Picture Post

Today, I will not list, or promote, or answer emails. After three weeks without one single day off, today I will just enjoy the day. Gardening, crocheting and probably some baking or cooking (or both) are among my plans. Playing with dogs, too. Napping, meditation, yoga, music. Maybe even some journaling tonight. I’ll let the day decide.

Hoping you are having a wonderful weekend, here are some pics from the week that you might enjoy.

Wednesday evening – after a long day of work, nothing refreshes my Spirit more than setting a Sacred Space, this time for our beloved Lady Of Guadalupe, while Fernando offers some beautiful drumming.

A huge Desert Locust visited our garden this week, and Fernando was lucky to capture it. Although they are a pest on our corner of the world, I find them really beautiful.

Friday – nothing means Christmas here in the islands as the flowering of our Poinsettia plants. We had a wonderful Tiziano blue sky filled with playful, high clouds – the garden called us for a good cleansing, and we obligued :).

Absolutely gorgeous Okra flower – a hard capture because its flowers last very little before turning into fruit. I love it.

Coriander, flowering. One of the cheeriest, more communicative Spirit Plants I have ever met. Praying for it to seed so I can plant a dozen!

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Picture Post

Peppermint, cut right after the storm last weekend, holding the amazing energy of the first thunder of autumn.

Another year, another Mirabilis Jalapa root harvested – this one is even bigger than last year’s and has two more “arms”. Once dried, it will be made into a talisman as we did with last year’s root.

Beautiful offerings for the Seven African Powers – Lemon Cake from La Cruz Santa (The Holy Cross), a town in the north of the island.

A new kyphi dedicated to Saint Michael – it will be up for sale in a couple of weeks after it cures and dries properly.

Lucky Dumpster Find of the week – a new tin for my collection ( I collect tins and boxes with rose prints). I’ll be making a sewing box from it I think.

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Today’s Picture: Monarda Citriodora

Although this plant doesn’t grow here in the wild, we have managed to grow it from seeds bought from a US seller, and today I took this beautiful picture of the first flowers. Also called Lemon Balm* and Bergamot Herb** because of its citric scent, this herb is edible, contains strong antiseptic properties and can heal upset stomachs and lower fever. Also, it is a wonderful bee attractor, which is perfect for a roof garden like ours. Magically, I think it has just as many properties, and I would add it to the “good-for-all-uses” category of magickal herbs, as it has proved to be just as useful for love spells as for protection or cleansing spells. It has the spirit of a fighter (growing so beautifully while being so far away from it natural habitat speaks very loud of its power and tenacity), while giving us the gift of its delicious scent and taste, and of its absolutely perfect flowers. A keeper on our magical garden!

Note* – Lemon Balm can also refer to Melissa Officinalis.
Note II** – true Bergamot is a type of orange tree, the Citrus Bergamia.

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Spinning Weekend

On Saturday night, we made a small Blot (offering) to the Norse deities – Moroccan tea, rum, honey, milk, cheese, olives, pate, seed bread, an orange spiced with cinnamon and honey, a tobacco pipe, and of course our own kyphi incense. After meditation and prayer, we like to do some special activity devoted to the deities, and this time it was spinning. We had just made some improvements to our spinning wheel and wanted to try it, so we worked all night on spinning what it looked like a ton of red wool in three different tones for a special project I’m keeping secret for now. Sorry for the bad pic, my camera really hates red!

On Sunday, I got to finish another blanket for our charity project, and already started a third one. Colours are a little warmer than in the pic. I am really in love with this piece and it’s a perfect way to use all the wools that Peeps sent me, which were too thick for crocheting – and a wonderful practise for getting better at knitting, something I’m really slow at because of my dyslexia.

Knitting under the sun. Perfect spotless sky, and probably the first sunburnt of the year because we stayed too long moving pots to the shadier side. Temperatures are very high already, so we better hurry to plant this week.

If you want to try the Moroccan Tea, here’s the recipe. It’s a wonderfully refreshing and digestive beverage, to be enjoyed at any time of the day, and its little ritual is a sign of hospitality and friendship for Moroccans.

Moroccan Tea Recipe
- Loose tea (green is the most used, but you can use any good loose tea you like);
- Fresh Spearmint or Peppermint;
- Sugar (white, brown, fructose, even powdered saccharin);

In the pot, place first the sugar, then the tea, and on top the fresh herbs. Pour near-boiling water and let sit for 5 minutes. Take a short, slim glass and pour the tea on it: pour the glass back into the pot, and repeat two more times. Try to pour from as high as you can, so the tea makes a little foam, as the aeration benefits the taste.

After the three pourings, you can serve it, garnishing with more fresh spearmint/peppermint if you want to – a Mauritanian man I met many years ago taught me this small ceremony and told me that “The first glass is bitter as death; the second, long as life; the third, sweet as love.”

