Midsummer

Lately in my mind I've been thinking of the summer solstice as Midsummer instead of Litha. Not sure what brought about that particular change, but figure it's worth making a note of.

I spent yesterday cleaning out the fire pit in my grandparents' backyard. Some of the bricks had fallen over, and the whole pit and area around it had become a bit overgrown. Before any fires I'd made were small and off in a little sandy area to the side of the house, but the backyard is nicer so I've been working on cleaning that space up.

So since today is Midsummer I thought it would be a good time to have a fire and bless the fire pit. I know the area is going to need some more work. A bench would be nice, or maybe I'll just have to bring a folding chair out. I'm also considering making a small shrine on top of, or nearby the fire pit, or making one of the sides a bit wider for a bit of altar space. Not sure yet.

Today I also began making a large stang. I've written about this a few times in the past, this as been an ongoing search for... two years now? Something like that. I've just been waiting to find the right branch to start with. I had passed by the branch I ended up choosing many, many times. First, it wasn't the type of tree I was hoping to make a stang from, and two it was actually a whole small tree rather than a branch from a tree.

I was trying to avoid cutting a whole tree down, but this particular tree was in an area that was due to have some clearing anyway. Actually, this is how I lost the original branch I was looking at the year before last. It was a nice branch from a young white oak, but the week before I was going to cut it the whole area was cleared out and the wood hauled off somewhere.

Anyway like I said, this has been a long process, and I've been coming back to this particular tree for at least a year now. It just seemed like the right one to work with. So I left an offering at the base of the tree, and carefully cut it down. The trunk forked off into two branches, which I've trimmed off and kept for later use. I blessed the stang over the Midsummer fire, which had dried mugwort burning in it. Now it's going to be set aside for a while to dry out a bit before being worked further.

June 9, 2014

Wow, it's hard to believe that we're nearly halfway through 2014. I'm not even sure where most of that time went, which is always a little concerning. I mean, I don't believe that every day needs to be jammed packed with ~meaning~ or activity, but it feels like the last six months have just been a bit of a blur.

I've hardly made time to write here at all this year (although I do see several half-finished drafts sitting in my post list). Writing here has always provided me with motivation to finish little side projects, to research this or that topic, to write about certain experiences so they're not forgotten, and so on. I don't necessarily do these things only for the blog, but the blog gives me a place to keep all the information in a nice order. Scattered notes (or even no notes) and fragmented thoughts become something more.

I planned on participating in the Pagan Blog Project this year, to pick up where I left off last year, but right now I'm putting that on hold. I might join in at some point, but I'm not going to make it a priority at the moment.

What I do want to focus on is getting back into the 30 Days of Deity project I left off months ago, and combine it with a similar project I've been working through offline. I also want to continue on with the various plant and animal posts I've done in the past. That's really an area where doing write-ups for the blog really helps me get my notes together, organize research, and just bring everything together into a more finished form.There are definitely a few plant posts coming up in the near future.