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

a may cloth

The May cloth was started a year ago as part of my "bringing in the May" seasonal ritual. This year's ritual was a continuation of stitching, bringing in flowering branches and making chive blossom vinegar. 

Traditionally the branch of May is from a hawthorn tree but mine is honeysuckle because our hawthorn has already bloomed.

This honeysuckle bush is huge, gorgeous and fragrant. The leaves are blue-green and insects can't stay away from the light-pink flowers. The entire bush buzzes with happy bees and wasps and even flies. It has stood up to our erratic weather including snow and rain and wind. If I could choose what flavor air I wanted to breathe, it would be this. I've forgotten the variety but do know it was created and grown by Denver Botanic Gardens, different from other honeysuckles with brighter pink flowers and less fragrance.

The cold frame houses mostly things grown from seed and some I dug up from my gardens. There's well over a hundred plants in this little space but over half will be donated to a fundraiser sponsored by a gardening group I belong to.

The chives took a beating from the weather along with everything else in the garden. These scruffy flowers are presently infusing a jar of vinegar -- chive vinegar gives food a nice kick.

Our Korean lilac is in bloom -- always a few weeks later than common lilacs, it was still hit hard by snow. It's tough.

Flowers, crystals and a candle -- I'm good.

Not sure if this piece will be finished this May either but progress has been made. I collected all the green threads from my thread nest to stitch the words and sort of like the varying shades of green. I think some blossoms might fall from the tree and maybe even swirl around the moon. A branch of May we'll bring to you is a line from The Cambridge Song here.

And I hope the month of May will be a lovely time for you whether it be spring or autumn. xx

the harvest of john barleycorn

Harvest time.

People who work the land are in the fields day and night now to bring in the harvest. My memories of growing up are anchored in this chaotic, exciting, sleepless and sacred season in the life of a farmer's family. It didn't always seem so great at the time but witnessing the work of sowing, nurturing, growth, harvest and rest from spring through fall to spring again, year after year, gave me a template for living.

In my little garden right now, harvest means picking and cooking green beans for dinner, gathering beets and onions (many) and purple carrots (not many) and cucumbers and tomatoes (not many) to eat, freeze or put in the dye-pot. Harvesting is collecting sunflower heads to dry and store in a paper bag for the birds when the weather gets cold. It's cutting comfrey leaves and calendula flowers to dry for body oils and healing salves....and it's gathering basil for pesto, grapes for juice and elderberries for syrup. Harvest has really only just begun.

After I baked a batch of beets the other day, recipe here, I 1) peeled and cut them up to freeze; 2) poured the delicious leftover oil and juices from the baking dish into a little jar for future vegetable or salad dressing; 3) used the peelings to make a dye-bath for a bundled silk scarf. 

It is a good feeling to actually use all parts of something for a change. 

5-minute bread was made. Actually, the loaf took 5 minutes of prep extended over about a 21-hour stretch using an 18-hour initial rise.

I think the recipe said a 4-year-old could make it and that is probably true. Don't let that sway you though, it's still very good.



John Barleycorn is an age-old British folk song about the harvest of grain crops for bread and drink. Like bread and beer recipes, there are many versions, I love the words, and it's harvest time after all.

On an inner level, harvest means choosing what to take with you into the future. We have a choice on what and how much to carry forward as we enter these next darker, slower months of short days and long nights. We, and only we, get to decide what sustains us in meaningful ways as we go deeper. By the act of choosing what is wanted and needed, we automatically leave behind the unnecessary and don't even need to give it a second thought. Being "for" something rather than "against" something is empowering.

I like to travel lightly this time of year. How about you? xx

bringing in the may

It's been snowing and/or raining here the past three or four days, I've lost track. Corty's tulips are still standing strong, they close up tightly against the weather. I'm learning that tulips have quite the personality too...the way they flop around when placed in a vase...like they just can't hold still.

The cold frame in the garden is plumb full so some things had to be brought inside -- the mini greenhouses winter-sown with lupine, Mexican primrose and California poppies worked out pretty well considering I've done basically nothing since the day they were planted. I will definitely do it again next winter.

Presenting #4 of the indigo-dyed napkins -- they were quite stained in their previous life. 

