Of Summer, Sacrifice, and Sacred Places

The frantic movement of bee and wasp tonight has given me pause. Are they drunk on summer still, or are they vigorously preparing for the lean seasons to come? My late summer garden offers more for them this year than last, and I suspect they are grateful. The foxgloves have bloomed heartily and the sweet peas, though fading, are yet putting on a ruffled pink show. The insects whirl around the purple hyssop flowers and encircle the second crop of blossoms on the raspberry bushes (the very things I cut to the ground early this spring thinking it would tame them, and now they are nine feet tall). 

The winds and rain we've been calling on to sweep away the wildfire smoke blanketing the valley arrived for one brief evening on the weekend and blotted out the view of the peak of the Persieds meteor shower. It also pushed over all but two stalks of my corn and most of my sunflowers but I can see the sky tonight for the first time in weeks and that's a small price to pay for stars. I've missed watching the summer sunsets more than I can say. 

I can't go out to the gardens anymore without crushing a leaf of this or that in my fingers. Tonight I am redolent with the essence of hyssop and mugwort and lemon balm. The grasshoppers are ticking away in the long grass and the mild temperature is a blessed relief from the mid to high nineties we've suffered through for the better part of a month. The wind is rousing again, and I'm warily eyeing the corn that I've propped up with pieces of poor garden fencing. I'll know in the morning if my meagre fix has been successful. 

The tomatoes, onions, and peppers are being plucked now and I have a constant dance of nightshades in the fridge at all times. I like to cut up the four different types of tomatoes I grew this year, along with whatever peppers and onions are being harvested and have this salsa-of-sorts at the ready to toss into omelets, salads, or onto crusty bread for bruschetta. The corn is coming in handsomely from my friend's ranch. My corn dolly has been created for the year but I cannot kindle a blaze to burn last year's doll, so her offering will have to wait until the fire ban is lifted for my area.

I gave the most valuable sacrifice I had to offer on August eve, my beloved black cat who couldn't find his sturdy legs any longer, and it seemed that the world understood how difficult a parting that would be for me. It presented me with an opportunity to heal my heart, and I flew off to New Mexico and spent the better part of a week in a high desert of juniper and pinion pine and red clay. I fell asleep to the sound of coyotes calling, yipping and howling across the wilderness outside my window. I watched sunsets and moon-rises so stunning I gasped, and stood on a balcony feeling the swell in my chest as a storm blew in and lightning flickered on the horizon.

I walked the side streets and plaza of Santa Fe, my senses seduced by whiffs of leather, cigars, fresh corn tortillas, and sweet perfumes I couldn't place, all pouring out of shop fronts. I admired rows of steer skulls and pottery, paintings and sculptures at each turn, and turquoise in almost every window. I was more entranced by the Catholicized spirits and symbolism than I thought I would be, collecting up a pocket shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe and a charm covered in milagros to bring home with me, but beneath the grand basilica and religious top notes of the area, a deeper flavour emerged. I could feel the hum of something older beneath my feet. I slept in a bedroom that was partially submerged in the earth of the countryside and I dreamed deeply and awoke feeling more myself than I had in a very long time. 

I gathered with a group of amazing women, spent time with two soul-friends that I'd never met but who felt like home, and learned the song and fragrance and spice of an area that seemed so right that I can still taste it on my tongue. There was laughter and bone-deep sharing of lives and loves and losses. There were candles lit every day, from the simple to the most sacred. There was holy water from historic churches partaken of, and used to anoint places on me that would surely have caused the pious to blush. There was guacamole that caused a ripple of elation usually reserved for more carnal situations, and there was deep fried ice cream. And on the way home, after maneuvering through airports late into the night, there was a thunderstorm viewed from 30,000 feet and a moon so red that it might have been a pinprick of my own blood somehow left hanging in the sky.

