Sparkling Lotus Ink

the constancy of changing landscape

Look at the happy juniper!   Miss Mama now requires supervised outside time due to her reverting to bird killing.  It took me about three months to train her, a few years of good-girl not going after them and then an interloper cat about three days tops to show by example how she could Be instead.  I take her out doors farther from the feed rocks and she's glad - so far - to just go on inspection tours together.  It was about 20 degrees when I took the above pics - maybe quarter of 8 in the morning.

Yesterday morning - around 7:15.  It felt imperative to step INTO the garden - all the way through the gate.  To stand and feel the energy there.  Remind myself how much of my own intentional YELLOW energy has gone into this space since last March.  I saw clearly how the past season's 'human game trails' made throughout the season might solidify into a path more consciously made from what's there and how the plants move around the passageways.

grace names her young trees and I name the rocks the garden's earth offers.  Every sacred space needs a dedicated male and female guardian pairing.  These came from deep in the ground while J was digging the tomato patch.  Lynne Margulis and Howard Zinn.  LM was really deep in the ground and took J a sweaty hour to extract.   They were undetectable beneath layers of vegetation during the growing season.

Am visualizing next April and early May ...

This morning the cat and I visited the scene of toppled prayers.  I took some care and thought to rebuild:  a more perfect union

and:  finding stability enough to sustain a split foundation

A few hours later the cat wanted to go out again.  This time we visited the stream

There's ice now as an ongoing feature.  If you look at the water furthest away you can see how slow and thick it's becoming even within constant movement.  This is SO different from two weeks ago when the stream rose far above the banks.

And then we went over to the frog pond and considered the holy union between then the juniper and the snowball viburnum.  Also considered some winter pruning.  So many plans, daydreams and necessary chores.  A gardener is always inherently optimistic or at the very least willing to express hope in a few continuous seasons worth of growth.

(the Eye is still there at least to me... and i love how the sun is kind of heart shaped in the light distortion.)

Every once in awhile J and I recollect the afternoon he completed a previously slow-moving section of rock retaining wall repair.   Back in March when we felt ourselves perpetually frustrated and certain we were being lied to or at the very least "handled" and soft-pedaled concerning the pandemic.  I was surprised to see in this pic that we'd already put up two sides of the fence.  It was a lot of high octane nervous YELLOW energy - I am what I prepare to become.

These plans are more quiet.  Listening to what the garden itself might suggest. Listening especially to the sleeping beds of garlic and shallots. They remain covered. with a frosting of icy snow and their original two inches of mulch.  In some places mulch remains.  In others it doesn't.  I worry what that will mean to plants left unprotected.  But, realistically, the more I age the more important it will be to have developed colonies of hardy companions.

Mary's back where she belongs.  It felt all wrong when she wasn't visible from the southern windows.  Yesterday I fell due to neuro-overwhelm and news-related preoccupations.  J is one hundred per cent plugged in and so a lot filters in as he follows me around filling me on a variety of provocative details.  It's only fair.  I've been doing it with him since the summer of 2015.

I keep thinking about what grace wrote:  they stole Senator Warnock's day.  Georgia's day, really.  And yet it all still happened.  Just like my crystalline happiness in the hours before I clocked in just in time to see the guy shouldering the confederate flag walking all around the place.  Abrupt shift off consciousness doesn't begin to cover it, really.  But still I came to everything from an unexpectedly gentle place.  Even at the deeply internalized level it was definitely not what I would have expected of myself.  I have stayed calm as I usually don't in the absence of Mind leading the way as it generally does. 

Normally when my mind says I can't do that right now I panic really overtly.  But this time I stayed calm and practical minded until yesterday afternoon.  I had a purely physical emo-reaction - falling due to neuro-overwhelm and not fully inhabiting my body.  It was a crash landing here in the studio.  I tripped partially over my own two feet and also, due to the muscle memory of moving around a stack of magazines that's no longer there due to me worrying if I didn't get rid of it I might fall. 

Here on the day after I'm far more in my body than I was!  The good news is that it feels good to move and so far I'm not bothered too much by the fallout.  Am achey in places that can be gently stretched with yoga.  Also time to switch from ice to a hot shower.  It's been helpful to move around outside - gently testing the edges of possible movement.  And cold enough to keep inflammation in check!

next year's iris say hello.  The iris essence I sent around came from very deep purple flowers.  If you have it and find your yellow center wobbly or not as bright/grounded as you intend to be try working with this essence.  Am guided to do it myself ...

yellow flower allies .1

This month the Dive is working with the SL golden crocus essence.  I just realized (I make them up for the group and one of the captains gets them about a week ahead of distribution time) I never got around to making a bottle for myself.  This will be changed within a 24 hour window!  This is a wonderfully illuminating and protective psychic and neuro-processing incubator of inner/cosmic Source energy.  Just writing and thinking about the flower's healing signature allows me to breathe more deeply and fully. 

The remedy was selected because everyone involved had a strong arc of spiritual expectation.  Crocus essence supports new growth/first birth/re-birth/re-generation of our soul's individual connection to Spirit.  This is the context in which I'm most familiar with the essence but I'm told there seems to be a gentle emboldening agent present as well.  Think this makes sense.  Solar energy may be fine tuning its frequency to a new level of Highest Good.  Maybe the pragmatic choices we're making and our 'ordinary' creative/gardening activities are holding us at a comparably higher frequency.  This is what innumerable prophecies (especially known to me by way of the Mayan flower based prophecies...) and channeled Ascendants have long suggested. 

sidenote:  the colony above grew in the original Sparkling Lotus garden - so self-named when I committed to co-creating in my modest array of garden beds in a high traffic suburban neighborhood. 

the golden crocus essence was co-created from the colony featured above, two spring seasons into the future - '07.  It's one of my favorites of all time as well as the crown jewel of that first extra special season of co-creative learning and deepening fascination/commitment.  Sometimes I have to put the essence away for a few years because I really do lean all the way into it.  Sequestration is my ingrained comfort zone ...

