Smudge Sticks

As I've blogged about before, I live a busy life and one of the challenges that I face is how to live as a Witch in this world, this modern one, this one full of conference calls, deadlines for briefs, emails to answer, investment accounts to manage, a home and garden to attend. One of the things that I often find myself missing is time for what I think of as the "routine duties of a priestess," -- time to grind incense, oil candles, harvest herbs, make smudge sticks.

This week, having met a major deadline at work, I'm taking a some time off to stay at home and get things in order before the "next big push." Back in March, when the unheard-of February snowstorms melted, I cut back an armload of dead branches from the German Mountain Sage and the French Thyme in the herb bed. And those dried-out branches have been sitting on my altar, ever since, waiting for me to turn them into smudge sticks.

I use smudge sticks a lot in my workings, often using them to smudge the boundaries of my property, the edges of my home, the liminal space between where things are stuck and where they can change. And, so today, I sat down to make smudge sticks, just like any old hedge witch, minor crone, witch of "this" place. It felt so good.

I love the homonym of "thyme" and "time" and use smudge sticks of thyme when I need to move between time. Sage is the more traditional, more grounded, use of smudge, although smudge is v much an element of Air. I use cotton embroidery thread, which burns well, in colors that represent Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. I ground, cast a circle, enter sacred space, bind the herbs, and call upon the Goddesses to make my intention manifest.

May it be so for you.

Water

It's not objectively true, but it does seem to me that winter is so much longer than summer. How can we be only weeks away from Litha, when the day and night are even and then, we begin, again, the mad descent into the dark, night growing long and day growing short? This morning, when the rain began around 4:00, I got up and put my nose in the window and smelled it: that earthy, rain smell that is missing here from December through mid April. As I curled back up under the covers in the deliberately-chilled room, I was praying: don't go away. Don't go away too soon, earthy smell.

This afternoon, driving home from work after finishing my pro bono hours, I went past the lovely Potomac River. For the entire length, the scents of honeysuckle and mown grass were like an overwhelming drug and there was low mist on the river and weak light breaking through the grey rain clouds that have turned everything so intensely green that you can't imagine it.

One of the greatest joys of my life is to live near the banks of this lovely river. This weekend, in the mountains, I was near its source and wished it love as both it and I ran, on different courses, back down to the floodplain.

Chas Clifton posts a list of twenty questions. IMHO, all Pagans should be able to answer these questions. The first two are: 1.Trace the water you drink from rainfall to tap. 2. Trace it out of the house and back to a river, aquifer or the sea.

A good summer project.

Beltane

DC is famous for its azaleas. These are from the southwest corner of my yard, surrounding the Japanese Temple Pine.

Western Autumn Sun Hitting My Japanese Maple

Part of my mad plan, which is mine, is to more or less turn my backyard into a small woodland around a little patio w a fountain and large Stone and undetermined Air Element and a fire pit. Today, Landscape Guy showed up at 7:00 am w Japanese Temple Pines and Japanese Maple Trees and American Wisteria, Amethest to begin that transformation. Around 4:45 pm, the Autumn Setting Sun hit the red leaves of one of the new Japanese Maples.

I believe that my ancient oak trees are v happy.

Within The Circle We Conspire

What an amazingly perfect Autumn day it was here, today. May it be so for you.

Once a month, my amazing circle of amazing women gets together for what we call Stitch-n-Bitch. Over time, the membership in our circle (we live in DC, a transient town) has changed and there are fewer "stitchers." Our motto is: Stitching Is Optional. But Come Prepared To Bitch. I cannot underestimate the importance for a circle of women who plan to engage in magic of spending lazy time together "just" chatting. I think that it's key to effective magic.

And, of course we always do bitch. One woman works for a financial reporting service (how do you think HER week went?), one works w non-profits, one edits technical documents and just found a new job in this shitty economy because she has mad skillz, one teaches math to middle schoolers, one is retired from the White House, one is a disabled historian, and one is a lawyer in a white-shoe DC firm. And, we are aunts, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, wives, daughters, granddaughters, neighbors, women in the DC Pagan community. We have a lot to bitch about.

Today, we had potluck brunch, tea, coffee, etc. and caught up with each other. We sat out on the screen porch and carved pumpkins. We carved a jack-o-lantern face, bats, a goddess, O B A M A, and a witch on a broomstick. It was a lot of fun. N and K came early and helped me set up,and stayed late and helped me clean up. We talked politics and magic and family and career and made lists of who we would invite to our fantasy dinner parties.