These last few days as I reoriented myself to hazy skies and a valley situated at a much lower elevation than the high plains that skirt the mountains of New Mexico, I've been feeling like there are things coming to a conclusion in my life. I can't quite flesh it all out at this moment, but I suspect it has something to do with the last four years not really unfolding the way I had planned, and how I've sailed through the high waves and windless seas, and how it's all brought me to this moment. A dear friend asked a few weeks ago about my plans for the upcoming solar eclipse and I hadn't answered his question because I didn't know that I was feeling moved by it in any particular way. Only two days ago, I wasn't sure I even cared about the eclipse. But now I'm sensing that there will be some work or observation of note. I'm left wondering if this impression of things coming to completion is respective of the World card from the tarot. Or perhaps the Death card. Or something more prosperous, like the nine of pentacles (yes, please). Time, and eclipse, I suppose, will tell. 

As I plunge ahead into harvest tide duties, jamming, drying, pickling, and freezing my garden gleanings and gatherings-up of local crops and wild plants, there is also less tangible work being attended to. The altar has a simple new addition of a Mercury working and my local spirits are being tended to as I find my way back to wandering in the woods and beside rivers. I've not been neglectful, but the heat and smoke of the past month has kept me closer to home than I would have liked, and that means all my libations and songs have been gifted to the valley floor and not so much the hills and wilds. I know they haven't forgotten me though. 

I hope your summer has been kind. I hope you've had play and rest and are finding that a satisfying harvest is beginning to come in. I wish whatever blessings you long for upon you as the sun disappears and then rejoins us on the 21st of August. (If you have solar eclipse plans, I'd love to hear them.) The languid late summer days aren't over yet, though twilight and pre-dawn are stretching out their dusky fingers and settling deeper into our hours of light. Welcome them with me, won't you? We don't have to say goodbye to the sun yet. But oh, those dark-kissed early evenings in the garden, or curled up on outdoor furniture under twinkle lights with others, are some of my favourite hours of this time of year.

Witch Notes:

~ Though I am Canadian, I am, like everyone else, nursing a deep heartsickness over the events in Charlottesville (and those that have occurred since the US election). There are a number of things that can be done by those who have means and energy to give. Everyone will attend to these things differently, but if you rally or donate or weep or open your home to others or pray or curse, I support you. Process and engage in the most healthy way you can, and please take care of yourself.

There is only so much I can do from here, but I've donated to a local Charlottesville charity doing good work in the area, and I've got some wicked thorns from a lightning-struck black locust that are doing an entirely different sort of work on the situation. In the meantime, soak your spirit in these beautiful words from HecateDemeter, Southern Pride in a Time of Terror. 

~ Briana Saussy has opened registration for Spinning Gold, her gorgeous foray into fairytale, magic, and the Sacred Arts. I participate each year and adore Bri's heart, spirit, and work. Check it out, here.

~ October is just around the corner (yes, really) and the Great October Book Giveaway will be back for the 7th year. I couldn't put on such a fantastic event each year without the generosity of some of the authors and artists I feature. I have a nice selection of goodies stacking up for my readers already, but if you are an author (or know one) who wants to participate by sending along a tome or two to some lovely readers, please feel free to message me. The giveaway was originally a book-only event, but it has now grown to include card decks and art/talismans. The theme each year is geared toward the varied things I blog about - witchcraft, folklore, herbalism, cartomancy, and associated ideas, so if your work falls into those realms and you'd like to help out, let me know. 

Marking Time and Tide

On the first evening of August, the immense black locust offered dappled shade until the sun slipped over the western hill. I have always loved that tree, and the wide swing that hangs from a massive branch. There were days, a decade ago now when it seemed that I had more time, I would sneak away from work on a summer afternoon and steal into my friend's parents' yard with a book, and sit on that swing beside the small pond with the burbling waterfall. Now the pond is still and the garden is overgrown. Though the dozen birdfeeders have come down, the quarter acre is still brimming with avian life and happy bumblebees. The roses have all bloomed despite their mistress forgetting their names. The hollyhocks and foxgloves have grown tall and continue to flower, lending to the fae quality of the land that skirts the guardian tree.

I have wondered if the birds miss the man that fed them everyday. He has been gone two months now, and his wife has had her memory stolen, though she can still remember a few old stories from the days she used to go dancing with her husband. She cannot recall her plants anymore, their variety, or where they came from. Seventeen years ago she took a piece of land, bare but for a large black locust tree, and crafted an oasis of beauty and magic. She created meandering paths and hidden 'rooms' - a secret garden if ever there was one. Now she has moved in with her daughter and the house is being emptied and put up for sale. Life is change. There is no stopping the tides. The new little lines around the edges of my eyes remind me. The quiet pond and the enchanted garden grown wild, echo the sentiment.

