The Year of Artemis

I'm writing a book! It takes up most of my writing time. It's an idea I've had for probably ten years, to cover the utterly fascinating period of Classical Greece during the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. This is amazing stuff. Impossibly complicated and intertwined families and connections. Intrigue and drama. Kings and tyrants and overthrown governments. Betrayals and manipulations. Incest and adultery. An imprisoned king who goes mad and commits suicide by stripping off his own skin. How is possible that the name of Kleisthenes is more or less unknown in our culture when he's literally the man who implemented the first democracy? 

So, yeah. I am super excited about this. I've wanted to write one portion of this for years, but it occurred to me that the entire story, the pre-and post-, has a whole cast of characters and stories that I want to tell. It's outlined and I have the first three chapters in the works. 

Anyway. It was just Halloween, a holiday I like a lot even though I'm indifferent about wearing costumes. There's something about this time of year that has always evoked something strong in me. The chill in the air, the smell of wood smoke, the leaves crunching underfoot. It's a magical time. 

In some pagan traditions, Halloween marks the end of the year. It's the end of the growing season, the harvest is in, the nights are dark and full of terrors. Well, not until we turn the clocks back and extend the evenings even longer. But it's the time to honor those who have gone before, and also to recognize our own mortality, laughing in its face as we dress up as the things that frighten us. 

There's a tradition that calls for a dedication of a year and a day before pledging oneself to the old ways. Probably dates from the '50s like most Wiccan traditions. I think the concept is valid, though. Take a year to think about what you believe and how you want to practice that belief. 

Two years ago I started a journal to document my year-and-a-day. I've always liked to write down my thoughts, even if I don't often read through it afterward; the act of writing just helps me sort out my beliefs. As Joan Didion put it, I don't know what I think until I write it down.

Turns out I have a lot of thoughts and a year later, this was a 400 page document that was taking a while to open. I started a new year-and-a-day and decided that if I kept doing it, moving the date one additional day each year, it would begin on my birthday the year I turn 80, which I'm thinking is my probable lifespan. Then I realized that I'd done the math wrong and leap years are a thing, so it wouldn't work out like I'd thought. Oh well. I aspire to 100 anyway. 

In any case, it's time to start a new year. Instead of the uncreative name "Year and a Day (3)" I've decided to take a page from the ancient Greeks, who named their year after the eponymous archon, the top man elected to the office (there were several archons). The Romans did this too, naming their years after the two consuls elected to office that year. 

Diana of Versailles, Roman copy of a Greek original
 by Leochades of Athens 

(A one-year term only, not to be repeated. Let's take a moment to appreciate some of the better ideas of our democratic forebears.)

I've decided this will be the year of Artemis. Being a single woman without children, I've always been drawn to the solitary goddesses. Artemis is the sister of Apollo and the daughter of Zeus. She's a virgin goddess who is oddly also a goddess of childbirth. The huntress of the forest. She had a cult in Sparta whose yearly festival involved a flogging game/ritual that became such a huge spectacle, the Romans eventually erected a theater to hold the massive crowds that would come to watch the event. 

History is so interesting. It's my dream to write something where this resonates to everyone. 

Slowing Down

I'm surprised the blog still had me signed in, it's been so long since I posted anything!

In reality, though, it's only been six weeks. And in the scheme of things, that is a fairly short time. This is not just an excuse (though it doubles nicely as one), it's my theme today.

I'm taking a sick day. And writing a blog post, you say? Shouldn't you be curled up in bed sleeping, or at least moaning in misery, since you had the audacity to take a day away from your duties in the workplace?

Maybe you're not saying that at all, but I am. I'm not sure why I feel such tremendous guilt whenever I take a sick day. Probably because I am very seldom too ill to function, and that's always been my guideline about taking off - if I'm too sick to work, I should be too sick to do anything but lie around and groan about how awful I feel.

That does happen to me, but not often. Maybe once a year, not even always once. I had a cold last week that has lingered through the weekend, culminating in an upset stomach and a night without sleep, and when I found myself wide awake at 2:30 am after two hours of fruitlessly counting sheep, I decided to just take the day off. I have well over a hundred hours saved up and nothing pressing on my calendar today. So why am I so reluctant to just give in and take a day to rest?

Well, for one thing, it's appearances. One does not call off on Monday without raising a "yeah, sure" eyebrow or two. Plus I was off on Friday for my scheduled flex day. Surely I could have willed myself into feeling better by now. And the thing is, I am not incapacitated. I could work. When I woke up around 7 (after finally drifting off around 3;30), I thought, "just go in late, you're all right."

See the guilt? I can't decide if this is my Catholic upbringing, my German ancestry work ethic, some combination of the two, or just my personal psychosis.

I stopped to visit with a friend on my way home Thursday. After yawning approximately 42 times in the course of an hour, she advised me to go home and completely relax - Netflix and the couch. It'll be good for you, she said.

Did I do this? No. Instead, I was spectacularly productive over the weekend. I wrote up a to-do list with about three dozen items on it and did them all. I thrive on that feeling of accomplishment that comes with ticking off a bunch of things that needed to be done.

And yet, here I am. Tired. Still needing to slow down. 

Green Acres is the place to be. 

This is the time of year to remember to do that. Maybe it's part of the reason we all tend to get sick in the fall. (Yeah, I'm pretty sure it has more to do with people being inside more and the kids going back to school spreading germs everywhere, but bear with me here.) This is the time that the brightly-living part of the year fades away. The heat and growth of summer come to a gradual, beautiful end, over the course of just twelve weeks. This is autumn, the slow decline to that part of the year where everything will come to rest.

Winter is unequivocal. It's cold, there's only a few hours of daylight, pretty much everything about it says "Go inside and sit by the fire with a book." Autumn is the promise of that, with its changing colors and chilly mornings, all the while allowing summer to linger on with its clear blue skies and continuing wealth of hot sunny days. It's my favorite time of the year in part because it feels so fleeting. Technically all the seasons last three months, but in Colorado there are really only about six weeks to take a drive through the mountains to see the gorgeous colors before a wind storm or early snow rips all the leaves down. By mid-October, the window is closed.

The message is slow down. Look around. Everything is coming to an end. Enjoy it while it lasts. Take a moment.

Take a day.

The world will not miss you for one day.

Second Harvest

Around the first of August we celebrate the second harvest. Wiccans call it Lammas or Lughnasadh (pronounced 'Lu-ness-a'), in honor of the Irish god Lugh. It's the height of summer, the crops are coming in, and it's time to celebrate the bounty of the growing season. 

My tomatoes started ripening a couple of weeks ago. From here until first frost, I'll have some nearly every day. I grew almost all bite-sized tomatoes this year - grape, tiny orange, yellow pear, and cherry. I think I like the orange cherries the best; they have such a delicious sweetness. But I especially love how colorful it all is in the basket. 