I've lived my whole life surrounded by, uplifted by, supported by Grace. I've always thought that Volume One of my autobiography would be entitled: Receiving Assistance from Witnesses, and that Volume Two would be entitled: No One on the Ground Was Hurt -- both phrases from evening news programs. But one of the very best things that Grace ever arranged for me is this circle of amazing women, a life that includes them, lazy Autumn sunlight on my porch with them, mugs of coffee, pumpkins, and laughter. The laughter of sisters in the slanting Autumn light, lifting me up, helping me cope, listening to me bitch, making it all ok. My sisters, cleaning the pumpkin seeds for roasting, setting my table w/ cinnamon rolls and pumpkin bread, garlic spread, and fruit, my sisters helping me to clean up afterwards, assuring me that it's ok to plant wisteria on the shed, listening to my stories about the stories I read to G/Son last night on iChat.

I live such a wonderful life, a life so full of Grace, a life blessed by my sisters.

May it be so for you.

The Garden In Early Autumn

The new herb bed, which went in late, is going gangbusters, with basil and lavender and French tarragon and rosemary and pineapple sage (about to bloom!) and German mountain sage and French thyme and woad and sunflowers.

The morning glories, both Carnivale and Grandpa Otts, are all over the place and starting to make seeds for next year.

And, datura. I planted datura from last years' seed in a spot that we then tore up to put in the herb bed and I figured, no datura this year. But one determined soul showed up in late August and I just couldn't bear to mow her down. Last night, she bloomed. A scent between vanilla and lemon and such gorgeous flowers; it's one of my favorite plants.

It's wonderful how, even now, as we head towards the dark, the plants are still soaking up sunlight and turning it into: everything.

Morning Glory Carnivale

Really, how can anyone live w/o morning glories? They're there when you head out to work, too tired to go, and they make it all seem worthwhile. Out of all the Carnivales that I grew this year, I got only one pink. Reminds me of nothing so much as the pink gambling chips in the film Marie Antoinette w Dunst. "I am saying "goodbye."

Hard Times

So, as Obama noted today, what we're seeing is history's final judgment on an economic "philosophy" (con game would be a better term, IMHO, because anyone who didn't "know," didn't want to "know") that began in the Reagan years. The notion that massive tax cuts for the very rich, a refusal to spend tax dollars on national infrastructure or programs that help average people, and a blind faith in "free markets" that puts the frothingest snake-handling fundie to shame has finally played itself out and, well, we are well and truly fucked.

One thing that I spend time remembering, especially as we head (at a mad dash, it seems to me, this year) toward Samhein (with barely a passing glance at Mabon), is that each of us is the descendent of generations and generations and generations of survivors. If you're here, now, in Ram Dass' words, it's because the people from whom you come, your ancestors, unlike so many others, have survived every single, solitary generation since Mitochondrial Eve walked out of Africa with her seven daughters. You come from survivors; you are a survivor.

And you will survive this.

If you owe money, it won't matter if the entity to whom you owe it goes under. They'll sell the right to collect money from you to someone else, maybe at a loss, and you'll need to go on paying.

If you have saved money in a savings account, as long as you have less than $100,000 in any single bank, the United States government will insure it if your bank fails and, as Son said to me today when I was panicking and thinking of taking at least some money out and hiding it, if the FDIC fails, we'll have bigger problems than can be solved by $50,000 or $75,000 in cash.

I am still thinking of converting some savings to pure cash. Here's the calculus. Reasonable people do think that there could be bank failures that the FDIC won't be able to cover. (Hat tip: Atrios. (Who ruined my fucking morning. I am just saying.)) If you pull your cash out and bury it in your yard or hide it in your mattress, you lose the interest income that may have been helping that money to not lose value due to inflation. How much interest do you expect to earn this year? Would you pay that much to know that your money was protected against the once-in-several-generations risk that the FDIC won't be able to give you your money when your bank fails? If so, bury it in your yard. If not, leave it where it is and cross your fingers.

If you've invested uninsured money with a firm that goes under, well, Goddess guard you. Lots of our ancestors worked until the day that they died.

