56 degrees this morning, and I left the living-room window open. BRR! I have on my spider-web fuzzy pants and a flannel shirt. I love Autumn. LOVE! I have not got the flannel sheets on yet, but I sleep with two comforters and I am right cozy in the night time. I have started shutting the windows at night.

Last week there was a heat wave; it got near to 90* a couple of times, and yes, I did turn on the air conditioners. They're still in the windows. I doubt we are going to need them anymore, but I hesitate to take them out.

This year, I am for sure going to put plastic on some of the windows. I had a breeze coming in one of them last year. I have to remember to ask the handyman to take the screen out of my back door, and put in the storm window again.

The tree across the street appears to be changing its leaf colors, but it's hard to tell-- I think some of the leaves are actually dying. Which makes me sad, and also concerned-- why would they die?

I had slacked off on my deliberate spiritual practice for much of the past months-- I kept the Goddess and God in my heart, and I keep my vigilance for Paying Attention, as always, but I let go a lot of the meditation and self-blessing and smudging. I'm sporadically starting that up again, and it does feel good. In all honesty, I would love to make it a regular discipline, but when it feels like I HAVE to, the less I WANT to, so I have given myself permission to be a Slacker Pagan if I need to. That way, when I do do my spiritual disciplines, it feels more honest and less forced. Nothing feels good if it's not from the heart, eh?

57 degrees this morning. FIFTY-SEVEN! Wow. I have fuzzy socks on.

This morning when I took my shower, I looked out the bathroom window, as I always do, to the giant sentinel pine trees that guard the small parking lot, and there was the beautiful waning moon, surprise! Between two of them. So lovely. Hai, moon!

Lammas was lovely. The Asphodel folks put on a very powerful ritual-- they had a symbolic sacrifice of John/Jane Barleycorn, and at the last minute I decided to stand in the inner circle to possibly be picked. Barleycorn is the one who has a very, very bad year coming up, but the community pledges to support hir in whatever way possible-- perhaps free massages, perhaps rides here and there, food, phone calls, hugs.

I did not get picked, but I was so afraid that I would or that I wouldn't, that I had tears welling up in my eyes. I think the person who did get picked had already had a couple of bad years. I hope she is doing well, and I did offer my support in whatever way I am able.

The berries here in MA are late by comparison to NC. They fruit in August, Lammas-time. I forgot when they were in NC, but I am pretty sure they were June-- maybe July. Things are off by a whole month here. Tomatoes are just showing up at farmer's markets, and corn. I already have been feeling Autumn in the air, for a couple of weeks now.

How is it by you?

Changing Seasons

I almost forgot I had a blog.

I'm actually Doing Stuff this summer! I don't, normally. I don't do Summer Things like most people do, like, going to the beach, or swimming at the pool, or to picnics, or whatever.

But we did go back to Asheville for a week. Drove right down there, 2-1/2 days down, 2 days back, in the car, with a week there. The Boy went back to his survival camp that he's gone to for the past 4 years (5, now!), and loved it just as much as ever. I stayed with a friend while he was there, and went shopping at all the Poor Stores (scratch'n'dent, overstock, what-have-you) to load up my car, because, frankly, I don't think those kind of stores are allowed in Massachusetts. This new home of ours has lots of laws against most everything, compared to NC.
Also, we stayed with The Boy's best friend and his parents, who are my friends, for the first and the last weekend we were there.
We had a large time!
And yes, we both missed the mountains even more than we thought we had. How painfully breathtaking they are.

So here we are, back in MA, and the weather...I don't think I've had the A/C on more than twice! It's amazing. Tonight is already so cool, it's going to be lovely sleeping weather.

We've been yard saling, thrift shopping, tomorrow is a huge flea market, we spent Midsummer with some lovely folks at a place not far called Cauldron Farm, and we'll be spending Lammas with them, too. I can't believe Lammas is only a week away.

For the past 25 years, I have lamented the lack of winter so much that I assumed the last name of WinterHeart. I wonder if 24 years from now, I'll call myself SummerHeart instead?

Longest Day, Shortest Night

It's the Solstice!

I can hardly believe it. It hasn't got above 80* except maybe twice, and it's still down as low as 50* at night! Wow. In NC it's like 85* or more in the day, and I dunno at night...60-something?

We are going there in 6 days. Stopping to see cousins on the way, which is exciting! I can't wait, really. I miss the mountains absolutely acutely. I have mixed feelings-- there are things I lovelovelove about my new home here in MA, but it's rather flatter than NC, and not near as pretty. I love the climate here way better, and I love how liberal it is up here, and I love that nobody cares what religion I am, and I love that we get free (FREE!) healthcare. I do not love that there aren't mountains. I miss moving water-- as afraid of rivers as I am (for getting in), I love watching how alive they are.

