I understand nothing is perfect but OMG….. nothing is more frustrating that writing a blog post and having it disappear. Normally I type up my posts in Word and then I will copy and paste them over but not today. Boy did I learn my lesson. For some reason, my blog is acting up like I have never had it do before. I tried 4 different times, with and without pictures, to schedule a new post for the blog and it would delete everything and either post a blank blog or post a blog with only a title, deleting ALL the other info. I have contacted customer service and I am sure it will be resolved shortly but until then …………………. So, if there was a lag in the blog this week and we you see several posts all at once, it is just us getting caught up after the blog is repaired. Hope everyone is having a great week!!!
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BLOG ISSUES-----ISSUES BEING WORKED ON WITH CUSTOMER SERVICE---WILL BE BACK SOON!!!!! CHECK BACK )0(5/21/2018 Our second chakra is the sacral and can be found low in the abdomen. We previously talked about the masculine base chakra being our foundation, but this chakra is feminine. It is also more moody and deals with emotions, moods and reactive. This chakra also deals with instincts but on a different level. Here we look at the emotional side of needs such as sex and relationships. Because of its relationship to the womb and genitalia, it shouldn’t be a surprise that it is closely related to the moon. When someone has a strong sacral chakra they are usually independent and in good healthy relationships. They can usually pick out people who they should stay away from and avoid situations where their “gut” instinct tells them too. They can carry on good relationships with those around them. They give, but not too much. They take, but only what is given. They understand boundaries and they stay within those and require that the people in relationships with them do the same thing. This person will have a good family live. Even if they had a rough upbringing, they are able to move on and provide a better relationship with their family then they had growing up. When a person’s sacral chakra is out of balance you will see them in healthy relationships. These will be the people that are allowing themselves to be used and abused by those around them. Or, these can also be the abusers themselves. They are the people who are always drawn to the wrong person for them and they know that the relationship is toxic but they still get involved. This person usually holds on to a lot of resentment and anger for past relationships. They find it difficult to move on and they allow that to influence current relationships. These are people who often abuse substances, or over indulge in different ways (such as money, sex, food, anger, etc.) in order to compensate for their lack of emotional stability. If you need to strengthen this chakra be sure to put yourself first. You cannot give what you do not have. Eat healthy and nourish your body. Food is related to your gut and so too to this chakra. Other things to consider are doing things that you enjoy. Creation comes from the womb, try being creative in whatever way you know how. This could be painting, drawing, singing or even better dancing. Movement in the hips and areas associated with the chakra are great ways to help align it. If you enjoy exercising, you could try positions that use the body’s core or abdomen. Also, always remember that the chakras are connected. While one chakra can feel mostly in balance and another is completely out of a whack, it is always best to try to work on the one you are having issues with. Even if it doesn’t seem like it, your aligned chakras can, and will, see improvement if you align a chakra that is in trouble. Chakra work can be a continuous process so don’t get discouraged if you feel like your work with your chakras are an ongoing battle. Photo Credit: https://goo.gl/images/xK5kyd
My family and I packed up and headed to the woods for a very long awaited hike for our first of the years wild harvest. We packed up our clippers, gloves, rubber bands, phone, and a large cup. We always have a list of what we need to be sure to get or look out for. However, exploring and new discoveries are also really fun. This time of the year our sites are usually set on the nettles and Japanese honeysuckle. We don’t normally have to search too hard for stinging nettle. We tend to forget about this every year and it has turned into a game of who will find it first. A game that no one remembers we are playing until the winner is announced. This year it was my oldest daughter that first complained of the stinging and itching sensation completely covering her legs. Yep, she had found the stinging nettles. Not wanting any part of their wrath, I glove up when I cut these down or let my husband do the honors. We tie the ends tightly with a rubber band so that they are ready to be hung for drying. Stinging nettle loses its “sting” as it dries. However, open pores and a fresh plant will make a person feel pretty miserable until it’s washed off. My son found the purple dead nettle this year. Always searching the ground, he was excited to see this beautiful ground cover. He also spotted some hen bit. We don’t use a lot of that but I do collect a little each year. These are both much easier to find this time of the year when there isn’t much competition in terms of over growth. However, the stinging nettles can be found throughout the summer as they just get larger and larger. We collected many Japanese honeysuckle blooms. They always smell so wonderful. I love including these into a lot of our blends and different projects throughout the year. I will probably collect these a few more times before I have enough for the rest of the year. I like gathering them and getting them at different stages of their life cycle for magickal uses. A new collection this year was this beautiful cluster of fragrant white flowers that we found. They smelled so amazing and were stunning to look at. They hung from a drooping tree and we had to