make yourself yours

We each have our own paths, dreams, visions, creations, experiences and lessons as we live our lives. These are the things I journal about here on this web log, sometimes with long pauses in between. Lately I've been listening and dreaming about the coming year. What seeds to sow, projects to begin, commitments to make, books to read...and on and on it goes. And I find great pleasure in figuring out the best way for me to live a happy, authentic existence. It's a job we've all been assigned -- to make ourselves real.

I've begun stitching a little, on paper instead of cloth -- this image was part of a promotional postcard and the frame is just a cardboard box decoupaged with bits of book pages. She's very Brigid-like to me with her fiery hair.

When I looked for signs of life in the snowy garden the other day, I found a few new motherwort leaves that were perfect on my avocado toast. Motherwort isn't exactly a culinary herb but fresh anything has value. Only a month ago, there were still dandelions in the grass, but they've all disappeared now. This coming fall I vow to pot up and shelter a few dandelion and chive plants for winter use. 

Blanket stitching on another old postcard-turned-button-card.

I am intrigued by the Fire Goddess Brigid, forerunner of St. Brigid. Every year on her name-day, also known as Candlemas or Imbolc, I begin setting up a little tabletop Brigid altar. This year I included a Brigid image -- a little corn husk doll -- and instead of using plant material for my Brigid's cross, I wove a torn calendar page and inscribed it with various meditations (idea from here). The blue altar cloths were dyed with home-grown Japanese indigo. I still want to place a few more items on this altar -- some beeswax or a teeny-tiny jar of honey to represent all the activity about to resume in Nature, a little sun image for warmer days, and a lamb figurine for birth/rebirth. I am only touching on the surface of the Imbolc season here -- if you are so inclined to delve into the meaning or to explore the old ways and practices of Imbolc, there is still plenty of time. In the Celtic tradition Imbolc is three months long -- it begins now in late winter, goes through Spring Equinox and ends in late spring.

Homemade elderberry syrup poured over a waffle is possibly the best way I've found to take an immunity-boosting herbal medicine. 

As Imbolc is also the time to bless and potentize our seeds for spring planting, the basket of seeds serves as a symbol of good crops to come.

Pillows taken from other parts of the house over the holidays ended up all together on this bed -- a nice show of homemade and store bought. I have pretty good memories of the song You Are My Sunshine -- my mom sang it to us kids and my dad whistled it as he drove. It may or may not have been "their" song. As I always saw myself as being "the sunshine," the part about being taken away was concerning though -- please don't take my sunshine away. In my mind it was please don't take my Peggy away.

Nothing simpler or more wintry than glass cylinder candle holders slip-covered with white sweater sleeves.

Green.

 

The last of the Echinacea angustifolia tincture has been decanted and more must be made.

Little propagation vases filled with slips of plants brighten up dark spaces around the house -- sweet bay leaf, Laurus nobilis, and pink nerve plant, Fittonia albivenis here. I seem to have lost my knitting mojo, I knit the little candle mat over a year ago just as it was slipping away. I don't know where it has gone.

I'm enjoying walking our dog Talula on snowy days because we usually have the park to ourselves. Looking down, concentrating on being sure-footed on multi-layers of ice and snow -- my entire field of vision is such that I can imagine for just a moment that I live in another time and place. Maybe Finland or Sweden or even a mountaintop.

You need only to claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality.  ~Florida Scott-Maxwell
                                                                                                                       
Wishing you sunny days and blue snow blessings. xo

late summer and sweetgrass

It's nice to always have some handwork going. Something that requires a bit of attention but not too much -- you won't lose your place by daydreaming or listening to someone or something. 

I'm not sure what a person would call this. Coloring with fabric, maybe?

Patchwork/applique stitched onto a piece of medium-weight decorator fabric. The cloth is probably heavy enough to upholster a chair seat but still easy to get a needle through. I use mostly odds and ends of thread and cloth.

I will probably color in one more flower and then make a pillow cover with it...or something easy like that.

As I plan to make a triple tincture with the flowers, seeds and roots of some Echinacea purpurea that grows along our front walkway, the echinacea altar seemed most appropriate.

The blossom and her leaves lasted for days and days.

Cilantro always bolts as soon as the heat sets in but this summer I discovered the blossoms are just as tasty as the leaves. Pretty happy about that.

I couldn't get over the colors in this juice before I stirred them together and everything turned drab brown/green.

The magician playing an ashiko drum, flowers, feather and rock placed on my ashiko drum.

Sweetgrass was braided on Lammas (Lughnasadh), the first harvest celebration on the old-time wheel of the year.

Lammas is usually a busy time for most people and it's sometimes hard to get together with friends. When that happens I try to do something special by myself.

Sweetgrass is considered to be the hair of Mother Earth. As an offering, I placed several scoops of vermicompost and an amethyst crystal in the pot.

