A very pale zucchini laid out on a wooden cutting board. The first zucchini I harvested from my garden, but not the last!
Strictly speaking, I’ve been harvesting zucchini for a month now, although “for a month now” means “my garden has successfully produced two zucchini, and that is all”. However, since I (might) have another zuke on the way, and since my butternut squashes have just started opening their fruiting flowers (fingers crossed that the bees work their magic and the squirrels and other four-legged neighbours leave them alone once they’ve started developing into fruit), I’m going with “squash moon” for this one, though “grape moon” or “wine-making moon” would also be appropriate.
Speaking of wine-making: Having tried the rhubarb wine… something has definitely gone off. There’s a weird under/after taste of corn, of all things, and I think I’ll probably be chucking the whole (1L and a bit, so not a huge loss) batch into the compost heap because, while it doesn’t have any weird effects to it, it doesn’t taste all that great. Still, a good effort, and something that I’ll likely try again later on (maybe in November, provided I remember to put a solid heap of rhubarb in the freezer before then).
I did make a five-pint batch of rhubarb curd, which will make us a number of very delicious pies over the course of the winter (five for sure, up to ten if I freeze enough diced rhubarb to do a mix). My wife and I took a day-trip last weekend to the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum and, while we were there, we hit up a bunch of antique shops and I found myself an acceptably-priced food mill that lets me mash up cooked rhubarb (or, say, choke cherries) without having to deal with the rhubarb fibers or the cherry pits or what-have-you. So my curd is substantially smoother than previous years thanks to this little gizmo. Behold!
Close-up of five unlabeled pint jars of rhubarb curd (three in front, two behind). The curd is smooth and has a very faint greenish tinge to it, though it mostly looks beige.
Alstrologically speaking, Saturn has just stationed direct last Thursday after spending about five months in retrograde, the New Moon (like the Sun) is in Virgo, and Venus just moved into Scorpio today.
Liz Worth suggests setting your New Moon intentions to “invite in the rewards for a labour of love, or to cleanse your calendar of any extraneous commitments that you’ve realized are only holding you back from your true raison d’être“. She also offers the following spread (I used the Silicon Dawn deck to pull the cards) to connect with Virgo’s new moon energy:
1. What lesson am I ready to put to use? – Black Galaxy Rose
The lesson of infinite potential. If the white galaxy rose is the out-breath after the intensity, the pause between one burst and the next, the black galaxy rose is infinite potential, the calm before the storm, and the in-breath before the song.
Not sure how this works as a lesson, though the clarification card I pulled was the Queen of Air – someone with good boundaries, who’s learned from her experiences and wants you to have, and do, the same – meaning, perhaps, that the lesson in question is this business that I’ve been trying to get my head around for more than a year now. Maybe it’s time to put some of that theory (back) into practice. Maybe that’s the coming song.
2. Where am I still caught in the weeds? – Four of Air
A card of “strategic retreat”, this is overwhelmingly a card about rest and recuperation. As a “caught in the weeds” situation, though, I would say that maybe I’ve been focusing so much on “stability” and “creating a secure base”, and even on “questioning my motivation”, that I’m avoiding looking at a bigger picture, avoiding dreaming a bigger dream than just “don’t fall apart” and “don’t fuck it up”.
3. What can I focus on instead? – Six of Earth
The six of earth has, for a long time, been my “check in” card. It’s a card about the risks (and rewards) that come with trusting other people, particularly with your physical well being. (Cassandra Snow has a really good write-up on Queering the Six of Pentacles that digs nicely into this idea). I think this relates, on some level, to what I was talking about, yesterday, with regards to the necessary vulnerability of explicitly naming my desires (ha, see #2 above) where relevant people can hear me doing so.
4. What reward can I create for myself as a result? – Four of Water
This isn’t a card I would have expected as a “reward” card, unless the reward in question is “permission to be selfish”, to internalize that I have permission to ask for the experiences, care, and pleasure that I want and will really enjoy.
Which, I grant you, is indeed a goal of mine that I’d like to actually accomplish.
Alrighty then.
With that in mind, I can’t help but look at the tarotscope Ashley did for Scorpio over at Radical Tarot, asking us to “feel into our joy”, to be in the moment (rather than, oh, say, catastrophizing about how The Moment could all go the hell if I put a foot wrong… just to pick an example completely and totally at random), and to decide what Virgo Season’s themes of safety, connection, community, and stability look like for each of us as individuals. (It does not escape my notice that the card I tend to associate with polyamoury – the three of cups – is featured in this spread… though we’ll see whether that turns out to be significant or not as time moves along).
By the time this moon is full, we’ll have tipped past the Autumn equinox and right into the Season of the Witch, when the veil starts getting thinner and the ancestors can be heard a little more clearly, even for a concrete bunker like me. 😉
Right now, though, we’re in the tail end of summer. Chilly mornings calling for layers and hot afternoons calling the bees out for another forage amid the asters, phlox, and the squash blossoms.
If I were to set an intention for this new moon, this waxing moon, I would ask my gods and ancestors: “Help me to be brave”.
Princess (Page) of Swords – Tarot of the Silicon Dawn – A person with antenae sprouting from her forehead, a red flower in her long, piled up, blond hair, and a yellow butterfly painted across her eyes, examines a knife, fingering the point. She’s wearing a long, flowing skirt (that might be wings) and a yellow crop top.
The card I pulled – literally by just flipping the deck over and seeing what looked up at me – for today’s meditation fits really well with that intention.
The write-up by Egypt Urnash depicts this character as someone who is desperately lonely and afraid of letting anyone get close. That’s not exactly my situation, but it’s a flip-side of it. I’m more of a “get super close, and super bonded, super fast… and then hide all the bits of myself that I think might get me rejected” kind of gal. (Thanks, anxious-preoccupied attachment style. That’s super-great…)
She’s so much more than she knows she is. […] She’s the only thing that holds herself back from flying.
Let me be brave.
Let me expose what I’ve kept hidden.
Let me keep trying.
Let me remember how to fly.
~*~
Movement: I’m working in an office right now, so a lot of my movement – aside from walking my commute and running errands on foot – has been remembering to get up and move around regularly so that my left hip doesn’t freeze up. There will also be some yard work (in someone else’s yard) coming up shortly.
Attention: I’ve been watching my butternut (and buttercup) squash vines particularly vigilantly, hoping for pollenated flowers and visits from bees. I’ve also been reading up on attachment theory (again) and self-compassion, as well as watching how my anxiety acts up and what it takes to calm it back down.
Gratitude: Grateful for an easy, restful weekend with my wife, for new library books, for thirteen hours of very needed sleep. Grateful for corn on the cob from my metamour, for leather boots and cool, sunny weather. For coffee and french toast in the morning. For wine on the back steps in the evening. For finding new Harvesters. For people who get me and appreciate my words. For free concerts I can walk to. For seven days of paid work. For the possibility of being hired by a fellow queer to do some flexible-hours transcription (fingers crossed that her funding comes in). For a coffee date with myself. For the chance to flirt with a friend. For a date night with my wife, walking arm in arm and holding hands across the table. For nights that are cool enough to justify the extra blanket and a lot of snuggling. For knowing that I’m loved. ❤
Inspiration: Other people’s writing. This past week, it’s been N.K. Jemisin’s amazing world-building, character-creation, and plot-resolution in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Creation: I wrote another poem and have added a few more thousand words to my novel manuscript! Go me!
Urban Meliad 