Hi, folks!
Minus Tide at 9:09 PM of -1.2 feet.
The shop opens at 1pm. Winter hours are 1pm-5pm Thursday through Monday (although we’re often here, later). Featured photo by Ken Gagne. I mixed up two days, so this is probably badly tagged.
It’s raining pretty hard at the moment. There are yellow blotches just west of us and I guess the thunder was from one of those. 47F, wind at 3-6mph and gusting, AQI 19-41, UV1. Chance of rain 90% today and 80% tonight. We’re under a SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY until 10am. The rain is likely to be heavy off and on all day, but then gradually calm down until was have some dry weather on Friday & Saturday. The rain will likely be heavy on Monday again. Plan on wet, iow, except for Friday and Saturday. 🙂
I was up and down all afternoon and evening. I tried to get up on time, but I was so sleepy, still. Well, I slept badly the night before. Losing my friend was a blow. So I was up and down napping and finally slept 4 hours during the evening. At that point I was finally awake. Tempus and I both nibbled on leftovers when I was awake. There’s still lots from the weekend. He had gotten up late, went out to pick up mail and pay a bill, paid some online and watched a bunch of videos.
I’ve read a little and embroidered a little. I’m hoping I can spend a little time doing chores and then maybe work on my Yule Kit. The first set of samples didn’t work quite right. I need to spend a little time tiny home hunting…. Goodness! at about 12:50 there was a flash and then thunder. Startled me out of a year’s growth!
Today we have a bunch of chores. There’s a lot of laundry this week, and we’re planning to go over to the shop in the late afternoon to deal with cardboard recycling and another plant that needs a pot, plus dishes and the table again. I’m on the last of the tomatoes, too. I think I’m going to run the dehydrator because the freezer is full.
Quoting Ken Gagne on 11/14/14, “The 3 Tenors were performing this afternoon at the Sea Lion Docks down at the Newport Bay Front and they gave quite a performance.”
Today’s plant is the Rhododendron genus, specifically the wild rhodys that we have out here, the Pacific rhododendron, Rhododendron macrophyllum. Rhodys have native forms in much of the world (not South America or Africa) They are one of the showiest of the flowers with hybrids and cultivars all over the place, including the azaleas which fall into this genus, but there are some that you wouldn’t recognize having almost no flowers at all! The plant is toxic to many animals and honey made from some of plants will make you ill. ,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhododendron Our rhodys out here are lovely during their bloom time, when you see a hit of pink here and there along highways and trails and in the woods and then within days drifts and swathes and whole hillsides are pink! It’s a hardy plant, which grows well in disturbed places, particularly areas that were burned over. It will re-grow from the scorched roots! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhododendron_macrophyllum – There aren’t any magickal references to rhododendrons that I’ve found, which doesn’t make any sense, since at least the cultivated ones are all over! Azaleas stand for Temperance in the language of flowers. Yellow rhododendron, native to Sibera, is use for rheumatism, gout and syphilis. My personal uses for them are for glamourie, beauty and outward show, but also for the learning to make these unnecessary by creating inward beauty and serenity. When these flowers are in season I use the fresh ones as a “notice me!” spell.
Feast of Ardvi Sura (Aredvi Sura Anahita), Mother of the Stars, ancient Persia – Approximately on this day was a festival in honour of the Persian and Armenian goddess Ardvi Sura (‘undefiled, immaculate, or mighty, blameless’), one of the names of Anahita, known as the Mother of the Stars, goddess of heavenly waters; Iranian version of Astarte/Ishtar. In the Christian tradition she is a cognate of Mary, Stella Maris. (Stella Maris means “Star of the Sea” i.e. the planet Venus.) I’ve often wondered if her name is the origin of the Wiccan Star Goddess. More and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aredvi_Sura_Anahita
The shop opens at 1pm. Winter hours are 1pm-5pm Thursday through Monday (although we’re often here, later). 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
******
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 11/30 at 1:30am. Diana’s Bow – On the 3rd 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 11/19 at 9:07am.