Meanwhile, hunker down. Do what witches always do in tough times. Become invisible. Cut expenditures. If you have a job, keep it. Take that second job to bring in some extra money. You know by now that you have to pay off credit card debt, car debt, student loans, mortgages. You know by now that you need six, and maybe, in these tough times, nine or twelve, month of net income socked away somewhere v safe.

If you're going to need to borrow money sometime in the next year, say for a car loan, expect to have to put a large amount down. Start saving now. Reduce your expectations. Go to school part time and work part time when the student loan doesn't come through. Save up a larger down payment for the house. What? You think your great, great, great, great, many-times-great G/ma didn't make sacrifices? You think you're better than she? You didn't riot in the streets 8 years ago, did you? Here's the inevitable result of letting SCOTUS steal it.

Garden in the Spring and can what you can can (pun!). I'd depend less on freezing, as it relies on energy, which may get spotty. Barter. If you don't have debt and can stockpile, make good decisions about what to stockpile. Wood? Protein? Gold (likely too late)? I'm honestly thinking protein, in the form of dried milk and/or powdered soy, as G/Son is still growing.

And, here's where I'm mad, but what can you stockpile that will be fun? Sustaining? When times get rough, joy has a huge premium. Do you have a musical instrument, a collection of read-aloud poetry, a kaliedoscope? I have an entire case of little seashells, held together by rice paper that dissolves in hot water, and inside the shells are paper flowers that float to the surface when the rice paper dissolves. I have five bookcases full of books that I love. I have a lap cat. I have enough morning glories and datura and black iris and crocus to get through next year. I have yarn to keep me busy for a long time and I have poetry lined up all across the counter in the kitchen.

If you have a job, keep it.

If you have health insurance, have everything done that you can have done, now, before you lose your job or your benefits get cut. Do whatever you can -- exercise, take vitamins, get enough sleep, meditate, stay warm -- to stay healthy right now.

And, especially now as the veil thins, call on your ancestors, those proven survivors, of whose ability to survive you are the living, breathing, DNA-style proof.

And, in November, vote in the manner most calculated to deny the WH to John McCain, who never met a tax cut for the rich that he, and his millionairess wife, didn't love.

Art found here.

Glory Every Morning

I love morning glories. I love that they bloom in the morning and I love how profuse they are. Virginia, in fact, considers them an invasive species, but I can't help myself; I love them. I mostly grow Grandpa Otts, and I love them the best, but this year I tried a new variety called Carnivale. They're nice; not sure I'd grow them again, but they're nice.

The other morning, one of the squirrels was climbing up on the deck, rooting around in the morning glory vines, and very deliberately picking and eating the small "bulb" at the end of the finished flower that, uneaten, would go on to become the seed pod. Oddly, she ignored the rose hips to get to the morning glories. Are they psychotropic for squirrels? I don't begrudge her; I'll get hundreds of seeds and she's hungry, here, just before the acorns come in.

Discussing The Undiscussable

Mystical experience, the experience of the mystic, what it is that mystics experience -- that stuff is, almost by definition, idiomatic. It cannot be translated into any standard language, although it is possible that the language of exceptional music, exceptional art, exceptional poetry (over prose), may come close.

My deepest mystical experience -- and this is odd for a mammal, living in the flesh -- is observing bright, late-afternoon sunshine on leaves, grocking photosynthesis and the symphony inherent therein, being in a forest or a garden. Yesterday, I walked through the Brookside Gardens and sucked, as a hungry child suckles a breast, upon the amazing sight of sunlight filtered though deep forest shade. I see Fairies there, but I mean the word "fairie" in a scary and Earth-centered sense. I reminded myself that I can go on living.

On my way out, I sat by a bed of unknown blue flowers with scented leaves that was covered by a lacy and ever-undulating blanket of bees making inter-species love to the flowers. I wish that I knew what those flowers were.

I came home and, this morning, woke up to deep purple morning glories being penetrated, over and over, seriatum, by a fat buzzing bee. And, upon exiting from every flower, backing up, legs over legs, the bee left a scattering of golden pollen. I watched and watched and watched.

I don't know how to describe this. It's idiomatic. The poet Mary Oliver may have come close when she wrote, speaking of a different, native American plant:

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.

I watched the bee, about whose people I have been so worried, make love over and over to one deep purple morning glory after another, and all that I could feel, here on the edge of Autumn and the season of hunger and cold, was:

Let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in late summer,
the bee spread golden pollen
from one flower
all over the deep purple petal
of another.

