First post of the new Solar year.

Waxing Wolf Moon (Age: 13 days)
Sign of Cancer
Weather: Unseasonably warm,
cloudy w/ intermittent rain showers
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Ave, Dea Madre! Gloria Plena!

It is the eve of the Full Moon. I have strung a fifteen decade Goddess rosary. As I strung the beads, I prayed. It sits upon my altar now, after I have taken it out into the night and shown it (and my other personal prayer beads) to the moon.

I meditated upon the Mother. I prayed to the Mother.

My heart breaks for the gulf of distance between my human Mother and I. It isn't that she lives on the other side of the country or that there is some great physical distance between her and I. It is an emotional distance. One that I suspect she is beginning to realize is the result of her mistreatment of me.

As I sat and I prayed to the Great Mother, I thought back to the first, secret pregnancy. Even as I was terrified that I'd be forced to marry the monster that had raped me, I was thrilled to carry within me a little Life. When I miscarried, I was heartbroken. I kept secret my mourning.

As I sat and I prayed to the Great Mother, I thought back to the birth of my eldest son. I thought of the joyful anticipation and excitement I felt. I felt that I was truly one of the most blessed women in all the world.

As I sat and I prayed to the Great Mother, I thought back to the birth of my youngest son. I thought of the times when I wasn't filled with confusion and terror. In its place, there was a blessed sense of peace, gratitude, joy, and anticipation.

As I sat and I prayed to the Great Mother, I thought back to the argument between my mother and I that set off the chain of events that brought me to the current state of affairs. I was torn between the desire to simply pass off her words as braggadocio and the horror I felt that she had gone so far as to threaten small, defenseless children in an effort to manipulate me. I was torn between my love for her and doing what was just.

I find myself seized with the strongest urge to pick up the phone and call my parents. To just tell them that I love them before I go to bed.

Goddess help me, I don't know what the right thing to do is. Is it to reconcile with them or to remain distant? I pray. I meditate. I cast cards and throw runes. All things leave only that question hanging in the air. There is no sign either way, so I remain where I am at.

I feel on the verge of weeping. Even the Wolf's Father's kindness isn't penetrating this overwhelming sense of sorrow. I am doing my best to leave this in the Mother's hands, but I feel like I have cut out my beating heart and laid it bleeding upon the altar. I don't know if it is the altar of my conscience, the altar of justice, or the altar of the Gods.

I only know that I hurt and that I miss my mother, as crazy and flawed that she is.

Contemplations and a compilation

Waning Strawberry Moon (18 days old)
Moon Sign: Aquarius
Weather: Mildly humid, seasonably warm, fair skies with light haze
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I have been busy with my garden and my children recently. The strawberry plants are getting berries on them. My oregano is growing like crazy and the new pot of thyme that my MiL got me is doing so too. I keep checking on my tomatoes and my pepper plant. I get nervous that they're going to be attacked by aphids or something. Every day, just about, I have been out among my plants. If I'm not watering them, then I'm pulling weeds or just checking them over to make sure they're in good health.

They're like another set of children, to be honest. Speaking of children, my boys are growing as fast as the plants. My eldest is in preschool and they asked me if there were any special family traditions or religious observances I wanted them to keep in mind. I was thrown for an absolute loop when they asked me that. I honestly don't know how to answer that question. A part of me says that it would be wrong to bring up our religion even as another part of me says this is a perfect opportunity to educate the general public about witchcraft.

To say the least, I've been giving it a lot of thought and prayer. I may even do some divination on this matter and talk to a few other witches. At the moment, I think I would have really loved to have Stargazer's and Rose's thoughts on this topic. They, however, are not about me at the moment but elsewhere on the Otherside. You can't exactly pick up the phone and leave a voice mail for the dead to call you back. It generally doesn't seem to work like that. They come and go as they do and on their own sense of time.

And then there is the other things I have been busy with. I've been writing articles about various facets of Wicca for the novice witch. My goal is to take the knowledge that I've learned and put it out in easily understood bites this way the young witches and seekers out there have at least one good source of information. Below is what I have done so far.

Wicca 101
Ancient Myths & Modern Man

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part3

Spiritual Self-Defense & Protection

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

Wicca 201
Divination

As I write more articles, I'll post links to them on here.

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.