Winter is Coming

We turned the heat on today.  We've been putting it off for as long as possible.  We're from northern NY - we have long, cold winters which result in expensive heating bills. Weretoad and I would rather bear the cold for as long as possible than pay more for heat.  If we didn't fear damaged pipes or, more importantly, uncomfortable animal companions, we would have put it off longer.  Oh well.  Today was the day and now our home is toasty warm.  

It's very chilly outside.  I've been waking up to frost and, apparently, there was a dusting of snow on the ground this morning.  The trees look more skeletal every day.  I want to visit the forest but hunting season makes me wary.  I would like to go up and make an offering tomorrow but stay close to the housing area.  Hunters can't legally shoot so close to homes so I should theoretically be safe.  All the same, I occasionally see archers walking in and out of the forest.  It is that time of year - just as the ancient Celts culled their herds of cow, the modern hunters go into the woods to cull the wild herds.  It is not my calling in this life, though, so I simply stay out of the way.  

I wrote before that I brought most of my plants inside.  Others - mainly the beans - were left on the patio to go back to the Earth Mother. I didn't have much success with them anyway.  They slowly wither away around the bright orange pumpkin.  

Winter is coming.  I can see and feel it in the air.  

( For My LJ Friends: http://adfcatprints.blogspot.com/ )

Full Moon

Heehee. I'm amused by the number of people who have told me about the bright full moon tonight. I'm worried people think I don't read the news or look out my window! That said, I had been thinking the full moon would be on the night of Jan 30th, not the eve of the date. In other words, perhaps my calendar is more Celtic than I gave it credit for. ;) When I started to read about how bright the full moon would be on the 29th I became very perplexed indeed about the seeming discrepancy in calendars...

Anyway, it's a big shiny full moon and I have felt... relaxed, I guess. I still took care of some creative pursuits, but it was more or less a day of rest. We can think of the moon as at its climax. Tomorrow it will begin to wane until the dark moon - a time of shrinking, lessening, resting, healing, and, ultimately, renewal.

My greatest spiritual/creative accomplishment today was making a Brighid's cross (with my husband's help). I don't have any green rushes around. It was quite a bitter day up here in the North Country after all. There is a small creek near us at the edge of a forest. Separating the tame from the wild is a wall of (currently brown and dead) tall grasses. When I returned from work this afternoon, I harvested several and soon realized that they were too fragile to bend in their moribund state. My husband helped me steam the centers. It worked like a charm! The plants were probably not the best for this sort of project, but this is the first time I've made one and, I must say, I'm very proud. I'm going to leave it in the window tonight to soak up the moonbeams. Then it will make its home over my door as a protective charm.