Liminal Tales

It’s been a while, again. Things have been busy for me the last few months, though.

Years ago, back in 2017 or 2018 (I’d have to look), Anubis asked me into a position with Him. It was a liminal thing. He asked me to be His official consort in the Between…that’s the liminal no-man’s-land that exists between this world and others or Otherworlds and each other. Ish. And I agreed. By that point I’d worked as His magickal counterpart/partner in things that felt so very far above my pay grade, but each time it worked out and went well. So it didn’t seem so far out really.

I took that Work and commitment very seriously, but went into it thinking the titles were more de facto. Titles are cheap in the Between; anyone can claim any title, style themselves any way they please, and no official and centralized authority exists to deny it. Anubis has the strength and magick and respect to hold His titles, so if I was working with Him under his auspices then it made sense there be honorary things.

The night came and I’d made, under direction from Anubis, all these symbols and jewelry and tools (so maybe I should have seen it going somewhere, but it’s what I do as an artist and so I saw it in that context) and I wore them and was dressed up in this ceremonial garb. And thus I gave my word publicly in the astral and Anubis presented me Out There…as His wife, His Sacred Consort, and His Sacred Queen in the Between. I think that’s what it feels like to be hated, or to be despised at the very least. There were a few beings happy or maybe just polite, but mostly it felt like hurricane-force wind that sounded like “who the $#!% is this?” and/or “how dare He?” blowing over me. I still sort of feel chills remembering standing there holding His hand so tight, hoping they couldn’t tell I was shaking at that moment.

In the days that followed, I did the Work as I understood it and Anubis had additional things He wanted me to do and learn. And maybe a week after, some spirits Out There attacked me and a couple spirit friends intending to do awful things to us for my sake—and almost worse, it was in a public place in the Between and not one of the other forty beings present intended to raise a finger to intervene—but I fought them off and Anubis dealt with the ones I didn’t. So, I realized He was hoping for or even expecting me to take a larger view of my position and that everyone else was treating me as if it were already so. So…maybe it was and I didn’t quite known it yet. I wasn’t tricked or anything: He told me the titles, described the job, did everything but give me a checklist and daily schedule. The trouble is, I’d spent just enough time in the Between to know how fleeting and ephemeral and hard to pin down things like authority and sovereignty can be Out There and so I didn’t misunderstand the scope of my job in relation to Anubis’s so much as the scope of His that I was joining.

There was this strange deck of cards Anubis  had me get that was unlike any others I’ve seen, were read completely differently, had odd meanings and associations, and I received messages once He’d taught me how…but I had no way of understanding them, no context. I was still just learning how things worked in the Between, didn’t know most of the major players, had hardly been anywhere but the Free Court’s moving camp and his caravanserai fortresses Out There. He had asked for and received my oath and given me titles under His auspices to a job I simply qualified for, and I wasn’t prepared to half-it and didn’t deserve them until I saw and knew and understood to right by them.

Anubis agreed with me: if I didn’t enough to do it right, then I was correct I shouldn’t be doing it yet. And He sort of…suspended it for a while. He didn’t take anything back, but it was like it was made mostly dormant except for my offerings in support of Him, and then I spent the next year or two involved in other Otherworld things that had been in the works since 2015 and 2016 and had to happen the way they did. And yet, almost every step I took and choice I made and thing I learned felt like it was further into the liminal aspect of my myself and my path. Then 2019 was all about what was to come after and I learned a lot that year and all of it trending still toward the liminal.

In the waning part of the year, Anubis asked me if I still meant what I’d said before. Did I still want to see the Between, really see it, get to know it…all of it, good and bad. I said of course. He said I knew enough—now—to try to do that. Beginning January of 2020, he would put my name back Out There and make it known in the Between I was under His authority but could be called upon separately, myself. He made sure I understood that I could call upon Him anytime, anywhere Out There, for any reason, and He would intervene and answer, but otherwise I’d be working on my own. The only way to get to know the places and people of the Between was to get Out There and get to know them, the only way for them to get to know me was to do it out from under His shadow, and the only way to really learn the parts of the work I didn’t already know was do them.

