New Moon (in Scorpio!) – Long Nights Moon Begins

Hey, kittens!
I technically started writing this during the “dark moon” (also in Scorpio) which is a good time to Release Old Habits/Patterns and otherwise let things go that aren’t meant to be or that aren’t serving or helping you to be your best, most you-like self. Which, if you go by the New Moon in Scorpio and #scorpionewmoon searches on twitter, is basically what New Moon (or anything at all, ever) in Scorpio is about anyway. So it works.
At least in theory.
 
How is it working out in practice?
Uh…
>.>
 
Yeah. So here’s a thing. Way early on in Scorpio Season, I said I thought that maybe, possibly, the secret truth that this season was starting to hit me with might actually have been a positive one.
I hope that I’m not just kidding myself about that.
I mean, I keep seeing all this stuff about getting grounded in your body and moving forward from that grounded place, choosing to choose your own growth and unlearning old, no-longer effective, pain responses, shedding our skin and stepping into new potential (PS, there’s a salt-scrub ritual cleansing at that link, glamour-babes), building new worldviews and letting the old ones go, that maybe what we thought was truth was really just assumption (and that link has lists of herbs, stones, and oils that are good to work with at this time, fyi). So, yeah. Maybe the Thing I need to Release and Let Go is the latest layer of “you are unlovable” garbage that’s clogging up my system.
Can’t hurt to try, right?
Right.
 
Which brings me to… look. I see all these folks (primarily on twitter…) doing lunar-phase-based healing rituals (like this series), tarot card meditations, and pretty actively working to rewire their own brains through the kind of witchy channels that let us tell more complex and fluid stories about ourselves than the ones we were handed when we were born.
And I love it.
And I do it… a little bit.
But not in a super regimented or consistent way. I think the closest I’ve got to that was doing my Queen Of Cups project, which included choosing a tarot card for each prompt that I did.
So. I guess I’m wondering: How does one do a meditation? Is it just “Oh, hey, I’m going to think about stuff on a theme?” or is there significantly more to it than that? I guess I’m sort of, like, can I use tarot meditations as a way of doing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and rewiring the pathways in my brain so that I’m better able to recognize my own worthiness, develop better shame-resilience, and from there, become better able to open myself up to good things in my life. (The gratitude section of the MAGIC thing I do at the end of these lunar cycles posts is part of this, btw).
 
On a related note: As-you-know-bob, I’ve been working through Miss Sugar’s Glamour Magic book and… I have no idea if this stuff is working or not?
People are definitely randomly giving me things (like, yesterday, I was gifted four purses and a mug), and I have my suspicions that they are some variation on the theme of Queer – possibly also Invisible Queer, which may be relevant? Or not?
Occasional people are asking to deepen their relationships with me – though this is more “hey, let’s talk shop and get to know each other, near-stranger” rather than “hey, let’s talk shop and ‘get to know each other’ if-you-know-what-I-mean, already-a-friend”.
But I have no idea if I’m getting queer-spotted more frequently, if I’m getting anything like the Family Discount… none of that stuff.
One… interesting… thing that happened was, on a day when I was storming home, utterly furious and very focused about A Thing, a random lady outside the (big, gay) coffee shop told me “you look nice”.
I… don’t know what to make of that.
I mean, I’m fairly confident that she didn’t mean “nice” like “You’re a really sweet person” (which is the impression I’ve consistently made on at least one other person, and which I admit I’ve been cultivating for some time) but… “nice”? I was in full-on Scorpio Vengeance Mode.
…This is that “black swan, let your power show” business, isn’t it?

 
Anyway. I have (alas) a kitchen to clean and (hurrah) hummus and other goodies to make before I head out dancing tonight, so off I go. 🙂
 
~*~
 
Movement: Going dancing this evening! 😀 😀 😀 Hauled 16lbs of groceries home on one shoulder today and probably could have managed another four pounds before things started getting unweildy. (Should have brought a second bag for balance – which would have allowed me to choose the 10lb bag of carrots, oh well – but still!)
 
Attention: The calling of crows. The state of the veggies in my fridge. Whether or not there’s ice on the sidewalks in the mornings. Whether or not there are jobs I can apply for at places I actually want to work (Hint: Yes. Need to get my latest application in). Places and situations where My Stuff is getting in the way or being Part Of The Problem.
 
Gratitude: A hella-full pantry with enough food to share, and enough food to last. Friends who give me presents, bring over apple pie, reality check me, and otherwise make me feel seen and looked after. A wife who misses me. Early-morning cuddles. Time to knit and catch-up with friends. Novels I can re-read again and again. Candle light. The impending visit of my queer aunties + my cousin for the weekend. Hot, running water right out of the tap. Apple pie. Baby queers, and getting to watch them grow into their brilliant selves. ❤
 
Inspiration: Astrology. For real. I’m trying to write poems that touch on what different astrological events (like New Moon in Scorpio) and identities (like “Venus in Sagittarius[1]” or “Mars in Leo[2]”) mean, indicate, or look like under whatever circumstances.
 
Creation: Knit all the things. No, my Safety Shawl isn’t done yet, but all of my various projects are just a little bit further along, so there’s that. I also managed to write another poem, so hurrah!
 

Silver-white sliver of a barely-waxing crescent moon against a dark blue background that may or may not be sky.
Image by Ed Dunens (New Moon) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

 
[1] Prone to long distance relationships. Which… Is, like, the only part of that combination that actually applies to me, even though my Venus is in Sag. o.O
 
[2] Wants to be the best lover, bit of a performer, enjoys Power Dynamics, gets annoyed when people won’t say what they want. Uhm… Hi. >.>

I’m Almost Forty – A (not so) “Productive Home” Post

If you’re wondering why I picked that title, it’s because I’m turning 38 this Tuesday. Now You Know.
 
Anyway.
Erica, over at NWedible, is doing a Productive Home Weekly Report thing, and has invited people to chime in with their own productivity reports.
I’m… not totally fussed about tracking productivity. It feels a bit like giving myself a performance review. BUT, if I think of it as an opportunity to brag about the awesome-fun-cool stuff I’ve been doing/planting/harvesting/cooking/baking/canning/fermenting/etc chez moi that I’m really excited about… it gets a whole lot easier.
So here we go.
 
As you may have noticed (or not) I haven’t done one of these since, oh, mid-July. I haven’t been hugely productive on the home-front in the intervening almost-four months.
I put my kefir grains in the fridge, in a pint jar of cream, to slow them down because I finally admitted to myself that I don’t love my home-made dairy kefir and, while it’s good when it’s thick enough to use as a sour-cream substitute in baking, it’s mostly a lot runnier and I just wasn’t going through a litre of the stuff every 4-7 days so… I’ve put it into hibernation mode and am hoping that the slower pace will let me keep feeding it (rather than letting it get over-fermented, moldy, or infested with fruit-flies… all of which have happened over the past summer) without getting “overwhelmed”.
I haven’t made bread (or much other baking) from scratch in a long time, either. I think I made cookies a couple of times, and that’s about it.
I… oh, heaven and earth, I think it’s actually snowing outside. O.O
 
Okay.
So you wanna know what I have done?
I pulled in as many green tomatoes as I could swing (a couple of weeks ago, when frost started threatening), and TODAY I dug up my jerusalem artichokes (as’kebwan’), which are now sitting in a full (if small-sized – ~2 gallons) recycling bin on my kitchen counter, waiting to be washed, blanched and frozen (that’s tomorrow’s job).
 
I put up something like 2 dozen pints of crushed tomatoes (Labour Day weekend, or there-abouts). Made choke-cherry curd, choke-cherry relish, and goblin fruit jam (also heavy on the choke cherries, big surprise).
 
