Ancient Light's Daily Stuff

Daily Stuff 10-19-18 Bettara-Ichi

Posted on October 19, 2018 by Anja Snihova'

Hi, folks!

Featured photo by Rosetta Kilby. Rose of the Sea’s Open Circle for Samhain is Friday, 11/2, 7pm at Ancient Light.

Very, very foggy and chill. It was 43F as I came back in. The bridge looked like Brigadoon, like Waldport had faded into the mists….. It had clouded up over the Bay and Bayshore, since we were down that direction, and I just went out and checked and Orion has vanished. The computer says that clouds are at 500 feet. …and we’re under a Dense Fog Advisory. Yups…..

View from the back of the cabin

Yesterday I started out bleary-eyed from not-so-good sleep. I finally had to give in mid-afternoon to go in the back for a nap. Early in the day Tempus ran errands, and was supposed to get out to do laundry, but ran out of time.

We had a number of customers in, not like summer, but good for October, even if the morning rain and chill kept people home.

It stayed cloudy almost the whole day, with

Mushrooms on a stump

a little sunbreak right at 5pm, but by 6:30 it was already getting dark because of the clouds.

Otherwise it was more of the same, sort, put-away, sort, put-away, over and over. <sigh>

Eventually Tempus headed for Newport, after helping me set up for some more cookery. I was doing another fig rennet

On the way to the spa

experiment. He started the bulk drops a little before 11 and then the regular route (bagging already done) at 12:15. I tried to nap a little, and missed catching him before he started the Beaver Creek/ Bayview loop, but got through around the 12/-way point.

It was getting pretty foggy by then, not so much so where he was, but in town. He got slowed down on Bayview, trying to make sure he didn’t tangle with an elk in the fog, but picked me up around 3:45.

Pine needles on a spruce

We had a good run, starting with talking cheese and ending up talking classic SciFi lit. 🙂 It was pretty foggy in spots, but clear enough for the low speeds that we run at. Orion was bright, but most of the rest of the stars were hard to see because of the foggy halos around things and the ambient light reflecting inside the fog. We were done before 6am, which was nice….a few hours sleep, anyway.

Today we’ll be open on time, doing the same-old, same-old.

Seagulls from 10/14/16 by Rosetta Kilby

Today’s Plant is Evening primrose, Oenothera species, sometimes called Sundrop or Suncup in Oregon. The young roots can be eaten like a peppery-flavored vegetable and the shoots can be used in salad. It can be used in poultices for wound-healing and to ease bruises. (Sun…it’s drying) Clinical trials don’t support the traditional uses for treatment of PMS (particularly bloating and water retention) or cervical ripening in pregnancy, but one of the varieties has promise as a treatment for breast cancer. – Masculine, Sun, Fire – This herb is often called the King’s Cure-all, used by a ruler to cure scrofula. It has powers of healing, particularly for drying “wet” wounds or injuries. It can be used in sleep sachets, and for spells to cure (or cause) alcoholism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evening_primrose

Today feast is the Bettara-Ichi, or ‘Sticky-Sticky Fair’, Tokyo, Japan (Oct 19 –20) This pickled radish fair honours Ebisu, one of seven Shinto good luck gods, from noon to 9:30 pm on both days. Traditionally, children run through the streets swinging radishes at friends, shouting “bettara” in warning, for bettara is what the radishes are called in Japan. Today, people buy from street stalls (mainly in the Kodemmacho area, mostly in the Takarada Ebisu Jinja shrine) good luck charms and religious images as well as bettara on straw ropes. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettarazuke

The shop opens at 11am. Our hours are changing! Winter hours are 11am-5pm Thursday through Monday. Need something off hours? Give us a call at 541-563-7154 or Facebook or email at ancientlight@peak.org If we’re supposed to be closed, but it looks like we’re there, try the door. If it’s open, the shop’s open! In case of bad weather, check here at the blog for updates, on our Facebook as Ancient Light, or call the shop.

Love & Light,
Anja

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Today’s Astro & Calendar

Waxing Moon Magick – The waxing moon is for constructive magick, such as love, wealth, success, courage, friendship, luck or healthy, protection, divination. Any working that needs extra power, such as help finding a new job or healings for serious conditions, can be done now. Also, love, knowledge, legal undertakings, money and dreams. Phase ends at the Tide Change on 10/24 at 9:45am. Waxing Gibbous Moon – From seven to fourteen days after the new moon. For spells that need concentrated work over a ¼ moon cycle this is the best time for constructive workings. Aim to do the last working on the day of the Full moon, before the turn. Keywords for the Gibbous phase are: analyze, prepare, trust. It is the time in a cycle to process the results of the actions taken during the First Quarter. During this phase you are gathering information. Give up making judgments; it will only lead to worry. Your knowledge is incomplete. Laugh. Analyze and filter. LOOK WITHIN. God/dess aspect: Maiden/Youth, but in the uncommitted phase, the Warriors – Associated God/desses: Dion, Dionysius, Venus, Thor. Phase ends at the Full on 10/22 at 9:45pm.

. . . and then it passes Mars.

The waxing gibbous Moon at dusk forms a right triangle (as seen from North America) with Mars to its right and Fomalhaut below it. Later in the evening, the triangle turns clockwise a bit as it wheels across the southern sky.

How soon after sunset can you see the big Summer Triangle? Face southeast and look high. There’s Altair, currently the triangle’s bottom point. Vega, the Triangle’s brightest star, is nearly at the zenith (as seen from mid-northern latitudes). Deneb is a bit farther to Altair’s upper left.

Although autumn began a few weeks ago and the stars of winter’s Orion now rule the morning sky, the Summer Triangle remains prominent on October evenings. Look high in the west after darkness falls and your eyes will fall on the brilliant star Vega in the constellation Lyra the Harp. At magnitude 0.0, Vega is the brightest member of the Triangle. The second-brightest star, magnitude 0.8 Altair in Aquila the Eagle, lies some 35° southeast of Vega. The asterism’s dimmest member, magnitude 1.3 Deneb in Cygnus the Swan, stands about 25° east-northeast of Vega. For observers at mid-northern latitudes, Deneb passes through the zenith around 8 p.m. local daylight time, just as the last vestiges of twilight disappear.
Mars, moving eastward through central Capricornus, fades from magnitude –1.0 to –0.8 this week. It shines highest in the south soon after dark and sets around 1 a.m. In a telescope Mars shrinks from 14 to 13 arcseconds wide this week, and it’s as gibbous as we ever see it: only 86 percent sunlit. For a Mars map that displays which side is facing Earth at your time and date, use our Mars Profiler.

Sun in Libra
Moon in Aquarius enters Pisces at 1:20pm.
Venus (11/16), Neptune (11/24), Chiron (12/8), Juno (12/23), and Uranus (1/6/19) Retrograde
Color: Pink

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Gort/Ivy Sep 30 – Oct 27 – Gort – (GORT), ivy – Ivy (Hedera helix L.) is also a vine, growing to 30 m (100 feet) long in beech woods and around human habitations, where it is widely planted as a ground cover. Ivy produces greenish flowers before Samhain on short, vertical shrubby branches. The leaves of these flowering branches lack the characteristic lobes of the leaves of the rest of the plant. Like holly, ivy is evergreen, its dark green leaves striking in the bare forests of midwinter. Ivy is widely cultivated in North America. It is a member of the Ginseng family (Araliaceae).

Gort – Ivy Ogam letter correspondences
Month: September
Color: Sky Blue
Class: Chieftain
Letter: G
Meaning: Take time to soul search or you will maake a wrong decision.

to study this month Uilleand – Honeysuckle Ogam letter correspondences
Month: None
Color: Yellow-white
Class: Peasant
Letter: P, PE, UI
Meaning: Proceed with caution.

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Tides for Alsea Bay

*
Day        High      Tide Height   Sunrise    Moon Time      % Moon
~ /Low      Time    Feet Sunset Visible
F   19      Low   3:34 AM     1.2   7:37 AM     Set 2:13 AM      68
~ 19     High 10:11 AM     6.4   6:25 PM    Rise 4:35 PM
~ 19      Low   4:11 PM     2.8
~ 19     High   9:45 PM     6.3

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Affirmation/Thought for the Day –

Make this an extraordinary day!

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Journal Prompt – Personal Interests and Experiences – Explain the advantages and disadvantages of being able to fly around like a bird.

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Quotes

~ When an individual is seen gliding through the woods and close to the observer, it passes like a thought, and on trying to see it again, the eye searches in vain; the bird is gone. – John James Audubon, on the Passenger pigeon
~ Veni, vidi, vici. [I came, I saw, I conquered.] – The Romans under Julius Caesar invaded Britain on this day in 55 BCE. It is often thought Caesar referred to Britain in this famous quotation. However, these words were written in a report to Rome in 47 BCE after defeating Pharnaces II of Pontus at Zela in Asia Minor in just five days.
~ The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long. – WEB DuBois, American-born author and sociologist, who died on August 27, 1963
~ There’s not much to say. I haven’t been at all deedy. – Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, English author who died on August 27, 1969; on her life, in a posthumously published interview in the The Times of London

Magnificent Autumn! He comes not like a pilgrim, clad in russet weeds. He comes not like a hermit, clad in grey. But he comes like a warrior, with the stain of blood upon his brazen mail. His crimson scarf is rent…. The wind…. wafts to us the odour of forest leaves, that hang wilted on the dripping branches, or drop into the stream. Their gorgeous tints are gone, as if the autumnal rains had washed them out. Orange, yellow, and scarlet, all are changed to one melancholy russet hue…. There is a melancholy and continual roar in the tops of the tall pines…. It is the funeral anthem of the dying year. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Samhain Magick – Prayers

Who is this they’re burying?
Who but the shoulder I leaned on?
Who but the fire of my passion?
Who but my burning ember of loss?
Who but my darling, who but my treasure,
Who but the blood of the blood of my heart? ~Scottish Death Song

The Celtic feast of Samhain is still honored in our culture as Halloween, its meaning intact over thousands of years. The symbols decking our homes, offices and businesses at this season are reminders of the mystery toward all life edges. The black cat, the carved jack-o-lantern, the skulls, and the gravestones may seem innocuous when strung on mobiles or hung in windows. But their meaning is serious. This is the season of death, the time when vegetative life is withdrawing after its fertile period.

