Jelly,

I bought a shit ton of pomegranates a while ago ($10 for a big flat of them!). I ate about half of them raw and the rest were sitting the fruit bowl on the verge of turning bad. Last night I cracked each of them open, extracted the juice by hand using a cheese cloth and added some pectin, a whole vanilla bean, a bit of lemon juice and a gods awful amount of sugar. Had my jars all boiled up and made my very first batch of jelly!

Turned out fabulous. I was so scared I wouldn't get the seal on the jars, but after pulling them out of their boiling bath the lids began to snap and seal up!

Now I'm day dreaming about all the canning I'll be doing over the summer and during harvest. There will be so many blackberries, I'll probably get sick of them. I did find a very nice recipe at the library for a pumpkin jam, with vanilla, honey and rum! How good does that sound?

I think I'll be doing Imbolc in the backyard, what better place to encourage/celebrate the stirring of spring? I also need to begin preparing the raised beds! I got my ship notification for the grow lights, finally. Goodness, I cant wait for green things!

Ouch,

I've had a ache in my right butt cheek, lower hip on my backside, for about a week now. I'm pretty sure it's muscular, I fucking hope so. I don't have health insurance and x-rays aren't cheap. I've been rubbing it out each night by balancing my weigh over my bum, and rocking back and forth on the floor, seems to kind of work out the knot that is there.

I am likely to be sore all over tomorrow. I had to move a pretty fucking large pile of wood, that my totally awesome landlord left just sitting in the middle of my yard. He came by unannounced about a month ago to hack away at the Alder in the backyard. Yes, parts of the tree were dead and needed to be trimmed, but, a warning would have been nice and knocking out the live and active winter squirrel nest was totally unfuckingcalled for. It made me so angry. I watched that squirrel every damn day, fixing it's nest, rising in the morning, eating the noms I left out for em. He also left two huge piles of branches just hanging out. I cant complain about them too much though, as it has been providing shelter for the birds over winter, they love hanging out in there.

Wood pile moved, and neatly stacked along the house. Ground raked and twigs moved. The drit looks good and is filled with worms. Making way for the garden! I've got grow lights on order and have the whole month of February to get my shit together. Doing two raised beds, lots of containers, and the shabby dirt hill that we have will be used for witchy herbs, poisons will be in containers on the deck. I hope to get some mandrake going! Need to figure out what I want crawling on the back fence, I really don't like seeing my neighbors. Especially when they're piss drunk and projectile vomiting with a cigarette in their hands, proceed to wipe the sick from their face and then settle back down to have their smoke. UGH.

I am probably totally over doing it for my first time gardening, going deep-end first, lets hope my ass can swim!

Trance-Portation,

So, I've been working my way through Trance-portation, by Diana L. Paxson (found via Sarah). I am just now tapping into chapter three, and I can say, it's pretty freakin' awesome. It has laid out, for me and what I feel, is a great foundation for trancework and possibly crossing into the otherworld - something I've never done before. I don't think I can count dreamwalking as it isn't something I do at will, it just happens.

So far, I've established a routine I feel very good about. I've added and subtracted a few things. For example, I don't really feel that I need to center myself. I don't know, I know where I'm at and where my body is at, I know which direction I'm facing (usually west). Warding is done with burnt herbs and a charm. I settle down and stretch my hips and legs out so that they're relaxed. I really like the way she explains grounding, it just makes so much fucking sense. I drop, what I guess I could describe as an anchor into the ground. I watch it move through the concrete foundation of my house and into the muddy and probably water logged earth beneath it. I know that this will sound very cheesy, but bear with me: its like plugging yourself in. I feel plugged in. I can sense the roots of the Alder tree in my backyard, the Douglas fir in the front and the sneaking suspicion I'm being watched by that unknown spirit that lurks in my neighborhood.

Haha, writing this out and reading it myself, it all sounds ridiculous. It's a reality check and that is why I blog about it, anyway...

