unseeliej

[unseeliej]

Iris Folklore and Magical Uses

It’s the first of the month! Did you remember to say “rabbit, rabbit?” How’s it going? As I write this, it’s almost 90° F. My cats are yelling at me for reasons utterly inscrutable. My bearded dragon is demanding to go for a walk on the deck. My Handsome Assistant is at his other job, the one that does not entail handsomely assisting me. Nonetheless, the garden is looking wonderful and all is…

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[unseeliej]

Plum Folklore and Magical Uses

In autumn of last year, my Handsome Assistant and I planted a plum tree. As we work on getting rid of the lawn in the backyard chunk by chunk, we’re replacing those chunks with tree guilds. We couldn’t decide what kind of fruit tree we wanted for that space — it had to be a dwarf variety, and it needed good disease resistance. If the fruit didn’t need a lot of processing to be edible, so much the…

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#fruit #gardening #herb lore #plant lore #plants #plums

[unseeliej]

Bluebell Folklore and Magical Uses

Hello! How’re you doing? I sprained my ankle a little bit ago when I made the foolhardy error of trying to get my mail. This has, as you can imagine, somewhat curtailed my adventures. (Well, with the exception of going to see Whose Live Anyway at Warner Theater. Shoutout to the lady who let us go in through the lounge so I wouldn’t have to walk as much! I hope you experience a series of small,…

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#bluebells #faeries #flowers #herb lore #herbs #plants

[unseeliej]

Egg Folklore and Magical Uses

Hello! If you’re in the US, hopefully you enjoyed the eclipse on Monday. I spent most of it enjoying the lovely weather, painting my porch, and experiencing the very surreal feeling of an eclipse-dimmed sun. The family of crows who hangs out here all came to rest in the maple tree in the backyard. (I read that zoos had noted that the eclipse affected animal behavior, and some birds seemed to be…

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#animal lore #eggs #folklore #magic #mythology #ritual

[unseeliej]

The Absolute Worst Crystals for Plants

It’s spring! Kind of! Yesterday marked the average last frost date for my area (as calculated by the National Arboretum in DC). If you’re like me, you’re probably itching to get your garden started, or at least reclaim some desk space by moving your indoor plants outside for a little bit. I’ve seen a lot of posts about using crystals and other minerals to help plants. You’ve probably seen the…

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#crystal healing #crystals #gardening #herbs #life #plants #Witchcraft

[unseeliej]

The Magical Meaning of a Solar Eclipse

Picture it. A group of early humans look up to the sky as it grows dark. A black orb moves into view, blocking the light of the light-giving Sun. The people shout in fear — will the Sun return? Will it be able to fight off the invader? After a few moments, the light returns. The Sun is safe. If this sounds like a case of cavepeople being foolish and unadvanced, imagine this instead: You walk…

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#eclipse #folklore #magic #magical timing #solar eclipse

[unseeliej]

We have a spy.

As the weather warms up, the crows come back in force. They distribute themselves around the perimeter of their territory, sending a single “caw” in a kind of relay. As far as I can tell, it seems to mean, “Hi, I’m a bird! Status update: Still a bird!” This single “caw” is passed from sentry to sentry until something happens to disrupt it. That could be a cat, an owl, a snake, or the sudden…

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#animals #crows #life

[unseeliej]

The Magical Meaning of Mockingbirds

I’ve been filling the little raised bed next to the house. It isn’t much, just a long, sturdy box made of cedar planks, but I didn’t want it to sit fallow for too long. I built it last autumn, a bit too late in the season to plant anything, but that’s okay — my objective was mainly to set it up and observe how it interacted with its surroundings. Would it get enough rainfall, or accumulate too…

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#animal lore #animals #birds #divination #folklore #omens #spiritual meanings

[unseeliej]

The Feline Terrible (almost) Twos

When you adopt a cat, it takes a little bit of time for their personality to unfold. I remember bringing home Pye and Kiko — she had to stay confined for a bit, because she’d recently had an operation (one of her hind legs had been barely injured and she needed a bunch of necrotic skin and muscle removed), but Pye was free to roam around. She got better. Instead, he decided to find a sunbeam…

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#animals #cats #familiars #pets #rescue cats

[unseeliej]

Lemon Quartz vs Citrine vs Tangerine Quartz vs Golden Healers -- FIGHT!