As the months pass, outer planets like Jupiter and Saturn move westward with respect to your landscape down toward the sunset. But as the days pass, the Moon in its faster orbit around Earth steps eastward, away from the evening sunset. This despite the fact that the Moon orbits Earth in the same direction that the planets (including Earth) orbit the Sun!
So why do they go opposite ways in your sky? This is left as an exercise for your correct visualization of the solar system and our place in it! Answer at the end of this page.
The waxing crescent Moon hangs out with Jupiter and Saturn this evening and tomorrow evening, as shown above. Or so it appears. The Moon is 1.3 light-seconds distant from us, but Jupiter is currently 46 light-minutes away and Saturn is 87 light-minutes distant. Meanwhile Altair (17 light-years away) shines high to the two planets’ upper right, about halfway up the sky just after dark: halfway from the horizon to the zenith. Altair is the bright eye of Aquila, the Eagle. Just upper right of Altair is 3rd-magnitude Tarazed. Down from there runs Aquila’s dim backbone, along the Milky Way if you have a dark enough sky. Most of the Milky Way’s glow comes from stars thousands of light-years away. This arrangement reminds me of another Summer Triangle bird, Cygnus the Swan, whose long neck and backbone also run along the Milky Way. Cygnus currently flies high to Aquila’s upper right.
The Helix Nebula in Hydrogen and Oxygen
Image Credit & Copyright: Andrew Campbell
Explanation: Is the Helix Nebula looking at you? No, not in any biological sense, but it does look quite like an eye. The Helix Nebula is so named because it also appears that you are looking down the axis of a helix. In actuality, it is now understood to have a surprisingly complex geometry, including radial filaments and extended outer loops. The Helix Nebula (aka NGC 7293) is one of brightest and closest examples of a planetary nebula, a gas cloud created at the end of the life of a Sun-like star. The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so energetic it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce. The featured picture, taken in the light emitted by oxygen (shown in blue) and hydrogen (shown in red), was created from 74 hours of exposure over three months from a small telescope in a backyard of suburban Melbourne, Australia. A close-up of the inner edge of the Helix Nebula shows complex gas knots of unknown origin. from https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190213.html
Dwarf planet 1 Ceres is gliding beneath the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293) in Aquarius this week. Tonight, you can spot the magnitude 8.7 world in binoculars or a small scope as it hovers just 1° south of this favorite deep-sky object, which glows at roughly magnitude 7. Wait until after moonset for the best views, but don’t wait too long — the pair will set around 11:30 P.M. local time. Despite the name, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. Instead, they are Sun-like stars in the last stages of their lives, puffing away the outer layers of their atmosphere as gauzy, glowing gas, while a compact white dwarf (once the star’s core) remains at the center of the nebula. The Helix stretches nearly three light-years across and lies about 650 light-years away, making it one of the closest such objects to Earth.
Jupiter and Saturn (magnitudes –2.1 and +0.6, respectively) tilt farther down in the west-southwest during and after twilight. Jupiter is the bright one; Saturn is to its upper left. Watch their separation shrink from 4° to 3¼° this week, from October 13th to 20th. They’ll pass 0.1° apart at conjunction on December 21st. Don’t expect much in a telescope; they’re both farther and smaller than they were last summer, and the low-altitude seeing will probably be poor.
Old Farmer’s Almanac October Sky Map – https://www.almanac.com/night-sky-october
Runic half month of Naudhiz/ Nyd /Nauthiz – November 13- 27 – Need-fire – Time to prepare for winter. Consciousness is the Necessity. “That which does not destroy me makes me stronger.” – Nietzsche.
Moon in Capricorn
Goddess Month of Cailleach/Samhain runs from 10/31 to 11/27
Celtic Tree Month of Ngetal/Reed Oct 28 – Nov 24 – nGéadal – (NYEH-dl)
Mars (11/13), Neptune (11/28), Chiron (12/12) Uranus (1/14/21) Retrograde
Color – Topaz
©2020 M. Bartlett, Some parts separately copyright
******
Celtic Tree Month of Ngetal/Reed Oct 28 – Nov 24 – nGéadal – (NYEH-dl), reed – The term “reed” is used with great imprecision in North America, but t is clear that the reed of the ogham is the common reed (Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steudel). This is a giant grass, with stems as high as 4 m (13 feet). It grows in marshy areas, where it often forms dense stands. Like most other grasses, the vertical stems live only a single year, dying in the autumn and being replaced with new green shoots in the spring. The dead stems rattle and whisper in late autumn winds. Common reed has spread as a weed throughout the world; in North America it is widespread in cooler climates. Common reed is in the Grass family (Poaceae, or Gramineae). “The Reed Month, is said by some to be most favorable for communication with ancestral spirits and the strengthening of all family ties, with magickal associations with fertility, love, protection, and family concerns. ‘Thin and slender is the Reed. He stands in clumps at the edge of the river and between his feet hides the swift pike awaiting an unsuspecting minnow to come his way. In his thinness the reed resembles arrows that fly, silver-tipped, up into the unknown air to land at the very source that one had searched for all these years. Firing arrows off into the unknown is an expression of the desire to search out basic truths. If you loose off without direction, the place of landing will be random. If the firing off is carried out with the correct conviction, determination and sense of purpose, then the act becomes secondary to the event that comes both before and after the moment.'” Source: Earth, Moon and Sky
Ngetal – Reed Ogam letter correspondences
Month: October
Color: Grass Green
Class: Shrub
Letter: NG
Meaning: Upsets or surprises
to study this month Mor – the Sea Ogam letter correspondences
Month: None
Color: Blue-green
Class: none
Letter: AE, X, XI, M
******
Tides for Alsea Bay
*
Day High Tide Height Sunrise Moon Time % Moon
~ /Low Time Feet Sunset Visible
W 18 High 2:55 AM 7.3 7:17 AM Rise 11:21 AM 9
~ 18 Low 8:13 AM 3.1 4:46 PM Set 8:05 PM
~ 18 High 1:59 PM 8.9
~ 18 Low 9:09 PM -1.2
******
Affirmation/Thought for the Day – Kindness is contagious.
******
Journal Prompt – What does this quote say to you? – A book is like a garden carried in a pocket. — Chinese proverb
******
Quotes
~ Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life. – Lawrence Kasdan
~ If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.” – Rabbi Harold Kushner
~ The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach–waiting for a gift from the sea. – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
~ One of the greatest joys known to man is to take a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge. – Robert Lynd
AUTUMN FLOWERS
THESE few pale autumn flowers,
How beautiful they are !
Than all that went before,
Than all the summer store,
How lovelier far !
And why ? They are the last !
The last ! the last ! the last !
O by that little word
How many thoughts are stirred
That whisper of the past !
Pale flowers ! pale perishing flowers !
Ye’re types of precious things ;
Types of those bitter moments,
That flit, like life’s enjoyments,
On rapid, rapid wings ;
Last hours with parting dear ones
(That Time the fastest spends),
Last tears in silence shed,
Last words half uttered,
Last looks of dying friends.
Who but would fain compress
A life into a day,
The last day spent with one
Who, ere the morrow’s sun,
Must leave us, and for aye ?
precious, precious moments !
Pale flowers ! ye’re types of those ;
The saddest, sweetest, dearest,
Because, like those, the nearest
To an eternal close.
Pale flowers ! pale perishing flowers !
I woo your gentle breath ;
1 leave the summer rose
For younger, blither brows ;
Tell me of change and death ! – MRS. CAROLINE ANN [BOWLES] SOUTHEY.
******
Holiday Magick – Take Your Own Family Holiday Portraits By Cindy Bailey
A reader asked for some more tips regarding taking your own family portraits.
May I suggest the following:
Even if you don’t have a digital camera, don’t be stingy with the number of shots you take. Professional photographers will use a whole roll of 24 or 36 on one subject. It’s really not that expensive, and you get the shot you want. Besides, you can send the ones that aren’t your favorites to friends and acquaintances in those frame-style Christmas cards that you can get at the dollar store. (Or make your own frames).
It’s a good idea to move your subject around; change the background, whatever, just in case there is something wrong that you aren’t noticing, like something stuck on the bottom of the baby’s shoe or something!
With babies and small children, keep snapping, even if they’re weeping or pouting or pulling one another’s hair! Some of my best shots have been of this spontaneous variety. The perfectly posed ones where everyone is smiling at the camera seem boring after that! (See attached photo of my niece. We had been bribing her with the lollypop she’s holding, but we couldn’t get it back from her at this point, so I just snapped away. Her mother and my parents–the baby’s grandparents–liked this one best of all!) This type of photo gets more precious with the passing years.
Also in this photo, notice that the oversized green ornament matches the background–grass. The green contrasts with the white outfit. The leopard skin makes you think of a green jungle. You get the idea. People don’t think of all these things when they look at the photo, but somehow they know the photo looks RIGHT.
Also notice that I got down on the baby’s level, which gives the photo more depth. The grass in front of her feet is in the foreground where it should be and the background is dark and somewhat out of focus.
Always step back and look at the background before you place the baby/dog/whoever in the setting. Sometimes there is an electric cord or plant that will look like it’s sticking up out of the person’s head or something. You will need to work really fast once you get your subject in place.
When creating your background, try to create layers so your photo will have depth. For example, in the photo that appeared on this site yesterday, I used a printed fabric, and then gathered the tulle and draped it like a curtain. You don’t have to buy new fabric, use what you have on hand, but even for a small baby you’ll need at least two yards of each kind. If you don’t want anything so fancy, maybe hang a piece of denim and attach a couple of raffia bows. Put the baby in little bib overalls with a bright red shirt and little hiking boots.
You can make your photos more meaningful if you place the baby’s favorite lovey or blankey or binkey (or the dog’s “mean kitty”toy) somewhere strategically in the portrait. Try to have your background match it. It will bring its own set of fond memories.
If you are sending the photo as a Christmas greeting, give your photo a title or caption or write a little rhyme about it. People just love that. For example, I dubbed the photo that was posted here yesterday as the “Snow Princess in the Desert” because she was holding a snowflake and she lives in Nevada.
Your great photos go to waste if you don’t display them prominently and appropriately. Regarding my niece’s photo, last year on her first Christmas, I had her sitting on white, star-studded tulle. I bought a large frame (for about $5) which was matted for an 8 x 10. I cut strips of the fabric and covered the mat with them, attaching it with glue stick. Her mother went wild over it!
Finally, keep the photo shoot in perspective and hang onto your sense of humor. In the years to come, you will be so glad you did.
To see the photos:
<http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf301396.tip.html>
<a href=”http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf301396.tip.html”>Click Here</a>
******
Silliness – End of the World Headlines
When the end of the world arrives how will the media report it?
USA Today: WE’RE DEAD
The Wall Street Journal: DOW JONES PLUMMETS AS WORLD ENDS
National Enquirer: JON AND KATE, TOGETHER AGAIN
Microsoft Systems Journal: APPLE LOSES MARKET SHARE
Victoria’s Secret Catalog: OUR FINAL SALE
Sports Illustrated: GAME OVER
Wired: THE LAST NEW THING
Rolling Stone: THE GRATEFUL DEAD REUNION TOUR
Readers Digest: ‘BYE
Discover Magazine: HOW WILL THE EXTINCTION OF ALL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT AFFECT THE WAY WE VIEW THE COSMOS?
Lady’s Home Journal: LOSE 10 LBS BY JUDGMENT DAY WITH OUR NEW “ARMAGEDDON” DIET!
America Online: SYSTEM TEMPORARILY DOWN. TRY CALLING BACK IN 15 MINUTES.
Inc. magazine: TEN WAYS YOU CAN PROFIT FROM THE APOCALYPSE
TIME magazine: RENEW YOUR SUBSCRIPTION FOR ETERNITY
******
Ancient Light's Daily Stuff 
You must be logged in to post a comment.