Fire!

October In the Garden

I finally have a Moonflower in bloom, the anemones are going mad, and the pineapple sage is just beginning to bloom.

Photos by the author. If you copy, please link back.

And, Now, Just In Time For Halloween . . . .

Is the USS Salem haunted? She is, after all, on her third life. You can take a haunted tour and see for yourself.

"We were really excited to have the Ghost Hunters team onboard this summer," said Michael Condon, executive director of the museum, in a press release.

Condon wouldn't say if the team found any spooky evidence aboard the ship.

I suppose that, in some ways, we Pagans have a relationship to secular Halloween that parallels xianity's relationship to secular xmas, although we, at least, call our religious holiday by a separate name (Samhein in my tradition) to make the distinction. Still, secular Halloween is "based on" Samhein even a bit more than secular xmas is based on the xian holy day of Christmas, although I'm not about to launch some "poor persecuted me" campaign and bitch about the "war on Samhein" with "The Beloved Dead Are The Reason For the Season" bumperstickers, although, now that I think about it . . . .

I find that many of us, yours truly included, both enjoy some of the witchy and spooky aspects of secular Halloween, while, at the same time, objecting to the sexist and xianist characterizations of witches as evil, ugly, old women and to the commercialization of what is one of our high, high holy days. I have a collection of Halloween witches, added to just this year, that I collect the same way that some African American friends of mine collect Aunt Jemima figurines: I want to reclaim the word witch and to honor even those "ugly" old women who were being marginalized and persecuted as witches, even as the good xians skulked out to the edge of the village on moonless nights to ask for an herbal cure, a charm, a potion. I decorate for the secular holiday, I hand out candy to all the neighborhood kiddies ( dressed in my witchy finery, including the pointed hat), I enjoy the secular emphasis on the places where the veils thin, and I hold within myself as odd and, yet, because it's real, also sacred, the conflict over the strange overlap between my sacred day and the secular and commercial attempts to render that which chills us as somehow safe and silly. At the same time, I've started long -running blog wars with jerks who announce "The Witch Is Dead" when a conservative bites the dust or who call any evil woman a "witch".

How do you manage the overlap?

Picture found here.

A Culture That Is Killing The World

Sweet Little DFH

Photo of the author's grandson. If you copy, please link back.

I'm Just A Soul Whose Intentions Are Good

Landscape Guy so "gets" me.

He came by this afternoon to plot out the Western crocus bed and said, "Oh, by the way, I found a plant you're going to love for the woodland garden and I ordered you five of them. We can put them in when we put in the crocus. They smell icky, but you're not going to care when you see them."

It's nice to be understood.

Turns out, heh, the roots are poison.

Pictures found here, here, and here.

Electrifying

Times are tough, even for a Goddess.

Picture found here.

Sabbatting

What She Said:

Have you ever made bread? Ever knocked on the bottom of a hot loaf, searching for the perfect hollow note that will tell you it’s done? Ever bitten into sweet corn in July, a ripe peach in August, acorn squash in September? Ever made a summer fire? Thrown your most beloved God into its burning mouth? Ever danced the ecstatic volta at Sabbat with loved ones and heartfriends? Darlings, I know you have. And I wonder, as I wander, friends friends, I think it’s possible that the vast majority of the time…yes yes yes….these are enough. The meaning is there – grokked in the deep myth, sitting sated and strong in the marrow of our bones. There is no need to ask “what the grain represents” at Harvest. It is itself, the Grain, and that staggering mystery is enough. It is plucked, threshed, ground, mixed with yeast and water and salt and kneaded until it looks like satin, and then, swollen and ripe with pure life, it is thrust into a livid hole of fire, to emerge an alchemical miracle, and effing delicious with butter and blackberry jam. Isn’t that phenomenal? To consider this each year, or every day, is the spiritual devotion of a storied being wed forever to the heart of the Mama. Break the bread and give it to a neighbor. If words are needed, make them a prayer. If singing is required, sing your guts out. If you are so gobsmacked by its profundity that you lie on the fertile ground for an hour, enchanted by the stars and the smell of the fistfuls of frankincense and peasant loaves and apples you gave to the hungry fire until your arms were slack and your skirt empty, and during that hour you feel the weight of the fragile and amazing thing that is your body settle down into the planet’s lap, and you grok Harvest, beloveds, well….you can stick a fork in the season and call it done. And no one had to even ask you what abstract qualities you were metaphorically harvesting, or what the bread meant. The bread sits in your belly, infusing your whole body with its ineffable perfection. The mystery is in the bread. Literally.*

