dark moon

Today is a dark moon. It's time to stir the cosmic pot...it's not too late to add our longings, visions and dreams and it's not too late to season the mix with tears and laughter. We stir and mix and stir some more...crying until we laugh and laughing until we cry. Things are happening in the invisible world now and in a few days' time when the next moon round begins, what we need most will hopefully reveal itself.

Weaving rounds with the eldest sprite -- I left mine on the cardboard but she took hers off and it instantly morphed into the shape of a bowl, perfect for holding one crystal. All four sprites were here that day and each one got a tiny polished crystal. I want to be a nana who gives magic.

Beets, beets, and more beets. I usually saute the tender greens with garlic and onion and serve them up with red wine vinegar. My method for the roots is to drizzle a little olive oil over whole unpeeled beetroots, season with salt and pepper, and bake in a covered pot at 350 degrees for 40-60 minutes. I'm going to try freezing these after they cool down. Thinking it would be nice to have them at Yule with some creamy goat cheese.

Continuing the practice of returning plant material to Mother Earth, unusable tops go right back to where they grew. Hecate is the Greek Goddess of the Dark Moon, the night, and the shortening days of Autumn. She is also the Goddess of composting and transformation so I seek to align with her wisdom, especially at this time of year.

Mysteries of the Dark Moon by Demetra George: Composting materials are Hecate's gift of fertility from the underworld. From death and decomposition come the fertile substance that ensures and vitalizes new life. In her emanation as age, change, deterioration, decay and death, she finds the seeds for new life in the composting heap of decomposing forms.

Some little holders made with wire.  After tearing off the paper to be shredded and recycled, the wire spiral from notebooks can be wound into a ball. Any wire works, even a copper light string gone bad. I have to say that writing daily morning pages (The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron) uses up a lot of notebooks.

Flowers from the garden undergoing transformation for potpourri-making. In a few days they will be unrecognizable but still very beautiful.

Future bird seed -- cut sunflower heads drying.

Datura, Datura sp., moon flowers open up at night (and overcast mornings) and exude a heavenly fragrance. This year I am planning to collect and dry some seed pods. Datura is a sacred plant in some cultures but for the most part feared in ours because of its potent and potentially poisonous qualities. Since it grows and blooms in my garden so prolifically, I feel called to find a use for datura. Maybe what I'll find is that it is here to simply shine.

Soon a new round of the moon's cycle will begin and I'll feel motivated to start new projects and other extrovertive activity, but for now I just want to sink into the night. I love walking around the garden as soon as it gets dark. The dogs are in their element, of course, in the darkness and I try to follow their lead. I'm taking photos in the dark. I'm inhaling the exhalation of as many datura moon flowers as I can. I'm barefoot. Listening to night sounds, watching for movement. And stirring some more.

Shining of moon flowers to you. xx

sunflowers morning, noon & night

 

I'm so grateful for sunflowers. They sway and turn, look up, bow down and everything in between. They are hosts to a myriad of insects and soon squirrels, birds and maybe people will come visiting for their share as well. They cleanse the soil of radioactivity and are said to be guardian spirits. I don't doubt for a second their divine essence.

Yesterday I collected flowers to make dye bundles.

Blue and purples to the left, dyers coreopsis and eucalyptus in the middle and portulaca to the right.

Red, gold and pink zinnias with purple basil and blue and purple pansies with blue larkspur.

From left to right the fibers are wool, cotton that was soaked in milk, more wool (a deconstructed jacket sleeve) and silk (a deconstructed blouse collar). This is my first dye project of the summer but I have intentions to do more.

 I learned a new way to cut up watermelon. Less work and more fun to eat.

The beets are sweet and abundant this year, I wish I could say the same of the tomatoes but it's tricky like that here in Colorado.

I'm working on reducing the amount of garden waste we send off to the landfill. This is a permaculture technique called chop & drop and it's done exactly like it sounds. You chop what's no longer wanted or needed at the base, then chop it up a little more, then lay it right back on the ground. Leave the plant's roots intact so that it can either regenerate or decay in the soil. Comfrey is a marvelous soil nutrient and we can't possibly use all its leaves in salve or tea.

