I found my magickal thrill on a blueberry hill!

 Good Evening,

Tonight's dscussion is about a magickal experience I had early this morning.  A girlfriend of mine told me how she had gone blueberry picking just yesterday and I thought .  .  .   perfect!!  Just perfect! What a great way to celebrate Lughnasa (see yesterday's discussion August 1, 2011) and the first harvest! Picking blueberries. So that's what I decided to do this morning.

A committed witch, once I set my mind on something, I set the alarm at an alarmingly early time for me, 6:30 am. I'm usually wide awake at midnight, so 6:30 is understandably early. .  .  .  Hey! .  .  .   It is! Anyway, I awoke, gathered my work materials for the day and left a couple of hours earlier than usual.  I found myself enjoying the early morning air still wet with the rain from last night and took the country route, rather than the highway, to the berry farm.

I'll tell you a story about when I was a little girl and my one and only experience with picking blueberries in a blueberry field before today.  I had two aunts that showed up one day to visit. They were in their late 50's and I was a little girl of maybe seven years old. They had come to take me blueberry picking! Yea! Yeah?  Well, off I went with my aunts and experienced a couple of hours of misery, that truly seemed like days!  I remember an achingly long, sweltering day in a hot, dry, dusty field,  being allowed to (although it seemed like I had to)  pick blueberries and put those tiny berries into a huge five gallon bucket. "I have to fill that! Oh my goodness! I would never be able to fill that thing!! Is there a bathroom? I'm hot! Sweaty! I'm thirsty! Can we go now? I don't think I like this! Can I get some water?"  There was no water, my aunt's hadn't thought to bring any and I thought for sure I would die from thirst!  I can laugh now, and I recall that my aunts never again invited me to the berry fields! Understandably, I was too young to appreciate such an adventure for what it is, or could have been.  And I have never gone berry picking since .  .  .   well .  .  . until today.

I most likely have avoided, or just haven't given any consideration to something that at first taste was so distasteful. Yet listening to my friend describe the plumpness of the berries, how much nicer they are than those available at the market, the great price at only a couple of dollars a pound!, and I  never need an excuse to be outdoors and surrounded by nature and so I found myself this morning at the crack of eight a.m., riding on the back of a tractor up a hill to a blueberry field.

I wore my work apron as I had decided in my plans to go blueberry picking, that I needed pockets. As I seldom .  .  .  well, actually never, wear jeans or pants (I'm a dressy witch) I seldom have pockets and pockets were needed for my car keys and my cell phone. Yep! I was bringing my cell phone. They didn't have cell phones in the 1960's. Just lets see me get abandoned and left for dead in a blueberry field now! Nope, I had a large coffee with me, as a hedge against thirsting to death and a brave spirit as I held on to the rails while the truck was climbing (isn't this a little steep? Don't we need seat belts?) the hill of blueberries.

At the top, the hill leveled out and I saw there were a half a dozen other people 'pickin' berries.'  I was given a nice, white plastic pail and ushered by a young man with all the appropriate airs of importance to my blueberry bushes. That's right. Mine. Each person was 'given' the right or permission to pick from the bushes they indicated, keeping an orderly flow to the harvesting of the rows.  I soon found myself in an amazing place.  I felt like I was in a church. Then I realized I was. My church has always been in nature.

The other pickers were hushed and quietly, almost reverently picking berries and if anyone spoke it was with hushed tones.  No one knew each other, except for those couples that came together, but everyone was cordial, friendly and focused on getting the best berries. As I picked, listening to the 'clunk, clunk, plunk, plunk; sound of the first berries bouncing off the bottom of the plastic buckets, I felt the wetness of the leaves of the bushes from the rain the night before and it felt clean and smelled fresh on the air.  There was a cool, gentle breeze fanning my skin and the sun was bright and brilliant and just starting to warm up.  I was very happy I had set the alarm early, and was very happy I had decided on this adventure.  I was just thinking of my comparison of this place I found myself in and a church and then I heard the choir.  I became aware of several birds singing and making their morning calls across this enormous field, high on a hill, first thing in the morning. Unseen, yet heard above the plunking of the berries, the softly spoken words of the pickers and even above the tractor's purr at it crawled up and down the hill transporting pickers.  The birds were not separate from us, but actually seemed to be a part of us, part of the congregation, the choir in my church.

