Grief at Litha

Here it is mid-June and my eagerness for all things summertime is at an all-time low.  My strongest feelings about anything related to the heat is my hatred for the insects. Other than that, I'm just not all that interested or excited. I'm not interested in planting flowers or gardening. Not interested in fixing up the yard or setting up the pool. I've battled depression in my life before but the pain of grief is relatively new to me. Up until January I'd never lost anyone truly close to me. And the grief of that loss, and others, has sapped me of almost all enthusiasm. I don't want to pick up a book, don't want to make a collage, don't want to talk a walk.  About all I can summon the interest and energy to do is basic housework, watch tv, engage in various internet activities and download/listen to music. I guess there are worse ways to spend one's time but I'm just not all that productive these days.

I am trying. I've started blogging again which I think could be a good thing. I've done some late spring cleaning and I've nearly killed myself in the heat a few times as I'm very sensitive to it. But I haven't helped in that garden or really created anything new lately. I don't feel up to marking Litha with anything special, big or small. I wish I did, but I just don't. If I can get myself to light a candle that will be big deal. I guess it'll just take time to feel like working magic again, and I'm hopeful. I know that surely I've got to keep feeling a little better every day. I know it. I just wish I could hurry up and feel okay. I wish time could pass swiftly and get to a point where I don't have to remind myself of all I've lost and hurt like hell when I do.

Spring: Flowers, Critters and Blog Templates, etc.

Grape Hyacinths

So you may have noticed I've been playing with my template, backgrounds and stuff around here. What can I say? I recently got a nice, fully functioning, big ass monitor (from some great friends!!) and can now enjoy all the colors of the rainbow. Also, Blogger just unrolled their new Template Designer in Blogger in Draft and it is very nice. And fun. And addictive. But, more to the point (and there is one coming, just hold on) it's Spring!

All the warm weather critters are returning with the birds coming first. In fact, birds are returning in droves these days. We've had the mourning doves for about a week and their song is only second to the whip-poor-whil. Our local mockingbird returned a couple of days ago and, when he's close enough to a bedroom window, makes for an efficient and enjoyable alarm clock.   Every time I step outside I see more birds and even saw one squirrel which we don't often have around here. Haven't had a snake yet but it won't be long. The pond frogs have been serenading us for a few weeks now and it's truly glorious.

Lilacs and Tulips

There are spring flowers popping up all over in old and new places. We've got all of our expected things putting on a show but we've got a stray lilac or tulip here and there. Looks like our daffodils are done, the lilacs are still going and the tulips are just beginning to show off their rainbow of colors. All kinds of things are popping up: wild violas amongst the grass, gorgeous bright yellow dandelions and the wild rose bushes are putting out lots of growth. I can't wait to float in the pool and smell the gorgeousness of their scent waft over me. Warm weather can't come soon enough for me this year it seems. And I know why.

Now that my family situation is so much more healthy and happy than it was up until last fall I'm just looking so forward to life and living. My family was locked in a deep, dark hole for a long time, myself included. So I'm loving having freedom to have a life and friendships and goals and hopes to actually look toward.  I've been locked up too long. I, more or less voluntarily, did the hermit thing for nearly 30 years and spent the last two or three too scared to hardly ever leave the house. And now I'm done with that.  I'm stepping out of my cage.

I'm making new friends, pagan and non-pagans, left and right and, for the first time in my life, I'm actually enjoying hanging out with people. It's still a rough ride as my social skillz are pretty rusty but I'm having fun. And it's great. I'm drinking up the sun because the better times have arrived! If you have the means I highly recommend enjoying some beautiful weather and time outdoors and just plain 'ol good times with those you love. Enjoy the springtime, my fellow northern hemisphere residents,  for it comes but once a year!

Under Construction Part II

Well, after receiving some great feedback from various readers I came to the conclusion that the worry I'd had from the beginning, about the readability of the text over the awesome background, was well founded. Yeah, the template was gorgeous but I should have stuck with my hard and fast rule against transparent templates. It was great looking but it presented too many problems and really did make reading difficult. So, now I've changed templates again with no transparencies this time! I've yet to add my title image or any of my widgets but I'll keep at it.