So that’s what I’ve spent the last four years and change doing, that’s the dreamwalking that’s happened at least two-thirds of every night since. I’ve seen so much and learned so much, and I’ve discovered a lot of things about myself, too. Back in February of this year, Anubis told me it was time to come back and do this together again, instead of just in the same direction. During the eclipse recently I rededicated myself and all my tools and on April 30^th, He sort of presented me Out There again after the years…only this time I was recognized.

Honestly, it was harder than I’d thought it would be to come back to the official Work and the titles and everything. I was a lot more comfortable thinking of myself as the nobody who could help out sometimes that I was pretending to be. (I ended operating up under three personas: one that was known, one that was who I was back in another life when I secretly did work in the Between, and one that was meant to be as hard to recognize as possible for the times the work demanded not drawing attention; eventually the fact the first two were one person was known, as well as the fact there was a shadowy third who moved under the radar.) And there were times I was told the only reason they felt they could call for help was because I was just a spirit not so different maybe from them. I don’t want that to change. But they had four years to know that’s what I believe, too, and so far things are mostly the same except sometimes Anubis and I travel and Work out there together.

The Work itself has been terrifying and exhausting and I could never tell anyone all the things I’ve experienced, but it’s not something I think I could ever give up. It’s a continuation of who I chose to be before, only this time it doesn’t have to be a secret. And I’ve heard what spirits said and seen how their energy and emotion change when they realize someone came; they called and wished for help, sometimes without any real hope it would work, only it did. I get it: I lived as a soul for a long time Before in despair and for years in this life the same. I remember what it’s like to wish or pray for help long after you have any belief left just because you don’t know what else to do and it’s like one last act of defiance to pretend the universe is the sort of place where if you cry for help you might get it. In some small way, I get to be a little for others what Anubis and the Free Court were for me and I get to do it alongside Anubis and with the blessing of the Free Court. And that’s everything.

Next Steps With Hekate

Last week, I decided I finally needed to make some things happen with Hekate. We’ve had a rough time sometimes because of our complicated history, but it feels like we’ve worked through things okay. As it stand now, I consider Her an ally and even a friend and Someone I think I’d like to keep knowing even after this current agreement is done.

It’s been hanging over my head, though,  that I promised her way back at Mystic South to make Her a dedicated pendulum.

(This is what I do; after experiences of pendulum hijacking years ago, I am now a very strong believer in dedicated pendulums that accumulate the energy of Whomever you’re talking to with it. That doesn’t make it immune but highly resistant and in my experience always throws off warnings if there’s interference long before it gets to actual hijacking. And it also serves as a nice talisman/simple portable altar for connecting with People I don’t keep regular altar space for and just set up something temporary with now and then.)

It’s been like five months now and I still hadn’t made it, because I couldn’t see it. Usually when Someone wants something, I lay out some supplies and think/talk through some ideas, showing Them my mental images of it, and They agree or change things. Sometimes They already know exactly what They want and just show me an image of the stones, charms, pattern of beads and I go buy supplies and make it happen. But this time I didn’t feel like I was getting clear answers and Her feedback to all my suggestions felt like a meh, sort of but not quite.

Last Friday I pulled out my stuff and spread it out. She’d already been super adamant that She wanted this amethyst point I was given at Mystic South and the antique key I got from Mystic South, and this purple charoite she had me buy for Her years ago—I think back when She first appeared to me, myself, in that glorious short time before I realized it wasn’t the first time I’d met Her since I was a kid and it turned things complicated—and so I started laying those out. I also had a sense of black obsidian and maybe something red and added choices for those. And then I invited Hekate and said: we’re doing this today, we’re getting it right today, I’m making it today, and I’m dedicating it before the end of the weekend.

Maybe that was the kind of certainty She was waiting for from me. Or maybe we’ve talked out enough things in these last few weeks to have arrived a good place for creative stuff, one better than where we were before where we connected better. I don’t know, but it worked out.