And a single, minuscule green pepper. Peppers don't seem to love my garden.

I have three pepper plants this year: jalapeno, banana pepper, and green. The green pepper has given me only the one sad little specimen you see in the photo. I've tried to grow them three years straight and this is, sadly, the best I've done. 

However, the jalapenos are doing well, and I've already picked a number of banana peppers. I've never grown them before and I rarely even eat them outside of Subway sandwiches, so the first time I chopped some raw into a salad I was dismayed at how weird and bitter they tasted. Then I found a recipe for pickled banana peppers, and all has been right with the world. 

I grow zucchini every year. This year and last, I mixed it up with a yellow crookneck squash plant as well. A couple of years ago a friend asked, "How do you grow zucchini?" and I could only reply in amazement, "You plant it in the ground." I am inundated with squash every year. Zucchini omelettes, zucchini brownies, zucchini cake, zucchini quiche, zucchini casserole, a gajillion versions of zucchini bread both savory and sweet. Zucchini shredded and frozen for the indeterminate point in mid-winter when I'm ready to eat something with it again. 

This year, though, I haven't seen much from my famously prolific squash plants. Hopefully they'll start to give me more as the month wears on. It is definitely still summer: a couple of beautifully cooler days over the weekend gave way today to the sunny 90s. 

I'm glad of it, really. I am not a fan of the summer heat and autumn has always been my favorite season, in large part because of the relief it brings with crispy nights and cooler days. But in the last couple of years, the crushing drought and heat seems to have tempered back into the summers I remember from my youth: hot, yes, but not the oppressive Arizona-desert, get-thyself-indoors hot we had for what seems like fifteen or twenty years running.  And because it's been warm but not horrible, I find myself sad to realize that summer is coming to an end. 

Not yet, though! For now, the veggies are bursting and the sun is shining and the grass is...well... dead. But it's quite obvious, now, that the days are shortening and the seasons are turning. Autumn is coming. 

(Fair warning: I started watching Game of Thrones. I'll try not to quote it excessively.)

And now, this picture of kittens. 

Cuteness overload!

New Beginnings

In recent weeks I started thinking about adopting a new kitty. I feel guilty for even wanting to, as we have two still in the house - the sister and father of my Peanut. Two cats is really enough, in terms of space and upkeep required. But I miss the special relationship I had with Peanut. Gordon and Snuggins have Jesse as their human. They like and tolerate me, but it's not the same.

I'm not sure how I got to thinking about a pair instead of one. I guess if two is already enough, why not double it? Makes perfect sense, really. But once the idea was planted I couldn't get it out. A pair from the same litter, built-in friends.

As it happens, the Dumb Friends League is on the way home from work. Literally I drive right past it. So I stopped in last Thursday just to see the adoptable kitties, and there they were! A pair of brothers, five months old, captured from a feral colony in Denver.

They are so beautiful! A tiny panther and a mini ocelot.

Verdict's still out on their names. They came as Brad and Chad, but they're not attached to them, and they don't seem particularly suited. So far, Felix and Oscar are front runners. Oscar the ocelot, and Felix the panther. I love giving a black cat, subject of so many superstitions of bad luck, a name that means Lucky.

Also up for consideration: Toothless.

I'm not committing to it yet. We'll see if it sticks. So far, the names seem fitting.

I adore them already, and yet I'm kind of terrified. Four cats in the house! What have I done? I listened to them tearing around in my room last night and realized it's been fifteen years since I had a kitten. They're going to destroy everything! It's what they do!

His markings! He looks like an ocelot.

Totally worth it. I mean, look at those faces.

Coexist

I've been on vacation the past week, a much-needed respite from daily life. Man Friend has made an abrupt exit, so I sold our tickets to the music festival and bought a ticket to see my oldest, closest friend in New York instead. Turns out she needed it as much as I did, so it was a happy impulse.

Friends make everything better, don't they? Nothing like a few nights of wine, conversation, and belly laughs to put the vagaries of life back into perspective.

Coming back yesterday was an adventure. Flight delays make traveling exhausting - I've always found it both amusing and puzzling that waiting, then sitting on a plane doing literally nothing but reading, can be so tiring.

Anyway. The first flight was delayed over an hour and we all had a tight connection in Charlotte. I hope that beautiful girl next to me made her flight to Atlanta but I doubt it, we didn’t get to the gate until it was set to take off. I was luckier: we arrived just in time for me to run down to the gate, only to see this flight was delayed too. Good thing or my bag probably would be in Miami or something right now.

In any case, on this second flight, I have an aisle seat near the front, which is my favorite place to be. Not only did I make the flight but I got a good seat! I have good luck this way.

Someone pulled the wrong lever and there's only emergency lighting and no air circulating as we board. Nevertheless, it's freezing. The girl across the aisle in a sleeveless dress asks the flight attendant for a blanket. "We don't have one," she's told.

I wish I had a sweater to offer her. I usually do, but it's summer, and I'm traveling very light.

In my row, there's a youngish man at the window and a big fiftyish woman in the middle. I sit down and immediately bury my face in my tablet (Wolf Hall; great book) as the two of them are chatting up a storm and I, the introvert, want no part of small talk today. He's coming to Denver to see his mother who is going to have heart surgery at St Anthony, and she is peppering him with questions - where are you from, how old are you, how old is she, what's the issue, how long since you've seen her, on and on. He’s from Boston but lives in Charlotte and has a total Southern accent now. Much is made of the change in his accent. 

It’s all very ordinary chitchat and then she asks him, “Do you know the Lord?”

I freeze.

“I do,” he says.

“But do you really know the Lord?” she persists.

“Yes ma’am,” he replies.

“That’s good,” she nods. And asks the name of his mother and says she’ll be praying for him.

I’m waiting for her to turn to me and ask me the same question just because it seems like she’s going to, but lucky me, my “please do not speak to me” cues are accepted for what they are and she does not.

But what would I have said? I was preparing an answer, and I was uncomfortable at the prospect of explaining myself. “I’m a pagan.” “I am not a Christian.”  “I have been previously acquainted with the one you call Lord, but we are no longer on speaking terms.”

I have no desire to be an ass about my non-belief in the Christian faith. I am fully aware that the stories I consider another mythology, others regard as literal truth. I believe there is truth in all mythologies; not necessarily in the details of the stories themselves, but in the lessons they teach us.

My 10^th grade English teacher once began a lesson with the statement, “Myth is Truth.”

We all stared at him.

Myth is Truth, he explained, because it is believed.