In ancient times, this was a period of omens. Would the winter be long? Would frail children and weak elders die in the dark times? Bobbing for apples, cutting cakes in which oracular symbols were baked, looking into crystals – these were some of the ways our forebears sought hints of what lay ahead. If the omens predicted difficulties or death, there was time to prepare for, if never to avoid, the promised fate. As the dark season of the year approaches, meditating upon the inevitable conclusion of our lives is appropriate and, ultimately, reminds us to live well the years we have left. – By Patricia Monaghan ~ From “The Goddess Companion” and GrannyMoon’s Morning Feast

My dearest friend, why did you die?
Why did you need to go away?
Now, when I am hungry, who will feed me?
When I am cold, who will warm me?
When I need shelter, whose hearth will I seek?
When I need company, whose house will be warm?
It was never your way to be gloomy and sad.
If you were here, you would be serving us tea. ~Scottish Death Lament

Each one of us, during our lives, suffers many losses. Most significant are the deaths of people we loved and who loved us in return. Most painful are the deaths of those who we loved, but who never gave us what we desired, for all hope is then cut off.

There is even pain in the deaths of those whom we disliked, for hatred is a form of connection that death severs.

But there are other losses we must mourn. A pet who loved us, a special dream, a dear possession – we lose these, and more, during our lifetimes. Grief, with its attendant angers and outrage, is an uncomfortable emotion for others to experience. Yet grief can poison us, if unexpressed. Finding ways to grieve fully is a challenge. But, if we do not meet it, we grow twisted in our pain. – By Patricia Monaghan ~ From “The Goddess Companion” and GrannyMoon’s Morning Feast

Prayer to the Deities of Death

The harvest has ended, and the fields are bare.
The earth has grown cold, and the land is empty.
The gods of the death are lingering over us,
keeping a watchful eye upon the living.
They wait, patiently, for eternity is theirs.

Hail to you, Anubis! O jackal headed one,
guardian of the realm of the dead.
When my time comes, I hope
you may deem me worthy.

Hail to you, Demeter! O mother of darkness,
May your grief be abated
when your daughter returns once more.

Hail to you, Hecate! O keeper of the gate,
between this world and the underworld.
I ask that when I cross over,
you may guide me with wisdom.

Hail to you, Freya! O mistress of Folkvangr,
guardian of those who fall in battle.
Keep the souls of my ancestors with you.

Hail to you, O gods and goddesses,
those of you who guard the underworld
and guide the dead on their final journey.
At this time of cold and dark,
I honor you, and ask that you watch over me,
and protect me when the day arrives
that I take my final journey.

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Silliness – Twin Engines

Posted in Daily Stuff, Newsletter, Pagan, Wiccan | Tagged Affirmation, Astrology, Astronomy, Bettara-Ichi, Celtic Tree Month, evening primrose, Goddess Month, Journal Prompt, Magick, Moon, moon phase, Oenothera species, Oregon Coast, Pagan, Runic Half Month, Samhain, Samhain Prayers, Silliness, Sticky-Sticky Fair, Suncup, Sundrop, Tides, Today’s Feast, Today’s Plant, Twin Engines, Weather, Wicca

Daily Stuff 10-17-18 Cyrus the Great

Posted on October 17, 2018 by Anja Snihova'

Hi, folks!

Featured photo by Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum/tides/Open Circle for Samhain on Friday 11/2, 7pm, at Ancient Light.

It’s marvelously clear and has been all night. 52F and wind at 7mph although there were some pretty good gusts upriver.

Having gotten started so late, yesterday, I rather despaired of doing much. I was right. I did manage to get some plant tending in, but not much else during the day. I’ve got greens for next Sunday’s stew.

Apparently the mushroom in yesterdays pic [thumbnail] is a boletus smithii. I knew it was some kind of bolete, but beyond that…

Loryea came in during the afternoon and we talked cookery for most of an hour. She’ll be back with samples of her goodies in the next couple of weeks. I’ll post when she’s going to because if you want something of hers, or a specific size (thinking rings, here, specifically) you might want to let me know ahead of time or show up on that day/that time.

Tempus helped with watering the plants, but we’ve got a couple of dead ones, that got missed. <sigh> I still don’t have enough access to the spot where I’m going to put the shelves to do much with them.

After we had supper he took off for Newport. By 11pm he was starting the bulk drops and by 12:30 the regular route. He picked me up at 4am.

Golden tree from the lodge arcade.

By 10pm I had the newsletter frames done for the week and I took a break for awhile. I did some research on figs, and Roman cheese and some other things for awhile and then wrote for a bit.

We had a good run. We saw an owl down in Bayshore, and then a bear on Rainbow Road. A bunny hopped across in front of us on another side street and then there was a herd of deer on the path down to the park where we used to live, and a few small critters where we just saw eyes or a shadow.

By the end of the run it was just early twilight, no fog for once, and stars still bright.

pine bit and mushrooms

Next up is sleep, and when we get up to get to the shop and start pulling out the Halloween stuff.

A pic from 10-13-15 Looking onshore at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michael’s Maryland. That’s the Hooper Strait Lighthouse that was moved to the museum when I was a kid.

I’ve often heard people talk about “beach thistle”, but Sea Holly, Eryngium maritimum isn’t a thistle. It’s actually related to carrots. The young shoots can be blanched and eaten like asparagus and the roots (which can get up to 20 feet long!!!!) are peeled, boiled and cut, then braided and candied. Prepared thus they are a good cough and cold remedy. The roots can also be boiled or roasted as well and are very nutritious. It is native to Europe, but going extinct in certain areas. – Masculine, Fire, Venus – This plant is an aphrodisiac, pure and simple.

Today is the anniversary of the day in 539BCE when Cyrus the Great liberated Babylon and released the Hebrews from that captivity. He was quite a leader and apparently a good man beyond his war abilities. He may have written the first declaration of human rights and certainly practiced religious tolerance, even to the point of making certain that the Hebrews, who had been captive quite awhile had the money to rebuild the Temple that had been destroyed when the Captivity started. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great#Religion_and_philosophy

Love & Light,
Anja

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Today’s Astro & Calendar

. . . and then it passes Mars.

The waxing gibbous Moon crosses into Capricornus this evening, where it has a magnificent encounter with magnitude –0.9 Mars, 260 times farther away. Once twilight fades away, the pretty pair stands some 30° above the southern horizon with Mars 6° to the Moon’s left. The two edge closer as the evening progresses. Unfortunately, North American observers won’t see their actual conjunction, which occurs at 9 a.m. EDT tomorrow when our satellite passes 2° due north of the planet. By the time darkness falls tomorrow evening, a slightly fatter Moon appears 6° to Mars’ left. A telescope shows several subtle surface features on the Red Planet’s 13″-diameter disk. Far to their lower left you’ll find Fomalhaut (out of the frame here).
The Moon reaches apogee, the farthest point in its orbit around Earth, at 3:16 p.m. EDT. It then lies 251,175 miles (404,227 kilometers) from Earth’s center.
Neptune, in Aquarius, is harder at magnitude 7.8. By mid-evening they’re well up in the east and southeast, respectively. Finder charts for Uranus and Neptune, or see the September Sky & Telescope, page 48.

Sun in Libra
Moon in Capricorn enters Aquarius at 12:36am
Venus (11/16), Neptune (11/24), Chiron (12/8), Juno (12/23), and Uranus (1/6/19) Retrograde
Color: Topaz

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Gort – Ivy Ogam letter correspondences
Month: September
Color: Sky Blue
Class: Chieftain
Letter: G
Meaning: Take time to soul search or you will maake a wrong decision.

to study this month Uilleand – Honeysuckle Ogam letter correspondences
Month: None
Color: Yellow-white
Class: Peasant
Letter: P, PE, UI
Meaning: Proceed with caution.

******

Tides for Alsea Bay

*
Day        High      Tide Height   Sunrise    Moon Time      % Moon
~ /Low      Time    Feet Sunset Visible
W   17      Low   1:33 AM     1.2   7:34 AM     Set 12:18 AM      50
~ 17     High   8:29 AM     5.9   6:29 PM    Rise 3:29 PM
~ 17      Low   2:05 PM     3.6
~ 17     High   7:31 PM     6.1

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Affirmation/Thought for the Day – Do it. Do it right. Do it right now. These are three simple steps to success.

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Journal Prompt – What do you think? – Why do you watch movies or TV shows that you know will scare you?

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Quotes

~ There are times when I think the eradication of idiocy should be easy; at other times when I think that there is too much idiocy to eradicate; at other times I think that idiocy is omnipresent, but what little wisdom there is, is enough. Today, I wonder what the most efficient and sustainable ratio of idiocy to wisdom is. – Paradigm Shift
~ Trouble is a part of your life, and if you don’t share it, you don’t give the person who loves you enough chance to love you enough. – Dinah Shore
~ Justice is a certain rectitude of mind whereby a man does what he ought to do in circumstances confronting him. – St. Thomas Aquinas
~ The creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic. – Gertrude Stein, U.S. writer

In night when colors all to black are cast,
Distinction lost, or gone down with the light;
The eye a watch to inward senses placed,
Not seeing, yet still having powers of sight. – Lord Brooke Fulke Greville (1554–1628)

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Samhain Magick – A Terrible Beauty – For Brad Will – By Starhawk – 2004

It’s the night before the Spiral Dance, our community’s annual huge celebration for Samhain, more generally known as Halloween, the ancient feast of the ancestors and honoring of the Beloved Dead, which long predates the Christian feast of All Souls. The Spiral Dance is the biggest, most elaborate ritual our community, Reclaiming, creates throughout the year, with intricate altars, a full chorus, dancers, singers, acrobats doing aerial invocations, and a spiral that might include a thousand people. Into all this, we weave some deep magic, both personal and broader than personal, involving the mystery at the heart of our spirituality—death and regeneration.

Each year I take on different roles. Some years I lead the trance, other years I might simply invoke the spirits of the land or play the drum and leave the ‘bigger’ roles to others. This year my role seems to involve carrying a lot of heavy objects and buckets of sand, building altars and decorating the front of the house. Or not so much actually building and decorating, as providing the materials and suggestions for others to do the creative part.

And this year I’m calling the Dead. So I’ve been thinking a lot about death, and singing the song we will use to sing the Dead over into a place of renewal. Just before bed, I check my email, and I learn that a young man has died, shot to death in Oaxaca where he has gone to cover the teachers’ strike and the people’s insurrection for Indymedia. His name is Brad Will. I stare at his picture, trying to remember if I know him from all the demonstrations and mobilizations and meetings we have undoubtedly been at together.