Since I forgot about the golden crocus connection I've spent the past week working with a Giant Hypercium I co-created last summer.  This was an auspicious essence prepared for someone who really resonated with the idea as soon as I offered.  We are close enough intuitively that I felt the flower's ultra-protective healing energy curling filaments of relief and illumination as soon as the offer was accepted.  The plant itself grows by the base of the porch.  It tends to bloom during the hot droughty portion of the summer.  I go out early in the morning to water the plant directly at the base.  It's not what's recommended but it keeps the flowers from frying.  I ... have trouble bearing witness to that as long as water's plentiful enough to supply.

I find it interesting that a flower with a healing signature that's an across-the-board master healer-illuminator-protective agent is so delicate and swift to die so dramatically if the sun's too strong and hot.  I like working with this Giant version because I feel it at the earthstar level as well.  Think I will recommend as an Awakener for people who aren't sure if they're getting the EarthStar hook-in point.

Classic field/indigenous St. Johnswort is a staple in most established commercial and well-stocked DIY flower essence repertory.  I love that it grows wild in our field and that others have come to gather the flowers for drying/magical purposes as well as with therapeutic or energetic intentions.  Not so many this year - three.  At first I was sad.  On top of so much permanent loss - to feel distinctly deprived of casual and usually taken for granted social exchanges in the field or studio.    But then I was grateful.   Rarely did we interact directly.   I kept track of extremely care-full and light footed human traffic by monitoring the way the St Johnswort flower clusters changed from a dusk inspection to early morning to later afternoon. 

A certain truck I knew by ear and then would scamper to see what small unobtrusive carefully built rock formation I might find.   Some I didn't find until absolutely everything appeared to have died back.    Nearly everyone I know locally gathers the flowers to make therapeutic oil and most are quite upfront that they dry the flowers for ritual use as well.  I like gaining understanding of how this aspect of herbalism weaves itself rather casually person to person.  One friend confessed she didn't know why she did it.  She simply liked keeping them in a brandy snifter with other dried yellow flowers she kept there throughout the season. 

I said to her:  that's why you do it!  It's your dark months' eternal sunshine!  Now I do it too.  I also  like include yellow topaz and small unravelling scraps of yellow silk and/or coarse linen.

The most popular blend in the SL repertory is called Mellow Yellow.  This is the co-creation bowl set at the edge of my dedicated essence garden at the top of a hillside orchard.  Summer of '05.  I have written out  the first few bars of the story here.  Some seeds were sown with the explicit understanding that they'd give their flowers to an essence bowl rather than setting seed.  This was the case with the Moon and Stars melon flowers in this bowl.  For creative illumination and prolific growth.  There's also a pumpkin flower for deepening and illuminating a more intentional energetic footprint.  Lots of yellow marigolds for smoothing and adjusting electrical energy flow.  Marigolds of any kind serve as a kind of psychic and electrical recalibration tool.  Times when we don't feel like ourselves, can't get comfortable in our own skin.  understand we need to experience what we're experiencing BUT.  All of that can be eased via French Marigold's energetic signature.

There are yellow nasturtiums for revitalizing depleted/overtaxed neural passageways.  Lots of tiny yellow wood sorrel blooms for sharing quiet and prolific radiance among kindred souls and spirits.  Promotes awareness and appreciation of the small and innumerable private treasures our days can hold once we gear ourselves to noticing them.  Tomato flowers offer deep cleansing to our entire energetic system.  Like all nightshade healing signatures - the Tomato spirit confers great levels of personal agency in terms of what we consciously 'allow'.  My experiences of personal and observation natures suggest it will then take things just a couple of degrees past that point.  Enough to be noticed but not enough to automatically shut it down especially when blended and mellowed with so many other healing and illumination signatures.

Yellow snapdragons to both loosen bite-back TMJ issues and concurrently re-calibrate ingrained certainty a sharp tongue is the quickest way to getting an answer/establishing pecking order/etc.  There are also a few volunteered Evening Primrose flowers in the bottom of the bowl.  This healing signature is established as a go-to for Mother Issues in a number of repertories.  I've found it invaluable for myself and others in helping to breaking up and dissolving deeply impacted layers of unclaimed or unexamined shame. It's really good for seemingly unresolved disconnect from Mother which I tend to interpret on broader terms of the absence of direct Gaia-Mama contact in many woman's lives.

I kept meeting such women in an online context during the summer I was co-creating this essence blend

I grew these zucchinis explicitly for the flowers although, being zucchinis, I also harvested food.  Zucchini is the energetic equivalent of a self-care afternoon - whatever that might mean at an individual level.  For me it usually means time off the clock - and enough of it to authentically drift.  What the teenage version of my son used to call a non-day.  Molly Sheehan used to say the essence was the equivalent of a day home in your pajamas.  So it's really nice for people who give care or other forms of healing/leading/teaching as an ongoing part of life.  Also wonderful for parents of young children or spousal caregivers who need to get the verve for the extra miles they must travel in unusual and creative ways.

there are a lot of yellow flowers set aside for this chakra as I spent the upper part of two hours this morning going through photo archives pulling out everything I could find along the way.  So amazing  - the ongoing flower strewn path through my life ...

 

Orange Summation

    
This is a post of reflection woven with my final week's sacral themes: Synchronicity & Co-creation.

On a personal level that synchs-in well with the end-of-water-cycle song I've always intended to post as a listen only '20 remaster of Uncle John's Band.  What else could I possibly pick?  A song that gives me shivers of happiness and knew-so-many-people--from-before glad tidings each and every time I hear it.