I did my dedication Sunday afternoon. The pendulum turned out super cool and feels so Her to me. And She asked me also to dedicate these stones I was given at Mystic South, and this set of witch runes from there as well. They were always to be Hers, but I hadn’t done a ritual for them yet, so they were folded into this one.

It makes me feel hopeful for the future of the relationship that it ended up so much about ways of communicating, because I think that’s often where we’ve struggled before. But I think maybe we’re starting to do better, though, beginning to really understand each other now.

Another Spring Beginning

Hope everyone had a happy Imbolc, etc. if you celebrate! My White Spring rituals went well and I made a bit of a weekend out of it. Last week, I was definitely feeling the stirring of springtime vibes already, and so I’m in agreement with a lot of the predictions around that it’ll be an early spring this year. And when I traveled for my astral rituals, it didn’t seem as cold and wintery still Out There as if does during the holiday sometimes.

It was a lovely, nice ritual with my spirits. The energy seemed a little more chill and lighthearted than some years, like the spring vibes were already rising and the magick was maybe a bit more celebratory of that than focused of helping it wake up. It’s been very frosty or even snowy more years Out There than here this side (since I live in the South), but this year even in astral it was only crisp and clear, but not icy.

The only little thing that was really unique this year was that I used cedar for the evergreen in my wreath of greenery and candles. This is the eighth White Spring I’ve celebrated with the Free Court—which is wild, the first one still feels like yesterday—and for all the other seven, I’ve used Leyland cypress branches because the cedar trees here already had pollen starting to come out by the beginning of February…but those trees I’ve always used before have gotten so large now that the bottom branches within reach have become very thin and died back since ones higher up get all the sunlight. And I’d noticed last year not all the cedar trees in the yard pollinate, at least not now. I’m not sure if it’s one plant vs another (like we have several redbud trees but only half produce seeds) or if it’s different types of cedar, since I know by shapes and growth patterns there’s at least two and I think three growing here.

This tree I have a standing relationship with and have harvested from before for other reasons (to make infused oils, etc.), but it’s only become big enough that I was comfortable asking it for cuttings since a few years ago and especially for as many and as large branches as needed for a White Spring wreath crown. But it’s certainly become large enough now.

So I asked my spirits this year if it would be alright to switch and they answered of course; after all, it was originally cedar they had asked for and any evergreen is fine. And the tree was willing to oblige me as well and I agreed to only clip from the side toward the driveway where a few of the branches have gotten long enough to get smacked by side mirrors while backing out and so were probably going to end up trimmed a little anyway.

It was a small thing, a tiny change, but what I didn’t realize was how much stronger scent cedar has than Leyland cypress. And cedar is a scent I particularly associate with my spirits…for years, sometimes when they turn up there’s this very distinctive lovely scent and cedar isn’t all of it, but it’s the most recognizable part. Like a tree just appeared in the room at the same time they did. So it felt like that helped pull me in and get the mentality right for the ritual this year in a special sort of way.

I also blessed my garden for the coming year, since White Spring is the opening of the garden and garden planning season for me. I have some plants I’ve (hopefully successfully) brought through the winter and things I’m planning to start from seedlings or bulbs or small plants can be begun anytime for about at the next six weeks, but the holiday is always when I start seeds. There’s only one thing I want from seeds this year and that is catnip. It’s been in my garden every year since I began in 2016 in honor of the Court—it was the only thing that survived from the first couple years, but my plants died in December, 2022 when it dropped into single digits here and so even protected and brought in…it was a workspace insulated and attached to the house but with minimal direct control and everything froze anyway. And last year I tried, but all the seedlings failed.

This year, I’m trying to take no chances. This is the thing I want to come up most in my garden. I went and bought seeds the day after the holiday while the energy was still up. I bought three times the seeds I did last year and I’ve looked up conditions and have a plan to try to replicate that first couple years more than I did last year. I’m watching the weather—less for the seeds, but because my empty pots of soil were outside and it just rained so I’m waiting for an ideal moisture level now to actually do the planting. It should happen this week, I think, so *fingers crossed* for that. And then I’ll be watching them very carefully because it’s something I grow both to honor certain spirits and for me to do all kinds of things with and I really missed having any to harvest last year.