In Miami, my friend Andy reminds me, after a wild ritual collaboration between the Pagan cluster and the black bloc, a young man stepped forward with a guitar and began singing Desert Rat’s song about Seattle, “When the Tear Gas Fills the Sky.” That was Brad—alive, singing, defiant. “I will wash the pepper from your face, and go with you to jail, And if you don’t make it through this fight, I swear I’ll tell your tale…”

didn’t know him well, but I know so many like him—mostly but not all young, sitting in long meetings in warehouses or donning respirators to gut flood-ruined houses in New Orleans, standing shoulder to shoulder as the riot cops advance, or as the bulldozer moves forward to destroy a home in Gaza. Filing stories at midnight on electronic networks set up by young geniuses with duct tape and component parts in dusty, third world towns, eating cold pasta out of old yogurt tops and sleeping on floors. Hitching rides into war zones and crossing borders. It’s as if a whole cohort of souls had arrived on this planet imbued with the unquestioned faith that they were put here to somehow make a difference, to interfere with injustice, to witness, to change the world. Ragged, intemperate, opinionated, passionate, and above all, alive.

And now another one of the tribe is dead, shot down in Oaxaca where a five-month teachers’ strike became a full-blown insurrection, the kind that radicals dream of, with streets full of barricades and ordinary people rising up against a rigged election and a corrupt, dictatorial governor. It hasn’t been much reported in the U.S. papers. But Brad Will was there, with camera and computer, to be a set of eyes.

Now his eyes are closed, forever. I put his name on our list of the Dead. At the Spiral Dance, I see someone has set up a shrine to him on our North altar, where the dead are honored. I meet another activist friend there, who tells me how he remembers Brad: running into a barrage of sound bombs in a demonstration in some foreign city. “I couldn’t explain to people that they were harmless,” he’d said. “We didn’t speak the same language. So I had to show them.”

I didn’t know him well, but I know how it is to walk into a situation that is dangerous, even life-threatening, how it feels to weigh the risks, to accept them, to tell yourself that you can be at peace with any consequence, and then to walk out into the street in the firm if unconscious belief that you will be lucky that day, once again. I can only imagine how it feels when the bullets rip through flesh, and your severed spirit stares back at a broken body, and in a blaze of light a different journey begins.

We Pagans have no dogma, no official Book of the Dead to outline the soul’s journey. If we share any belief in common, it is simply this: that death is part of a cycle that includes regeneration and renewal. That just as the falling leaves decay to fertilize the roots of trees, each death feeds some rebirth.

Death transforms us. The tribe of world-changers has its list of martyrs—the short list of those who are known in the first world—Carlo Giuliani, Huang Hai Lee, Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall—and the much longer list of names in some other language—Spanish, indigenous, Arabic, and so many others–who die every day. And the world’s religions each have their concept of that transformation, for those whose death is somehow special, powerful and meaningful: martyrs, saints, bodhisattvas. We Pagans don’t like to glorify martyrs, but we know that ‘sacrifice’ means ‘to make sacred.’ In an instant, that ordinary comrade you remember singing at the fire or arguing at the meeting, someone you might have been charmed or irritated by or attracted to, or not, someone who showed no mark of doom or prescience of what was to come, becomes uplifted into another realm, part symbol, part victim, locus of our deepest love and rage.

William Butler Yeats expressed it best, writing about the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916, the friends he admired and the ones he disliked, shot by the British.
“Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn,
All changed, changed utterly,
A terrible beauty is born…”

And death transforms the living. When someone close to us dies, we become someone else. When my father died when I was just five years old, my mother was transformed from a beloved wife to a grieving widow. I changed, overnight, from a blessed, fortunate child to someone set apart, marked by a tragedy, missing something deeply important that other children had.

And so one day you are someone with a job and a family and a neighborhood in which you and your kin have lived for generations—and a day later the waters rise and you are homeless, a refugee in a strange place dependent on the kindness of strangers. One day you are a mother filled with hopes and dreams and pride, and the next day you are bereft, with a gaping hole in your heart that can never be filled.

Yet we, the living, have some choice in how we respond to death, and what transformation we undergo. My mother, out of her grief, became a counselor, a therapist, an expert in loss and grieving. Cindy Sheehan, out of her grief for her son Casey, killed in Iraq, became a woman on fire, a modern prophet calling the powerful to justice, who galvanized the movement against the war. Mesha Monge-Irizarry, mother of Idriss Stelley who was shot dead in the Metreon by the San Francisco police, became an advocate for all the victims of police violence. Rachel Corrie’s parents took up the cause of justice for the people of Palestine. Grief can open the heart to courage and compassion; rage can move us to action. Out of loss comes regeneration: a terrible beauty is born.

A death like Brad’s calls us all to deeper levels of courage, to be eyes that refuse to shut in the face of oppression, voices that sing out for justice, hands that build a transformed world. – Starhawk

http://www.starhawk.org
More info on Oaxaca and Brad: http://www.narconews.com/
http://nyc.indymedia.org/
SF Bay Area activities: http://indybay.org/
NEW YORK CITY INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTER RESPONDS TO THE DEATH OF BRAD WILL http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/77958.html

Starhawk is an activist, organizer, and author of The Earth Path, as well as Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising, The Fifth Sacred Thing; and eight other books on feminism, politics and earth-based spirituality. She teaches Earth Activist Trainings that combine permaculture design and activist skills, and works with the RANT trainer’s collective, http://www.rantcollective.org <http://www.rantcollective.org/> that offers training and support for mobilizations around global justice and peace issues. For her schedule and archive of writings, see her website http://www.starhawk.org http://www.starhawk.org . To get her periodic posts of her writings, email Starhawk-subscribe@lists.riseup.net and put ‘subscribe’ in the subject heading. If you’re on that list and don’t want any more of these writings, email Starhawk-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net and put ‘unsubscribe’ in the subject heading.
© Starhawk 2004—feel free to repost and distribute this article for nonprofit purposes—all other rights reserved.

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Silliness – The Perfect Man

At a local coffee bar, a young woman was expounding on her idea of the perfect mate to some of her friends.
“The man I marry must be a shining light amongst company. He must be musical. Tell jokes. Sing. And stay home at night!”
An old granny overheard and spoke up, “Honey, if that’s all you want, get a TV!”

Posted in Daily Stuff, Newsletter, Pagan, Wiccan | Tagged A Terrible Beauty, Affirmation, Astrology, Astronomy, beach thistle, Celtic Tree Month, Cyrus the Great, Eryngium maritimum, Goddess Month, In night when colors all to black are cast, Journal Prompt, Magick, Moon, moon phase, Oregon Coast, Pagan, Perfect Man, Runic Half Month, Samhain, Sea Holly, Silliness, Tides, Today’s Feast, Today’s Plant, Weather, Wicca

Daily Stuff 10-14-18 Ida Pfeiffer

Posted on October 17, 2018 by Anja Snihova'

Hi, folks!

Featured photo by Ken Gagne. House Capuchin Project Day from 1-5pm.

Bright sunshine, 71F (71???? Wow!) wind at 8mph. There’s a good chance of rain on Monday 22nd, now….first there’s been in days.

We got some things shifted first thing in the morning, got the shop open and then Tempus took off to go pick up melons, spring water, grape leaves, fig twigs and milk for another cheese.

We got busy for a bit and then I was trying to collect up boxes so that Tempus could break them down. I sorted the pile of things up front that have been needing to be mended and put away, too.

Eventually he was back and we went back to getting things put away. I had a lady stop by who had planned on the Herbs Workshop but then saw the note yesterday that said it wasn’t happening. We talked over the projects that are going, so she could see what’s up. I worked on stripping plantain seed for awhile and then Tempus handed me some lunch.

I finished stripping the seeds by 2:30 and snacked on some grapes that were in with the grape leaves. Eventually I got started on the grape leaves. I had to snip them from the vines and put them in a bowl to be washed, before the pickling process. …and I sorted the fig branches out, too, and then crashed… I just couldn’t do *anything* for several hours. Eventually I managed to get back to work, but it was awfully late.

We had cabbage rolls that were frozen from last spring for supper. I made them the “modern” way, with tomatoes. There’s another meal’s worth left, too. I’m going to have to make those more often.

Next was doing the pickling for the grape leaves. I had 1/2 a bottle of pickle broth that I needed to heat and then I heated another quart of vinegar and salt. These are for wrapping cheeses and for doing my version of stuffed green peppers. I can’t eat the peppers, but use the same filling wrapped in grape leaves.

After that I started the milk heating. Tempus scrubbed one of the fig twigs for me and once the milk was up to 110F I chucked the pieces in. I covered it, so it would stay at an even temperature overnight. I pulled out a crockpot and started some squash in that, but only two of them fit, not the 3rd and the onion. Well, I’ll just layer it in the dish when they’re done, I guess.

..and I got up twice during the night to work on the squash and now I’m groggy and drooping over my coffee! The milk hasn’t curdled yet for some reason. I had people who were going to come in and watch this afternoon, but if it hasn’t curdled…..

So, today is laundry day, and Tempus is going to be out of the shop for part of it. It’s also our Project Day, so the cheese, the ink, the fig stuff and all are going to be worked on.

A photo from 10/12/16 by Ken Gagne of a pelican with his landing gear out.

Today’s Plant is Hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna, known as common hawthorn , may, mayblossom, maythorn, quickthorn, whitethorn, motherdie, and haw. It has edible buds, flowers and fruits, which are full of antioxidants . Particularly sacred to the month of May and to Beltane, it is used extensively as a hedge plant. – Fairy energy, May interfere with digitalis medications. – Masculine, Mars, Fire. – Increases fertility and/or celibacy. Carry on a fishing trip to ensure good catch. Brings happiness to the troubled or depressed. Protects house against lightning and storms, evil ghosts may not enter. In cradles to guard from evil spells. Most Witch’s gardens contained a hawt hedge. Sacred to the fairies, and is part of the tree triad of Britain. More on this species:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_hawthorn More on the genus Crataegus here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crataegus

Today is the birthday in 1797 of Ida Pfeiffer, world-traveler and author. More information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Pfeiffer She was one of the first of the “lady explorers” and published 7 books about her travels all over the world. She was quite a scandal in her day and didn’t actually begin her travels until her children were grown.

The shop opens at 11am. Fall hours are 11am-6pm Thursday through Monday. Need something off hours? Give us a call at 541-563-7154 or Facebook or email at ancientlight@peak.org If we’re supposed to be closed, but it looks like we’re there, try the door. If it’s open, the shop’s open! In case of bad weather, check here at the blog for updates, on our Facebook as Ancient Light, or call the shop.

