Plant magic & gardening

Waxing Gibbous Worm Moon (Age: 9 days)
Sign: Leo
Weather: Cloudy, cold and light breezes
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I have started my gardening efforts a tad early. As a result, I recycled several plastic bottles to serve as mini-greenhouses during this cold snap. It is my hope that they did what I needed them to and helped my seedlings survive. Much of what I have planted so far hasn't been with emphasis upon magical uses. It has been more to accommodate the growing conditions and my deep desire to have flowers. While there is nothing wrong with this emphasis, I am going to transition my next plans for planting more along the magical, medicinal, and edible lines.

There will be a large circular bed that I will be planting soon. I need to thin out a flowerbed that is overstuffed with day lilies and I think I will be taking the square area that is filled with stone and putting something there that is pleasant and can bear partial to deep shade. I have a good deal of plants in pots and there will be many more.

In my efforts, I hope to have some sort of way to encourage my children to get excited about gardening. I may be putting aside a pot of soil just for them. I'm still considering my options. My youngest is 2 1/2 years old so he's not going to be as focused on the new experience as his 4 1/2 years old brother. Either way, however, I want them to learn that plants are also living creatures that we should be respectful of. I really don't like how the other children that they play with wantonly rip leaves and twigs off of plants.

Speaking of twigs, it is my hope that the maple twig that I have in a vase of water will put out some roots. If I am lucky and can get it to do so, I will be putting it into a nice little pot and keeping it in the house. I love the idea of growing a tree. And it is my hope that our next move will be to a place where we can 'put down roots'. My dream is to do so by planting a few trees to grow with our family in our permanent home.

I know that plenty of people live in apartments and are quite happy with them. It has always been my dream to have a house with a big yard and a garden. As part of my efforts to support this dream, I am going to attempt to coax this twig into rooting and putting it into a pot. There's lots of people who have grown trees in pots. I like the idea of doing so until we have ourselves a house with a bit of property.

I think that my garden and plants will reflect the health of my home. As such, caring for them is a manifestation of how I am caring for my family. And where some people call their pets their 'fur babies' I tend to call my plants my 'green babies.' I love the idea that my 'green babies' can grow and bring fulfillment and blessings to my home.

Pagan Blog Project: E - Elves

Waning Gibbous Sap Moon (Age: 17 days)
Sign: Libra
Weather: Clear, seasonable & light breeze from the west
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Ah, elves. Also known as fairies, the good folk, the fair ones, and pixies (to name a few). These nature spirits are known throughout the world by different names and are of as wide of a range of personalities as people. Most of the people that I know who are not pagan tend to view elves as the quaint diminutive servants of Santa Claus. Others who are a bit more bookish will think of Tolkien's elves. If I'm lucky, I run into some folks who are mythology geeks and are familiar with some of the old stories about these interesting spirits. (Alas, I am not as lucky as I wish to be on that front.)

My approach to elves is colored by my spiritual education. I was weaned on the myths of the Nordic people, predominantly those surrounding the Aseir and Jotuns. Usually, the Aseir were presented as the good guys and the Jotuns as the bad guys. Aside from this, we had the stories of the brownies and similar spirits from the British Isles thrown in for good measure. It made for an interesting hodge podge, especially when a dollop of Iriquoi mythology got thrown in.

I approach the elves with caution. The spirits of the land and that which lives upon it can be fickle. They are reluctant to deal with humanity because we have moved our awareness away from being in tune with nature. When you happen to begin interacting with them, strange things start to become common place. Things randomly going missing and then reappearing in odd places becomes normal. Gifts appearing on your doorstep or somewhere else that you regularly frequent, such as the perfect crow's feather or a stone that sits just right in your hand, starts to happen as you pay more attention to the care of the flora and fauna about your home.

As I said at the beginning of that last statement, I approach them with caution. I have no doubt in my mind that these spirits are powerful and have the ability to bless us or curse. I have seen what has come from being on the good side of these ancient beings and what has come from being on the receiving end of their ire. People who are loved by the fair ones seem to have a magic touch with plants and good luck. Those who are scorned watch as their very efforts to coax anything to grow wither on the vine, as though the plant itself has refused that incarnation. Bad luck plagues them and, for the truly despised, it can even manifest as a measure of illness.

The old stories speak of one being 'elf shot' when they are ill for no apparent reason and fail to recover until they have appeased the angry fae. I do not think these are just stories of illnesses that are poorly understood. I believe that buried among those stories of illnesses that were misunderstood there are accurate accounts of people who have been some how cursed by the fair ones. Given that there seem to be more accounts of people who have some how angered the fair folk then of people who have been some how blessed by them, I suspect that the fair ones are not as prone to tolerating human nonsense as certain Victorian authors would have us believe.

Do I have a relationship with the fae? Yes and I work very hard to make sure it is a good one. In part because I value their friendship and have found their company pleasant. The fae are very wise and can teach us a great deal if we are truly willing to learn from them. And, I admit, a fair dose of superstition has me cautious in my dealings with them. That, however, is part of how I was raised to approach them.

Our cultural background colors a great deal of how we interact with the local nature spirits. Some people talk of how hobgoblins and nixies seemed to have emigrated with the Scots, or other spirits with different nationalities. I'm not sure if it is because some truly did emigrate with families or if that was how those people understood the spirits they encountered.

The Goddess is Love

We are one with the Lady, we are one with the Lord;
We are one with the Lady, we are one with the Lord;
And we know that earth's balance will one day be restored,
And they'll know we are witches by our love, by our love,
And they'll know we are witches by our love.

We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand,
We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand,
And together we'll spread the news the Goddess is in our land,
And they'll know we are witches by our love, by our love,
And they'll know we are witches by our love.