(And this was the song of the day…not sure how Greensleeves ended up as the tune of White Spring for me, but it’s been like this for years. I have a ton of different versions, some solemn, some fun and playful, everywhere in between, on different instruments—and every year at least one speaks to me and ends up on repeat while I made the wreath or turned down low where I travel for the ritual. This was this year’s version.

For whatever reason, I always weirdly hear it now as a love song from the winter to the spring or the warmer months, that they’re not enemies and winter isn’t something to be cast off, and maybe those first late winter blooms are a delight to winter personified just as much as spring personified because winter is just another part of the cycle.)

New Year 2024

Happy first day of the new year! After the last few years and how they’ve gone, it feels hard to get very excited about the beginning of a new year anymore. But I’m trying.

I started out this morning with some meditation and a little energy work, then made a couple of offerings. I went back and forth on whether I wanted to do a divination of some kind or if it was better to not ask, but decided to do a quick general reading.

Vibe or theme for the year: Strength. Especially inner strength. I’m feeling like this is referring to both a resilience to weather challenges that come and also to overcome things within myself maybe, where I’m getting in my own way. It seems like a calm, lasting sort of strength rather than a moment.

What I should keep in mind: King of Mirrors (Cups). Empathy, wisdom, but staying emotionally balanced at the same time. Navigating rocky terrain good-naturedly. I think this is about staying centered and not letting whatever chaotic and stressful energies might be flying around get to me and push me around this year.

Any advice for me: The Hermit. Contemplation, connection to the Otherworlds, meditation. I get a calm, comforted sort of feeling looking at this card. So, maybe some peaceful solitude to retreat to this year as a way to rest and recharge.

Anything else for me to know: Knight of Mirrors (Cups). Mystical experience, the Otherworlds, magick. Energy and hopefulness and believing in the impossible. I didn’t have a set question or intention for this card, just any other message that might be out there for me about this year. The last couple years have felt very focused on the mundane, or on the ordinary Out There…it would be nice if there was a little more mysticism. And I’m not sure if it’s relevant here, but this is also one of the cards I associate strongly with Anubis in this deck so maybe He’ll be hanging around more, too.

—-

Overall, I’m glad I did the divination. I think this is going to be tough year; there’s a lot going on in the world, plenty in the Otherworlds, and I’ve got a lot of projects and goals to work on this year personally, also. So, it seems like going to busy. I was prepared for all the scary cards, but this reading instead seems very useful and focused on actions I can take that will help me as I go into 2024.

So…cool. It’s a good way to start off the year. 🙂

Wrapping Up 2023

It’s hard to believe it’s already the end of the year. I had a lot more that I wanted to write about since summer, but at least I have a good excuse: I’ve been too busy doing all the things to write about them. But it feels important to try now, before the year is over.

Back at Mystic South, I made an agreement to work with Hekate, welcome Her influence, until the end of next May. I’ve known Her for years but never really worked with Her before (though not from lack of invitations and encouragements from Her) because “complicated” is probably the nicest word I could have applied to our relationship before.

I held Her responsible for some bad things that happened and for being the catalyst that for years broke my relationship with my oldest corporeal friend…and She’s admitted that’s a fair assessment. It wasn’t supposed to go that way, but it did and I took the damage and ended up holding the bag. Oops, and sorry. And She harassed my spirits in the Free Court a couple years ago over something that wasn’t Her problem, and they were never in any danger but I don’t like deities trying to mess with them—especially if the only reason said deity knows about them is through me. And She tried to force me to do something after I said never once and punished me for saying no to Her.

The only reason I even talked to Hekate at Mystic South was because my People vouched and a big part of it was asking Her to explain some things. Because those things seemed to add up to an intense, controlling deity who was using me and not prepared to accept a no and I don’t do that. Automatic veto—no matter how excited I was to meet Her and I really, really had been in the beginning. So, if not that, then what?