I packed all the Supplies from Unholy Harvest into rubbermaid bins (which my wife then moved to the basement – hurrah, I have my main floor back and it feels so good), which was a good thing because our basement got 5″ of water in it during a big rainstorm earlier this week. (It’s fine. It’s a concrete floor on top of limestone, so the water just seeps in, no sewer contamination involved, thank goodness. And my lovely wife got the sump pump running in short order, so everything’s dried out pretty well).
 
I spent a canning day with a friend in Gatineau, making strawberry-rhubarb jam (last weekend, or maybe the weekend before?) while also pressure-canning eight pints of chick peas (my first time using a pressure canner, and I suspect I’m hooked. Looking into a membership at the Ottawa Tool Library so I can borrow the one they have on the shelves and do this multiple times per year).
 
I started a couple of new knitting projects this week as well. The first is a “safety shawl” (neon pink and pale turquoise stripes, the turquoise is going to have glow-in-the-dark beads looped into it) for walking after dark in Winter. The goal is to speedy-knit this using big needles and twisted (double-wrapped) stitches, so that I can have it done before next New Moon. The second is a cotton tank top. Which starts out looking like a really skinny cotton scarf and gets built upon from there. That one’s not the priority project, but I’m still excited about it.
 
Beyond that? Lighting my altars, making offerings at Samhain (and finally freaking switching the wreath on my door to “autumn leaves” instead of “tulips and lilacs”…), working on glamour magic stuff, getting a bit back into the swing of doing Fabulous Friday Dinners. Checking in with a lot of people. Re-homing furniture and small appliances to people setting up new places. Having breakfast with my mom. All sorts of stuff.
 
Anyway. My lovely wife is home, so it’s time to throw some dinner (left-over braised chicken thighs with root veggies, dried cranberries, and garden kale) in the oven to heat up, so off I go. 🙂
 
 
– TTFN,
– Meliad the Birch Maiden.

Full Moon – Frost Moon Crests (Samhain)

Tonight, the full moon is in Taurus – aptly I think) my wife and I are going to have a cozy evening at home, making and mending stuff with the altars lit. My birthday is next week. I’m about to turn 38.
It’s funny (or not). The thing about Scorpio Season is that it’s deep-dive time, it the period where you dredge up stuff that you’ve been hiding from yourself or avoiding looking at and… I always expect that Stuff to be Bad. Stuff that has to be fixed or purged or navigated or mitigated or solved.
I don’t expect it to be something good.
And yet.
Here I am, and the messages I’ve been getting since the sun moved into Scorpio a couple of weeks ago… they’ve all been stuff like “Oh, hey, did we mention that you’re worthy?” or “Maybe it’s actually okay for you to want things, and not just things that you know other people want you to want. Did you consider that?” or “There are actually people in this world who will want to give you the things you want to receive, and who will want to offer you the things you want to access”.
Which is amazing.
And I’m kind of going, like, okay but… what’s the catch. Because there’s gotta be a catch.
And probably there is one.
Like, I’ll have to Let Go of an unhealthy thing that’s part of my core identity (likely), or something like that.
Urgh.
Which is hard, even when the thing you’re letting go of suuuuucks and is bad for you.
Still, it’s nice to think think that maybe the Big Secret I’ve been keeping from myself is actually a positive one. 🙂
 
Samhain came and went. We lit up the altars, made offerings of white wine and Sortilege (and chocolate). We even had NINE trick-or-treaters (which is unheard of in our chunk of the neighbourhood). It made me really happy to ask the kids about their costumes, a lot of-which were cobbled together rather than bought off the rack, which was kind of awesome. (Best one was the zombie-apocalypse survivor in the air filter mask). 🙂
 