I try to chill my overactive mind out, and I breathe, very slowly, pausing at each inhale and each exhale. Once I feel ready to move on, I begin breathing rhythmically at a much faster but controlled pace. Back when I was going to yoga classes (I loathed the crowd, but I loved the workout) they taught us the ocean breath, where you constrict the back of your throat to create a, well, oceany sound. This gives me something to focus on. I don't know how long it takes me, but eventually I slip into what I think, is the tip of trance.

Everything is fuzzed, my body, my face and something inside of me quivers. It depends on how I'm feeling each night I do it, but tonight felt powerful. My mouth began to water, which for me is a sign that I might vomit, and then there it comes ... nausea. I get scared, which I guess is a good sign! I sit in that feeling for a little while, still breathing. Opening my eyes takes effort and when I do, I feel kind of drunk. For some reason, I held my breath, for a long time - long enough that I told myself I need oxygen to live. Vision blurs, I don't feel like breathing, but the fear grips me and I sip in air little by little. At that point I felt ready to return and almost forgot to reverse my whole procedure. Lifting the anchor, thanking the one I asked for protection, blow out the candles and done.

There is an edge I am beginning to feel to this, it's a bit scary.

I'm off to dreamland.

Bee friend,

As I shut the window to the kitchen this afternoon a bee, buzzed up drunkenly and bumped into the window a few times. I always stop and watch bees, and tell them how cute they are, or ask them what they're up to, even though I've never had one speak back to me. I had to ask this bee, what the hell it was doing outside my kitchen window, in the middle of winter. It was a mild day today, but still, unseasonably weird. He buzzed off up and over the house and I thought little of it.

Now, at about 10pm I decided to march up stairs and brew myself some night time tea... and I nearly stepped on him. There, in my carpeted stairs was a bee. On the edge of death, I think I saw his little antennae twitch. His body wasn't yet crisp but it was still flexible.

I gently picked him up, placed him on a leaf shaped plate. I offered him my favorite and best honey (local peppermint, nearing the very last sweet dregs of my jar) and a burnt offering of bee oracle incense. I said a few words and wished him well as he went off.

I don't dream about bees too often. I'm trying to listen, but I don't know if I'm able to hear. I wonder what they want? This is the second bee body I've found in strange circumstances. If not a messenger, a familiar?

I need to be working, but

"A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve," mused 19th-century author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Advice that wild could just as well have been dispensed by a feral saint living in a cave in the woods. And now I'm passing it on to you, Aries, just in time for the beginning of what may be your wildest year in a decade. In my astrological opinion, you are ready to be a connoisseur of mysteries that purify the mind and nurture the soul . . . a daredevil of the spirit in quest of seemingly impossible dreams . . . a fierce adept of the wisdom of uncertainty who's in love with unpredictable teachings.

- Free Will Astrology


I was almost eaten by the ocean last night, thankfully I was standing next to a jungle gym that was firmly planted in the ground, I held on to it for dear life. As the waters receded from the coast, it kept going and going until there was nothing left. It was like the sea took a bite out of the coast line, and I was dangling on the edge of the earth.

A strange find,

While heading into the city to do errands just the other day, my husband spotted this through the window of our favorite antique store (I was busy ogling over a gourd rattle that was painted to look like a hare). He immediately said, "I'LL BUY THAT FOR YOU" all excited like. I wasn't about to say no! I'm glad he was with me, or I would have never even seen it.

Its a very strange piece. I still don't know exactly what to think of it!

Hekate has been a real driving force for me lately, in my dreams and things like finding that plaque. When my regular practice took a nose dive into almost non-existent a couple months ago, I was sure that she left me - of course it wasn't that way at all. It was me that walked away. Thankfully she has been very patient with me.

I'm currently in the process of making daily practice a habit, and it's going very well so far. I wont allow myself to check it off the goal list until I've been doing it regularly for at least a month or more. Heh, its amazing how much better I feel just getting it done, instead of thinking about doing it.