There's also a sense of accomplishment, a sense of pride of gathering foodstuffs to later feed our loved ones. For me there was an understanding as my fingers grasped at the berries, firmly enough to tug off the plant, yet gently enough to not bruise the tender berries that our ancestors have done this for thousands of years before us today.  I tried to touch into that ancestral energy, which I personally feel surrounds us all.  I felt a beautiful sense of unity with the divine.  Seriously and without making fun, today I went to church and had an incredible spiritual experience.

Bringing home 10lbs of plump, ripe berries made a rewarding, enriching, magickal experience even better as I will freeze the berries and throughout winter when I make a pie,  muffins or blueberry pancakes I'll enjoy a tasty treat and remember an incredible start to a pretty good summer day! 

There's magick around you every day .  .  .  can you sense it? Do you know it's there? 


Peace and Happiness




© 2010-2011 Enchantments, LLC Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. 

If you know someone who would like my work, please send them this link. If you or they would like to be included on our daily email distribution list send me an e mail with your email address to be included. If you ever wish to unsubscribe to this blog, please contact me and you will be immediately removed from our list.

Happy Lughnasa ~ The Original Thanksgiving

 Good Evening,

Happy Lughnasa! Also spelled Lughnasadh, which falls today, August 1st. Today is a Celtic holiday celebrating the first harvest.  In many ways a celebration of thanksgiving.  There are diary accounts of Lughnasa being celebrated in Ireland as long ago as 1000 years.  To understand this much anticipated celebration of Thanksgiving, we need to look a bit at the life lived by the ancient Celts.

Imagine you are living 1000 years ago. Imagine any and all technology non existent. You lit up your nights with candles. You, as well as the majority of people, worked at hard labor jobs all day long, man or woman, from before sunup to after sundown.  Men tending and slaughtering cattle, working farms, mending and making tools and equipment used on the farm,  harvesting in the fields and woods. While women cooked from morning until night, at the same time making candles, clothes, soap, tending to the babies, children and the elderly and often working side by side with the men in the fields and on the farms.

Simply speaking,  there were precious little times of relaxation let alone celebration in these hard times. Times when every waking moment was dedicated to the art of survival. Everything people did at this time in history was in someway to further their very existence and perhaps bring about a bit of comfort to it. Yet these ancient people did celebrate. They celebrated life and abundance.  The wheel of the year has eight major and minor celebrations called Sabbats.  The Solstices and Equinoxes are considered lesser or minor Sabbats.  The cross quarter days (Imbolc February 1st, Beltane May 1st, Lughnasa August 1st and Samhain November 1st) are all considered major or greater Sabbats.

As I understand it, the Druidic thinking was, as to the association of placing major and minor emphasis to the Sabbats, was that since the average person could tell when the Solstices and Equinoxes were upon us they needed no announcement as it were. The ancient peoples lived as a part of nature, not as we do today, in spite of nature. As such, everyone could tell when the longest day of the year was upon us, or the day and evening was of equal length. Remember, these people were living outside all day, working by the light of the sun, waking before sun-up and bedding down long after dark. They knew the length of each day much better than we do today with clocks!

But .  .  .   the cross quarter days, they were a bit more tricky. They each fell approximately 6 weeks between a Solstice and and Equinox and this is where they obtained their greater or major Sabbat designation.  The Druids, the Priesthood of the Celtic people who were really the scientists, the physicians, astronomers and astrologers as well as the religious leaders of this race of people were the ones who found all things 'in-between' to be magickal, sacred and mysterious. They found certain times of the day or night sacred because of it's 'in-between' time, such as twilight or dawn, both times neither fully daytime nor fully nightime, but in-between. Midnight, not today yet not quite tomorrow and noontime which is no longer morning, yet is not 'after-noon' yet.