In less-woo news: I used a pressure-canner for the first time last weekend! I got to hang out with Lovely People and put up some food that I would normally buy already-in-cans! (We also made strawberry-rhubarb jam with a bit of apple and grated ginger thrown in). I’m excited. Turns out there’s a pressure-canner at the Ottawa Tool Library, too! Am serioulsy considering the benefits of pressure-canning bone stock, long-soaking beans, and maybe curried pumpkin soup (with red lentils, garlic, amaranth, dairy cream or coconut milk, and bone stock – meaning you can make it from field/jack-o-lantern pumpkins as well as pie pumpkins) a couple of times per year. I know that having pints of stock on hand last winter was incredibly helpful when it came to throwing together 20-minute easy meals (AKA: lentil soup, french-onion soup, and other things ending in”soup” that didn’t take a lot of creativity to make happen), but having litres of stock on hand and shelf-stable means a lot more space in the fridge, without losing the fast-and-flexible, bio-accessible goodness that is bone stock. (I’m a bit of a fan).
 
The weather’s cooling down (appropriately, given that we’re in Root Time now), and it’s nice to be cooking slow-braised meals again. I’ve got chicken thighs and late-harvest veggies (potatoes, carrots, kale, onions, garlic) roasting in my iron pot in the oven. I think I’ll maybe bake some apples along-side them in a pie plate for dessert.
I’m starting to work on heavier knitting projects again, too. Still finishing up my second stocking-extension (which I’ve been doing for most of the past year. >.>) but I’ve started up a bulkier, warmer (ish) piece as well, and I’m looking forward to putting some hours in on that one.
 
All in all, November’s kicking off pretty nicely so far. Here’s hoping it continues in this vein. 🙂
 
~*~
 
Movement: Lots of walking the past two weeks, plus one night out dancing. I’ve got some garden-digging to do in the next 48 hours (weather permitting) to get as’kebwan’/sunchokes in, and that will be… tiring, but good for my arms. 😉
 
Attention: Heh. I’m paying attention to who’s flirting with me, tbh. I second-guess it a lot, but it’s still nice to think people (plural) actually are. 😉
 
Gratitude: Friends who trust me and talk to me when they’re having a hard time. Friends who listen to me when I’m flailing. Friends who bring me food. My lovey, snugly wife who’s been waking up happen this past little while and who makes me breakfast and keeps my leather in good shape. Hardy garden greens still offering up mountains of kale and chard (and sage, and dandelions, and winter savoury, and sorrel) even as the temperature drops. Neighbours who are completely chill about my messy, open-air compost heap. Shop keepers who are patient with my crappy French and ask me what I’m knitting. Schools who call me looking for last-minute (and not-so-last-minute) models, and folks who want me to come in and cover their reception desks more often than expected. Young people who are happy to talk poetry, magic, bdsm, and other fun stuff with me. A relationship with my mom that has vastly improved over the past 10 years. People who blush ever so slightly when they talk to me. Useful poetry critiques on works-in-progress. Easy access to low-scent shampoo (on sale, no less!) and cute treats like violet lipstick and neon pink yarn in my price-range. Having my house back (Harvest Stuff returned to the basement, and held-furniture sent off to its various new homes!) and my dining table accessible again! Witchy femmes (always). ❤
 
Inspiration: Friends who knit. Friends who preserve food in various ways. Poets. Young people full of enthusiasm and wonder. ❤ (Old people full of enthusiasm and wonder, too, though I don't get to see that as often). The nights that are getting longer and coming earlier.
 
Creation: I’m making a Safety Shawl for my next(started this morning) knitting project. Neon pink for brightness and pale turquoise for reflective-throw (if I can find shiny plastic beads or a big spool of reflective-tape ribbon, I will incorporate those as well), because if I’m going to be working in an industrial park this winter (which… is a maybe at this point, rather than a definite) I want some high-visibility thing I can wear so that I don’t get hit by a car while shivering my way to the bus stop. Doing twisted stitches and using thick (ish) yarn so I can get this big blanket-scarf of a thing made by the next New Moon (coming at us juuuust before Sagittarius Season kicks off). Also re-jigging a poem and telling stories with my tarot decks. It’s a good time. 🙂