Month: May 2022

Next Wednesday, it is Summer again, according to the human-made calendar. But the weather gods seem to have a mind of their own, and for long now, the weather has been more than fair. So, with the occasional showers, everything grows and shows beauty in my husband’s beloved garden.

But he has to take extra good care of himself today due to an old occupational injury in his shoulder. Therefore, he is in the living room, enjoying a binge-worthy series and trying to cope with chronic pain.

So, I have migrated to my creative desk next room (we have three living rooms en suite, one for television, one for creative pursuits, and one for ladies´ luncheons and dinners with family and friends).

Here, I currently keep my laptop and notes for my digital version of a Book of Shadows. I enjoy my birthday present in the evenings, which I received a little earlier than expected. Before my birthday, I plan to get to know my new Tarot deck (The Herbcrafter’s Tarot). Then, on July 14, 2022, I want to consecrate and use the deck for the very first time.

It is only my second deck of Tarot cards. The first is a traditional Rider-Waite deck that I bought in an esoteric store many years ago in my youth. It has been through Hell and back and needs restoration and only occasional use.

So I wished for a new deck; thank you, dear Universe, for granting me the opportunity to hopelessly fall in deep love with the Herbcrafter’s Tarot. It is beautifully designed. It requires some contemplation, as it is considerably different from the traditional deck I have used for so long. And it immediately caught my attention when I first spotted it at my favorite Danish online esoteric store.

When I have learned it thoroughly, I will write an entire blog post about it, spiced with my own experiences. And, just for the record, I receive nothing in return to speak positively about it.

As this blog has developed, I no longer plan to make money here. It is way too precious for me to write here at all to risk losing you, dear readers and followers, for the sake of money.

I’m annoyed at bloggers who always seek the money line at the expense of something actually worth reading. But, of course, it is their right to do so; I just don’t find myself in that category of bloggers.

Where this blog is next year at this time, I genuinely don’t know. For the moment, I feel content simply writing here about my life and my three beloved hobbies: writing, witchcraft, and creative pursuits.

Summertime is near now; soon, we will enjoy the few long summer evenings only with a slight breeze to cool off a day’s warmth from the life-giving Sun.

It will be time to celebrate Litha, or the Summer Solstice, in only twenty-three days. From then on, the long journey to the land of King Winter begins.

But, for now, let’s celebrate life in all its aspects and meet in a silent prayer for humankind and Mother Earth.

It is so badly needed, although it feels completely incomprehensible why humans always seem to seek out trouble and warfare as the sole means to justify their actions.

Instead, we should keep the peace between us; we should care for Mother Earth and all her creations, and we should behave like grown-ups rather than spoiled brats.

That we try to do here at this beautiful spot on the planet. Brutal honesty, common decency, and genuine interest in sharing the beauty of life and helping one another.

There may not be room for people who lie, cheat, and show disrespect. But, in return, there is love, friendship, and kindness in our little group of good people.

Soon, there will be lots of things to do. We need to go shopping, celebrate birthdays, and enjoy ladies´ luncheons. At the same time, I have my new social house to attend to. It is a source of indescribable joy when you lift somebody’s mood just by listening to them and great concern when their life turns 360 degrees around itself.

But I turned a suggestion down this weekend. I’m not yet ready to face everything independently, without support and transportation options. They can use my knowledge and experience when I feel I can give what is needed among the people who come to the house.

And today is not such a day, as I don’t know who would show up today. So I need a more extended and slower introduction to use my energy wisely and have enough, both for that and for my private life here.

Summertime is near now; I can feel it in every cell of my body, mind, and spirit. I have chosen not to include any pictures this time, as my words are enough today. But next time, I will catch the best of motives from my husband’s beautiful garden.

The music behind the writing today is a tossed salad of different styles and times. My mood switches between high and low this afternoon. But I’m used to that by now, and I write nevertheless, as I believe that keeping my mind busy helps keep the wandering thoughts at bay.

It is time to wrap this up and wish you a beautiful, sunny Sunday. My endeavors for the day’s remains are to shift between working on my digital Book of Shadows and getting to know my new Tarot deck.

Summertime is near now; the week is almost gone, and I feel even more content than usual. Life is beautiful and rich.

May your week be filled with moments of joy and happiness, dear readers and followers. May world peace be the new cool. And may my current strong mental stamina stay faithfully with me throughout Summer well into Fall.

