I hope your year has started off smoothly and the weather is treating you all well.  The days grow longer and brighter, and I am so grateful for the additional sunshine. I am looking forward to the first flowers and budding green leaves, and to hear the chirping birds and watch the animals wake up from their winter naps.  Most of all, I am ready for some quality time outdoors, sitting in the sunshine, watching the world grow and bloom around me.  While winter is always a struggle for me, spring brings me a lot of joy. 
 
Below are some ways that I start to celebrate the spring in a location that often still has snow through much of the spring. 

• Create spring art.  Using whatever materials you have you can paint, sculpt, draw, or craft those items you think of related to spring. Bird nests, baby animals, flowers, clovers, eggs, green trees…the possibilities are endless
• Start a new hobby or project.  Spring is a time of new beginnings, so it’s a perfect time to start working on that idea you’ve had for a while.   
• Plant something.  Depending on where you live, it may be time to begin planting your seeds outdoors.  Otherwise, you can always start your plants indoors to give them a head start before they are ready to be outside.  Nurturing new plants is one of my favorite ways to connect to nature.
• Do some cleaning.  Get rid of any clutter, refresh your altar space, or perform a cleansing rite for your home.  This is a great way to restore balance in your home, and prepare for new beginnings.   
• Enjoy some time outdoors.  While the spring can still be chilly, take the time to enjoy the growing sunshine.  See if you can find new buds or spot some new creatures in your neighborhood.  Let the new growth remind you of all the potential that spring brings with it.   
• Decorate eggs.  Dyed eggs are a great symbol of the fertility of spring.  You can dye hard boiled eggs with your family, or paint wooden eggs to decorate your altar. 

 
There are also numerous deities related to spring that could be celebrated in this season.  I hope to take some time each week to get to know a new deity as part of my personal practice.  Here are a few examples:

• Ara – Armenian god of spring, flora, and agriculture
• Brigid – Celtic goddess of healing, poetry, and much more, celebrated at Imbolc as the first day of spring
• Flora – Roman goddess of flowers and spring
• Freyja –  Norse goddess of love, fertility, and magic
• Hebe – Greek goddess of youth and the prime of life, associated with spring
• Persephone – Greek goddess of the spring and queen of the underworld
• Shaushka – Hurrian/Hittite goddess of love, healing, and fertility
• Ushas – Vedic goddess of dawn, who imbues life to all beings
• Vesna – Slavic goddess of youth and springtime

 
​ If you have other ways you like to celebrate spring, or other spring deities you work with, I’d love to hear all them.  Feel free to drop me a message through email or social media.  I hope you all have wonderful spring, and fantastic 202

It's Monday, so let's do some divination!  This week, I'm using the Mythic Oracle by Carisa Mellado and illustrated by Michele-lee Phelan.  This week's message is: 

Helios:  Illumination
Helen of Troy:  Beauty
Ares:  Battle 

Taken together, this message says that something that we're searching for will come to the light.  We may have felt like we're searching in the dark, but we will find the way soon, and that is beautiful.  It will bring interesting times to our lives.  However, we may have to fight to get the information we are looking for, or the information itself may lead to other forms of battles.  

If you have a different interpretation, I'd love to hear it.  Have a great week! 

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One of the other big changes in my life during my posting break was a change in careers.  This gave me the opportunity to switch from working in an office to working remotely from home.  This meant that I had to create an "office" space in my home for me to be in daily and be productive.  I've used this space as both my work area, but also as a shrine to Athena.  Here is my empty chair and corner of my desk, along with the wall beside it.  While the wall may look a bit chaotic, it's got multiple representations of warrior goddesses, as well as art from some of my favorite artists, including my kids.  The art makes me happy and motivates me to keep moving forward.  

This desk is where I work, but it is also where I am doing a vast majority of my writing, as well as my homework and studies for my Master's program.  Athena's presence encourages me to be strategic and wise in my interactions, and to appreciate the knowledge that I have or am gaining.  The push to keep learning is ever-present, but a core part of who I am.  I've also added a small shrine to Athena on one of the shelves behind my desk, including two small statues of Athena, and some art created by my son.  Having it there is like she is always watching over my shoulder.  I love this space, and being able to embrace my personal practice as part of my daily life.  