All praise to the Lady from whom all things come,
And all praise to the Horned Lord who makes us one,
And all praise to the people for joy and creation,
And they'll know we are witches by our love, by our love,
And they'll know we are witches by our love.

~ Anon. (adapted from They Know We Are Christians)

This little chant has been rattling in my mind for a few days now. It has been a gentle refrain as I struggle with my own challenges and individual problems. I find myself struggling with major self-image and self-worth issues. As Beloved pointed out to me, my problems are no less legitimate then his. He calmly and quite completely explained that my psychological difficulties are as in need of treatment as a physical one. Then he reminded me that I was worthy of healing, being loved, and of being successful. It brought me to tears.

This morning, as I lit my spell candle, it again struck me that the Goddess is love. She is more then that romantic rosy feeling that throws us topsy-turvy. She is the deep, abiding and compassionate love that is unconditional and sustaining. She is loving with out regard for how worthy a person feels they are or the opinions that others have of them. Unconditional love simply loves a person because they are there to be loved.

I've been struggling with cultivating that type of love for myself. And the faint refrain "we are love, love, love." just keeps echoing. I started this spell a little over a week ago. It is simply focused upon cultivating the love that I need in my life to be genuine to who and what I am. I now wear about my wrist a band with a charm in the shape of one of the ancient votive offerings to the Earth Goddess with the addition of a tiny heart.

I keep repeating my prayer that I started out with at the beginning of this whole process almost four years ago: Let me be healthy in body, mind, and soul. Taking the time to align myself with the Goddess in her face as Love, I think ... I think it will heal me as much as my vigorous efforts with exercise and diet have dramatically increased my physical health.

Falling into old patterns

Waxing Strawberry Moon
Phase: Waxing (4 days old) Sign: Cancer
Weather: Clear skies, warm but seasonably so

It's been a busy last few weeks. This is the second weekend that I have gotten plants and did gardening. The flowerbed has yellow and orange flower seeds planted (marigold and nasturtium). I also have an orange-pink geranium (which seems to be doing quite well) and a orange snapdragon (which doesn't look too good right now). The neighbor downstairs gave me bulbs for orange tulips and blue hyacinth. I think I'll be digging up and replanting the paper-whites daffodils that never came up. I found that I missed some when I was working on transplanting them last year.

I'm going to try putting them into a deep pot and giving them some fertilizer. With luck, I'll get some healthy plants out of them. Right now, the poor things are so bedraggled and frail that you'd think they were just this side of dead. My Mother-in-law suggested that the problem is that they weren't buried deep enough last year (the ones in the flowerbed) and agrees that with the others it is a lack of sun. To say the least, I will be fetching another pot for these little dears and casting health related spells for them.

In the midst of my gardening, I repotted my wilted looking ivy. You could just about see the little thing perk up as I watered it. I also took my red miniature rose and repotted it too. I split the entangled roots apart, placed each plant into a pot, and watered them heartily. Over the next few days, I expect that they'll flourish. Goddess willing, these plants will do so. One of the three remains on my altar. Just over the last few hours, it has appeared to grown stronger and healthier. I think that the repotting was just what was needed.

I now have several herbs growing in pots along the wall beside the flowerbed. I have a pot of thyme which I honestly don't know if it's going to recover well or not. It was looking pretty close to dead when I got it. I have two pots of chives (gifted to me from my MiL and repotted because they didn't seem to be doing well in the big pot they were all in). I gave away a third pot of chives to my neighbor downstairs. He was quite delighted to get it and immediately started talking about how he had missed using fresh herbs in his cooking. I have a pot of basil that is doing much better then when I had initially gotten it. The basil looked as poorly as the thyme is when I got it last week. It gives me hope for the thyme.

In addition to these, I have a sweet green bell pepper plant in a generously sized pot. I have little tiny blooms on it. This makes me quite happy. I also have three strawberry plants. Two in one pot and one in the other. They are starting to get blossoms on them. I'm trying to decide if I should pollinate them with a paintbrush or if I want to wait and see if the bees will come by to do it for me. I have two pots of marigold growing on the back deck (where the strawberries are) and a pot with several ivy cuttings in it. I also have the cuttings from MiL's southern-wood and fuchsia back there in a pot.

I am flirting with the thought of repotting my houseplants. The African violet is looking unwell. It is a tough call as to if it is getting too much light or if it's rootbound. I need to do a little more research on that. I also have noticed that one of my snakeplants is looking a little worse for wear as well. I believe that some of this is because the pot is too small and some of it is because there's too many plants in that pot. I may do this bit of 'indoor gardening' later this week.

So, my title of this may seem odd when you view my ramblings about plants and such. I need to put it in to a little context here. First off, I have fallen back into the habit of doing things according to moon-phase again. I weeded and aerated the flowerbed during the waning moon. This was to cast out the unwanted influences on the planting that was going to happen. I've been doing my plantings with the new and waxing moon, to draw in the increasing healthful energies. Thus magically tying my plantings to the waxing moon and sun's energies.

My choice of herbs is a combination of culinary and magical. I won't go on about the uses of them. There's enough herbals out there to describe them. The use of the colors yellow, orange, and red in my choices of flowers (even the hanging basket- it has yellow pansies) is to bring vitality and life into my home and to bless us all with well being. I want to get a set of wind chimes to hang off the shepherd's crook to evoke the blessings of the Gods with each ring. I also want to place into the flowerbed subtle images that call to mind the Gods that I hold devotion for.

Many people have churches they go to. I have my flowerbed to use as my focus for prayer, meditation, and spiritual expression. I'm not ready to take on the shade bed yet. I may do so in a few weeks. Perhaps I'll be blessed enough to locate some hostas and similar plants within my budget or given to me as gifts. I'm not finished yet with my plants, but it feels good to work with them again. I haven't really done this much since when I was living down in Wellsville.