***

We're currently abiding in the energy of a Cancerian full moon with its peak expression most likely happening today or early tomorrow depending where you live and how vibe-sensitive you are.  My feelings about water-sign full moons are mixed.   For one thing they bring up so much intensity of feeling, memory, and intuition that my various fire aspects more or less leave the building in order to the preserve their essence.  I never enjoy those times.  Without my fire/solar energy I'm never quite sure who I am.

example:  I once went into a local apothecary on a nothing-but-water day.  It was near the end of the third (solar) month of my first self-guided chakra intensive experience.  One of my biggest illuminations from that experience occurred when I realized I had no idea who I was on the inside.  I knew what I did.  I knew what I was good (and for that matter bad) at.  I knew where I'd been and where I wanted to go but I didn't know who I was at the most pivotal and entirely solar center of my own self-awareness.  I didn't have any sense of that energetic wheel at all.

[blue is the sacral center's cool-down color.  This can be hard for people who don't really "do" deep water energy work very comfortably or at all IF they happen to associate blue with Water rather than Sky.  I had that problem for a while with a strong glowing red sense of connection to my root chakra.  Red to me was fire and hence I could never seem to get 'grounded' vibes from it so much as rapaciousness.

Three different people have asked me about this blue/water /how-can-that-possibly-help-me-dry-out conundrum.  And much as I've chafed over hearing this answer myself it's the truest truth.  Just in case there are others:  You have to concentrate.  You have to be willing to accept that in the beginning your concentration might not seem to be produce anything you can recognize - or anything at all.  You have to be okay with that and remain open to nothing happening.  This "failure" is quite likely to re-assert itself as an out of the blue insight or inspiration that seems to present itself in an immediate and wholecloth way.   Be open to the appearance of  BLUE color ray energy appearing of its own accord to cool excess orangeness and/or to emphasize something that seems to emerge spontaneously at the speech and/or vision energy centers.  This may happen in synch with the Dive or at a future point - most likely when you least expect it.]

***

Montana Blue Centaurea, pictured above, makes a wonderful flower essence most usually associated with the head chakras.  But look at the feathery petals.  Imagine gently dropping the womb-center's energy into a bed of such magnificence.  I find it's really invaluable for stabilizing and clarifying the sacral energetics of intuition.  The more powerful it feels the more I seek to counterbalance that with some ongoing degree of head-based Vision clarity.  Montana Blue and Italian Alkanet are equally amazing for this kind of crystalline back-up. 

***

 At the time of my first (self and book guided) chakra intensive experience back in my late 30's I 'thought I'd done something wrong' or otherwise misguided.  So I went into the store seeking advice on how to gain a sense of who I was.  This upset the store owner who refused to accept the reality of me on a no-fire day.  (she was an aries and we related to each other in a distinctly aries kinda way...)  Just would not accept it and so there were tears profound enough to convince her - okay, this person I in no way perceive as having this type of problem is having it nonetheless.  

She went to her healer's strengths as well as her pendulum while I told her I needed something to help me know how I to get all the links in my energy chain lit and linked up as an ongoing thing.  We settled on a specific tarot deck and Sweetgrass flower essence.  Taking it led me to "suddenly" think or imagine four different ways I already was connected to my entire column as well as my full self but had simply/not-so-simply forgotten how to utilize the power/personal responsibility of turning the lights from bright to dim.  The problem had been my hyper-specific notions of how I was "supposed" to be doing and feeling things. 

[California Poppy holds so much healing for our species.  The entire plant containing all its phases of seed pods, flowers and buds, and roots can be tinctured for a very effective pain relieving agent.  I like adding three parts California Poppy to one part dried lavender buds previously whizzed through a blender.  Although I usually chop and grind to maximize surface area - the first time I work with a plant for tincturing purposes, I always ask the plant's primary/largest plant colony ahead of gathering - which would you prefer in order to help me and together help others? CaliPop always wants to remain intact for me.  At least so far.

I work with California Poppy flower essence a lot and for many reasons.  Primarily I take it in combination Green Bells of Ireland.  Year before (almost) last I was guided by both flower medicine spirits in a series of dreams and meditations.  They wanted - as in REALLY wanted - a small plot in the field garden where they could grow and commune together specifically to combine in an essence.  I promptly ordered the necessary seeds and buzzed with anticipation.  will tell the whole story - picking up at this point when we're deeper into the Solar region of Everything.

P.S.  the two flowers pictured above were part of the essence bowl's contents.]

***

A few days ago we had prodigious rainfall.  This caused several types of shifted consciousness.  For one thing the precipitation and 8 inches of snow melt runoff caused a true watershed's worth of water to barrel through the edge of our property more or less within the stream bed.  In some places it broached the bed and spring run-off grooves long established.  I stood at the glass doors in J's office and quite suddenly understood why this specific perspective leaves him at times preoccupied with flooding potential.  Always thought it was a dimensional skew based on what I see from the much higher back window in the studio.  And it is, but on my end. 

As I stood watching from the studio stairs I opened the window so I could also hear the water running while the rain pounded in the stream and everywhere else. It sounded without exaggeration as loud as the spontaneous waterfalls that formed following flash-flooding just above the tree-line in Yosemite on an afternoon in late August when my son and I were there.  Also, as I stood listening from the safety of Inside, I felt in my body the way I've felt on a trail ride when the horses go all horse-like one right after the other with a ripple of Horse Expression that could mean nothing or everything.  It was exhilarating and I took it in as a fitting end to this month of sacral challenge, deliverance, and ongoing illumination. 