Love & Light,
Anja

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Today’s Astro & Calendar

The waxing crescent Moon returns to evening twilight sky, posing with Jupiter and then Saturn. (The visibility of the fainter objects in bright twilight is exaggerated here.)

The “star” near the Moon tonight is Saturn, 3,900 times farther away. Saturn stands 1.5° to the left of the waxing crescent Moon this evening. The two lie 20° above the southwestern horizon at the end of twilight and remain on view until after 10 p.m. local daylight time. The ringed planet shines at magnitude 0.5 this week, more than a full magnitude brighter than any of the background stars in its host constellation, Sagittarius. If you own a telescope, there’s no better target than Saturn. Even the smallest instrument shows Saturn’s 16″-diameter disk surrounded by a dramatic ring system that spans 37″ and tilts 27° to our line of sight.

This is the time of year when the rich Cygnus Milky Way crosses the zenith in the hour after nightfall is complete (for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes). The Milky Way now rises straight up from the southwest horizon, passed overhead, and runs straight down to the northeast. (September/October)

This being October, Deneb has replaced Vega as the zenith star after nightfall (for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes). And, accordingly, dim Capricornus has replaced Sagittarius as the most notable constellation low in the south. Capricornus currently hosts bright Mars in its middle.

Jupiter, along with three of its moons, was captured in this striking image taken by Voyager 1 in 1979. – NASA/JPL

Jupiter (magnitude –1.8, in dim Libra) is very low in the west-southwest in mid-twilight and sets before twilight’s end. Can you still make out fainter Antares, magnitude +1.0, about 14° to Jupiter’s left? A bigger challenge: Can you detect fainter Delta (δ) Scorpii, currently magnitude +1.8 (it’s variable), about midway between the two? Binoculars help. See the illustration at the top of this page.

Sun in Libra
Moon in Sagittarius enters Capricorn at 12:17pm.
Venus (11/16), Neptune (11/24), Chiron (12/8), Juno (12/23), and Uranus (1/6/19) Retrograde
Color: Amber

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Gort – Ivy Ogam letter correspondences
Month: September
Color: Sky Blue
Class: Chieftain
Letter: G
Meaning: Take time to soul search or you will maake a wrong decision.

to study this month Uilleand – Honeysuckle Ogam letter correspondences
Month: None
Color: Yellow-white
Class: Peasant
Letter: P, PE, UI
Meaning: Proceed with caution.

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Tides for Alsea Bay

*
Day        High      Tide Height   Sunrise    Moon Time      % Moon
~ /Low      Time    Feet Sunset Visible
Su 14     High   5:11 AM     6.3   7:30 AM    Rise 1:14 PM      22
~ 14      Low 10:39 AM     3.1   6:34 PM     Set 10:35 PM
~ 14     High   4:26 PM     7.2
~ 14      Low 11:32 PM     0.5

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Affirmation/Thought for the Day – Mastery energizes my actions. I am empowered by the Truth of Spirit.

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Journal Prompt – What does this quote say to you? – The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning. — Ivy Baker Priest

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Quotes

~ All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world. – John Hay
~ The quiet hour of prayer is one of the most favorable opportunities he has in which to speak to us seriously. In quietude and solitude before the face of God our souls can hear better than at any other time. – O. Hallesby
~ If you’ve never seen an elephant ski, then you’ve never been on acid. – Eddie Izzard (Definite Article)
~ Parents that can’t say no to their kids can’t prepare them for success either. – Steve Keating CSE

October’s the month
When the smallest breeze
Gives us a shower
Of autumn leaves.
Bonfires and pumpkins,
Leaves sailing down –
October is red
And golden and brown. – Anon.

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Samhain Magick – Crafts

Eldersprouts Samhain Crafts – Tissue Ghosts

You will need:

tissues (the kind you blow your nose with)
black felt tip pen
white yarn

what to do:

Take two tissues and scrunch them up into a ball
this will be the head.
Take another tissue and put your other ball in the middle of the tissue.
Pick up all four corners and pinch your ghost just below the head.
Tie a piece of yarn around the neck, and draw eyes on with your pen.
Hang up your ghost.

A Lollipop Witch

Materials include a flat lollypop, black and orange construction paper, black crepe paper, orange chenille stem, black dots made with paper punch for eyes, red, black, or orange yarn for hair, tacky glue.

Cut face and hat from construction paper following pattern instructions.
Cut crepe paper strip 10″ long and 4″ wide. (Cut a four inch strip from the package and cut it into ten inch sections.)
Cut orange chenille stem in half. Use one piece for arms.
Glue orange circles to lollypop (head) add eyes and draw a felt pen mouth if desired.
Cut six 5″ pieces of yarn for the hair and glue to head.
Shape half circle into cone to make witch hat. Trim if necessary, shape to fit head and glue back seam.
Glue hat to head.
Gather black crepe paper around lollypop stick.
Twist chenille stem tightly to hold it under the candy head about one inch from the top of the crepe paper, letting stem stick out on each side for arms. Fold crepe paper down from face to form neck ruffle on dress.
Bend chenille stem ends to form hands.
Add a toothpick and paper broom if desired.

Trick or Treat Bag

Materials include an undecorated gift bag, permanent markers, glue, ribbon, construction paper, or any other item you wish to use to decorate the bag.

You can buy undecorated gift bags in most hobby and craft stores (or even at your local Wal-mart type store) for under $1.00. These bags come in a variety of sizes and colors, just pick whatever suits your fancy.

Have your child color a Halloween-themed picture (jack-o-lantern, witch, werewolf, bats, etc.) and then cut the picture out and glue it on the bag.

You could also cut something out of construction paper or draw directly onto the bag with permanent markers or glow-in-the-dark paints.

Don’t forget the Halloween stickers!

Tie some colorful ribbons on the handles and then just before they go out Trick-or-Treating, tie a couple of activated glow sticks to their bag’s ribbons to make them easier to see in the dark.

Anja’s note: If your kids have the problem with someone grabbing their treat bags, do not use paper (or if you live on the Oregon Coast, where most Halloweens are soaking wet….) Pillowcases work better, or you can do what I did and make sacks of a heavy fabric with a single loop to put over the child’s arm. These can be decorated with Sharpies or fabric paint or even glow-in-the-dark paint!

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Silliness – Daffynitions – Bernadette: The act of torching a mortgage.

Posted in Daily Stuff, Newsletter, Pagan, Wiccan | Tagged Affirmation, Astrology, Astronomy, Celtic Tree Month, common hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna, Daffynitions, Goddess Month, haw, hawthorn, Journal Prompt, Magick, may, mayblossom, maythorn, Moon, moon phase, motherdie, Oregon Coast, Pagan, quickthorn, Runic Half Month, Samhain, Samhain Crafts, Silliness, Tides, Today’s Feast, Today’s Plant, Weather, whitethorn, Wicca

Daily Stuff 10-16-18 World Food Prize day

Posted on October 17, 2018 by Anja Snihova'

Hi, folks!

Featured photo by Pattie Huggins Deitrick.

While the computer says that it’s clear, clouds are coming and going. They can’t be thick because it’s quite bright. 71F, wind at 10, AUI 20, UV 2. Definitely running out of sunshine…. Rain starting early next week. That’s starting to look definite.

Yesterday started a little strangely, because I hadn’t slept well, to put it mildly. I had been up and down all night. We got the shop open and had coffee and breakfast and then he worked in back for a little, so I could get to brining the cheese. Eventually, I got that started, but by then I was getting horribly sleepy.

I did some writing as I was waiting for the cheese while Tempus was setting up laundry. I had a snafu with the brine, since apparently you need to leave it in the mold while brining. <sigh> Finally, it was put by at 3pm. Phew!

Tempus went out and did laundry after that, and when he came back, I got a nap we had supper, then he went out to Ray’s to pick up a few small things including the milk for another batch of cheese. Once he was back, I got my milk set up and then read for the rest of the evening.

We slept in this morning and here I’m just getting to this at 3pm! We’re taking it easy today. Both of us are really tired and things are far enough along to just continue putting things away, rather than pushing. Paper route tonight.

A photo from 10/14/15 by Pattie Huggins Deitrick, posted in the ‎Facebook group Waldport Community

Today’s plant is Foxglove, Digitalis purpurea. It is naturalized in the PNW, being native to Europe, not the Americas. Digitalis was one of the first heart medications and was extracted from the plant and then synthesized. The plant is poisonous, not just because of this (too much causes irregular heartbeat), but some other chemicals. Also known as Lady’s Glove, Witches’ Gloves, Fairy Fingers, or Dead Men’s Bells. – Feminine, Venus, Water – A Druid sacred herb associated with the “little people”. Lust, protection, decision, grow in a garden for protection of house and yard, reveals insincerity. Flower meaning – a wish, “I am not ambitious for myself but for you”.

Today is World Food Prize day. The idea was to cut the number of hungry in half in the world by 2015. Hmm… I doubt that we’re getting there, but it looks like the prize has focused more and more on food security. In 2013 there was quite a bit of controversy because the prize went to folks in the biotech industry. Last year’s winner was Dr Sanjaya Rajaram who has developed 480 varieties of disease resistant wheat. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Food_Prize and on the history of the prize here: http://www.ift.org/food-technology/past-issues/2009/october/features/creation-and-history-of-the-world-food-prize.aspx

Love & Light,
Anja

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Today’s Astro & Calendar

Waxing Moon Magick – The waxing moon is for constructive magick, such as love, wealth, success, courage, friendship, luck or healthy, protection, divination. Any working that needs extra power, such as help finding a new job or healings for serious conditions, can be done now. Also, love, knowledge, legal undertakings, money and dreams. Phase ends at the Tide Change on 10/24 at 9:45am. Waxing Crescent phase – Keywords for the Crescent phase are: expansion, growth, struggle, opportunity. It is the time in a cycle that you gather the wisdom learned in the new phase and communicate your intention to move forward. Light a candle. Write or read an affirmation. LISTEN & ABSORB. Commit to your goal. God/dess aspect: Maiden/Youth, energy and enthusiasm – Associated God/dess: Artemis & Apollo, Mayet/Djehuti, Freya/Frey. Phase ends at the Quarter on 10/16 at 11:02am. Waxing Gibbous Moon – From seven to fourteen days after the new moon. For spells that need concentrated work over a ¼ moon cycle this is the best time for constructive workings. Aim to do the last working on the day of the Full moon, before the turn. Keywords for the Gibbous phase are: analyze, prepare, trust. It is the time in a cycle to process the results of the actions taken during the First Quarter. During this phase you are gathering information. Give up making judgments; it will only lead to worry. Your knowledge is incomplete. Laugh. Analyze and filter. LOOK WITHIN. God/dess aspect: Maiden/Youth, but in the uncommitted phase, the Warriors – Associated God/desses: Dion, Dionysius, Venus, Thor. Phase ends at the Full on 10/22 at 9:45pm.