As we move, at an alarming and alluring rate towards Samhein, as I sit by my trees and literally watch the veils grow thin, thinner, thinnest, thin, I wish for each of us the pure Sabbat that Ruby Sara describes. In my humble experience, and, truly, it is humble, I've found that the best preparation that I can do for such a Sabbat is (here's a surprise! not!) to engage in a regular daily practice. For me, that means: sit, ground and center, call the Elements the Goddesses with whom I'm working (right now, Hygeia, and Columbia, and, as always, the Great Three Headed Goddess of Liminal Space Whose Very Being Creates the Possibility of Change -- Breathe, Breathe, Breathe), cast a circle, say the Ha Prayer, do my Iron Pentacle exercise, envision and breathe into change, thank the Goddesses, thank the Elements, open the circle. And, then, do the work. Feed the birds, weed the herb bed, knit the warm sweaters, write the shining brief, encourage the friend, be kind enough to the store clerk (THIS store clerk, the very one that the Goddess has especially chosen to throw this day into your path, THIS one) to elicit a smile and a small warming of the aura, repair the web, exalt in the sunlight or the rainstorm or the icy cold wine. In short, do the privileged work of a witch: put your shoulder to the wheel and help it to turn.

I'm not sure why such regular, and seemingly "mundane", practice leads to those Sabbatical moments in the field that Ruby Sara describes. But I do know that they do.

May it be so for you.

(Many, many thanks to Medusa Coils for noting Ruby Sara's return to the blogosphere.)

Picture found here.

*Or, as the Goddess said: And you who seek to know Me, know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.

For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am That which is attained at the end of desire.

Eating -- All Acts Of Love And Pleasure Are Rituals Of The Goddess

Eating the living germs of grasses
Eating the ova of large birds

the fleshy sweetness packed
around the sperm of swaying trees

The muscles of the flanks and thighs of soft-voiced cows
the bounce in the lamb's leap
the swish in the ox's tail

Eating roots grown swoll
inside the soil

Drawing on life of living
clustered points of light spun
out of space
hidden in the grape

Eating each other's seed
eating
ah, each other

Kissing the lover in the mouth of bread
lip to lip.

~Gary Snyder

Picture found here.

Obama Restaurant Watch -- Anniversary Dinner Edition

The Obamas continue to eat out in Washington, D.C., something that delights residents of the city and foodies everywhere. For their 17th wedding anniversary (congrats to both!) they ate at Blue Duck Tavern, an upscale, contemporary American restaurant at Washington’s Park Hyatt hotel, [that] fits comfortably with Mrs. Obama’s effort to promote fresh food. When the restaurant opened in 2006, it was among the first in the capital to hop on the local sourcing trend, and its menu still cites the origin of the ingredients, most of which come from nearby Pennsylvania. (I'll note that Nora was working on local, organic sourcing long before Blue Duck opened.)

No word on what the couple ordered. There's a lot to choose from at Blue Duck. Everytime I go, I wind up ordering a couple of the vegetable sides and skipping an entree. A meal of Leek and Mushroom Tart with Potato Leek Sauce, made from ingredients from Path Valley, PA and Constant Bliss Agnolloti, with Artichoke, Date, & Hazelnuts from Jasper Hill Farm in VT would make a pretty good meal. If the Obamas were feeling especially celebratory, they could pair the Perrier Jouët, Fleur de Champagne, Brut, Epernay 1999 with almost anything on the menu. Blue Duck is known for its ice cream, but I always seem to wind up ordering the tin of old fashioned sugar cookies.

Thanks again, to the Obamas for actually living in DC, instead of hiding out behind the fortress walls of the WH, the way that the former residents did. DC loves you.

Photo (and another review of Blue Duck) found here.