You may also notice, or you may not, I dunno, that I've got a lot more posts than I did last time you visited and that my label count looks a lot different and is now topped by "photography". Well, that's cuz I merged Sacred Spiral Creations, my photography (and sometime collage and occasionally textile craft) blog with this blog. It just makes sense to include my creative pursuits, such as they are, with Magic in These Hills which has, over the last year especially, become much more personal. So, if you are so inclined, please check out the new labels and see some of my so-called art. And, as always, feel free to offer some feedback about it! I'm hoping that getting those pictures and such out to more readers will inspire me and get me moving back into a creative mode.

Anyway, when I first started this blog I was dead set against including anything relating to my personal life. It was gonna be all business: mythological discussions, pagan issues in the news, witchcraft tools, ideas, ethics, etc. And while I've included all of that, and more, somewhere along the way I began including more and more personal stuff. I guess that was just a function of time as I began to make genuine friends throughout the blogosphere and felt the need to vent about my deteriorating family situation.

So, that's the news, that's the latest scoop. I'm pretty happy with this new layout: it reflects my personality with its firey swirls and spirals. I'd still like to know what you kind folks think of it, but I'm pretty sure I'll be sticking with it. I'd also like to fess up that I've been a terrible reader these last few months. As my urge to write slipped away from me any pleasure I got from reading the blogs of others was also stripped from me. So, for the time being, I'll refrain from adding a huge blog list. It's going to take me some time to (re)acquaint myself with my favorite, and new found, blogs. So, if you used to be in my blog list but aren't just yet, don't fret; I'll get to it! Thanks everyone for all of your kind words and patience over the last year or so. I'm back in the saddle again and it feels good!

Under Construction

Well, along with changes in my life, changes in my perspective on said life and changes in the seasons I felt the need to change the look and feel of my blog. So whaddaya think? I like it but I'm not sure how user-friendly it is for readers. I've never used a transparent template like this before and I want to be sure it's comfortably readable. To that end, I'd ask you to please take a moment and give me a "yay" or "nay". I'd like to know what you folks think before I go through the hassle of adding all of my pictures and links and widgets and such in the sidebar since Blogger deletes them with each template change. So, let me hear from you! And thanks.

Cool Blog Award

Murcielago over at The Waxing Goddess has nominated me for a blog award. Too cool, never been nominated for any blogging award before.

The rules are:

1. The winner can put the logo on her/his blog
2. Link the person you received the award from
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4. Put links of those blogs on yours
5. Leave a message on the blogs nominated

And here are my seven nominations in no particular order:

1. Aquila ka Hecate, a science-minded pagan from South Africa

2. Beyond the Fields We Know, gorgeous photography, poetry and earthy thoughts from a Canadian devotee of the Old Wild Mother

3. Moonroot, Paganism, Permaculture and Poultrykeeping on a Welsh hillside

4. The Gods are Bored, Praise and Worship Suggestions for those longing to be Left Behind from the Northeast of the U.S.A.

5. Pandora's Bazaar, Santeria and Wicca from a Cuban-American living in Miami, Florida

6. Plant Journeys, herbal healing from New England

7. The Expulsion of the Blatant Beast, languages, literature and history from a pagan medievalist from England

It was incredibly hard to narrow it down to only seven as there are so, so many great blogs out there.

In These Hills

A couple days ago Billy commented that my blog had an interesting title. So I decided to explain it a little. The phrase is actually inspired by Vance Randolph. The actual line that inspired my blog title is a pretty dark one, in reference to the bad blood that once upon a time would erupt involving accusations of witchcraft. It runs: "Things happen in these hills which are never mentioned in the newspapers, never reported to the sheriff at the county seat." After reading through his "Ozark Magic and Folklore" and "Pissing in the Snow and other Ozark Folktales", which include all kinds of interesting and sometimes bawdy tales, the phrase "things happen in these hills" made more sense as "magic in these hills". For those of you who aren't into Ozarks folklore, which I imagine is just about everyone but me, Vance Randolph single-handedly managed to preserve much of the folklore, superstitions, folk songs and magic of the Ozarks. And while he sometimes looked down on what he recorded in his books the information is priceless as much, but not all, of those old ideas are gone. Randolph's book are an invaluable source of lore for someone like me, someone trying to recapture the magic of the hills of my homeland. As Randolph says: "Wherever railroads and highways penetrate, wherever newspapers and movies and radios are introduced, the people gradually lose their distinctive local traits and assume the drab color which characterizes conventional Americans elsewhere...A great body of folk belief dies very slowly, and I suspect that some vestiges of backwoods superstition will be with us for a long time to come." And he was right. Most of the old ways are gone but I, and hopefully a few others, are trying to breathe life into the old traditions and practices.