Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for the bounty that the internet provides... as in... I am completely thankful to have found a wonderful, positive, accepting, thoughtful, thought-provoking pagan community that I would not otherwise have found. It has brought great things to my life in my personal growth and giving me a forum in which I can feel connected in ways that are not possible in my mundane life. And yet, the same people have brought magic to my mundane life too... and have supported me not only through my blog, but through their own, through the sharing of their thoughts and feelings. I am ever so grateful for you all!

Blessings this Thanksgiving!

Witch's night...

Oh... the beautiful evening... I am feeling much gratitude for Mother Earth tonight... as we enjoy the fire in the fireplace while the rain comes down outside, the lightning and thunder go on, and the sweet smells of wet earth waft in the door when we open it to listen to the rain. It is fire, air, water and earth... all at their very best! Thank you for the experience!

A few of my favorite things...

I've been meaning to write this post for a long time... just because I look at some of these things every day, and yet, I don't use them. I feel strong connections to all of them... but don't know how to include them in my ritual (not that I do much in the way of formal ritual) or in my practices at all. I'm finally posting this... I suppose... because I was reading yesterday's post from NotHannah and not only have we come across the same found wands... but neither of us seem to use them much (although she has me beat, hands down, on that one... sounds like she actually DOES use hers...).


Here's my wand... I found it on a hike one day... and a very lucky day it was!

This is a seed pod of some sort that I found hiking in Costa Rica. I don't imagine it could even hold water, but I've thought of sealing it somehow... and yet I feel like I shouldn't change anything about it.

A holey stone... these are actually pretty common along the coast just north of here. This may not be the most spectacular one... but it's small enough to wear... I just have to get the string for it.

Although I don't often connect with hearts as symbols, I love this rock. I hope that doesn't suggest that I have a heart of stone! Baahaahaa... OK, I know I just *think* I'm funny...


And then there are shells. I can't tell you how many katrillion shells I have... in fact, I've been thinking that my first giveaway may be something along the lines of culling my collection... certainly some of these shells belong to people who could use them. Anyway, I'm off-topic. The first one I see as the perfect symbol of the feminine. The spiral construction of the shell, the pure white, the association (for me) with the moon... it's a phenomenal representation for me of the Goddess.

Oh... that's really a terrible picture... it's hard to tell how wonderful this shell is. Anyway, my last favorite found object is actually a 'class' of shells... intact bivalves, otherwise known as the "clam types" where both halves are still together. To me these are a strong representation of balance... something that is my lifelong homework. I tend to immerse myself in new stuff... I'm easily swept up in things that excite me... and so, keeping balance in my life is something I have to keep in mind... so these beauties show up in many places in my house, and definitely on my altars.


Do you guys have a lot of found objects that are meaningful to you? Do you use them in your magical work, and if so, how? Just curious...

Yowie Kazowie!

It worked! So, a few days ago I had that talk with my fruit trees and their nature spirits about going dormant soon... and LOOK!!!!

This is the COOLEST thing! I wish I had taken pictures the day I talked to them... to show you how many green leaves they had... how many little blossoms indicating that they thought it might be spring.

Now, any nay-sayers might suggest that the cool weather finally hit and that's what made them change... but NO! Today was 81, and the whole weekend was like that! Truly, it couldn't have even been in the 50's last night... it was so warm... we stood outside and marveled at the stars and warm weather! It's been CRAZY!

Since I didn't take pictures the day that I talked to them, I can't show you the difference, but I can show you the tree I missed talking to that day... this is the same kind of tree as the second picture above... both pears.


Seriously, these trees are about 10 feet apart in the same area of my yard. No joke!

So, my next conversation was with this tree:


The bugs have been getting to it... not sure what kind of bug... I'm guessing some sort of leaf-sucking insect... mites? Anyway, we didn't spray it this year... usually we use some sort of soapy organic spray twice a year so that the tree can grow its leaves. This year we were just too busy. I went and asked the tree spirit and insect spirit if we could do something. We did... so I took the 'before' shot... and we'll give it awhile to see if it can sprout some healthy leaves. It said it could... so I'm going to give it a few weeks, as it's an evergreen. It should happen sooner than spring.

I can hardly believe it! :)

And speaking of setting intentions...

LOL... a friend just posted this New Reality Transmission link on Facebook... and I thought it was really neat. Thought I'd share it with you! It's all about intention... and how if we do something together we can be extra powerful. I believe that what you put your attention on will manifest... and this is a fantastic way to do something that doesn't cost you anything... toward positive change in the world!

Setting an intention

Awhile back I posted about a book I was reading called "Behaving as if the God in all life mattered" by Machaelle Small Wright. It is about a woman who conferred with nature about building her garden, and in the process she learned amazing things about the connection between nature and humans. It's an easy and fascinating read. This is a picture of the Perelandra garden I borrowed from their website:

Anyway, in that post I suggested that I was going to try this out. Now, I don't have a giant property like she did... and so I won't be making any big garden... in fact, I'm thinking I'm going to take this kinda slow. I have three 4x4 garden boxes that I am going to turn over to this co-creative process with the nature spirits (or devas - which are not exactly the same... but keep in mind that I'm starting at the beginning here). Here are two of my garden boxes... although this picture was taken while we were putting them in... right now they're full of half-dead tomato plants...

