Fruit and Flowers
June 23, 2007
Tomato flowers
I planted a variety of different tomatoes, most of which were lost during the cutworm war. I planted a few more, saved what I could, and was rewarded by two plants producing flowers. The other plants are still quite small, some barely an inch high, so I hope to have tomatoes for the duration of the summer and into the fall.
Tiger Lilly
The Tiger Lilies Steph gave me a few years back are starting to bloom this year (still no blooms on the lilacs though). I hope to get big ol’ flowers to eat. A couple weeks ago I took a medicinal herbal walk over at D Acres where Lauren said lillies are wonderful food sources of Vit C (I think) and dress up any dish. I look foward to trying some!
Alpine Strawberries
I’ve been snacking on these wonderful red balls of yum for the last couple days. Oddly, I seem to be the only one eating them. Usually the turkeys come through and I have to wrestle them to the ground to keep them from eating such a sweet snack, but this year I haven’t seen any in the yard. Well, I have, but not lately.
Squash
I planted a couple different types of squash this year. This particular plant may well be zuccini, but I won’t know until it vegetables. In this particular bed are squashes and peppers, and in another bed is spegitti squash and pumpkin, both of which are getting big, but no flower buds like in this bed. I did plant these ones earlier than the spegetti and pumpking so I’m sure that has something to do with it.
Potato
Like the squash, the potato has given flower buds, but they haven’t opened into full flowers yet. I anxiously await fresh potatoes. Just the thought makes me vibrate with anticipation. You’ll note I have a stake tied to the potatoes. I found all the plants were drooping so I staked them up. I have no idead if that’s what you’re supposed to do, so if it’s better to let them droop, let me know.
Peas
The pea plants are doing pretty well, I guess. As you see, I have a couple flowers on one plant, but not too many. All of the plants are pretty small, I expected them to get bigger, but this may not be a big pea year because the weather’s been so fucked up. Hot one day, rainy and cool the next, then sun dodging the clouds with temps like the fall. Ah, New England!
Looking south
Here’s a picture of all the beds. I didn’t post a picture of the pole beans, but they seem to be doing fine. The stakes they are wrapped around don’t seem to be tall enough, so I’m going to have to figure a way to get longer poles or get the vines to grow up, then down, then up again. Suggestions? 
Looking north-ish
Looking at the garden from the other angle. You can see how lush and green it all is. I just wish we had more sun. We did get an estimate for the cutting down of a bunch of tress: $1000. We just don’t have it. Maybe next year.
VI Spades
June 19, 2007
Continuing on my journey to acquaint myself with my new deck, I pulled from the tarot deck the VI of Spades (inverted).
The book which accompanies the deck says
Dependency, little health. Tears and cholera.
Exit, journey change of direction.
Reverse: desperation and delay
DISTANCING
Aeclectic Tarot states spades (swords) are: AIR.
AIR though some decks have it as Fire. If AIR then: Represents pure mind, thinking, speaking.
Best known for representing problems and troubles especially those relating to communications or bad press, but really about anything to do with either words and/or thoughts. Brilliant thoughts as well as nightmares; sharp ideas or a sharp tongue. This is the card of scientists and analysts of thinking things though or thinking/saying too much. Ideas breeze into your mind, words are given breath, written letters and messages fly on the wind.
Sixes are explained as:
A boat of swords being ferried across a river with a woman as passenger. The classic Rider-Waite meaning is that one is leaving difficulties behind. A trip or change of scene may be the answer to restoring balance here. But there is more to it than this. In relation to the mind, ideas and words of the sword suit, this is also about finding a solution to math problems and brain twisters, not just troubles. The ferryman may signal help here, a silent partner (a reference book or internet website perhaps?) who helps you row your way toward the other shore…and THERE is the answer, a way to make your idea, your argument, your formula work smoothly, perfectly, beautifully. Also, of course, a card about trips by boat.
The basic principles I get out of the six of swords is: distancing and leaving problems behind.
Focusing first on distancing, when I look at my life from a third party perspective, what I see is one who has distanced them self from family, the workforce, and humanity in general. I have worked hard to eliminate the people in my life who bring me nothing but pain and toxicity. This includes distancing myself from many people whom I love and care about, and also includes the workforce as a whole. Working with people who care more about money than the important things in life becomes very tedious. There is barely a conversation that doesn’t revolve around money: having it or not having it.
Leaving problems behind
This is an area I certainly need to work on. I carry all my problems with me at all times. Never are they far from the surface, rarely am I able to keep them to myself. I’ve not been able to progress in my mental and physical health because I still have all this baggage which adds to my depression and anxiety. As much as I do not like carrying around all this extra weight, it’s comforting to do so. There has never been a time when I didn’t need it as a protection (and I’m not just talking about my physical weight, I’m also talking about my emotional and mental weight), when it didn’t exist. I am so afraid of forgetting something that I squirrel away all these negative emotions because they are the only ones I have. Happiness is fleeting, so is contentment. My negative side takes over and says “now now, don’t get to comfortable. Shit will hit the fan and your life will suck again” and it always does. My prophecies to live a crap life always come true because I make them come true. So I must learn to distance myself from my negativity and learn to leave [my] problems behind because they serves no purpose but to make me unhappy, un-likable, and unemployable.
Buds
June 19, 2007
Despite the late start on the garden, the fact I had to buy tomato plants, the weird weather we’ve had thus far, the garden is full of buds just waiting to flower. I noticed them on the potatoes, the squash, the beans, cucumbers and some of the tomato plants. I am quite pleased.
No flowers yet: cabbage, pumpkins, speghitti squash
IIII Pentacles
June 14, 2007
Recently I acquired a new set of tarot cards. I will be exploring each card to familiarize myself with the deck and with tarot in general.