I always thought sweetgrass was native to North America but learned recently that it is also native to Eurasia all the way from north of Switzerland right on up to the Arctic Circle. So now I find myself imagining my own ancestors harvesting long strands of the Mother's hair for medicine, basketry, flavoring and fragrance. I find it interesting that I had been looking for ways other than cooking or handwork to connect with my ancestors when out of the blue sweetgrass presented herself.

Making herbal preparations is much of what I do in late summer. Last year's red oil still smells nice and fresh but for some reason never got labeled. Suffice it to say, I will be using this oil generously over the next few months.

We had loads of black currants on one bush. They are not as tasty as red currants so I've not used them much -- however, this "cough syrup" is absolutely delicious. I prefer to call it juice from now on. I made it by simmering the berries in water, straining and adding a few tablespoons of honey.

And a liqueur seemed like a good use, as well, since I know now how much flavor those little nuggets have hidden inside.

The lavender in the front circle garden was nice this year, too.

Motherwort grows everywhere in our back yard, the bees love it and I do, too, in this honey. Motherwort is usually taken as tincture because it makes a bitter infusion, indeed.

I loved watercoloring some pages to use for my labels.

This hibiscus plant has been watercolored, too, don't you think? The Japanese beetles love her.

In the mornings lately, I have been making holy smoke with last year's remaining sweetgrass braid. I smudge myself while invoking the spirits to help me as I begin to create my day. The scent on my clothes and body is a sweet reminder.

Blessings of late summer and sweetgrass to you. xo

a daisy and other kinds of flowers

I'm sewing flowers onto a torn and tattered earth flag as part of my mending the earth project. Since there is a lot of ground to cover here, anything goes.

That led to flower fairies. Pipe cleaners shaped into a basic body form are threaded with cloth flower petals and a wooden bead for a head. 

A waffle generously drizzled with elderberry syrup might be considered a medicinal food by some. Recipe here.

On the afternoon of the Dark Moon on Tuesday we said good-bye for now to our Daisy. Above was one of her favorite places in the garden...and she positioned herself on nearly this same spot to take her last breaths. Over about a month's time, she slowly made the transition from old age into the Great Beyond unassisted except for food and water and then just water and then nothing. Jan and I got to be with her. It was sad, it was holy, it was magic.

enchanting yourself

Brigid's Day 2017 is much different from other years. But then many things are different from other years.

I started my Brigid's Day devotion this morning, two days late, by taking a morning bath with strained oatstraw infusion added to the water. It felt silky, so nice -- I reminded myself to do this more often. One little candle burned down completely.

After getting dressed I collected three cauldrons filled with objects and symbols of the past, the completed, the unnecessary.

The fire took off quickly and burned well, these things needed to go. I chanted "light of Brigid, shine on me, growing brighter, now I see". After you chant something for a while, you find yourself going into a state -- you start making up music to sing the chant to or you'll pick out a word or two to repeat over and over, and you will almost always catch yourself getting softer, then louder, then softer again. Chanting is a way of enchanting yourself.

The candle on the left was lit from the fire in the cauldron and it will burn until the end. A friend and I had made Brigid's crosses earlier in the week -- we used straw that had been soaked in warm water for a few hours. The beauty and simplicity of these sacred Nature items comfort and encourage. More chanting.

This is a tarot spread for guidance to connect with the Goddess Brigid or St. Brigid (or God or Source or whoever/whatever you want to invoke). I spent a few hours reflecting on these cards and then writing about them in my journal -- and that completed this year's very simple Brigid's Day.

Our new Earth flag is freshly hung. The old one is quite torn from getting whipped around by the wind/catching on the house gutters, but I have some mending ideas in mind. Mending the Earth, that's it.

The ashes of transformation will go back to the Earth to continue the cycle of death and rebirth. I hope we can all return to the garden soon and start planting. All of us together. Maybe even chanting.

bottle brush tree crown

About two weeks ago, our orange tree had 88 flower buds -- many have bloomed but there's more coming. What a divine fragrance, we are beside ourselves with joy. The orange tree is on a caddy with wheels in our kitchen so I can roll it around depending on what's going on in there. During the day, it's under the skylight and when I use the oven, I push it toward the sink. When I need the sink, it goes over a ways. If we have people over, off to the laundry room. Really a member of the family. Sort of reminds me of an old Twilight Zone (or Outer Limits) episode where a vacuum came to life and rolled around a house.

The orange tree is the main news in this web log but a very small amount of decorating has happened as well. I seem to have dozens of bottle-brush trees so a crown just seemed like the right thing to do. The snowball lights also went up and the witch loves that. Her batteries are getting old so she's quieted down some.

We've just had a cold snap but the dogs' and my nightly vigils to both front and back yards continued. Between the half moon and the snow, it was very bright out. Daisy always lies down on the snow but Talula never does, must be something genetic.

That's a photo of our fireplace from the outside looking in. Good to change perspectives now and then, see things from another point of view.

This year's last full moon will soon occur -- Tuesday, the 13th. Most days I continue to light my moon candle and take quiet time. I might meditate, draw a tarot card or write down a dream. I feel that the world is changing and the one thing I know for sure I can do is to take care of myself.

xx