I find myself content.



May it be so for you.


Photo found here.

My American Prayer

I live in a swing state. And, unless you live somewhere v safely blue, we're both going to vote for Mr. Called to Serve and Mr. Hate on Anita Hill. Because the Patriarchy doesn't give us nice, clean choices. It only gives us choices between crappy and less-than-crappy. And this old hedge witch will keep on choosing "less than crappy" over and over and over again.

Great Granddaughter, I wish for you: better choices.

I wanted to pray this American prayer too. I just didn't want to be excluded from it. Again. Again.

My American Prayer is to a deity with a womb. Who bleeds. With a vagina.

I think she understands.

Black-Eyed Susans

They're the State flower of Maryland, but the grow really well in Virginia, too. Perennials, they can grow in some shade, which, in my yard, is a good thing. I like them because they'll bloom for several weeks here at the end of July, when most flowers are finished, providing color until the fall mums come in.

When Gardenias And The Afternoon Sun Love Each Other Very Much . . . .

The sun has been making such intense love to Earth that the deck burns my feet when I walk outside, barefoot, to make love to the Earth with my feet. My gardenias, that I harbor inside all winter long, living, as I do in Zone 7, are blooming. If you walk outside in the heat of the mid afternoon in July, in Virginia, the gardenias on the deck surround you with a scent that makes you very, very certain that the Goddess loves us, and wants us to be: ecstatic.

Witchcraft is a religion of ecstacy. I believe that if I believe nothing else. And, this hot afternoon, surrounded by gardenias making such love to the Air as only a lover devoted to nothing but love could possibly make, I am, well, I am in ecstacy. But it's polyamoury. The gardenias can only make this kind of rare, refined, mad love to the Air when the Sun helps them. And, it's all good.

Sweet Potato Vine And Coleus

The woman who lived here before I did was a potter and she left several of her lovely large pots for me. This year, I planted nicotina, sweet potato vine, and a dark coleus.

Sage

This is Sage Bergarten, German Mountain Sage. It is mad for the mix of sandy soil and wood chips in my herb bed. In late October or early November, I'll cut it and hang it up to dry. I'll burn it all winter in a tiny incense burner that my world-traveler brother gave to me, on a small block of charcoal. It will purify the air in my ritual room, ground me, remind me that summer is coming, when the sun is so hot that the sandy soil stays many degrees warmer than the air for hours after the sun has gone down.

Listening To The Earth

As I go into the Earth, she pierces my heart. As I penetrate further, she unveils me. When I have reached her center I am weeping openly. I have known her all my life, yet she reveals stories to me, and these stories are revelations and I am transformed. Each time I go to her I am born like this. Her renewal washes over me endlessly, her wounds caress me, I become aware of all that has come between us, of the noise between us, the blindness, of something sleeping between us. Now my body reaches out to her. They speak effortlessly and I learn at no instant does she fail me in her presence. She is as delicate as I am, I know her sentience I feel her pain and my own pain comes into me and my own pain grows large and I grasp this pain with my hands, and I open my mouth to this pain, I taste, I know, and I know why she goes on, under great weight, with this great thirst, in drought, in starvation, with intelligence in every act does she survive disaster. This earth is my sister, I love her daily grace, her silent daring and how loved I am how we admire this strength in each other all that we have lost, all that we have suffered, all that we know: we are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget what she is to me, what I am to her.

~Susan Griffin, in Earth Prayers From Around th World, 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for Honoring the Earth, ed. Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon, Harper, San Francisco, 1991

As I'm landscaping my yard and planting new plants, replacing old ones, putting up structures, I've been spending more and more time listening to this tiny piece of land. I started doing that because I wanted to let the land tell me about herself, to make sure that what I did was in accord with her desires. What I didn't expect was how much she's been waiting to tell me about myself.

Picture found here.

Spaces for Foxes

The lovely men doing my landscaping recently put up most of a cedar privacy (I'm a witch, after all) fence around the Eastern, Southern, and Western sides of my backyard.

They left special spaces underneath the Southern fence to allow the fox to visit me in winter, as is her wont.

Wiccan Landscaping.

