Finding Nature in Urban Living

My little herb garden

I live in downtown in a large city surrounded by other cities.  There are nice parks around my home, but I wouldn't call them "natural" because they are constructed greenery for the eye.

I'm lucky that I have a decent size backyard where I can cultivate, but also let nature grow.  I have a garden and a few planters, but otherwise I just sow the seeds and let them sprout on their own.  Not everyone has this luxury and I recomend heading out to a local bike path, it may be the closest picture to a nature scene from a National Park.

If you want to create a little space for nature in your apartment, it can be a little more difficult.  Some buildings do not even allow plants or there isn't any space for them.  If possible you could always speak to your landlord and ask if he would allow a small garden for everyone to enjoy, unlikely, but there is no harm in it.

If your landlord says no, you can always plant a small herb garden in your kitchen window, just don't forget to water.  I have one outside my front door, it's close enough for cooking, but if I could fit the herbs in my kitchen I would have.

Also, there are local community gardens you could sign up for or just walk by and enjoy.  This will not only help the community, but add some vegstables and geen visuals into your life.  I've seen these pop up around schools and if people don't parpisipate they will just dissapear.

buckets of plants

I think having acess to nature is not only important for Pagans, but as a community as a whole.  I'm not talking lawns with immigrant workers mowing the lawn, but places where nature is allowed to be or even just a garden in the front yard.

I have asked my friends to plant with me in my large back yard to offer them a place to relax and some fresh vegstables.  Gardens and nature promote community and make the block look presentable for people just walking by.

What do you do to connect with nature?

Playing Outside

Their mom is trying to clean the house right now and to be better organized, so the kids are staying outside more.  When I nanny, I love to play outside and let the 14 month old run around with his two siblings in the dirt.  The older siblings are very computer savvy and play Minecraft, Wizard101 and tons of youtube videos.


I remember when I was a child I spend almost every moment outside to escape to my own worlds separate from the abuse I was experiencing.  I made roller coasters our of holes and a wagon, climbed towers to fight monsters, imagined kingdoms, sat in the tall backyard grass watching the bugs crawl all around me.  I didn't have safe play structures, but tons of imagination brimming out onto the surrounding earth; creating a world of creative wonder.


Seeing this now in the children I nanny makes me want to play, create and imagine all over again.  I color with the chalk, build towers out of sand, act like crazy restaurant patrons all for the sake of play.


There is a certain magick in childlike play, it draws you down to an innocence lost underneath the realities of life like bills, school, cleaning your house, all these things wash away play.


My childhood was happy for a part, but my happiness was shaky because my mother would use my emotions to further her own insane agenda.  What was her agenda?  Who knows, I think she was just in so much pain she doesn't even know why she was angry.  There was always a cost for our happiness and it was not a fair childhood.


It is so important for children to play outside in the sunshine and develop a sensory for the earth around them.  I even play video games sometimes, but I much rather be sitting outside under the sunlight watering my plants.


This is why I like to play outside with the children, I'm redoing my childhood.  I know I can never deny what happened to me, even though my mother will, but I can choose to heal it.


What activities do you do with your children outside?

Lazy Environmentalist

Merry Meet all!

 I haven't written in a long time, mainly because I haven't done anything magickal in a while, but that's ok because I'm finally have a job in the field I want and that is Child Development. Technically I'm a nanny for one 3 year old girl and the sister as soon as she starts to crawl. I'm just happy and all I have to do is free play with her while the mom works. Oh, joy.

I'm going back to school for my credentials so perhaps I can find a career as a child care provider. Everything is going pretty well, moved to a tiny little cottage in the downtown area, love it, it has a huge backyard where I'm planting a garden. I guess I'm just trying to be a better blogger, I have no excuse, but some days I just forget or I'm just lazy.

Well, anyway I'm trying to rededicate myself and I hope this works. Recently I have watched too many environmental documentaries, now I feel very depressed because not matter what I do I feel like it's not enough.

I recycle.
Buy environmentally friendly cleaning products.
Buy organic bathing products.
Shop at the local farmers market and organically when I can.
I am growing a garden.
I'm also composting.

But I feel like I'm just a small dot. I know I am, but am I making a difference, sure, but I feel like I should be doing more and I guess that's a motivating idea to build on. I would like to stop buying soda, switch to cloths for cleaning, use glass bottles for my personal cleaning products, make my own home cleaning products, build a water storage, form a small community garden and, and, and...so much....

There is just always something out their ready to damage my quality of life and health to almost the point of paranoia. But, I can only do what I can do because of money, time and energy, so one step at a time right?

Oh, and of course as soon as I want to start taking actual classes at the Firefly Academy the school is closed for maintenance after this semester. Only for a month, but still, lol, only after I want to apply. I think I need community, but where I live kind of sucks magickally, but maybe I need to look again on Going or Meetup, I've never gone to any of the actual Pagan events, so try it before I jump into some online bit? I like people, but if they are just a bunch of immature teenagers pretending to sparkle or whatever, forget it.

Anywhoo, I will write soon. Blessed be!

Ghosts and Rituals

My sister has seen this spirit waiting outside of the house ever since she was little, I used to see spirits, but the gift left me around the age of nine or so. I’m a little thankful for it because horror movies just tend to freak me out and I tend to stay up holding a knife all night.
This is also similar for my sister. When she feels the woman, she cannot sleep sometimes, often has her light on and can feel the stare beyond closed doors. I feel horrible and I’ve smudged the house twice now, but I think we need to find out what this woman wants and ask her to leave. Maybe she is just trying to send a message, war us, or just leave some advice.
We need to confront her because she needs to move on and we would like to get some sleep. I’m thankful for my cats, because I believe they keep much of the spirits at bay. I can only hope that Luna will guide me.
Oh yea, I promised to tell you about my Elemental Ritual, well it just didn’t go very well at the beach because there were beer bottles everywhere, the scent of urine and there were just too many people. Also I was focused so much on keeping the fire going I couldn’t concentrate on meditation or the chant. So in the end I left to go home and preformed a small ritual there.
I think it worked a little bit, but I was tired and rushed so I guess I’ll have to try it again when I feel more relaxed.

Blessed Be.

Working with the Elements

Elements are everywhere, fire, air, water, earth, and they all nourish each other, fire needs air to burn, earth needs water to feed the plants. They are also associated with directions:
Fire-South
Air-East
Water-West
Earth-North

They are also in our birth sings. For example, my sun-sign is Libra and my moon-sign is Taurus, Libra-Taurus, Air-Earth, polar opposites. I usually accept my sun-sign more because I was born at 3 pm. Air, I'm blond, but that is beside the point because I think I was only an air as a child.

I was free-spirited, happy, floating about but it was squashed quickly because I had to fight for mental survival in my own home. I could not be a free-spirited, intellectual child anymore, I had to become a fighter or die. So my personality developed in fire aspects.

I still hold some air qualities, good student, artistic, loves to write, aspires to learn and teach, also I retain my earth qualities, stubborn, loves food, likes to work with hands, but I am imbalanced so often I retain the negative qualities of the elements, like not thinking before speaking, burning bridged, over indulging, overly emotional, the list goes on. I need balance in my life and I would love to reconnect fully with my sign qualities, because I really don't need to fight with fire too much anymore, so I have a chance to rediscover my born elements.

I'm going to the beach on Monday on a waning crescent moon, a good time for new beginnings and healing, and I've wrote a chant. I'll tell you how it goes after the ritual.