Hi, folks!
The shop is closed on Tue/Wed. Spring hours are 1-6pm Thurs.-Mon. Featured photo by girlinwaterphotography.
Pay attention today! Sunburn Danger is high! [posting at 6pm] Overcast. 57F, wind at 0-5mph. AQI 9-34, UV8. Chance of rain 8% today and 14% tonight. We might see a tiny bit of sun in the afternoon, but overcast, otherwise, today and tomorrow. Forecast – Today& Tomorrow(60/50) Thursday evening there’s a short chance of showers, about a tenth of an inch, right around 10pn . Fri/Sat(56/48) Cloudy until evening when the chance of showers shoots up around 1pm and lasts into midday on Sunday(52?/45) by which time we could see 3/4 of an inch. Mon-Thu(60/48) Dry and partly cloudy. 3 firespots, one of which is right outside of Alsea.
Monday night we turned in early after a light supper. By the time Tempus was up and out the door for the paper run I was back on the computer, writing. I think I’m catching up. He got in around 8am. I had been asleep for awhile by then, but I ended up waking at noon. That’s how I can tell I’ve had enough sleep. I wake on time.
I had some cold, unsugared or creamered coffee to sustain me, but ew…. He woke around 3pm, got us both some sandwiches and went out to work on a turn signal. I was still writing. Actually, by then I was working on a list of spice mixes that I’m compiling. (Eventually, it’ll be posted in Magick, probably after Litha). That’s what I’m planning on for holiday gifts this year, and I need to start collecting up the spices, while we don’t have too much of a financial pinch, which means over the summer, which means deciding what I want to do.
Those of you that have been in the Herbs Workshop know that spice mixes are pretty easy. Mostly, they’re grind and measure and mix and that’s it! There are some that are hard to find without additives or too much salt. Some of them have allergens that could endanger some of the family (peanuts/tree nuts/pepper…) Some of them just flat taste better if you do them yourself. …and that’s part of why I’m growing so much garlic. Not only do we eat a lot of it, I’m planning some for the spice mixes.
I actually found a “Chicken with 40 cloves of Garlic” recipe while I was working on the mix list. Sounds like something right up Tempus and my alley! Garlic that’s been long-cooked has a nutty flavor, along with the much milder garlic flavor.
I did have a meeting last night, but it was supposed to be short, not the longer ones that we usually have. It was bulk route night, so Tempus heads out early on those nights. I asked him to get the table set up for me to work. We’ll see what I can get done!
Today I don’t think we’re going to be sleeping in. At least, I’m not. I’d like to go to the Farmer’s Market, if I can and I need to be home for Herbs in the Garden at 3pm. Tempus is planning to pick up the circuit board pieces so’s to have them available for when we can afford the part.

Look what washed ashore! 5/23/19 Photo by Girl in Water Photography. Used with permission
Today’s Plant is Cittim Bark (Cascara), Rhamnus purshiana. It is a potent laxative and has been used for that for centuries. – Masculine, Saturn, Earth – Sprinkle an infusion of this around the home before legal proceedings, to help you win your case. It is used in money spells and worn in a brown cloth amulet will protect again evil influences and hexes. It can be sewn into a poppet to attract those influences away from you, but place this outside at night, especially. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascara_Sagrada
Today is both Towel Day, in honor of Douglas Adams Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Geek Pride Day, which is in honor of the first of the Star Wars movies, premiering on May 25, 1977. My Daddy and I were in the long line outside of the theater for that….
The shop is closed on Tuesday/Wednesday. Spring hours are 1-6pm Thurs.-Mon., although we’re often here later as the days get longer. Need something off hours? Give us a call at 541-563-7154 or Facebook message or email at anjasnihova@yahoo.com 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
Waning Moon Magick – From the Full Moon to the New is a time for study, meditation, and magic designed to banish harmful energies and habits, for ridding oneself of addictions, illness or negativity. Remember: what goes up must come down. Phase ends at the Tide Change on 5/30 at 4:30am. Waning Crescent Moon –Best time for beginning introspective magicks that are more long term (full year cycle) A good time for beginning knot magicks to “bind up” addictions and illness (finish just before the Tide Change of Dark to New) and “tying up loose ends” God/dess aspects – Demeter weeping for her Daughter, Mabon, Arachne Tyr. Phase ends on 5/25 at 4:30pm. Hecate’s Brooch – 3-5 days before New Moon – Best time for Releasing Rituals. It’s the last few days before the new moon, the time of Hecate’s Brooch. This is the time that if you’re going to throw something out, or sweep the floors, or take stuff to Good Will, do it! Rid yourself of negativity and work on the letting go process. Release the old, removing unwanted negative energies, addictions, or illness. Do physical and psychic cleansings. Good for wisdom & psychic ability. Goddess Aspect: Crone – Associated God/desses: Callieach, Banshee, Hecate, Baba Yaga, Ereshkigal, Thoth. Phase ends at the Dark on 5/20 at 4:30pm.