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Pics Of The Week

No matter how busy I am, your weekly dose of inspiration pics is assured!

Thread boxes are just like flowers: they need to be photographed regularly. It really counts to grasp these small fragments of beauty, before I make a mess again of it hehe.

As always, lots of work this week. I wish I could send the smell of fresh herbs with the post – spring is definitely here to stay. For us, the first sign of it is the Aloes flowering, as you can see below.

Dumpster find this week – a wrought iron plant hanger. The vertical gardening is going really well. It won’t rain more until next Winter, so the busiest garden time of the year has started. Time to plant too.

And of course, the mandatory dose of animal cuteness, our little Frida.

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Pics Of The Week

Even after over two decades doing this, there are still moments of discovery, of awe, of unexpected stretching of the connections. Magic is something alive, that evolves and grows silently.

The garden, always offering its beauty so freely, always changing, being born and blooming and dying at the same time.



The lucky find this week – a box of vegetables and fruits! We went to get some stuff from the local hardware store, and when we came back there was this guy leaving a box beside the trash bins. Of course, we had to see if there was anything of use, and there it was, just as you see it in the pic below. We have been leaving some special treats to Exu Okkada, the Eleggua avatar that lives in dumpsters, so we’re sure this was from him! There are so many amazing things that we have found in the trash, I don’t understand how anyone would throw this perfect food away. Only one apple had a little blemish on one side, the rest was firm and clean, just ready to be used.

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Back To Much Needed Normal

Life going back to normal means, among other delightful things, time to tend our little roof garden.

Rue, flowering beautifully. This plant has taken a really long time to grow, and hopefully soon it will be giving seed, as there were several bees making love to her :).

The vines we brought last summer from our wildharvesting, and that have been sleeping all winter, are sprouting back and growing by the day. We could have grapes by the end of spring.

The wild lettuce is loving the chilly but sunny weather – we will be getting a great harvest this year.

Time to send our first shipment of crocheted baby items to Algerian Action, a small charity that provides help for families in need in Algeria. The first of many to come, as I’m already working on items for a second box – but right now, my next charity goal is crocheting a good amount of squares for Sibol. Elders need help as much as kids!

There was also time to try a new crochet piece – my first baby girl dress, and definitely not the last.

And start an improvised doilly blanket with scraps, that will be growing with time. Details of both on my Ravelry page.

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In The Garden

One of our beautiful Poinsettias, in full bloom.

There were no appointments today, so the morning was spent tending the garden. The day was sunny and breezy, such a rare combination here in the desert, perfect for being outside all day.

I got stung by the powerful spirit of the nettle while weeding the pots – I have a very delicate skin that’s prone to rashes, so the sting was very intense and still hurts after three hours. I am accepting it and honouring it as the teacher she is, experiencing the pain without denying it. I don’t want to miss one bit of it.

We transplanted, pruned and moved several pots to more sun-oriented locations, the only advantage of having an urban garden is that plants are not tied to a place and the garden can be adapted to each season. The okras are pregnant with several pods, and more cobs are growing on Frey’s corn plants. A permanent miracle that plants bear fruit in a garden made entirely of pots, in the roof of a house.

Several readers have asked us if we have a “real” garden – well no, we don’t. This is a very small place and houses are built wall to wall, no backyard or front gardens for poor people like us. Growing a garden in the roof was our only chance if we wanted to see any green around, and grow the herbs we need for our magical and medicinal work. Not an easy task considering we’re in front of the Saharan coast, but as you can see not an impossible task either. Love, and a good dose of stubborness, are way more powerful than any apparent restriction. And oh, the reward of witnessing flowers bloom.

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Garden Pics

Rue, red clover, guava trees and herb robert:

Tulasi basil:

Pennyroyal, tulasi basil, spearmint and lemon basil:

Okra:

The day’s harvest: wild lettuce and rose geranium leaves, tulasi flowers to make a very special tincture, regular clover for love spells and the first corn cob from Frey’s plants.

And after all the work, a little stitching on the table runner. Not much achieved as it started raining and we had to come downstairs.

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The Week’s Picture Post

I finished the first blanket for the charity project – I am very happy with it, and probably making another in other colours.

Making new products and remaking batches of regular products – as always, they will stay brewing for a good while before we put them for sale.

Can anyone help me identify this plant? Fernando brought some seeds from Anaga last year and planted them here; it’s full of flowers now and already starting to seed. Today we happily discovered that the red clover seeds and the nettle seeds had sprouted, and that two of our three corn plants have little cobs growing! We planted them for Frey, and never thought they would make it in pots, but they did!
EDIT – Thanks to Erin from nightwalkinghedgehog, for identifying this plant as a Mirabilis Jalapa!!!

And, of course, there has been beautiful spellwork.

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