You walk into a crystal shop. To the SOUTH, there is a DOOR.To the NORTH, there is a glass SHELF. >go northYou approach the SHELF. There is a variety of yellow and orange CRYSTALS on it.>seduce shelf...>attack shelf with swordWe're going to be here for a while. >identify crystalsFinally. There is a CITRINE, a TANGERINE QUARTZ, a LEMON QUARTZ, an OURO VERDE QUARTZ, and a GOLDEN HEALER. >pick up…

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#aura quartz #citrine #crystals #gemstones #lemon quartz #minerals #stones #tangerine quartz

[unseeliej]

Phlox Folklore and Magical Uses

Right now, my moss phlox (Phlox subulata) is absolutely popping off. I posted some photos in my last post about murdering the lawn, and they’ve continued to open more flowers as the days go on. Phlox is more than just a pollinator-friendly native groundcover, however. Though most species are in North America, they’re a useful (if often overlooked) magical ally and ingredient for all kinds of…

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#green witchcraft #herb lore #herbs #phlox #plants

[unseeliej]

Happy Spring Equinox!

Hello! It’s Tuesday. It’s also the Equinox, Alban Eilir, or, in some traditions, Ostara. (Unless you’re in the southern hemisphere, in which case: Happy Mabon!) This is essentially the second part of the celebrations of spring: Imbolc, the Equinox, and Beltane. If Imbolc is when spring wakes up, the Equinox is when it really gets going, and Beltane is the height of its strength. Since it’s…

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#alban eilir #druidry #high days #holidays #life #Neodruidry #ostara #spring equinox

[unseeliej]

The GLMSMC Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show (or, Why I Have a Small Quantity of Uranium Now)

This past weekend was the 58th annual GLMSMC Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show. It fell at a slightly weird time for us — I’m still in an ennui, and my Handsome Assistant has Dungeons & Dragons Hot Boy Activities every other weekend — but it A) it only comes once a year, 2) we’d been looking forward to it before realizing it happened at such a bad time, and III) it’s pretty easy to control how much…

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#crystals #events #fossils #GLMSMC show #minerals

[unseeliej]

Grassassination, a Year and a Half Later.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about my ongoing battle against the lawn. It started with a tarp, then went on to solarizing, then sheet mulching, then replacing the unwanted turf grass with native groundcovers, to discovering some kind of gigantic alien mystery plant we didn’t plant that accidentally ended up being delicious. So, since it’s been about a year and a half, how’s it…

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#environmental responsibility #environmentalism #gardening #life #native plants #plants

[unseeliej]

The Return of the Great Big Ennui

Note: This post contains a brief mention of self-termination. Hello! I’m mentally ill. I’ve never seen the point of beating around the bush about it. As a child, I was taught that there was a stigma around mental illness, therapy, and medication (a lesson that, among many others, luckily didn’t take). It just didn’t make much sense to me — if my pancreas or thyroid didn’t work the way it was…

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#anxiety #bipolar disorder #cyclothymia #health #life #mental health #self care

[unseeliej]

Cacti Folklore and Magical Uses

My partner has a window shelf of cacti and succulents in his office. In winter, it doesn’t get much action — temperatures are too low and there’s not enough light to foster growth, so we don’t water them from about November to late March or early April. They use up the water stored in their tissues, and the lack of soil moisture means that they’re much less likely to develop rot. Since it’s…

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#cacti #green witchcraft #health #herb lore #herbs #houseplants #magic #plants

[unseeliej]

Mustard Folklore and Magical Uses

I swear, mustard is immortal. At least, the kind I scattered in one of my raised beds is. I had a packet of giant red mustard seeds that were initially intended for microgreens. When I cleared out a neglected spot in the front yard and turned it into a slightly raised bed, I didn’t really have anything to plant in it. So, I chucked a handful of the mustard seeds in there figuring that, at worst,…

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#health #herb lore #herbs #luck #magic #mustard #plants #repel evil #Witchcraft