If you want to attract Beltane love into your life, here's an attracting oil recipe.
Love Oil
Mix one ounce Almond oil or vegetable glycerin with the following essential oils:

• 4 drops rose
• 3 drops apple
• 2 drops jasmine
• 1 drop lavender
  Apply the finished blend to your heart chakra and to the chakra area just above the genitals to attract love.
   
  

Nature is sacred.

Right. Witchy lesson from year one. But sometimes it's hard to remember to get off the cellphone and laptop for a few hours, and go worship Mother Gaia.

Lucky for me, my husband keeps me grounded. He's not pagan, but he is a Missouri farm boy from way back.

One early spring morning I came into the kitchen, and he was all happy and bouncy. "What?" I turn to pour my coffee, and there they are, lined up like little paper soldiers on the breakfast bar. His precious vegetable seeds have arrived.

I take my coffee cup outside and he marches me around the newly-turned earth in my nightgown. "I'm going to try the tomatoes someplace different this year," he announces, inserting seed packages in the ground as markers. Early Girls Heirloom, Better Boy, Sweet One Hundred.

I run my fingers through the rich soil, and already I can see slices of bright red tomatoes, waiting to be added to the crisp bacon slices laying on the open-faced sandwich. I'll use the blue plates, they make such a pretty contrast….

Paul has already walked away, still talking. "I potted the herb plants earlier, before you got up."

He's left me kneeling in the dirt in my nightgown, and is now standing by a neat row of ceramic pots assembled on the patio table. "Look." He points at a pot on the end, and I come over to look, brushing the dirt off my knees. "I found some more white sage."

"Hello, you little ceremony in a pot," I murmur to the thin plant. "We'll take you up to the cabin to live with your older sisters. You'll like the cooler weather there."
"Oh!" He picks up another pot. "I also got you some patchouli."
I smile. He's pagan, he's just not interested in labels.
 
Gardens offer us a perfect opportunity to reconnect and remember our place in the natural world. 

Instead of approaching gardening as many modern suburbanites do – a way to tame and dominate their little part of the planet, our family sees it as a partnership with Nature.
We respect the earth, water, insects and animals. We buy or cultivate seeds and make our own compost. I aim to communicate with the plants, birds and insects in our garden, and listen for any messages they may have for us. (Well, except for the scorpions. They have spoken – and twice I've been stung. They're mean, and I want nothing more to do with them. But that's a story for another post.)

We didn't do it this year (it warmed up too early), but most years we plant in rhythm with the cycles of the moon. I've also printed chalk symbols on the garden walls to bless it. Hung wind chimes in the mesquite tree over the garden, so the plants can enjoy the music on balmy summer nights. Spread jeweled stones along the path down the center. Next I think I'll do simple altars at the four directions: A stone cairn in the north, bird bath in the east, and so on.

You might choose to ignore the clock time and water your garden when the sun hits a certain position in the sky. What fun! By opening your garden experience to nature's input, you can closer witness her cycles.

Everything you do--picking out seeds and planting, thinning and weeding, and finally harvesting—is a ritual dance with Mother Nature.

When we recognize that we are co-creators with the earth and the natural world, our relationship with the environment begins to change. We no longer feel the need to control all the circumstances around us and can relish the perfection in which we share.Are you thinking of planting a garden? Vegetable, herb or flower?
I'll leave you, then, with a blessing for your sacred space:

"I call to the Spirits of Nature, the Great Mother and Father.

Assist me now, by the powers of earth, air, fire and water.

Merge your magic with mine, circle around this place.

As we now celebrate the creation of a sacred garden space."

Blessed be, Gardeners.
 

I've been watching a comedy on Netflix called No Tomorrow. It started out on the CW, but unfortunately it wasn't renewed. The premise: This guy, Xavier, is convinced an asteroid is going to impact the earth in eight months, wiping us out.  So he quits his job and writes a "bucket list" of things he wants to do during his last days with his friend Evie.

