On the 27th August in the town that I live, in the community center was holding a small wool event which I jumped at the chance to go. Even though it was a small event there was a lot going on there, about 4 spinning wheels were going on, felt making, weaving. It was brilliant and I am glad that I did manage to go to it as I have never been to an event like this.
After I watched a woman do a little bit of peg loom weaving I have become really interested in it. It seems very relaxing and different, I wont say easy because I am not certain on how it easy it is going to be. But they did say it was easy for the hands so that is something I am pleased about.
All I need to do now is try and get me a peg loom so I can have a go at it.
I have found that whenever I feel like I am beginning to get that disconnected feeling with my spiritual path I want to just hide away from everything. This is probably the main reason why I haven't been posting much.
I am not really sure why I get this feeling, I just feel that there is something I am supposed to be doing/learning but I haven't found what it is but it is staring right in front of me, that is what I don't like the most about feeling that way.
Plus it is starting to come to that time of year. I find that when Autumn and Winter are arriving I start to hibernate with my inner self. I start to look back at the first half of the year and see what I have managed to achieve, what I haven't managed to do and start to take notes from all that and see what I need to do for the next part of the year, until this time again.
I have been doing this only a couple of years but I do feel that it does help me in some way.
Every year in the borders of Scotland they have a celebration called "Civic Week". Remembering all those that died in the Battle of Flodden all the other border battles, as well as WW1 & WW2.
During that week they have little activities going on, we didn't manage to go to all the activities due to the weather but we did try to capture as much as possible (I say we, but I really mean my partner as he did most of the camera work and I just edited it all together).
I don't remember how or when or what age I started working with spirit, they were just always there while I was growing up..I know it started when I was a young child, I used to see people in the room that no one would talk with or notice. At that age I didn't really question myself about it because I thought it was normal.
When I was in my later teens I started to question what was happening to myself, at one point I did want to be put in a mental home because I didn't believe in myself with what I saw. At this point I couldn't see them anymore, but I could feel them around the room or when they touched me on the shoulder, hair or anywhere like that.
Sometimes I could see them for a brief moment when they were walking around or when I wasn't fully concentrating or when they decided to play a joke on me and walk right up to my face and then show their selves, or when I was about to walk out of a door they would surprise me that way. I couldn't stand when they would do that it would scare the life out of me.
I couldn't hear them speaking to me all of the time but whenever I spoke to them out loud and something happened in the room; such as an object moving or the temperature changing, then I knew that this could be them trying to answer me or trying to speak with me.
About 3 years ago I started to get a headache and the headache would happen when I would be meditating, doing some spell/ritual/healing/spirit work etc, it felt very sharp as if someone had picked up a handful of glass pieces and have just thrown them at my head. This would make me stop with whatever I was doing. The headache felt as if it was getting worse and staying for longer and I had to stop completely as I couldn't handle of the pressure and pain of it.
This meant that my spirit work was put on hold and I felt like I was losing my connection to spirit.
Now 3 years have gone by and the headache feels as if it has died down alot I feel that I can now start to get back with my practices. Doing baby steps, taking it day by day and trying not to push or force myself from doing something until I felt comfortable.
I have missed doing spirit work so much, I felt as if I was missing some part of me, I was feeling somewhat empty without having that connection. I can understand this as it has been a big part of my life for a very long time.
The frustrating part about this is I know what I can do but somehow the door is still needs to be unlocked for me to get back to spirit, I know I can do it, it is just I cant seem to do it at this moment.
A few people suggested that the headache could be because I am not grounded or I have excess energy attached to me, so I tried to get rid of that energy and tried to make sure I grounded myself - but that didn't seem to help, it somehow made the headache worse (when I was trying to figure it out, 2 years ago). Other people suggested that it could be spirit trying to tell me something or a spiritual attack. And then the obvious, need an eye test, stressed etc.
I started to talk about this more with my partner and we did some sort of meditation where he would ask me what I saw, what I felt with what I saw etc. I found that there was this black hole that was basically sucking most of the positive down the hole. When I came out of the meditation we remembered of a spirit that was getting closer to me which wasn't that nice, he had a lot of negative upon himself and we feel that it could be him.
