Loves, I drew three oracle cards from Hekatean Path for all of us this Sunday, and they tell a story worth sitting with. This is the arc of the crossroads we're standing at together — where we've been, what holds us, and what's calling us forward. 🃏Klytius — Defeat. We start in the hard place, and I won't dress it up. Klytius is the card of loss — the plan that didn't hold, the effort that didn't land. A lot of us have been carrying disappointment lately: grief over something that fell through, a hope that didn't come to pass. Hekate doesn't look away from that. She names it first, because you can't move through what you won't acknowledge. The defeat was real. Let it be real. 🃏Hieros Pyr — Sacred Fire — Unity. But look what she sets beside the defeat: the eternal flame, the spark of the divine that runs through everything and binds us to each other. Unity is her answer to Klytius. You are not carrying the loss alone. The fire that connects us doesn't go out because one plan failed. Belonging — to her, to each other, to something larger — is what carries us through the seasons of defeat. Warm yourself at the collective fire. 🃏Asteria — Dreams. And she ends with the stars. Asteria is the starry night — vision, dreams, and what's still possible beyond the visible. After the defeat and the fire, Hekate points us upward to what we can still imagine. The dream isn't dead. It's resting in the dark, waiting for us to lift our eyes back to it. What we couldn't hold in one form is being reshaped into another. The reading moves from the ground to the fire to the stars — from loss, through belonging, into vision. If you've been sitting in a defeat lately, this is Hekate telling you it's not the end of the story. It's the beginning of the next dream. And the timing matters: We are closing Phase II — The Descent / Phosphoros. Wednesday we step onto the Underworld Floor. So carry this with you down: the loss is real, the fire holds you, and the dream is waiting on the far side.

Not sure how many people here are fans of marvel. This song was made for one of there shows. The song makes my skin tingle lol https://youtu.be/VnjYeJ5blxo?is=x5NEgUjJUxGk_UtK

It's the Fourth of July here in the States, and I won't pretend I'm celebrating. Honestly, this holiday has never sat easily with me. And this year, with so many of us looking hard at what justice actually means, the fireworks land differently. Not that my neighborhood agrees. They've been setting off fireworks at all hours. 😬 So instead of celebrating, we work. The moon is waning, which is right for this: strength drawn up, injustice cleared out. This is a simple stovetop spell — a brew you make, hold, and drink. Nothing you don't already have. You'll need: - A cup of water, heating on the stove - A pinch of black pepper (for backbone) and a pinch of salt (for clearing) - A bay leaf if you have one (for victory), or rosemary (for strength) - Your two hands and your voice The working: Set the water to warm. As it heats, drop in the salt, the pepper, and the bay or rosemary. Stir it slowly, three times, deosil — sunwise — and hold your intention clear: the strength to stand, and justice to move. When it's warm enough to drink safely (not scalding), wrap both hands around the cup, feel the heat, and speak the words. The spoken part: Salt to clear and pepper to stand, bay for the victory close at hand. What is crooked, let it break; what is owed, let justice take. Steady my spine and light my way — I drink the strength to face the day. Drink it down slow. Feel it settle. Then pour any dregs at your threshold or a crossroads, and let Hekate carry the rest. Calling on the Furies for righteous justice would be especially appropriate. A word before Phase III: we cross into the Underworld Floor next Wednesday, July 8 . Hekate Chthonia, the deepest room of this whole descent. Strength and justice are exactly what you want in your hands before you go down. Consider this brew a provision for the road. You don't walk the floor empty-handed. 🔦 Torchlight For Today: "Freedom is the source from which all significations and all values spring." — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity

We just crossed the Strawberry Moon on Monday. So this week the thicket picks itself. Strawberries! It’s the little heart-shaped berry the whole moon was named for. My little patch has already flowered, fruited and gone, but the photos are here to stay! Attached. That brief timing is the whole point. Strawberry is the plant of first ripeness. 🍓The Myth Strawberry has belonged to the love-goddesses: Aphrodite and Venus, Freyja in the North, because its heart shape and its red juice. The Roman poets knew the wild kind well. Virgil calls it humi nascentia fraga or "strawberries born of the earth”, and warns berry-pickers to watch for the "cold adder in the grass." Ovid lists mountain strawberries among the wild foods of the Golden Age. Pliny catalogued it too. A plant gathered low, right at the surface of the ground. Which is the Hekatean part. The berry hugs the soil, serpent coiled beside it, acting as the liminal point where the underworld breathes up through the dirt. That's Hekate Chthonia's territory, (remember, this is the epithet of our approaching phase of Pluto Retrograde). Venus gets the red heart of the fruit; Hekate gets the dark ground it grew from. On the year's lowest full moon, both are in the berry.❤️ 🍓The Medicine The whole plant works though, not just the berry. The fruit is rich in vitamin C, ellagic acid, and antioxidants. It's cooling, cleansing, gentle on the system. But the real herbalist's treasure is the leaf: dried and brewed as a tea, it's a mild astringent and gentle blood tonic, traditionally used to calm diarrhea, soothe sore mouths and gums as a rinse, and settle the nerves before bed. The root, harvested in fall, was dried for the same astringent gut and gum work. A cooled leaf infusion on a cloth even eases sunburn (which I’m actually using right now, after that visit to the pool, ouch 😓). It is one of the safest, gentlest plants in the garden. Allergy is the only real caution. 🍓The Magic Venus-ruled, water-element, feminine— strawberry is a plant of love, fertility, dedication, and first fruits. It reproduces by sending out runners, giving of itself until the young plants root. That's exactly its lesson: dedication to what you're trying to bring forth, even before the ground looks ready. Folk tradition says a shared strawberry, or a split double berry given to another, seals love between two people. It’s why so many people share chocolate covered strawberries on Valentine’s Day here in the States— so sappy, but actual legitimate magic.

Also showing off my favorite dress I made last year