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Winters here are rough.

The photo shows one of the last tiny harvests before the cold locks me indoors for too many days.

In the jar is lemon balm—wee clippings from the very top of the plant, since the lower leaves are already weathered beyond use. Likewise, the jar holds a mere five inches of nettle leaves and nettle seeds from the top of a stalk.

The harvest also includes gorgeously dark peppermint and some fuzzy, pale mint. The square-stemmed plant is ready to assault my tongue with glory, if there’s enough mint in the jar to storm my tastebuds. If not, a more gentle mint taste will sweeten and enliven the tea blend. 

You are innately magical. The cosmos is innately magical, every atom of the universe rife with the potential for miracle.

Mind you, I believe training in magical techniques is important in order for spells cast to be effective. However, just as important is allowing the magical self and getting in touch with the universe's magic. In fact, that’s as important a part of training as techniques are.

4/2015*

The forest was evil. It held no beauty, power, or goodness; it never fed her cells when she walked in it.

A Faerie, she could perceive subtle energies. The forest was evil.

It hadn’t always been. But she’d secretly watched the change:

I used to think my huge anxiety, angst, and nervousness meant something was deeply wrong with me. Then one day the Goddess told me the intensity of those feelings stems from my wild, free spirit. I would’ve thought that was contradictory, but when She showed me the whole picture, it made sense.

Emotionally and spiritually, I’m in fairly decent shape. Am reasonably serene, given the pandemic and my statistically being at greater risk of dying in it. But anxiety visits. Sometimes, it overwhelms me. Right now, my stomach’s in a knot, but at least I’m not sobbing today.

It really helps when I remember that my abundance of intense feelings is appropriate and part of my passionate nature, and that passion is a gift I was given by the Goddess, and that I enjoy right down to my toes. Feeling passionate about life’s ups and downs of is part of my vitality—my life force expressing itself. I want to honor that.

During crisis, I find being gentle with myself vital. However, were gentleness with myself to take precedence over gentleness with other people, I’d be widely amiss.

Gentleness with myself is not tantamount to forgoing moral accountability, but rather acknowledging what I’ve done wrong without shaming myself for it. We are all only human. We will all make mistakes. Compassion for others means rectifying whatever errors I make.

Compassion for others also requires the practice of self-awareness, so I spot my ill behavior, as well as notice an impulse toward an unkind deed so I can nip it in the bud.

Note: Websites tend to reduce photographs to make webpages load quickly. This often blurs details in the photos.

If you know me well, you’ve seen me use anything at hand for divination. Everything around me has an opinion. (May not always be a good opinion, but a lot of the time it is.)

Divination is part of my every day, throughout the day. I’m constantly trying to communicate with my Gods, whether  divining for myself or for clients in classes and private sessions. This oracular thread woven throughout my hours is one reason I love making divination tools. Making a deck or other divinatory tool and then using it inspires me and opens me to the Divine in new ways. 

Given my use of anything nearby for fortune telling, and my interest in making oracular tools, it’s no surprise that, after I’d spent a couple of years making a pen and ink alphabet (with some watercolors thrown in), it occurred to me to make the letters into alphabet oracle cards for myself. Or if you prefer, “Alphabet divination cards.” Are you asking, “What is alphabet divination?” The answer is: I had no idea what it was until I made the idea up. I’ll explain:

Stars are born from the vast darkness of outer space—the Goddess’ womb, the Goddess’ belly.

What if the fire flaring from the Dragon is in fact a Phoenix that has been born within the great darkness of the Dragon’s belly: a rebirth, the Phoenix rising again? That thought came to me in a meditation. It rang with truth—rang as a major truth—as one of the mysteries of dragon magic: