New Moon – Leaf Moon Begins; Beltane 2017

New Moon in Taurus was on Wednesday. Beautiful green things are leafing out all over. The hyacinths are blooming, even in my shady AF front yard. My wife’s Dog Harness contract is over-over-over (beyond doing some management stuff, which is fine and won’t take too much of her time) and she is back to doing actual LEATHER work at her workshop. Chani is telling us all about how New Moon in Taurus brings love and solid commitment to accomplishing good things, how Venus (which is finally stationed direct, and which rules Taurus) is being a little more gentle with her lessons while still effortlessly getting thing done as she moves through compassionate Pisces. The HoodWitch informs us that this particular New Moon touches on, well, a whole lot of stuff that’s in my personal “Oh, gods, do I really have to deal with this???” house – money, work, emotional patterns based on security – all that Job Stuff, not to mention the “too cautious to move, too incautious not to leap” stuff that’s been asking me to find a behvioural happy medium that will actually let me get stuff don – like body, sensuality, home-and-family STUFF – without a lot of hand waving and/or skipping over (or right back into) my own shit in the process. The HoodWitch horoscopes for this week are ringing a lot of bells, on that front, too. Handily, she has some lovely, appropriately sensual, simple rituals to help me (or you, for that matter) focus intentions and, frankly, put a call out for help or support on dealing with my Feeeeelings And Stuff around these subjects & situations.
On an only somewhat related note, Ariel, over at Siobhan’s Mirror, has handed me a tarotscope that’s all about recognizing that wishes can, and have, come true. The tarot reading I gave myself at New Moon said much the same, with the Nine of Cups featuring prominently and a heap of signs pointing to All That Struggle being behind me (well, mostly – my Present includes the 3 of swords crossed with the High Priestess, which suggests I’m still Processing) and the need for me to realize that, rather than all this good stuff I’m starting to step into being just “wishful thinking” and me kidding myself, I’m actually shifting towards the more playful, well-boundaried, pleasure-achieving open-heartedness that I’ve been striving for with regards to my Queen Of Cups project.
All of which is fantastic news. I mean, seriously. LOOK at this:
 

 
Beltane (today) dawned rainy, grey and cold. Which is pretty par for the course, in these parts, even if we were having gorgeous, gorgeous super-warm weather earlier in the week.
I’m home today. Planting sorrel and collards. Doing multiple loads of dishes. Vacuuming. Baking bread. Baking a lot of things, actually, mostly to use up the kefir in the fridge and make room for the next batch. >.>
We hung the ancestor photos (all but two – we ran out of screws) – FINALLY – over the weekend, and I’m feeling a whole lot better about that whole situation.
 
New Moon plus the Year Gate swinging into Spring and towards the rapidly approaching Summer (that’s Ottawa – Three weeks between grey-and-mud-and-near-freezing-temperatures and flowers-and-flipflops-and-30-degree-highs), no wonder things feel like new beginnings.
 
What do I want to call into my life? Well, as Miss Sugar puts it, Butter, A Dress, and Travel.
Maybe, more accurately, I should say that I’m feeling hopeful on the heart front and, while there are still things to be sorted out, I don’t think I’m in the metaphorical dark woods anymore. I’m in the sparsely treed borderlands, at worst. (I reeeeeeeeeally hope I’m not wrong on that). But I’ve still got Scarcity Brain eating at me and, frankly, I’m thirty-seven. I would like my middle-age to look less like Catfood For Dinner Is A Real Possibility and more like… more like Wife and I (and anyone else we end up living with, because polyamoury) are both bringing in enough money, doing flexibly-scheduled, preferably part-time work, ideally in a creative field, that we each like and are good at, that we can cover our expenses, have an RRSP or two, go on an actual Vacation now and then, and share some of that cash with other people who are doing art and activism that we like and care about. I would like my old age (which feels a whole lot closer now than it did ten years ago) to be comfortable and gentle, rather than impoverished and stressed out.
 
Keep Calm and Carry Green Garnets in Your Wallet, I guess?
 
 
~*~
 
Motion: Went swimming yesterday (mostly this involved sitting in a hot tub, but there was some treading water in the deep end of the pool as well). Enjoying how easy it is to walk places these days, too! There’s a day-dance coming up in just under a week, which I’m looking forward to. Raking out the garden and doing lots of bending and digging in a friend’s flower beds, the other day, has left me with slightly stronger thighs (and also sore feet).
 
Attention: Paying attention to my boundaries, to the sprouts sprouting in my garden (some are wanted, some are most-like not, but I’m not sure what everything is yet, so…), to friends going through hard times, to my Feelings around money/employment and how I tend to see “wealth” (fiancial) and “abundance” (everything else) as two distinct categories that don’t have a lot of overlap and maaaaaaay be mutually exclusive (I gotta fix, that, you guys… it is not helping me out right now). Also throwing some more attention at The Novel.
 
Gratitude: Thankful for rain, for getting the ancestor photos hung, for lots of frozen veggies still in the freezer, for finding out (how did I not know this already?) that my wife actually LIKES tinned cream of mushroom soup! (Who knew?) For romantic canoodling. For people who want to hear my thoughts. For time to sit in a hot tub and relaaaaaaaaax. For flowers coming up in the front yard, and the slow spreading of my ground-cover plants. For a quiet week. For repeat clients calling and booking again. For kind friends who help me out with stuff I don’t know how to fix myself (take that however you want to).
 
Inspiration: Queer Femme Witches, and Queer Witches more generally, Everywhere. ❤ Spending time with other writerly chicks, nattering over plot-fixing and character development. Reading Black Wave (Michelle Tea) and Nevada (Imogen Binnie) and trying to learn how to make a self-absorbed character who doesn’t have her shit together likeable, or at least relateable, or failing that, enough of a train-wreck to be interesting. >.>
 
Creation: I continue to slog away at The Novel, as mentioned above. Trying to sort out how the hell the climax will work (which involves sorting out what the book is Actually About). Poking at the poetry of other femmes, choosing poems to gloss, and lines to build new poetry from. ❤