still here...

Stitching and finally finishing a project gone dormant feels good.

Tacked onto a base of black linen, it became a book cover for my tarot journal -- now I want to make another one, only with a different card for inspiration. 

This year I have set Mondays aside as a day for watery, intuitive rituals. One thing is a constant -- I first light a candle and meditate and then draw tarot and/or oracle cards for the week ahead, using different decks each month. I definitely have my favorite decks to work with but by rotating them, I get to know all of them better. (I also give myself permission to buy new decks now.) Monday/Moonday is just a good day for me to stretch and learn. Some watery mundane things include watering plants, laundry, soup-making, medicine making, taking a bath -- it all depends on the season.

A new colony of honeybees moved into the tree-house a few months ago. 

                                                                                                                                                                  This bee-house is occupied by a colony led by Queen Heidi II who is the daughter of the first Queen Heidi. I love that the women who raised and sold us the colony had a lineage established to pass along.                           

Another cloth close to being finished. For months, I have been trying to decide whether to chop it in half or not. It seems like it would have more options to be useful if it were smaller.

These are the new girls, Liza and Amber. Liza is a French Cuckoo Marans (with feathers on her feet) and Amber is a Dutch Welsummer. I'm learning that having chickens is not for the weak of heart -- Lilith died one morning in my arms, out of the blue. Then another young pullet named Saphie was sick from the start and died after only a few weeks. I have seen and learned so much in such a short time.

The original Moon sisters -- Margaret Wise Moon, Honey Moon and Cinco Moon. True to form, they are very tough on the new girls, pecking order being so important and all.

On the kitchen table, some new-to-me plants -- Marimo moss balls. They aren't really moss balls, they are actually solid algae balls that live in the bottom of fresh water lakes. The movement of water currents makes them round so I try to help by spinning them around by hand when I think of it. Their water needs to be cold and they need to be kept out of direct sunlight. I squeeze them gently and replace their water every Monday. 

A red sun one afternoon with forest fires to the north and the west of Denver.

Nasturtiums soon to be harvested for the kitchen.

Assorted reading and easy knitting, hexipuffs for the beekeeper quilt. 

A project for autumn -- to partially deconstruct and then reconstruct craft-store brooms and then make my own broom from scratch using the lighter, greenish broom corn, Sorghum bicolor, that I grew last summer. The darker broom corn broom was a gift that will serve as a model of one way to do the stitching. I'm reading about broom folklore and magical uses and like the idea of an ancestral broom for the time when the veil thins next month. 

The garden at the beginning. See the kalette plants grow around Buddha.

Mid-to-late summer -- Buddha's mask. I planted kalettes all over the back yard because the chickens loved them last year and it was so fun to watch them jump to reach the leaves at the top. They are beautiful plants.

Last night when it was nearly dark. Buddha wearing a headdress. 

I hope you are happy in the now moment and also looking forward to good things in your life. I love the feeling of reconnecting after such a long time. 

xo

may cloth and mycelium

I recently did an exercise which called for recognizing what fulfills you, waking up to your real needs and then creating a new life design around them. So I made lists for each of those categories. Long lists. Then, over a period of time, I trimmed and purged the lists. And trimmed and purged some more. Mostly what I learned is that long lists can be reduced to very short lists, but I also learned that I really don't need or want that much.

Bringing in the May once again with my May cloth -- the words are from the Cambridge May Song....I love this song so much. This piece of cloth is to be my only stitching focus for the next few days.

I planted the forsythia with forsythia syrup in mind.

Pour 1 cup of boiling water over 1 cup of forsythia blossoms, cover and let steep for several hours, then strain. Add 1/2 cup of honey and refrigerate up to 3-4 weeks. I used this recipe.

The whole time I was collecting these juniper berries, I could hear the squirrels in the upper branches chewing and eating them. I have a few cooking/baking adventures in mind for these in addition to juniper's place in my herbal pharmacy.

A Venus of Willendorf in the making -- the basic pattern idea was from Marie at Ancient Threads (her blog is no longer online). Easy to make, I just folded a legal-size piece of paper in half and drew it freehand.

Back and front.

 

Her yoni is a small triangular piece of millinery flowers.