cut a few entire clusters off so that we didn’t lose the tiny flowers connected. When we got back home, I hooked paper clips to the rubber bands of bound plants and strung them up on my drying line. The flower buds I collected were laid across a mesh lined drying rack and then I label each plant. See I learned the hard way that even though I know exactly what these plants are today, my memory doesn’t always serve me so well and a dried plant looks much different than the day it was harvested. This goes double for new plants I need to identify. It is much harder to research a plant by appearance if it’s all dried up already. So I immediately sit down and research and write tags for every harvested plant. In the weeks to come I will collect more nettles, more honeysuckle and I will begin looking for the much anticipated hemlock to return. We sold out of this less than half way through the year last year and so we will seek to triple last year’s supply this year. At the same time I will be harvesting flowers and herbs as they bloom or become available, as well. Roses are beginning to bloom this week, lilacs, lilies, marigolds, pansies, etc. are all making their debut as well. Harvest season is among us. Photos: The Cynnamon Charmed crew during our first wild crafting trip of ‘18 Every spring is pretty much the same around here. February and March hikes will lead you to find some interesting winter treasures like deer antler sheds and different bones from beings that Mother Earth reclaimed the past season. April, you begin to find new life popping up but not much to collect on in terms of new wildflowers. I like to think of these months as a re-introductory period. We can get out and remember what it is to wild craft. We anxiously anticipate the new growth, begin to plan, but here in Missouri these months can bring a large array of weather conditions: snow, rain, and even freezing temps. This year it seemed like we had a very short spring season in terms of weather conditions. It is barely the third week of May and we have our first hotter temps. High 80’s low 90’s are bringing in flowers and plant life quickly. The rains and unstable atmosphere of the season, making it muggy, and humid, and often, even stormy. Pollen is blowing and covering everything with a thick dust. It is the season of LIFE renewed! We took our first trip to the woods to see what herbal treasures could be found. I usually have a pretty good idea what is available during specific times of the year but different weather can produce early or even late surprises. I like wild crafting in May. Things are growing and sprouting but the underbrush isn’t too incredibly thick yet. You can still find things near the ground. Many plants are most potent in their early growing stages too. I am highly allergic to poison ivy and least likely to get it this time of year, while I seem to get it just blowing in the wind a month or so from now. Ticks aren’t bad in my area for another month or so either. With all the disease and illness they carry these days, I am very cautious about taking the kids out in the thicket when they are out. This is the time of the year we really get out and into the woods. Into the places that will soon be too thick with vegetation to explore. Here soon, when the woods fill in and the bugs really come out, we will stick to our pathways and our secret places that we rely on year after year to produce and find the things we need. For May wild crafting, all we really need is our gloves, our basket, our scissors and our rubber bands. We need the sun screen. We need my phone for the camera and my handy new app that helps me to identify new plants I discover. But most of all we need each other’s company. There are many fun family memories that we have made exploring and hiking these Missouri parks and woods. Never miss an opportunity to spend quality time with your kids and family, making memories and teaching them things that they can pass down for generations. Photo: My very first rose blooms of the 2018 season. After six long weeks my walking boot came off. My leg and foot muscles feet incredibly weak and I hated that fragile feeling. I spent a week or so carefully walking around the yard and doing things around the house to gain back my walking stability and also test my injured foot. Last weekend we walked the farmers market and stores for two straight days. While I was a bit sore, it just felt like part of the process this time. I have badly wanted to get out into the woods. I wanted to wild craft and to hike and explore what winter has left behind and what spring was gifting us with. Mother’s Day seemed like the perfect day for that. I think that my foot has finally taken leaps and bounds towards healing. While I am being very careful this time not to reinjure it, I needed this time in nature too. I needed the time to ground and reconnect with Mother Earth after a long winter and to heal my spirit too. While reflection is needed and has its place, lurking all winter in the shadows of ones’ self does take its toll. We need to allow our spirit to sprout with nature so that we, too, can grow through the summer and continue with our cycle of life. We can’t be continuously stuck within a season. I am excited to see what nature will gift to Cynnamon Charmed this year. Continue to follow the Charmed Daily Blog, where we will take you on our journeys to find the foundational ingredients that we bring to you all year around in blends, singles, and magickal crafts. You get to be a part of the process from beginning to end. Photo: My thoughtful husband of 17 years cut theses fresh for me on Mother's Day. I don't care about all the commercialized gifts.....it's things like these flowers, the handwritten cards from my kids and effort that they all put into making my day special that makes me feel like a very lucky lady on Mother's Day. This has always been a difficult day for me. One of completely mixed emotions and anxiety. I am the mother of three beautiful and healthy kids. I never wanted anything more in my whole life than these three bundles