A-Maying rituals -- hanging the calendar moon cloth.

And stitching a hawthorn tree drawn onto linen with the magic pen -- the linen has been basted onto a lighter cotton cloth and the blossoms will be pink because that was the color of our first hawthorn tree blossoms.

P.S. Did you know that the white May flower often referred to on Beltane (May Day) is the hawthorn blossom?

Another ritual is bringing in the May with a bouquet of honeysuckle branches.

Lastly, I'm sending you a joyful May with this lovely song. xo

bees in a box

Retrieving a bee swarm by myself for the first time took forever in a blink of an eye. A small secondary swarm from our bee colony had been hanging on juniper branches for six days. Efforts to lure them into a hollow log-turned-house failed and they had endured rain and cold long enough. I thought about them every morning, every hour, and every night before I went to sleep. The Bee Goddess Melissa must have finally intervened because yesterday I knew I had to get them down. Immediately.

The bulky bee suit, the height of the ladder, being squeezed in the lilac and juniper brush while cutting two high-ish branches, then bringing them down slowly and safely were all part of the dream. I have to say I was terrified. And when all the honeys were reunited with their new virgin-queen mama in the cardboard box, the after-effects of adrenaline kicked in -- I felt faint, knelt on the ground, and trembled. And took this video on my phone! (The MB size has been reduced to work with (old) blogger so the smaller image is better than the enlarged and the volume needs to be cranked up. Not the best, I know.)

Last night I drove the honeys to their brand new, sparkling-white cottage.

May all our bee cousins thrive and be well.

snow & sew

The rain turned into snow. Trees and plants were laden with layers of ice and several inches of heavy sticky snow. It wasn't the kind of snow that you can shake off or bang with a broom before you go to bed so we had some large tree branches come down. It will be interesting to see how perennials and fruit trees handle the setback -- two years ago we had a snowstorm on May Day and I worried then too.

Today is a waning moonday in Pisces -- watery Pisces. I feel like a week of rain and/or snow has been enough water. But I know, after damage control, I'll get back to seed sowing with long heartfelt
incantations for rain. Forgive and forget, you know . . . the weather is probably harder on the gardener than it is on the garden. Everything in the little cold frame is doing pretty well, much of it is to be donated to a plant sale fundraiser.

The urge to get back to dyeing has been reawakened after a very long hibernation -- a dye-pot from last fall holds leaves and rain and snow and now a white cotton square. I never feel so wonderfully witchy as I do when stirring a dye-pot with a branch.

The flower bouquet has the funkiest rolled-up leaf that is slowly unfurling itself. It will be huge. I see more dyeing material here.

I am excited to watch Season 2 of The Great British Sewing Bee. We are in for a real treat as long as the complete season stays available. It looks like Season 3 has already begun, too.

I know what I'm doing tonight. And I am sewing something but can't show it as it will be a gift.

Happy Beeing!

nine-patch moonday

Today is a waxing moonday in Aries. Our March 1 new moon is in an active phase of growth now and Aries, well Aries is always a go-getter. If you know anyone with an Aries sun sign, then you probably know what I mean.

I've been knitting. If you can believe it, that 5" section of sleeve on the purple february lady sweater is 28 rows of gull lace pattern on three slippery metal double-pointed needles. It is taking forever. Each sleeve needs to be about 15", I think -- I haven't actually measured my arm yet because I'm still so far off. This sweater has taught me the meaning of painfully slow which sort of conflicts with Aries energy.

But I had a lot of fun stitching the teeny nine-patch, probably because it's been an escape from the sleeves! It's just a little scrap from some old jeans and threads from the nest.

Have you heard of The Documented Life Project? It's a project with weekly prompts to art journal in your daily/weekly/monthly calendar planner. I'm new to this kind of thing and my pages are mostly simple -- these are the sides of a page I added to the month of February. The heart art work was a download that I filled in with my own words and phrases and the other side is my own doodling with a pocket for memorabilia. Really fun and a person can start any time.

The Great British Sewing Bee is on -- here's the trailer. The second episode of season two is up at YouTube but I couldn't find the first one! If anyone comes across season two episode one, please let us know! Can't wait to watch it.

Have a great week, everyone!