The Moon passing Saturn . . .

First-quarter Moon At nightfall the half-lit Moon shines in the south with Mars to its left, Saturn farther to its lower right, and Altair very high above it. A finger-width above Altair is distant little Tarazed, magnitude 2.7. First Quarter Moon arrives at 2:02 p.m. EDT. Our satellite rises in the east around 2:15 p.m. local daylight time but it doesn’t become prominent until the Sun sets shortly after 6 p.m. The Moon climbs highest in the south about an hour later. After darkness falls, Luna’s half-lit orb appears in northeastern Sagittarius, to the upper left of that constellation’s conspicuous Teapot asterism.
Uranus, near the Aries-Pisces border, is easy in binoculars at magnitude 5.7 — with a good finder chart if you know the constellations well enough to see where to start.

Sun in Libra
Waxing Quarter exact at 11:02am
Moon in Capricorn
Venus (11/16), Neptune (11/24), Chiron (12/8), Juno (12/23), and Uranus (1/6/19) Retrograde
Color: Maroon

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Gort – Ivy Ogam letter correspondences
Month: September
Color: Sky Blue
Class: Chieftain
Letter: G
Meaning: Take time to soul search or you will maake a wrong decision.

to study this month Uilleand – Honeysuckle Ogam letter correspondences
Month: None
Color: Yellow-white
Class: Peasant
Letter: P, PE, UI
Meaning: Proceed with caution.

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Tides for Alsea Bay

*
Day        High      Tide Height   Sunrise    Moon Time      % Moon
~ /Low      Time    Feet Sunset Visible
Tu 16      Low 12:29 AM     0.9   7:33 AM    Rise 2:50 PM      41
~ 16     High   7:21 AM     5.8   6:30 PM
~ 16      Low 12:45 PM     3.7
~ 16     High   6:18 PM     6.3

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Affirmation/Thought for the Day – I am discovering how WonderFul I am. I choose to Love and Enjoy MySelf.

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Journal Prompt – Favorites – Explain how to play your favorite game.

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Quotes

~ There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America. – Prince Otto von Bismarck
~ An intellectual is someone who has found something more interesting than sex. – Edgar Wallace, British mystery novelist, born on April 1, 1875
~ I was awfully curious to find out why I didn’t go insane. – Abraham Maslow, American psychologist, born on April 1, 1908
~ Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be. – Abraham Maslow

All day I have watched the purple vine leaves
Fall into the water.
And now in the moonlight they still fall,
But each leaf is fringed with silver. – Amy Lowell (1874–1925)

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Samhain Magick – Recipes

Pumpkin Muffins

1 c Unbleached Flour, Sifted
2 t Baking Powder
1/4 t Salt
1/4 t Ground Cinnamon
1/4 c Vegetable Shortening
2/3 c Sugar
1 ea Large Egg
1/2 c Canned, Mashed Pumpkin
2 T Milk

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon; set aside.
Cream together shortening and sugar in mixing bowl until light and fluffy, using electric mixer at medium speed.
Beat in egg.
Combine pumpkin and milk in small bowl.
Add dry ingredients alternately with pumpkin mixture to creamed mixture, stirring well after each addition.
Spoon batter into paper-lined 2 1/2-inch muffin-pan cups, filling 2/3rds full.
Bake in 350 degree F. oven 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Serve hot with butter and homemade jam.

Pumpkin Cookies –from Auramooth’s Wiccan Page

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup cooked pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 c. walnuts
1 cup chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar together, then add egg and blend well.
Blend in pumpkin and vanilla.
Blend together dry ingredients: flour, powder, soda, salt and spices, and add to pumpkin mixture.
Stir in nuts and chips, and drop by spoonfuls onto baking sheet.
Bake at 350 degrees for fifteen minutes, cool and eat!

Halloween Pumpkin Muffins by Gerina Dunwich – (This recipe yields about 3 1/2 dozen muffins.)

4 cups Flour
3 cups Sugar
1-3/4 teaspoons Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 tablespoon Ground Cloves
1 tablespoon Cinnamon
1 tablespoon Nutmeg
1/2 tablespoon Ginger
1-1/2 cups Raisins
1/2 cup Walnuts (chopped)
4 Eggs
2-1/2 cups Mashed Cooked Pumpkin
1 cup Vegetable Oil
1 cup Water

In a large mixing bowl, combine the first eleven ingredients, and then make a “well” in the middle of the mixture.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs lightly and then add the pumpkin, vegetable oil, and water.
Mix together well.
Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and stir just until moistened. (Do not overstir!)
Spoon into paper-lined muffin pans, filling about two-thirds full.
Bake for 20 minutes in a preheated 375-degree oven and then immediately remove the muffins from the pans to prevent them from scorching and drying out.

(The above “Halloween Pumpkin Muffins” recipe is from “The Wicca Spellbook: A Witch’s Collection of Wiccan Spells, Potions and Recipes” by Gerina Dunwich, page 171, Citadel Press, Carol Publishing Group Edition, 1995.)

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Silliness – Inevitable Laws of Work – 19. You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk.

Posted in Daily Stuff, Newsletter, Pagan, Wiccan | Tagged Affirmation, Astrology, Astronomy, Celtic Tree Month, digitalis purpurea, foxglove, Goddess Month, Inevitable Laws of Work, Journal Prompt, Magick, Moon, moon phase, Oregon Coast, Pagan, Runic Half Month, Samhain, Samhain Recipes, Silliness, Tides, Today’s Feast, Today’s Plant, Weather, Wicca

Daily Stuff 10-15-18 Virgil

Posted on October 15, 2018 by Anja Snihova'

Hi, folks!

Featured photo by Ken Gagne.

Gloriously sunny! It’s 63F at the moment, but likely to go up into the mid-70’s. The wind is at 3mph, but gusts are getting into the mid-teens. It’s supposed to stay sunny all this week, but by this time next week we should start seeing some rain.

Yesterday started slowly, but we had a lot to do. The milk wasn’t curdling, so I added another barked twig. The squash was done overnight, so that got seeded and skinned and put into a box with maple syrup and some spices. That’s going to be for Samhain.

I spent a little time re-organizing the cheese box, since things had gotten tossed all over and I made a bag for the coasters and the bottoms of the spring-form molds. Tempus had never seen me finger-crochet. I was using a piece of the cotton string that is tied around the papers for the bulk drops to make a thick enough cord for a small net onion bag and he was fascinated. Watching me, he realized that it’s the same technique that he uses to shorten the long orange outdoor power cords.

We had a few customers in, everyone commenting on the glorious weather.

In the evening I decided to do a trial run of “Sauce Bob” (barbe robert) which is one of the sauces that we’ve been planning on for the Winter Feast. The cheese curdled suddenly while I was doing that, so after the sauce was put by I got that warming.

The sauce turned out a bit salty, but it was very tasty. Tempus had baked potatoes and we had a slice of ham and some pickled beets with the potatoes and sauce. I got back to work on the cheese and by 10:30 it was in the molds and being pressed. It got flipped and pressed again about 1/2 an hour later and fridged about 1/2 an hour after that. I’ll be brining it early this afternoon.

We’ll be open regular hours today. We’ve gotten two of the biggest pieces shifted out of the way of the candle aisle, so today is all little stuff getting moved. The chaos is resolving!

A photo from 9/30/16 by Ken Gagne that he tagged, “B-52’s coming into Yachats Airfield”. Yes, they’re pelicans.

Luffa (or loofah, luffa aegyptica or luffa acutangula) is an odd sort of plant, rather like a cucumber in that it’s a long, green vegetable with the flesh on the outside and a core full of seeds. They’re even edible, if a little bitter, when young. The biggest difference is that they grow a fibrous frame that has been used for a long time as a “vegetable sponge”, wherever they grow and are particularly good for scrubbing scratchable dishes, counters and glassware. They’re used a lot in Chinese medicine, and the juice is a remedy for jaundice. – Feminine, Moon, Water – Their magicks include helping with rheumatism and arthritis, detoxing, especially the liver, and with acne and scarring.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luffa

Today is the birthday of the poet Virgil who wrote the Aeneid. He was pretty famous, even in his own time, unlike the usual reception for poetry. The Ecologues, the Georgics and the Aeneid were studied in schools in the Roman Empire and unlike other writings of antiquity survived the Dark Ages. Virgil was viewed as a herald of Christianity, and a magus of some repute as well as a poet in the Middle Ages. He even became the psychopomp for the Divine Comedy! More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil

Love & Light,
Anja

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Today’s Astro & Calendar

The zodiacal light criss-crosses the Milky Way at Mount Bromo on October 10, 2013. – Zexsen Xie (Flickr)

The Moon’s absence from the morning sky this week provides observers with an excellent opportunity to view the zodiacal light. From the Northern Hemisphere, the time around the autumnal equinox (which occurred some three weeks ago) is the best for viewing the elusive glow before sunrise. It appears slightly fainter than the Milky Way, so you’ll need a clear moonless sky and an observing site located far from the city. Look for a cone-shaped glow that points nearly straight up from the eastern horizon shortly before morning twilight begins (around 5:30 a.m. local daylight time at mid-northern latitudes). The Moon remains out of the morning sky until October 23, when the waxing gibbous returns and overwhelms the much fainter zodiacal light.

Though the Big Dipper is one of the most recognizable patterns in the sky, it is not officially a constellation, but rather an asterism.- Luis Evangelista

The Big Dipper lies down horizontal low in the north-northwest late these evenings. How low? The farther south you are, the lower. Seen from 40° north (New York, Denver) even its bottom stars twinkle nearly ten degrees high. But at Miami (26° N) the entire Dipper skims along out of sight just below the northern horizon.

The Moon passing Saturn . . .

Saturn (magnitude +0.5, in Sagittarius) glows yellow in the south-southwest in late dusk. It’s about four fists at arm’s length to the lower right of Mars.

Sun in Libra
Moon in Capricorn
Venus (11/16), Neptune (11/24), Chiron (12/8), Juno (12/23), and Uranus (1/6/19) Retrograde
Color: Lavendar

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Gort – Ivy Ogam letter correspondences
Month: September
Color: Sky Blue
Class: Chieftain
Letter: G
Meaning: Take time to soul search or you will maake a wrong decision.

to study this month Uilleand – Honeysuckle Ogam letter correspondences
Month: None
Color: Yellow-white
Class: Peasant
Letter: P, PE, UI
Meaning: Proceed with caution.