I can’t remember exactly how he broke it down, but here’s what I took away from it: Myth is more than “legend,” more than “fiction.” It is more, even, than an attempt to explain natural phenomena. Myth seeks to expose the deeper truths of nature, both of the Earth and of humans and of our place in the world. 

Most stories do this on some level, really.

I'm grateful that she didn't ask me my faith, because I have a feeling my reply (which likely would have been the shortest one, 'I'm a pagan') would have been met with disapproval at best and hostility at worst.

Ultimately it doesn't matter what we believe. It's what we do that matters. This woman prayed for the man's mother: this is a kind and generous thing to do, whether or not you believe prayer has any value.

The woman is offered a seat in the exit row a few rows back with more leg room. Apparently she had a first class ticket and was bumped, and this is their only recourse to offer her something better than this least-desirable middle seat. She accepts and heads to the back.

The man smiles at me. "Looks like we'll have more room!" I smile and agree, it's nice - I can't remember the last time I didn't have anyone next to me on a plane.

He hauls his backpack up onto the seat, rummages around for a minute, and pulls out a hoodie. Reaches across to the woman on the other side of the aisle. "Are you cold?"

She accepts it with a smile of pure gratitude as he jokes that "it's clean," and drapes it over her goosebumped arms.

Kindness. This is what life is about.

As we are leaving the plane I can't help noticing that several of the first-class seats do in fact have blankets, and several of them are still in plastic, unused. 

Lessons from the Earth

Things I've learned from my strawberry patch:

- Patience. The six spindly plants I planted last year that barely survived the summer came back lush, fruitful and vibrant after the rains of spring.

- Optimism. I've amended the soil and planted six more along that stretch of fence where several plants died last year.

- Enjoying the Moment. I've been harvesting berries for several weeks now. With only this small patch, this means every couple of days, five to ten tiny little berries are ripe for the picking. Just enough for a single serving, sweet and delicious and best eaten the same day.

- Steady Hands. It's delicate work, cutting the berries loose without bruising them.

- Observation. Berries ripen overnight; I have to check the patch every day to catch them when they're ripe for me but not yet noticed by the critters.

- Calm. Working in the earth, in any capacity, brings me calm. The worst of moods, the heaviest of worries, even the grip of sorrow can be dispelled after a few minutes of digging up the earth. The monotony of weed-pulling offers a rhythm all its own - and the occasional joy of actually getting the whole root of the dandelion.

I've been thinking a lot about the Strawberry Moon, of how to better live by the cycles of the seasons. I'm a very early-morning person, up before dawn every day, but I've been pondering a shift to a later schedule to better enjoy the long protracted days of summer. I haven't done it yet, and I may not - the sunrise, after all, is still my favorite time of day - but it's a natural inclination, I think, to feel a shift in the body along with the season. Just as we tend to get to bed earlier in winter, when the nights are long and dark, it only seems right to stay up late past the long sunset, and watch the first stars dot the sky.

Long long days, that's summer. Live by the sun, feel by the moon, as they say.

(don't ask me who they is, I saw it on Pinterest)

Strawberry Solstice

The summer solstice was yesterday, coinciding with the full moon. This hasn't happened since 1967, and won't happen again until 2062. I had no idea they were so rare.

http://yourtake.9news.com/media/20911710

So today marks the first full day of summer, though it's felt like it for the last week or so with temperatures in the nineties. I have a love/hate relationship with summer. Love the long days, green growth everywhere, lingering dawns and sunsets, Hate the oppressive heat, the blistering sun, the sad shift in the landscape from green growth to dry yellow straw.

Though I do have to admit it's a glorious moment when I walk out of my meat locker of an office into the heat of the day.

June is the Strawberry Moon, as now is the month that strawberries are producing. My patch is doing really well! I've taken a few every day for the last week or so, along with a few handfuls of spinach from the veggie patch for an awesome little salad. I love getting meals out of my garden.

Strawberry Moon is also known as Rose Moon, Honey Moon, Lotus Moon, Green Corn Moon, Planting Moon, Horse Moon. Following the moon's cycles is probably the oldest means of marking the passage of time we know, and a lunar calendar is still used in many places.

It's remarkable how accurately we've managed to break down the turning of the year by just watching the moon and the sun. They are gods and goddesses in most ancient traditions: Sol, Apollo, Sunni, Mani, Selene, Artemis.

Why not? Without them, we wouldn't exist. 

Death and the Maiden...and her Mother

Demeter was the goddess of the harvest, much revered and beloved in the world of men. She wasthe granddaughter of Gaia, the great Earth Mother who gave birth to all of the gods. Through Demeter's blessings, the crops in the fields grew tall and the land bloomed with fertile plants.

Demeter had many children, but she was especially devoted to her daughter Persephone. The two were inseparable.

As she grew, Persephone's radiant beauty and gentle, lovely nature drew many admirers among the gods. But her mother Demeter would not allow any of them to pay her suit.

One day, Persephone was picking flowers in a meadow with some of her friends when she became entranced by an unfamiliar bloom. Wandering away from the other girls, she came upon a rocky gully cut by a clear slow stream. Beside the bank, she knelt to pluck one of the beautiful blossoms.

It was then that she was spied by Hades, king of the Underworld. Hades had long been smitten with Persephone, and seeing her without her ever-present mother, he was overcome with love. In a great rumbling that split the rocks in two, he burst out of the ground in his three-horse chariot, swept up the girl and carried her back to his realm, under the earth.

Persephone was terribly frightened. Hades sought to calm her with kind words, offering her a comfortable room in his gloomy palace. "I long only for your bright company," he said gently, patting her hand, and though she flinched at his touch there was a sadness in his eyes that pulled at her sympathy. But she refused to speak, and turned away.

Demeter was frantic at the disappearance of her daughter. She questioned Persephone's friends, but none of them had seen where she'd gone. She asked the rocks and the streams, but received no reply. She pleaded with the flowers and the grasses, but heard only the soft chuckle of the wind.

In her despair, Demeter wandered from place to place, asking every living thing where her daughter had gone. None had seen her: not man, not beast, not tree. And with every empty reply her despair grew, until her grief consumed her.


Demeter stopped blessing the land. Leaves fell from the trees, crops withered and died. Famine spread through the world of men. They cried out to their great goddess, pleading for her good favor, but so great was her sorrow and apathy that Demeter was deaf to their prayers.

Persephone was lonely. Though Hades had been unfailingly kind, seeking in every way to win her favor, she longed to return to the living. She missed her mother and she missed the bright warmth of Helios as he passed across the sky. She missed the flowers in the fields and their sweet perfume.

Yet Persephone soon grew restless in her new home, and reluctantly roused herself from mourning. Hades wished to escort her about his realm. She found herself touched by the despairing plight of the souls, so sad to have left the living, and gave her sweet smile and blessing to all she saw. In her wake, even the spirits of the dead were left content.