Trying to get close to me but while doing that he is bringing more negative into myself and making me feel low etc.
So our mission now is to try and help this spirit.
This is my first time in making a sage bundle, pleased that my sage has managed to stay alive and grow for me to make this.
The only problem is, I forgot to put a paper bag around it and find a more dry place for it to be in and within that time it has pretty much shrivelled up, oops.
Guess that is my lesson that I needed to know, at least I have more sage to work on :)
I have started to feel a craving for knitting and as I had found 2 sets of knitting needles for just a £1 I know that this was a good time to start this hobby again, I used to be able to knit when I was younger but not sure why I stopped doing it. There is a slight problem that I have found with leaving it for long, I can not remember how to cast on or to actually knit, my mum did teach me again the other day but somehow my fingers are not working with the needles that well.
I feel this will take me a while until I actually get used to it all over again..
Normally when it comes to me and herbs they end up dying for some reason (lack of sun/water or too much sun/rain, or the puppy trying to eat it). So I am very happy to see that this little herb is still going and growing strong :)
What I have found frustrating about myself when it comes to my path is when I hear about a subject that I have never heard of before and get really excited to learn more about it. Now that doesn't really sound like a bad thing, but I end up leaving the other subjects I was trying to learn more on and spend as much time as I can on this one subject..Until a few weeks later when I start to get stuck on where I go next from there.
As well I am not just focusing on one subject, I try to focus on so many that I end up not really interested in it because I can't seem to find any more information on the subjects.
I believe that this is why I have been feeling lost, stuck and disconnected from my path. As I was talking about this to my partner, he ended up telling me to close my eyes and pick out a colour with a subject, no second guessing, just the first colour and subject that came to my mind. So I did just that, about 3 times until I started to feel like I was second guessing myself.
Green - herbs, purple - cosmology and blue - Gods.
These will be the subjects that I will be focusing on for now, until I feel comfortable with what I know about each of them and even learn how to involve them in my practice.
A few weeks ago I noticed that I had a few mandarins left and saw they were going a bit more soft then what I like them to be, so once again I went searching to find a recipe that would be good to use them in - Mandarin Jam.
Ingredients
5-6 Mandarin oranges
3 cups of water
4 ½ cups of sugar
Directions Peel mandarins, keeping pieces of the peel as large as possible, then set aside. Cut mandarins in half cross ways, pick out the seeds. Blend fruit to make 2 cups of pulp, pour into a wide saucepan, add water. Slice the peel very thinly to make about ½ a cup, add the peel and sugar to the pulp in the pan. Stir over a medium heat until sugar is dissolved, turn heat to high and boil rapidly while stirring frequently until the jell point is reached. This should take about 40 minutes. Remove marmalade from heat at once and then bottle.
Sometimes I have a few bananas that have gone a bit brown and I know I wont eat them, so I have thought instead of throwing them away why don't I find a recipe to use them in and I did just that - Banana Bread.
Ingredients
2 - 3 ripe bananas
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
50g butter or margarine
100g caster sugar
275g self-raising flour ½ tsp ground cinnamon or mixed (apple pie) spice (optional)
1 egg
A little oil or extra butter for greasing
Directions
Grease a 2lb loaf tin, cut a piece of non-stick baking parchment to fit the base of the tin and place it in the bottom.
Preheat the oven to 180°c/350°f/gas mark 4.
Mash the bananas up with the back of a fork or place them into the food processor.
Add all the ingredients into the bowl and mix well.
Pour into the prepared loaf tin.
Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes until risen and golden and a skewer (or a sharp knife) inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Cool slightly, remove from the tin, take off the paper and leave to cool on a wire rack.
Sometimes after dinner I like to have a little dessert but some times we don't have anything in to satisfy us, and I noticed we had chocolate, marshmallows and some M&Ms in, so I thought I would find out what I could make. Which was Rocky Road. I have never made this before so even though I did make a little mistake by not estimating the amount I needed for the filling (I added way to much and so the chocolate didn't really coat the top of it all), it still turned out alright and for only one mistake I think that is pretty good for first time making ;)
I found the recipe from SortedFood, although I didn't really go with what they said for their filling. I know it is OK to change it to what you like and want (this is just what we had in at the time).
