Category Archives: Music

But we’ve been out in the woods all night, a-conjuring summer in



Isn't this great? I'd scheduled it some time ago to post just before Litha. Over the weekend, the wonderful Joanna Colbert beat me to it! Blogger, in its infinite wisdom, went ahead and posted it here and then wouldn't let me in, until this morning, to give Joanna credit. At any rate, I hope you enjoy and that your Litha is as wonderful as you could wish. I'll be spending time with G/Son and with my Sisters, so I expect it to be fantastic!

Please come on over and visit at my new blog: here at http://hecatedemeter.wordpress.com.

But we’ve been out in the woods all night, a-conjuring summer in



Isn't this great? I'd scheduled it some time ago to post just before Litha. Over the weekend, the wonderful Joanna Colbert beat me to it! Blogger, in its infinite wisdom, went ahead and posted it here and then wouldn't let me in, until this morning, to give Joanna credit. At any rate, I hope you enjoy and that your Litha is as wonderful as you could wish. I'll be spending time with G/Son and with my Sisters, so I expect it to be fantastic!

Please come on over and visit at my new blog: here at http://hecatedemeter.wordpress.com.

But we’ve been out in the woods all night, a-conjuring summer in



Isn't this great? I'd scheduled it some time ago to post just before Litha. Over the weekend, the wonderful Joanna Colbert beat me to it! Blogger, in its infinite wisdom, went ahead and posted it here and then wouldn't let me in, until this morning, to give Joanna credit. At any rate, I hope you enjoy and that your Litha is as wonderful as you could wish. I'll be spending time with G/Son and with my Sisters, so I expect it to be fantastic!

Please come on over and visit at my new blog: here at http://hecatedemeter.wordpress.com.

Potpourri


"My" homeless vet is having heart troubles. I spent a lot of time today trying to find a VA service that will go out to the TR bridge on-ramp and do outreach to him -- and came up empty. Tomorrow, I'm going to take him aspirin, which I know can help to stave off a heart attack. Are there any other supplements that are good? (Damn. I hate feeling powerless. Hello, Shadow.)

Dill, oh dill! Why will you never grow where I want you to grow, but always grow where I've planted rosemary or thyme? Why? (Hello, again, Shadow!)

Butterbur, if you keep encroaching on the day lilies, you will find out that I can be as Kali, Bringer of Death. I am just saying.

Oregano, please see my comment above re: dill.

Spent today reading, thinking, editing, talking to smart people, and writing. Once, in my wicked youth or childhood. . . . Sometimes, your job IS your daily practice. And that, pace R. Frost, has made all the difference.

Anne Hill has up a great post about talking to children about dreams. A few months ago, G/Son was awakened by a bad dream. He headed across the hall into his 'rents' room. Sleep-addled and hoping for a few more of Lethe's blessings, they pulled up the covers, snuggled him in between them, rubbed his back, and attempted to get some more sleep. He shook my beautiful DiL awake: "Mommy! You did not ask me about what was IN my dream!" Children want to talk to us about their dreams; it's up to us to teach them that what they dream matters. Thank the Goddess, my G/Son has a wonderful mother who woke herself up and asked the important questions. A while later, G/Son spent the night with me and, when he woke up, in that magical, information-rich moment between sleeping and waking, he said, "Nonna! Can you hear my friends? I think I hear my friends from my old school." I told Son and DiL about G/Son's dream, and they've been making opportunities ever since for G/Son to spend more time with some of his old friends. And he loves it!

African Alchemy has an interview w/ Adrienne Rich, who GOT ME THROUGH LAW SCHOOL w/ A SNIPPET OF POETRY Rich says: "Nothing 'obliges' us to behave as honorable human beings except each others’ possible examples of honesty and generosity and courage and lucidity, suggesting a greater social compact."

Thorn Coyle. Leonard Cohen. A good cause. For precisely what are you waiting?

