Basil

Basil, or Ocimum basilicum, is part of the mint family.

I laid down a celtic cross for basil, and the card that popped up to represent the plant was Ace of Cups, Love. It is very willing to work hard and endure tension, but it doesn't like cruelty or fighting.

Ash and I made a few discoveries over bowls of basil and tomato pasta: 1) We both felt a cleansing of our third eye chakras and head while eating the basil dish. 2) Basil and tomato get along very well; some call them companion plants. The only basil dish we could think of that doesn't involve tomatos is pesto. They taste great together, and apparently they like to be planted together too.

I didn't "hear" anything during my conversations with my basil plants, but I did feel an energy transfer. The energy was very pleasant and soothing. So soothing that I fell asleep in my patio chair while sitting there with the plants. I did not feel the energy strongly in my third eye chakra, so I suspect that you have to eat the basil to get the head cleansing effect.

The tarot cards also said that basil is one of my plant totems (Four of Wands).

Peppermint

Mentha x piperita is a hybrid between spearmint and aquatic mint. I remembered a few things while studying peppermint this week.

My paternal grandmother had a huge garden when we went to visit her as kids. She would take me out there and try to tell me about the plants. The only plant I had eyes for back then was mint. I thought Grandma was crazy the first time she ever picked off a leaf and told me to chew on it. That first bite was full of surprise and tastiness.

The only plant I ever puchased before I moved to Austin was a mint plant. Again, a mint plant was one of the first ones I bought when I started my patio garden in Austin.

Of course, mint is often used to treat stomach issues, and this elm tends to abuse her stomach by shoving stress and nervousness there. I am blessed to have mint hanging around.

Meeting a Hibiscus

I spent the night at Sephrena's apartment on Wednesday and got a chance to meet her hibiscus tree. Most of the hibiscus I've seen previously were plant-sized, but this one is about five feet tall. It's a very happy tree plant!

Since I'm starting my plant studies, I was supposed to try to have a talk with the hibiscus. I pulled up a chair next to it, and put my hands on both sides of its trunk. Then I willed myself to listen. All of my attention was focused on the hibiscus. I started to feel energy flowing between the plant and me.

Sephrena's cat, Bouncer, was outside with me too. He pulled me out of my plant trance with strategically placed claws in my leg. I told his mommy on him, and he was called back inside. I returned to my chair.

I decided to try to open my chakras before going any farther with the plant. I started with the root chakra and worked my way up to the crown, visualizing colors, and pleading with the chakras to open. (If I ask nicely, sometimes they behave.) I felt a lot of energy moving through me with my chakra opening exercise. After working on the crown, I put my hands back on either side of the hibiscus.

The energy transfer between the plant and me returned much stronger. I stayed like that, feeling the energy flowing through my body and the plant until I couldn't focus anymore. I stood up and thanked the plant, and promised to visit again, and I realized that my whole body was humming! Later, Sephrena told me that I looked a little drunk when I came back inside.

It was a nice start to my plant work! This morning I told my mint plant that I would start studying it tomorrow, and I heard my mint plant say that its die-back and new growth were a way of cleansing itself. Not a bad start to a week with mint.

Grasshopper

I was initiated as a Priestess in Training, or PIT, on September 24th. Shortly thereafter, I was informed that plants would be one of my primary studies during this year and a day. Then the Priestesses found out how many dreams I have involving talking animals, and animals were added to plants. So I have two stacks of animal and plant books sitting at the end of my bed.

I am supposed to pick a plant to study every week, but I haven't made it that far yet. I'm reading the more general books about human and plant communication first. Meanwhile, I've been planning my costume as the "Green Woman". I went to the Renaissance Festival as the Green Woman yesterday, and I made a new friend:

A Differential Grasshopper hung out on top of my staff for about a half hour. I did my research tonight, and found out that this species can fly for short distances. "My" grasshopper never flew. He walked slowly up me and my staff. Is it telling that this amazing mover slowly and unerringly made his way to the top of my staff? I tried to convince him to go in different directions a couple of times, and he slowly turned himself around until he faced me again.

I liked him (or her) very much. Thankfully, Ted Andrews has a few things to say about why grasshoppers would show up for a person: there is about to be a new leap forward, or we are not listening or are afraid to make the leap off of our mound.

A Two of Cups says that yes, the Grasshopper did appear to tell me that there would soon be a new leap forward.

Inked, Part IV

This elm now has green leaves. They finished healing several weeks ago, then they started itching again this week. This new itching must be spiritual in nature, but the spiritual itch has been much harder to ignore than the healing itch!

The gods were doing rechannel and tattoo work at the same time, which has made for some sleepless nights.

