Rose Cottage

  This morning I'm beginning the process for turning rose petals into precious beads, which will retain their fragrance and last for decades! Dried rose petals rose petals (I'll strip all the petals off the stems rose geranium and lavendar tea electric coffee mill  small crock pot cinnamon, 5 spice powder or garam Masala, lavender and nutmeg Rose petals and supplies The activity for March in the Seasons of Wonder Devotional, which our church is using this year, is to craft simple rosaries. Did you know that rose petals have been used for prayer beads for hundreds of years? Rosary - from the Latin Rosarium- rose garden. 'In the east, dried roses are crushed to powder, moistened with rose water and formed into pellets, which are strung, dried and polished, ready for use.' (The rose by Ann Mayhew, illustrated by Michael Pollard - p75) My grandmother Mary used the fragrant petals of our heritage rose to craft rose beads, and I began making them in the 60s, using fresh a...

 Several years ago whilst going through my spring cleaning and dethughing, I pulled an angel Card from one of my decks ... and a bit later, came upon a fascinating   video  from British healer  Amanda Ellis  , and watched several - Wow!  One was a piece about having been sick with a double whammy virus,  Archangel Metatron   (Pre pandemic) which returned just as she thought she was over it! Amanda works with the Archangels, especially Metatron, and shared a teaching about receiving an  energetic reset , rather like a vaccine for our physical bodies to match the evolution of our spiritual bodies, as many shift from 3-D to 5-D.  Now this concept of illness as a reset is something a one of my daughter Mary's co-workers suggested over a decade ago. Her friend sees being ill as a chance for the body to do a tune-up, basically going through all the systems, tuning them to better efficiency, and often forgoing more serious illness. And it...

 One of my Reset tasks this weekend has been cleaning the fridge! I moved into Rose Cottage 10 months ago, and have done spot cleans - one shelf or drawer at a time as I emptied a container or cleaned out the veggie drawer, but it was time for a thorough go!  Tuesday - before You know the drill - turn it off, empty the contents (into a cooler, if it's going to take awhile! ), wash drawers and any organizers, wipe down shelves, walls and gasket! I did the main shelves Saturday, and saved the door for today.   I have a random selection of clear shelf organizers, so put them in the dish pan and gave them a good wash.  Compost went into my under sink container, then out to out bin.   ' After ' Don't you love a clean and reorganized fridge?!! The oddest one I ever saw was in the home of a friend's aunt - one lazy Susan on each shelf, and all items on one of those lazy Susan's! Way to OCD for me - but necessary for her!  Natural cleaning products I lo...

 Recently, I used my little Cherokee Syllabary dictionary to record plant names in my garden journal, I needed to look up one of the wild greens, Sochani, and was delighted to find this article !  In winter, I ordered 'Golden glow' (Rudbeckia lanciniata) seed from Everwild, after finding the greens were a favorite food of the Cherokee. Sochan seed packe t In an article on his  blog  in 2019, edimental proponent Stephen Barstow wrote that Rudbeckia lanciniata "is documented as probably the most important spring vegetable of the Cherokee in the Southern Appalachians in Moerman’s Native American Ethnobotany, which is probably where I first noted its edibility.  "It’s missed in Cornucopia II. The Cherokee ate the tender young leaves and stems cooked alone or with other greens such as poke (Phytolacca americana), Ramps (Allium tricoccum), Rumex spp. (docks) and eggs. They were also fried with fat, were dried for later use and also eaten as a cooked spring salad or as...

 Last Saturday, our Edible Landscapes of Yamhill  group met to discuss tending our  28 garden boxes this year! It was fun to see each other and meet the newest volunteers at Mac Market - I brought my own mug for a cuppa, and got a Mexican Mocha. Edible landscaping volunteers Last year, our group officially 'adopted' the 8 block stretch  of Alpine Avenue, and this year we've received a grant to expand the garden box project to several other areas.  The board members scheduled the quarterly clean up for after our meeting, and the city of McMinnville provides kits (vests, rubber gloves, grippers, signs and garbage bags) which make it easy for groups to tend the roadsides!  Clean up crew It felt so rewarding to gather those bags of litter along Alpine - and what a great reminder to attend to the areas near and around our garden boxes!  This is the second year I'll be tending the Tea Garden which I dearly love! It is ironic that the picnic tables (one nea...

 Gong Xi Fa Cai! Blessings this year of the Dragon If you've followed my blogs for long, you'll know I love holidays, ceremony rituals! Am annual favorite for over a decade is cleaning and preparing for the Asian of lunar new year. My friend Gwynne is a Feng Shui practioner, and has lovely tips on her  blog  for celebrating Chinese New Year, including:  'Roll 88 cases, or 88, or 8 single oranges one by one through your front door (& every exterior door that enters your home) and across your threshold, as well as real coins, ingots, gold chocolate coins into your home & business to symbolize filling them with abundance of good luck & prosperity. Then share the fruit with friends & neighbors.' Rolling oranges and coins Here's a citrus 'money tree' from a decade ago in the Galloway House -  there's an old Chinese legend of a tree with branches of coins & gold, - when you shake it, the gold falls like rain from heaven! This year I have a ...

 One of my favorite protects is to create Cosmic Smashbooks and Juju Journals!  When she was in her color of Woman teacher training, our Red Thread SiStar  Catt Geller  wanted an option suitable for low-income participants. She thought of using simple composition books - and  Cosmic Smashbooks  were born!  After my own graduation from Color of Woman Teacher training in 2015, I corresponded with Catt, and was granted permission to teach local classes for several years, before she began her certification program.  I offer a simple journal process in my Reiki 2 classes, inviting students to document their Reiki experiences. In these Good Medicine journals, we used Apothecary vessels to transform old stories into remedies .  Reiki 2 Good Medicine journals Composition books are readily available, and provide a good foundation for Journaling, using word and image. Many of us covered notebooks with brown paper - that's a great beginning. ...