Tag Archives: brandy

The Mystery of Death )O(

Merry meet all,

I am happy to post the link for my interview here. I was very happy to be interviewed about my writing. A. F Stewart was a total sweetheart. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/WjfJRyGVrg8?si=aqHrGpHU6PZn6w3v.  

The month of August flew by. This morning, I heard thunder. No lightning, but lots of rain, typical of the Maritimes. I never bought a garden hose this summer. There has been so much rain I never needed to. Soon pumpkins will fill the crates and line the shelves at the supermarkets. I was on a walk at the nature trail. There is an abundance of queen Anne’s lace and goldenrod on the trail. I decided I would make a flower essence with the queen Anne’s lace and tincture the goldenrod. I also plan to brew a second bottle of hawthorn cordial. Queen Anne’s lace is mildly poisonous. The only safe way to ingest it is as a flower essence. You have to dilute it. I will buy a large bottle of vodka and brandy next week to make the tincture and cordials and flower essences. I plan to forage and harvest a lot of dandelion roots too. I still have a jar of dandelion roots in a jar. I shall use that up in a tincture. Autumn is the perfect time for that. 

I want to watch the movie The Last Voyage of the Demeter again. I’m reading Stephen Graham Jones’s novel My Heart is a Chainsaw. Bit boring, really. I am not that scared. I saw the movie Disturbing Behaviour on Tube last night. Now that was creepy. It’s like Stepford kids, not wives. Wow. I mean the theme was obviously the pressure of conformity taken to a real extreme. Holy shit.  

Mabon is coming up. I love Mabon! I mean like I seriously love Mabon. It is next in the eternal spinning on the Wheel of the Year. And we know what comes after that! Samhain. Mabon is the second harvest Sabbat. Mabon is magical and bewitching. Samhain is magical but it is far more intense. I love the intensity of Samhain. But I want to talk about spirits. Mabon and Samhain are perfect times to conjure up spirits- no demons. The energy in the air, the fallen leaves and that oh so good dark feeling in the air. I’m still having my bonfire. They can’t stop me and probably won’t even notice it. 

I love to watch Slapped Ham on YouTube. Some of the creepy spooky paranormal events that are shared there are genuine. Some of it is fake. I love the paranormal occurrences that are real. It lends to my questions and theories about the paranormal. I have to wonder why and I know I am not the only one who wonders: why so much spirit activity lately? I know that ghost hauntings were made popular due to the show Ghost Adventures. It is happening so much. I have to wonder why. I am sure there is a reason but it is hard to just go up to a spirit and ask them why they are haunting us so much. And coming back from the dead equipped with all the answers is hard too. We will never know and so are left with questions and theories. This is partly why I am attending the first ever Paranormal Symposium. I have the same questions that so many other people have. I want to know why there are so many cases of hauntings now. Someone on Twitter asked the same questions I have: Why are there so many negative manifestations? I commented that there is so much evil in the world: violence, drugs, crime, war, poverty. I could go on and on. They are feeding off of it. 

If you google the word paranormal, you come up with 200,00 hits. Here’s a link on an article about the paranormal in Canada: https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/paranormal-problems-on-canada-s-east-coast-are-investigated-in-ami-tv-s-new-series-sight-seers-886992543.html.

Here is a listing of paranormal documentaries: https://movieweb.com/paranormal-documentaries-that-will-haunt-you/

I think that something big is coming. I don’t necessarily mean the end of days, because that is extreme, but ghosts, demons and hauntings are becoming commonplace. I know we have ways to globally communicate now and that means we can see and learn more about what is going on in the world faster than ever before. It’s great to let us know about how the needless war is going on in the Ukraine, about wildfires ravaging a town or where a hurricane will strike next. It is also great in letting us know about paranormal occurrences too. But I just keep hearing about occurrences, not so much explanations about occurrences. I really want to hear that. That is a more difficult answer. I won’t give up. 

Maybe someone opened up a portal unwittingly. And now so many spirits and other weird things like cryptids have come through. Who knows? Maybe we will never know. That is part of the great mystery of life. 

Blessings, Spiderwitch

 

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Herbal Crafts )O(

Merry meet all,

I am enjoying my herbal studies at the Herbal Academy. The flowers I’m pressing are beautiful. I plan to press a good deal more flowers soon. I”m making a flower essence out of the local summery flowers here. That includes borage, mint, lavender petals, red clover, chamomile. Mmmmm I can’t wait. I am steeping the essence outdoors in a glass bowl in my garden. Soon in another hour or two I shall strain the flowers and make the potion with brandy! Sounds good to me. 

There are so many herbs outside in my garden and the nature trail. I sure have my pick of plants. Borage, lavender, chamomile, lemon balm, burdock, goldenrod, clover, and many others. I love living here as it makes my studies at the Academy much easier. The herbs I need grow in abundance around me. This encourages me to be more sustainable in my practice and to be an earth steward! Right now, I am loving the ample sunshine and loving that that will aid my floral essence in my garden. The bowl of flowers must absorb the sunlight. It is crucial to the floral essence being made properly. I plan to strain the flowers with a strainer outdoors. I am sure the glass bowl of flowers soaking in water will have some bugs in it!

I plan to do a bookbinding project of the herbal course material too. I will finish it this coming weekend. I just have to complete some stuff before that. It really is a weekend project. I promise to show photos here once I am done. I already have the supplies and I have bound/ covered the book covers in bookbinding cloth. I am not anywhere near done. I have to sew the folios together and still cover the book covers with more layers. That will give it a nice seamless look. I hope this goes well. I want to decorate the pages with pressed flowers and of course, butterfly stickers. 

There are so many crafts I can do! Flower pressing, flower essences, bookbinding, or making floral handmade paper – I am only limited by my imagination! I am covered in mosquito bites. I’m also waiting for the delivery of a beautiful embroidered leather binder from Etsy. It’s traveling as I type from the UK to Canada. I hope I don’t have to wait too long. I am using the binder for my materia medica. I can’t wait! It’s so beautiful. I think my herb notes deserve to be stored in something truly beautiful. 

On top of the herbal crafts I mentioned above, I am also helping the other plants in my garden grow to their very best. I’m growing veggies too. Celery, tomatoes, squash, parsley, coriander, lovage, basil, mint, pumpkin, potatoes, a carrot or two, beans, root veggies like turnip and radish and beets. I’m also growing chives, shallots, tons of nasturtiums, raspberry, strawberry, and blueberry. The haskap berries are past their season now. The bean vines are so aggressive. I bought two poles to support the scarlet runner bean vines. They are growing a little too well. The elecampane is yet to flower. The flower buds are formed. I am just waiting on pins and needles for it to blossom! 

I bought a big tool chest from Canadian Tire. It doesn’t hold hammers and nails. Instead, the huge chest holds all my craft supplies. I now have more room in my broom closet. It filled up fast. I got the big chest on sale. I just love it. Everything I need is finally in one place and I have a place for everything! I can now enjoy doing more herbal crafts with a lot less stress. I just love the big ‘pirate’ chest. 

I wish you dear readers would let me know what herbal crafts you are doing now. Do let me know in the comments below. 

BB Spiderwitch

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