Medicine and magick with herbs

Hey everyone,
I hope all are well. Just a quick post to share with you one of my main projects this year. I want to complete a project on alternative therapies, a healing handbook if you will, which I hope to publish at some point. I've divided it into two separate projects: Medicine and magick with herbs, and Medicine and magick with crystals, chakra energies, aromatherapy and colour therapy. I think there's a lot more to be done with the former, hence it has its own logbook.

Medicine and magick with herbs
I initially thought I'd just gather information on each herb, put some remedies and spells down, and Bob's your Uncle. But then I reckoned I ought to do this properly, and inspired by translating notes from the Herbs workshop from the witchcamp in Spain, I decided to keep a logbook and try out everything I write about. The idea is that I want to be able to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, and have first hand experience of everything I put down. I also take pictures of every recipe I try and write reviews, what went wrong, what went right, how I could improve it, what to do differently next time. Already some bits have gone great, some a bit wrong, but trial and error doth a herbs guru make!
I never knew there was so much to herbs; herbal oil infusions and digestive teas on the medicinal side, and smudge sticks and herbals pouches on the magickal side have been dipped into and tried out, with incenses, decoctions, tinctures, creams, vinegars, wines, syrups, ointments, salves and much more yet to be explored. It being January, and living in a city, I'm having to buy most of my herbs from the supermarket, which I know is far from ideal, but I think just working with them, getting used to their smell and texture is a great way to begin learning about them before I can hit the hedgerows a few months down the line.
Once I'm on my feet with this one I'll begin the twin project and see how much I can learn about other forms of healing and magick. 

Blessed be and have a good Imbolc )O( xx

2012

Happy New Year all,
as we stumble into the new Gregorian calendar year, predicted to bring about great changes in the way we view religion and spirituality, and our attitude towards our planet. This year, here in the UK we've got the Queen's diamond jubilee, the Olympics in London, and various apocalyptic catastrophes of some description or other around Yuletide to look forward to. For many of us the new year began at the winter solstice, or at Samhain, and for me it begins at Imbolc, the arrival of the beginning of Spring, and the time I dedicated to my path. But what does 2012, and the new year, mean to you?

The Year of Change
We hear of it from time to time, carried on the breeze; The Mayans foretold of it, Nostradamus predicted it, indeed daft movies have been made about it - time to brace yourselves for the apocalypse/ impending doom/ end of the world, thing. But my money's on there being a more positive outcome to December 2012.
In August 1987, people gathered at sacred sites all around the world to take part in the Harmonic Convergence, marking the beginning of a 25-year cycle to 21st December, 2012 that would signal the end of the Mayans' 5,000 year calendar, the end of this age....not, erm, the end of the world. These ideas were promoted by Jose Arguelles, who describes the upcoming event as a 'period of dramatic evolutionary change affecting the whole planet,', a gateway for change as it were. I believe, folks, that we are being called upon to change our ways NOW so that a healthy, unpolluted planet can be passed onto my generation and the next generation, and the next. After all, it is not the planet that is in danger; She can regenerate and start again without us - it is ourselves that we have put into danger through over-consumption, greed and rapid depletion of the Earth's non-renewable resources. 2012 and 2013 are predicted to be years of a shift of consciousness and a rapid change in peoples' view of the world around them, for the better.
Thinking of my mindset this time last year makes me want to bash my head against a wall repeatedly; my expectations of the coming year were so headache-inducingly optimistic that it makes me want to shake my January 2011 self by the shoulders and perhaps give her a wake-up slap. An unwritten New Year's resolution  this year for me is to stop wishing for a perfect and rapidly progressive year, as after all, every year has its great moments and its downright rotten moments (of which there were more of the latter in 2011). But I am game for the idea that there's a lot I can achieve this year, the end of which is meant to mark the beginning of a new age. Perhaps I will begin to come into my own and all the hard work will begin to pay off. Who knows what we can expect?
On the more practical side I want more than ever to put in the most effort I can to learn form the lessons of the Fifth Sacred Thing, to do more than my part to work towards a more sustainable future. I want to grow some of my own food, make more of my own clothes, to finish old projects, to learn and teach to the best of my ability. I've said these things pretty much every year since I started on my path but this year I mean it! This year of all years. I have hope that those who lack guidance and have been feeling lost will come into their own, the idle will be granted motivation to do something positive for the community, the grieving and the broken will find strength and compassion from the Earth's energies to take with them into the new age. I daresay I'm beginning to sound a bit too optimistic again, but I think we can make the Earth a better place to live - after all, its not the end of the world.....


In love and light, a blessed 2012 to you all and courage to put into place what you want to achieve. xx BB )O(