Hades, too, brightened in her presence. He was a solitary god, the only one of his siblings without a seat on Olympus. Solemn and quiet, he took his duties seriously and did not often leave his realm, preferring to allow the Fates to send him fresh company in their own time.

Persephone saw that for every smile she bestowed upon a soul they encountered, the gloom of both Hades and his realm was lifted. She began to recognize the strange beauty of the Underworld, and the earnest charm of her companion. She found herself turning her smile not only upon the souls in his care, but upon him, more and more,

When Hades asked her to be his Queen, she was torn. She still missed her mother, the waters and the flowers and the light of Helios, but she had grown attached to her new home. She had made many friends. Even Hades' fearsome three-headed dog Cerberus loved her so much he ate from her hand. She had to admit the idea of being Queen of the Underworld was intriguing.

Persephone missed her home, but the land of the living was hardly recognizable. As the plants died, so too did the animals, and the world of men suffered greatly. Demeter, lost in her grief, cared nothing for their prayers.

At last Zeus responded to their pleas with a directive to his messenger, Hermes: go and fetch Persephone from the Underworld, and return her to her mother. For from his throne on Olympus he had seen the truth, that his brother Hades had taken the girl. So too had he seen how happy his brother was with Persephone. Thus Zeus he neglected to tell his sister Demeter what had happened to her daughter.

Hermes arrived in the Underworld and demanded to see Persephone. "Demeter your sister is distraught," he rebuked.

Hades did not protest. He knew his love could not agree to a life away from the mother she missed so dearly. "If you must return, I will not prevent it," he said heavily. "But first, I beg you, take some small sustenance for the journey." And he presented her with a dish of pomegranate seeds.


"My lady," protested Hermes. "You must not eat of the fruit, lest you bind yourself to this realm forever."

Persephone contemplated the bowl. Though she longed for her mother and her home, she had grown exceeding fond of Hades. She had not missed the sadness in his eyes when he gave her leave to go, nor the spark of hope that lit them as he offered her the fruit.

"I must return to my mother," she said at last.

Hades cast down his eyes, concealing his disappointment. Cerberus whined.

Persephone placed a hand into the bowl and picked out six plump seeds. "I must return to my mother," she repeated, "for she is unhappy and sick with grief. And truth be told, I wither away from the bright light of Helios. I long for the green fields and warm breezes. I will refresh there, and restore myself to myself.  And then I will return, and be your Queen."

She lifted a seed to her lips. "For each seed, I will dwell with you one full turn of bright-haired Selene in her moon chariot. Then I will return to my mother and the bright world above. So it will be as long as Helios and Selene pull their charges across the sky: do you accept?"

Hades' delighted smile was all the reply she needed.

Demeter had finally learned the whereabouts of her daughter. Bright Helios had taken pity on her grief and shown her the great split in the rock where Hades had whisked her away. Furious, she went to her brother Zeus to demand justice. There in the great hall on Olympus she found Persephone, beaming with joy, and Hermes, whose long face told a different tale.

"What's this?" she rounded on Hermes, after hearing of Persephone's arrangement. "How could you let this happen?"

"Do not upbraid Hermes, Mother. The choice was mine," Persephone chided. "I was not deceived. Hades is just and kind. I will be both his Queen and your bright star; you see?"

Demeter was unhappy, but had no choice but to agree to the plan. For six turns of Selene, crossing the inky night sky in her silver chariot, she and Persephone were reunited and the land bloomed more fruitfully than ever under her joyful blessings.

But after the six moons were complete, her daughter returned to Hades, and Demeter once again fell into sadness. Again she neglected the land, caring not for sweet-smelling flowers and waves of grain. No, the barren fields reflected her loneliness and eased the pain in her heart.

http://www.foxysislandwalks.com

Yet the world of men suffered from the lack of food. Demeter took pity upon them, and sent her son Philomelos to teach them agriculture. Thus did men learn to sow and harvest crops.

Demeter then sent her daughter Chrysothemis to teach them to store food away, so they might not starve during the months of Demeter's sorrow.

In joyful gratitude, men raised temples to Demeter, and offered her the first fruits of their harvests. In the autumn when Persephone returned to her husband, they held great rites in her honor, and prayed for her daughter's return.

Persephone and Hades rule the Underworld together, dispensing justice to the wicked, bringing comfort and peace to the virtuous.

First Harvests

Spring has been pretty glorious this year. Rain enough to spur everything to green, sun enough to open the blooms. There have been a number of hailstorms, but it seems our house has been spared. Thank you, Thor!

I planted the strawberries by the fence last year. They struggled in the summer heat and I feared they wouldn't survive the winter, but they came back strong this spring and look here! First harvest. 

Home gardening has taught me how different a food is on a small scale, as opposed to the huge vegetables from commercial farms that we get in the grocery store. They're little things, less vividly red, more irregular and bumpy. 

All of that, but so sweet and delicious. I think as my tulips die back I'm going to plant a dozen more up along the fence. 

The purple chive blossoms are from a plant that's now in its third year.  I had no idea they were perennial. It's a big lovely spray of oniony stalks. The blossoms are tasty infused into oil or vinegar; I made two batches of both. (This is actually the third time I've harvested chive blossoms.)

Chive blossom vinegar is a gorgeous pink-purple. I used a splash of it in the peanut sauce for the sesame tofu noodles I made for dinner a while ago... and that is officially the most hippie thing I have ever written. 

To make chive blossom vinegar or oil: 

Snip off the blooms only for a lighter, more flowery flavor; leave a couple of inches of stem for a stronger, more onion flavor. Soak the blooms in cool water for half an hour or so to rid them of dirt and tiny critters, then shake out the moisture (a salad spinner would be good  for this, but not having one, I make do with tossing them around in a colander), then let them dry on a paper towel.

Isn't it pretty?

In a glass jar, pack the blossoms lightly and pour the oil or vinegar over them until covered. I used up the rest of a white wine vinegar bottle for this, but I'd imagine the regular white vinegar would do nicely. For the oil, I used extra virgin olive, the kind I use for pretty much everything. 

Store in a cool, dry place for a week or two. Clean a pretty glass jar for the final product, and strain out the chive blossoms. Done! 

It's a new moon tomorrow. New moons are about new beginnings, setting intentions, making promises. I know what mine is for the summer! I've been on the "eat whatever I want without thinking about it at all" diet, with predictable consequences. I wanted to lose twenty pounds this year. Only twenty-eight to go. 

Sigh.

It's been such a long and lovely spring that it seems like it should be summer already. Hard to believe it's still two weeks away! 