******

Tides for Alsea Bay

*
Day        High      Tide Height   Sunrise    Moon Time      % Moon
~ /Low      Time    Feet Sunset Visible
M   15     High   6:12 AM     6.0   7:32 AM    Rise 2:05 PM      31
~ 15      Low 11:34 AM     3.6   6:32 PM     Set 11:24 PM
~ 15     High   5:16 PM     6.7

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Affirmation/Thought for the Day – May your day be filled with love and smiles through out your day. Allow the universe to fill your day with laughter and breaks of relaxing times to!

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Journal Prompt – What is your ? – What is your idea of a boring evening?

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Quotes

~ The part of the mind that is dark to us in this culture, that is sleeping in us, that we name ‘unconscious’, is the knowledge that we are inseparable from all other beings in the Universe. – Susan Griffin
~ Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. – Oliver Wendell Holmes
~ Enlightenment is not about imagining figures of light but of making the darkness conscious. – C.G. Jung
~ Do everything from a state of inner peace. – Jim Kitzmiller

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky. – William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

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Samhain Magick – Spells

Pumpkin Protection Spell – Categories: Spellwork
[Note: by Claudette Griffith (c) 2001-2004]

Scary faces carved into pumpkins were meant to protect, so you can guess where this is going. The easiest thing to do is simply concentrate on protection as you carve your pumpkin, if you would like, you can add carve protective seals instead of the traditional face. Protective herbs can be added to the inside of your pumpkin as well. If you are faced with immediate danger during the fall season try this spell.
Tools needed
1 large pumpkin
1 black candle
Dirt
Carving tools
paper
pen
Pumpkin Pattern book (optional)

Buy or harvest a large pumpkin, design a face of a dragon or any really scary face, as you carve see what ever is threatening you as being warded off by the beast that will become your pumpkin guardian.
When you have completed the pumpkin carving write the name of the person or thing that you fear and place it in the bottom of the pumpkin cover it with several handfuls of dirt.
Now take a black candle and inscribe on it the words “Banish All Evil” place it inside the pumpkin along with a generous amount of protective incense.
Light the candle and incense and watch as the pumpkin glows, soon the smoke from the incense will billow out of the pumpkin, as it does, envision the threat being surrounded by the smoke until it fades into it and blows away with the wind.

*Note~ keep seeds to add to any protection work in the coming year.

Saoirse, ruthee www.turningthewheel.org

Prosperity Pumpkins – Categories: Info – [Note: By Claudette Griffith copywrite 2001 (THANKS CLAUDETTE!!)

I’m a big fan of window boxes and this is one of the ways I use to encourage abundance in the fall. Once the frosts have killed off the plantings in my window boxes I place a board over them to serve as a platform to hold my prosperity pumpkins. Simply take several pumpkins of varying sizes from the garden and write on the bottom of them, words like “abundance”, “prosperity”, “comfort” or other things you would like to bring into your life, perhaps harmony or love. Place them on your platformed window box, along with colorful leaves and interesting twigs. Add nuts and perhaps dried corn to be enjoyed by local wildlife and you have a great display that can bring abundance to your life, In many areas of the country it can be colorful all the way through Thanksgiving and if not perhaps you can use the same ideas for a mantle or tabletop display. Your house will look great and your neighbors will be none the wiser! When that hard frost comes remove the pumpkins to the compost pile, Next spring don’t be surprised when the pumpkin vines begin to take over your compost!

Saoirse, ruthee www.turningthewheel.org

Harvest Knotwork – October 6th, 2007

Color of the day: Black – Incense of the day: Almond

Throughout the month of October, farmers worked hard to bring in the grain harvest during the good weather (and before the end of the year at Samhain). In Ireland, as part of the harvest celebration, small ornamental twists or knots of braided straw were created and worn as a sign that the harvest was completed. These were made throughout the harvest season, and were also worn at the “Harvest Home” supper. Women wore elaborately created knots with the grain ears still attached, and men wore simpler knots without the ears. Patterns for harvest knot-making are easy to find online. After soaking the straw, think about what prayers or magical work you would like to weave into the harvest knot. Repeat your charm or prayer as you make your magical autumn weaving.

By: Sharynne NicMhacha

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Silliness – Learn to be More Polite

One day, Bill and Tom went to a restaurant for dinner. As soon as the waiter took out two steaks, Bill quickly picked out the bigger steak for himself.
Tom wasn’t happy about that: “When are you going to learn to be polite?”
Bill: “If you had the chance to pick first, which one would you pick?”
Tom: “The smaller piece, of course.”
Bill: “What are you whining about then? The smaller piece is what you want, right?”

Posted in Daily Stuff | Tagged Affirmation, Astrology, Astronomy, Celtic Tree Month, Goddess Month, Journal Prompt, Learn to be More Polite, loofah, luffa, luffa acutangula, luffa aegyptica, Magick, Moon, moon phase, Oregon Coast, Pagan, Runic Half Month, Samhain, Samhain Spells, Silliness, The trees are in their autumn beauty, Tides, Today’s Feast, Today’s Plant, Virgil, Weather, Wicca

Daily Stuff 10-13-18 Lux Mundi

Posted on October 13, 2018 by Anja Snihova'

Hi, folks!

Featured photo by Ken Gagne. No Herbs Workshop today, but Sewing workshop at 3pm will go on as usual.

Beeeeeeyoutifullly sunny, and likely to get to 70F today! Right now it’s 55F and the wind at 4mph and the UV is down to three. There’s no rain in the forecast for 10 days out.

Yesterday I just didn’t feel well. At least part was likely how tired I was, but I just felt kinda sickish and draggy on top of that. Tempus was tired and cranky, too. We kept on putting things away, but he had to head to Newport for some errands, so that slowed things down.

I ended up doing writing and sorting out the astronomical info for the week.

Tempus ran in and back out to the bank. He was finally back and we could get to work and we spent several hours shoving things to where they need to go, but by then we were so wiped and hungry that we went to the Salty Dawg for fish and chips (*very* good!) and then crashed.

Today we’re up a touch early. There’s not going to be an Herbs workshop this morning, but Sewing will happen as usual for a Saturday. …and we’ll be open, doing more of the same.

Photo from 10/9/16 by Ken Gagne of the Yachats River, taken looking up the valley.

Today’s plant is Candy Flower, Claytonia siberica, also called Siberian Spring Beauty, Siberian Miner’s Lettuce or Pink Purslane is a flowering plant in the family Montiaceae, native to Siberia and western North America. A synonym is Montia sibirica. The plant was introduced into the United Kingdom by the 18th century where it has become very widespread. It is similar to Miner’s Lettuce in properties, but not as edible. – Feminine, Moon, Water, – Sprinkling it inside the home brings happiness, so it’s good in floor washes or new home blessings. Carry it with you for luck and to protect from violence. Put it into sleep pillows or add to a dream catcher to keep away nightmares. I’ve actually slipped it between the mattress and sheets for this purpose. This one is also a spirit-lifter.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claytonia_sibirica

Lux Mundi festival, ancient Rome – Lux Mundi literally means ‘the Light of the World’. This is also another name for France’s Liberty, whose day this also is. Liberty’s torch shines hope in the world. Her statue graces New York City’s harbour, her full name being Liberty Enlightening the World.
In Roman mythology, Liberty is Libertas, the goddess of freedom. Originally a deity of personal freedom, she evolved to become the goddess of the commonwealth. Her temples were found on the Aventine Hill and the Forum. She was depicted on many Roman coins as a female figure wearing a pileus (a felt cap, worn by slaves when they were set free), a wreath of laurels and a spear … from Pip Wilson’s Almanac.
In recent times the title of Lux Mundi has been taken on by Christians to mean Jesus rather than enlightenment, so many online references reflect this. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertas

Love & Light,
Anja

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Today’s Astro & Calendar

Waxing Moon Magick – The waxing moon is for constructive magick, such as love, wealth, success, courage, friendship, luck or healthy, protection, divination. Any working that needs extra power, such as help finding a new job or healings for serious conditions, can be done now. Also, love, knowledge, legal undertakings, money and dreams. Phase ends at the Tide Change on 10/24 at 9:45am. Diana’s Bow – On the 3^rd day after the new moon you can (weather permitting) see the tiny crescent in the sky, the New Moon holding the Old Moon in her arms. Begin on your goals for the next month. A good time for job interviews or starting a project. Take a concrete step! God/dess aspect: Daughter/Son/Innocence – Associated God/dess: Vesta, Horus. Phase ends on 10/13 at 8:47am. Waxing Crescent phase – Keywords for the Crescent phase are: expansion, growth, struggle, opportunity. It is the time in a cycle that you gather the wisdom learned in the new phase and communicate your intention to move forward. Light a candle. Write or read an affirmation. LISTEN & ABSORB. Commit to your goal. God/dess aspect: Maiden/Youth, energy and enthusiasm – Associated God/dess: Artemis & Apollo, Mayet/Djehuti, Freya/Frey. Phase ends at the Quarter on 10/16 at 11:02am.

The waxing crescent Moon returns to evening twilight sky, posing with Jupiter and then Saturn. (The visibility of the fainter objects in bright twilight is exaggerated here.)

The Moon hangs in the southwest after sunset. How early in the fading light can you spot Saturn, about 14° to the Moon’s left? Next, look for fainter, more difficult Antares about the same distance to the Moon’s lower right.
Vega is the brightest star very high in the west. After nightfall is complete, look to Vega’s right by 14° (nearly a fist and a half at arm’s length) for Eltanin, the nose of Draco the Dragon. The rest of Draco’s fainter, lozenge-shaped head is a little farther right. Draco always eyes Vega!
Uranus reaches opposition in just 10 days, and it is already a tempting evening target. The ice giant world rises during twilight and climbs 30° above the eastern horizon by 9:30 p.m. local daylight time. The magnitude 5.7 planet lies in the southwestern corner of Aries, 10° due south of the Ram’s second-brightest star, 3rd-magnitude Beta (β) Arietis. Although Uranus glows brightly enough to see with the naked eye under a dark sky, binoculars make the task much easier. A telescope reveals the planet’s blue-green disk, which spans 3.7″.
Venus is lost in the glare of the Sun.

