Rambling Roses...

 

Leap of faith....

New Moon approaches, familiar spaces embraced....

Here I be, back. As the moon is shifting, so too am I.  The last week or so have been spent arranging the spaces of the Nook into focused and centered altars. Reflecting my immersion for the next couple of years n on, with plants yes, yet through magical medicine ways as a language. Listening to, observing their spirits coming through a crafting and aligning up with a deepening herbology 'prenticeship. A wobbly winding path which has always been present, I am simply choosing to amble upon its leaf litter strewn softness with deepening intent and my apron of many pockets o gathering....

I shan't ramble too much, just to let you know that I never really grasped the techy aspects of a website, and so with our Southern Hemisphere's Cailleach staff touched time, I decided to return to being cosy, if old school....here...for any ponderings n musings such as arise. Go gently with me for dancing about somewhat if you've managed to find me again through the ethers, and I will do the same....

Blessings and good vibes, chloeopal...

Roadside Rose experiments....

When on a gallery trip with a friend, we pulled up at a roadside stall, selling bunches of Roses. There, in the wet grass nearby, were stacks o discarded leaf trimmings! Merrily I gathered handfulls! Roses are so evocative of healing (and kick ass protection), especially of the heart chakra, and I felt in combination with Eucalyptus she could evoke the layering of birthplace land, and witchery traditions. Also matching the rambling wild Rose I've managed to grow from cuttings in our garden. The mother plant of whom I adore, and who I have wild crafted tinctures from for a number of years. So, I knew Rose could touch in exquisite n unexpected ways...

Driving home with the scent of 2 bunches of old school Rose flowers, divine!

Once back at the Nook, I popped the leaves in a bucket to soak, and began to stitch a top slash jackety thang. With cotton, linen, wool and silk parts to see how they took on different materials. It was the first experiment! Admittedly. I got a lil excited and didn't wait to allow the bundle to cool in the pot till the following morning. So, the results could have perhaps been darker, if'n I had. However as unexpected things sometimes do, the soft colours delighted me (picture from back)...

I could see the leaves could produce a green on the wool and silk, a black /grey on linen /cotton. :) So I proceeded to begin to craft an emerging 'Soul skin shawl' for the Hedgewitch in one. This time waiting till the following morning to unfurl....

Mushcat n I both meditated on the results, indeedy. Now, the stitchin' begins....

 

 

Intentional Crafting and its Magix....

Our makings begin with our intentions. To try out new skills, different colours, materials, patterns, and this is all great. A gathering of practices and techniques. However, we can add a layer to our workings by consciously choosing to enhance the sacred in them. With prayers, blessings, timings of making to lunar cycles, choices of materials for their totemic symbolism, the use of natural objects and materials. Correspondances one can go into as deeply, or into tangents with, as drawn to. Wise folk and healers down the ages have indeed done so.....

For me blessings n good vibes is my motto in this. Sometimes it’s partially what I do alongside crafting that centers the energy whilst doing it, eg) when braiding threads, I invoke the elements of water, fire, earth, air and spirit, as well as prayers for calling in whatever feels apt. Especially if I know the receiver and their needs or focus. 

Many folks choose a craft for it’s meditation and calming aspect. Repeated stitches, rhythmic almost trance like processes. Like a string o mala beads held, stitching can be an opportunity to focus the mind, and perhaps voice. Words spoken aloud whilst sewing can carry their messages loud and clear to great spirit, or your personal understanding of the forces that flow through all.

An act as simple as lighting a candle as you prepare your work / play space, can shift the energy. The placement of your tools on a special table or area. Smudging, lighting incense or burning essential oils. Drinking a type of herbal tea you’ve selected for it’s properties, medicinal or magical. These practices alone open a vast portal, it’s up to you how far you travel with it….

The traditional tale of ‘The Twelve Wild Swans’ is a beautiful example of intentional making. In this story Rose, a girl child, wished for by her Mother, at the expense of her 12 brothers being turned into Swans. She discovers she must weave them each a shirt of Nettles, in silence, to break this curse. Neither allowing speaking, laughing or crying, despite what may, and of course does, happen. Serious focus required folks, but even she has unfinished objects (or UFO’s) and one brothers arm thus remains a wing…

 I have another tale of intentional making, and indeed it’s potency at times. It’s not pretty, but alas true. When we were teenagers, my brother Dylan, had an off road motorbike he rode. One day he asked me to decorate it, requesting my usual motifs of the time. I obliged, flaming skulls up the sides, demon on the front, and the words ‘Death bike’ emblazoned upon its front. No more than 2 days later my brother was in a serious accident on said bike, and my Dad and I had to pick it up from the scene, as he was hospitalised. We was in a state of shock. That was my aha moment on the power of symbols. I changed the ones I used. 

I do realize in some cultural traditions seemingly fearsome figures are used to protect a space or person, and I’m all for Baba Yaga type wisdom, but best we call in such beings with awareness and consciousness, in my humble opinion. If you’re working with your personal shadow stuff, naming it or depicting it can support processing, but again it's about intention, and how we give our attention ripples out. Crafting can be an opportunity for an  alchemy o transformation for some of these challenges. If I’d ALSO included symbology of rebirth, and the cyclical nature of things on that bike, who knows how different it's vibe?

 Let’s compare the motorbike tale, to another....