of love and energy. They are the reason that I get up every morning and the reason I don’t get enough sleep at night. Every decision I make through my day begins and ends with their best interest coming first. I often wonder why I was so blessed. I see other mother’s go through many struggles; from death of their children, to disease/ illness, to other uncontrolled instances. I silently wonder why that was not the hand I was dealt. Maybe I am purely lucky…. Or maybe some higher being knows I am not strong enough to survive what these women have had to….Scarier yet, maybe my time for trial hasn’t come to me yet. All these are very scary thoughts. The Gods know, I wouldn’t know who I am without being called Mom. I have my own pain and baggage I carry in terms of my own mother. I was almost 6 years old when her life was taken in a fatal car accident. She was driving, no seat belt, and was thrown from the car. My baby brother was barely a year old. When my kids were the ages we were in this accident happened, I remember looking at each one of them wondering if the same were to happen to me if they would remember me, how they would remember me and what impact I would have had on their short little lives. I can’t speak for my baby brother, but I do remember my mom. I have several memories of times that we shared, although mostly insignificant. Mostly I remember a gentle embrace, a joking and loving playful interactions, and most of all a beautiful big smile. For years now, I have seen that smile again in photos but they aren’t the same. They are reminders but they don’t hold the impact the images and memories in my head do. People act like you move on after death. I suppose to some extent this happens. You stop crying but you never stop missing that person. I never stopped wondering if my mom would have been proud of me in this instance or that over the years. I never stopped wondering if she would have loved my spouse, been a good grandma, etc. I am older today than she survived to be. I wonder if I would have looked anything like her…..do my own little girls? I am very grateful and fortunate to have had a woman feel her shoes for all these years. My step mother has been amazing and supportive and I love her for all she has done. I celebrate her on Mother’s Day for the mother’s role that she took on without complaint and without really being asked to. So, as another Mother’s Day comes and goes, I feel all the emotions over and over again. I am grateful and proud to be a mom myself. I feel fortunate to have a step mother and step grandmother that have taken me under their wings. And I truly miss my momma and both my grandmas. Trying to be fair and respectful and show my love and gratefulness to all these amazing women is overwhelming. I don’t want to feel guilty for missing those I have lost. Guilty for not moving on in all these years. Still feeling the undeniable need to go to the cemetery and pay my respects. To show these people they are not yet forgotten and still very much a part of me and who I am. Time doesn't stop the yearning for them to be here to spend this day with. It is their blood within my blood. It is their names that I call on to guide me in times of trial and need. I still seek them in meditation and ritual for guidance. I miss them on Earth but they all await me in another world. I must tell my children their stories, to keep their memories alive and their spirit with us. We can not allow those that we love and lose to be forgotten. Photos: In memory of my momma ,Carol Cooper, my maternal grandmother, Beverly Graham, and my paternal grandmother, Barbara Cooper. My family pays our respects, clears their tombstones and shares stories. Mother's Day 2018 Thank you for following along with us as we created our own magickal garden at home. We hope that our readers got ideas, inspiration and maybe even learn from our own mistakes along the way. We are not experts in these things and experiment, design and execute plans on our own after we research and brainstorm our own ideas. Even harder is finding information that combines the everyday world with the magickal and that is exactly what we struggled with in this project. Initially, this was going to be a place solely for the Fae. I wanted something inviting and accommodating where they may want to come and bestow their blessings on my home, family and garden. As a witch, I know the preferred plants and surroundings of the Fae. But as a human being, I was easily caught up in the commercialized fairy gardens that are popping up in the stores. In the beginning I meant to meld the two together to form something beautiful, and also practical. Something that everyday passer byers, family and friends would recognize as a beautiful fairy garden but I, myself, would know as a magickal and powerful addition our home. When I was finished, I had a well-intentioned observer tell me it was a beautiful gnome garden. My first thought was, gnome garden? Why would they say that? Duh, there isn’t a fairy in this garden, only a gnome, mushrooms and toad house. Welllllllll, crap!!! Was this intentional? Does it mean something? As witches, we look for symbolic meaning in EVERYTHING, and this was no different. I felt that I may have been being pulled into a different direction for a larger unknown purpose. After all, every single fairy I saw, every fairy house I looked at just wasn’t what I wanted. Oddly enough, last month we had a tree cut down on our property. In my defense, it was a dying tree that was a major hazard for us and one which has caused damage in past storms, so I didn’t have a choice in removing it. However, gnomes are known as the protectors of forest and trees. Very recently it occurred to me that maybe I cut down the home of a gnome??? I don’t live in the forest; I live close to a treed park. However, as humans cut into the forests and we populate more and more land, we are undoubtedly infringing on the magical realms of the nature spirits. Is it really that farfetched to think that maybe some were living in that dying Maple tree I removed? Not escaping my