hedge stuff - my liminal Medicine

This is Sam. Sam's a cat.

Hail ‘n’ welcome to February, the longest month of the year.

That’s my relationship with this month, and that’s hedge stuff. Given the year-long verve of January, that also flew by in a flash (hedge stuff), I’m wondering how many years February will take before delivering March (also hedge stuff).

The full moon of this day is in Leo, and I pull the IV of swords (hedge stuff), so I’m feeling a bit conflicted and comforted by this (more hedge stuff). As linear time rolls from one month to the next, I engage ritual that gives attention to my personal hedge work, to the liminality of/in life as I perceive it. I conjure my list of cognitive dissonances (as I say) that express the hedge for me; so-called opposites. This monthly observance has been mighty Medicine to me for years, and I draw on the wisdom and warnings that are offered from that work in the hedge.

Today the temps might get up to 21℉ which, given the temps of the past week, might feel like a bit of heatwave (hedge stuff).

I’ll be starting Rose Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) seeds today, a lovely reminder of how the seasons and “garden” work are not linear as some seem to insist. My experience knows that planting ‘n’ harvesting hold space and place year ‘round. So today I deliver these seeds to a small flat of soil, place the flat in the unheated greenhouse, and fully tuck it in a blanket of snow; below, above, and all around. Over the coming weeks (a month+) these seeds will experience “cold stratification” which the Rose Milkweed require in order to sprout (hedge stuff).

If you live where winter cold ‘n’ snow are happening and have poppy seeds, now is a nice, easy time to “plant” them. I toss them atop the snow where they experience that “cold stratification” that poppies also need, and as the snow thaws those beloved seeds descend toward the earth where they’ll eventually sprout and take root (hedge stuff, again).

Lots of hedge stuff for me today, and with it I recall the closing line of Desiderata, “With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.” (hedge stuff, indeed).

Peace.

Change

 

This past week I’ve been sinking into the Medicine (and privilege) of my daily living. Appreciating the small things of home and hearth are Good Medicine for me, especially when occurrences outside my sphere of influence are profuse and expansive, some rooted in recognizable reality, some seemingly performative, some intentional distractions, and some just fucking, horrific mysteries.

I sink, sink, sink into my personal patterns and rituals to regulate my inner life (and nervous system), to ground myself, and to create space to consider life events (mine and… ours) in a way that might offer some sense, some heart, some comfort.

That’s where I’ve been this past week. My pre-dawn ritual of journaling ol’ school with book ‘n’ pens has been extra-heavy in doodling, which is a salve to that regulating I mention in the last paragraph. This morning I penned some words that landed. Know what I mean?

I wrote: it’s hard to jot the words - the feels - sometimes… maybe because - at present - the feels are in constant motion.

This simple realization is ripe with personal perspective that I recognize in the present (for sure), and in the past 10 years or so, and in my youth. Since I was a kid I’ve consistently been willing to learn, re-learn, evolve. I recall my mom saying to me, right around the time I moved from teens to twenties, “You’ve changed.” If memory serves, I responded with something like, “Yes, I’m growing. Isn’t that great?” She was not amused.

There’s this disquieting social norm I’ve heard my whole life; that change is hard. And it’s most often expressed with resentment, anger even. Change can be hard, for sure, but it’s necessary to life. It is life. Right?

I’ve shared a shit-ton of time with and in Nature since childhood. Heck, I’m a Gaia devotee. And one unwavering gem of wisdom that repeats, and repeats, is that change is life. It’s likely why I’ve expressed, for decades, that change is my most constant companion.

So right now, it’s not the whirlwind of change that’s unnerving me, it’s the whirlwind of feelings that aren’t able to land, ground, take root.

It’s unsettling. And while it feels familiar, it feels like new territory for me. I’m changing. I’m growing. Hope you are too.

Peace.

This world

Sharing my daily activities feels so, so frivolous, to say the least. These feelings are pre-existing. I felt them before I conjured my recent attempt to write and share again. I've been feeling them for several years. And these leaden feels sink, sink, sink so deep as I witness these days we share in real time.

Remember to breathe. 

Today, that's all I got.

Peace. 

Time

Today I made time.

Time for a leisurely morning, which is typical.

Time to activate a levain for tomorrow’s dough. Or maybe tonight’s dough.

Time for a meaningful astrological reading with the inspired Lydia.

Time to make the weekly-ish quart of yogurt.

Time to prep a loaf of bread with the remaining batch of this week’s sourdough to bake after lunch. This will be enJOYed for dinner with the split pea soup that’s already made... made with stock from a piece of homemade smoked pancetta that was drying too fast (for reasons that plum evade me). Soup enriched with home-canned pork. Both porky goodnesses from our beloved Farmer Kelley of Howling Flats Farm. Soup that was inspired by a friend’s request, a quart of which will be delivered to him tomorrow.

Time to pull out the seed box.

Time mixed in to tidy here ‘n’ there.

Time to read, time to journal, and - now - time to couch it with some knitting and motion picture bingeing.

This may seem like a lot to some folks, and documenting like this accentuates a perceived grandness, and that can be magical motivation, as well as a pat on the back - the documenting, that is. Try it. *nods* But most of these are routine activities that are second nature to me, so their manifesting is simple, and as leisurely as my morning.

And speaking of time, “new year” blessings to you. As I shared with some folks earlier today… may 2026 overflow with so many blessings for you, for all you love, for all they love, ad infinitum.

Peace.