Ingredients
300g plain chocolate
120g butter
30g golden syrup
150g digestive biscuits
handful of mini marshmallows
handful of M&Ms
Directions:
crack the chocolate into pieces and stick in a heat-proof bowl with the butter and syrup.
melt this over a pan of simmering water until smooth and glossy.
crumble the biscuits into small pieces and stir into the marshmallows and M&Ms (or your desired filling).
pour all of these into the melted chocolate mixture and stir to combine and coat.
line a rectangular cake tin with cling film.
transfer the rocky road to the lined tin and leave to set up in the fridge for a couple of hours.
tip out onto a board and cut into chunky squares.
For Beltane this year I had no idea how to celebrate it, normally I have these things planned out in advance but with all that had gone on within these couple of months I didn't really have time to plan. So in the end I stopped trying to plan and see how it all went on the day. Well it turns out it actually went really well and proved to myself that I should be trusting myself more so than I usually do.
As it is the end of the dark half of year and the light part is finally here, with the sun now shinning even more I thought it was about time I set two of my deities asleep/meditate/re-energise them selves for the next dark half of the year. And actually wake up my other two deities. (This all might sound strange but I will talk about this in another post).
So before I lit two candles which I set for my "lighter" Gods, I spoke out loud to The Cailleach and Nodens. Then as I lit the candles I again spoke out loud welcoming back Aine and Lir. After I done this I burned some incense which I made for them two and then went on to have a little talk with them.
On the afternoon of that day, me and my partner went to a couples house to see a puppy, we have been wanting a puppy for a long time and finding a house seemed the right time to get one. We were only going to see if we liked the puppy and if the puppy liked us. As soon as we saw him we knew he was for us. He is a Kelpy x Labrador, 7 weeks old and is the biggest one out of them all. We already knew what to call him, Merlin.
It has been 3 weeks since I have moved into my new place with my partner and as you can probably tell we have the Internet back so I will hopefully be doing more posts soon.
As I was growing up there was about 6 of us living in one house and then over the years with our partners moving in and then finding there own place, it went to about 9 people always coming in and out of the house, so there was always noise and someone walking in when you wanted to be alone. But now that there is only two of us living here it is still very strange as I keep expecting to have someone walk in on me when I am doing some writing or a video.
At the same time though it is so lovely to finally be able to be on our own and live our lives the way we wish to without disturbing anyone else. The area we live in is beautiful, they have a small walkway which has some trees next to a river, so I am not so upset about living the countryside as this little area seems just fine, it also has seats along the walkway so I sometimes just sit there and watch the river and just take everything in, it feels very peaceful.
I am starting to get back into my herbalism course now we have the Internet as my course is done online so I m looking forward to finally finishing that. I have also started to get back into some creative writing as well as cooking & baking. I feel so much more confident and at peace now I have the freedom to cook/bake whenever I want without feeling like I have to hurry.
I wont keep coming on here and updating each week how it is going here i know that isn't really interesting and not really needed. It is just because it is my first time moving out that I wanted to do a little update on that.
Hope you all are keeping well, I have a lot of catching up I need to do on here as well as YouTube!
At last spring has finally arrived here, the daffodils have risen and there is baby lambs in the field and all sorts of plants are starting to sprout up again. I took this chance (while the sun was out all day, no cold weather either! Just pure warmth from the sun, it was brilliant) to go for a walk, as I didn't celebrate the spring equinox I thought I would do it now. Why should I celebrate it when I cant see the signs of spring, it makes more sense to celebrate it when you know it is there in your area.
For the celebration I basically went for a walk, took a good hard look at everything around me, seeing what is growing, anything changed etc. As well as listening to what nature had to say, whether it was a message I needed to hear or just simply a song/story that they wanted me to hear. I wanted to walk for miles but unfortunately I couldn't due to my condition that I have which stops me from being able to walk too far.