Now this elm must hit the astrology books again. The Gathering is set for Friday, and there isn't a handout book written yet!

Inked, Part III

This is what the tree looks like now. Eric strengthened the outline and added the shadows on July 2nd.

I'm going to diverge for a moment, because I couldn't decide if I wanted to make a whole post on this. Judge Vaughn Walker in California has overturned Proposition 8, which made gay marriage illegal in California. He said that the law didn't provide any real reason that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, which made the law unjust.

The news was on NPR (again) as I drove into work this morning, and they immediately followed it with discussion about how Judge Walker's overturn of the law would do nothing good for democrats in the upcoming elections. It took about ten seconds for me to go from warm and fuzzy to pissed. My predominate thought: Who gives a shit? Overturning this law isn't about helping the democrats come elections. It's about restoring justice to the legal system of a state.

Father's Day

There's a funny story behind my spiritual father. When I first began my walk down this path, I asked about my spiritual mother and found Rhiannon. After a few months, I decided I wanted to know about my spiritual father. I went researching/shopping for my spiritual father, and I found Coyote.

I asked Sephrena to confirm that Coyote was my spiritual father, and she said that he wasn't. She said that Ellegua (who's similar to Coyote) was my spiritual uncle, and that she'd found out who my spiritual father was, but she couldn't tell me. I was going to have to figure it out on my own. She said that he'd made a terrible mistake, and he was paying for it. He had a bad reputation, and he was not a cuddly daddy figure.

I was furious. I ranted to Ash at some length about the unfairness of Sephrena not telling me who my spiritual father was, then I noticed how quiet Ash was during the ranting. Almost guiltily quiet. I realized that Ash knew too. Turned out that most of the people in our pagan circle knew who my spiritual father was before me. Riteous Anger were my middle names. The universe was conspiring to make me miserable by letting everyone except me find out the identity of my spiritual father.

I flipped about two hundred tarot cards in one month, and I didn't get anything that made any sense to me. I spent hours googling the phrases "terrible mistake" and "dark god". Of course I got nothing. I became increasingly frustrated. When I hit my breaking point, I told the universe: Screw you. If my spiritual father doesn't want me to know who he is, then I don't want him.

Since I'd been liberated from my quest to find the identify of one specific god, I decided to research all of them. I needed to study the pantheons and get a broader knowledge of all the gods. (If I happened to find my spiritual father in the meantime, then that was just fine.) I started with the Greeks. I pulled up the Greek creation myth, and I found Cronus.

When I read Cronus' name, I knew that I'd just found my spiritual father. I confirmed it with a message to Ash. It took me a while to get over the anger and frustration of the months long search, but I came to peace with Cronus. Once I'd come to peace with him, I started to forgive some human fathers also.

Over the last year and a half I've learned some things about Cronus. He's a throat chakra man, and his colors are light blue, white, and black. I heard that he was present at the creation of the world, and it was sung into being, hence his connection to the throat chakra. The Greeks were not nice to him in their stories, but the Romans loved him as Saturn. Cronus likes amazonite, foxes (smart & tricky like him), honey mesquite trees (an early colonizer) vodka, a good stout ale, blueberry pies, and the musical group Kronos Quartet. His number is 2.

Cronus is the bad guy in Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series, for which I haven't entirely forgiven the author.

Cronus is my spiritual father, and I love him.

Inked, Part II

The healing took a little longer this time around. The tiny little lines that outline the leaves stayed red for a good week. This Elm is extremely pleased with how her tree progresses though, and this Elm was promised green for leaves during the July 2nd appointment.

Year of the Chariot

I've added numerology to my list of interesting things. It complements astrology and the tarot very well. The source for all of my numerology learning so far is Angeles Arrien's The Tarot Handbook, which I've been drooling over for a couple of years. Mom gave it to me for my birthday.

My birth numerology number is 9, which corresponds to the Hermit card. Thus the Hermit is my life-time symbol. Those with the Hermit as their life-time symbol appreciate order, harmony, a feeling of space, and they tend to have problems with claustrophobia. All of the above rings true for this Elm.

On my birthday this year, I entered a year of the Chariot. A Chariot year is a great time to travel, move, get a promotion, remodel, or redecorate. Apparently I jumpstarted my Chariot year a couple of months early with all of my home renovations. I think that I'd already had enough of the swampy Lovers year that preceded it and decided to move on with my life.

Patio Garden

My patio faces west, so I was concerned that herbs wouldn't get enough direct sunlight and wouldn't grow. But I wanted a patio garden so badly that I started buying plants anyway. I intended to just get one or two plants, see how they fared, then get more if they grew and seemed happy. That intention didn't last longer than first contact. I loved having plants on the balcony, and I'd buy two to three new ones every couple of weeks from February through April.