Sun in Libra
Moon in Sagittarius
Venus (11/16), Neptune (11/24), Chiron (12/8), Juno (12/23), and Uranus (1/6/19) Retrograde
Color: Grey

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Gort – Ivy Ogam letter correspondences
Month: September
Color: Sky Blue
Class: Chieftain
Letter: G
Meaning: Take time to soul search or you will maake a wrong decision.

to study this month Uilleand – Honeysuckle Ogam letter correspondences
Month: None
Color: Yellow-white
Class: Peasant
Letter: P, PE, UI
Meaning: Proceed with caution.

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Tides for Alsea Bay

*
Day        High      Tide Height   Sunrise    Moon Time      % Moon
~ /Low      Time    Feet Sunset Visible
Sa 13     High   4:17 AM     6.7   7:29 AM    Rise 12:17 PM      14
~ 13      Low   9:52 AM     2.6   6:35 PM     Set 9:50 PM
~ 13     High   3:44 PM     7.6
~ 13      Low 10:41 PM     0.1

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Affirmation/Thought for the Day – Make this a sharp day!

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Journal Prompt – Wiki – What do you really like about where you live?

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Quotes

~ It’s important to be a go-getter. But it’s even more important to know what it is you want to go and get. – Gary Kallback
~ Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring forth a flower. – Shigenori Kameoka
~ Logic is a system whereby one may go wrong with confidence. – Charles K. Kettering
~ A diamond cannot be polished without friction nor man perfected without trials. – Kathryn Kuhlman

The hollow winds begin to blow,
The clouds look black, the glass is low;
The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep,
And spiders from their cobwebs peep. – Dr. Edward Jenner (1749–1823)

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Samhain Magick – Lore

Remembering to Love: A Tribute to My Grandfather… By Allanna Linville

I’m a Virgo with a Gemini moon and Sagittarius rising. I like to talk. I mean I REALLY like to talk! This astrological configuration makes me a little more outgoing than most Virginians, I’m told (I don’t see it myself; but when I try to explain, at heart, I’m basically shy, I get met with gales of hysterical laughter). I also have a restless, active brain that doesn’t lend itself easily to meditation (having ADD doesn’t help). So I’m in awe of those who can turn off those intrusive outer influences and just let meditation happen. Traditional meditation becomes a major chore for me, with the end result being, I don’t practice as I should…(Though writing is a cathartic process for me…I call it “my salvation”, because it’s rescued me from more than one depression. Who knows? Maybe this is how I meditate).

Now there’s a reason for this seemingly disjointed babbling. You have to understand this fact to understand how powerful this experience was for me.

Samhain is a time for remembering and honoring our ancestors. We acknowledge our shadow selves, review lessons learned and what remains to be learned, and like snakes, we shed old skins (life lessons learned) to make way for new growth. It’s also at this time, I realize how blessed I am.

Ritually speaking, it’s also one of the busiest times of the year, and this was the fourth open Samhain circle I’d attended. When the priestess instructed us to lie on the ground as she led the group in a guided meditation, I was skeptical. “I can’t DO that!” I thought. “My brain just won’t shut up long enough!” Nonetheless, I obeyed, figuring if I couldn’t meditate, I’d at least show respect for those who could by lying quietly.

I don’t know what happened that made me more receptive than usual that night. Goddess knows, in the ten years following this experience, I’ve never been able to replicate it, but as the priestess spoke, I found myself falling easily into her voice. My heart slowed, my restless mind grew calm, and suddenly I stood on a sandy river bank, a clump of tall trees behind me. I remember her saying the place each of us had gone to was different for us all. We were supposed to wait…an ancestor would meet us there, and he/she had a gift that only “…you can know the significance of…”

It seemed I waited by that river forever, uncertain of what or whom I was waiting for, when the silence was broken by boisterous singing of an almost forgotten–but much loved–voice from my childhood:

“Zippity doo-dah,
Zippity-ay!
My, oh, my,
What a wonderful day!
Plenty of sunshine
Headin’ my way!
Zippity doo-dah,
Zippity-ay!” (from the 1946 Walt Disney film “Song of the South,” composed by Allie Wrubel)

This had been my grandfather’s favorite song, and even as his mind clouded and infirmity claimed him, he could still be heard singing this song, humming or making up his own words to fill in forgotten passages. If we each have a song that defines us, the upbeat lyrics and cheery melody of this tune described him. You couldn’t remain a mope for long in his presence. In 1978, advanced age and failing health had silenced him.

But now before me was the unmistakable slim, grey, crew-cut figure of my paternal grandfather, Sam Linville. He grinned, took my hand and placed a small, hard, sharp, curved metal object wrapped in paper in my hand and closed my fingers over it. With a single word, “Remember,” he vanished. I unwrapped my gift: it was a fishhook. I knew at once its significance and smiled. My fondest memories of my grandfather are probably tied to a fishhook.

As a 4-year-old, I had idolized him. Every Saturday, my Granddad would grab his poles, tackle box, pack a lunch, and load me and the angling gear into his truck; and after a quick stop at the bait store for Night Crawlers, we’d drive to his favorite “fishin’ hole.” I don’t recall being a particularly good fisherman, or if I ever caught any fish. Come to think of it, I don’t even remember if I liked fishing. But that wasn’t the point. It was Saturday and this was our special time together. And there was nobody else like my Grandpa Sam!

My favorite fishing memory–in fact, my favorite memory EVER–of my grandfather, is when I was 6 years old; we were on the banks of the Illinois River, and I was wearing a new pair of sandals I loved. Like most kids that age I was careless, and I removed them at the river’s edge to go barefoot in the cool shallows and feel the sand between my toes….

It was such a happy moment. We had moved away from my grandparents the previous year, and our Saturday morning fishing ritual had been interrupted. But here we were again: me, enjoying the gritty wet sand squishing between my toes, as Grandpa busied himself baiting his hook with a combination of Night Crawlers and wet bread balls…(a kind of worm sandwich, which I guess is irresistible if you’re a fish). It was a glorious Spring day, and I was fishing with my grandpa. Could life get any sweeter?

But when we’re at our happiest, it seems, that life has to reminds us the importance of cherishing these moments; an unexpected curve in the form of a barge caused the tide to rise and swept my pretty white sandals into the river. Hearing my distressed cries, Granddad rushed to my side. Sobbing, all I could do was point to my sandals, rapidly floating away.

Reassuring me it would be alright he grabbed his rod & reel, waded into the river until he stood in hip-deep water, cast his line, and gingerly retrieved my sandals. At that moment, sunlight returned to my world and grandpa was my hero.

“Remember.”

Perhaps that’s what love is: when life is it’s most troubling, and everyone seems to have abandoned you, when you feel your loneliest, least loved and lovable, someone wades into the water for you. Perhaps love is the simple act of letting someone know they’ll never have to stand alone.

As the Wheel turns, and the old year winds down, and the New year approaches, I reflect on how much love in my life I have to be thankful for. I think of loved ones already passed to the Summerland, like Sam, my Dad, my consort, Ozzie, my beloved grandmothers…I think of how they filled my soul, shaped my heart, and changed my life, and I am thankful.

I think, of my fiancé, Michael, for whom the love I feel today is eclipsed with each sunrise, and my thankfulness is beyond my pitiful words to adequately express. When I think of how blessed, happy and magic my life is because he’s in it, I praise the Mighty Ones for creating this strong, incredible man and leading me to him. All my Heart Songs have a name now, and each one sings “Michael.”

I think of my beautiful mother, who taught me the meaning of courage, loyalty and integrity, that real love is limitless, and gives without asking, “What’s in it for me?” For her tender grace and selfless dedication to her family, I am thankful for this amazing woman, and my great fortune to have had her hand guide me. I have come to appreciate her most in recent years. Perhaps this is what they call “wisdom.”

For my younger brother, whom I adore, and as kids, alternately mothered and bullied, as big sisters often do (rank has its privileges, right?), whose quirky humor has so often rocked me with laughter my sides ached, tears rained down my face, and I needed a change of underwear, and I am thankful. Even as a boy, he was always willing to wade into the water for me and still does.

For friends that are and have yet to be, who weave their own unique, dazzling threads into the tapestry of my life and make it sing with color, I am thankful. You are the friends with whom I’ve cried and laughed, conspired and fought, and sat up whole nights feasting on cheap wine coolers, port wine cheese and generic Ritz-like crackers watching countless sunrises. You kept me grounded when I needed it, and flew beside me when dreams came true. I thank you for teaching me a sense of humor is the glue that holds us together when everything around us is falling apart. Your value is immeasurable. Thank you for the memories we’ve made and the adventures that lie ahead.

I raise the mead horn and invoke blessings upon all of you. May our parting words always be ones of love.

The world is always moving, always changing. Even when our journey ends, the world will keep on keepin’ on, and the best we can hope for is, the lives whom our lives touched were left better for the touching. The Rede instructs “harm none”–a worthy goal, but ultimately unrealistic. No one goes through life without doing harm sometime. However, we can at least strive to tread lightly, so when our lives intertwine with others, we cause no more pain than a brush with a butterfly’s wings.

One day, we all must pass through the Veil, like those before us. No avoiding it: the inescapable outcome of Life is Death. And yet, even Death is not final, for we are like flowers, blooming again and again. The journey is circular, with Life being triumphant in the end, and those we’ve loved once, we will likely choose to love again. But life often moves so fast, we forget the people and love that blesses it; we plan as though our bodies, and not our souls, are eternal, always meaning to say or do some little thing to show our loved ones what they mean to us. “I’ll do it tomorrow,” you promise, but somehow, tomorrow keeps becoming the next day and the next, until all the tomorrows run out. And it would have only taken a moment to remember…The present moment only is the only one we can be sure of. The promise of tomorrow may well be a broken one.

“Remember.” Remember now, while today is bright and her perfume still fills your lungs, while the taste is sweet upon your tongue. Remember the moments of regret when you cared more than you wanted, and the moments you thought your heart would break from being unable to contain all the happiness in it. Remember the dark times, so when the light returns, you’ll appreciate it all the more. Remember to rejoice in the dance that is life…remember to love…

Stop and remember love is the bread of the heart and the water from a bottomless well; when we feed others and allow them to drink from us, our own hunger and thirst is satisfied. Without Love to sustain us, life seems smaller…We seem smaller, withering from within.

It’s ten years since my grandfather came to me with a fishhook that opened a gate to so many memories and feelings I thought were lost. Even in death, he loved me. Even in death, he was telling me he would always be there to wade into the water for me.

And if I loved him, I’d be willing to do the same for others.

The most meaningful legacy we can give to someone is the love passed onto us by others. So for all who gave freely from your hearts to me, you’ve paid me your highest honor. I’m thankful for your awesome gift. May I always remember to let you know I love you. Love is my tribute to all of you…and my grandfather.

