Hello again, gentle readers! This past week, in honor of the veil’s thinning at Samhain, I’ve been spending some time with my dear departed grandma, Gayle. She had the ability to drive me up the wall in a way nobody else could, but she also was a pretty wise old lady who showed me how to craft with love (not…
Author: LadyBoss
Suburban Lady focused on raising her kid not to be a jerk, keeping herself and her husband healthy enough to feel good, and living life as comfortably as possible in an uncomfortable world.
Samhain Sojourn: A Different View of a Familiar Season
Halloween is nearly upon us, gentle readers, and for me this year, that means celebrating Samhain – the Pagan festival that marks the end of the light half of the year and the beginning of the dark half. Growing ceases and decay and dormancy begin – things in nature that need to die and break down into the earth so…
Mabon Wrap-Up: Seasonal Reflection and Gratitude Galore
The great thing about celebrating the Sabbats of the Wheel of the Year is that I jive much more fluidly with the seasonal calendar than I do the Julian one. The bad thing about it is that time seems to fly by within it just as quickly as it does in the traditional calendar! The end of Mabon is upon…
Keeping Mind, Body, and Spirit in Balance with Planners and Journals
As I talked about in my article about The Dark Mother, this time of year always sends my anxiety into overdrive and makes me feel very off-kilter – like walking-on-eggshells-through-a-minefield off-kilter – and it doesn’t help that everybody around me is probably feeling the same way, so they’re just as keyed up and touchy as I am. When my anxiety…
40 at 40 Revisited (and Goals for 41 of a sort)
So yesterday I turned 41 – and again, as my son would say, “So that happened.” When I first thought about going back to my 40 at 40 article from last year to see how I did, I was very reluctant because I am pretty sure I didn’t manage to do a damn thing on the list. Despite how good…
Mabon Musings: The Dark Mother
One of my favorite and most beloved axioms comes from a professor in college whom I could not stand in the least – which always kind of rankles me, but the axiom is SO GOOD that I still hang on to it anyway: There has never been a Winter without a Spring. No matter how bad things get, meteorologically or…
Monarch bonus: “Safe Travels” Vehicle Protection Sachet
So my monarch musings inspired a pretty cool witchy craft — since monarchs travel thousands of miles during their migrations, wouldn’t they be a pretty cool symbol for a “Safe Travels” sachet? Why, yes! Yes, they would! I used a pattern from Downeast Thunder Farm for the monarch and made it from felt. (I *LOVE* crafting with felt – it…
Mabon Monarchs
Fluttery greetings, gentle readers! Mabon is a season of marked change, and there’s not much I can think of that symbolizes change better than the transformation of a caterpillar into a beautiful Monarch butterfly. I had the privilege of being up close and personal with a LOT of these lovelies as I raised over 120 to adulthood this summer and…
Mabon Merriment – Fall Feast and Ritual 2018
This weekend was absolutely PERFECT for some autumnal abundance here at Stately Salrin Manor, gentle readers – highs of 70 degrees in the daytime and nippy, crisp evenings that made spending all day in the kitchen with the windows wide open well worth all the effort. My good husband and I worked like crazy Saturday to make our Mabon…
Mabon – Harvest Home and Autumn Equinox
Fall begins this week (WOO HOO, my favorite season!), so that means Mabon is upon us, gentle readers! Also known as Harvest Home, Winter Finding, and Harvest of the First Fruits, this second harvest festival of the Pagan wheel of the year occurs on the Autumnal Equinox, another season of balance between dark and light. This is my first year…
Lammas: One Corny Sabbat Celebration
While it often plays second fiddle to wheat in Lammas observances, corn is plentiful during this season and deserves a little celebrating of its own. I experimented with this awesome cornbread recipe and fancied it up by stirring in a chopped jalapeño, some frozen sweet corn kernels, some Fiesta Blend cheese, and some dried cherry tomatoes. These gorgeous muffins were crumbly…
Lugh, My Creative Homeboy
Lugh (pronounced “Loo”) is the Irish/Celtic embodiment of the craftsman archetype deity – a god of skill and distribution of talent. He is highly proficient in art, poetry, medicine, martial arts, and more, and he invented fidchell (Gaelic chess), ball games, and horse racing. This guy is not just a jack-of-all-trades, he is the master of ALL the trades. Lugh…
Lammas Tidings!
Cross-quarter sabbats like Lammas are the main reason I really dig the Wheel of the Year structure of the calendar so much. When you depend on the traditional Western calendar rather than syncing with the real transitions of the seasons, the changes come on you like a rushing freight train – summersummersummersummerWHAM-IT’S-FALL-STOP-SUMMERING-AND-DO-ALL-THE-FALL-THINGS-NOW!!! When the Wheel turns more slowly, you get…
Everyday Magic Challenge Check-In – July 2018
Hey, all – it’s time for a check-in with how my Everyday Magic Challenge is going. I’ve got some parts on lock, and others I’m still working on. During the month of August, I’ll be checking in weekly here and at the Half-Assed Circle with photos to make it a little more exciting as we go, but for now, here’s…
Book Review and Commentary: Perfect Weight by Deepak Chopra
“When you feel healthy, energetic, physically attractive, and comfortable with your body, then and only then are you at your ideal weight.” — Deepak Chopra, Perfect Weight As part of my sporadic Campaign to Less Fatness, I picked up Perfect Weight by Deepak Chopra. I’ve been looking into Ayurvedic medicine through my herbalism studies, and Dr. Chopra’s Western medical background,…