At a time when I was hearing things other folks were not, and it was generally pretty nasty and abusive. A friend of mine, Elsie, sewed for me a small Unicorn. Made from soft flannel with a rainbow tail, she is soothing to hold in ones hand. I popped her on my bedside table, and shortly thereafter had a potent dream where I was gifted a mantra of protection, much needed at the time. The mantra went “In the name of my Spirit kin and healed ancestors, I call upon a cloak of invisibility to wrap itself around me, so that I may be unseen EXCEPT by those who hold my highest good at heart.” (just incase you feel the need to give said mantra a go 😉) When I awoke and recited the mantra, for the first time in months, you could have heard a pin drop. I walked around the block in a sheer state of amazement, listening to the everyday sounds of ordinary reality. Birdsong, conversations, passing traffic. It didn’t last forever, but did give me a taste which ignited my thirst to experience the type of silence many take for granted.

 

 

A 'plant echo' example, is my 'Blissoire'. Your what? The tradition of a witch having a book of her tangents and workings is an ancient one, often called a 'Book of Shadows' or 'Grimoire'. When I was speaking to my dear medicine sister Vicki of this, that I was going to begin crafting one from scratch. She spoke up, suggesting 'Blissoire' was mayhap a fine reframe for rather gloomy wordage, and I agreed! So I gathered the finest watercolour paper I could afford at the time, stitched and bound the book. Covering it in ecodyed linen, which to my heart represents my connection to nature so present in my earth witchery. The leaves came from the farm where my Mum spends most of her time, with her partners in crime. Thus it also evokes my matrilineal line. Binding the book is a band of wool plant echo to which is stitched a Seal bone I was gifted as part of this clasp. Its medicine is that of the tale 'Sealskin Soulskin'. The Selkie, or Seal woman who having had it stolen, reconnects with her skin and can thus return to her Source of the ocean. Seals being innately magical travellers betwixt land and sea realms. These links and associations are crucial to my intentional craftings, and I hold them dear... 

I believe in creativity and it's potency as a magical tool. If you do aswell, mayhaps you'd like to experiment with these ways, or already are! Injoy!

Making Iron mordant potion n suchnesses....

This brew is one way to crank up the alchemy of work with Eucalyptus and indeed other green folks in creating Plant echoes / Ecodye. Making it is simple, the results from its addition can be beautiful, however don’t expect predictable from this form, that’s not really part of its character. Exploring and play, are….

Take a gathering o rusty objects and pop em in a jar. I have been using a stash of bits from an old thick reinforced water tank that came from a special bushland area, so it’s vibes are part of the story. I popped em in a jar and then filled the remaining space with white vinegar. Yup, the cheap kind that makes your face screw up to taste it.

Allow this to brew for about month is best, but 2 weeks will do.

I add a splash o this to leaves that are soaking in preparation to dye or to the cauldron water to amp things up. Often, I then use some o the soaking brew as the base in my dye pot when cooking bundles or loose fabrics to colour them. How much is a splash I hear some o you ask? A bit be my reply lovelies, I simply don’t work that way. Make a batch and try, see what happens for you. I will say, I soak leaves at least 2 weeks prior generally, and am not stingy with potion added to them, 1-2 cups or so. This combination is what I believe gives stronger colours and clearer prints, mostly working with wools, but also linens and cottons. It can weaken fabrics over time, so work to find your own levels with the mordant you make.

It can also be used to mordant plant fibre fabrics, but can result in a brown streaking effect or stained necklines if not dried flat, or too much is used. Less is enough in this case, talking tablespoon/s here. In this case second hand, or third, fabrics are best. New fabrics have all kinds of 'seals' on them.

Some batches are stronger than others, there’s variation. Once you have a sturdy source of rust, you should get several brews from that, simply by topping up the vinegar in the jar, once you’ve used it up. The best ones have colouration in them, you can see it’s changed and is ready to use.

Injoy!

Gifting ourselves soul nourishments.....

Sometimes we hold off on gifting ourselves soul nourishments, perhaps whilst what is needed clarifies, like sediment dropping in water....

Today in these wee hours, I went to a box that contains my craftings of a textile nature, and decisively lifted out the shawl that I hand dyed and stitched some months ago now. Reverantly, feeling a bit like a naughty child too, I wrapped around me the piece that I had earmarked for well, something 'special'. It came to me like a whisper, the idea. It's for you...to wear...to wrap around this bodyhome....

Now seated here, cat Nomad upon my lap, purring merrily, it feels good, and right. We both are injoying its Eucalyptyness in a way a bought item could rarely story. That confirmed it for me, this feeling is a touch of magic. Like the first unfurled bundle that offered up colours that stay to eyes open and curious. That skirt the prints of leaves echoed upon that I wore to threadbareness...

For the next 3 weeks n on, I will lovingly wear this cloak as a journey map. Soul highvis wear. Less oh & s or fluro, more maintaining sanity vibe. It's my mantra to continue the crafts that created it, whether I get saves on my Pinterest or not. If my Etsy store has 1 piece or pages. It's really not relevant, except if'n it brings passers by such as yourself an iota o da joy I receive. It's a life call. To dye n stitch, garden, cook, herbalise, love n laugh. Practice what I consider my witchery in honour of it's existance. Cos without it I'd be pickled in a bottle full time, or blue as indigo in not such a beautyway.

The world of fast fashion is all about appearances, shallow and destructive to the planet in it's practices. It bores me, basically with it's lack of connection to anything I consider 'real'. How can I criticise tho, without creating some other tangent and maintain any sense of authenticity? So, as I continue along an ambling paced path, I will dig my heels in deeper. Immerse more....dive deeper....

 

May you also be open to whatever nourishes your soul in the now, wee hours or otherwise ;).

Blessings n good vibes