Namasté. – by Allanna Linville, aka Maré )O( 8/02/05
Submitted To GrannyMoon’s Morning Feast

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Silliness –

Posted in Daily Stuff, Newsletter, Pagan, Wiccan | Tagged Affirmation, Astrology, Astronomy, Candy Flower, Celtic Tree Month, Claytonia siberica, coffee, Goddess Month, Journal Prompt, Libertas, Lux Mundi, Lux Mundi festival, Magick, Montia sibirica, Moon, moon phase, Oregon Coast, Pagan, Pink Purslane, Runic Half Month, Samhain, Samhain Lore, Siberian Miner's Lettuce, Siberian Spring Beauty, Silliness, The hollow winds begin to blow, Tides, Today’s Feast, Today’s Plant, Weather, Wicca

Daily Stuff 10-12-18 Nikita Khrushchev

Posted on October 12, 2018 by Anja Snihova'

Hi, folks!

Last Minus Tide of the cycle at 9:54 PM of -0.3 feet. We’re opening a touch late, but we’re opening!

Bright sunshine! 58F, wind at 5mph, AQI 29, UV 3. The days are getting shorter by about 3 minutes per and it really shows. There’s no real chance of rain for 10 days out.

I had a heck of a time waking up yesterday. Tempus finally chased me in back to nap after we opened. I was groggy even later once I woke. He said that we had been busy. I know we were after I got up. …and we needed some help on the piano, just to get it off the cart…. but we couldn’t shift anything of the large stuff until that was done, much less the clutter.

I did some more of the ink bottles and got the mushrooms from the dehydrator and set up the other batch to do, then sat down with some embroidery for a bit. Tempus was scrubbing my plant shelves out front.

…and that feels so *weird* when the sunlight just blots out suddenly at the end of the day!

The piano got moved thanks to Nick (Chocolate Frog). It’s in place, now we just need to move everything *else*. <sigh> Not long after that got done I called Tempus to the door to see the lovely crescent Moon hanging in the western sky.

Tempus took off before 9pm for the paper route. He didn’t get the papers to start on the bulk drops until midnight, though. I did some work on files for the newsletter. The affirmations files needed more work. After that I worked on embroidery designs.

He picked me up at about 4:35. The run went pretty quickly and we were done at 6:45. The stars close to the horizon was scintillating madly and the zodiacal light was really plain.

Today, we’re not open yet. Tempus had to dump some things from the car into the shop last night and he’s trying to get them out of the way, now. It won’t be long…. …and then it’s more of the same.

Today is the anniversary of Nikita Khrushchev’s notorious “shoe-banging”. He got mad at someone (a Philippine diplomat?), yanked off his shoe, brandished it at the man and walloped the table in anger, possibly getting even madder because his pounding stopped his watch! More information on the incident here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-banging_incident and on Kruschev here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruschev

Today’s Plant is Lovage, levisticum officinale. It seems to have originated somewhere near the eastern Mediterranean and has been cultivated for a long while, being a very useful plant. It has a strong, long-lasting scent, that reminds a person of celery and parsley, but with the volume turned up. I harvested some one afternoon around 4pm and at nearly 9am the next morning, having washed my hands several times, I could still detect it! It’s great in salads, but chop it small and mix with other greens or it overpowers! Both leaf and seed are great in soups, especially seafood chowders and the roots can be eaten as a vegetable. I’ve drunk lovage cordial, which is tasty. It has a high flavonoid content, as well. Medicinally, a strong leaf tea, iced, is a good antiseptic, especially for extensive scrapes, where it takes down the sting and swelling very quickly and can be splashed on as often as needed. It can be used for mild cases of water retention, as well, and even with high blood pressure. – Masculine, Sun, Fire – This herb is often used in love magicks, but works best as a self-confidence enhancer. Take a bath with a sachet of the leaves, or make a strong tea that you toss into the bathwater before going out to meet new people or to start a new job. It also helps to squeeze a small sachet of the leaves if you’re having trouble concentrating on a task. Wiki has more:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovage

Love & Light,
Anja

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Today’s Astro & Calendar

The waxing crescent Moon returns to evening twilight sky, posing with Jupiter and then Saturn. The visibility of fainter objects in bright twilight is exaggerated here.

Looking lower left of the crescent Moon in twilight, can you spot orange Antares, as shown here? For North Americans it’s about 8° from the Moon, a little less than a fist at arm’s length. Off to the right of Antares shines brighter Jupiter.

Orion, Lepus

The night sky’s most conspicuous harbinger of winter now rises in the east around midnight local daylight time. The constellation Orion the Hunter appears on its side as it rises, with ruddy Betelgeuse to the left of the three-star belt and blue-white Rigel to the belt’s right. As Orion climbs higher before dawn, the figure rotates so that Betelgeuse lies at the upper left and Rigel at the lower right of the constellation pattern. (This is the way I see it on the paper route, these days….)
Saturn (magnitude +0.5, above the spout-tip of the Sagittarius Teapot) glows pale yellow in the south-southwest in late dusk, as shown at the top of this page. Get your telescope on it early before it sinks low. Saturn is three or four fists at arm’s length to the right or lower right of Mars.

Old Farmer’s Almanac Sky Map for October – https://www.almanac.com/content/sky-map-star-chart-october-2018
Goddess Month of Hathor runs from 10/3 – 10/30
Celtic Tree Month of Gort/Ivy Sep 30 – Oct 27
Runic half-month of Gebo/ Gyfu – Sept 28-Oct 12 – Gyfu represents the unity that a gift brings between the donor & recipient. It is a time of unification, both between members of society and between the human and divine. Nigel Pennick, The Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA, 1992, p. 102 Runic half-month of Wunjo/Wyn – October 13-28 – Wyn represents joy, the rune being the shape of a weather vane. The month represents the creation of harmony within the given conditions of the present.

Sun in Libra
Moon in Scorpio enters Sagittarius at 2:53am.
Venus (11/16), Neptune (11/24), Chiron (12/8), Juno (12/23), and Uranus (1/6/19) Retrograde
Color: Rose

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Gort – Ivy Ogam letter correspondences
Month: September
Color: Sky Blue
Class: Chieftain
Letter: G
Meaning: Take time to soul search or you will maake a wrong decision.

to study this month Uilleand – Honeysuckle Ogam letter correspondences
Month: None
Color: Yellow-white
Class: Peasant
Letter: P, PE, UI
Meaning: Proceed with caution.

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Tides for Alsea Bay

*
Day        High      Tide Height   Sunrise    Moon Time      % Moon
~ /Low      Time    Feet Sunset Visible
F   12     High   3:26 AM     7.1   7:28 AM    Rise 11:15 AM      8
~ 12      Low   9:11 AM     1.9   6:37 PM     Set 9:10 PM
~ 12     High   3:06 PM     8.1
~ 12      Low   9:54 PM    -0.3

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Affirmation/Thought for the Day – Meditation – The silence of the dawn, and how it speaks to you.

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Journal Prompt – What is your ? – What is your perfect weekend?

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Quotes

~ Forethought is better than afterthought. -Vatnsdæla Saga, c.40
~ Fear of failure must never be a reason not to try something. – Fred Smith
~ You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters. – St. Bernard
~ Patience is a bitter plant that produces sweet fruit. – Charles Swindoll, Clergyman and writer

O Suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October’s bright blue weather;

When loud the bumblebee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And goldenrod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant. – Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–85)

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Samhain Magick – Recipes

All Souls’ Day, or the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed

Celebrated much more in former days, on All Souls’ Day (the day following All Saints or All Hallows’ Day) people prayed for the souls of the dead, particularly those believed to be in Hell.

It was celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church which has set it aside for a service for the repose of the deceased. In England it used to be observed by the ringing of the soul bell, the eating of soul cakes (flat, round, spicy cakes), and the blessing of beans.

(A bell, the “passing bell” was also rung when a person was in extremis, to scare away evil spirits. [Similarly, the ancient Athenians used to beat on kettles at the moment of one’s death, to frighten away the Furies.] )

The English would distribute soul cakes to the poor who went a-souling at the church door. The poor would say:

Soul, soul, for soul cake,

Pray you, good mistress, a soul cake.

Papers called Soul-papers were given away with these cakes. They contained requests for prayers for the souls of the departed.

Soul Cakes

Ingredients:

Two sticks butter
3 and 3/4 cups sifted flour
1 cup fine white sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg or mace
1 teaspoon each, cinnamon, ginger, allspice
2 eggs
2 teaspoons malt vinegar (or cider vinegar)

Oven: 350 degrees; bake 20-25 minutes
Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender (or a large fork).
Blend in the sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and spice.
Mix to a stiff dough with the beaten eggs and vinegar.
Knead thoroughly and roll out, 1/4 inch thick.
Cut into 3-inch rounds and set on greased baking sheets.
Prick cakes with a fork and bake.
Sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar or spices – Written by Waverly Fitzgerald From GrannyMoon’s Morning Feast Archives

Remembrance Cookies – These cookies can be made on Hallow’s Eve. They can be shaped like people and the herb rosemary is added to the dough as a symbol of remembrance. Some of the cookies are eaten while telling stories or attributes of special ancestors, reminding us that we still have access to their strengths–or perhaps a predisposition to their weaknesses. The rest of the cookies are left outside by a bonfire as an offering. This can be a solemn ritual, but it need not be.

Ingredients

1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
1 c. butter or margarine (softened)
1 egg
2 t. vanilla
1 t. almond extract
2 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. cream of tartar
1 1/2 T. chopped rosemary

Directions

Heat oven 375 degrees.
In a large bowl, beat sugar, butter, egg, vanilla, almond extract, and rosemary until creamy.
In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Fold flour mixture into sugar mixture.
Beat until dough forms and refrigerate for three hours.
Divide dough into halves.
Roll out one portion to 3/16 of an inch on a floured surface.
Cut out with gingerbread women or men cutters and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Repeat rolling and cutting with second portion.
Bake for 5-7 minutes.

Thought Seed Crackers – From: http://thecupwa.blogspot.com/2010/10/samhain-celebration-recipes.html (site now inactive)

1 box family-favorite crackers
Butter/Margarine
melted Onion or garlic powder
Caraway, celery, poppy, and sesame seeds
Dillweed

Brush the crackers lightly with butter/margarine. Sprinkle lightly with onion or garlic powder and ever so sparingly with dillweed. Top with combination seed mix. Bake on an un-greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 5 minutes or until crisp and hot.

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Silliness – Inevitable Laws of Work – 20. People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn’t.

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