attention, was that my own Patron God, who found me this past summer, Pan, was also connected to the tree spirits. I was a bit shocked as this gnome idea came to me. It seemed strangely odd that I was only attracted to gnomes when shopping. I seemed to create a gnome habitat more so than a fairy. On the other hand, my entire yard could be considered a Fae wonderland. Around my yard we have many strongly appealing things to the Fae (and Gnomes): hummingbird feeders, bird houses, bird feeders, tulips, ever living plants, butterfly bushes, mints, roses, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, rock gardens, water ponds, petunias, gladiolas, iris, lilies, sage, lavender, salvia, thyme, rosemary, grape vines, honeysuckle, etc. etc. etc. My yard in its entirety attracts birds, bees, hummingbirds and so obviously the Fae. The Fae and Gnomes are thought to work side by side as magickal nature spirits. They are not in conflict with one another and so they can inhabit land together. The Fae are normally seen around flowers, on the borderlines of society while the Gnomes are thought to live underground, or in rocky areas. However, these are all just generalizations, right, because nothing is set into stone. And the truth of the matter is this…..intention is never overlooked. Something more powerful than myself made me stray from my intended path. Instead of making a fairy garden I created another piece in my entire nature spirit yard. This fountain space isn’t fitting as an entire atmosphere for these creatures but it shows symbolic respect for the spirits working in and around my home. This center piece to my home will serve its purpose as a beautiful space to leave offerings to nature spirits, and deity as well. And so, more appropriately, I intend on making this fountain a nature spirit garden. As I find the ideal fairy pieces I will include them and more gnomes, as well. I will combine all in to one to show the combined forces of spirits all toward the same cause of loving, protecting and honoring Mother Earth. If you have followed along the past couple weeks, we have been documenting the construction of our own fairy garden from idea to todays finished (almost) product. We even took you all with us to the store and shared with you the budget on this project in our last blog post. So now, with the majority of items needed, it was time to begin putting it all together. With my daughter helping, we filled in the flower pot with a bag of soil. I wanted to leave lots of space for the flowers since this fountain was very shallow. We strategically placed the asparagus ferns toward the back on each side of the second tier. We thought this was a place that the ferns could have a little more room to grow taller while also providing a beautiful forest look to the back ground. The house would only fit and look right in the bottom tier. My daughter wanted to create a forest landscape around the house with the succulents she had picked out. They were mostly a mixture of Red and Green Jelly Bean plants. They were also placed around the garden in the throughout the three tiers. We were keeping in mind that succulents were also a spreading/multiplying perennial plant. The Irish and Scotch Moss were placed in each tier, as well. We wanted one of each color on the bottom so it could spread and have a two tone effect. Then the two smaller tiers had a single one since we didn't think it could accommodate any more than that. We also wanted to allow them to have plenty of room to grow and we are hoping they will eventually hang off the sides of the concrete bowls. The spout was tricky because the bowl we had to work with was just so tiny. We broke off a tiny start of moss and planted it there along with this vining moss that I have around my yard. I am not sure what it is called but it was given to me by a neighbor and I was told that it would grow and spread ANYWHERE. Boy was she right. This stuff now pops up all over. The birds will break off a piece and then when they fly off, they drop pieces in the yard and this stuff will grow where it’s dropped. I am not complaining. It is actually very pretty and in pots in will create these long green beautiful strings that hang down all around and out of the pot creating a stunning display that lasts clear through the first hard frost. We thought this would be perfect for that spout when it starts to drip down from that tiny little spout. With all of our plants in, we filled in all around them with compost. We decided to mound it a little hoping that rain would wash off rather than flood the plants too much. We then set stones to act as little pathways to the house. We placed our chickens, mushrooms and little gnome for design. It turned out even prettier than I had hoped. It had wonderful curb appeal. I actually loved the look as a planter/garden much more than the water fountain it previously was. When the garden was all complete, I went to water the plants and that’s when it hit me………oh shit!!!…….is this thing going to completely wash out in the first heavy rain???? Oh no, I hadn’t thought of that before now. I was seriously stressing out over this. All of our hard work could be ruined in one spring storm. So each day I am watering and packing in the dirt. I am hoping that the plants roots take off quickly so that they will bind and compact the soil making a wash out more difficult. Just like in a potted plant, I am sure I will lose some dirt in heavy storms. I am trying to avoid drilling drainage holes in my fountain but it may become necessary. The tiny figures are kept in place by stakes down in the dirt with the exception of the chickens that could easily get washed out. I guess the only was to be sure is to wait for the next rain. I know succulents prefer a drier soil so I don’t want to overwater right now. The compost I put on top is a sandy mix. I am hoping that will help. Stay tuned for after thoughts, additions and more on nature realm magick. |
Keri Nichol
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August 2018
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