Night-glowing clouds – Astronomy contributor Stuart Atkinson caught this beautiful display of noctilucent clouds on July 8, 2018. – Stuart Atkinson
May kicks off noctilucent cloud (NLC) season, when these high-flying, night-glowing clouds appear for Northern Hemisphere observers. Although clouds are typically abhorred by observers, they can provide a beautiful, ethereal target in their own right — the right clouds, at least. NLC are not your usual puffy, opaque clouds. These are high-altitude (typically 50 miles [80 km] high) clouds that occur when ice crystals form around dust particles in the upper atmosphere. They most often appear for observers between latitudes of 55° and 70° north and glow because although the Sun has sunk below the horizon from your point of view, our star continues to illuminate these delicate clouds as they sit high overhead. So, rather than “normal” clouds, which appear dark, NLC appear bright white or silver, even at night. The best way to see NLC is to look north either late at night or early in the morning. NLC are unpredictable and ever changing, so you may want to check the sky multiple times over the course of a few hours. Fortunately, unlike many astronomical phenomena, NLC are easy to see with the naked eye, requiring no special equipment or planning. Plus, they’re stunning to photograph and can really add to your nightscape. Check out more tips for observing NLC here.

Vega and Epsilon Lyrae – On spring evenings, Vega is climbing higher in the northeastern sky. Look for bright Vega, then glance to the star’s lower left to view Epsilon Lyrae, the famous Double Double star. – Alison Klesman (via TheSkyX)
Vega dominates the east-northeast after dark with Lyra hanging from it: a small, almost-equilateral triangle with Vega forming its top corner, and a larger parallelogram hanging to the lower right from the triangle’s bottom. The bottom two stars of that parallelogram, Beta and Gamma Lyrae, are the two brightest stars of the pattern after Vega. Gamma is the one farthest from Vega. Most of the time these two are almost indistinguishable in brightness: Gamma is visual magnitude 3.25 and Beta is 3.4. But Beta is a famous eclipsing variable, one of the first discovered. If you take a look up at these two enough times, sooner or later you will catch Beta very obviously dimmer than Gamma, at its minimum brightness of mag 4.3. More often you’re likely to catch it somewhere in between, when the difference is apparent but not so striking. The components of Beta orbit each other every 13 days. The two stars are so close together relative to their sizes (both are B subgiants) that the gravity of one distorts the other into an ellipse. This adds to the system’s variability throughout its orbit. So do a stream and disk of semi-opaque gas, as the larger, less massive star sheds material onto the other — by about one solar mass every 50,000 years. As a result of this transfer, we see the orbital period of the pair increasing by about 19 seconds per year. On astronomical timescales the Beta Lyrae system is in a fast, brief transition period. A quarter million years from now it will be something quite different.
Uranus is buried in the eastern dawn.
Runic half-month of Inguz/Ing, 5/14-5/28 – Male consort of Nerthus, the Earth Mother, Ing is god of the hearth. This time of year expresses potential for abundant growth. Nigel Pennick, The Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA, 1992, p. 70. Runic Half-month of Othala/ Odal/Odel 5/29-6/13- The rune Odel signifies ancestral property, the homestead, and all those things that are “one’s own”.
Mercury (6/3), Pluto Retrograde (10/8)
Goddess Month of Hera runs from 5/16 – 6/12
Celtic Tree Month of Huath/Hawthorn, May 13 – Jun 9
Color – Brown
Harvest 5/25&6
©2022 M. Bartlett, Some parts separately copyright
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Celtic Tree Month of Huath/Hawthorn, May 13 – Jun 9 – I am fair among flowers – Color: Purple – Class: Peasant – Letter: H – Meaning: Being held back for a period of time – Hawthorn – Like willows, hawthorns have many species in Europe, and they are not always easy to tell apart. All are thorny shrubs in the Rose family (Rosaceae), and most have whitish or pinkish flowers. The common hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna Jacq.) and midland hawthorn (Crataegus laevigata (Poiret) DC.) are both widespread. They are common in abandoned fields and along the edges of forests. Both are cultivated in North America, as are several native and Asiatic hawthorns. Curtis Clark
Huathe – Hawthorne Ogam letter correspondences
Month: April
Color: Purple
Class: Peasant
Letter: H
Meaning: Being held back for a period of time
to study this month – Ur – Heather and Mistletoe Ogam letter correspondences
Month: None
Color: Purple
Class: Heather is Peasant; Mistletoe is Chieftain
Letter: U
Meaning: Healing and development on the spiritual level.
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Tides for Alsea Bay
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Day High Tide Height Sunrise Moon Time % Moon
~ /Low Time Feet Sunset Visible
W 25 Low 4:04 AM 1.3 5:39 AM Rise 3:39 AM 29
~ 25 High 9:47 AM 5.7 8:48 PM Set 4:06 PM
~ 25 Low 3:50 PM 1.1
~ 25 High 10:15 PM 7.4
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Affirmation/Thought for the Day – Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.
