Cape Cod Vacation , part 2: Provincetown

Well, as promised, here's some pics from the day I spent in and around P-town. It really was so much fun. We were there during the day, so we didn't get to see all the lovely queens, but it was a nice different vibe. I always like roaming around that little town!

Cape Cod Vacation , part 1

I went to Truro, MA on Cape Cod last week for quick escape for a few days to recharge my soul batteries. The beach always helps me to unwind. The Cape is one of my favorite places in New England! It takes me about four hours to drive there, but worth it every time! As you know I love to take pictures, and had so much fun prowling around for new ones! The first day there, I went to the Wellfleet Wildlife Sanctuary with some friends. We walked the nature trails, through the pines and out to the shore. We watched the herons and osprey flying over the salt marsh. It was just beautiful! Here's some pics from that little adventure.
Tomorrow ~P-Town !

Different type of World Clock

This is fascinating and horrible, all at the same time!

I think it's important to share this world clock. Send it to your friends, or have them come here and look at it.

Knowledge is power, and nothing is written in stone. We CAN make changes in this world so that, over time, these stats will be better.

I just wanted you to see this....

http://www.peterrussell.dreamhosters.com/Odds/WorldClock.php

EarthPath Artisans Grows Again!!!!!

I wanted to let you all know that the "little" Etsy street team I started this past Spring has grown by leaps and bounds! We went from just a few members, to more than 50 shops! Since we have grown so much, I thought you might want to take a look. I have at least ten more shops to add this week, so check back to our team page periodically and see who's new!

You can find a listing of all the members of EarthPath Artisans here,

http://team.etsy.com/profilest/east.shtml

You can also search Etsy with the tag, EAST. That will pull up items by team members, even if they aren't official yet. It takes time to get everyone on the official list, even though I send requests for updating our page twice a month.

Happy shopping, Everyone!

Gemstar Road Trip!

Yesterday, Tim & I went on a little road trip up to Enfield, NH to visit Gemstar Gemstone & Bead shop. It's about 100 miles north of our house. We took all these little back roads to there and back. We were driving thru a region of New Hampshire full of little lakes and small mountains. It was just beautiful!

Gemstar Gemstone is known all throughout New England as THE place to go to get quality beads and findings at rock bottom prices. Years ago, I used to make and sell Pearl and gemstone jewelry, and that was where I would go for most of my beads. Gemstar also sells rocks and crystals. Really big rocks and crystals! Walking thru the yard is an instant attitude adjustment!
Here I am with Amethyst and Citrine cathedrals

I wanted to share some photos of Gemstar. Once I got inside the little shop, I completely forgot to get any pictures of all the beads and stuff. There are bins and strands hanging everywhere! It's so much fun!

Here's Tim with Selenite Logs!

Their website seems to be under construction, but here's the info:
Gemstar Gemstone Company
427 Shaker Blvd
Enfield,NH 03748
603-632-7115

Flowers for My Birthday

I celebrated my birthday today with a visit to a place in S. Newfane,Vermont called Olallie DayLily Farm. It's the kind of place where the grass has no biting ants, the dirt is cool, and I can actually walk barefoot. This is a big deal to me because I almost never go barefoot anymore. Too many years of issues with my feet have left me uncomfortable exposing my tender toes. Not so at the Daylily farm. I was able to get REALLY grounded and centered, as I walked thru the grassy aisles.

The eye candy here is incredible. The family that runs this farm hybridizes their own lilies. They maintain their own test gardens, too. I signed up to be notified when a beautiful pale lemony stunner will be available~ in 1 or 2 years! i will wait, it's worth it! Oh, and I picked a pint of delicious organic blueberries while I was there. Yum!!!I wanted to share the photos from the farm with you.






After we got done there, we went into Brattleboro for double shot iced lattes at Mocha Joes, then to dinner in Turners Falls at this fabulous Italian ristorante'. I had a four-course meal there to rival any big-city place. The sauteed seasonal veggies on a bed of risotto with Gorgonzola was sublime!Dessert was a gluten-free flourless bittersweet chocolate mousse bomb. A brandy later, and I was feeling very...spoiled!

Lammas Crafts

Wow! It's almost August 1st! That is the day that the ancient Celts marked the First Harvest of the fields. This day is a sabbat called Lammas, celebrated by Pagans around the world. Of course, the first harvest has been celebrated by the earliest civilizations who planted grains, dating back to the Sumerians.

There are some traditional crafts and offerings that you can make for this sabbat.

~Baking bread is probably the original offering made, as it is one of the oldest skills of civilization. Ancient breads were unleavened, with the addition of yeast to the process coming much later in history, probably in Egypt. The process of harvesting and grinding the grains is representative of the Death of the God, or if corn, the Corn King. It is wise to include some freshly sprouted wheat in the bread recipe. This would be the resurrection of the God. If you bake bread, carve a pentacle in the top before baking with your athame.