I'm so mad at the political climate down there in NC that I can hardly breathe. It appears we got out of there just in time, and as much as my heart is still very much in the mountains, we can't go back. Can't afford to. Not financially, though there is that-- I meant NC is just not OK anymore. It's so broken.
We can't get health insurance, not even my kid (who knew ADHD is a pr-existing condition? and, who wouldn't insure a child?). The politics are insane; they're trying to go back to the dark ages with women and contraception and abortion and such, and, voting rights, and my goodness, the water pollution and fracking and all that...it's just awful. NC is beautiful, just absolutely breathtaking, but it's becoming a glamour, I'm afraid.

And the religion issue-- I can't believe we've been here in MA for a year and three days, and not ONE TIME, not once, has anyone asked what church I go to. Not once has anyone brought up religion as a topic. Not once in a meeting (I'm a 12-stepper, if I've not mentioned it) has anyone said "...My Higher Power, who I choose to call God (or Jesus)". It's lovely not having to justify myself. It's lovely not to get all passive-aggressive and say "My Higher Power, whom I choose to call Goddess"...on the other hand, I got so used to religion being the Topic du Jour that it's discombobulating not to have it mentioned....ever. Nice, but weird.
And at least I don't have to go to school board meetings here to keep the Bible out of my kid's school. Not.An.Issue!
He did have a course called Ancient Civilizations which is history, and they covered the Romans, Greeks, Egypt I think, and early Christianity, and when I asked him was the Jesus part more even with all the other parts of history, or was it emphasized as The One True Way, he said it was even with all the other parts, just a blip in history. LOVE! Exactly how it should be.

Still, I can't wait to go say hi.

There are wild roses growing next door. I don't remember them from last year, but in my old yard, the wild roses were short lived, and last year we moved here on June 17th. so maybe they were gone by then. They are beautiful! Such a treat. I took pictures. If I remember later, I will upload them! There's a gorgeous purple something growing next to. I took a pic of that, too. If someone can ID it for me, that'd be cool!

11 minutes till work, so this will be short.

2 weeks and 3 days till we go back to Asheville for a visit. I think I have The Boy almost all packed. Me, now, that's another story.
I'm pretty excited. But I am worried about KittyCat Meow....True Love said he would take care of him for us. I hope to heck KittyCat won't be traumatized with us being out of town for so long :(

Lovely thunderstorm!

I was unsure if I'd even get to post, for all the lightning that was going on out there! I haven't seen lightning in ages!

I actually got back to 5 minutes of meditation each of the last two days. It's not much, but it does help. I set the timer on my cell phone so I don't have to hear ticking from the kitchen timer and I don't have to think "When will this be over, when will this be over, how long have I been doing this...."....can you tell I'm a novice meditater (Meditator? How would one spell that?)? At any rate, even 5 minutes feels good, I tell ya.

Been posting to a Facebook page called The 2014 Gratitude Challenge. It does change my focus of each day to start out with an attitude of gratitude. I post most days.

I think my spiritual practice is changing a bit...not my religion, but my actual practice. It WAS self-blessing, meditate or prayer, journal, ground, shield...NOW it's ground and shield all the time, bless the water in the shower every day, thank the elements (in the shower-- it works, but I do most of my spiritual practice in the shower each morning), ask each morning for help staying sober and clean, and not tempted by things I don't need to be, remind myself to be kind and compassionate and hopefully humble, give thanks at night for all those things.

Spring is a'rollin' along

It's getting SO GREEN, here!

In the South, I was kind of like... well, as a Pagan I was like "Duh, Midsummer is called Midsummer for a reason-- it's the secular calendar that's wrong! It's not the first day of summer!"...for instance.

Well, up here in MA, it surely is a whole bunch of season behind Asheville. I think it's gotten above 70* all of three times thus far. Once it was 85* but the other two times was maybe 73*. I haven't checked the weather in Asheville but I wouldn't be surprised if it's full-on summer already.

Which, this weather is fine by me. I love it just a tad cooler. I am just fine at maybe 80* tops. I am loving this. Still 45ish at night.

I was reading up on witches and granny-women and magic here in New England...I think that they're much the same everywhere you go. As in, folk magics. Omens and signs and such, and little magics. Today, I saw a bird cross my path from left to right-- three separate times! I hear that is a good omen. I hope so.

And, my cat blessed me with three whiskers-- not all at once! But cat whiskers are good for traveling, because a cat can always find its way home, so I emptied out an Altoids tin and put them in there and today I put them in the car. I think I should take them back out and bless them somehow and then put them back in there. Also, I have hanging from my rearview a talisman that Byron Ballard made for me when I left Asheville. I am traveling back there in 5 or 6 weeks and I need to recharge that, somehow, too.

Random musings...I'm rather scattered today. But that's alright.