That place, untended yet still so magical, hosted witches who came together to mark time and create poppets with corn husks, and work with old keys and a cauldron. It gifted us the whispers of cool wind through the sanctuary of lush green, and the sounds of the winged ones settling in as the day waned. At the place where memories faded, our own remembrances were laid out for each other. Stories were told. Sighs were deep. August was ushered in with benevolence and quiet good cheer.

Some sabbats and observances can be raucous or racy, dark and hushed, solitary or rung in with a host of others. I am just as likely to forego a formal celebration as heed one, and equally teeter-totter between wanting company in my revels and preferring solitude. I have spent the bulk of my sacred time this year, from the winter of my discontent to the sweltering late July afternoons, with almost entirely my own company and that of the spirits that find me vaguely pleasing, laying my workings and altars out and wandering the scrub desert and forest. I have left libations at crossroads, communed with a crow that leaves feathers (and at times the egg of another bird) on my doorstep, burned endless woods, herbs, and papers in fires in my backyard under the watchful stars, sacrificed my own blood and tears to the land that allows me to live on it, and I am content enough working these and other rites on my own. But that night beneath the thorny sentinal that was once struck by lightening during a summer storm, it was truly lovely to mark the shift of time and light with company.

August is often considered the sticky, oppressive step-sister of July. Those who do follow a wheel-of-the-year of sorts often shun the idea of First Harvest at this time, assuming "harvest" harkens to more autumnal weather and activities. While here in The Valley the lakes are warm and the beaches are packed with strange sun-worshipping creatures, this is in fact the height of our harvest. At the farm stands and farmers markets you can find everything from the very last cherries of the season to the earliest pears and fall squash. Almost every crop that can be grown in our climate is available now, and I am putting up jars of boozy peaches and plums while skewering all the local vegetables I can get my hands on and searing them on the bbq. My farmer friend has her first planting of corn almost ready to pick and there will be a bonfire celebration to mark the bringing in of the ears. Corn on the cob with a whiskey-butter sauce will share the table with savory corn fritters and corn chowder, and far too much local wine.

This past weekend, while wandering in the eastern hills, there was a bite in the wind that has not been present in the last months. The tips of some of the deciduous trees up the mountain are starting to blush. The wild elderberry is hung heavily with its dusty purple fruit, and the goldenrod is nodding along the roadsides. I don't observe month or season because I am told to in a book, or as part of a practice someone else has laid out for me (though I am not opposed to being inspired). Instead, I note that the fruit of the wild apple tree is fat and flushing. I look to the sky and see that the big dipper tilts its cup overhead to the north west, just above my eyebrows. A few months ago I had to crane my head back to see that great bear, and in a few more months it will wander closer to the northern horizon, past my nose and out of sight. By that time Orion and his pup Sirius will return in the east to keep me company.

I enjoy a celebration. Life can become a string of weight-bearing days that pinch not just our backs, but our spirit if we aren't inclined to find joy. I chose to greet August with breath and blood (the mosquitoes were well fed that night) and blessing. Each year offers another chance at shifting and adjusting our observations as we watch the earth find its rhythm. This year the self-heal bloomed late and the tansy flowered early. The dandelions were not nearly prolific enough for my tastes, but the plantain and wild mustards were showing off everywhere. There were more summer storms than I can ever remember seeing, and as a result we have had almost no wildfires. There are new red-tailed hawks in the area, and so many twins born to the mule deer this year that it seemed like everyone had fawn lawn-ornaments in their yard. I can think of dozens of reasons to revel, without much effort.

One day, not too far off, our own memories may begin to fade. We might forget the name of the handsome Joe Pye that stands so tall in our garden. We might neglect the offerings to birds or spirits that we once gave so steadfastly. Until the time that I can no longer remember why I love the rowan tree that sits at the edge of the four-way crossroads, or recall that the lake that hides a monster also holds a key and herbs from a garden two thousand miles away; until I cannot tell you why I delight in staghorn sumac or damson plums, I will continue to mark the months, the seasons, the way the light shifts and changes, the land's many harvests, and the traveling stars.