J took a short film from the center of the bridge just past noon when everything was at its peak level of water-based mayhem and chaos.  I waited two more days and didn't go out to the same spot until yesterday morning.  By then the water had receded and slowed itself a good bit.  Took some pictures of the ice and water.  Walked in the woods just a little to see portions of what J describes based on his daily repetitive loop.  The path out to the field is deep muck.  I need to coordinate mental incentive with physical willingness to leave the sacral womb-feeling of my studio space because the field will be even deeper muck. 

as we get ready to move towards the yellow/solar center I'm thinking alot about cauldrons.  Fire forging a cauldron of some kind from earth-metals or very thick clay.   the cauldron holding whatever water/sacral energy we may need for continuing.

Namaste

Red Flower Essences

I wrote a post about co-creating this essence last spring.  All things considered it felt like a no-brainer for working through the Dive during November/first chakra month.  I've grown to love this particular essence a lot since its co-creation.   The maple tree waited until the full conclusion of our first decade in residence before reaching out to me in the undeniable and very warm-spirited way that it did.

Maple's flower healing signature relates to balance.  Last month's decibel and cage-rattling level was greatly soothed for me by the physical Maple tree itself as well as essence work on a daily basis.  I find working with the essence paired with meditation seems to open the door for more space in my days and evenings to simply reflect.  Not necessarily thoughts/reflection but perhaps just reflect the energy I've gathered and dispersed - reflect its overall form and purpose rather than my sole part of it.  

I really like the way that feels and how I'm able to notice my body responding with a loosening of tension.  It makes me think of the Buddha and the lesson of the bow that must be tightened neither too loose nor too tight.

the Crocosmia healing signature is crystalline and unmistakably direct to root and illuminate the energetic spine.  This often translates as a sudden uptick in energy level - a bustling spring in the step that was merely getting from one place to another prior to essence work. 

I love working with this flower in combination bowls or individual synergies prepared from separate mother stocks.  This past summer I felt a nudge to replace the SL Crocosmia mother essence. The resulting bowl was splendiforous.

Cardinal Flower essence has been chosen to root and sanctify the ongoing exploratory Dive process.  Am finding it's nice to 'finish' maple balancing endeavors with a flower so expressive of other realms of influence/reality.  The cardinal flower's healing signature relates to restoring sacred forms of dignity, illumination, and intent. 

In the mid-to-late fall I discovered small blooming cardinal flowers at the edges of the front yard's side pocket gardens.  The blossoms were exuberant in my noticing of them.  I promptly set up some bamboo stakes that I hope will survive the winter.  Otherwise I won't be sure where the plants are within the larger patch of lawn where I found them.

but maybe if i simply focus and listen ...

Flowering Quince is often associated with the crown chakra and sometimes the heart-sacral bridge.  For me the bright red blooms in my garden speak of a richly flourishing root chakra. When I work with the essence I always have the sense of individual stems rising from the petal bed at each juncture where two petals overlap.  I visualize the stems growing throughout my energetic spinal column - watching the buds form, fatten and release into blooming.  The flowers' healing and illumination range centers on timeless vibrancy and gentle resilience.

the Yarrow Flower medicine spirit is deeply protective.  In established essence work of the past 70 years or so yellow yarrow is well tested as a master shield for both gross and subtle human bodies.  This past summer I received some quiet counsel from the white yarrow plantlets that began appearing along a certain part of our enlarged field garden's new fencing.

 Have kind of mushed my initial impressions of the medicine spirit's entreaty to work, think, and cocreate with local varieties whenever possible in with Pam Gregory talking about the dissolution of the magnetic shield.  And then further mushed with common sense, survivalist thinking, and more generalized pragmatism.  It seems likely that whatever yarrow grows in a fully wild state - or very close to it - is going to be any given alchemist's best choice of a master shield. 

Welcoming a Yarrow ally as electrical and psychic back-up is a wonderful gift during times of prolonged duress.  It can also be just as lovely and well-applied for those who work in a capacity of guidance or healing - counseling, etc.  I like it for times when it seems that staying true to myself needs its own time alone in a bubble of sorts - while concurrently carrying on with life (and its attendant emotions) as close to normally as possible.  Also love spending time among flowering yarrow plants.  My sister in law has virtual groves of the deep golden yellow variety growing throughout her NoCali version of a wild garden.

the Echinacea flower healing vibration is always related to deep/bedrock level restoration of soul and spirit as well as mind and body.  This specific flower may have been included in the essence bowl.  I was really happy to see how vibrantly and fully the plant flowered in mid-summer.  Earlier in the season it developed a very obvious co-creative relationship with an enormous volunteer foxglove in the Evolving Sanctuary garden.

Have been working with a few folk who are profoundly shook by all we've been through and continue to experience throughout the globe.  I have a strong preference for offering Echinacea remedies (along with Elderberry and perhaps Lime) for the special needs of complex PTSD as well as those in occupations with a strong ongoing trauma component flagging ongoing need for self-care and ongoing restorative life choices.

i hope to write in more depth on this topic and then figure out how to get the words distributed most efficiently.  stay tuned.

Red Bee Balm is a very versatile essence.  It clears the head chakras beautifully and also shows an affinity for brain-level neuro-circutry.  This is obvious from the shape and form of the flower.  What's also obvious is the long square shaped stem that places this species in the mint family.  The sturdy stem always reminds me of the spinal column when perfectly straight.  I like to image the flower in a visualization that places the flower against the spinal column as if the blossom could move up and down - not unlike a clear class elevator on the outside of a building.  In that visual image, the flower describes the essence's capacity to travel up and down throughout the chakra system - at speed that may compromise detailed examination but not illuminated awareness.

[grace actually spoke to this but i can't remember where.  a comment and maybe it's here and I can find it to place right here.]