As we will it together, so mote it be.

Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again.

A better expression about this week is impossible.

My energy levels are growing, my morning walks pay off big time, and my new community work is heartwarming, mindful, and worth every second.

Monday, I passed 11,000 steps a day. Tuesday, my meeting with my counselor went faster than ever before, and Wednesday simply created an appreciable difference for both a handicapped fellow citizen and me.

Thursday, I was tired deep down in my bones, and I spent a fun happy hour in my creative den building a wind chime from scrap wood, bamboo sticks, wire, and a fierce stapler.

That continued throughout Friday, too, but I was nowhere near the finishing touch. To finish, I need my husband’s hands and mind. He is the handyman and gardener of my life, and everything he touches becomes magickal.

Yesterday, we should have been at our dear friends’ s place to watch the local speedway group on TV. Still, my husband was tired after a long and industrious week. I fought my osteoarthritis and mental clutter in my mind.

So, we stayed at home, he binge-watched a binge-worthy series, and I wrote in my digital Book of Shadows.

Today, we went to the oldest town in Denmark, Ribe, to experience the Festival of Tulips with marching bands, a funfair, and a parade.

It was almost overwhelming when people gathered in downtown Ribe out of nowhere. I need to go back to the week before the first lockdown in Denmark in March 2020 to remember being in the middle of a crowd of people.

The best week so far in 2022, we now relax in our living room together with the little wise, old dog and the three philosophical cats.

Their den got a thorough Spring cleaning yesterday, and our almost twelve-year-old dog got his walks and sniffs in beautiful May weather.

Contemplating my current life conditions, I count my blessings and bow my head humbly. For my family, my friends, and my familiar companions, I am more than grateful. And thank you, dear Universe, for every challenge, every mistake that later became a life experience, and every split second of my time on Mother Earth.

We may live on a small but strong budget. We may carry along ailments and mental disorders. And we may seem so apart from whatever is regarded as “normal,” whatever that may or may not be.

But we are happy. We are blessed with deep inner peace. We continue to stay reasonably healthy. And we practice kindness and have learned the art of giving without expecting to receive in return.

All things considered, my current life feels good.

The best week so far in 2022; perhaps I should top that with a cup of chai tea, combining the art of writing with witchcraft and my creative projects.

How to do that quickly and with only little effort?

I will end this week working with my digital Book of Shadows creatively. Tonight, I will work with the graphic expression that needs to be amongst thousands and more thousands of words.

I need some online time searching for beautiful ideas for illustrating a Book of Shadows. Typically, I will begin at a place like Pinterest, continue creating my own designs, and then grab drawing paper and pencils.

It is calming, relaxing, and liberating to get inspired and create one’s own material. And it will be an appropriate way to leave this week as happy as it began on Monday.

Today’s blog picture is of my husband’s new garden bed for me. The plan is to buy medicinal plants next Spring to use both in the kitchen and in my witchcraft rituals. There are non-perennial plants, so there is already something beautiful to look at.

I have been consistent and steadfast and have only watched the essential news. This world is way too crazy for me these odd years, and I try to shield myself as much as possible.

Next week begins as busy as the previous ones this year. And on Wednesday, I will visit the social center twice; the first time being creative with a fellow citizen, and the second time eating dinner with some of the people who attend the place.

I feel deep in my body, mind, and soul that community work holds great rewards. Not to toot my own horn, but to create meaning in an often meaningless world.

Actually, it is pretty difficult to describe the feelings I come home with after a visit there. It simply just makes meaning to me.

It is a rich mixture of emotional happiness, mental clarity, and deep inner peace. I have always wanted to try it. So now I grab the chance and see what happens along the path.

The best week so far in 2022; getting closer to beginning wrapping up this blog post. As always, it is an honor and a privilege to live in a free county being able to write freely and without censorship.

I feel happy and free whenever I write something. I feel calmed and assured when I practice the art of witchcraft. And I feel deeply content when I’m in a creative mood.

For that and for my creative talents, I feel grateful.

Sharing my life with you, dear readers and followers, reading your stuff, and from time to time commenting on some of it, too, thank you for taking part in this beautiful journey of a lifetime.

With twenty-five words left to sum up, well, the best week so far in 2022, I have seldom felt so good, so content, so happy.

May your week be blessed with happiness, inner peace, good health, and kindness, dear readers and followers.