She said She made a mistake in 2015, went too far too fast, and things blew up in Her face and I got hit by metaphorical shrapnel. And She wasn’t talking to me directly back then because I had enough on my plate the first year or two and she was waiting for a better time and thought She could nudge things just right and then it was too late. She owes a debt and it’s compelled Her to involve Herself sometimes where She would have been better off not and yes, to risk losing any chance of a relationship with me while trying to somehow make things right. And when she had pressured me? She wasn’t trying to force me; She was testing if I was as good as my word and if what She’d heard me Out There was true…it was going to take months or years to wheedle Her way back in enough to ask me a second time without it being harassment, and She wanted to know if it was worth it. So guess I passed, then.

I think it’s still safe to say it’s a complicated relationship, now. She set me up to feel second best and that’s the source of many of my doubts. Telling me upfront She would throw me under the bus if She had to…is that really a good way to start a working relationship, much less a potential friendship? The trouble can be summed up in one sentence that She told me outright once: She wants to be part of my inner circle. We have agreements like that. I couldn’t be a ritual princess of the Free Court and married to Anubis and a liminal freelancer astral witch at the same time if there weren’t some agreements for secrets and grace and understanding and faith there.

You know, I don’t think it’s ever occurred to me until just now to ask why Someone would want that, if they meant it. The amusement of treating me badly and having me overlook it is the BS reason and I’ve been there, but what’s the real one? I can accept I’m an interesting asset to the Otherworlds, a useful ally maybe sometimes since I straddle between here and Out There, but that hardly seems enough to pursue me for years and (mostly) respect my boundaries doing it.

And if that’s all it was, I make allies over truce and agreements are necessary but trust optional. So why would She want it, if this was just about working in the same direction, and why would She keep telling me the truth even about the things that make me more likely to quit with Her?
Maybe that’s the question I should have been asking all these months. Especially since Hekate has done everything She promised. She told me at Mystic South She wasn’t just the Goddess of Crossroads, but also of Crossed Roads…that is, roads that seem blocked. Several of my People are liminal and Openers of Ways and I train with them, but to open a closed or crossed way is sometimes not possible without too much collateral change. She instead offered to show me a way to just slither through the block undetected, without having to break anything down. And I wanted to believe Her but was feeling careful in moderating my expectations.

Only, I can’t deny it’s worked. I’ve gotten more productive things done in the last five months than in the last three or four years. I reopened my Etsy shop after a covid vacation. I went to my first seller event in years and it went great. There was huge stress hanging over me about some changes coming to my life, but She told me to look for the good side, because there’d be one. Then my dad was around and nice, dry weather all fall (which never happens), so I was able to get as much camper work done—yes, still restoring my vintage camper—in that couple months as in the last year and a half or more.

That would have been enough to get my attention but She went further. My other main stress was a source of money ending this month and then I was unexpectedly offered a good-paying job in October by an artist I met and briefly worked for in 2015 who does fused glass art; I was hired part-time for her storefront then, but she offered I could come by the studio to watch and learn other days, and I did. Enough to know I wanted badly to learn this art to add to my shop I was (then) about to open. The storefront unexpectedly closed a few months later and I should have texted or called about still coming by the studio, but anxiety won out and I didn’t. I started MixedMythologies that winter and received from my dad for Christmas that year the most wow gift I’ve ever had: a small glass kiln of my own. Too bad the weird barn-ceiling, wallpapered, in my craft room here was too short and a fire hazard…I never turned it on. It became my incense burner table for eight years.

I never spoke to her after, but my dad knows and my brother works for her husband, and so I heard through the grapevine she was looking to get back in the studio after health and burnout stuff for some years and wanted to hire an apprentice part-time to help with the commissioned art and to teach what she knew—I wouldn’t still be interested, right? I was and the deal ended up that I work 2-3 days a week and get paid fairly and have been allowed to bring in my kiln to the studio and use some supplies learning. It’s the sort of apprenticeship I’ve longed for much of my life and spent the last few years trying to get over hoping for because nobody mentors someone over thirty. But here I am and I’ve learned so much and I’m getting ready to share my first fused pieces in my shop in January. Yay!
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This post has gotten long, and if I had more time maybe I’d divide it up into bite-size thoughts, but there’s only a few hours of the year left. I’m coming into 2024 with opportunities and hope (though I hate to call it that, because it seems asking for trouble), and not quite knowing where all this goes.

