Hag Stone Journal

Spring: Renewal

Spring: Renewal

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March 17 to March 23
In This Issue: Meditation, Journal Prompt, Home, Outdoors, Community, Body, Magic, Poem / Quote, Craft, Cookery, Moon Phases, Activism, Recommendations, Next Week

March 20th is the Vernal Equinox, which, in the U.S., heralds the beginning of spring. I, for one, am more than ready for spring and its warmer weather, budding trees, flowers, and showers. The earth is waking up, stretching, and greeting the dawn.

Spring is a time of renewal. Everything is fresh. The world is muddy, or just washed clean again by rain. Life is peeking out in new growths. Every day there is another colorful denizen emerging in the garden. Life begins anew in a chaotic splash of creation.

Renewal isn’t always nice and clean and orderly. It is wondrous and surprising and it can be messy. We don’t always appreciate surprising and messy in our lives. It is not comforting. It is more work. But it is where growth happens. Renewal might sound like a day at the spa with cool cucumber water and white robes, but new growth is always struggling towards the light. Renewal is a magical sacred mess of waking up, stretching, and of unfurling beauty.

Welcome to spring. Welcome to magic, adventure and embracing the process of growth.


By Heather Gray

Meditation

 

Sun Salutation for Spring

Journal Prompt

As we turn from winter to spring, look for the buds that are peeking up in your garden.

What seedlings are straining to grow?

What you give your attention to will grow; you are the water and the sun.

Name 5 things in your life that you want to flourish and grow:

Reading fiction – I want to read more novels: both highly regarded literature and cozy mystery novels.

My writing – I hope that writing every week will help me develop my true voice.

Friendships – I would like to be better at being true and real in my friendships and other connections.

My garden – I literally want my garden to flourish and grow. Spending time in my garden helps me slow down and be in the moment

Adventure – I want to take the world up on its opportunities for adventure.

 

 

Cookery

Layered Strawberry Orange Smoothie

Ingredients:

  • 5 bananas, frozen
  • 20 oz 100% orange juice, divided
  • 20 oz frozen strawberries
  • 2 cups 2% fat plain Greek yogurt
  • 3 tsp sugar
  • Directions:

Add bananas, 12 oz of orange juice, and 1 tsp of sugar to blender, blend until smooth. Pour into container and cover and freeze for about 20 minutes.

Rinse out blender; blend together strawberries, yogurt, 1 tsp sugar, and remaining orange juice.

Pour orange juice smoothie layer from freezer into glasses and top with strawberry smoothie layer. Serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings.

Craft

The ground is still frozen here. We have some time before we can begin work in the garden. But I am excited to think about what we will be planting. These decorative garden signs are an inexpensive, easy, and adorable craft you can make in anticipation for the growing season.

Supplies:

  • Paint sticks – you can purchase a pack of 10 paint sticks from DIY hardware stores.
  • Acrylic paints
  • Paint brushes
  • Something to make the letters, like markers, stickers, stamps and ink pads.
  • Yes! Glue (optional)
  • Mod Podge

Directions:

Paint the sticks, leaving the bottoms that you will stick into the ground unfinished.

When the paint is dry on all sides, write or add the letters to the sticks. I used stickers and glued them down with Yes! Glue.

When everything is dry, add a layer of Mod Podge to protect your garden marker from the elements.

Home

Are you one of the folks who feel compelled to do a big spring clean this time of year? After being cooped up inside for months, we want to throw the windows open, shake out all the rugs, wash the curtains, clean the baseboards, wipe the light switches, and dust the fans.

After you have done all that cleaning and are feeling tired but also really good, you can throw four simple ingredients in your slow cooker or on the stovetop and infuse your home with a fresh, clean scent with this homemade simmering spring air freshener.

Ingredients:

  • 2 citrus fruit (lime, lemon, grapefruit, orange)
  • 4 sprigs rosemary
  • 3 tbsp vanilla extract
  • 4 cups of water

 

Directions:

Slice the fruit into ¼ inch circles and add to slow cooker or pan on the stove along with rosemary, vanilla extract, and water.

If using a slow cooker, set to simmer with the top off. If using the stove top, make sure you add more water when it gets low.

 

Outdoors

Go on a spring “scavenger hunt”.

Start with your ears. What spring sounds do you hear? I am hearing (and seeing) a ton of robins right now. Do you hear insects, like bees, buzzing?

Move on to your sense of smell. Can you smell the new growth? Mud? Flowers?

If you are in a place in which you feel safe taking your shoes off, you can explore your sense of touch that way. Does the ground feel wet and soft? If it is still snowing in your area, keep your boots on. Feel the sun on your face. Is it getting warmer in your part of the world?

Now to your sense of sight. How many signs of spring can you see in your own backyard? In one block? In one square block? At the local park? Worms, sprouts, birds, kids on bicycles, signs for yard sales, baby bunnies, new green leaves, and buds are all signs of spring.

Lastly, breathe in a taste of spring. Fresh local produce is coming– a beautiful palette of pink, orange, red, and so many shades of green. For now, there is just the cool crisp air, with, maybe, a slight taste of new growth.

