the beauty of bealtaine

Everything here is bustling with life, and if I don't stop to "smell the flowers", it seems like I will miss something. Things sure do move faster here in the warmer seasons.

When we first moved into the home that we are in now, I figured that we would probably get quite a bit of wildlife surrounding us, and I certainly have not been disappointed. The lane way behind our home is a beautiful wooded space, full of birds and other critters. It is a little oasis in the city.

A lot of work has been done in the garden, although there is still plenty more to do. The cooler weather crops have been planted in containers on our North-facing balcony and most of the beds have been completely dug up. I will be doing another batch of planting this Friday, and then the rest will be planted on the following Friday {posts about that to come}.

Happily all of the plants that we brought from our last place have come back and seem to be doing well.

I had been on the look out for a rowan tree that was small enough to keep in a container and to bury in the ground during the Winter. The plan was to have it like that for a while so we could take it with us whenever we finally purchase a place. However, all the trees at the local nurseries were six feet and over. While they were lovely, it would be a real challenge to keep them in a pot.

Instead I took a small live cutting from the tree I did this year's rowan wood harvest from and put it in some root hormone. It seems to be doing ok, although I think it takes up to a few months for the roots to establish themselves, so fingers and toes cross that it will do alright.

This month has been full of various rituals and sacred workings, from a clean up and blessing of the small village cemetery of my Ancestors and workings for others, to my own private ones. I don't know if it was because of the "super" moon, but I found that some of my Bealtaine festivities were especially potent this year.

I didn't make it to the opening of our local farmer's market, instead this past long weekend we ended up going back to the wee village to spend time with family. I noticed at the cemetery that someone had recently put a faery statue on the grave of a child who passed away in the 1950's. It don't think it was there during the clean up a couple of weeks ago, but there sure is an aged looked to it with the spider's webs on it.

And the infamous Leaning House of Restoule looked like it had a pretty rough Winter!

Sláinte!

Laurel