What I know is that Hekate has said done things that hurt me, but so far as I know, She’s never lied to me directly. Even when it would have helped Her. What She’s done for me these last few months has changed maybe the shape of my life in a good way. If those things had happened in any different order, maybe She would be part of my inner circle already. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but what if it really is only what She’s asked of me? She has a lot of people, devotees, in the last few years and She wants to protect them as much as She can in this next potentially chaotic or whatever while. I operate in the liminal, in the weeds, where sometimes it’s not so easy for deities to wield their full power. Perhaps I could also be there and help. The thing is, I would have done that anyway and if I have resources maybe I can do better, but…I’d have done it anyway.

I don’t want Her to feel tricked and in any case…this is what the Otherworlds can’t account for about me. They didn’t always know everything, but now they mostly do and can explain how I am and do but not why. That’s why People say They’re so interested, but I just am what I am. It was just a couple weeks ago when I asked questions, Hekate deflected I wasn’t easy to make friends with or agreements that weren’t all about Work. And I don’t know why that’s stuck with me, but it did.

Maybe I have some new things to think about going into 2024, then. Maybe I need to ask myself some questions when I don’t have good or easy answers. Maybe it’ll matter and maybe it won’t.

Anyway, I’m kind of glad to say goodbye to 2023, I think…Happy New Year!

Portable Waterfall

I wanted to share something cool related to Mystic South, but kind of tangent. The last time I’d been was 2019 and I noticed it felt like a more chaotic energy vibe at the conference than it was the year before. The hotel remodeled and replaced its wonderful indoor waterfall feature with a rock feature.

I wrote about this here, but I hypothesized at the time perhaps that change altered the energies of the conference and the hotel somewhat. Or…at least, maybe the water had a positive effect on my energy that made me able to interact more smoothly and peacefully with all the vibes of the conference. (And it’s funny, because this past weekend I went to a post-Mystic South thing with a few friends and there was a whole tangent about missing the waterfall, still.) After 2019, thought, I decided to try to build myself a metaphysical/energetic waterfall in a piece of jewelry that I could wear when I went back to have that flowing energy again for myself.

This is what I made. It’s blue and green kyanite and labradorite with little silver faceted glass, so it looks like water with light coming through it and feels like it has a current along the texture. I dedicated it with energy from this particular astral river that runs between worlds and flows not only with water, but magick as well. It was very special to me at the time and still is now.

Only, then covid hit and Mystic South didn’t happen for two years. Last year it did, but someone in the house brought it home the weekend before and by Monday everyone was positive so I had to cancel and isolate instead. So this was the first time I—finally—got to try it out. And I did nothing to it since I made it and charged it in October of 2019, didn’t even wear it, because this is what it was for and I didn’t want anything else to affect it before it saw how it turned out.

At first, I thought maybe it was just a super chill, calm Mystic South. Or maybe it was something else about me: I have a whole personal energy and magick shielding system around my person now that I didn’t have before, have become more comfortable with chaotic energies, and took a defensive set of wards that I set up in my hotel room so the energies of late-night witches or mischievous spirits or someone’s rambunctious ancestors who got into an astral liquor cabinet and decided to cavort up and down the hallways at 3AM wouldn’t disturb me. I slept—at least, when my Gods and spirits let me sleep—so deeply and restfully every night. And I rarely sleep well in hotels and never before in one full of excited people/pagans. So I wondered if it was all down to my personal spiritual and magickal growth over the last few years—at first.

Then a couple of friends mentioned strong energies and feeling sort of thrown off by them and I realized I had felt that, too—but only Thursday evening arriving and Friday evening leaving to go out for dinner. And then, the strongest time, Saturday night while waiting outside the room for the big ritual. The only three times outside my room that I took the waterfall necklace off.

So I think it was just protecting me that well, which is really cool. It’s always so neat when the magick works. I don’t think there’s ever a point where that stops being awesome.