Safe Travels

Deities one might call upon before undertaking a journey:

- Odin, the god who wanders the earth
- Loki, the Sky Traveler
- Hermes/Mercury, messenger of the gods, depicted by winged feet
- Apollo, whose chariot drives the sun
- Hecate, the dark goddess who presides over crossroads
- Janus of the two faces, god of new beginnings
- Poseidon, god of the sea
- Rhiannon, goddess of horses and the sea
- St. Christopher, patron saint of those embarking on a long journey
- Khonsu, Egyptian god of the moon, patron of travelers
- Fortuna Redux, Roman goddess of fortune specific to travelers
- Luna, Roman protectress of charioteers

Wheel of Fortune

The design on the Wheel at the center of this card is probably the only symbol I've ever seriously considered getting as a tattoo. When I was sixteen it was because it's mysterious and beautiful. Now it's because this card sums up my general worldview: that life is a constant circle of ups and downs, and we are called to both enjoy the good times and to remain steady in the face of adversity. To remember that even if the wheel has turned down and things look bleak, it's going to turn again.

This is one of the hardest lessons life teaches us, and it seems one I'm always learning.

Tons of symbolism in this card. Those on the inner wheel are from alchemy and represent the four elements in the form of mercury, sulphur, water and salt. The outer ring contains the Hebrew letters IHVH, the sacred name of God; TARO is also TORA when read counter-clockwise, which refers to the sacred Jewish text of the torah. The eight spokes of the wheel correspond to the eight points of the year. The snake of ill fortune descends; Hermes, messenger of good news, ascends. Atop the wheel sits the sphinx, poser of riddles. The corners of the card are guarded by the four fixed signs of the zodiac, Aquarius, Scorpio, Leo, and Taurus, those keepers of tradition and stability even in the midst of change.

As a Major Arcana card this also represents the external forces of the universe, rather than actions driven by our own agency. It can be difficult for a control freak such as myself to accept that forces outside my control are constantly affecting my path and that of the people around me.

It's good to be reminded of this, and that the challenge of life is less what happens to you than how you respond to it.

Signs, Portents, and the Sacred Chickens

Specifically, augury. I've never thought too much about this before but this cartoon I saw today made me laugh.


Augury is an ancient practice, but is probably most often associated with ancient Rome, and certainly that's where I've gotten most of my information on the subject. Essentially, augury is the interpretation of the will of the gods by observing the behavior of birds and their flight patterns. One of the earliest forms of augury is watching the sky - lightning and thunder have always been seen as portents, for obvious reasons.

Auspices taken from birds came from two types: those noted by their singing (ravens, crows, owls, hens), and those noted by their flight patterns (vultures, eagles). The priest would designate to which side of him their flight would be considered an favorable or unfavorable sign.

My favorite story of auspices has to do with the first Punic war, when Rome fought Carthage. In the Battle of Drepana, 249 BC, the patrician Publius Claudius Pulcher was in charge of a naval expedition to fight the (vastly superior naval forces of) Carthage off the western point of Sicily. It was practice to consult the augurs in the form of the sacred chickens. Feed would be scattered before the chickens and if they ate, it was a good omen; if they refused or flapped their wings, a bad one.

On the morning of the battle, Pulcher consulted the sacred chickens as was his duty. The chickens, however, refused to eat. Impatient to get to the battle, Pulcher threw them overboard and declared, "If they're not hungry, perhaps they're thirsty." The battle went on as planned.

Turns out one should not ignore the council of the sacred chickens. Bad omens being bad omens, he lost the battle badly to the superior Carthaginian forces. Publius Claudius Pulcher went back to Rome in disgrace and was ultimately convicted of sacrilege due to the chicken incident. Ruined, he was sentenced to exile.

I have always been fascinated by ancient Rome but the story of the sacred chickens has to be one of my favorites. I highly recommend the podcast by Mike Duncan, "The History of Rome." He talks about this incident and it's hilarious. The entire podcast is brilliant and the episodes about the Punic Wars are among my favorites.

There's a very good article on augury here:
http://www.societasviaromana.net/Collegium_Religionis/augury.php

It may all seem like silly superstition, but it's interesting to think about signs in the world around us. It's not absurd to recognize the significance of a circling group of vultures as a real indication that something has happened. I don't know about the specifics of ancient interpretations, but it's intriguing to realize that the world is always telling us something. It's a matter of observing.

Spring Cleaning

This made me laugh. It's practically a picture of me.

For the longest time, autumn was my favorite season. The crispness in the air, the glory of the changing colors, the hint of frost after several months of sweltering heat - what's not to love? I'll always love autumn.

But in the last couple of years, I've developed a new appreciation for spring. Perhaps it's because the cold dark of winter wears on me more now than when I was younger. In any case, the warmth and promise of spring are my new favorite season. After months of 7 am sunset and 5 pm sunset, I'm beyond thrilled to see dawn breaking on my way to work (around 5:45; I'm an early bird). I love the blooming flowers and the pink and white flowered trees and the pale buds of new leaves. I love the sky darkening with a storm that gives rain instead of snow, and washing past to leave the air clean and fresh and electric.

Of course, when it comes to the house and yard, spring equals work. So much work. I've spent about twelve hours over the last two weekends getting the lawn mowed and trimmed, weeded and fertilized; pulling weeds and reestablishing the rock borders of garden beds; turning over the vegetable garden to prep the soil with compost for the coming season; laying fresh mulch; and of course, the fun projects of adding a couple new plants. There's the brunnera with tiny blue flowers for the shady spot by the window wells, and the pretty red barberry that I put next to the fence in what was previously a patch of weeds. (Shout out to the Man-Friend for hacking into the stony earth and getting that hole dug for me...or, as he put it, "digging up your sidewalk.")

The weird thing about spring is that even though it's exhausting - and this is just the outdoor work; I'll spend at least a few more weekends pulling down knickknacks for their yearly cleaning, clearing out the dust bunnies from underneath all the furniture, and reorganizing the garage from a winter's worth of accumulated junk.

And yet I love it. I embrace it. I become lost in the work and can't stop until I've completed a task, even when my arms are shaking from the vibration of the weed-whacker and my knees ache from kneeling in the dirt and I'm scratched up from trimming the rose bushes. I can be out there for hours at a time and never really get sick of it; sheer exhaustion and the realization that I'm getting sunburned is usually what drives me back inside. Housework certainly doesn't have this motivating effect on me.

No, it's nature. It's the earth under my hands, the wind whipping across my shoulders, the mist of approaching rain as I continue on, determined not to stop until the rain drives me inside.

I have a magic circle in the front  yard. Technically it's an oval, but I used four sidewalk lanterns to mark the cardinal directions, and the more I look at it, it's the perfect space for an outdoor ritual. I'm not sure exactly what I'll do with it, but it's my favorite kind of summer project.

