Category Archives: Spring’s Rebellion

Changes

Merry meet all,

I have been busy recently. I worked in my garden! I am excited about that. I have started lots of seeds in the jiffy peat pots- 72 in total. I am hoping to soon grow herbs and veggies. I bought a peat pot tray that holds 72 peat pots in total. I watered the pots which expanded. That was so exciting to me. Then I filled each small damp peat pot with seeds. I then left the tray in the dark for a f ew days. But today I checked on them and I thought I saw mold. I left the tray on my counter and removed the lid. I now have two tiny seedlings!! I think it is two tiny elecampagne seedlings or of yellow mustard. I am so excited. 

I cleaned my garden and planted peas in a planter. I left the planter outside but I left leaves on the surface to shield the seeds from the cold and birds. Tomorrow I will check on the seeds. Peas like the cold temperatures but there was snow. The frost date is soon. I won’t set out any more plants until the frost passes on May 8. My perennials are growing! It is so good to see my garden again. I am cheered by my garden despite this insufferable lockdown. 

Another bit of news that has cheered me is that Teamworks has funded a copyediting course for me. This is awesome. There is no way it would have been possible for me to take the course if they hadn’t funded it. They are also buying me the book The Chicago Manual of Style. I am ordering the Associated Press Style book. I can’t expect them to pay for everything. I also ordered a dictionary that the instructor of the course will refer to. 

I can finally get a job doing copy editing for people after this. I am so happy to finally be out from under. I have also bought and downloaded Scrivener. I received the benefit from the government because of the pandemic (which to me is such a hoax). That is my opinion. I am excited to work on my novel using the renowned Scrivener. I bought a printer and an external hard drive. 

I guess I can’t call myself a luddite anymore. No more commutes to the library or to my evil mother’s place for printing jobs. No more watching disrespectful teens get arrested who never learned how to shut their mouths. I can print finally from my own home. I am in more control now. It feels very very good. 

It feels so good to have a printer, which I bought at Walmart. They sell printers at Staples but it is too expensive. So I am happier these days. I can print from home if I need to instead of riding the bus to the library. I can have a coffee here instead of paying $3 every time or nearly every time I go there. No more of the depending on others. A thing of the past. 

I am participating in a free live training to learn Scrivener tomorrow! I look forward to it. I hope you have all been healthy and well. I hope this weird as fuck lockdown is over soon. It denies us our basic human rights. 

I also have all the fabric pieces I need to finish making my cosplay pattern- the nightfell herbalist costume. I have everything I need but there are still big changes I have to make before I sew the sleeves and skirt on. I can handle it though. I have a new sewing machine. !!

Spring is good despite this infuriating lockdown.

Blessed Be, Spiderwitch 

 

 

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Filed under recipes, recipes and lore, sacred herbs, saving seeds, spring, Spring Equinox, Spring's arrival, Spring's Rebellion

Imbolc

Merry meet all,

Happy Imbolc! The first spring Sabbat is finally here! The snow still blankets the earth and the cold nip is in the air. But we are getting closer to spring. Now is the time to peruse seed catalogs. I am already dreaming of what I want to grow in my garden this summer. 

I attended a public ritual the other night. The Imbolc Ritual coincided with the Interfaith Harmony week. A Druid coven also attended the Ritual. I believed the Ritual to be very powerful and emotive. I wish I knew how to utter so fluently in other languages. That is something I just have to master. 

I plan to start plants from seed this week. I want to grow pumpkins (but seriously, wish me luck), tomatoes, cucumbers, dill, amaranth, popcorn (yes, you read that right), mustard seed, purple beans, purple coneflower. I still have seeds saved from last year. Oh this should be fun. I have soil and I need starter trays. My cat can’t get up on the counter. I plan to start my seeds there. The sun will give the starter seeds the light they need. I can’t wait to order mugwort, mandrake, and sage seeds and moonwort. I can’t wait to get them in the mail. I am just as eager to put  my plants out that I have overwintered, such as my ginger, geranium, catnip. I am still fussy about the seeds being natural, otherwise not coated in nasty chemicals. I try to get organic seeds and thankfully, Annapolis Seeds does carry organic seeds. I miss my garden so much. 

You can tell I am eager for spring to arrive. Imbolc brings out my creative side something fierce. I can’t help it. Brigid truly is one of my patron deities. I filled the feeder up with seed. The birds visit the feeder. I saved them from starvation. 

I hope you all have fun planning your garden and ordering seeds. Are any of you ordering witchy seeds? Let me know in the comments below. Happy Imbolc! Happy seed planting. 

 

Blessings, Spiderwitch

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A Poem for Spring

Merry Meet All,

Last night I attended an Open Heart Forgery poetry reading at Coburg Coffee House in Halifax. The reading was held there instead of its usual location at JustUs Coffeehouse on Spring Garden Road. The hours were different. My usual friends and fellow scribes were there.

I arrived late and sat down. Someone was in the midst of reading her poem. I settled in to enjoy the reading. I met some new people there. Athena, the daughter of the lady who helps run the Poetry Show was there. She is the cutest baby ever and likes to reach for anything within her grasp. I enjoy hearing the poetic efforts of my friends. There is magic in words.

Open Heart Forgery is a monthly journal of poems and lyrics that aims to energize local writers from the grass roots up. I enjoy attending the readings and reading new poems each month. The journal is published monthly and distributed around the city in different venues, such as libraries, on buses, and other places. The link to the website is: http://www.ohForgery.com. . The poetic journals are distributed for free.

By the end of the reading, people left and returned to their more mundane activities. I was surprised to be offered a ride home as well as my friends. We were spared the horrors of Metro Transit for that night at least. We all chatted on the ride home.

April is National Poetry Month. March, being the month that heralds in spring, means I had to write a poem. It is not in the monthly journal. I left my draft of my spring poem at home. But we can all find a way to share poems with each other and share in the magic of words. I am going to leave you with my poem that I composed last night before the reading.

Spring’s Rebellion

A gray ceiling hangs overhead
Frail leaves scrape on concrete
in the cold pale morning.

Tiger lily buds emerge from brown grass
and patches of snow. Hope stirs as
winter’s barren rule comes to an end.

Create poems! Let them grow and spring from the mud like buds and blossom into poems! April is National Poetry Month. You can write the poems in your Book of Shadows and ask that your chosen deity or Spirit guides you and inspires you. I am now making it my goal to compose poems in a journal rather than on scraps of paper so next time I am organized- and then have to share them with readers.

Blessed Be,
Lady Spiderwitch )O(

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Filed under fellow poets, National Poetry Month, Poems, poetry, spring, spring poems, Spring's Rebellion