Deadwood is the fruit of a dying paradigm – and where’s there’s deadwood, there will always be microbes that are fundamental to the cycle of life. The enforced quarantine has barely impacted on our daily lives, but yesterday as we began clearing the woods of dead trees, I found myself reflecting on this most novel situation and my growing sense that we are in the midst of the greatest healing crisis the world has ever known. There is no such…
Yarrow, Achillea millefolium is another one of my favourite helper plants (along with St John’s Wort, Melissa and Plantain). It grows wild here through spring and the long summer and I harvest the flowers and leaves and dry and store them for tea and wound healing powder, as well as making tinctures and sun oils for use throughout the year. When I picked it, smelled it and crushed it in my fingers for the first time, it felt like a…
Growing broccoli Broccoli is one of our garden successes. I sowed seeds of several different types, purple sprouting, green sprouting and the large headed variety – the purple sprouting is the most prolific and easy going by far. It’s been tough love for the garden. The soil got compacted when we cut down the pine trees to make the garden, in the early days of the garden we had two years of summer drought with no irrigation. (See: Six years…
Convenience or freedom? As off-gridders we have to deal with our own shit, quite literally, as well as waste and grey water. There are many systems out there, but every system I researched seemed overly complicated, labour intensive and expensive. So we found our own solution that was cheap, effective and maintenance free – so far. There is no public sewage system in this area of rural Ophiussa. Most of the houses have some form of septic tank. We did…
It’s just before Imbolc and in the garden, Melissa is thrusting her crinkled, heart-shaped leaves through the cold wet clay with wild abandon. I picked some leaves and made a strong infusion and let it cool, so I can sip on it everyday as I make her acquaintance. Melissa officinalis, aka Lemon Balm, is a member of the mint family, the Lamiaceae. This is a huge and aromatic family of over 6,000 species, including pennyroyal, peppermint and spearmint, basil, rosemary,…
Tulku loves a good scratch. He´s not what I’d call an itchy dog, his coat is glossy and he is healthy, happy, calm and strong. He’s never been to the vets. So, when around the full moon in the Snaketamer, when he began scratching through the night, I knew something was up. Parasites We live in the country and our dogs are free to roam. They are exposed to a wide-range of microbes and parasites from cows, sheep, wild boar,…
In another post, Yellow Dock: Badger Medicine for a New Story I recounted how our dog Freya got a new tale and became my teacher. So, the other day, when she began digging again, relentlessly, all over the newly grassed loonie pad, I took notice. She knows so much more about the gods and nature spirits than I do, as she runs with them every day. This time she was eating clay, rather than roots, so I duly searched on…
In the dark of the new moon before Samhain, four of us initiated the Game of Subtle Alchemy. In that game we play with desires, polarities and the alchemical principles, to reveal our Supernatural abilities. My game plan for this month looks like this: SALT PRINCIPLE: Thinking, Attraction, Projection SULPHUR PRINCIPLE: Feeling, Courage, Masculine MERCURY PRINCIPLE: Feminine, Masculine detail How to play that hand????? The day before Samhain, it rained and rained. The ‘play indoors’ kind of rain I remember…
Year One in the Garden We moved here in May 2013, into the cabin we built, and in the winter of 2014 we cleared about an acre of straggly pines, from a gentle south facing slope to the west of where we were renovating the old house. Situating the garden was a big decision. We considered putting it closer to the house, which would have been more convenient, but it wasn’t feasible with all the building work going on. These…
Once upon a time used to go on forever, until the gods created time. In a sense, they co-created time with the anthropos, as time needs to be witnessed into existence. Time could well be the greatest discovery of this kalpa. Much like light, time cannot be experienced directly, but this minor detail has never got in the way of a nice theory. Scientists love to come up with theories that describe reality, but they are not allowed to look…