The ancient Druids found mushrooms to be magickal and sacred. You see they knew of the three world concept. They saw three's in many, many things in nature. They knew of the worlds of animal, vegetable and mineral but they knew that fungus didn't fall into any of these worlds so it was of a world in-between and they revered mushrooms and fungus for their magickal properties.  They also found ice to be sacred as it was water but in a solid or earth form as well as steam or vapor which is water in an air form.  See what I mean? Well in regards to the Sabbats, the greater Sabbats are the ones in-between the Solstices and Equinoxes and the ancients gave these celebrations the greatest notice. Many scholars of ancient Celtic history agree that the Solstices and Equinoxes most likely were never celebrated by the ancient Celts.

For Lughnasa, which translates from ancient Gaelic to "The assembly of Lugh" which in modern language  translation could be called "The games of Lugh" is a celebration that included ritual, feasting and games being played. The early celebration were held much as the Olympic games were held in ancient Greece, as 'war-games' designed to keep the men who were home from battle working in the fields harvesting, in battle-ready shape.

You see, all across Europe when the first harvest beckoned, soldiers from every land, regardless of the intensity of the battle or the war being waged, stopped fighting and went home. Why? Because if they didn't, there would be not enough strong people to bring in the harvest and the harvest was in many cases solely responsible for each tribe, village and culture of people surviving the winter. When the harvests went bad, were lost to the elements in the fields, became moldy, infested with vermin and became inedible the majority of the tribe would suffer and many would die from malnourishment before spring.  So, the soldiers came home and turned their swords into plowshares. Sound familiar? This was only done, not as a spiritual quest or enlightenment, but by sheer necessity for self and family survival. 

When we look at the wheel of the year, August 1st is the first food harvest. Remember we discussed Litha, the Summer Solstice as the first medicinal and magickal herb harvest, yet we wait for the first of August to harvest the grains in the fields. In addition to the grains, which made up at least 70 - 80 percent of the food source for the general populace at the time, people would eat a few root vegetables such as turnips and parsnips. No, there were no potatoes, tomatoes, corn or rice yet. At least not in Celtic ruled Western Europe. Cabbage was a big staple and then there would be the fruits of the orchards later in the summer.   Meat would be eaten rarely and usually only at the harvest festivals, because many tribes, clans or villages (many surrounding the castles which protected them) killed off all farm animals before winter because they were competition for the grain the people vied for.

So except for smoked and pickled meats or if a cold spell came early, frozen meats which would continue to be eaten through out the first part of winter, there was precious little meat unless one hunter rabbit, deer or other animals. Wait! That sounds like plenty of food doesn't it? Why the King's forests were always bursting with abundant wildlife. But for thousands of years (remember we're just 1,000 years ago here) many a monarch  kept a stingy and selfish hold on forested lands and many countries had laws forbidding the average man from hunting or living off the forests. Many times the penalty for 'poaching' on the King's land was death, dismemberment or imprisonment.

How was one to get a good meal? Really! Well one patiently survived and waited, if one could, for the first harvest. Talk about a celebration!! Fresh baked breads, cheeses made from the milk from the cattle in the field, who would be slaughtered by the last harvest, Samhain November 1st.  Many times a white bull or two were driven between two bonfires by the Druid Priests at Lughnasa, and then they were slaughtered and their entrails viewed for divinatory purposes and then the rest of the great beasts were consumed by the people. They felt that by eating a scared beast such  as the white bull or the swine (also considered sacred and highly desired by the ancient Celts) would in a way bring that sacredness within the person who consumed the meat.  Yet, without modern refrigeration, there were simply no leftovers because they would spoil.  Ancients did not have any secret against food poisoning and suffered of it much more than we do today, and often died of eating toxic foodstuffs.  Most food, with a few exceptions, which was consumed was by necessity fresh and recently prepared. 

Lughnasa has another name. For after the early Christians religiously dominated Europe, Lughnasa became a Christianized holiday called Lammas, or 'Loaf Mass'. This was a harvest holiday where the early Christians took the story of Jesus and the fishes and the loaves and neatly blended it with the existing ancient holiday of Lughnasa. However you look at it, this holiday or 'Holy day' was and still is an opportunity for people to celebrate the abundance we find in our lives and to give thanks to the divine for this abundance.