Sweet

If your life is anything like mine, there are periods when things seem worried, tense, full of obstacles, and, then, there are periods when everything is simply unimaginably sweet. I've always shorthanded this phenom in my own mind with a saying from one of the Dune books: Some days, it's melange. Some days, bitter spice. Lately, I've definitely been in one of my melange stages. (Don't worry; this is usually how the universe presages a whack upside the head. Another of my favorite lines, this time from the movie Out of Africa: Isak Dinesen's farm burns to the ground. The next day, she's walking with an old friend through the smoldering ruins. Friend: What happened? Dinesen: I had the best coffee harvest of my life. And, then, God remembered.)

Yesterday, I got to spend the day with G/Son. I try, I do, not to turn this blog into Old Woman Tells Everyone How Cute Her Grandson Is. I am not always successful.

We had a v serious thunderstorm with pounding rain and, since I love thunderstorms, G/Son and I went out onto my screen porch to watch the rain. Lightening struck my next door neighbor's pond and the thunder was so sudden and so loud that it startled Nonna and G/Son. We went inside for a minute, and G/Son said: That loud thunder scared me! The one thing that I don't want is for him to be afraid of storms, and the other thing that I don't want is for him to be unable to talk about his fears, so I said: Me, too. That thunder was so close and so loud that it scared me, too. Mostly, I was just startled, but, also, I was a little bit afraid. Let's go outside and yell at the thunder! (Goddess knows, it's been the overriding occupation of my days, yelling into thunderstorms. Really. In more ways than one.)

So, we did. We went back onto the porch and we both yelled as loud as we possibly could at the thunder. (We can yell pretty loud.) G/Son told the thunder: Don' do dat! Be nice! Be loud, but not so loud! No scaring G/Son and Nonna, thunder! Nonna yelled: I can be louder than you, thunder! You can't scare me off my own screen porch! Don' do dat! Soon, you'll be gone and G/Son and Nonna will be dancing in the puddles, you loud thunder! Back off!

Soon, the thunder was gone. We took off our Crocks and our flip-flops and we went outside barefoot in Nonna's yard. The grass was cool and wet and soft and it tickled our toes. I told G/Son about how you can grock that grass loves to be walked on. Rain was still dripping off the lilac bush and beech tree when we walked under them. There was a stream of water running down Nonna's street into the storm drain that goes to the holy Chesapeake Bay. We splashed in the stream and sent little blessings on leaves from us to the Chesapeake Bay. Here, Chesapeake Bay, this is to say that we love you. Here, Chesapeake Bay, this leaf is to tell you that we hope you get better soon from the pollution. Here, Chesapeake Bay, this is to tell you how much fun we are having splashing in the water that will be a part of you! Those leaves floated like little boats and we talked about Viking funerals and sending blessings into the West, which, not too surprisingly, is the direction that the little stream always flows. There were some birds splashing their feet in the water, too, just like G/Son and Nonna, and we pretended that we were birds and could splash in the water and then fly into the oak trees.

This morning, there was no sign of rain. It was a perfect, lazy, Sunday morning in June on Nonna's porch with the pink and deep purple roses blooming in mad profusion just outside the porch and the mint and thyme smelling wonderful under the bright sun. We sat under the lazy ceiling fan, and we ate waffles with strawberry jam and we drank ice water from paper cups with Elmo on them. We read Stellaluna and The Coyote That Swallowed a Flea and G/Son petted Miss Thing (gently!) and fed her kitty treats, exclaiming in pure delight with each one: She's eating it! G/Son swung his feet from the big chair on my porch and we listened to the birds singing in the trees and tried to guess what the birds were saying.

If it gets any better than this, I would be unlikely to be able to stand it. We witches say that What Is Remembered Lives. At two, G/Son's a little young to remember this morning. But if he ever, as an old man, gets a whiff of strawberry jam and roses on a Sunday morning in June and has a moment when he feels safe and comfortable and at peace, I will not die. And, regardless, sweet, sweet mornings like this one can make up for a lot of bitter spice.

May it be so for you.

Peonies By Mary Oliver

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open ---
pools of lace,
white and pink ---
and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away

to their dark, underground cities ---
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again ---
beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?


~from New And Selected Poems by Mary Oliver


***************************

I went out in the rain this morning and, even then, the ants were trying desperately to get INSIDE the peony buds. Peonies are quick to open once picked and brought inside, especially if you give them lukewarm water. You can almost watch them unfold.

In Progress

It doesn't look like a real herb bed, yet.