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Journal Prompt – What do you think? – Why do some people choose to dress differently?
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Quotes
~ First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. – Mohandas Gandhi
~ You can have all the intelligence in the world and don’t have enough stamina. I have seen some very bright, bright women who do not have the stamina for husbands. – Mother Charleszetta Waddles (1912-2001) US nun
~ The simplicities of natural laws arise through the complexities of the language we use for their expression.Eugene Wigner (1902-1995) Hungarian-born US physicist
~ Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans. – Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
When elm leaves are as big as a shilling,
Plant kidney beans, if to plant ’em you’re willing;
When elm leaves are as big as a penny,
You must plant kidney beans, if you mean to have any. – Old planting rhyme
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Litha Magick – Lore
Litha History – Celebrating the Summer Solstice
from http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/lithathesummersolstice/p/Litha_History.htm
An Ancient Solar Celebration
Nearly every agricultural society has marked the high point of summer in some way, shape or form. On this date – usually around June 21 or 22 – the sun reaches its zenith in the sky. It is the longest day of the year, and the point at which the sun seems to just hang there without moving – in fact, the word “solstice” is from the Latin word solstitium, which literally translates to “sun stands still.” The travels of the sun were marked and recorded. Stone circles such as Stonehenge were oriented to highlight the rising of the sun on the day of the summer solstice.
Traveling the Heavens
Although few primary sources are available detailing the practices of the ancient Celts, some information can be found in the chronicles kept by early Christian monks. Some of these writings, combined with surviving folklore, indicate that Midsummer was celebrated with hilltop bonfires and that it was a time to honor the space between earth and the heavens.
Fire and Water
In addition to the polarity between land and sky, Litha is a time to find a balance between fire and water. According to Ceisiwr Serith, in his book The Pagan Family, European traditions celebrated this time of year by setting large wheels on fire and then rolling them down a hill into a body of water. He suggests that this may be because this is when the sun is at its strongest yet also the day at which it begins to weaken. Another possibility is that the water mitigates the heat of the sun, and subordinating the sun wheel to water may prevent drought.
Saxon Traditions
When they arrived in the British Isles, the Saxon invaders brought with them the tradition of calling the month of June Aerra Litha. They marked Midsummer with huge bonfires that celebrated the power of the sun over darkness. For people in Scandinavian countries and in the farther reaches of the Northern hemisphere, Midsummer was very important. The nearly endless hours of light in June are a happy contrast to the constant darkness found six months later in the middle of winter.
Roman Festivals
The Romans, who had a festival for anything and everything, celebrated this time as sacred to Juno, the wife of Jupiter and goddess of women and childbirth. She is also called Juno Luna and blesses women with the privilege of menstruation. The month of June was named for her, and because Juno was the patroness of marriage, her month remains an ever-popular time for weddings. This time of year was also sacred to Vesta, goddess of the hearth. The matrons of Rome entered her temple on Midsummer and made offerings of salted meal for eight days, in hopes that she would confer her blessings upon their homes.
Midsummer for Modern Pagans
Litha has often been a source of contention among modern Pagan and Wiccan groups, because there’s always been a question about whether or not Midsummer was truly celebrated by the ancients. While there’s scholarly evidence to indicate that it was indeed observed, there were suggestions made by Gerald Gardner, the founder of modern Wicca, that the solar festivals (the solstices and equinoxes) were actually added later and imported from the Middle East. Regardless of the origins, many modern Wiccans and Pagans do choose to celebrate Litha every year in June.
In some traditions, Litha is a time at which there is a battle between light and dark. The Oak King is seen as the ruler of the year between winter solstice and summer solstice, and the Holly King from summer to winter. At each solstice they battle for power, and while the Oak King may be in charge of things at the beginning of June, by the end of Midsummer he is defeated by the Holly King.
This is a time of year of brightness and warmth. Crops are growing in their fields with the heat of the sun, but may require water to keep them alive. The power of the sun at Midsummer is at its most potent, and the earth is fertile with the bounty of growing life.
For contemporary Wiccans and Pagans, this is a day of inner power and brightness. Find yourself a quiet spot and meditate on the darkness and the light both in the world and in your personal life. Celebrate the turning of the Wheel of the Year with fire and water, night and day, and other symbols of the triumph of light over darkness.
Litha is a great time to celebrate outdoors if you have children. Take them swimming or just turn on the sprinkler to run through, and then have a bonfire or barbeque at the end of the day. Let them stay up late to say goodnight to the sun, and celebrate nightfall with sparklers, storytelling, and music. This is also an ideal Sabbat to do some love magic or celebrate a handfasting, since June is the month of marriages and family.
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Silliness – Sniglet – Any word which should be in the dictionary but isn’t. – wondracide (WUN druh side) – n. The act of murdering a piece of bread with a knife and cold butter.
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