"Someday's Garden" Is Growing

Sometimes when you look at the light coming from the East in the early morning, you can tell that everything will be alright in the coming day. I felt like that this morning when I looked out into my backyard. The light was just perfect, and golden.

And it has been a good day so far! Best of all, the Bleeding Hearts bulb I ordered from my professor arrived. It was sitting on my desk waiting for me when I got to lab today. Bleeding Hearts are one of my absolute favorite flowers (and I'm a goth at heart, so it makes sense)! They are supposed to be very strong, hardy plants so I hope so badly that they will grow. I got a big, black, square container to house them this afternoon.

It makes me very anxious thinking about them growing, because so far, there isn't a peep coming from the Harlequin Flowers and Persian Buttercups I planted on April 2nd. Those bulbs are guaranteed to grow, but the pots sit there looking no differently than when I first filled them. I'm crossing my fingers that I didn't do something terribly wrong, (black thumb, black thumb, black thumb...) and it's scaring me even a little bit more because my African Marigolds are looking very sad. They aren't as wilty as they were a few days ago, so I think the huge thunderstorm we had helped a lot, but they aren't looking great. I've read on several gardening sites that one of the most common causes of death in container plants is over-watering, but now I wonder if I've been under-watering. It seems so hard to find the balance sometimes.

But I can't spend too much time worrying about it, because I also made another addition to my collection today: Basil, finally!! I eat so much Basil and it gets expensive. It's one of my favorite herbs and it's a rare meal I cook that doesn't have something to do with Basil in some way. I've been wanting to grow my own for ages, but I've been too afraid to start from seed. Today I found a plant that already appears well-established, so hopefully I can continue to increase the growth and for the first time, provide food for myself that I grew myself. It might not be a big deal, just a little Basil plant, but it's so important to me.

My other plants, the Philodendron and the Jaguar Daisy are doing very well though. As you can see above, Betty had two sister flowers open up. I'm very happy about that, they are bringing so much beauty to my deck.

Philodendron is a plant that prefers shade to sun, so when/if my Bleeding Hearts grow, they and Phil' will be moved to my front porch where the light is less intense. 

I've always heard that talking to plants is great for their health. I try to spend a little bit of time doing that each day. When I let Sól out in the yard in the morning, (if the bees and wasps aren't already flying around -- I'm scared insane of them), I like to take my coffee out and just tell them about positive things. I think I remember seeing a Mythbusters episode once about talking to plants, but I can't remember if they were able to show any results. I'll have to look into whether other studies have been done showing this to have a positive effect on plant growth. Maybe it's weird, but I think would talk to them either way. I also talk to the surrounding environment, the birds, the insects, the universe, the land spirits, to whomever, and ask them to bless my little container garden. It's quickly becoming a passion of mine; I want so badly to succeed in this endeavor. 

Homemade Florida Water

For a while now, I've been looking into homemade alternatives to items that I normally buy. It's a goal of mine to do this whenever possible because it saves so much money. I'm collecting recipes for laundry detergent, shower and window cleaners, fabric softener, anything I can think of or come across on Pinterest. But I'm also collecting recipes for spiritual things like bath salts, oil blends, and waters, Florida Water being one of those.

I would say the majority of the witchcraft I do at this point in my life either has to do with healing or cleansing. Washing away the old, negative spiritual dust and making space to allow positive changes to come in, in the form of thoughts, feelings, and energies. Cleansing activities have an effect on me that is both uplifting and calming at the same time. I've been neglecting my practice lately, and it's taken too much of a toll. With spring having arrived, my spirits are lifting and I'm beginning to make more time for myself (and others) on a spiritual level. Beginning to make a lot of the things I use at home is going to help reawaken and strengthen my new resolve.

Florida Water is one of my favorite holy substances. It's not holy for everyone -- some just wear it as a cologne. As Catherine Yronwode explains, it "is a 19th century formula for a commercially-prepared toilet water...that blends an array of floral essential oils in a water-alcohol base. The name refers to the fabled Fountain of Youth said to have been located in Florida."