Since spring is a time for new beginnings and changes to be made, I thought I would share with you all a big change that is happening for me and my partner - we have finally found somewhere to live! So by April we will be living in our new home, but not too sure on how soon we will have the Internet back so blogging & vlogging will be on hold until I can get back on.
A couple of times I have been doing some journey work to find my animal guide. Each time I have gone I have met a toad. Before he was a little hazy, I couldn't really make out his appearance at all (or even remember what the toad looked like).
But when I went this time I made sure I took note of what the toad looked like, even if it was a certain colour and how he moved etc. So afterwards I regained my balance and took some time to steady myself and then decided to do some research on what it means to have a Toad animal guide.
Pretty much everywhere was saying the same thing:
Altered states of consciousness, Earthly energy, courtship with sound, the need for self-examination and drawing upon your inner resources, camouflaging poison, changing luck, representation of the Moon and both Life and Death (In alchemy the Toad signifies the dark side of Nature)
Except for one site which helped me find what different toads actually mean when it comes to animal guides, and I found one that was very similar to the toad that is my animal guide.The Natterjack Toad, this toad is different to other toads as it prefers to run rather than jump, it can also climb and is a bad swimmer.
This type of toad pretty much teaches that even if you are a toad you don't have to remain toad like. I am starting to understand a lot more now why he is helping me with my journey so far.
As it was my brother -in-laws birthday yesterday I decided to make him some chocolate brownies as I knew they are his favourites from what I bake (the last time I baked these he took the whole box).
And I thought I would make a post about them, showing how I make them and what I use.
Melt the butter and leave to cool slightly
Beat the eggs and sugar until they are light and fluffy
Sift together the flour and baking powder
Stir the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, bourbons and melted butter into the egg mixture. Mix well
Spoon the brownie mixture into a greased 20cm (8 in) square baking tray
Bake for 30 minutes
Cut the brownies into squares while they are warm, but leave in their pan until they have cooled completely.
Today I was in the mood to do some baking, but most of the recipes that I had I couldn't make because of the lack of ingredients, so I thought I would leave it.
I saw a new post by towards-sustainability and saw on the "you might also like" list a recipe for Chocolate shortbread cookies. I also knew that I had all these ingredients, so off I went to do some baking :)
Ingredients
250g butter, softened
½ cup icing sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup cornflour
¼ cup cocoa powder
Method
1. Preheat oven to 160'C/ 320'F.
2. Place the butter and icing sugar in a mixing bowl and beat them until the mixture is creamy.
3. Sift together the cocoa powder, flour and cornflour. Then stir it into the butter mixture to form a dough.
4. Turn the dough onto a floured bench top and knead it lightly until it is smooth.
5. Roll spoonfuls of the mixture into little balls and place them on a greased baking tray, then flatten them slightly with a fork.
6. Bake them for 20-25 minutes or until they are firm. Remove from oven and let the cookies cool down on the tray. Makes around 30 cookies, or 40 small ones.
For me, it was slightly difficult to get the mixture into a dough, so my partner did some research and found that you could wrap the mixture up in cling film and squish it together, so that is what we did and then we made them into little balls.
I have been following the witch of forest grove for a while now and I noticed she had her own online shop called forest grove botanica (or to see her actual website click here). I was always very tempted to buy from her shop but I was a little bit nervous due to shipping as in the past I have bought things and never turned up when it comes to buying items from other countries, but since I have had two successful deliveries and the fact that she had a sale on I thought it was time to buy some items from her.
She makes her own items, so when I saw the amount that she had on I was very tempted to buy most of the items, but in the end I bought 3 items.
The total amount came to $25.60 (£16) that included the shipping as well, and I only paid shipping for one item which was the divination oil and the shipping for that was $9.50 (£6) as sometimes with etsy when you buy a product of the same kind you can get the shipping for free or for a certain price, so that is always a plus.
I had ordered this on the 11th February and it is now the 22nd February, so it has taken a good week and a half to get here, which is actually really good considering where it was being sent to (From Canada to the UK).