~Making a corn dolly is another craft that represents the growth of the grains and the life that they offer thru the hard Winter ahead. The dolly represents the Mother Goddess, or in the Celtic traditions, Bride or Bridget. You just take the corn stalks leaves and weave them into the representation of a woman's shape. Mine see to all look like the traditional woman wearing a dress shape. Well, sometimes they just look like a blob of cornstalks tied together! I then put this on my house altar.

~Weaving onion (and garlic) braids are also good crafts for this sabbat. Onions are multipurpose, in that they store well for Winter food, and they can be charged to help as a charm of protection for your home. If used for this purpose, they can be hung anywhere, although if you do this ,I wouldn't eat them. Onions absorb negativity, including that from illness. The diagram below is from Wheel of the Year, by Pauline Campanelli.

These are just a couple of things you can do to help celebrate Lammas! Of course, all the harvesting you do can be done with a feeling of gratitude and the thanks to the Gods & Goddesses that you follow. I used to have a very large vegetable and herb garden. I know that when I was done with my canning, freezing, and drying, I felt safer in the knowledge that I had food in the pantry to get me thru the Winter. for the sabbat, I used to bake bread with some seeds from the garden plants such as dill, included in it. This helped make the offering more personal, since I didn't grind the flour myself.

Blessed Lammas!

Extraordinary!

I just wanted to take a minute and say

Thank You

to all my friends!!!
I have an extraordinary community of people surrounding me. Truly! I would never imagined that I could have so many dear friends who love and support me.

I feel that I am very much being held by my community in REAL life, and my virtual community on ETSY.It's a strange thing to feel so cared for by people I have never met. But that's exactly how I feel. In the year that I have been selling on ETSY, I have made some incredible friends. These folks are the real deal. Someday, I will meet some of them face to face, and that will be a sweet day, indeed!

I appreciate all the phone calls and visits from local friends more than you can know! I have been just getting from point A to point B, and the encouragement from you keeps moving me forward.
Mom is doing well, and should be home from the hospital in a couple of days. It's great that she lives so close to me (only ½ mile). Tim is also feeling much better and went back to work last week. Me? Well, I'm hanging in there~with a little help from my friends!
Goddess Bless you all!
Love,
tracyw

Blue Jay

The other night, my husband was heading to the back yard, when I heard him call me to come look at something. There in the weeds, was a blue jay nestling fluttering across the yard and thru the bushes. It had most of it's feathers and should have been able to fly by this time. Unfortunately, it seems that both it's legs were hurt. It couldn't stand up. The wings worked fine, but it could only rest on it's body, on the ground. It couldn't get enough lift to fly.

We watched it for awhile to see if the parents were going to feed it, but they never showed up. It was getting dark and I knew if it stayed outside, it would become the feature in a "food chain event". I'm usually one to let Nature take it's course, but I wasn't sure, at that point, what was wrong with the bird, so I just couldn't leave it in the yard like that. I wanted to see how badly it was injured, and if it looked like nursing it back to health was an option.

I captured it by tossing a towel over it, then did an examination. The blue jay didn't have any wounds on it, nor did it legs look damaged. The problem was that it's feet were curled up and the toes wouldn't open beyond a grasping position. It couldn't stand up at all. The poor thing had some sort of nerve damage to it's feet.
In light of the fact that this little bird would never stand up or fly, and that it's parents had stopped feeding it, I knew it wasn't long for this world.

I tried to give it some food, and a little water, which mostly consisted of the jay trying to bite me. I kept it overnight in my cat carrier, laying out a old t-shirt for comfort. The jay settled down and seemed to rest. At least this way, it wouldn't have the horror or being stalked and attacked at night. In the morning, it seemed more rested. I tried to feed it again, and then put it in the shade near the garden. The family of jays was very curious about the little one on the ground, but wouldn't go near it. For the next few hours, the young jay fluttered around on the ground, trying to get up into a laurel bush, and then resting, worn out. As the day progressed, the jay got weaker and spent more time lying on it's side. In the early afternoon, I went to check on the jay, and it had passed away. I was sorry to see this happen, but at least it died quietly. I kept a few feathers to remind me of this little determined bird, and buried it under some leaves in the woods behind the house.


So many people think of blue jays as being noisy,nasty, marauding birds. If you have the chance to view one very close up, or with binoculars, you will see how very beautiful they are!

Getting it with the Tarot

Tarot cards give clues as to how things MAY work out, what to watch for, and what the general direction is for where your life may be heading. They are warnings and indicators, and you can use that information to change how you move thru current situations. I rarely have full readings done by others for me anymore. I like to get them done, but only when there is a pressing need. On Sunday, a friend of mine did a card reading for me. We were taking a break from fishing, and he offered to do a reading. I'd been after him for a few years to do this, but he lives quite far from me, and I don't see him very often.

Kenny reads the traditional Celtic cross spread, which consists of ten cards. he then lays down clarifying cards on those. After that, he did another ten card spread, using my original significator and a couple of other cards as the base.
Generally, my readings are pretty hopeful affairs, with some of the "nicer" major arcana cards, an Ace or two, and usually indicating times of renewal and strength ahead. Not so with this reading. I can't say that I'm too surprised. With all the medical crap happening with me and members of my immediate family, I expected some of the more serious cards to come up. Although, as sometimes happens in readings, the things you think you want to know about aren't what you need to be looking at. for instance, this reading really wasn't about health issues at all.


