Well, the season has begun for me. I took part in an art festival last weekend, which was a very emotional experience at the start, and it went well. I think I heard most of the nice comments. I also met a lot of wonderful people, which is always the best part for me. Next week I travel to two different areas of Colorado to drop off art for their shows and I am getting ready for the Farmer's Market's, which start mid June. I am also putting in my garden. We had our, hopefully, last freeze of the season last night. A gentle frost that took only three of my sweet basils...I got all of the seed into the ground, and now I water and pray over the seeds...waiting to see who they all decide to become. I love gardening...it is the best time of year for me. I love working with the Earth everyday in such a way. It is a great way to learn the Earth's lessons. I really don't read many books about how to garden. I just try to listen to what the plants and the Garden Spirit's tell me to do. Most of the time it works.

I was "weeding" my strawberries yesterday. I have a bunch of blooms and a few berries are developing. Yummy. I really do hate to weed, because I feel that there is a purpose for everything...that the "weeds" are herbs. When I have to pull them, I am always talking to them, asking for their forgiveness, and promising to not pull them in other areas...they had an interesting lesson for me. In the areas where these herbs/weeds were growing...I noticed that the strawberries weren't growing...that small circles of nothing grew around these areas.....and I started thinking about how this goes on in all of our lives...I know it happens in mine. Maybe I allow something to grow in an area of my life where it really isn't suited for... maybe it drains all of the nutrients out of me, all of the live giving waters out of me in this area of my life, and maybe I need to transplant them to another area...an area where a type of alchemy can occur...but I will get to that later....but maybe in this area, instead of transforming the dross, those heavy metals in my life that hold me back from truly living and flowering into a beautiful gold, they are keeping it all safe...keeping it all the same...keeping me in my comfort zone. Maybe it is an herb, but it is the wrong herb or treatment for this area....so it needs to be moved...it needs to be uprooted, so something else can move in and transform this area into healing...into life...into the Golden Spirit that can allow me to move closer and closer to who I really am....and maybe by pulling that herb, that very act is the first stage of my Inner Alchemy, the first stage of transformation and moving those heavy metals...maybe that is the purpose of the herb to begin with...to uproot those things that are no longer useful....so I apologize to them for having to remove them from my garden, and I give thanks to them for the healing that they are bringing to me and maybe others in the process....and maybe there won't be too many barren areas in my life.

The painting is of the Gnostic version of Mary Magdalene...the Empowered Woman....she is the patron saint of Gardens and Vineyards in Southern France.