The wheel turns! And I think to myself...what a wonderful world...

In Memory of Peanut

It's been a couple of weeks now since I had to put her down. I haven't wanted to talk about it.

Peanut went completely blind not long after I posted about her. It was a special kind of terrible to watch her cautiously making her way around, testing the boundaries of the bed, the drop-off of the first stair to the basement, the edges of the rooms. My active kitty who was nimble and lithe as a girl was reduced to a fragile old woman, carefully navigating the steps up to my end table and bed.

I'm still not sure she was really ready to go. She slept most of the time, but she was eating and drinking to the last, laid there purring in the circle of my arms for an hour before I took her to the vet for the last time. But she was clearly in pain from her mouth and her eye, and there comes the time, that heartbreaking time when you realize she's not really living anymore. She's existing.

It's a nice urn.

It's still difficult to go to bed at night and look at the empty spot by my head where she used to lay. But I'd rather focus on some of the things I loved about her, and share that instead of the pain of her loss. She is gone. I'll miss her forever, and hope that we will meet again someday.

She loved this ledge. Used it as a shortcut from the kitchen, on the right, to the hallway and my bedroom, on the left, all the time. She was uncanny at predicting my return home every day, and about the time I'd be getting into my car, she'd perch on the edge of the ledge back there and wait. Then run down the ledge to greet me when I came in the door.

I was going to put the urn in my garden, but my roommate suggested leaving it here, and it's so perfectly, heart-wrenchingly appropriate, that I think I will.

Peanut loved milk and Club crackers. Her favorite places to sleep were my bed, the chair in the office, and on a blanket in the office closet. She was not one to enjoy being petted for long periods, but loved to tuck her head under my arm while I hugged her close and played the banjo across her ribs. She liked to get up on the high chest and keep an eye on things from up above. She would head-butt her way into the bathroom every time I went, and after every shower she'd clamor to be let in so she could jump in the tub and lick up all the water clinging to the sides. She liked to eat spiky plants and throw them up later.

These are all such trivial things. She lived in my home and followed me from room to room and offered me her love and companionship. I'll forever be grateful, and I'll forever miss her.

Goodbye, my sweet Peanut. Rest well.

On Being a Witch

What does it mean to be a witch?

It's a question worth pondering. Coming from my strict Catholic background, there is still a part of me that feels 'rebellious' when I call myself a witch. Like I'm playing a role or defying my elders. Perhaps this was true when I was a teenager, and first became interested in the occult. (Occult means 'hidden,' incidentally, and refers to the entire, vast array of secret and forbidden knowledge - alchemy, magic, spirits, tarot, and the like.)

Today I had a moment that made me smile and think, this is what makes me a witch.

Dig if you will this picture of a startled and stunned yellow finch. I have a large picture window in the living room, and birds fly into it pretty regularly. Most often I hear them bounce off and never see any further evidence. On one occasion I got out there in time to see a sparrow with a broken neck take its last breaths. I buried it in the back yard.

Today, it was this gorgeous yellow finch. He lay there in the grass in front of the planter, taking rapid little breaths. I helped him upright and took him into my palm for a while to calm down and get his bearings. He flared his wings once, shifted around, didn't seem to have any severe breaks or injuries, but was clearly quite traumatized and made no effort to escape.

For about twenty minutes, I just held him in my palm. Eventually he got his legs under him and perched on my finger. So thrilling! This beautiful bird watched me from his tiny black eye as I got him to move from one finger to another (avoiding poop successfully two out of three times it emerged), just hanging out there, getting his wind back. I petted him with one finger and talked to him while we sat on the stump in the middle of my yard, next to the finch sock full of thistle seeds that hangs off the cottonwood tree. Two of his friends kept coming by. (Friends or rivals? Who knows.)

This went on long enough that I got tired of petting a wild bird and needed to find a place to put him down. I set him down in a pot of violas by the front door, got him a tiny cup of sugar water, and let him be. He was pretty badly shaken up even then, and needed more time to get back to himself.

About twenty minutes later I checked on him. It startled him, and he flew over to the trellis, then took off across the street, out of sight. I hope he's truly okay and recovered.

This is not the first time I have recovered a stunned yellow finch.

About a dozen years ago, I was walking to work at 5:30 am when a little bird flying across the road ran smack into a car windshield. Fell to the pavement and lay there twitching. Beautiful yellow finch, exactly this one. Exactly as today, I picked him up and saw he was still alive and unbroken; I took him to work (my restaurant, a block away), set him outside in one of the whiskey barrels full of flowers out on the patio, and about an hour later he flew off, apparently none the worse for wear.

Being a pagan, being a witch, is all about the connection to nature. To the land, to the animals, to the waters. I believe that the love a person bears for the living things around her is sensed by flora and fauna alike. The bird was stunned, yes, but it trusted me, long after it had gotten its legs back under it and could have flown away. It knew I meant it no harm.

I'm the Snow White of the neighborhood. Squirrels, birds and rabbits frequent here. Neighborhood cats come and go. A few weeks ago, that little gray one took a dump in my vegetable garden not twenty minutes after I dug up the soil for spring. Looked right at me through the window while she did it, too. It was so funny I couldn't even be mad.

Over the last few years, working in the garden, I have lost all fear of spiders and bees - though wasps still make me a little uneasy. Last week, when I mowed for the first time, I startled a little garden snake. Tried to take a picture but by the time I got my phone from my pocket and found the camera app, it had disappeared. Quick little buggers.

To be a witch is not just to have this connection, but to recognize it, celebrate it, be empowered and overjoyed by it. I can scarcely describe the thrill I felt gazing into the tiny eye of a wild bird that looked at me in perfect trust as I stroked its feathers. The connection.

I was raised to believe in other gods, other ways of thinking about the world, but I was born with this sensibility.

It's a gift.

Beltane

It's Beltane! Also known as May Day, the first of May. A day where we celebrate the rebirth of the land, spring is in full swing; in myth and lore, the thought is that this turning point in the year represents the merging of Goddess and God in the passion that drives all of creation.

Last week I saw a bit of spring folklore that states, "When the forsythia blooms, there will be three more snows." I have a special love of forsythia; I recall seeing it in huge sprays all along the streets in New Jersey decades ago when I went to visit my aunt and uncle, and thinking it was the prettiest shrub I'd ever seen. I wanted to plant one the moment I bought my house, and did so, two years ago.

It's a fast grower, forsythia. In two years it's come to about five feet around and this spring, it gave me the most beautiful yellow blooms, branches of sunshine that lift my heart every time I look out the kitchen window.