Mystic South 2023 Thoughts

Last weekend, I attended the Mystic South pagan conference in Atlanta and it was awesome. I had been feeling very stuck and disconnected and burned recently, so it was a great recharge and rekindling . Now, it feels like I’m moving forward again.

It seemed so much longer than only three days and I’m still thinking through a lot of things that came up while I was there. I learned new skills and areas of study I want to continue expanding from the workshops. And I didn’t buy any new books, when I cleared out my Mystic South bag to pack and take with me, there were a couple of books I had bought last time in 2019 that I’d completely forgotten, so I have new reading material anyway. Yay!

And after the last few years, it was nice to be reminded that there are all these other pagans still out there and doing things. Several friends were there and it was great to catch up—some I hadn’t seen since late 2019—and I met new folks, as well. It seems like it jumpstarted a little bit of reconnecting and maybe finding more people and group stuff to do around here again.

Spiritually, it was like waking up. My Gods and spirits reconfirmed in a very vivid way that They care and are supportive. They never have not been there, but I felt like I was the one far away and just disconnected. It also helped to confirm my path and what the next steps are, which is something I’d been asking for guidance about for a while now.

The beads in my braids that I switch out a lot and weave with whatever vibes I need suddenly broke while I was there and I had to tie them off the braids so they wouldn’t untwine entirely; sometimes that happens from wear but I’d just checked these and they were perfect. The other answer is the energy and magick I wove into them suddenly broke with enough force to break the physical object. That usually happens when something changes or finishes…a threshold is crossed somehow, and that seems to be what happened this time because They said I could remake them, but not exactly the same again. These were done.

I also, very unexpectedly, left with an agreement to do work with a new deity (but not exactly) until the end of next May. We’ve been dancing around each other in misunderstandings and missed connections for years, but this time it went differently and my regular and closest Gods and spirits vouched for Her and agreed to act as guardrails just in case. She’s offering me some explanations and answers and a plan to help me push free of some of this BS from the last few years, finally. Worth taking a little bit of a chance, I reckon.

I realized how much fears and doubts have been keeping me from saying all I wanted to say, doing all I wanted to do, and sharing all I hoped to share. Being all of myself I can be—again, finally. If I don’t start, I think it’s very likely now that I’ll get some compassionate divine foot in ass…and I’d maybe deserve it. Because the challenge is going to be not slipping back into the old rut now that I’m home from Mystic South. But I’m ready to make the changes, and maybe even do something worth writing about here again.

Bookends On May

It’s been a weird month. I’ve been working through some things and it’s somehow managed to be both too long and not nearly long enough for that.

I started the month off with my usual rituals and wrapping my magick ribbon I’d been working on since the Equinox. I think it turned out well after the six weeks of overlapping dyes to get it half orange and half blue-purple-black. It was nice, quiet, and there was still a strong feeling of gathering and raising energy more than most years. Like something ongoing.

Usually the ribbon is a wish or hope for the coming year, but this time it seemed more like an agreement or commitment, something just beginning that will continue for the year. I’ve spent the rest of May trying to understand how to move forward now. Guidance hasn’t been coming in words or cards, so it’s taken more time and listening. Usually, my People only talk so not-in-words to me if there aren’t any words for what They’re trying to explain.

Some of it is about magicks and, specifically some kinds I’ve been running away from for a long time that it’s well past time to stop. And some has been about mindset—no matter how much shadow crap I do, there’s always still more to be done yet.

It’s been kind of a different way than my Gods and spirits usually ask me into new things. Most of the time, They invite me to do things and dangle the learning itself as an incentive, and then I look up eventually and realize I’ve changed along the way. This time, though, it’s the endgame they’re holding up—or at least a possible one—and just asked if I wanted to be that person, but have mostly only been telling after I agreed what the steps are to get there. I think the last time it was done in that order was 2015.

I’m wondering, though, if this is the same journey I was invited to last year. It’s the same core magicks involved, similar ways of thinking, some of the same projects and practices I’d never finished. I had all the pieces before but wasn’t sure how put it all together. But my efforts led into the conversations that led into the images I’ve been shown and then the asking to commit now. It would make sense: I got lost last time I tried, so this time I’ve been given a landmark to aim toward as well.