I find red bee balm flower essence to be a special friend to those who have chronic illness and/or pain.  The certain zap that chronic anything applies to every layer of be-ing is not to be underestimated.  Our subtle energy bodies need nourishment and the energetic equivalent of electrolyte rebalancing. 

Since this is a very solar plant I thought to work with it when I felt I was good and thoroughly caught up with crying after so many years of refusing to do as much.  A dream guided me to put a single drop of mother stock in the center of my crown.  I waited while it was absorbed and then visualized its passageway through my energy system.  Am setting aside a few scant dropper bottles with the mother stocks so there's no need to the original storage bottle more than once.  Just to be prepared in this way.  It feels important and possibly a partial refinement of rescue remedy as it's best applied in our variety of destabilizing circumstance?

a little more red and some orange up next...

what I'm working on to post

Today there is also a new ORANGE post at Nichobella

[just found this orange-centric pic in my files while looking for something else]

I'm fixin' to build two posts about flower essences - for the first and second chakra respectively. This takes thought-time and also searching my photo archives time.  But I'm definitely on it now that I've been told the interest is firmly there. 

Am also providing co-creative how-to links from previously posted entries

essence preparation - nuts & bolts .1

essence coalescence - nuts & bolts .2

Want to add that I've super-enjoyed receiving the playlists a few folks have created by interspersing my selections with some of their own. I plan to pull together something that expresses itself more towards the Up aspects of second chakra work somewhere near the end of next week.

There was a truly magnificent light orange Opium Poppy plant in my garden at the old place.

I worked with her to co-create one of my first flower essences.  P. somniferum flowers - of any color - hold a soothing vibe of slowing down, coming to center, and resting the mind and body with assurance it's safe/possible to fully relax.

next year's garden/this year's growth

The ground is finally cold enough to keep the garlic from bolting.  With temps near or above 70 all last week (and multiple windows open to sleep at night) I was really getting worried it would be a repeat of past warm autumn heartbreaks.  Have been planting small colonies of cloves throughout the garden over the past month.  Somebody with a professional food farm suggested I do as much to determine microclimates within a garden space.  'garlic will find standing water and pockets of clay  faster than your brain will figure it out.'  All but 2 of these pockets have bolted.  These were clove heads of different varieties sent by friends.  Yesterday afternoon J and I planted our purchased gloves.  Pretty standard choices that work well for us:  spicy Rojo hardneck and early Italian purple. 

Today I'll plant French shallots.  The bag of sets was ginormous again.  Have been planted them three at a time and every single one bolted within days.  Picture me standing over these experiments like a dog twisting her head from one side to its polar opposite arc.  Or as my son likes to put it: insert puppy whine here.  It's reached a point where the bulbs are bolting in the mesh netting. 

Today I'll sort through the sets.  Take out what's sprouted.  Make a boullion of sorts from the chopped bulbs.  Freeze in ice cube trays.  Think I'll do the same with the Rojo garlic heads that bolted as well.

Frozen boullion cubes are really versatile.  I usually thaw with warm water and briskly whisk the boullion into other dish-relevant liuid.  J likes rubbing it into meat before baking or roasting.

***

Long before any other threads of a chakra-driven nature showed up to be woven into my daily life - J and I decided we needed a bonding project that took us out of the ongoing sausage making factory and into our relationship's more congruently refined aspects.  We agreed we'd take month long looks at what the human energy system looks like when it's deconstructed into discussions, actions, and spur of the moment happenstances.  It's been very collaborative.  For instance we agreed at the beginning of the month to embrace foundation as our root chakra keyword.  A few days later we were arguing.  It got circular.  J looked at me and said 'how do we build a better foundation?'  I looked at him and didn't hesitate.  'Plant garlic.' 

Above:  our unconstructed Say Their Name cairn.  It started out as a shallow pit (for way too many 'shallow graves' ...) so there are several layers of stones. 

The second (!!) of two 2020 related Crosses & Losses cairns.  Other hum  The bigger the stone the bigger the sense of personal loss.  rick finally showed up (far left) via J's shovel as well a Nic  (to the right of rick and obviously freshly unearthed)  and between them are two equal sized rocks John Lewis and RBG.  The really large sun-whitened rock in the back - Elvira - is finally comforting rather than soul shattering to see ...

windfall & re-alignment

The autumn season has begun to settle in. Am starting to sift through the layers of learning and question marks involved with the two dozen flower essences, essence blends and essence/elixir combos that were successfully co-created during the spring and summer seasons.  Some of that will be reflected on this blog but it seems like I'm pulling something together in my mind that's not yet clear.   I have an Aries ascendant so am hoping the coming full moon in that sign will be clarifying as it usually is for me.   The past week or so (ever since I pulled the Tower as a final outcome in a tarot reading) has been something of a metaphorical obstacle course to parse beyond the broad strokes of what's true enough to stand and what isn't.

Today/last night I started to feel as if the psychic debris and rubble-dust of the energetic tower's collapse began to clear a bit.  Above is a living collage reflecting my eventual answer to a question a friend asked me yesterday once I reframed it in relation to my sense of personal agency.  Am making a small topic specific art/collage journal out of the vote by mail mailer.  Just something that feels both contained and containable.  The astrology of the moment suggests it will be challenging to find and maintain a cool head and steady heart.  But so important vibrationally and energetically in terms of what we manifest as individuals and at a collective level.

Am helping somebody with a very ambitious long term project.  In the interim I've decided this is an excellent time to do some work on my own energetic operating system.  Am super aware of the eroding and in places threadbare collective first chakra energy all around and thus am strongly motivated to work on that at a personal and small-scale collective level.