I've had the spider plant, aloe, and rose bush the longest. But the pineapple sage and a rosemary plant that didn't make it were the first herbs I bought. Now I have basil, thyme, mint, oregano, catnip, rosemary, lavender, sage, pineapple sage, and cilantro in my herb collection.

The cilantro was the first herb to flower. I was surprised, because I'd never seen cilantro flower. Those little white flowers smelled so good, like cilantro times ten. Unfortunately I didn't photograph them. Now the catnip (clustered white) and pineapple sage (tubular red) have flowers.

This padawan has a long way to go when it comes to listening to plants, but at least this patio garden appears happy and healthy, with pretty little flowers.

Inked, Part I

After two hours of Sharpie drawing, one and a half hours of needles, and a couple of days of laying around on my stomach, I am a card carrying member of The Inked. It's not close to done yet. I anticipate at least two more sessions to finish my tree, but the first one went well. I have a trunk and branches, with more growth (filling out) scheduled for June 4th.

It doesn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it would. Okay, the application of said tree hurt a lot. The hour and half of needles was a limit imposed my ability to stay still and take the pain. I didn't bleed much though, and it hasn't hurt much at all since the needles went away. No shirts got stuck to my back, and the first lotion application occurred this afternoon right before the picture.

I love the trunk and branches, but I want my leaves.

Bargains

I made my first bargain with the gods about a week ago. I hiked out to a waterfall where spirituality bubbles easily to the surface with a friend. It's a very easy place to meditate, and the surrounding forest is an important spiritual place to me. I'd been planning this bargain for a while, but I decided that was the best place to make the promise.

I promised that I wouldn't prepare any food for self consumption with dairy or egg products for one month if the gods would help me deal with the pain of being tattooed.

I left in a clause that I could eat food with dairy and egg products if other people prepared it, but I'm also making sure that I don't abuse that clause. I've eaten some dairy and egg products at one restaurant since then (a sushi place with great vegetarian sushi) and a small pastry at work. I see cheese and awesome looking cakes everywhere since I made this promise, so I have made some personal sacrifices to keep my end of the bargain.

I'm also learning how to bake and cook vegan though. I didn't start cooking until after I went back to being vegetarian, so I'm looking up recipes and vegan cook books and generally having a lot of fun searching for good vegan brownies, cupcakes, and frosting.

It's an experiment, and after the month is up I may keep going vegan for one week out of every month. It'll keep me from ever taking half & half, eggs, and macaroni & cheese for granted again.

Deities and Books

I love to read. Whenever I had to plan what to pack in a suitcase when escaping from a burning building, my internal debate was always over which books I'd save. I have so many favorites, that it's a serious debate! Most of the books I read fall into the fantasy genre, and now that I'm a polytheistic pagan, I often see or recognize deities in some of my favorite books.

Sometimes the deities are overt and main characters: American Gods, Anansi Boys, Small Gods, and the Lightning Thief series come to mind. Several Celtic deities made appearances in the Mercedes Thompson series by Patricia Briggs. In Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher, the main character listed off most of the pantheons and said maybe Bad Guy ticked off a "little g god" and that's why Bad Guy's castle was destroyed. Apparently those little g gods get riled up occasionally and make stuff happen. This made me giggle. A lot.

Sometimes a character pops up, and even though the author didn't call him or her by name, I'm pretty sure it's Soandso. I have mixed feelings when my gods show up as villains. Their name is being invoked, but why did this author who I love so much have to depict them as a Bad Guy?

Whenever someone uses a god in their story though, I have to wonder if they believe.

Rennovating

I've been planning rennovations to my house ever since I moved into it over a year and a half ago, but I never actually got off my ass to start the process. Granted, I stayed fairly busy during that year and a half with other things, but life slowed down a lot when 2010 came. So one day I was being a slug on my couch, and I decided it was time to start the rennovating. I hoped that rennovating my house would be a start to rennovating my life too... to help me get back on the path.

I decided to start with the easy, pretty things: paint and floor. These things are "easy" in relative terms. I didn't think I'd have to learn a whole new skill set. Like plumbing or wall demolition!

I wanted to lay a pergo-type floor in my living room, so I went looking for laminate flooring deals. I managed to pick a floor out in about four days, definitely a record for me and decisions. It's called embassy mahogany, and it's pretty red. My wall colors are light moss green, honey pot, and spring waterfall, with mesa beige trim (Olympic paint colors). I considered the chakra theme while I was planning this, and I liked it. I did most of the painting in one weekend: dining room, living room, hallway, and bedroom. Most of the walls are green. It's my favorite color afterall.