I pulled the IIII of Pentacles from the deck. The book which accompanies the deck states:
Obstacles. Blows. Delay and uncertainty.
The reverse: greed, covetousness, selfishness. Incapacity to love.
It is the card of DISILLUSION.
According to Aeclectic Tarot, the number four is:
Fours are ruled by the Emperor. Like both the Emperor and his throne they signify a kind of stability, a holding pattern if you will. For a moment, everything is still, solid, rooted, established. This can be positive, a solid foundation, or negative, something that refuses to budge or change.
Disillusionment and lack of change are the basic premises I am receiving.
Breaking the two down into single components, I will focus first on disillusionment then lack of change.
Disillusionment reeks not of failure, but of mistaken belief. We become disillusioned when we embark on a path which does not take us where we anticipated. However, disillusionment can be deliberately created by another person. Maybe the information we were given was false or misleading. And in our belief we were told the truth, we ended up on a path not right for us.
When have I been disillusioned? There have been many times. Sometimes I deliberately gave myself the wrong information and started down a path believing I had my best interest in heart when really I was looking for a way out of a bad situation. Other times I took the word of another at face value and never questioned their directions for a path which led to a particular goal.
What to do when you realize your disillusioned? In the past, I have reacted with anger; this is something I am trying to change. Instead of being angry, I should see the journey I took as a learning experience and enjoy the path back out.
Often times I hyperfocus on my goal and do not see the obstacles which litter the ground, thus I trip over both small and large obstacles. I must learn to look around and see all the possibilities, but at the same time, not get distracted so I lose my original thought processes.
As for being deliberately misled by another, in the past I have reacted by ignoring the other person and cutting them out of my life like a malignant tumor. This may be the best treatment for deliberately misleading another, but I am not sure. Certainly I could confront the person who misled me, but I often lack the courage to do so. Also, many times it’s more detrimental to my mental and physical well being to confront a deliberate misleader. I think it would depend on the situation. If the information was grossly misleading, and the person who supplied that information to me knew it but didn’t care about passing such information along, the best recourse for me would be to cut them out of my life forever more. But if the person who misled me did so thinking their information was given in good faith, then I would likely react first in anger then in understanding.
Lack of Change. Lack of change can be inability, stubbornness, and a combination of both. An example of inability is a tree cannot change into an animal, nor can a human fly no matter how much they may want to.
Stubbornness, on the other hand, is refusal to change. I am stubborn about exercising: I don’t enjoy it so I’m overweight. As much as I claim to dis-enjoy being overweight, I do little to slim down. I eat foods I know I shouldn’t so I’m still fat regardless of my desire to have a body which requires less food. Although my stubbornness serves no purpose except to be self-serving, my lack of change is having detrimental affects on my mind, body, soul, and spirit.
It’s not a matter of wanting change, because no matter how much you want something, it may be an impossible goal to attain. A man may want to become pregnant, but it’s never going to happen. However, if that man becomes pathological in becoming pregnant, the inability transforms into stubbornness. In order to reach balance, the man must accept his body’s inability to play host to a fetus.
Personally, as I stated, my weight is based on my stubborness about exercising. Certainly I have the ability to exercise, yet I come up with a whole host of reasons not to (it’s hot; it’s buggy; it’s cold; there’s too much snow; I don’t have teh money for a gym) and that reeks of stubborness.
Tribe
June 14, 2007
The past few weeks I’ve been thinking more and more about the concept(s) of community, tribe, and clan. And I’m beginning to see others who are writing on this subject as well. I’m sure it’s been written for a long while, but because it never came onto my radar, that is, I never thought I needed community, tribe, and clan, I didn’t pay much attention to the idea.
At the end of Desire Inanna discusses community.
We occupy a unique cultural moment in which community can’t be taken for granted as the place where you’re stuck and the people you’re stuck with. Community needs to be built intentionally – and I think that’s a good thing – but I also think that most of us don’t know how to do that.
I agree with Inanna. It’s not as if classes on community building are abundant, so we have to feel our way around in the dark, attempting to reach out to make even the briefest connections.
Tribe, being smaller than community, can be even more difficult to create. Before you create it, you must ask the questions put for by Cypress Nemeton
Who is it that you will, without thought, take extreme risk to protect or to help, without thinking of the possible consequences? That is your Tribe. It is, or should be, a clear, bright line of demarcation, and a group one should be very careful about letting people into.
Over the years, my tribe has expanded and contracted. A half decade ago I would’ve put many more people within my protection circle. A decade ago it would’ve been larger. But as I’ve aged my tribe has gotten smaller and more select. There are few I would protect using physical or legal violence: my lover and our animal companions. Maybe my goddaughter.
So how does one create a community, tribe, clan? Do those within the self-selected circles have to have same faith, political belief, and social agenda as you? Must you be related by blood, marriage, or both?
The Pensieve
June 13, 2007
It is easy for one to imagine a blog as a sort of pensieve which, according to J.K. Rowling author of the Harry Potter series, is a receptacle for storing memories for later review by the memory holder or someone else.
This blog will be a written pensieve of my Pagan journey, my commitment to becoming a High Priestess, Witch, herbalist, and contributing member of the interfaith community. Here I plan to explore the light and dark in myself and the world around me. It is a place where I will journey laterally, medially, and vertically.
Comments
June 13, 2007
For a long while this site was getting spammed to the point where it was becoming overwhelmingly difficult to delete them all. The other day I changed some of the settings for commenting, so (hopefully) yous will be able to leave feedback for Wolf and I.
If the site starts getting spammed again, I’ll have to put the settings back to the way they were which disallows comments. Hopefully I won’t have to.