Commercial Florida Water. Original photograph found here.

It is one of my favorite smells. It reminds me of later summer and early fall, and represents a lot of great memories for me. One of the best rituals I've ever participated in was a Voodoo healing ritual, and as we walked down a path in the woods to the ritual area, we anointed ourselves with Florida Water along the way. It is used for self-anointment, anointing altars, and many different types of spiritual cleansing. It is also a great addition to offerings left for ancestors or land spirits.

I've seen different recipes for it before, but I really wanted something simple, with ingredients that I can easily access. I decided on using Stephanie Rose Bird's recipe, found in her book Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones. I read this book a few months ago, and I'm completely in love with it. Hoodoo and conjure practices are something I've been getting a lot of exposure to over the last year and a half, and they've influenced me deeply already. This book has been a great resource for my individual study of American folk magic. 

The ingredients are very simple: distilled water, 100 proof vodka, and lavender, clove bud, and bergamot oil. A friend from lab generously gave me some of her oils. I substituted just clove oil in place of the clove bud. It's an easier oil to find, and ordering online for less common oils can get really expensive quickly.

After I had all of my ingredients, I really needed to find some bottles in which to store the Water -- and that means a trip to peddler's and antique malls. I never give up chances to go shopping there! And I had some amazing luck today, I really couldn't believe it! I found a tall, green bottle that I'm using to store the bulk amount of the Water, and a small, dark blue glass bottle with a spray pump. When I was finished, I couldn't resist setting them up with my "Voo-Boo" doll that I bought from a friend at last year's Nashville Pagan Pride Day:

Oh, and the prices of those bottles? The spray bottle was $2.25, the tall green one, $1.99! So perfect and pretty. So now, I'm going to let my new homemade Florida Water settle for a few days before I transfer some into the spray bottle. The smell is a little strong for my liking, so I think I will be diluting it a little further with more distilled water before using it. I'm excited to research further all the different ways Florida Water can be used in a spiritual setting.  Stephanie Rose Bird says, "No Hoodoo home is complete without Florida Water." I agree entirely. Today has been a blessed day.

Early Winter

The ghosts come out in winter, or more truly, they come inside. Other spirits as well: I see the little bright shapes darting around the rooms; they come inside in the morning. A friend told me that this town was a tuberculosis town, it's even still illegal to spit on the sidewalks. She said so many died during the winters and now the winter time is their time. I wonder if my animals watch them. They don't appear to be bothered often by anything in this house. I've never been very bothered either.

I like the way winter feels in this house. There is a slight change in here, kind of indescribable, like how the light outside changes at this time of year as well, even though it is the same sun. Things are a little bit more yellow, and a little bit more dull. I'm comforted by that, and winter always comforts me, and I wish it were more severe in the south. I love to drive with my windows down; when I exhale, my breath is rushed out of the car into the world. My own hands feel like bones and they feel clean. Winter has always felt clean to me and I'm addicted to the snow and the smell of the harsh air that freezes when I breathe it in. I love how silently one can move in truly deep, powdery snow, a frozen layer underneath always keeping you a few inches above Earth, and the powder that claims and then swallows every footstep. 

I keep waiting for the snow, praying into the air that hardly carries a chill now. Everyone keeps saying the snow will come, there are always two snows each year, but each one is small enough that the memory of it melts faster than it probably did when it was here. I wish I could make it: "Huge, dizzying, clumps and clusters of snow falling through the air, patches of white against an iron-gray sky, snow that touches your tongue with cold and winter, that kisses your face with its hesitant touch before freezing you to death. Twelve cotton-candy inches of snow, creating a fairy-tale world, making everything unrecognizably beautiful..."

Waiting for the snow, holding vigil for the cold, with the spirits and the animals and the red birds outside. Winter time is my time, too.