J. scavenged this narrow shelved bookcase a few days back.   Once it's cleaned up it'll be used for overflow mother stock storage.   Am very psyched to get the collection better organized and easier to access.  Have two other found-object painting projects.  Grounding pragmatic stuff.  Spent all day today puttering in such a realm.

A favorite marker in my yearly preparation for a new cycle of time-keeping - the arrival of next year's calendar from Lunar Press.   Loved what the artist, Jamie Hogan said about this cover art.  It's a very joyous design. 

Love the mysterious encircling of the energetic center of the mailing envelope's postage stamp.  a spot where all four elements combine.

?

Watched a Pam Gregory you-tube video about the full moon.  Love what she had to say about the next little while's massive opportunity to receive and process an increased amount of light as an individual and collective evolutionary tool ...

communion and solace

 

 

 

Super in love with this variety of anise hyssop.  Got it at Select Seeds' plant sale in the spring and the sweet lady had a rough start due to many insect invasions that were somewhat biblical in the area. But in the end she made five strong stalks and they've flowered prolificly.  Next year I'll stalk with bamboo.  Flower heads are 4-5 inches tall and about two and a half inches wide.  Hummingbirds love them.

All but one of the white African Foxlove plants has performed super well.  It was the drought portion of the summer in its center that sustained them.  The continuous water saturation has slowed them down somewhat but they're definitely reached five if not 6 feet.  I'm 5'6" and I'm looking the flower stalk in the eye as it were.

All these pictures are from yesterday afternoon.  I took the time to disconnect from the rest of my day and just hang around outside in the driveway area with Mama and all the 'enclosed' kindred spirits.  Every time someone mentions that phrase in relation to other humans my brain and heart automatically think on this level instead.

In the next post things get a bit magical...

it rained nearly four inches total

This is the biggest tomato we've had so far.  I sliced it thickly with a couple-few  Brandywines and slow roasted them with wafer thin slices of spicy rojo garlic.  So far we've had them as a side dish over rice and used the leftover tomato water to make tabouli  as well as Pearl's quick-scratch biscuits from my childhood.  Tonight I'm soaking cannelini beans and will cook with the rest of the tomato water then briefly bake with the rest of the roasted tomatoes and some fresh summer savory.  Also made tomato sauce with the plum tomatoes and a large Brandywine that wouldn't fit in the roasting tray.   Jays and catbirds are getting more than their fair share of the fruit.  Also so much rain basically stopped flower production two and a half weeks ago.  Maybe I didn't grow too many plants after all ...

.  Does anyone know what variety is pictured above.  I thought just based on knowing the name and what these fruits are beginning to look like that they were Green Zebras.  Then I learned they are quite small fruits and this is very large.  Looking on the internet has not been helpful in the scattered moments I've found time to search and more or less concentrate.

It's been really challenging to get everything done in the windows between storms particularly since they jack up both my ongoing pain level and neurological mis-firing experiences.  Am largely unsuccessful at the 'everything' level but J's helped me stay true to the most necessary parts of my gardening schedule with a variance of just a few days. That to me feels like a solid win in these particular times.  Next must-do task is hilling up the leeks.  I usually pull them when they're young like this but was called to change that about a month ago.  Not sure why.  Maybe I just want to see what a larger but entirely fresh leek I grew from seed will taste like.  My plan is to pull them all at once then chop and lightly sautee.  Divide results into very small freezer storage containers and fill extra space withvegetable stock.  I use three of these for potato leek soup and one for other soups and casseroles.

The flowering goldenrod has enticed a host of pollinators to stick around for more bean flowers.  In the background you can see the morning glories beginning to climb.  Some of the Japanese varieties are growing like shrubs close to the ground.  Thought maybe it was something 'wrong' and then recalled they've done this before the year of SL2 up on the orchard hilltop.  When I walk around and evaluate the way the garden's evolving I'm quite psyched to consider next year will be easier in terms of planning and harvesting successful food crops.  Provided there's sufficient water of course.  But in more general terms everything can be put in the ground when it needs to go in without fear of losing crops due to interlopers.  That's how I arrived at the wild medicinal/tea herb garden model in the first place.  It's simply impossible to seriously contemplate self-feeding around here without a tall reliable fence.

Taken just a while back while harvesting tomatoes and anise hyssop flowers.  It's the very center of the original square bed J rototilled when we first moved here.  Facing west.

While I was out walking around I collected four components for this afternoon's restorative tea blend.  Prunella and Anise Hyssop flowers from the field and a Dill leaf and Tulsi flower bud head from the potted ones on the deck.

Does anyone happen to recognize this shrub fruit?  This is only the second time since we've lived there when this micro thicket of branches has set fruit.  Have always thought it was some type of Alder given where it lives just beyond the stream bank.    leaves pictured below.

The stream bed itself has been revived by the storm's precipitation and the super blast of negative ions released from thunder, lightning, and metaphysical super beings pounding their way across the sky.  It was, as we used to say, epic to the extreme.  In between storms the local coyote clan ran absolutely berserk throwing their voices here, there, and everywhere.  And the usual parliament of Barred Owls seemed twice as large.  The upside of messed-up biorhythms is that I'm fully conscious in the hours when these goings-on occur.  Some of it's a little spooky and seemingly out of bounds for human consideration.  Other parts are exhilarating and I feel grateful to have these kind of experiences as part of my ongoing awareness mainframe.

The atmosphere by the stream feels sequestered from all the other parts of the property and the road that crosses the water just beyond this spot I share.  It's hushed, healing, and holy.

Wishing everyone a restorative time-out moment or two that is authentically off the clock.  If such moments don't seem in evidence maybe go make one somehow.

wren central

A few days back a new lithium battery for my DSLR arrived.  Although I have a couple different lenses for it my favorite is the lens that I keep on the camera - a 40mm portrait lens with macro capabilities.  We all know why, right?  Yeah.  Close-up flower portraits.  I haven't actually used this camera very much in about a year.  And now that I have it back in operation I want to use my favorite lens for a greater range of purpose.

