Via Hedera

Protect yourself. Keep something close to anchor you:
They used to say, if you wanted to protect your dreams or your baby or your home, keep a key upside beside your bed.
If you wanted to protect your home, plant clover.
If you want to protect your health, wear a heart-shaped amulet.
If you wanted to protect yourself from the devil, heat and hang a horseshoe.
If you wanted to protect yourself from loveless dreams, keep a ring in a glass of water by your bed on a full moon or on May Day.
And if you wanted to protect yourself from blindness, you'd toss a coin and call a side.

Spending some time in Seattle? Make a point to visit . Whether you're dreaming up your own concoctions or in deep need of healing medicines blended by expert herbalists, the team at this fabulous slice of the Sound has what you're looking for.
They're really sweet people too, so be nice.
Shop local.

An Urban Temple. Maritime Magic of the Rotting Docks...

Friday.

Rainbow ribbons are one of my favorite features of May Day and Midsummer festivals. The days of fire and sun are upon us and so rise our wants, our wishes. The entire season is one for fortunes (what season isn't?), and feelings and ribbons are the banners young lovelorn lasses could tether their wishes to. Favours of the devil or the fairfolk, ribbon magic is sweet and simple.

Folklorist Cora L. Daniels mentioned in her Encyclopedia of Superstitions, maidens would go strewing rainbow ribbons during seasonal festivities, and also mentions that a yellow ribbon was lucky to find “especially if it is floating on water; it presages gold.”

According to other regional love charms, sleeping with a blue or a pink ribbon under your hip at night was said to draw the boy or girl you love. Green ribbons sewn into a christening gown might have been employed to help children see fairies. Ribbons employed in agricultural observances and divination appear to be nothing new; I totally hope to make more time to tether my work to the little magics like these.

In American regional folklore, there are a lot of ways to diagnose medical and magical maladies- including blending olive oil and water as a diagnostic divination tool.
According to sources found in the California Folklore Society's Western Folklore as well as Popular Beliefs & Superstitions (Hand, Wayland), if one suspected their headache was of supernatural origin, they were to pour olive oil into a saucer of water and if the oil formed the shape of an eye, your headache would go away. Sometimes, the charm calls for the oil-eyes to be cut with scissors before tossing the water out.
Another charm calls for pouring oil in the shape of a cross. If it stayed that way, your ailment would ease.

Pink Moon Work.

Spring Awakens. And sleeps under snow.

Goatcheese and dill stuffed figs, for the love of Venus.
Happy Friday.

Walnuts
Honey
Pinch o' pepper n salt
Fresh chopped dill
Parmesan (aged shaved)
Large dried fig
Crush it. Stuff it. Bake it. Eat it. Tastethatmagic.

Hail Hypatia of the Martyred Scholars on this women's history month. Hail the many femme folklorists who feed my passion with their knowledge:

-Laura C Martin
-Alison Games
-Sally S Booth
-Ella Clark
-Lilian Morrison

"In my daily life, I spend most of my time surrounded by students and educators, facilitating and organizing their operations. I value the service of education - any form of it, more than almost any other service. Education is one of the nobler pursuits and a benefit to humanity. Access to it, by anyone and everyone, should be a social obligation. It should be a ritual we never forget. Not just for ourselves and the future generations, but for everyone who suffered in the name of accessible education."