  Many people today, though not religious, perhaps not even what they would call spiritual look for ways to give thanks when things go well. Like 'knocking on wood' when you say something good or fortuitous, or take notice of good things in your life, the same is true for the way of the witch. We celebrate eight Sabbats a year where our entire focus, for many who celebrate, maybe not all, is of giving thanks to God, Goddess, the Universe, hey .  .  .   name your Deity! It's all good!

Well, back to ancient times when foodstuffs were plentiful at this time of year, the earth was warm and life as difficult as it was, was nonetheless easier now,  than at other times of the year.

Many times the Maypole which was hoisted and decorated during Beltane, May 1st, is now decorated with one glove in honor of the harvest. The glove is a scared symbol of the harvest because until the glove was invented, for protection of soft human hands against harsh, sharp blades of grasses or other grain crops, harvesting was a difficult and dangerous process which could lead to infected hands.  For an ancient who relied on their hands for their very survival,  this was a crucial invention that without, in my opinion, such things as the wheel, the automobile and the light bulb would never have been invented because human kind would again not have survived. My research into early human survival on this planet leads me to credit the glove as one of, if not the greatest invention ever. The invention of agricultural science for sustained cultural survival and the glove which made it possible for humans to benefit greatly from harvesting their foodstuffs, whereas before they subsisted on hunting and gathering. 

We celebrate Lughnasa with a traditional American Thanksgiving feast, eaten outdoors on long tables.  We first hold a Lughnasa ritual, and Sabbats are a time to focus gratitude on God/Goddess for the abundance we have in our life. I always thank the Goddess for life and for love. Seems to cover the gamut for me! Afterwards we feast and then follow up the feasting with a modern version of the ancient Celtic games. No! We do not do stone throwing, caber tossing or log cutting!

We're more cerebral and fun oriented. We have games such as "Race to be High Priestess' which is a race between two marks and each person wears a robe, with cords (not easy to maneuver in on a good day!) while balancing a small plastic cauldron half filled with water on their head. They are holding a wand and that's all their allowed to use to keep the cauldron on top of their head!  About what it feels like to be a high priestess sometimes!

We have a game where each participant takes a piece of paper out of a cauldron and on each piece is a magickal word. They then have 60 seconds to create an effective incantation using the word,  that follows the rules of writing a good incantation. This is called 'Flying Incantations'.  In addition we have sidewalk chalk design, spell juggling (keeping several balloons aloft without dropping one) as well as others.  The idea in this day and age is not so much about survival as it is about having fun, sharing community with other like minded people and giving thanks to Goddess/God for all life has to offer us today.  There are small prizes for the winners of each contest and fun and camaraderie is enjoyed by all this day.

No worries, my dear, if you want to celebrate and just found out about this fun holiday today. We're celebrating next weekend and so can you or anytime this month. For I believe that truly the Gods care not what we mere human do in their playground, as long as we live and love. So plan a harvest celebration for sometime this August, find a stray glove to honor as a special token of the day, plan a feast, set up tables outside surrounded by nature and invite your friends.  Celebrate and give thanks for the abundance in your life while surrounded by the abundance in nature. It feels so right!


And that my dear witchling, is how I describe Lughnasa!  I hope you have a happy and blessed harvest season. Happy Lughnasa to you and yours!


Peace and Happiness




 © 2010-2011 Enchantments, LLC Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website.   If you know someone who would like my work, please send them this link. If you or they would like to be included on our daily email distribution list send me an e mail with your email address to be included. If you ever wish to unsubscribe to this blog, please contact me and you will be immediately removed from our list.

Your Book of Shadows . . . my what?

 Good Evening,

For those who may be taken aback by tonight's discussion title, ( I hear murmurs 'Book of Shadows, of course! I know what a book of Shadows is, hrmph! I'm a witch after all! I mean really!) No offense intended, (gentle laugh) for I design my discussions for the novice learner. I like to look at, then re-examine and then some, the basics of what we do as witches. 