The artwork on her shop and on her labels are done by her I believe and I am in love with it, it shows the dedication that she puts into each product which is such a good thing when it comes to buying items for me, to know that they haven't just rushed through everything but taking the time, care and effort to do this and the little things.
Overall I am pretty pleased with the price, the delivery and the communication between her and myself. I will be sure to buy from her again.
I had heard that TipToeChick was opening her online shop, TheGreenEyedOwl, so I thought I would go and check the shop out. At the moment she is selling tinctures, capsules and dried herbs but has mentioned that she is hoping to expand that in the future.
I mainly wanted the dried herbs, as I noticed it was going to be cheaper buying from her rather than buying from the UK which would have came over £20, while from her shop the total was coming to $25 (£15). The only worry I had was the shipping, so I emailed her letting know what I was wanting to buy and which country I lived in and she replied soon after with the quote of $13.95 (about £8), so I rushed off back to her shop and placed my order.
That was on the 1st February and it is now the 15th February and I have just received my parcel from her, so it has taken a good two weeks to get here. Which in my opinion is not that bad considering I live in the UK and she lives in America.
Overall I am so pleased with what I ordered and how the delivery was and the communication with her was. I will be ordering from her again when I start to run low on these herbs.
What I ordered: yarrow, nettle, elderflower, mugwort, motherwort, rosemary, dandelion leaf, dandelion root, Irish moss, st johns wort, comfrey leaf, calendula, benzoin gum (powdered), echinacea, marshmallow
OK not that much happened, in fact I spent most of the day indoors doing some research on a few craft projects I have in mind.
But late in the afternoon I decided to go for a walk, the sun was pulling me out towards it and as soon as I stepped outside the air felt even more fresh than usual, spring is arriving.
After half an hour of being outside looking at every single tree and the rest of nature, I came indoors and grabbed my camera and went outside for more nature time.
I haven't made contact with nature since winter came last year, so catching up with what has been going on and changed was greatly needed. I noticed certain things that weren't there last year and were there today, I found a little stream (although it could be just the water from the farmlands) that I hadn't noticed at all since I have lived here.
Now I have stopped worrying and stressing over what practises I need to do (well, I haven't stopped all together but I don't stress about it half as much), I am starting to see so much magic all around my little countryside.
Every time I come to talk about what my spiritual path is whether it be in a blog or through video I just seem to clam up and not be able to talk about it. Its not that I don't know what my path is, its just for a very long time I have struggled with finding the practises that make my path.
Whenever I read a book, website or through video that has some information on hedge witchery, I used to feel as if I was doing it wrong because I wasn't doing their way. But I am starting to realise that that is who they are and I need to focus more on what I can do that is around me.
I felt like there was this huge gap inside of me which couldn't seem to be filled up, I was trying so hard to find what practises I could do in my path which ended me with having huge headaches as I was always coming to a dead end. Then I started to think about what do I believe in, what is inspiring me the most and drawing me towards it.
I feel more strongly towards the Celtic Gods and Goddesses and I do feel that I am inspired and are more drawn to that culture. Although it can be difficult at times when doing research of the Celts spirituality (pre-Christianity) as there is very little information about them. This is probably where I started to struggle again and begin to get that huge headache from endless searching but no where closer to what I was looking for.
The witch of the forest grove and walking the hedge had mentioned something to do with looking into the folktales of the certain culture to see about how you could bring that into your practises, as sometimes within poetry and stories lies the practises and such of that culture. So I am at the moment searching through Celtic folktales to see what I can find and even seperating them by going through the Scottish, Irish, Welsh etc. Also I have decided it is about time I take a more closer look at the history of the Celts, to honour them and learn more of there lifestyle.
I would love to learn some of there language to be a bit more closer to them, but I am having trouble to choose so that will be another challenge for me to come to.
I also found that the Celts did like to honour their ancestors and travels of them. And ever since I was little my family would always talk about when they were little and how their grandparents would go on and how they went on when they were little and still today we do that, and it made me realise that I am honouring them and it is a practise that I do. I have photos of them lying about, talk to them as much as I can (although I should talk to them more often).
