May 19th, 2017

It's a cold and wet day here after a week of lovely weather. I'm curled up inside with a blanket, but in the meantime, here's some photos from our garden.

These colorful flowers are the centerpiece for the patio table - they look like little flames!

Something about this always reminded me of a zen temple.

A friendly slug!

I've had a fairy garden established in our backyard since I was little, and at times it has been quite elaborate. Usually, though, it's a pretty subtle way to honor the Fair Folk. I got that statue cleaned up yesterday (she was a bit muddy), and added some new stones.

Close-up of the fairy sitting area.

May 15th, 2017

I am home for a fraction of the summer, but at the end of this month I am heading out of state for an internship! It's hard to say how much I will get on here when I'm working full time, but there's lots of natural area around there that I would like to explore and share with my readers.

And now for an assortment of updates...

Last year, I acquired a prickly pear cactus at a native plant giveaway that was happening at school. I re-potted it, but was concerned that perhaps I had done something wrong because of how little it was growing. However, my worries were assuaged by coming home to find this:

It's got the tiniest little cactus pad growing out of the top of it! I'm so happy!

Also, the peonies are blooming, which for me is the surest sign that it's summer.

I did run into a bit of a snag on my way back from school - my pentacle and triquetra ring, which I've been wearing every day since I bought it over a year ago, fell and got irretrievably stuck in the moving van. I must have tried to pry it out for over an hour, but no such luck. To me, that meant that either it was just that ring's time to go, or that it had gotten too overloaded as a protective talisman.

Either way, I knew I needed a new one, but I did not have a lot to spend on a relatively "frivolous" item. I ordered the ring pictured above from New Frescos; I'd never ordered anything from there before, so I was not sure what the quality would be like, but it's a sterling silver piece and it's really nice! I think I overestimated the size just a tad, as it's a bit loose, but that was my own fault.

Otherwise, I've been getting a lot of yard work done, mostly repainting things like the porch railings and trim, so that's been keeping me busy.

April 8th, 2017

Happy April! School continues to give me the run-around, but I've worked a couple of spiritual events into my schedule. Last weekend, the city put on an 11 Days of Compassion program, which included a morning walk over at the Gaia House labyrinth. I had to get myself up earlier than I prefer for a Sunday, but the walk was really nice.

All the flowers were blooming, including these lovely tulips.

I was standing in the center of the labyrinth, thinking about how nice it would be if the fountain were running, and then it suddenly kicked on.

Then today, a friend from school drove with me over to a local gem and mineral show put on by the regional Earth Science club.

There were so many cool specimens, lots of which were from the area, but many others of which were from around the world. Crystals, fossils - you name it, it was probably there.

I tried to keep my purchases moderate. I got a piece of Bismuth, a Celestite cluster, a big chunk of Bloodstone, a Rhodonite pyramid, an Orthoceras fossil, and some Fluorite chunks (which were actually free from one of the vendors).

Hiking with SIPA

There were only a few of us today, and it was a bit chillier than expected, but it was still a lot of fun to meet up with some friends from SIPA for an afternoon hike.

This area has loads of parks and trails and state reserves - I've been down here for school for three years and I've barely scratched the surface - so both of the places we went were new to me.

Our first stop was a local arboretum.

There were a lot of pine and cypress trees.

We saw some ducks and a turtle out on the pond.

Apparently, there is also a bamboo forest, which was beautiful, but which was rather surreal because of how out-of-place it felt. There were old sandstone blocks strewn about, perhaps from a long-since gone house, and little tunnels running through the thick bamboo grove.

We also went over to a second, smaller hiking trail which featured a creek (mostly dry at the moment), lots of shelf fungus, and birds including cardinals and a red-headed woodpecker.

Native Plant Giveaway

In other news, I had an exciting opportunity today to get some plants. A group on campus was giving away cuttings and seedlings of native species to help support pollinator populations, and I picked a few up!

On the left are two Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida) seedlings, which produce flowers that bees love. They also have a long history of medicinal uses, which can be traced back to First Nations people from this part of the country. On the right is a little prickly pear, which apparently is another native species - I had no idea we had cacti here, but apparently this is part of their range! When I go back home, the Coneflower will go in the garden. The cactus will probably go in a pot, because I'm fairly sure our winters will be too cold for it. Hopefully I can keep them alive for the last three weeks of the semester until I can transfer them out of their little plastic containers.

Also excitingly, my plant biology professor brought in some fossil specimens she and her students had collected at an old coal mine yesterday. These came from the carboniferous forests which were part of this landscape 300 million years ago, and some of them are so well-preserved as to actually still have plant tissue in them. Apparently, they had collected so many fossils that my professor let us keep some of her examples if we wanted. The large fossil in the bottom image has now been added to my collection. I really want to go rock-hunting around here sometime!

March 22nd, 2016

A happy belated Equinox to everybody! I got to spend Ostara riding the train back to my school and working on homework, neither of which I was really all that interested in doing, but oh well. I found some books on Feng Shui in my department's architecture library, so I started to read through one of them - if and when I have time to finish it, I'll be sure to let you know what I thought!

In the meantime, enjoy what we have so far of spring. It's pretty chilly here still, but a lot of the trees are starting to bloom. I'll hopefully be taking some pictures soon to share.

February 29th, 2016

Happy Leap Day, everyone! It's a beautiful, sunny day today (although it looks like we'll be starting March off with storms), and my friend brought these lovely little flowers she found to class this afternoon. Aren't they cute?

January 11th, 2016

I won't be home for Imbolc, but I decided yesterday that I wanted to update my altar anyway, so that the energy would be more in tune with the current season. It was still set up for Lughnasadh when I got back in December.