I have left behind, a long while ago, learning exclusively from others. Do Not Get Me Wrong! I still can and do learn from the Magickal Masters (my phrase for such esteemed writers as Raymond Buckland, Janet Farrar & Gavin Bone, Raven Grimassi, Stephanie Taylor-Grimassi, Laurie Cabot and Silver Ravenwolf to name a few of my favorites) And heed my words well. When you have gotten to a place where you no longer learn, and you're all about teaching and telling others the way things are, you've made a misstep, in my opinion.

NEVER stop learning. Yet you will find it a natural progression along this path that as you learn, practice and experience more, then your lessons come from your experience far more often than from others experiences. This is good. But don't think you can no longer learn from others. This speaks of ego and perhaps a touch of .  .  .  o.k. I'll say it .  .  . 'power-tripping'.  Yes, there it is.  I find the older I get, and the centuries fly by my witchlings, trust me! But, the older I get, the more humble I feel in what I have yet to learn, experience and discover.

So for those who do not already know it, a Book of Shadows is a journal of magickal record keeping.  I'll touch on just a few concepts surrounding the Book fo Shadows and as I do, I hope to dispel some misunderstandings or complete and total fabrications concerning this mysterious aspect of witchcraft.

The term Book of Shadows is thought to have its origins in ancient Sandskrit, and an alleged booklet reputed to divining the future by the length of a person's shadow. Gerald Gardner was the first to introduce this concept, a book of magickal writing called a Book of Shadows, so it's origins go back to the 1950's.   Earlier books were called Grimoires, which were also books designed to contain magickal spells, ritual practices and other occult knowledge.

I'm not going to debate its origins because it really matters not. Today, a magickal practitioner can use many forms for a book of shadows.  You can hand write one in a journal or notebook, keep on on your computer to print out pages as needed for use in ritual. A scrapbook concept is also a nice idea. Many practitioners like myself have more than one.You can have a spell Book of Shadows, one for rituals, one for dreams, magickal encounters, Sabbats, esbats, kitchen witchery, potions and incense etc. They are as diverse and as unique as you are. You may like to work with one volume or with multiple volumes.  It's all and totally up to you.

If you are practicing and do not have a Book of Shadows yet, please consider creating one.  I would love to say that over the years my memory has sharpened and I can remember a spell or incantation I cast last year like it was yesterday. Um .  .  . er .  .  .  it's just not so.  I'm afraid dearies, it won't be the same for you either.  The rituals, gatherings, feasts all come flowing back when I look through my Books of Shadows. Some are just picture albums of old friends, coven members and past encounters.

A few tid bits of advice from this Contemporary New England Witch:  (These might tick off some of those in the magickal communities but these are my opinions, and as such I stick by them)

Never buy a pre-created Book of Shadows.  Oh .  .  .  did you hear that? I think I heard cauldrons dropping all over the place!! But I stand by what I say. Create your own. I've seen covens on social media sites selling Books of Shadows created and 'possibly' used by others. I say possibly because we can all go to a craft store nowadays, with a good base blank journal and create an amazingly looking Book of Shadows. Spill some red ink here and there, perhaps some tea (great coloring agent by the way used all the time to make new paper materials look ancient and dated) paste a few obscure photos of witchy people doing witchy things, in black and white of course.  Paste a few twigs of various trees, grasses or herbs and pen a few clever incantations.  Tell everyone how you've been creating this for yearrrrrs (even though the binding has no wear on it, but the pages look beat to hell? hmmm You get where I'm coming from? Oh, yes and these will sell for several hundred if not a grand.  I'm not kidding. Some of you have seen the same.  Why am I a skeptic? Publicly accusing some of  .  .  .  'misrepresentation' . . . shall we say?

