Spring
it was a lovely Earth Day. i was off, and didn't have to leave the farm. it rained early, but i slept late, and it was warm and humid and sunny by the time i got past coffee and got to moving. the farm smells like honeysuckle and something spicy. the spicy thing blooms this time every year, and i still don't know what it is, but i welcome it.
after a leisurely breakfast and a little Great British Baking Show (how i love that show- i'll be so sad to come to the end of them) i went outside snipped down all the couple of hundred plastic eggs i hung in the trees around ostara. that was a lovely contemplative activity for Earth Day.
the eggs are silly. i don't have any kids at home, and the novelty of Egg Trees is long past (although i was the first one i knew of to do it!)
having one egg tree would be plenty, but having them all over the dang place is REALLY silly. all of the trees who have shared their names with me get eggs, lots of 'em. but also the ones around the Hermes and Hekate shrines, the 'gates', and all along the border, and some of the lilacs, and my few remaining orchard trees, and of course all over the Persephone shrine. i don't do it for anyone else, which is good, because the family doesn't pay any attention to them and no one else remarks on them. i do it for me, and i do it for the dryads, but mostly i do it for the Kore. there is no corresponding Hellenic festival to ostara, and even ostara is either marginalized or argued about in the greater pagan community. (i wonder if 'american gods' will change that?)
i don't really care if ostara was an actual goddess or a modern invention. i don't care if greece has different seasons so Persephone's Descent isn't actually etiological. i don't care if the ancient greeks did anything to honor the season of balance.
the Kore's Journey is so intimate to me, so very important, that strewing the bare-branched trees with color to anticipate Her feels not only joyful but necessary. and when i take them down again, the trees are filling out with green, most of them past their blooming. i love the promise that hanging the eggs in the chill of late winter brings to me. i love knowing that when they come down again, just a few weeks hence, spring will be well advanced.
this year i got the added bonus of super-early fireflies. i've never before seen them in april. i have no clue whether or not this is actually a dire climate change portent. i just know i'm so happy to see them. last night i danced late into the night with them, and the peepers who were singing madly, and the little frogs who clung to the kitchen window, throats pulsating.
today i also planted seeds in my poppy garden, and got the potatoes and onions in.
it was a good day. a quiet, unhurried, low key day.
welcome, spring!
after a leisurely breakfast and a little Great British Baking Show (how i love that show- i'll be so sad to come to the end of them) i went outside snipped down all the couple of hundred plastic eggs i hung in the trees around ostara. that was a lovely contemplative activity for Earth Day.
the eggs are silly. i don't have any kids at home, and the novelty of Egg Trees is long past (although i was the first one i knew of to do it!)
having one egg tree would be plenty, but having them all over the dang place is REALLY silly. all of the trees who have shared their names with me get eggs, lots of 'em. but also the ones around the Hermes and Hekate shrines, the 'gates', and all along the border, and some of the lilacs, and my few remaining orchard trees, and of course all over the Persephone shrine. i don't do it for anyone else, which is good, because the family doesn't pay any attention to them and no one else remarks on them. i do it for me, and i do it for the dryads, but mostly i do it for the Kore. there is no corresponding Hellenic festival to ostara, and even ostara is either marginalized or argued about in the greater pagan community. (i wonder if 'american gods' will change that?)
i don't really care if ostara was an actual goddess or a modern invention. i don't care if greece has different seasons so Persephone's Descent isn't actually etiological. i don't care if the ancient greeks did anything to honor the season of balance.
the Kore's Journey is so intimate to me, so very important, that strewing the bare-branched trees with color to anticipate Her feels not only joyful but necessary. and when i take them down again, the trees are filling out with green, most of them past their blooming. i love the promise that hanging the eggs in the chill of late winter brings to me. i love knowing that when they come down again, just a few weeks hence, spring will be well advanced.
this year i got the added bonus of super-early fireflies. i've never before seen them in april. i have no clue whether or not this is actually a dire climate change portent. i just know i'm so happy to see them. last night i danced late into the night with them, and the peepers who were singing madly, and the little frogs who clung to the kitchen window, throats pulsating.
today i also planted seeds in my poppy garden, and got the potatoes and onions in.
it was a good day. a quiet, unhurried, low key day.
welcome, spring!