Neat picture.

OK, not to seriously back-track here, but Abra, I noticed as I was flipping through the much earlier pages of this thread that you were at one time looking for bulbs that would last longer than a year or two for your labyrinth garden. You may want to watch for places where old houses used to stand. They may be in a field, or in the woods along a country road. Sometimes the houses are still standing, but often they are not. Anywhere you see a gazzillion daffodils or tulips or other bulbous-originating flowers around these places they will keep producing for years. These bulbs are the originals, not the junk hybrids that they market these days that only produce for 1-3 years. Often, people are willing to let you thin out their bulbs that they've had for years just so that they don't get over-crowded. My Gramma just gave my Mom two buckets of daffodills this spring. There are 2 or 3 varieties, which Mom will be planting this fall. The old bulbs are much better quality.

Cool, Rowanne

Thanks for the info Roweanne,

My labyrinth garden is a very slow project this year. Or to put that another way, other things have superceded it.

I did do some work on it. I planted glads in very early spring. They are tall flags now, but no flowers yet. It said on the package to dig them up in the fall in places where the ground freezes. I don't know if I want to get into bringing bulbs in and out every year. I'm thinking about just covering the beds with heavy mulch in the winter and then just raking it off in the early spring. It seems to me that would be better anyway. I'm going to give that a shot for next year and see how it works.

I've been keeping an eye out for wild flowers. I might just do the whole thing up with natural wild flowers that are common to my area. Along with other plants too. I do grow some vegetables along the labyrinth path too.

I think what I need more than anything is a witch to help.

Abra... I planted some beautiful wild flowers in my garden. I just bought a bottle of wild flower seeds. Very quick and simple and they are tall and beautiful.

I planted wildflower seeds around my cottage this spring too. In fact I made a total of 10 beds. Out of those 10 beds only two of them did well. I don't know why the other ones didn't grown. The flowers seemed to come up very slowly and just get stunted and put on hold. Although I'm in the woods so it might have been too much shade. I did get shady area wildflower seeds.

I'm going to take bicycle rides this fall and collect wildflower seeds along the roads then bring them home and plant them this fall and see what happens next spring.

At least those will be perenials and maybe they'll keep coming back.

My violas that I bought as plants from the local nursery have started producing seeds. I know that violas are supposed to be perrenials, but I may also try to start some of the seeds, too, just to see if they will grow for me. Besides, there is no gaurantee that the (allegedly perrenial) violas will come back, since Garrison, ND, sometimes gets hit really hard in the winter. One morning in January, we got down to -50, more or less.

Where is Ruth? Anyone heard from her lately?

She seems to come and go

I just wanted to say that i just came across this community and it is wonderful to finally find someone that i can relate to. Blessed Be, Stormy

Welcome Stormy,

There was a time when this thread was pretty lively. But it has since died down to almost a standstill.

But not due to lack of interest! It think people are just busy with other things right now. I know I've been quite busy.

I'm working on building a garden labyrinth path that contains statuary based on Tarot, the Zodiac, the planet gods, and various faeries etc. At the center of the labyrinth is a large circle that is arranged with symbols for Earth, Air, Fire and Water at the North, East, South and West directions. In fact, I have some truly wonderful ideas for this that I would love to implement but I'm not sure if I can financially swing it.

I've also been spending a lot of time doing meditations and shamanic journeying. I've been doing a lot with a form of the Celtic Qabalah. In fact, very recently I had a wonderful shamanic journey into the Bilé itself. (tree of life)

From that vision and shamanic experience I came away with the most wonderful new image of the tree of life that is actually represented as 'two' Qabalah's reflected from one another. With a Sun Qabalah going from the 'surface world' upward into the Sky World and a Moon Qabalah reflected beneath it growing down into the Earth World.

I imagine this symbolism is quite unconventional in some ways, but at the same time it follows the basic idea of the Celtic Tree of Live and the shamanic journeys associate with that folklore.

So I'm excited about that.

I'm busy with other things too, which I better go do.

Welcome to the forums.

hey abra... did you see my next tattoo I'm getting?
http://mingle2.com/topic/show/235372

That's really nice artwork.