I think I'm going to use my blog as my garden journal... and hope that you all don't think I've seriously gone off the deep end. What makes me think these spirits will talk to me? Well, because we had a chat about this yesterday:

My apple trees are flowering at the same time that they're trying to go dormant. We've had a very warm autumn, and so the trees are understandably confused. Yesterday I went out and connected with the deva of apple trees (I actually did this for each of my different fruit trees... apple, pluot, and pear)... and we "talked" about different ways to predict the coming of winter. We settled on hours of light rather than temperature as a good way to do this in my yard... as temperature seems a little unreliable. I'll let you know how this turns out. These are young trees, I just planted them bare root 2 years ago... but I'm going to have to move them as we do work on our house starting in January. I need them to be dormant in the next 4-6 weeks so that I can have them dug up and moved with a minimum of disturbance. Like I said, I'll let you know how this pans out.

I will say that "talking" to the devas of the plants involves muscle testing. It's also something you could do with a pendulum, although I personally find them to be a bit slow and cumbersome. I prefer muscle testing... which I'm familiar with from my energy healing training. Anyway, if you're interested in muscle testing you can do it too... just google "how to muscle test" and you'll get several different ways to go about it. This gives me the ability to get yes/no answers (and intuit many things in between once you're connected) from the devas. It took a few months to really learn it well, but once it's a skill you have it's totally invaluable!

Anyway... look for more of these gardening posts through the winter as I spend time preparing the beds and making plans with the nature spirits in my yard!

Being thankful

This year, I got an idea from the Pagan Parenting Resource Blog about making a Tree of Thanks. Well, I finally got around to it a couple of weeks ago... and though I love the idea, it doesn't seem to be catching on with the young'ns. The first day I had it up they were into it... but not since. I keep writing on the leaves... trying to remain thankful for all that I have.


Lately I've become aware of all kinds of things that I have that I didn't realize. A friend suggested that positive thoughts should get equal air time with the negative ones. What he meant was that many of us spend years thinking about what we don't have, or what bad people we are for a multitude of different reasons... but that it was time for us to take back our sense of self and be kind to ourselves about all the good things... all the things we have, are capable of, do regularly... etc. He says that if you spend years thinking bad thoughts about yourself, then it's time to spend years, maybe decades... thinking good things. Count me in! Anyway, that explains why I've been the one putting the leaves on our Tree of Thanks. I know it looks sparse in the picture... I took this pic when we first put it up... and just now got it off the camera!

Anyway, I'm thankful for the wonderful people I've met through this blog. It's a fantastic community of support and genuine caring. Thank you for being out there... and for being the wonderful people that you are! Blessings!

Inspiration

I have tried to write a post for several days... and just haven't felt like I knew what to say. I'm sick of talking about being tired, and I'm still deep in my healing 'apprenticeship', and my kids have been the focus of my days. I'm really not getting much done outside of being a mom these days... I had a list of seven things I wanted to accomplish today and I did two of them: showering and making dinner. I shit you not. Is it more pathetic that I only finished two things on my list, or that my list includes things like 'showering' and 'make dinner', which really are pretty much givens, right?

So I went in search of inspiration. It seems that several bloggers out there are doing a '30 posts of Truth' started by A Karma Project. This sounds interesting... and I'm enjoying reading what others wrote (see Mother Moon, Faerie Sage Kitchen, The Dream Life). Maybe that's just a bit too much for me right now... having to wade through my past... I'm already doing that in my dreams, it turns out, and I'm not sure I'm ready to share.

I headed on over to Pagan Blog Prompts and yesterday was, apparently, a day to blog about peace... what it means, what it is, how we go about finding it... hmmm... maybe I can do this.

Peace, huh? It sounds simple... something we all want, right? But now that I think about it peace is really an individual state of mind. You can actually cultivate peace while everything around you is chaotic... right? Isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing so that when my kids are fighting and yelling at each other and me, so I can keep my cool? Right. Yeah... that's not peace... that's some kind of crazy willpower that so often feels elusive... I think.

Really, I think peace means many things. In a social sense peace is full of respect, gratitude, community without divisiveness. Peace is working together because we're so much stronger when we do... instead of using power to try to force one's reality on everyone else. But I'm not sure that kind of thing is really attainable here... where we live in duality of right and wrong, good and bad, top and bottom. People have tried, and failed. So I spend more time focused on my inner peace, I suppose. And I let it flow from me as I can... to be a peaceful participant in my community and household, to the very best of my abilities.

Peace for me personally is often associated with quiet... there's just so much activity in my every day that I spend much time caught up in the flow of getting ready for school, meals, laundry, cleaning, running hither and yon... and I forget to be mindful. It's often when I stop that my mind finally begins to reflect, to be slow, to be present. I'm trying to spend more time in the peace of presence in the moment, but it's hard when I'm arguing with my 4-year-old about why she must sit in a carseat and that I need her to get buckled so that we can go pick up the other kids from school. But I digress... my 4-year-old may be my personal challenge to peace, but she's also one of my main motivations for working on it.

So, in short (ha ha) peace for me is often found in meditation, where I have some quiet, some real time to myself for reflection, focus, and the awareness of connection with the earth. The one activity I do that gets me there in an instant is gardening. As soon as my hands hit the soil my mind forgets all those 'things' that I waste so much energy turning over in my brain all day long. I am present in the moment, I am with the earth, I am of the Earth, and most of all I feel closest to my highest self. It's magical for me, and I wish I had more time for it.

What about you?