On my break from posting, I spent a lot of time working on myself and my connection to the world around me. Spending some quiet time at home gave me the opportunity to build a little plant corner in my home, which doubles as a shrine to Demeter and Persephone. My work with them and the cycles of life has been so impactful that it felt important to have a space to honor them, and it helps work toward my goal of being a good plant mom.  I've come a long way from the person I was five years ago who was doing good to keep the grass in my yard alive.  On my shelves right now there are: 
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• 2 Schlumbergeras (Christmas Cactus)
• A crooked Aloe plant 
  
• A beautiful purple Inchplant that I propagated myself and lovingly named Grimace
  
• A lovely Jade
  
• 2 tiny Peperomia's - 1 purple and 1 green 
  
• A Kalanchoe with pretty white blooms 
  
• A very pretty Aglaonema 
  
• A Snake plant
  
• The big boy philodendron that I'm more proud of than I probably should be.  It was the first plant I ever propagated myself.  He is named Mac...because he started his life in a large McDonald's cup (Grimace was his bestie in my former office...hence the name)

So far, I have only killed 1 plant...which was totally my fault.  I missed a week of watering and it was the only plant that wasn't able to recover.  Let's hope I can keep the rest of them alive and thriving to watch them grow into my own tiny jungle.  

Welcome to my very first divination post of the new year.  I hope your year has started off smoothly!  This week's divination comes from the beautiful Compendium of Witches Oracle deck by Natasa Illincic, which I was honored to receive as part of a Kickstarter.  Let's see what we can expect for the coming week:  

The Storyteller:  Communication & Sharing
Offering: Love & Kindness 
The Reconciler: Acceptance & Improvement 

The Storyteller is a symbol of sharing your story and communicating with those around us.  It's a reminder that we should express our values and use our stories to build connections.  In my personal practice, telling the stories of my ancestors is an important act, because that which is remembered continues to live and be loved.  

Offering is a simple symbol of giving and caring for those around us.  For me, in this context, it's a representation of reciprocity and the importance of both sharing your story, but also offering others to share their own.  

The Reconciler reminds us that we can accept those things we can not change, and focus our intent on those areas that we can improve instead.  

Taken together, I believe this message is telling us to open ourselves up and share our stories with those around us, whether in the physical or spiritual sense.  Give the gift of yourself to them, and allow them to reciprocate with you.  Allow yourself the time to accept the world around you, and instead find new ways to grow and flourish.  

​If you have a different interpretation, I would love to hear it.  Have a wonderful week.  

The 2020s have definitely not been what I anticipated.  2020 was hard, 2021 was harder...and now we're in 2022.   I'm hoping to see a good year and have the opportunity to continue to grow and learn things about myself along the way.  With that in mind, I'm once again setting myself a set of goals for the coming year.  They are summarized above, but I wanted to expand on them a little bit here to build in some accountability and maybe clarify where my thoughts are with it right now.  

GOAL 1: KEEP READING
 
 For the past couple of years I have managed to read over 40 books annually.  I would like to stick with this and read another 40 this year.  
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GOAL 2: KEEP STUDYING

I am someone who always wants to learn new things and expand my knowledge.  I want to dive back into my spiritual studies and learn some new things along the way.   I don't now what form this will take this year...last year taught me that much at least.  I just know that I want to keep studying. 
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GOAL 3: WRITE MORE

Through the last year, I was able to write quite a lot, even though it fell off completely at the end of the year.  However, I know that I can do better.  My goal is to write at least 1 new thing each week of the year, which could be a blog post, a prayer or poem, or article. 

GOAL 4: FINISH MY DEGREE
When 2021 started, I had no plans of re-enrolling in school, but it was something I dreamed about for years.  However, about half way through the year I had the opportunity to enroll in a Master's Program and I jumped at the change.  I now only have 2 courses left to complete.  
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GOAL 5: COMMUNITY BUILDING
I've spent the past two years working to build a community of like-minded people and am happy with the growth I've seen.  I want to continue watching that community grow and succeed.  Whether that's in the form of more social-media followers, or more friends and connections, I'm happy to connect with new people

GOAL 6:  BE A GOOD PLANT MOM
This may seem silly, but over the past few years I've tried to hone my green thumb (which didn't exist).  Two years ago we planted seeds...last year we had a whole garden.  Now, I have several house plants and am planning for another garden in the summer.  Planting things is easy, but I want to take good care of them as well.  Wish me luck! 
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LOOKING FORWARD

These goals cover a lot of different areas, and aren't really even all the things I want to accomplish.  I want to get comfortable in my new position.  I want to find an exercise plan that works for me.  I want to find a way to be more consistent with my spirituality.  Each year that passes shows me that there is a never-ending list of things I want to accomplish, but we all have to start somewhere....so that's where I am right now.

Happy 2022 everyone.  Wishing you and your loved ones many, many blessings in this new year.  ​

2020 was hard, and I don't feel like 2021 was really much easier.  However, I do feel like I was pretty successful in my goals for the year.  The check marks mean that I did exactly what I set out to do.  The questions mean I feel like I hit the goal, but not in the way I anticipated.  Below are the original goals, and how I felt I did.  