But this is Colorado, and the lore is certainly proving to be true. It's snowing today, and has in fact been snowing for the last three days. It's that lovely kind of spring snow that is only accumulating on the grass and merely wetting the streets. It hasn't been too cold and I am confident my tulips and irises, so beautiful in the last few weeks, will continue to bloom after this round passes.

Things that mark Beltane:

Colors - pink, red, white, green, yellow
Plants - daisy, bluebell, ivy, lilac, strawberry, rose
Stones - emerald, amethyst, rose quartz, amber, malachite, sapphire

Things to do to celebrate Beltane:

This is a fire festival. If you're blessed to have a group to celebrate with, it's a day to light a bonfire and dance around the Maypole, skipping along with the brightly colored ribbons of spring. When I was a little girl, we did this at the park in a lovely spring festival that took place in the morning... because the afternoons in the mountains tend toward clouds and thunderstorms. Traditional wood for the bonfire includes hazel, ash, rowan, willow, birch, hawthorn, alder, holly.

(Or whatever is around you. Practically none of these are native to my home.)

If you're a solitary like me, there are other ways to celebrate.

Write your intentions for the new season on ribbons, and tie them to a tree; Air releases them into the universe, while the tree grounds them into the Earth.

Light a candle on your altar, say a prayer to the gods and goddesses of spring - Persephone, Nerthus, Flora, Freyja, Idun, Pomona, Rhea, Dionysus, Ceres, whoever speaks to you.

Bake bread, or any other creative cooking craft.

Greet the Sun at its rising or setting. (If you can see it... I won't be doing that today.)

Above all, experience the joy that is the turning of the wheel. Winter is over, though in these northern climates it will continue to tease us, reminding us it is never far off. But with May comes the shift toward warmth and light and the flourishing of the Earth.

I can't think of a better reason to celebrate.

50 Charms

A document I grabbed last spring and promptly forgot about. Happy discovery!

50 folk charms. I love this kind of thing. Simple little bits of folk magic, whose basis is questionable, but often pretty logical... I can only imagine that an onion in one's pocket might do wonders to keep the animals at bay. ;)

*Lay thorny branches on your doorstep to keep evil from your dwelling.

*Eat a pinch of thyme before bed, and you will have sweet dreams.

*Place chips of cedar wood in a box with some coins to draw money to you.

*Carry an anemone flower with you to ward against illness.

*Hang a bit of seaweed in the kitchen to ward evil spirits.

*Keep a jar of alfalfa in your cupboards to ensure the prosperity of your house.

*Burn allspice as an incense to draw money or luck to you, as well as speed healing.

*Cut an apple in half, and give one half to your love to ensure a prosperous relationship.

*Carry an avocado pit with you to let your inner beauty shine outwardly.

*Avocado is an aphrodisiac.

*Strawberries are an aphrodisiac.

*Place a piece of cotton in your sugar bowl to draw good luck to your house.

*Celery is an aphrodisiac.

*Place almonds in your pocket when you need to find something.

*Scatter chili peppers around your house to break a curse.

*Carrying a packet of strawberry leaves will help ease the pains of pregnancy.

*Scatter some sugar to purify a room.

*Throw rice into the air to make rain.

*Carry a potato in your pocket or purse all winter to ward against colds.

*Eat five almonds before consuming alcohol, to lighten the effects of intoxication.

*Place a pine branch above your bed to keep illness away.

*Chew celery seeds to help you concentrate.

*Carry a chunk of dry pineapple in a bag to draw luck to you.

*Ask an orange a yes or no question before you eat it, then count the seeds: if the seeds are an even number, the answer is no. If an odd number yes.

*Eat olives to ensure fertility.

*Toss oats out your back door to ensure that your garden or crop will be bountiful.

*Eat mustard seed to ensure fertility.

*Place lilacs around your house to rid yourself of unwanted spirits.

*Eat lettuce to drive lustful thoughts from your mind.

*Rub a lettuce leaf over your forehead to help you sleep.

*Add lemon juice to your bathwater for purification.

*Eat grapes to increase psychic powers.

*Carry a blade of grass to increase your psychic powers.

*Smell dill to get rid of hiccups.

*If you place a dill sachet over your door, those who wish you ill can not enter your home.

*Place cotton on an aching tooth, and the pain will ease.

*Buy cotton to cause rain.

*Place pepper inside a piece of cotton and sew it shut to make a charm to bring back a lost love.

*Carry a small onion to protect against venomous animals.

*Eat grapes to increase fertility.

*Place a sliced onion in the room of an ill person to draw out the sickness.

*Place an onion underneath your pillow to have prophetic dreams.

*Place morning glory seeds under your bed to cure nightmares.

*Walk through the branches of a maple tree to ensure that you will have a long life.

*Mix salt and pepper together and scatter it around your house to dispel evil.

*Smell peppermint to help you sleep.

*Hang a pea pod containing nine peas above the door to draw your future mate to you.

*Eat a peach to assist in making a tough decision.

*Carry peach wood to lengthen your lifespan.

*Carry a walnut to strengthen your heart muscle.

Apathy

Haven't felt like writing at all, about anything. Dangerous, that. I've gotten out of the habit, and once that happens a dry spell can go on for years. So here I am! The Biweekly-At-Best Pagan, here to jump-start my fiction-writing habit again. 

I'd never wondered before if there was a god/dess of apathy. Turns out there isn't. one, at least not that I'm seeing in what was admittedly a cursory search. It's not surprising, I suppose. Apathy by its nature doesn't exactly evoke a personality.

My cat is sick. This is what's on my mind, so I'll write about that. 

Peanut is sixteen, and has always been the healthiest, most kitten-like cat imaginable. Then a few weeks ago she developed a tooth/bone infection, which wasn't diagnosed properly until it had already become severely infected. I'm full of guilt for not noticing until she stopped eating. I should have taken her in the day I first thought her breath seemed especially stinky. But it was even longer before all the other tests were run to rule out everything else that wasn't obviously her teeth as I suspected all along. 

In any case, she has had three teeth removed and we went through an agonizing week and a half of antibiotics medication that I would like to never repeat ever. Still, it persists, and we're doing another course of a different type. If this doesn't work, the next option is a bone biopsy. General anesthesia. Maybe they can kill the infection if they can identify it, or remove part of her jaw...lovely options, aren't they? 

It's a strange thing about pets, how close a bond we form. Peanut is the longest-running relationship in my life outside of my immediate family, and I have certainly seen more of her than them. She's as dear to me as a child and I can't believe that all of a sudden it may be time to think about her life, her future. I want more time. I won't ever be ready. I say this having lost my mother, my brother.

I'm an optimist, though, and I'm not going to concede that it's her time just yet. It'll be fine. She's got at least a couple more years, even if she is possibly going blind as her right eye slowly becomes filmed over with the third eyelid. It's bizarre and horrifying, reminiscent of Vikus becoming a prawn in District 9.