Dear Glitter Person I do not know you, but I think I love you. Why thrice-married Newt Gingrich ("I was against Ryan's plan to deny health care to old people before I was for it") gets to complain that allowing gay people to marry will "destroy traditional marriage" is way beyond me. Also, as someone who is financially responsible, I have to say that if your estimated worth is only about a million dollars, you've got no business owing between 1/4 and 1/2 of that to Tiffany's. And I love Tiffany's, purveyor of all things Elsa Peretti. (As I've posted before, one of my rules for dealing w/ a bonus is to get yourself some little thing you want before investing most of the bonus. I've spent more than a few of my bonuses on Elsa. Unlike Newt, I could afford them w/o going into debt.)

If you don't check in every day with In the Mists of Avalon, you should.

What the Arch Druid Said. This week as every week. If you only have time to read one blog, this is it.

Everything here smells good. As do the gardenias in my garden and the earth after all this rain. Not to mention the (see above) dill, oregano, chocolate mint, sage, and deep black iris.

If you care about social media, you should read my brilliant friend, E. No, really. Every day.

This morning, I passed a new (at least newly-advertised) farmers' market at the OPM (that's Office of Personnel Management for those of you outside the Beltway). Thanks, Michelle Obama! Mr. Bittman has a great article about how Detroit, yes Detroit, is embracing locally-grown food.

If you're interested in checking out some Pagan events, you should be checking regularly with Medusa.

After days and days of heavy rain, I got to go sit outside in my bit of Earth and reconnect. It felt wonderful. What's going on in your bit of Earth?

What's rocking your world these days?

Picture found here.
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Tuesday Poetry Blogging


To a Skylark
~Wm. Wordsworth

Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!

Ground as Hard as Iron



It's not, as we all know, really, at least astrologically, Mid-Winter. In fact, it's still, for a few more days, technically Autumn. Real Mid-Winter is late February when it (normally, and, oh, Goddess, please again this year!) begins to warm up along the Potomac and the crocus start promising to bloom.

But here in the magical Mid-Atlantic, we have ice (and flocks of Canada Geese) on the Potomac, an inch of snow in my garden, and it's so cold in the mornings that my knitting-sore fingers twinge and ache even inside leather gloves. The Earth in my garden is, indeed, hard as iron and the water in the small spring just up the street has frozen, hard as stone. Just this week, Landscape Guy and I got the plants cut back to the ground and a layer of mulch on the cottage gardens.

I'm working at home today: taking conference calls while I chop vegetables for pistou, reviewing applications for solar power while the dishwasher runs, furiously knitting cowls and hats for Yule. And, every so often, I stop and wrap my shawl around my shoulders and go out on the porch to watch the snow, throw some more peanuts to the squirrels, and toss carrot peelings to the rather aged rabbit who seems to be adopting me. (I told her, I did. I said, "Babe, there's a fox who lives up that hill and she'll be around here any minute. Fair warning and, if I were you, I'd go beg scraps from someone else. There's a nice lady up the street with no trees in her yard who'll feed you." The rabbit told me that foxes are her version of an ice floe, she knows where the fox is, and she'd still appreciate some carrots. So, who am I to argue; I peel another carrot for the soup and bring the scraps outside for my leggy new friend. Madame Fox, I hope you appreciate what I'm doing, in the end, pour toi.)

This wonderful song, with lyrics by the poet Christina Rossetti is one of a number of Christian songs that are so lovely that I just get past their Jesus gloss. And since, as we Pagans like to remind the Christians this time of year, they appropriated quite a bit of what they've got from us, it's not all that difficult. Heaven can't contain your god and he infills the material world? Welcome to my religion.

And, you've got to like a song that celebrates the fact that "a breastful of milk," is enough for a baby (isn't it great how that works out? ;) Because a breastful of milk is what most mothers have! ) divine and/or human. My favorite lines, though, are these:
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

We Pagans know a lot about worshipping with a kiss and, well, maiden mothers? We invented those.

And, as for:
Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,

well, shoot, that's how I experience Air every minute of every day.

Stay warm. Feed the animals.