When I turned 60, I experienced the same morbid feeling of "last days" and started my own bucket list. Now, It makes me smile every time I cross something off. Here's the list:

1. Write & publish my first novel (Done! Song of the Ancients, 2015)
2. Earn $1,000 from book and apply for PAN status RWA (Done! 2016)
3. Write a suspense novel (working – completed draft August)
4. Write next novel in the paranormal series (starting August)
5. Get a bigger publisher. Maybe an agent also.
6. Learn to snowshoe
7. Learn to cross country ski
8. Run a 10k race as a senior
9. Learn to Tango-Salsa-Mambo
10. Back country hike Yosemite
11. Buy a cabin in the woods (Done! We spend our summers there)
12. Set up a home office and library in my home (Done!)
13. Go through a Croning ceremony
14. Make a quilt (well, actually finish one!)
15. Attend oldest son's wedding with his new love. (Almost. He just got engaged last week!)
16. Become a grandma (done)
17. Witness youngest son fall in love and get married.
18. Take great vacations for book research in Hawaii, Scotland, Wales, Alaska, Newfoundland, Iceland, Central America (Have Scotland booked for July!)
19. Visit an active volcano
20. Participate in a shamanic journey ceremony

Now it's your turn.  Leave YOUR bucket list in this blog's comment section. From the comments here and on my group site, paranormalromantics.com,
I will draw a random name for a digital copy of my paranormal novel, Song of the Ancients.
 
The only limitation is your imagination. Here's your chance to share your dreams!
 

 
Full disclosure: I did not get through all the cleaning chores listed here last week. Did you?

But I vacuumed the entire house, both floors. Completed the magickal sweeping and mopping (that oil infusion combo in the mop water is yummy! And I prepared my lemon-and-orange-infused vinegar to use next time. My husband and son also picked all the lemons off our tree, and Paul sliced and vacuum-bagged them in the freezer, so we will have fresh lemon in our water and tea all summer. Yum.

In addition to the thorough spring-cleaning of our home of 20 years, I'm also attempting to pare down and de-clutter. It's a daunting task, so I'm concentrating on only three clutter categories:

1. This is the hardest category for me because I absolutely love books. But I don't like to re-read them, with a few notable exceptions, like the Harry Potter series. So why keep them all?
    
   To give up my cherished friends, I had to shift my mindset from eliminating to sharing. In that new mindset, I was able to take four boxes of books to the used bookstores in town. The move also prompted me to fill out paperwork and apply to have my own book, Song of the Ancients, accepted at Changing Hands.
   

Now, this chore has become fun! I selected a few old books to re-purpose. I plan to "plant" them in my poison garden at our cabin, when I finish it this summer. This book, an old Atlas of the Worlds, I acquired from the La Posada hotel in their "leave a book, take a book" shelves. I left a copy of my own novel in
exchange, plus a copy of The Witch of Blackbird Pond.
 










I stole the poison garden books idea from Amy Stewart, author of Wicked Plants. In her NY Times interview, she talked about her own poison garden. The books there are half-buried, or nailed to shelves so their pages turn in the breeze. Autopsy for an Empire, with its dried-blood-colored jacket, is planted beside the hellebore, which the Greeks used to poison the water of their enemies.

"I wanted the sense that the book I'm writing is coming out of the ground," she explained. I loved that image.
 

Amy Stewart's Hellebore

Back in the upstairs library, I've grouped my "To Read" books together—they take up an entire bookcase! I've myself I can only buy bring in a new book if I read and release one from my shelf.
 
 We've filled the shredder a dozen times with old tax files, receipts, out-of-date instruction pamphlets, appliance warranties, greeting cards.  I also sorted through our photographs and eliminated the duplicates, unflattering or boring shots. There were so many! Paul plans to scan many more, but I won't hold my breath.< > Another really tough chore. But now it's done. The boxes and bags are neatly stacked and labeled by donation site in the garage. One whole closet of my good work suits for a charity that specializes in outfitting women for job interviews. A stack of boxes for The Clothes House, which gives clothes to the homeless, and also launders their clothes for free, so they won't just be tossed when soiled. Another charity that has a free store for families who live in my part of Chandler.  

1. Once those boxes and bags are gone—it'll take me about another week to make the deliveries—we will have 1 ½ bays of our garage open. Wow! We'll have room to park a car! Oh, and to store the half-dozen additional boxes of more expensive things, like crystal and collectibles we've inherited from both sets of parents, but that our sons have said they don't want.
    
   So, the cleaning and decluttering saga is progressing, but not finished.
    Until next week, keep those brooms and dustpans busy!