My reading featured Queen of Cups (my significator card), Pages crossing me (messsengers-I wonder who/what that will be?), a woman- the Queen of Swords that will shake things up, the Tower in my immediate past, and the Nine of Swords(Grief) in my immediate future.



After that, there will be a trip that is borne of necessity, not pleasure. Money will be extremely tight, although I have been told that we won't lose the house (WTF? We pay all our bills every month and aren't behind at all).
One card I never have in a reading is the Chariot. This came up twice, in the same position-the Outcome. This means that depending on which path I choose, I can greatly affect the outcome of the entire situation. The other card that came up in the Outcome position was the Fool. I will have to go forward with my "decision", about my situation (whatever is coming?) and trust that I'm right, even though others may not agree. There were two good cards that came up, both in the Friends and community position. The World and the Three of Cups, both showing incredible support from my friends. I know how lucky I am in that respect. I have amazing friends and community support! Good to know this won't change!


So, what does this mean to me?
~Well, I need to really start walking my talk with my self-care. I'm on the right path treating my Multiple Sclerosis naturally and holistically. I just need to keep on doing it. So many times, I start a protocol only to have it lapse in a few days.

~I also need to TRUST that the Goddess will take me where I need to go in my life. I have a bit of a conditional relationship with the Lady. It's been working so far, but apparently won't be tolerated anymore. I need to stop all pretense, and just give it all up to Her. Can you say FEAR?! Ack!!!! I thought I was doing pretty well with this, but I guess not. Living one day at a time is the way to go. Let go of preconceived notions about what I need/want, and just see where things go. I really suck at that. I need goals and plans, or I just feel like I'm drifting.

and as to what I physically can do?
~I think I'll do a Transformation & Pattern Release Ritual at the fire pit, to let go of those ideas I have about the way things should be. Not that I really want to. Things like my health, our home(and how that will eventually be remodeled), my Priestess work (which needs to be done a whole lot more often), and my place in my little corner of world.
~I can take my vitamins and eat more healthily every day. This has always been so challenging for me.
~I need to get back to my daily/weekly spiritual practices. I haven't been doing this in soooo long! I also need to get back to doing observances of the Moons, and seasonal things a bit more than I currently am.....


I think that's enough for now! I get tired just thinking about it. I'm hoping that these things will sustain me during the tough times ahead. I'm counting on it!
If I play my cards right(literally), I can influence the outcome layed out by the reading. I hope so

Happy silly thoughts

Things here have been kind of hard lately. I just need some happy, silly thoughts and images to cheer me up. I thought you might enjoy these, too!

Summer is here!

Summer is here, and in our house that means one thing~ Little Miss Midnight gets her annual shave! She is a little, tiny cat (6.2lbs) with allot of long fur. She doesn't groom much and will run at the sight of a brush. Someone, somewhere, hurt her with one before I ever got her from the rescue nine years ago. Anyway, I just thought you'd like to see her new "do".

Just to be fair,I thought that I would share a picture of my other kid, Snowball, my obsessive kitty. If she's not on me at all times, then life just sucks and she'll tell you all about it! She also snores~loudly!

They are two very "special" kitties, but I can't imagine life here without them!

Solstice!

Solstice blessings to you today!

It's a beautiful, sunny day here at the lake! A perfect day for honoring the Summer Solstice!

One of the ways I like to celebrate the Solstice is to re-do my altar with all manner of gold, red and yellow items. I also try to make a little wreath or paper sun, or some sort of item representing the solar disc to hang. After this is charged, I might take it outside and hang it up in a tree in the woods behind my house. You can even use a Celtic equal-armed cross symbol. Adding real sunflowers to the altar is especially nice!

Some of the natural correspondences for the Summer Solstice are:

• Plants~ Roses, jasmine, hibiscus and tropical flowering plants
• Animals~ Jaguar, doves, peahens
• Minerals~ Malachite, emeralds, sapphires, turquoise, amazonite

This is a wonderful day to do healing work and rituals. This is the longest day of the year, so you may find it easier to bring illumination to those issues you would like to address. If it isn't raining later (forecasted), I think that I will also have a small fire in the firepit in the back yard. I might do some scrying in the fire, my preferred method of scrying. I've never been able to do it with mirrors or water.

Have a wonderful Solstice wherever you are!

Coffee Altar

Some of you already know this, by my beverage of choice is Coffee!!!!!!!!!!!
My husband is more addicted than I am. We buy whole freshly roasted beans from Dean's Beans, right here in our little town. After almost eight years together, and being the proper Pagans that we are, we've ended up with a Coffee altar on our fridge, dedicated to the Great Good Goddess, Caffeina. It consists of labels from some great coffee we have been gifted with over the years. It's got bumper stickers and and magnets, and all manner of things. It's actually more extensive now than when this pic was taken, but you can get the general idea.

I just thought that I would share this this weird little part of my home with you. :0)

enjoy!