Simply because as a witch, my spells are creations of me. My rituals are sacred and special. The work I put into my Books of Shadows I do just for me, and for my use.  There's no way in a Christian Hell would I EVER sell my Book of Shadows. Period.  I mean would you? No, not the one you create just to sell to those less aware, but one you have worked on, put love, energy, magick and lots and lots of precious time in. Would you sell it?  Money has little place in witchcraft. Now, I'm not saying we don't need money as witches, we do. But there are tons of ways to legitimately make money from our skills, without misrepresentation. Read tarot cards, crystal balls and rune divinations like myself. Or perhaps you sell potions, herbs and incense, also like me.  Hey, I know, you could even hand-make really cool Books of Shadows and keep the pages blank for the practitioner to put his own work into. Some of these types of books are available and they also cost several hundreds of dollars, but are marketed accurately and without all the fun work done for you.

Let's say that the Books of Shadows marketed by others, used in others covens for others magickal workings are authentic. O.K. Why would I need it? Now, notice I didn't ask why would I want it? I understand how many of us would like and appreciate other magickal tools and work made by other of the magickal community,  and if you're a collector then fine. But to buy as it was marketed, for others to use for their own personal Book of Shadows? For almost 1,000 dollars?  Maybe I'm just too New England, because I'm having a hard time swallowing it. 

Now this debate can go back and forth, as Gerald Gardener was the 'originator' of the Book of Shadows and he allowed coven memebers to copy the parts they found relevant, but nowhere do I see him counseling that one copy the entire book, although some covens make this a requirement and they can! It might be nice to have a coven Book of Shadows if I had ever had a High Priestess I worked with who was organized, but alas that was never my experience. I keep my own and so can you. It needn't be expensive and truly if you have hundreds or a thousand dollars to spend on someone else's magickal workings then that's great for you!! I'm a bit narcissistic with my magick, I believe the best magick for me comes from within me. Period.

You can hand write your Book of Shadows or print it out on the computer, whatever feels best for you.  Here's pictures of some of my own Books of Shadows throughout the years!  

These are some of my oldest Books of Shadows that took on a book form. Many were handouts printed on single sheets of paper and passed out to us by my first High Priestess.  The first two photos in this series of pictures is the current book for Enchantments. 

Peace and Happiness!


 © 2010-2011 Enchantments, LLC Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. 

If you know someone who would like my work, please send them this link. If you or they would like to be included on our daily email distribution list send me an e mail with your email address to be included. If you ever wish to unsubscribe to this blog, please contact me and you will be immediately removed from our list.

More pictures of what I've been up to!

 Good Evening,

The beautiful weather calls me outside and away from the keyboard more and more as I'm reminded by the Wheel of the Year that we are past the mid point of the summer season and we are heading towards fall and colder times ahead. So to conserve time for both you and I, I've put together another pictorial discussion. I hope you enjoy the gardens. These are gardens at Enchantments and some at my witches cottage home.  Now, I hope you get to spend some time outdoors this week. Yes, it will be hot, but these are the days we'll remember in January, February & March. 

 A new rose bush called double delight. The center of the rose is a pink and the edges are stained deep rose. Beautiful.

 Yet another bloom on the same Double Delight bush, with far more rose stain color and less pink. Very diverse coloring amongst its many blooms.

 Liatris - Blazing Star truly is as vivid purple as it appears.

 I like to put unusual items in my garden. This was an old chandelier that I removed the electrical hardware and now put votive candles in and light at twilight.  The candle flames in the right lighting appear to float over the garden adding a bit of magick to this 'witches garden'.

 More Blazing Star Liatris. This loves full sun and its root base slowly thickens and develops a multi-shoot display after a few years.

 This is the 'upside down tomato experiment!"  So far I've picked a half dozen miniature tomatoes and they are a burst of summer in your mouth. On top is a begonia.

 My long garden planted with perennials - plantings that come up every year.

  A Red Monarda Bee Balm  shown in its singular glory and below in the long garden of perennials.

 Mexican marigold, loves the sun and adds spots of happiness where ever you plant them.

 This is my medieval herb garden with the May Pole which I decorated at Beltaine, May 1

 I've eliminated grass in the rear of the cottage and replaced it with small pea gravel that is comfortable to walk bare foot on and adds a camp ground like feel to the back yard. 