May the leaders of this world come to their senses and remember that they are here to serve the people, not vice versa.

And may my current life stay on track for as long as possible.

Thanking you in advance, dear Universe.

Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again.

This week is one of a kind concerning positive human behavior. Wednesday, I had the fantastic privilege and honor of meeting one of the fiery souls. They help handicapped people cope in the everyday.

I also met a woman with less than ten percent of her eyesight left due to complications with diabetes. We agreed to meet again next Wednesday, each with some of their creative projects.

The idea is that I will become her eyes while her hands will work together with mine. And we will create something beautiful.

I have asked to get acquainted with the expectations of a peer-to-peer social worker.

And the plan is to travel the county and meet with people where they actually are physically, mentally, and spiritually.

When I returned from my first session, two hours had passed without the feeling of time whatsoever. A sad and troubled fellow citizen shape-shifted into a happy, smiling, and waving new person.

That feeling that hit me is almost indescribable as I’m still contemplating the utter sense of happiness and true meaning.

The fiery soul happens to be the new leader of all the drop-in centers of the county.

The feeling of deep inner peace has stuck with me throughout the week after a beautiful and educative life lesson in treating people the way I want to be treated myself.

I have been extremely tired, too. That I ascribe to all the new impressions and subtle moments this week has brought me.

Deep inner peace and community work is worth every second of the experience. I have always wanted to try something like this, and I’m happy and proud that others think I can do it well.

Now, my life experiences and everything I have learned genuinely come into their own.

This week brought a wonderful gathering of friends, too. Yesterday, we shared a BBQ dinner with good friends in their new home.

It felt like had Summer asked Spring to hurry, for it was sunny and cozy in their greenhouse with an old vine climbing all over the place.

It takes about fifteen to twenty minutes each way to get to our friends. But I love to walk, and I already walk at least half an hour in the early morning, just to clear my mind and try to get a little more fit for my general health.

My emergency box for Ukrainians is growing day by day. Now, I’m halfway through and the next goal is to gather bandages, diapers, canned food, and hygiene products. The plan so far is to ship it for free with the Danish postal service in the middle of June.

They offer to bring packets of a maximum of  25 kg for free to their Ukrainian counterpart, who will then pass it to those in dire need of help.

I know that my work is only a tiny drop in the ocean, but this way, I feel that I at least have tried doing something to make this hideous war just a little less wrong.

Tuesday, my husband and I shared a witchcraft ritual, slightly behind schedule, the Sabbath of Beltane.

Today’s picture shows my altar set up. It was shorter than usual; however still beautiful, soothing, and mindful.

Deep inner peace and community work, well, who can wish for more? I may have some physical and mental challenges to overcome. Still, I feel in the depth of my heart and deep within my body, mind, and soul that I better late than never have reached the best part of my life so far.

At my interview last week, I was asked why I wanted to live this dream out. I answered directly, honestly, and promptly: to make other people happy.

To reach somebody where they actually are in the present moment, to help change tears into smiles, and to learn to love me as well as other people; these goals I have already reached, so what comes hereafter is my reward for being me, not to toot my own horn, but to assist others in acknowledging their very own strengths despite severe challenges in their everyday.

Today’s tasks are to write in my digital version of a Book of Shadows, bask in the sun with my husband and the little wise, old dog, and call my eighty-four-year-old father tonight.

Today’s writing music is the good old stuff, the protest songs, old school rock’n’roll, and, all things considered, anything where you can’t help yourself toe-tapping the rhythm.  

And today’s feelings are happiness, inner peace, good health, and kindness.

Soon, it’s time to go out in my husband’s beautiful, blooming Spring garden with the little wise, old dog. He loves to lie on the sunbed and sniffle happily in the air.

But first, I need to meditate on life’s twists and turns. This recent year has been strange, yet so enlivening, so full of joy, and so life-affirming. We left a toxic relationship for something so much better.

We have found the rarest kind of friends you want to keep in your life forever. We like to help each other, we want to meet often, and we quickly pick up on yesterday’s conversation.

This week, I also had the great pleasure of talking with my bonus little sister, the daughter of the eldest friends of my parents. We spoke for more than an hour and a half, and her plan is to visit us this Summer with her husband and two daughters.

This tells me that something wonderful and great is coming, a Summer party in the garden with dear friends.

May your week be filled with inner peace and positive experiences, dear readers and followers. May many more people learn to work together instead of fighting for no reason whatsoever. And may my current mood remain strong throughout Summer well into Fall.