 
Her head-wear is another cluster of millinery flowers. She has wings.

Every spring I enact a new moon egg spell for myself, writing my deepest desires for the coming season on an egg. Some things have changed over the years, but I usually place it on my little altar to serve as a reminder throughout the month -- then on the day of the dark moon, the egg is buried and a pansy planted over it. This kind of moon work can be done anytime of year but it's nice to be able to bury it in the ground and plant something atop.

Revisiting and revamping an older cloth using new eyes. 

 

Dinner party favors made with little pots of pansies loosely wrapped in old book pages and string. 

 

'Tis herself.

Spring clean-up is well underway in my garden. I walk our little bit of land here in the city everyday. I try to notice the growth of plants from day to day and make future plans for planting food crops in and around established perennials, trees and bushes. The old saying "the best fertilizer is the farmer's footsteps" makes sense to me. For the last 10 or more years, I have not disturbed the soil except for planting. Each year I put a layer of compost on the soil along with other natural amendments. No more digging and churning and turning eliminates quite a bit wear and tear on my body and gives me more time for other things. The main reason being that I want to protect the mycelium from being damaged. A mycelium is a thread-like fungal network that unlocks nutrients for plants, helps plants resist pathogens, assists decomposition, releases carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, serves as a food source for earthworms and much more beyond my lay-person understanding. A mycelium network can be microscopic or it can be miles long.

And we need it.

Blessed be you. xo

winter solstice season

I have been enchanted by the idea of a 'winter solstice season' rather than a one-day or 12-day event. By expanding the December 21st date a few weeks before and after, I have been given the gift of time, relaxation, rest and greater enjoyment than ever before. The entire space and pace of Yule seems to have changed for the better.

"shine light into the darkness" is my contribution to India Flint's Gardens of the Heart poetry and cloth exhibit to be held at the Woollen Mill Artspace in Lobethal, South Australia in February. When I volunteered for the project, I was given the assignment of a few hand-stitched words (of my own choosing) for the second line of a three-line poem, to be stitched together and hung by India and her volunteers. An amazing sight it will be. Details here.

Shining light into the darkness is something to aspire to.

Fermented elderberry honey that I started in the fall and brewed until recently -- I'm not sure that it tastes any different than unfermented honey but hopefully it teems with invisible probiotic helpers.

The assembling of mostly home-made gift packages, each with a small peppermint essential oil soy candle, a bit of peppermint bark and a little poinsettia plant.

It had been many years since I'd gone into full production like this for Yule gifts. I think we scared some of the neighbors when we came to their doors bearing gifts in the dark.

Autumn altar gradually morphing into winter altar.

Roots to nourish and deepen my ancestral roots -- I imagine my people nodding in approval as I cook with them.

A lovely, solitary, winter tea time.

Plants are Magic by Rebecca Desnos is a magical publication, indeed. I recently ordered the first three volumes -- to date I've only read the first article in the first volume...but I've read it three times. I've been savoring Rebecca's beautiful writing about unusual, traditional dye methods beginning with making healing cloth by dyeing the cloth in medicinal (anti-bacterial) dye-baths -or- projecting pure intention into the dye-bath for well-being and healing. Another unusual practice (in our culture) is to continually dye and re-dye clothing to refresh both color and healing qualities. I see a whole wide vista opening up before me now.
 

Einkorn is a cookbook/guide for the ancient variety of wheat known as Einkorn. I am excited about this because it could serve as yet another connection to the foods of my ancestors.

At the beginning of a new year I look forward to having something new to focus on and use as a guide of some sort. Before deciding on a new focus though, I decided to enter the season of winter solstice by simply reflecting on light in the darkness.

I wrote myself A Litany of Light for the Winter Solstice Season in the manner of old-time church litanies, inspired by John Matthews in The Winter Solstice: The Sacred Traditions of Christmas. The response for each line of my litany is a little different than most -- rather than a phrase of words, it is to simply reflect in silence for a few seconds.

A photograph album with a good number of black pages intact once belonged to my parents and probably grandparents before them. It feels pretty old. I love it so much and plan to use it to take me through the new year. Who knows what will happen. 

To all who read this, I wish you many wonders and miracles in the new year. 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