Body

Let’s renew our skin with a homemade facial scrub. This recipe is so simple: just mix 1 tbsp coconut oil with 2 tbsp sugar.

Gently clean your face first, then rub the coconut sugar scrub on your face and neck in a soft circular motion. Rinse the scrub off with warm water and dry.

If you like this scrub you can make more– it is just 1 part coconut oil to 2 parts sugar– and store it in your refrigerator for up to 3 months.

Magic

It is time to renew our altars for spring. Clear away any symbols of winter and really go big with symbols of spring: eggs, snakes, flowers, lambs, hares and rabbits, butterflies, lady bugs, pastel colors, live plants, pastel gems and minerals, symbols of balance (the vernal equinox is the when the day and night are the same length), seeds, feathers, sparkly jewelry, figurines, or garden tools! Your spring altar can be a messy conglomeration of symbols of spring, fertility, and renewal. Light your candles, and center and connect yourself to the powerful altar you just created. You are ready to bloom.

March’s full moon on the 21st is called the Worm Moon, and this year it occurs four hours after the Spring Equinox. It is also a super moon, the third and final super moon of the year, which means the moon is closer to the earth and will appear larger than normal. That is a lot of moon!

The moon and the night are associated with feminine energy. The full moon is a time of potent energy and fully embodied power, as well as a time to release what no longer serves you.

The Full Worm Moon (I kind of love writing that) has a power that, married with the energy of the Spring Equinox, reflects the balance of moon and sun, mature power and new growth, release and renewal. If you can, go out and see the moon. Bathe in the moonlight. Feel the power of the chaotic and contradictory being that is you. We are capable of so much that we surprise even ourselves. Thank the moon, release what you no longer need, and welcome the changes to come.

Moon Phases

March 14 is the first quarter moon.

Instructions on Not Giving Up

– Ada Limón

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out

of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s

almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving

their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate

sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees

that really gets to me. When all the shock of white

and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave

the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,

the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin

growing over whatever winter did to us, a return

to the strange idea of continuous living despite

the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,

I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf

unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

Community

Spring clean your local park or a derelict area. Invite others to help you.

 

There is an old derelict ruin of a house in the woods near our house called Buttercup Cottage. Buttercup Cottage was built in 1889 as a social outreach for poorer girls from the city to come out to the “country” for the summer.

Buttercup Cottage had 16 bedrooms and a large first floor with a huge fireplace. It was set near a creek on a hill in an area that was, at that time, a favorite summer destination for wealthy Philadelphians. Buttercup Cottage was built by Henry Howard Houston, a businessman and philanthropist who developed the neighborhood I live in. Houston’s daughter became the first board president of Buttercup Cottage, and, since it was built on grounds within the parish of my Episcopal church, it also came under the care of the church. The remains and grounds of Buttercup Cottage are still cared for by my church.

An article written for the church by David R. Contosta describes the cottage thus: “The land around the cottage included a playground, an apple orchard, and pasture for a cow (which may have provided milk for the summer residents). There was also a meadow with wildflowers. Meandering through the meadow was Cresheim Creek, which together with the other features, ‘afford[ed] the girls the real pleasures of outdoor community life.’ They could play croquet on the lawn, laze on hammocks under the trees, or go on ‘long tramps through the woods…’”

By 1955, the cottage was vacant and in poor condition. In 1959, the barn on the property, which was still in good condition, became a summer camp site for the Girl Scouts. In 1964, the Houston Estate deeded the property to the city parks system and folks could rent the barn for parties and events, but in 1982 the barn was burned down by vandals. Today, the ruins of Buttercup Cottage can be seen from the winding road that runs through the woods paralleling the creek. Hikers can visit the graffiti-covered ruins, as well as a waterfall, a wooden bridge, and a flower meadow– perhaps the same flower meadow the girls played in on summer days 130 years ago.

Besides caring for the historic ruins and clearing the grounds of invasive plants, the church has also sung Compline, night prayers, at the cottage. The next clean up day is coming this month and I am excited to get the opportunity to care for this site that has always sparked my imagination when I’ve seen it mouldering serenely in the woods.

Buttercup Cottage is one of many ruins one can find when they are out tromping through the woods in Pennsylvania. It could be torn down, but, instead, it is cared for, prayers are sung in it, people love to take photographs of it, and people are still learning about and from its history.

Spring is a time for renewal, but we don’t always have to wipe our past clean.

Activism

Some recent movies that will renew your energy for racial justice activism:

Hidden Figures

Selma

Moonlight

Blackkklansman

The Hate U Give

Dear White People

Recommendations

Renewal and Spring playlist

Rise in the Springtime – Lavender Diamond

Here Comes The Sun – The Beatles

Sing for the Morning – Lady Maisery

Juice – Lizzo

Blossom – Nick Drake

Step – Vampire Weekend

Right Youth – Hayley Kiyoko

Famous – Daisy the Great

A Beginning Song – The Decemberists

Next Week

We will explore the magic and language of flowers.