Some older chop & drop, mostly burdock leaves and stalks -- if I had extra compost or some dried leaves, I'd cover it to help it break down faster and also make it look nicer. But the decaying look is definitely growing on me. I chopped & dropped for several hours over the last few days -- everything from small weeds to tree trimmings. It only makes sense when you think about it, to give back to Mother Earth that which she produced. 

I'm seeing red. The madder patch, Rubia tinctoria, started from seed  three years old, is old enough for some of the roots to be harvested this fall. Madder is a cheerful plant, the greenest of green leaves, tiny blossoms with berry-like seed capsules. It can spread and climb but mine has mounded upon itself to look like a shrub.

Still stitching one little plant-dyed moon square at a time -- part of the Quilty 365 project here.

Larkspur seeds collected and ready to be packaged or sprinkled around -- I'm thinking of doing a little guerrilla seed-sowing at the park where I walk the dogs. The city seems to have forgotten about one particular xeriscaped stretch of which half has died off over the last ten years. Today I noticed that hollyhocks have naturalized themselves and maybe next summer there will be larkspur as well. It should be okay since larkspur is a Colorado wildflower.

This is my full moon sewing project for this year. Each full moon of the year so far, cloth has been chosen and cut with stitching time fit in here and there. Loving it but applique-stitching these big moons by hand takes hours and hours.

She's bowing down, her head is heavy. Some days this is exactly how I feel especially when I'm out working in the heat of the day. It has been a hot, hot summer with little to no rain.

The waxing moon lights up the night clouds.

A battery-run votive candle is tucked inside the white vintage three-tier macrame hanger I found on etsy. It came from France and was only around $50 which seemed like an unbelievable bargain at the time, I don't know.

At night this beautiful sunflower still glows, I think the variety is even named Evening Star. Which it is.

Sunflower blessings to you!  xx

a green blessing at lammas

The light has changed, have you noticed? To me, it has a greenish cast, maybe because there is so much green mass for sunlight to pass through. I don't know exactly why, but I always notice this, every August 1st the light turns the air green. 

I dismantled my Summer Solstice altar and built a new one for these beginning days of Lammas, a gratitude celebration for the beginning of the first harvest. Representations of the first harvest from the garden fill the bowl while also calling to mind other things in my life coming to fruition as well -- things that I've made intentions toward and worked on over the last six months.  

Nice to use a cloth with a grid to lay sacred objects onto -- crystals & stones and pinecones...

...a necklace and a green glass pyramid filled with healing intentions for our oldest dog...

...a key and a bee and a woman with her ruffled feather. 

Lammas-time holds some fine memories for me, it is a point on the wheel of the year that I am so familiar with, the green air and all. This year though I've changed. I am purposely rewilding myself and everything is different. So I created a garden blessing ritual that draws on some energies in Nature that I've gotten to know better.

Breath of Light, Heart of Green,

Earth and Spirit and All between,

Bless this land as sacred space,

May Love and Peace dwell within this place,

Breath of Light, Heart of Green

Earth and Spirit and All between.

The bees didn't mind that I burned copal resin so close by. I think they're already getting tamer as they rewild themselves back to their true nature. Maybe that's what's happening to me, too. Getting tamer.

I hung the crystal necklace from the Lammas altar onto a little blue spruce branch. I hope to hang more crystals throughout the garden as time goes by.

Green heart stones were laid in the four directions of the space we live on. The green heart bloodstone is in the nettle patch to the east.

I walked around the perimeter of our city lot and placed the stones, tomorrow I will bury them. This green heart stone is near the sidewalk to the south which leads to our front door.

As I walked, I realized that the noises of city living could be viewed as the voice of the Green Woman. The dogs barking, the road work, sirens, all of it. This green heart stone is in the west in an area I am helping to rewild into a wooded pathway.

Our grandmother grapevine climbs on the north fence and before her lies the north green heart stone.

This is a glimpse of my ritual. I had a wonderful time both creating and enacting it. In a few days it will be on a new page over on the sidebar. If you would like to bless your space or name your space, it might be a helpful guide.

Blessings for an abundant first harvest (or a successful first sowing) and Happy Lammas (or Candlemas) depending on your hemisphere.

xo