I've become quite interested in the "Tree of Life".

As you've mentioned in your thread there are many verions of folklore and mythologies surrounding this idea. I've actually been reading quite a few of them. In fact some cultures have a very similar idea using a mountain instead of a tree. But the idea is the same.

In my studies in shamanism I've discovered that this Tree of Life is used for shamanic journeying and the basic idea has been used from cultures all over the world.

There are also other names for it. One of them is the Bilé (pronounced Bee-lay). It's often considered to be an Oak tree. But it's also a mystical abstract concept and the Bilé is a reference to all of life.

I've discovered another concept associate with the Tree of Life called the "Qabalah". This is very much like an idea that was also used by Judeo-Christian-Mystics. They spell theirs a bit differently using a 'K', Kabbalah.

At first, I shied away from the concept of the 'Qabalah' simply because of the Judeo-Christian connection (albeit a mystic version of that religion).

However, I found the idea so attractive that I couldn't abandon it completely so I continued to research it and finally found several books where the idea almost entirely Celtic. So I ran with that.

I also continued to work with many versions of the Qabalah and saw that almost everyone was doing something different with it anyway, so that really gave me the freedom to just do my own thing with it.

I designed the following graphic. I use a basic Celtic Qabalah, with Tarot pathways (which is quite common), along with various gods and goddesses from the Zodiac. I don't view these necessarily in the same way as the 'personality' zodiac. For me it's more like viewing them as various aspects of the human condition in general that's common to everyone.

In any case, I was inspired by a recent shamanic journey that I took using a guided mediation CD. In this meditation the idea is to visualize the Tree of Life (as an actual tree). Bigger than life of course, like Jack in the Beanstalk. (in fact, I heard that the story of Jack in the beanstalk was actually inspired by the folklore of the tree of life).

Anyway, during this mediation the journey goes first down into the roots of the tree to meet with the Goddess (or similar spirits) and then up into the branches of the tree to meet with the God (or similar spirits)

During that meditation I had the wonderul vision of this Celtic Qabalah being reflected around the 'Body Temple' which represents the trunk of the Tree of Life.

So I created this crude symbolic graphic of my own reflected Qabalah.



Now what I'd like to do is actually paint a large mural about the size of a door. Painting the top Qabalah as the branches of the tree, and the bottom Qabalah as the roots of the tree.

I would try to preserve all the pathways. Although they would be far more artistic and less rigid. But I would include symbolism for all the major concepts.

This is a huge goal for me since I'm not exactly an artist.

But there's no rush to paint it. I continue to have visions and I'm painting (actually drawing right now) visions that I actually have in my shamanic journeys.

Anyway, this post was just a ramble.

But the main idea is that when I'm done I'm hoping to have my 'Reflected Qabalah Tree' looking like an actaul tree full of symbolism.

That's a really nice tat you chose by the way.

bless it be to all those out there who care for their body mind and souls.

lately i've been wondering how to tell my aunt to get off my back she's a devoted santera ( Santeria for those who dont know what a santera is, its a priestess) she's beyond obsessed with making everyone in the family like my late grandmother who taught her everything she knew but i like being me i'm more of a free spirited wiccan i dont follow anyone's specific ways but i do know the 3 fold law. i've been doin wicca since i was way to young to grasp the concept of it all but now my aunt is calling me a blasphemer an what not becasue my grandmothers wishes were for the family to all be together but my aunt uses her santeria for personal gain which is against my religion so what do you all think.i'm not one to put my bizness out there but i'm just wondering what other people think about it because seriously she eats sleeps and breaths santeria. everything is if i give them this they give me money if i cast this spell my rent goes down its like damn and she talks bout wicca like its evil.

Well, unfortunately this is not an uncommon situation in many families regardless of what the religion is. Most parents want their children (or nieces and nephews or grandchildren) to be the same religion as them. It's a normal, although not good, way to behave.

But, you are an adult and you have to decide what's right for you. If you are happy being a Wiccan and that is the path you have chosen then you need to follow it. I would just stick to my guns in a polite and respectful manner with your Aunt and continue what you're doing. Hopefully, in time, she will accept your decision.