To that end I went outside yesterday morning for a wander with the camera rather than my phone.  Although I did take a lot of shots in close range mode I also began to actively prompt myself to start taking the kind of flower pictures I want to continue getting better at isolating with my eye and then stretching the "portrait" aspect of how I can learn to frame larger description highlighting a landscape vignette.  Was just beginning to push myself beyond a wheel of perpetual blossom/other organic close-ups when the battery gave out.

I've never disciplined myself to learn how to work this lens for landscape images.  But one of the reasons I chose it as what would work best for me is that so many camera buffs said this is a prime lens you can throw on your camera for months at a time - using it equally well for work-related needs and also vacations or group activities, etc.  Then when J gifted the dream lens I went gaga for close-ups.  Because it's all I've ever really wanted to photograph.  Flowers.  Thank you.  That will be enough. 

Note how the large community of Queen Anne's Lace to the right of the garden posts looks like a gigantic illuminated bowl.

J's favorite indigenous species.  Was thrilled to capture a look at the flower's entire life cycle.   Will print and frame for his office as a birthday gift next month. 

Here is a close up word detail about the way I've most had trouble assimilating to a so-called new normal.  I really couldn't deal with the absence of ongoing tra-la-la visits to the greenhouse and nursery visits.   While winnowing my photo files I started crying one night in an authentically brokenhearted way.  I'd noticed how many of my spring and early summer photos through the years held spotlighted and peripheral evidence of ongoing visits to a nursery or the farmer's market perennial lady.  It was the no-more-doing-of-this thing that felt most unnatural to me.  At least once I'd gone through my cycles in earlier spring of getting so wigged-out and emotionally raw without a background of casual drop-in/run-into-each-other level of of socialization I hadn't realized was so central my to sense of inner stability and balance.

this went on for awhile.  I had only J to talk to about it and he'd look around at all the seedlings and fail to appreciate my emotional turmoil until it manifested in random cry-fests over unrelated things.  He kept telling me this was about that and I should re-institute parts of an order I cancelled when he was first laid off.   There were ... tiffs of an ultimately pointless nature related to my reluctance to resurrect the order once he found the right fit of a new design gig.  Who knows what tomorrow holds, right?  So I made a deal with myself I'd wait for the annual live plant sale at Select Seeds at the end of May and then see.

They had the sale early this year no doubt to stimulate sales among hesitant  shoppers.  I browsed the sale items listing at 2 in the morning back in very early May.  Among several other things I chose two different fuchsias.  They're planted in the same pot and I recently put them on a table rather than leaving them to bloom on the deck's floor.  This will give the hummingbirds clear visibility of the flowers.  It also offers the treasured little birds more protection from Mama.  

Such concerns are front and center over last group of days because the wrens who were born under the lid-cap of our propane tank have fledged.  They're loud and extremely quick to learn.  J's had a front row seat to every step and flutter of their progress since he's working from home and has a window-view desk right in line with their ventures back and forth from the tank.

It's really the perfect place from a wren's point of view. Sometime I'll do a post about that specifically.  But for now just imagine that everything I write here is accompanied by wren song and/or scolding.  Imagine it's what we hear at the volume all teenagers play music riding in a car.  This goes on from the time the babies wake until they go to sleep.  In between they explore their song range and figure out how the various hooks and riffs fit together.  This morning I did my morning yoga practice's beginning standing meditation with the sun shining right in my eyes at first.  On the peak of the mudroom's roof one of the wren children stood backlit by the sun.  This allowed me to see how nearly all of its pinfeathers are gone or reduced to fluffy bits that will most likely be gone by noontime.

The bird sang with great conviction.  I can't say it was joyous like our pair of lovebird cardinals.  It wasn't loopy or strutting its stuff like the catbirds.  It was a song of all the truths this tiny magical bird knew.  A song to be sung in a voice that has learned its primary powers of wing and song.  I listened and watched the bird sing.

Eventually, with the tiny new wren still singing, I got on with my practice and was all the way to its ending point of corpse poste meditation before I realized the bird wasn't singing anymore.  It's kind of like the 7 roosters who live next door.  Yeah you heard me right.  Going full tilt from 4 a.m. until the hens are in every evening.  We don't even hear them anymore, no lie. They have to get super piercing to break the caul of normal decibel acceptance range.

The other day J was in a meeting and I heard him explaining yes, there are multiple roosters and they are very loud but we don't hear them anymore.  He had to shut the doors to the rest of the house and the outside world so his meeting could continue effectively.

Now there are also wrens.  And not just on our deck and all around the roof and foundation plantings of the house.  They are everywhere throughout the propery this year as I've said before.  And I keep thinking about them in relation to Celtic legend.   How there was a contest to see which bird would be king.   The birds would fly as close to the sun as they could.  and Wren figured out how to win by tucking into Eagle's feathered ruff until they were quite close to the sun.  then Wren emerged and flew free fast to be crowned King.  Wren flew directly into the sun's corona before dodging free again.  so Wren was quick enough to escape death but the spots on this bird's tail and wings are said to have originated from this particular escapade.

After we lived at the old place for a few years a decaying local nursery business was restored.  They began restoring the former display gardens by building a pergola to showcase a mantle of yellow trumpet vines. I wished mightily and many times over those years:  that I might someday live in a place with this flowering vine in a previously unknown color.  I found it exotic then and now I find it omnipresent.  There are runners everywhere in the lower portion of the field and throughout the evolving sanctuary.

