Nine fruits and nine flavors to preserve my soul in peace this day...
— Caitlín Matthews
I'm enjoying Joanna Powell Colbert's 30 Days of Harvest ecourse. This week, one of the photo prompts was about savoring autumn fruits. While thoughts of apples were also on my mind, I took the prompt metaphorically and went for a walk with my baby to identify nine “flavors” of autumn in my own back yard.
Persimmon for patience, raspberry for reflection, dogwood for dreams, rose for enchantment, aster for starshine, polk for color, oak for mystery, and cucumber for salad.
Happy Leo new moon! This three card reading (using images from my forthcoming Magic of Flowers Oracle) provides guidance for what to focus on for spiritual growth and positive personal unfolding during the brand new moon cycle ahead.
In her beautiful book Celtic Devotional, Caitlin Matthews suggests a Lunar Meditation on the scent of flowers, one I thought perfect for the new season Litha has brought us. All around us flowers are blooming, delighting the eye and perfuming the air with fragrance. What better analogy for summer, and life, really, than the scent of a flower?
Is there anything that compares? Yes, I suppose so: fresh peaches, the scent of a baby's hair. But flowers have a scent unrivalled by anything else. Sweet, but strong, faint but carrying.
Who says humanity and the natural world can't get along? We talk a lot in our culture about "man vs. nature (sic)" but how true is that really? Today's stories for Earthy Thursday take a look at the ways in which humanity is either teaming up with nature or finding ways to welcome it into our backyards. Read about using plants to send messages, the surprising greenery of London, and giant rats who help save human lives. All this and more in the Pagan News Beagle!
the flowers bend their bright bodies, and tip their fragrance to the air, and rise, their red stems holding all that dampness and recklessness gladly and lightly, and there it is again — beauty the brave, the exemplary, blazing open. Do you love this world?
–excerpt “Peonies” by Mary Oliver*
Loving the world feels like a difficult topic to write about today when I see news coverage of the recent oil spill in Santa Barbara and read about the dolphins dying. It can be easy to start to feel discouraged and hopeless in the face of such destruction and lack of love for the earth, our precious, irreplaceable home.
After a long stint in Los Angeles and a life mostly lived in California, I'm finding my first springtime in the country in central Missouri to be indescribably magical. As the flowers begin to bloom and the green begins to return, I am truly shocked to behold all the botanical life that just bursts forth everywhere, all on its own, without the intense watering and cultivation that was so often necessary in my former desert environment. And it seems that so many different flowers, all in one place, are expected to miraculously appear on the scene at various times throughout the year! It's a kaleidoscopic theater of brightness and life.
For example, I recently discovered that a seemingly lifeless shrub right in front of our house had - quite possibly overnight - adorned itself in elegant, delicate, and intensely bright yellow blooms. I've since spied the same blossoms elsewhere in my area. Now that I know that this beauty as forsythia, I thought I'd explore some of her floral magic and wisdom.
Anthony Gresham
I remember reading that the Romans were known for rejecting omens they didn't agree with. And making terrible mistakes when they defied the omens they...
Anthony Gresham
Pour a jar of mint tea over the stone. Step back two paces and set down the jar, bow twice, clap twice, bow once again. Say: "Thank you for your pre...
Jamie
Molly,Love the graphic.I kid you not. Many years ago, I was outside reading a book during a break at work. A crow feather fell out of the sky and land...
Anthony Gresham
Thank you for your review. I still don't think I'll go to the theater for this one, but it sounds like one I can record later in the year and actuall...