Peace and Happiness

 
© 2010-2011 Enchantments, LLC Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” 

For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. If you know someone who would like my work, please send them this link. If you or they would like to be included on our daily email distribution list send me an e mail with your email address to be included. If you ever wish to unsubscribe to this blog, please contact me and you will be immediately removed from our list.

Enchantments has a new look! Come by and check it out!!

 Good Morning!

Well, I've certainly been a busy witch of late!  So busy .  .  .   fixing, cleaning, primping and making beautiful. The shop entrance at Enchantments that is.  I spent a good part of the weekend painting the front entrance of the shop and the results make me happy.  We first needed to address some graffiti of a very naughty nature that someone had besmirched our front entrance with.  We tried to clean it off, scrub it off and then hide it! I assessed the situation on Saturday and decided that we needed  a new look and some color.  Sooooooooo, off I went to the home improvement store and looked at paint samples and settled on some colors in the Disney(RT) catagory of paints. 

I chose 'Enchanted Violet' (how could I not!?) for the front door and 'Green With Envy' for the aluminum siding walls on the front porch.  I was excited because the two colors together look really good on a Victorian Era house, ours was built in 1899 and it really makes the front entrance to the shop 'POP'.  The color of the front door is also the exact shade of fuchsia that a purpe loosestrife  growing in the front yard is sporting right now.  I painted and then put our signature witch back on the wall (she's there to welcome all visitors) and voila!  The store front looks totally different but beautiful and I hope it will catch people's eyes as they are driving by.  Tell me, what do you think?

Purple Loosestrife growing in Enchantments front garden




 Peace and Happiness! 


  © 2010-2011 Enchantments, LLC Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. 

If you know someone who would like my work, please send them this link. If you or they would like to be included on our daily email distribution list send me an e mail with your email address to be included. If you ever wish to unsubscribe to this blog, please contact me and you will be immediately removed from our list.

The Gardens of Enchantments - A Pictorial Discussion

Good Evening,

I've been a bit quiet lately, because of the lovely work to be done in my gardens. Tonight I thought I'd let the gardens speak to you. They are coming along really well, and they are growing and becoming just beautiful. I am enjoying the watering, dead heading,  pruning and harvesting to be done.  Let me share the gardens with you, and of course you are always invited to visit in person.

 The front garden of Enchantments at 349 East Center Street, Manchester, CT. Stop by to enjoy the gardens yourself!

 The back stairs allowed me to practice my arrangement abilities by creating some pretty potted designs. It's important to remember to water, sometimes twice a day in hot weather, but their smiling faces make it worth it!

 A Yucca plant in full bloom. So quiet and subdued most of the year, and then it blooms and is a garden diva commanding 'Look at me! I'm beautiful!' 

 A cauldron planted with sun loving coleus, begonia and salvia.

 A bed of red salvia encourages hummingbirds, butterflies and bees to drone about on a lazy summer day.

 The latest bunch of late annuals that need planting and a place to shine. Tomorrow's fun work to do during my day. 

 I use mulch, natural brown cedar to keep the precious moisture around the roots of my plants, to discourage weed growth and to make everything look nice.

 A new garden bed just planted by the students of Enchantments last Saturday. Plantings of impatiens grow well in the sahde of a maple tree. Some dahlias are just sprouting in the foreground of wet soil.

 New pots of petunias, eucalyptus, begonia and sweet potato vine make a pretty welcome spot at the front entrance to Enchantments.

 Our pumpkins! Getting pretty big and small blossoms are just setting.

 A fun, (works better than I expected!) upside down tomato planter with an open top to plant a happy begonia.

 Our newest display inside Enchantments. I have been harvesting and drying herbs and we have many herbs for sale on the center table in the middle room. 

 Now is the time to buy your magickal herbs. Many of the herbs for sale at Enchantments I have personally harvested from my gardens at home and at Enchantments.

 What herbs are you needing right now? I just picked today Lavender, rose petals, sweet woodruff, cinquefoil and fern fronds.  They will be hung up to dry tomorrow. 

Have a wonderful evening,

Peace and Happiness

 © 2010-2011 Enchantments, LLC Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website.

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