I so admire Dee's amazing captures of recently dead life.  There's a name for that kind of assemblage but I do not recall what it is.  And cannot think clearly.  There are five or six wrens going full tilt just beyond the windows of this room.  A mother is attempting to instruct on some level and multiple other young wrens have shown up to weigh in on the proceedings.  

I do not want to become immune to their vocal presence as you kind of have to with the roosters.  I've already posted about how much I delight in bearing witness to the wren fledglings' learning curve and individuation process.

This is a seasonal leafy cave created by the original landscape design's placement of the vine.  I put the angel there the day of Vindman's testimony.  I was afraid he was going to be assassinated.  Thought the angel's style and coloration looked out of place but at the same time she seemed to be where she belonged.  This is only the second time I've gone into the leaf enclosed space.  The first time I left a certain flower offering for an immeasurably pivotal friend in the throes of active death. And now, also yesterday when I checked to see if there were any remains now that he was gone. 

I found no trace.  and took it as a message.  I'll be doing that for awhile.

Out in the field the Autumn Clematis vine has found its footing after languishing during the drought as well as before.  This lovely flowering plant's hardiness asserted itself in the wake of something (the big hare-like rabbit I assume) eating it down to practically nothing not once but twice.  Then J nailed one of the left behind lattice forms and I doused liberally with emerald elixir and pear essence.  We have watered from time to time as well when ordinarily we would not.

Basket flower with buds.  I think this is one of the most seductive flowers especially for a bee.  Bumbles are particularly fond if her. Am used to thinking of her from a pollinator's perspective but this year I've also begun to look at the fully opened illuminated crown aspects.  They are so obvious to me now but it took almost two decades to look up, as it were, from the fascinating world of how various local pollinators interact with this flower  Unclear why it took so long.  Mind too stuck on the flower canon and thus Lotus being the open crown blossom of choice.  Basket Flowers attract all manner of pollinators especially hummingbirds and butterflies.  This particular bloom is about 5 inches in diameter. 

Yesterday afternoon J and I went to retrieve the winged cat guardian tribute to Celeste.  On the way home we stopped at our friend's farm.  He lives on the banks of the river I share in an ongoing way.  Said this has been quite a drought  season so yield is both lower and delayed.  Has been irrigating constantly from the river.  I noticed the chickens have a new enclosure and the fields have been rotated in really creative ways.   Loved that their garlic was cured still on the stalk.  I got so much in anticipation of the tomato influx in the near future.

Mark grows wonderful corn.  That's how we got to know him at first.  He and J have music in common but now he says everything they knew as standard socialization fare has fallen apart due to the pandemic.  It seemed logical and yet still a very shocking moment - the three of us standing in the sun joined in contemplation of what that meant at a personal level.  I'll go back for more garlic the next time I do errands in that direction.  I've ordered ahead for the fall and we'll get the unturned plots amended with rotted manure but until then I'm grateful to have a local organic source for this essential plant ally.

Leafing through this book a few times a day - stopping to spot read here and there.  It is AMAZING.  Have decided to set-up a pairing blog for books that are closely related and enhance each other in a useful or balancing way.

Will be pairing this one with Farming While Black.

Took her directly to the field when we got back from our excursion.  Yes.  She belongs.  Later in the afternoon J drove out to the Valley to get take out from our 'special' Indian restaurant where we've been going for years in celebration of holidays and family dates of importance.  Our anniversary is the day before T's birthday.  So we've always gone to have this meal together on either the 10th or the 11th of March.   This year our special dates were eclipsed by Charlie closing things other than restaurants that made all three of us reconsider how comfortable we were doing takeout.  And we couldn't decide.  None of us knew.

So last night we celebrated T's 35th birthday and our 36th wedding anniversary. I additionally count as part of the anniversary our previous 5 years living in Boston.  We arrived in town on the 10th.  When we decided to marry J suggested we do it on that anniversary date.  So we are just 9 years away now from a full half century of time together.  We could not have conceived of what retrospect might show us about ourselves as we have always been.

The restaurant has a slimmed-down menu to accommodate the times.  There was also a sticky note to ask if you had kitchen favorites not on the new menu.  They prepared Pudina Ajwain for me and I was very grateful because I love that bread so much.  Am eating the leftovers of my meal as I type.   The meal here at home was festively low key and a beautiful part of the day's overall vibe and how easily it seemed to be absorbed into my family's etheric skin.

I noticed beyond our collective good humor that we were not as physically distanced.  four or three feet rather that six.  T is into month four of his treatments.  It is indeed unpleasant for him as the doctor described it would be.  His own description ahead of the fact as "highly annoying" is still his way to describe what's going on for him no matter how obviously he's suffering quite a bit on any given day.

I am amazed at his strength and pragmatism.  J has previously shared that T says he learned how to warrior-through from me.  I was surprised.  Yesterday he said it to me directly.  And I was so grateful that the thing I most thought might cause him to flunk me as being a genuinely good mother turned out to be something he can re-invent in line with his own necessity. 

Today I'm collecting Blue Vervain flower heads to make a tincture.  Over the past week I've started two half pint jars of Monarda fistulosa flower tincture.  I've also made a quart and a little extra of a heal-all oil containing dandelion, calendula, prunella, and red clover flowers - all picked here at home and dried earlier in the season.  It also contains comfrey, lemon balm, plantain and violet leaves all picked fresh yesterday.  Preparing the herbs and layering them for the warm oil infusion was an extremely satisfying experience.   Am giving it a few days for sediment to settle and then I'll turn a large portion of it into winter-skin cream.   We've been using some iteration of this recipe all the time this year due to the hand sanitizer drying our hand's skin so much.  Especially our palms and fingers.

(the length of this particular post is a response to a request I honor our departed plant geek leader extraordinaire by posting exactly as I would have if his eyes could read along.)

Namaste