I hope that your own harvests have begun to come in, lush and rewarding. I have heard from many that this year has been difficult thus far, so I am sending my own good wishes, via milkweed seeds and the upcoming Perseids, out into the world for you. Look up.

Wildfire Harvests and Full Moon Renewals

The red tractors were in the hay fields yesterday. As I drove by I watched them trace lazy, winding circles around the pastureland gathering the cut hay and transforming it into massive rolls that looked like the shredded wheat my grandfather used to eat. I love the drive over to the next valley. I pass small lakes favoured by the local fishermen, and then ranchland dotted with cattle, and finally orchards, farms and vineyards that are pulling in harvest after harvest at this time of year.

August evening sky, pre-wildfire haze.

I'm glad I went out yesterday morning, before the wind changed direction. At some point in the afternoon the wind swept in from the south and brought with it thick smoke from the fires burning just below us in Washington state.  Today, I still cannot see more than a block in each direction - there is only a wall of haze. Unless the air shifts, there will have been no sun today at all. More than that, if the smoke isn't blown out off the valley floor soon it could damage the grapes growing in the hundreds of vineyards dotting the hills. 

It is a bad situation all around, but those who have the worst of it - the ones forced to flee their homes, and the wildlife running for their lives - have my most fervent thoughts and wishes for safety. There has already been tragedy east of here where 30 homes were lost, and straight south, across the border, where firemen have lost their lives. We can deal with smoke and haze and sunless days. Our tourism industry has taken a hit this past week and as of today, you could likely stand at the highway (if you could stomach the smoke) and watch the line of tourists heading home early. Revenue and crop losses are not good. But we still have our homes.

I'm heading up to my friend's ranch this afternoon to check in on her and her corn harvest. I'm not sure what the smoke will do to the beautiful sweet corn she grows. She is a farmer though, and used to trials. Last year birds devastated her field. She tried every trick and invented a few of her own to keep those birds away, but they were legion. This year she got ahead of them and put "corn condoms" on the cobs - coffee filters held in place by an elastic. It allows air in to the cob, but the birds don't see the tops of the corn and therefore don't land on the stalks to pick at it. She is brilliant.

We all create our own ways to traverse what life throws at us (whether fire or plague or something a little less dramatic). Of late I've found solace in chanting - something I've played around with over the years but never really committed to.  A few simple mantras have become favourites. The familiar om mani padme hum and the Green Tara mantras have been wildly helpful in bringing me to a place of calm.

The second full moon in July stripped me bare. This time it was a cold fire, refining me. Nearly a month later as the moon grows toward full again, I feel like a new person. I'm finding peace more easily than I have before. I'm sleeping better and finding new ways to stretch my body in yoga class. I've eaten something out of my yard and/or gardens every day. I have been swimming - full-on swimming, not just wading - in the lake for the first time in years. And just like that, the sun moved in to Virgo today - my birth sign. I am all set to renew my life for another year.

 Second full moon of July in the arms of the cedars.

Coinciding with my birth month, I'll be kicking off another year of magic making with the marvellous Briana Saussy as I dig in to her course Spinning Gold. In Bri's words:

This year-long course provides the principles and practices needed for a life of wholeness, holiness and healing. As a student, you'll access and enjoy real teachings from practicing sacred artists, and a sacred arts community full of love, support, and real accountability.

You can reserve your spot in this incredible journey by heading to Briana's site by August 31st.

Also of note: I've had a few exciting conversations with some brillant magical folks about conjurings for October. If you are new here, make sure you stake out a spot during the most magical month of year - there all all kinds of books coming your way in the yearly Great October Book Giveaway! And there are a couple extra surprises too...

I hope the sultry months have been kind to you, and that you too have sampled local harvests and found adventure whenever you could. My thoughts are with those of you in wildfire areas - continued safety to you and yours.

Summer is still here - it hasn't lost its grasp yet. But there are cooler evenings creeping in, and the sound of geese on the wing is already being heard. Kiss your summer loves and hold them extra close - these hot, heady days won't last forever.