Where The Truest Poetry Comes From

Our tradition is one of poetry, but it is also one of ecstasy that comes from direct contact with forces of nature and spirit. The truest poetry comes from this well of connection. The Gods move through us and the Elements of Life make up our breath, bones, and blood. The breeze sings through us and the ocean calls the water in our cells.

~T. Thorn Coyle in Evolutionary Witchcraft.

Picture found here.

Saturday Poetry Blogging

Simple, Seldom and Sad


Simple, seldom and sad
We are;
Alone on the Halibut Hills
Afar,
With sweet mad Expressions
Of old
Strangely beautiful
So we're told
By the Creatures that Move
In the sky
And Die
On the night when the Dead Trees
Prance and Cry.

Sensitive, seldom and sad -
Sensitive, seldom and sad -

Simple, seldom and sad
Are we
When we take our path
To the purple sea -
With mad, sweet Expressions
Of Yore,
Strangely beautiful,
Yea, and More
On the Night of all Nights
When the sky
Streams by
In rags, while the Dead Trees
Prance and Cry,

sensitive, seldom and sad -
sensitive, seldom and sad.

~Mervyn Peake

Picture found here.

Scarborough Faire

One of the best things about having an herb garden is picking herbs to take to friends. Here's a basket from this morning with just-picked Scarborough Faire herbs -- parsely, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

Photos by the author. If you copy, please link back.

American Traditionalist Wicca.

Llewellyn is bringing out a new book by Scott Cunningham, albeit that Scott passed through the veils in 1993. Llewellyn announced that:

Scott looked through scores of aged texts and studied with every teacher he could find to satisfy an unending curiosity. He yearned to create what he could not find in the existing Wiccan canon: a Book of Shadows based on past traditions, yet forward-looking—a true guidebook for Wiccan practice. He left our world before he could reveal it...or so it was thought.

Recently, one of his heirs discovered a battered manila envelope among Scott's papers. Hidden within it was a lost treasure that, to many of Scott's fans, is more valuable than gold-the manuscript for his long-lost book of shadows.

American Traditionalist Wicca

Llewellyn Publications takes great pride in presenting the most unexpected yet eagerly desired book in the history of Pagan publishing, Cunningham's Book of Shadows. Scott referred to the system that is published here for the first time as "American Traditionalist Wicca"—a melding of traditional Wiccan practice and Scott's own unique and inspired work. If you have followed the wisdom found in any of his previous books, now you can actually practice the system he developed and used in his own religious and spiritual tradition, bringing you closer than ever before to
Scott and his teachings.

For many of us, Cunningham's books were an entryway into witchcraft. It will be interesting to see how he reads lo these many years later. One early review bemoans the lack of an index.

Picture found here.

Bazooms Blogging

Ladies! Listen up! Detecting breast cancer early is the key to surviving it! Breast Self Exams (BSEs) can help you to detect breast cancer in its earlier stages. So, on the first of every month, give yourself a breast self-exam. It's easy to do. Here's how. If you prefer to do your BSE at a particular time in your cycle, calendar it now. But, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

And, once a year, get yourself a mammogram. Mammograms cost between $150 and $300. If you have to take a temp job one weekend a year, if you have to sell something on e-Bay, if you have to go cash in all the change in various jars all over the house, if you have to work the holiday season wrapping gifts at Macy's, for the love of the Goddess, please go get a mammogram once a year.

Or: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pays all or some of the cost of breast cancer screening services through its National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. This program provides mammograms and breast exams by a health professional to low-income, underinsured, and underserved women in all 50 states, six U.S. territories, the District of Columbia, and 14 American Indian/Alaska Native organizations. For more information, contact your state health department or call the Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER.

Send me an email after you get your mammogram and I will do an annual free tarot reading for you. Just, please, examine your own breasts once a month and get your sweet, round ass to a mammogram once a year. If you have a deck, pick three cards and e-mail me at hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com. I'll email you back your reading. If you don't have a deck, go to Lunea's tarot listed on the right-hand side in my blog links. Pick three cards from her free, on-line tarot and email me at hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com. I'll email you back your reading.


Picture found here.