My heart chakra broke open that weekend.

I hadn't even realized that it was closed, though I can see how I did it slowly in hindsight. I wasn't really surprised, considering that I planned the chakra theme, but I wasn't thinking about how much it would hurt. Some part of me must want to heal those bad boys, but another part is going kicking and screaming.

Coffee, Gods, and Birds

I love Chango. This morning I made coffee for Ellegua and Chango. I just used my regular coffee and I spiced it up with cayenne pepper, chili powder, and chipotle chili powder. When I went to sprinkle in the cayenne, a lot went into the grounds. I figured those fire boys wanted it that way. It smelled very good when it was done brewing, and I gave them each a mug. There was just a little left, so I decided I would finish off the pot myself. I'm not a big coffee drinker, but I wanted to see what it tasted like. I took a sip without adding anything, because I wanted to know what the coffee tasted like as opposed to the cream and sugar. The spice hit the back of my tongue like a sledgehammer! I'm sure those men loved it, but I liked it a lot better with a massive heap of cream and sugar.

This whole day while I've been at work, there's been a male cardinal hanging out on the window sill outside. He looks at or in the window, and bangs on it occasionally with his beak. Cardinals being heavily associated with Chango, I'm taking this as a sign that Chango at least liked the coffee a lot. I flirt with the cardinal enough to make us both happy and my office mate disgusted.

I'm remodeling my house right now, and my internet's broken (during the remodeling), so postings are going to be more sporadic than usual.

Alter Photos

This Elm doesn't generally follow the rules of alter building, all of the elements probably are not represented in any one place, unless one considers the alter at the molecular level. This is the only alter space in this Elm's house that usually attempts to follow some rules: The many curved branch came from an elm, and was notable for being a bit of elm shaped like stag horns. The staff was carved from a gigantic ash juniper limb that was left in a pile beside the trail. This Elm begged for and received the Gaia statue for her birthday, and this Elm bought the Cernunnos statue the day the tarot cards confirmed he was a part of her life.

Here are some other holy areas in this Elm's house. Joss Whedon sometimes makes his presence known:

World Poetry Day

For Ogma, Miach, and Blodeuwedd, for their holidays this weekend, and everyone else too, because this Elm loves them all. Happy World Poetry Day...

On the Path
For many a confused and lonely day
I was jealous for others had someone to whom they prayed
But not I, I cared not for God's churches or preachers
I found nothing to connect to in the stern perfect features
I read and I loved the old gods from the stories
And I lapped up their frailties and glories
But they were fiction.

Then I found two ladies who believed those gods were real
I stayed quiet for some time, trying to learn to deal
With the wide new path that opened before me
Everything I wanted to believe from my books could be
Animals, plants, and rocks as valued world members
Humans with spirit, earth, wind, water, and embers
A part of the world around.

There are so many things to learn and study
Parts of the path are left to people and may get muddy
Others are straight, narrow, and determined by the gods
They are there, a cheering committee, and an approval nod
Creates such feelings of wonder, appreciation, and love
It is simple to understand why people worship the gods above
It is wonderful to be on the path.

Getting ahead of oneself

A person could get so excited about something and overwhelmed by their schedule that they get a week ahead of themselves. They decide to start celebrating Ostara a week before it happens.

A tree would never do such a thing.

Happy Ostara!

This Elm recognizes Blodeuwedd on the Spring Equinox with a burning lavendar candle, her owl necklace remade with peace jade, serpentine, sunstone, rose quartz, quartz, and flower beads,
and a cup of chamomile tea with a dash of honey liquor as an offering. More to come on Friday at the Gathering, including boiled eggs that may even be painted.


March 20th is also World Head Injury Awareness Day, so this Elm remembers Miach by burning his candle and offering a shot of Irish Whiskey.


March 21st is World Poetry Day, and this Elm will remember Ogma by burning his candle and offering a shot of Irish Whiskey.


It's a busy weekend for the Celts. This Elm will cook for all these crazy Celts next year... probably.

A healing day

In the morn, peace, serenity, and sanity were rediscovered in the forest.
The nandina and lagustrom of Mayfield never saw this Elm coming.

This Elm learned a glorious thing.
Dutch elm disease didn't reach the American elms in central Texas.
The previously unidentified sexy elms in Mayfield may be American elms!
This Elm was joyful at the news.

Then this Elm took a sage and salt bath,
then gave herself a reiki treatment.
While on the throat chakra,
this Elm saw herself asking Christopher for a massage therapy session.
This Elm takes this as a sign.
Herself should actually do this.
It has been considered a few times in the last few days.
Now the gods have spoken... and agreed.

The throat chakra may punish this tree with a sore throat
if its message is not heeded.