I put a bunch of my herb jars in the center to charge (mint, rose petals, lavender, and yarrow), and then decorated with flowers and candles. I'm also using some pillow cases on top of my altar cloth; they're mostly plain white, but my great grandmother embroidered hummingbirds with flowers along the edges. 

My usual BOS is at school, so in its place, I have a small notebook sitting out on the left side which has sabbat and esbat rituals copied in it. 

I always feel like Imbolc is hard to decorate for, but I actually rather like how this is looking. As always, I'd be happy to hear from any of my readers regarding suggestions for amendments to my 

October 15th, 2015

I meant to post these photos on Monday, but I ended up forgetting. My fall break was lovely, but not really enough of a break. I'm hoping I can relax some this weekend, but as many projects as I have right now, that could be kind of hit-or-miss. 

Anyway, on Monday, I went for a walk with my family through one of the local forest preserves where my brother volunteers. It was absolutely delightful weather, unseasonably warm for October.

The leaves are starting to change color. Most of them were turning yellow, although we also saw a few trees going red.

The view over the prairie.

The lake, shrinking as we head towards winter.

A sulphur butterfly sipping some clover nectar.

Purplish aster flowers.

A big toad.

A woolly bear caterpillar.

We also saw a young goldfinch sitting on a flower eating the seeds. The wind was really whipping her around, and finally the plant snapped back and tossed her off. She was just fine, but the rest of us were cracking up because she just went "boing" and flew like three feet. 

All in all, it made a really nice interlude before coming back to class. 

August 26th, 2015

Okay, I won't be posting this until I get out of class, but this was hysterical, and I just have to share.

Today, as part of my Architecture History class, we went out on a hike around the campus and my professor was explaining the stories behind the styles of some of the buildings. This one draws on some Greek architecture:

The photo is hard to see because it's at a distance, but in the center over the door is a broken pediment, a shield, a shell, and a cornucopic vine of the sort that were hung on sacrificial animals. Such a carving was a repeating motif throughout Hellenic Greek architecture. 

My professor explained this, and then held up a model of the Parthenon of Athens. He had one student hold it, and others play the role of a priest, a sacrificial oxen, and a virgin maiden. He then had them recreate a ritual sacrifice to the goddess Athena Polias, with the "maiden" (portrayed by a good-natured boy) walking up to the temple model throwing rose petals from a basket, while the "priest" mimed slaughtering the "oxen" on a black stone altar. 

I will say again that we were doing this little example of Greek ritual in the middle of campus at 12:30 in the afternoon.

I did collect some of the rose petals after the fact, and I will be putting them on my altar.

Scrapbook of Shadows

I continued adding to my little BOS today. I really like how it's developing. Here are a few sample photos. Sorry about the blurriness; the light quality in my living room could stand to be improved.

First, my book blessing pages. On the left, I glued a tag one of my mom's friends made me a long time ago. I wrote a short incantation on it invoking the elements to protect and guard my book. The right page is occupied by an "ancient Egyptian" blessing used on the show Babylon 5 which always resonated with me: "God be between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk." Cursory research is inconclusive on whether or not the blessing actually is Egyptian or if the show's writers simply made it up, but some sites anyway cite it as being from the 18th dynasty of Egypt. Authentically Egyptian or not, I find the words to be powerful ones.

On the next two pages is a prayer to Athena which I found here. As I am currently developing a relationship with Her, it seemed appropriate to include a prayer to Her first thing. I also glued in a tiger lily petal, and a sunflower petal, both from our garden.

Long-time readers may remember the posts regarding the Celtic tree months I did several years ago. I collected a lot of information, but it never made its way into my working BOS. Today, I dug up those posts and summarized their contents. I also took some leaves belonging to the trees under discussion and pasted them in. The birch leaf was wide enough that I created a foldable insert for it so that it would not cover up my writing. I also used a crayon to do some leaf rubbings on the right page, but the thickness of the paper stopped that from working very well. The tree month section spanned several pages, but those aren't finished yet, as I'll be adding more as I come across trees of the right varieties. 

Seven new pages today! That's pretty good, I think, and I like how they're looking!

August 8th, 2015

What an exciting day! I bought my first laptop this morning, and also restocked on poly pellets for my weighted blanket. I had requested Athena's help in finding the right laptop for the right price, and I was able to get exactly what I needed.

As a thank-you offering, I actually painted this picture frame last night and am adding it to her shrine (temple?) today.

As you can see, I still need to make a picture to go in the frame, but I was very pleased with how it came out. It shows many of Athena's symbols, including olive trees, an owl, a dove, a bowl of gems, Her golden helmet, spear, and Aegis shield, a snake, a spindle, and tiger lilies. I also have quite a bit of Turquoise, which is Her stone, so I plan to put a piece of that on my shrine as well.

The World of Faeries Festival 2015

The Fairy Fest was simply amazing this year! The theme was The Eleventh Hour: A Journey Through Time, so of course I wore an updated version of my steampunk fairy costume, while Destiny went with a lovely red and blue outfit of her own.

(That's me on the right.)

Destiny borrowed a pentacle necklace of mine until she could buy her own.

We heard fantastic music from award-winning Native American flutist, Randy Granger (pictured), a Japanese Taiko drumming group, the band Patchouli, the "Harp Twins" who do contemporary music played on harps, and more.

There's always so many interesting characters...

...and fantastic creatures...

...and if one looks carefully in the fairy garden...

...one might spot a little hummingbird up in a tree!

Destiny bought herself several things, including these stones:

From left to right, these are Labradorite, Rose Quartz, and Citrine.

I also bought myself many exciting things, but those will get their own post. 

The weather could not have been better (except for a thirty-second downpour Sunday afternoon), and we met up with many delightfully Pagan vendors, some of whom we already knew and some of whom were new this year. All in all, another amazing weekend!