I guess I’ll find out. Part of me is excited, but the other part is tired and has enjoyed sitting on the sidelines and doing minimums for a little while. I miss the days when I felt inspired and full of energy.

Restarting My Garden

I can finally show off a little bit of my gardening this year. For the first time since I began having a garden in 2016, I had to start planting from scratch. Even when I rebuilt the wagon a year or two back, I had plants saved to put back. But not this year—the single digits freeze in December killed all the plants I took inside; my craft room, where I hid them from my kitties, still ended up going below freezing and so no plants made it.

Since I’ve had consistently inconsistent luck with seeds over the years and didn’t start any early, since I was still hoping my plants would wake back up, I decided to just buy some small plants to get restarted. Rosemary and basil again, because I love cooking baking with them, and I’ve been wanting to try some lavender and thyme. I also have an indoor aloe plant because I grew up with those and my last two only died because my cats kept trying to eat them. (I finally have a place inside where I think it’ll get enough light but they can’t get to it *fingers crossed* this time.) And finally, a strawberry plant! I planned to get one last year, but then was late enough that the shop was already sold out of them, so this year I wasn’t going to miss my chance again.

I’ve some catnip seeds planted as well, but they’re still just starting. I don’t know if they’ll be big enough to harvest from this year. In 2016, it took a couple years from them to get established.

I planted them back around the spring equinox, but there was a frost after and my attempts to cocoon the garden worked great for the hardier plants, but not the basil. So I’ve been putting off writing about it until the lows were above freezing and I was able to either replace or plant something else in the empty places. But there was still plenty of basil of the store, so I’m just watching the weather very carefully the next few weeks to make sure I don’t have to go rescue them into a pot and bring inside.

So far, everything’s doing great this year. The weather’s been mostly cooperating and since the garden wagon is something that I do, in part, to honor my spirits, I’ve committed to spending a bit more time and energy on it again. Last year, even before the frost killed everything, nothing was doing well. It was a poor year and while a lot of it was rain and temperature related, I feel bad about how little I did to mitigate it.

This year I’m determined to do better. And I was rewarded for my efforts so far today with the first ever ripe strawberry from my own plant to eat! It was delicious, maybe the best strawberry I’ve ever eaten. ❤

Spring Equinox 2023

It’s officially spring now! Yay! Hope everyone had a nice Equinox this week and that spring is on its way for real, now—it’d be nice to avoid any more freezing nights here, because my garden is not loving those.

I hung up my ribbons in the tree over my garden wagon. I usually try to do it around mid to late afternoon when there’s lots of afternoon/evening sunlight, but it got a little late into twilight on me this year because I was caught up working on crafting and intention projects to start getting my wrapping ribbon for May Day started. I haven’t always started working on it so early but it’s only felt more right and encouraged over the years, so at this point starting my meditations on a wish for the year and keeping the ribbon on my altar or working on modifications or additions so it feels connected to all those hopes has become almost as significant a part of my equinox as wrapping it will be in a few weeks.

And I enjoyed my ribbons by daylight the next morning when I went out to uncover my garden from (fingers crossed) the last sub-freezing cold night here, now that springtime is here.

After dark, I had the usual rituals and astral travel with my spirits. It felt a little quiet this year, not unlike my ribbon hanging by twilight felt almost softer…maybe a little undercover. Perhaps that’s the best way to describe the whole feeling: the energies were there and strong, but were a little less bursting forth and dancing among the flowers and a little more currents just below the surface rising to a crescendo that hasn’t happened yet.

Vernal equinox and May Day always have always felt very connected in magick and energy to me and the relationship to each other isn’t always exactly the same. Some years they’re tied up together closer than others, some years one feels bigger than the other, or sometimes it’s more two peaks and other times the whole period between them stays feels heightened. I never can tell why—maybe it’s just part of the natural variation, the same way spring’s flowers and pollen and weather come along both the same and different each time the cycle comes around.

Anyway, for whatever reason…this feels like a rising year and so I’m looking forward to these coming weeks and the energy and magick they’ll bring.