I also enjoy walking around my local area, seeing everything around me and what is changing, giving thanks to nature for what she is giving to us and sometimes I try to stand still and hear their songs and stories that they tell, or even messages that they are trying to give to me. As they are my teachers and they give me my lessons to learn.
I never realised it until now (when I was researching up on kitchen witchery) that what I make, i.e - bath bombs, lip balms, bath milk, shower gel etc. Is part of kitchen witchery along with your usual baking and such. So that is a practise that I do pretty much all the time.
All these little things I have been doing make up my path and I never understood that. All the time I was trying to fill a gap and do so much searching that it ended up hurting me when all this time it was right there infront of me.
I know now that this is a test that the Gods, my ancestors, the land was giving me to see if I could pull and work through such a task like this.
It may not sound like a typical hegdewitch or for some they feel annoyed that I call myself a hedgewitch because it isnt the way that they go. I dont care, but I do at the same time, this is my path and I am finding my ground to where I can plant my roots and grow and set my surroundings. Maybe in time I will add more practises but at this moment this is basically what I do and know well how to do.
There is something I would love to be able to do and that is cross the hedge, for me that is an important part of hedgewitchery, and even though I cant do it just yet I know in time I will, just right now I am building myself a stable ground. :)
As Imbolc is about to be arriving soon, I thought I would try to do something more than a walk this year. Each festival I normally just go for a walk and look at my surroundings, see what is changing while giving respect and honouring everything near by. But this year I felt like I should get involved at lot more, so I decided to make some Imbolc oil - this can be used to anoint the candle you wish to use before lightening it, or on your temples before meditating or just simply putting a little bit of it in the oil burner.
I normally make incense for the festivals, but as I have so much incense sticks and little herbs to use I thought this time to use the oil and see what my outcome is after this festival.
I don't own that many oils either at the moment so I basically had to do with what I had. So it was basically, Rosemary, chamomile, mandarin and rose. I wanted to add healing, purification, welcoming back the sun as well as a little bit of love into the oil.
Maybe the oils are not what you expect to smell as Imbolc, but I don't really care. To me it smells uplifting, refreshing and clean, which is pretty much what I wanted for this festival - so I am pretty damn proud to manage to make an oil with the intentions I had in mind.
I think I may be sticking to my usual walk and maybe a meditation or just standing still listening to what the land around me has to say.
My partner bought me my first ever pendulum over the Christmas period, (Yes, I celebrate Christmas as well as winter solstice, it is out of respect for my family who have always celebrated it).
I have always been interested in scrying but never actually found the pendulum that was right for me, and I don't like buying any type of crystal just because its popular or because I want to learn something, if I cant find a connection with something I will leave it and understand that its not my time yet and wait until it is my time to learn - and it just so happened to be my time :)
We (me, my partner and his father) went into the local new age shop when we were in Colchester and I was just browsing, not really expecting to find anything when I saw the glass case with pendulums. And there was one pendulum that stood out to me, when I looked at it I felt like I was in a Whirlpool and going into a deep meditation - I knew it was right for me from that moment, no crystal has ever made me feel that way before.
Also the women in the shop were so lovely and really nice, which made the whole experience even better :)
When we had arrived home, my mum handed me our Christmas presents from her and my dad, and I opened one and found out it was another pendulum, and I was a little nervous with this, like I said I normally don't go with things if I don't have a connection so I was a little worried in case I couldn't get on with this one. But luckily enough I did and this pendulum is just as brilliant and I love them both.
I have found that my first pendulum has a lot of character to him (they both have male energies about them), he likes to show off to other people who wish to work with him, like my partner. And the other one is a little but more shy I feel, maybe its because I haven't worked with him enough for us to get to know each other more, (No, I am not crazy when I say that, it just means I haven't put enough energy and concentration with this one unlike I have done with my first).
Sometimes I have a few bananas that have gone a bit brown and I know I wont eat them, so I have thought instead of throwing them away why don't I find a recipe to use them in and I did just that - Banana Bread.