At least, that's what I think when I see it, and it makes me chuckle a little because humor, no matter how dark or inappropriate or badly timed, is how I deal with pain. 

Not too sure what any of this has to do with Paganism. We love animals, pagans. I'm a witch, but I wouldn't call Peanut my 'familiar' so much as my...child. I love her spirit, her voice when she hollers her meows into the echo-chamber of the bathroom, her demands for milk every time I open the refrigerator. 

Those last two haven't happened much recently. :(

It's a reminder that everything comes and goes and lives its time and we are never spared the pain of loss. It's a reminder that love comes in many forms, and that some of our closest relationships aren't with humans. 

Fate and Destiny

I've been thinking a lot about Fate recently. There are numerous goddesses (and they always seem to be goddesses) associated with Fate: the Greek Moirai, the Roman Parcae, the Norse Norns. I think it's a human thing to wonder if the events that transpire in our lives are part of some greater purpose. Or to shift blame from our own choices and actions onto the notion that something was meant to be. It's both an explanation of why things happen, and a means of absolution.

The goddesses of Fate are three, representing past, present, and future; birth, life, death. They are weavers of the threads of life: one spins, one measures, one cuts. They are independent of the gods, and indeed the gods themselves cannot avoid their decrees.

"Nothing happens without a reason," is a popular saying. As an optimistic person who tries to find whatever good can be taken from a situation, I've tended to believe this. It can be difficult to see in the moment, but more often than not, when something in my life changes and I look back upon the series of events that led up to it, there does seem to be an underlying purpose. Or perhaps it's just my desire to believe that even seemingly random events are not random at all.

The notion of destiny is a little frightening, in my view. I have always believed in free will. Circumstances, geography, birth, determine where you begin, and play a part in where you go, but it's impossible to discount the impact our choices and behavior have on our lives. I can't believe that we are powerless to change the course of our lives.
People are inherently unpredictable. The randomness with which one might turn right instead of left, or leave thirty minutes later, or turn away at the moment when eyes might meet - it's hard to imagine that Fate can control all of these seemingly insignificant instances that can change the course of events in a heartbeat.

On the other hand, maybe there doesn't need to be a distinction between free will and Fate. Perhaps we're free to choose what we will, but certain key pieces of our lives - people we meet, places we go, skills we learn - are inevitable. In the last few years I've been more and more inclined to believe it. It's true that I've deliberately taken steps toward everything that now makes up my life, but there's also an odd sense of destiny about how it's all ended up. Particularly in recent days, I can't shake the notion that somehow everything has been moving toward this moment.

Is it possible that every decision I've made has somehow led me here, not by random happenstance but by design?

Norns only know. But it's fascinating to contemplate.

Ostara - Vernal Equinox

I started this blog with the intention of posting something every day, no matter how trivial. It is an exercise in discipline...unfortunately, I've never been one for discipline. 

In any case, the first full day of Spring has arrived, and what a lovely morning it is. This, after six weeks of strangely spring-like weather through February and the first part of March, and then it turned cold and snowed for two days. Gotta love it. 

Still, this being Colorado, the snow flurries yesterday died off mid-morning and even the frost had melted from the streets and cars by 10 am. Soon enough the sun was out and it became a beautiful sunny day, if a bit colder than it's been. Nevertheless it was a fine day and inspired Round One of Spring Cleaning. Clearing out the dust of winter, changing out snow-themed decorations for flowers and greens, is one of my favorite tasks. I know... kind of sad that I enjoy cleaning as much as I do. I think it's less the activity than the sense of accomplishment when it's done. 

Also, a clean house. I'm not as OCD as my mother was, but I definitely have a touch of it. 

http://www.justshortofcrazy.com/natural-dyed-easter-eggs/

At the end of the day I decided to color some eggs. I have always loved this tradition and a few years ago, I found some great ideas for naturally colored eggs, rather than those Paas kits we used when I was growing up. Turns out all you need is a cup of a coloring agent and a tablespoon of vinegar. I took some of my ideas from the gal at left (see caption for link to page), and also made up a great pink color with the last of the red curry I brought back from Tanzania a decade ago. I'm still waiting for the blueberry to get a little deeper. 

Trick if you use this method: do not do as the author did in her illustrative pictures, and put your eggs in mason jars. I tried that with two of my batches (blueberry and coffee) and they became mottled on one side. I'm not positive it was the crowding in the mason jar that did it, but I've done this before, always in bowls, and it never happened before. So I will draw the connection there. Use bowls. 

Eggs are of course a prime sign of fertility, birth, beginnings. Coloring them is an ancient tradition. I'm not sure where it originated, but it certainly does evoke the new color and growth that marks this season.  The Equinox marks the day when the hours of daylight and night are equal, the world in balance. From here the days become longer, stretching into the glorious long days that are summer. It's a time to celebrate the awakening of the Earth. Already trees are in bud (or bloom!), flowers are poking their heads above ground, grass is greening, and I even found a few new dandelions in my yard last week. 

Note: leave your dandelions for a while. They are among the first new blooms for bees. The greens are edible (if a bit bitter), and you can make oil and a soothing salve from the flowers. I made one last year that was a bit too greasy for my liking, and will look for a different recipe this year. I'll share it if I find a good one!

It's a funny thing that all my life, I have loved Autumn the best of all the seasons, but in recent years it's Spring that has brought me the most joy. Perhaps it's because Winter can be so long and cold and difficult to get around that the warming of the land is more inspiring than it was in my youth. Perhaps it's because the closer I get to death myself, the more I appreciate the notion of returning life over impending death. 

In any case, Spring is here, and it is beautiful, and it needs to be celebrated as a time of rebirth and new beginnings. In the Wiccan tradition this holiday is called Ostara, and there will be posted in coming days a thousand memes about Ishtar being the original Easter and how that Christian holiday is really a pagan holiday, but I don't want to get into all that. Besides, the Christian holiday is pretty clearly aligned with the Jewish feast of Passover, which is when Jesus' crucifixion is said to have happened. The theme of 'rebirth' is pretty clear in both cases. 

There are a number of ways to mark the day. I have been a little under the weather in recent days, so I slept too late to go watch the sunrise at the park of standing stones, but I'll go down for the sunrise tonight. Decorating the house with flowers and fresh greens is always a positive way to mark the change. If you have a yard, now is the time to clear out dead leaves and branches and think about what you'll do with the garden this year. 

If you want to do a little magic, a simple rite would be to take a white egg and write your wishes for the coming year on it, in the color that reflects your desire. Bury it in the garden, plant a flower above it, and watch it grow.