In July I picked almonds, early in the morning, up a ladder with a basket in my front yard. The almond tree is a nonpareil which is supposed to be an ornamental or pollinator, not a nut bearing tree. We, my mom and I, had planted the nonpareil tree along with another variety of almond tree that was supposed to be the nut bearing tree, but the other tree had died, and one day mom had come home with a "white pomegranate" for me to plant where the other almond tree had been so we only had the nonpareil. It made beautiful flowers every spring, but mom wanted nuts. One year mom told the tree she wanted nuts and it bore nuts. It has borne nuts every year since.
I rarely do any spells anymore, but there is one I do almost every day in the summer. When I get in the pool I splash the water and say "No f*ing wasps! No thing that stings belongs in my pool!" So far so good, knock on wood.
I'm writing in a hobbit hole, off the grid, on a mountain side in Northern Washington. The setting couldn't be more perfect. There's still some snow covering the ground at our elevation, steep sagebrush hills framing the horizon, a shimmering mountain lake reflecting the setting sun. I want to write about joyful things or find beauty in difficult things, but the only words that are coming to me are “I am so exhausted.”
There always seems to be a general level of chaos whenever I take up temporary residence in a hotel. During my trip to the deep desert near here, the chaos was generally funny and / or positive, aside from a couple of flickering light problems when we first arrived at our room.
Today is “Beer Day” in Iceland. On this day in 1989 - yes, 1989- beer became legal in Iceland after a long and arduous struggle with prohibition. This is the story of beer’s long journey through the Land of Fire and Ice.
A Quest for Canada is a series of articles that will appear in both my Witches & Pagans column 49 Degrees and my Patheos blog Between the Shadows on an alternating schedule between the two blogs. Links will be provided in both blogs.
Apologies for the long time between posts--but I have some news to share: Llewellyn Worldwide is publishing my project--MAPPING THE MAGIC!
The book is about sacred sites in America (along with other related goodies) and will explore the magic of Washington, D.C. and the states of the Northeast: Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine--as you can see it will hopefully be the first of four books, each covering a different area of the country. HUGE thanks goes to Anne Niven at BBI Media who's been publishing my Wandering Witch feature at Witches & Pagans magazine since around 2007 ♥
To celebrate and spread the news about Mapping the Magic I'm hosting a GIVEAWAY! You can win a TWO year subscription to Witches & Pagans magazine or one of four copies of the current issue of the magazine. Click the link below to enter the rafflecopter giveaway (also on my blog at http://nataliezaman.blogspot.com):
Thesseli
You should post on Substack too, where you won't have to worry about being deplatformed or kicked off the site for your views. (Also, I've archived th...
David Dashifen Kees
I feel it necessary to state, unequivocally, that anti-trans points of view are not an essential part of Paganism. As a trans Pagan myself who helps ...
Meredith Gladwell
I wish there were "like" buttons on here, so I'll just do the longhand and say I like this! lol...but really, great idea, thank you. Can't go wrong wi...
I'm writing in a hobbit hole, off the grid, on a mountain side in Northern Washington. The setting couldn't be more perfect. There's still some snow covering the ground at our elevation, steep sagebrush hills framing the horizon, a shimmering mountain lake reflecting the setting sun. I want to write about joyful things or find beauty in difficult things, but the only words that are coming to me are “I am so exhausted.”
It was the perfect moment.