GOAL 1: READ MORE 
I'm setting my goal for 2021 to be 40 books.  If I can hit more, that's wonderful! 

• It was close, but I did manage to read all 40 books for 2022!  Some of them were for fun, others for school or work stuff, and several were audiobooks, but I'm still happy. 

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GOAL 2: WRITE MORE
My goal is to create at least 1 new thing each week of the year, which could be a blog post, a prayer or poem, or an article.  I'd like to also write my very first book in 2021

• This is the first goal that  I feel like I succeeded, but not the way I anticipated.  My original goal indicated that I'd blog and work on my first book.  However, half way through the year I had the opportunity to enroll in a Master's Program and decided to take that on instead.  This means that my time, and writing, was focused on this degree.  I still did get many posts made, and a continued writing, but it definitely did not look the way I expected it to. 

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GOAL 3: KEEP LEARNING
Scholarship is a very important part of my spiritual path.  With that, I'd like to complete two separate study programs through 2021.

• This is another goal that I feel like I succeeded, but not in the way I originally planned.  While I did not complete any organization study programs,  I did manage to create 19 credits of Master's classes, so I'm very pleased with my efforts here.  

GOAL 4: COMMUNITY BUILDING
I've spent the past year working really hard to build a community of like-minded people and am happy with the growth I've seen.  For me, this isn't a number of "followers" but legitimately building a community of respect and appreciation with the people I am interacting with both on social media and in real life.  I hope more of that is possible in real life this year, but right now it's all up in the air. 

• I feel like I succeeded in this as well.  I don't know exact growth statistics, but I have watched my community grow and have met some incredible people in the last year.  

GOAL 5: MORE SELF CARE
Self care is something I'm really bad at.  I feel guilty for taking the time to do something for myself when there are other "more important" tasks to be doing.  This year, I'm going to try to give myself at least one hour a week to do this.  It could mean the typical, bubble bath and candles routine, or it could be walks in nature or exercising in general.  Essentially I want to give myself the opportunity to take better care of myself.  

• I'm giving myself a YES on this topic as well.  I took care of myself, left a job I was unhappy with, started therapy, and even said "no" to things, which isn't easy for me.  There are still things I would like to do here of course, but I've made a lot of progress here. 

​GOAL 6:  MORE NATURE TIME
I'd like to grow at least 3 separate things.  I hope those are vegetables, but if all else fails I'll plant some more herbs and flowers.  

• This one, I was VERY successful in, and I'm thrilled.  My children and I planted a small 8x2 foot vegetable garden this year.  My new position allows me to work from home, so I also setup a plant corner in my "office" that has allowed me to plant some new things, and propagate a few others.   I definitely grew WAY more than 3 things.  

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LOOKING BACK
Overall, I'm very proud of the effort I put into my goals this year.  My approach to some of them may have changed, but I feel like I was still consistent with the intent behind them so I am very pleased.  My next post should be my goals for the coming year.  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.  Happy New Year

So, it's been a long time since I've touched this blog....4 months.  Oops!  The end of 2021 was a bit chaotic and I was trying to keep up with life...and this fell to the wayside.  I finally feel like I'm back to myself and may have a bit more time to keep everything updated and create new things.  I won't guarantee a schedule or anything that strict, but hopefully I won't go months between posts this year.  

So what have I been up to?  Here is a list of things that I've done in the past 4 months:  

• In September, I virtually attended the Scottish Goddess Conference.  This is a pantheon I'm not familiar with, so it was wonderful to hear about different experiences and approaches to this culture.  
• ​Both of my children played soccer through the fall season, which kept us all busy. 
• I started treatment for anxiety & depression.  Asking for help was a huge first step for me.  We're still working to figure out what the right balance is for me, but I'm happy to be on this journey. 
• I continued working on my Master's program.  I currently have 2 courses left to complete. 
• We celebrated Samhain (Halloween), Thanksgiving, Yule, and New Year's as just our family.  
• Got the booster! 
• Both kids had multiple Covid exposures at school...( GET VACCINATED IF YOU CAN DAMNIT!).  My son is vaxxed, but my youngest is too little to qualify still.  
• I resigned my position of 5 years and started a new position with an Ed Tech company. 
• Purchased probably too many new Oracle/Tarot Decks and Runes.
• Other duties as assigned? 

It may not seem like much, but it's felt like a lot.  I'm happy to be back in the headspace where I feel like creating once again.  I hope you have all had a great start to your 2022.  I look forward to hearing from everyone soon.