If we care enough to pray for this, it might happen to us all.

So mote it be.

Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again.

Yesterday, we helped two of our dear friends moving on to a new and cheaper house. It will be different visiting them there, but the place is excellent. The garden is well-established and inviting to be in.

I´m moving on, too. Thursday, I met with my counselor´s boss, who works with recovery and the peer-to-peer program. We agreed that I should begin with some voluntary work for me and them to decide whether I can manage the task of giving back some of the much I have received during my own recovery process.

This week, everything has been busy and hectic, and today, I discovered that a whole week has passed without me noticing it.

Time seems to slip right out of my hands in these oh-so-odd years. Yet, I try to grasp the current moment, live as every day was the very last in a lifetime, and make the most of every situation.

Next week, everything will be hectic and busy, too. Tomorrow, we are going to the biggest town in the county; we need to check our bank accounts and do extensive monthly shopping for necessary groceries and other necessities.

I will finish my newest witchcraft ritual and call my eighty-four-year-old father in the afternoon.

Tuesday is a ritual morning time and time for my counselor´s weekly visit. Wednesday, well, everybody needs a break occasionally. So here I plan to be creative with the next steps in my project about creating homemade wind chimes.

Thursday, my counselor arrives again, this time with my social worker, whom we will ask to renew my grant so that my counselor and I can work even better with my recovery.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, well, my guess is that there will be full speed ahead too.

Moving on can indicate many things, depending on where you find yourself in the present moment. But, first, it can be a physical move, like the one we helped our dear friends with yesterday.

Second, it can be a mental transition period where you fight inner demons on the path to recovery. And third, it can be a necessary shift of mindset because, for example, a toxic relationship had gone beyond bad.

I´m always careful about moving on from serious issues because sometimes it simply takes more time to actually move on than people, in general, is willing to try to understand and support.

When I lost my beautiful classic car back in 2016, not even I was prepared for the emotional roller coaster the loss threw me in. But then, I was told by an acquaintance to move on only a week after the incident when my car was stolen and burnt to ashes for no reason at all but a joyride that went utterly wrong.

Of course, I wasn´t ready for that after only a few days. Who would be?

Today, I have long moved on from that. But it took some serious mental setbacks and a total meltdown the year after the incident.

Moving on made me realize that I had lived a life full of strife and unnecessary conflicts about how to adapt to make friends. True friends will never ask you to play a particular role. Instead, they will support your efforts to become the best possible version of yourself.

Today, I know the value of such friends. They are scarce, will walk with you in the early mornings around sunrise, and show up at your call if you only pay them the same respect.

We have a happy and prosperous life here in our big little house with the two gardens, the long history of other lives lived, and the most beautiful atmosphere of freedom and joy of life.

My husband´s tulips are the motive behind this week´s blog picture. He is a true magician in his beloved garden, and I love to enjoy my fresh coffee with him and our friends.

In the Summer, we will throw a party to celebrate that we have been together long enough to have been married for twelve and a half years, the so-called copper wedding in the Danish tradition.

It was a small celebration in January, but we need to celebrate in Summer too. Then, we will gather our close friends, my father, and an old neighbor. People we love and care deeply for. And who love and care the same way about us.

Our list of friends may seem short to some, but I prefer that rather than having many flatterers who never are to be found anywhere in times of trouble.

I don´t want to waste even a split second on somebody not worth the bother.

I don´t want to waste my life on something not of lasting value to me.

And I don´t want to waste a precious lifetime on meaningless matters.

I live life to its fullest, trying to make the most of every situation, preferring a positive outlook to any kind of negativity.

As I´m writing this, I´m listening to old-school rock music, back from my earliest childhood memories of my parents listening and partying to the kind of music that is not made anymore.

Music plays a significant role in my life. It helps me cope on the bad days, aids my writing flow, and makes me more happy than sad. The latter is extremely important to me, as I definitely prefer manic episodes to the depressive.

At the present moment, my mental disorders leave me at peace. However, my osteoarthritis is painfully active due to the unfamiliar movements yesterday with the move for our friends.

May your week be happy, with good experiences and lots of fun, dear readers and followers. May

the world relax and cool its temper significantly because we all really need that. And may the coming week bring me clarity of mind, good health in my body, and renewed curiosity in my spirit.

As we all will it, so mote it be.

Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again.