, human or animal, the mysticism of the natural world and other hippy-dippy things.  We believe in clean local food, community connection, personal as the political, home-based activism, striving to live our values.
 
We also believe in dancing, howling at the moon and that our cat can actually say "Mamma!".  Oh and not taking oneself too seriously. 

 
With each passing year we find new pursuits, dive deeper into old ones and hone our skills. My husband has just began, what will hopefully be a life-long commitment to Northwest Coast Native Carving and I am ever learning more about medicinal herbs and their many uses, teaching myself sewing and knitting and leather craft.
 
 Our family is wide and far-flung. I often miss terribly my own sweet, fierce mother who's across the world, as well as the friends who's daily lives I'm no longer part of.



 
We have made community here though,  we have friends and neighbors and friends and neighbors who are like family to us; nieces and cousins and nephews and aunts and uncles. 
 
 
C. has much of his lovely family near-by and I have my adopted family, which includes my blond little sister, my dearest friend and this summer, a bona fide member of our household. 
 
I have also been blessed with a wonderful online community. When I first started blogging, I never expected to meet so many kindred spirits and make so many dear friends through this hobby, but here I am four years into it, with a dear circle of Moon Sisters across the world.


 In some ways these connections are nothing short of magic, in others only natural.


Of all the adventures I look forward to in this life, spending more and more time with these girls is high on my list. 
 
We talk, exchange ideas, photos, inspirations, book recommendations, boxes of carefully selected gifts and sometimes we even get to meet in person.  

 It has been by far the most magical hobby I've ever had.
 
While, like many of my fellow bloggers, I believe that my log is a mix of a journal of the more exciting, memorable moments of my daily life, a zine of your personal musings, and a collage of your inspirations, I try my hardest to keep it real. It is important to me that my public representation, whether it be on blog or in my community, is true to my private values and beliefs. 
   
 In addition to posting about food, beat poets, activism, music, environmental topics, hippies, magic, local color, tons of pictures of my sister and cat, folklore, feminism, books, faith and female artists, I also post photos of what I wear, something I feel pretty unapologetic about. It is my firm belief as a feminist that I, and anyone else thus inclined, is allowed to express themselves through the medium of dress.

Personally I love style, but never resonated with fashion, and felt absolutely saved by the appearance of alternative style blogs.
   
When I'm not keeping bees, traveling to hippie encampments, or walking the woods and rowing the seas with my husband, I work in a juice bar, and since spring 2012 run a skill-share/free school and am a partner in a vintage and handmade shop.
  
 
 

It has been my life dream to some day write something, a novel, a story, a poem worth pursuing. Lately I've been taking this more as a long-term goal, something I hope to complete not in the next year or the next, but in my lifetime. I write a fair bit and read ravenously. I got my degree in film and after burning out on the idea of working in a field that is as competitive, ego-centric and intense as movie making, I have come to terms with the idea of simply making some short films of my own.

Going to school to learn something I intensely loved, totally made me dislike it, and it would be very cathartic for me to simply do something fun and creative to restore my love of cinema.  Time will tell how that turns out.
           
 

Though often I'm at loath to admit it, simply because I don't feel like a good enough practitioner of it, I'm a Zen Buddhist, at least a bad one.  This year I hope to explore my spiritual and religious views more on this log and hear those of my readers.
   

 
In the original story The Girl (or Woman) Who Married A Bear, there is the image of many worlds over-lapping to form our reality. I hope you enjoy visiting mine. I'd love to hear about yours.

Peace, Love and Foggy Woods,
Milla