Miscellaneous

Allergies: may be less allergic to hay/dust, but not to some other stuff. Mold, probably. Plenty of spores to go around this summer. Working on that.

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Wrote on my LJ about the physical fitness stuff. Also getting a few projects done, continuing to try to organize/sort.


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Have a new thing I'm doing as part of morning ritual activities. Am building the 'mists of Avalon' as it were, around the surrounding area. Not resisting with a solid wall so much as diverting unwelcome individuals, turning them aside. Those who would harm the Earth, may they and their projects dwindle away, may nothing come of them.

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Had a flood dream. That was interesting... don't remember much of it now -- what preceded the flooding -- but there were odd things like a report that Shia LeBouef (what?) had said that he didn't believe that the flooding would be severe. Later he was found and rescued from a tree.... I suppose that could be symbolic of popular thought or something. Then I wondered what things looked like from being in a tree, so I was in a tree looking down at everything. Buildings half-submerged, things floating in the water, and the knowledge that more water was coming.

Although what I actually thought was weird wasn't the flood, which I'd been expecting, but the 'tree' I was sitting/standing in. I was in a somewhat open branchy part -- the thought came to me that it was almost like a seat or throne, although there wasn't anything obvious like a seat cushion of course. The leaves were Holly leaves. That was the part that got my attention.

American Holly tree grows 40 - 50 feet high. I had a couple of holly in Holyoke -- the bush type that are commonly sold at garden centers. And as long as you maintain them, they make a nice bush -- they'll get big if you let them, though.

Looking around.... according to the Celtic Tree Calendar, Holly represents the 8th month, or July 8^th - Aug 4<sup>th. Interesting since we're currently in the middle of that time right now. This is also the time of year of the rule of the Holly King, until Winter Solstice.

All sorts of useful tidbits (the plant itself, magical properties, cultural uses and meanings, and more) on Holly here: Holly at Controverscial.com

I have a wand I cut (yes, I didn't do the Scottish thing of somehow removing it from the Holly bush without using a knife). L has one somewhere as well. We'd first 'used' them as props for a Halloween party, but they of course gained some power, as seems to be Holly's nature, and so we kept them. They still have the bark on, although I wonder if I should remove the bark somehow, to expose bare wood. Hm...

One of Holly's properties is protection, and I definitely felt safe in the tree, at least for the time I was going to be observing the area.</sup>