- Jun 25, 2017

The Day Before Summer Solstice

Today, we will be sharing a different kind of foraging. We will be foraging at our home from our trees. We have a lot of overgrowth on two of our Cherry trees. The prior occupants were not too much into yard work. This whole place was overgrown.

We had already started with revamping of the yard as we have shared in past blogs, but I have been holding back on trimming the cherry trees for Litha. For this special idea I have been seeing in my head. So for today, we are creating a Garden Goddess. I wanted her made in time for our Solstice celebration and we needed our sticks to green, not dried. My idea was to create a Goddess that I could use for many types of goddesses and could be used for our future Sabbats or if I was feeling that I needed to call upon a particular one for a specific reason. I incorporated an offering basket in the flower bed to go with her. This way I can fill it with the appropriate items that represent the Goddess that I was needing to call upon.

Because of the time of year, this task will take much longer than our portal project that was created in the early spring before any leaves had appeared. In summertime, trees are full. Before we started we meditated to ask our lovely cherry trees if they would like to share with us in creating our Goddess by giving us their branches. (you must always ask permission and always give thanks when taking anything from nature). When permission was granted, the cutting began.

So as I was saying earlier in the blog, this project was going to be time consuming, yet rewarding. Working with nature is always worthwhile and full of Magick and fulfillment , no matter how hard or daunting it may seem. Try to absorb all the wonderful vibrations of the trees and earthly energies you feel as you are working. There is nothing more stimulating then our Earth's Magick! So, try to remember that when you are taking on a huge project that involves hard work. Just live and enjoy in the moment.

So our pile of limbs are cut and on the ground. Now, we must remove every leaf on every branch. Once removed, you start making piles of what could be arms, head, body shapes, breasts, etc... Once you have established that, you just let the magick flow through you. If you do that and don't try and force it, I promise that you will love whatever your outcome. REMEMBER, it doesn't have to look like ours. We made ours with our Intent and Magick. You will create yours with your Intent and Magick! Your Goddess has to come from inside of you. Whether it be a stick person goddess or a goddess that looks like a Michelangelo. It doesn't matter. It will be beautiful because you made it with loving intent; a place of total beauty that lives inside of you and is only you.

After our Goddess was completed, we then gathered up all the little left over sticks to use later on in the day, for one of our crafting projects. There is no need to waste them, if you can find a use for them. We raked up the leaves, cut up some apples and left them for the deer to clean up. We gave thanks to our cherry tree givers, gave a prayer for health and beautiful harvest, then left offerings of Honey Mead and a chunk of raw honey at the base of the trees.

Next, we resurrected our Goddess into the flower bed , added our offering basket and planted some Litha colored perennials around her. Here are a few pre-shots of her before Litha.

On a side note: If you are planning on making your own Garden Goddess, try to pick out perennial plants that you want to have up. For example Imbolc plants will come up in time for Imbolc and for Beltane your spring bulbs will appear while your Imbolc plants will sleep and so on. This way your flower garden will come alive with Magick, just in time for your Sabbat celebrations. Not all of you will have four seasons like we do here in Washington state. So for you guys, you will have to adapt to your growing seasons.

Well, that's all for this blog. I hope you all enjoyed our Garden Goddess Magick!