Colour Working

Colour, which is a reflection of light, has such a strong effect upon the world, that I wonder how many people actually make much conscious use of this beautiful tool for health and happiness. Making art with colour seems like such an obvious choice, but simply playing about with colour intuitively, can be very effective in helping people alter their mood, heal their body, or focus their mind.

 There are so many ways in which it may be employed to facilitate healing and restoration: engaging in chakra work, or draping the body with coloured fabric, or painting a room a certain hue... even foods influence how we feel, not just by their taste or smell, but we choose them by their colour...

Candle magic, ceremonial correspondences, symbolic use of colour... all these things are at our fingertips... if you simply focus on a particular colour with your mind, you will embody its effect... Is this "natural magic"?

Or is it "science"...  Are they really the same thing?  Does it actually matter? After all, it's just a trick of the light.....

Sweet Memories & Mysteries

Almost first harvest time... of Lughnasadh... of the grain, and what feeds me.... and so, I turn to the garden once more for inspiration, to find that almost every square meter of garden I've made holds memories of people I have loved, and places I've lived. 


Much of my garden has travelled with me throughout my life, and without the familiar scents and textures, I feel a little lost... Cuttings and seeds, saved from my own precious crops, and plants generously given to me as gifts, or passed down through families and friends, tell the story of me to myself... So precious is my small collection, yet to someone else, they may simply be greenery...

For instance, this wild-looking Penstemon, comes from a handsome plant by my mother's front gate, that so cleverly shaded the roots of her elegant, formal hybrid tea roses... I remember her fondly, working away in her front garden, each time I walk past this delicate little treasure.

And this little rose, was originally propagated for me by my mother-in-law, a wise plantswoman, who taught me much about gardening. She loved this plant because it was a French rose her husband loved, and remembered it growing in his own mother's garden in Guernsey. When I moved to this place, my dear friend propagated a new rose from the one I'd been given. It had grown too large to be transplanted, & is rather rare. The same friend, gave me an elder tree, lovingly grown from a cutting taken from her farm, when she moved to the city... Now I have a small orchard of them, all grown from cuttings, and each one producing the frothy white flowers I love for midsummer champagne, which she says is as a Faerie's kiss... Ha! So on the story goes, my garden history merges with hers.... 

 Another friend, years ago, was given a root cutting of this excellent red rhubarb by her father... I was fortunate to be the recipient of another piece, when she was dividing her plot, and last winter, I passed on 5 more crowns from my own thriving clump to my son, who now has the delicious ruby jewels growing in his own little patch of Paradise....

So, as you can see, there is much history in my garden, and in the gardens of all gardeners who treasure plants because of their associations, as much as their usefulness.

In every garden plant, there is a story connecting it to someone's life.... it may reach back through history... it may have touched the heart of millions, or just one... Such is the mystery of gardens...

 

Happy New Year

Already into 2014,and still scratching my head, wondering what it all really means...

In the Southern Hemisphere, the calender flip in January, occurs in high summer. Winter solstice, signalling return of the light & traditional New Year occurs here in June, which means we are out of sync with nature's seasons, as indicated by a calender, formulated for the Northern Hemisphere.... or out of sync with the calender.... whichever way you look at it, it's confusing.....

I find myself making a distinction between the 2 worlds of Home & Hearth, and Business & Commerce, when actually, I know they are all one experience, and my heart yearns for some sort of balancing of dates that reflect the seasons... yet we must follow the rest of the world in times & dates, which are. after all, just human constructs, designed to make life easier in the first place...

Which brings me to think this may account for a sort of covert awe of old traditions, combined with a certain degree of skepticism, & even cynicism in an Australian psyche... feeling out of time, and out of place.... Not knowing if we are working forwards or backwards, and constantly having to change and adapt our experiences in order to reconcile them with what is supposed by the rest of the world to be "correct"...



When you're in high summer, and exchanging cards with snowmen and robin redbreasts, drinking a wee dram of warming whisky & singing Auld Lang Syne although might be 35 degrees and you don't know if the fireworks will be allowed at midnight due to high fire danger, New Year celebrations can feel a bit silly...

Like so many Australians, I am getting better at working backwards.... not following dates & times as much as getting a job done when it needs to be attended to, taking as long as it takes for completion...

So here's to a 2014 of deeper understanding, of seeing the essence of things, and of creating new traditions that include everyone.

Wishing you a very kind year, wherever you are, and whatever the season.