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Nature Abhors a Monoculture

The chickens are coming home to roost, and most of them have bird flu.

With the Spring Evenday coming up, it looks as if we may well be paying a dollar apiece for our Ostara eggs this year. Don't blame the avian flu, though.

Blame battery farming.

I heard an interview this morning with an egg farmer who was anguishing over the emotional toll of having to cull three million birds.

While I empathize with his pain, I really have to ask: when we raise poultry in flocks of a million-plus birds, why in the world would we be surprised that, when systemic failure strikes, it should strike on any but a massive scale?

The vast majority of American eggs and chicken are industrially-raised on an industrial scale. Short-term cheap food, maybe, but sustainable?

Talk about a disaster just pleading to happen.

Some things that every pagan knows: generally speaking, Small is better than Large, Local is better than Global, Particular is better than General.

As recent experience all too readily demonstrates, nature abhors a monoculture.

Recently I found another frog statue in my garden. I suppose I probably put it there once, but finding it really helped me feel better about having to take out some trees. I had been feeling slightly bad about that even though I had waited until they were in full winter dormancy and also bade them goodbye and thanked them and let them go, like I would do for any thing, living or not, that I felt had some sort of spirit and which was dead or broken or otherwise had to go.

I would not have found it if everything had gone exactly to plan. A Keystone Cops level of incompetence by a series of 4 different companies led me to be the one that had the spade in my hand that day. It was meant to be; I was meant to find it, for my personal reassurance from the spirit of the land.

Water from the Tines

Anyone that knows Old Hornie knows him both for a trickster and a shifter of shapes, who “shows himself to each according to their desire.” Nor indeed is he god of witches alone, but everyone's, knowing or no.

(Frearth Hobson)

While visiting a friend in Ireland's Burren region, mythologist Martin Shaw spent the night in the mossy limestone cave once inhabited by Colmán mac Duagh, a 7th-century holy man.

The next night, he dreamt that he was back in the cave.

A stag came to the entrance of the cave, in moonlight. He looked in and he was twelve-tined, which means he had a great rack. I suddenly realized in the dream that I was phenomenally thirsty. As I had that thought, the stag, which I know in some form was Yeshua [= Jesus] leaned forward with his antlers, and on the tip of every antler was a drop of water. It's very much like an icon. I was underneath it with my hands cupped, gathering every drop of God-water, of Yeshua-water, of Spirit-water. I drank, and then I woke up [Dreher 215].

Forthwith, fair reader, some questions.

Seriously, Posch?

Next month at Paganicon 2025, you'll be teaching a class in astragalomancy: divination by knucklebones?

What the Bones Said: How to Cast and Read the Knucklebones

Long ago, in the dawn of days, the Horned gave us the bones and taught us how to read them.

Here's how.

Paganicon 2025

Friday, March 21 – Sunday, March 23

You mean to say that you're giving a workshop, and yet there will be no stack of new, ready-for-signing books on astragalomancy?

No do-it-yourself read-the-bones kits?

No faux-leather carrying pouches?

No cast-resin whitetail “knucklebones”?

No cotton “linen-style” casting-cloths?

You're giving a workshop, and you're not selling anything?

Anything at all?

More short, pithy sayings, and short form advice from my responses to questions and social media. I was asked what happened to the dead before the goddess Hel came to rule the realm Hel. My answer:

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Plants carry potent energy you can use to amplify your magical workings. Use the signs of the sun, moon and stars to your advantage and, over time, you will come to know which ones are most effective for you. Make sure to use your own astrological chart in working with these herbs.  Here is a guide to the astrological associations of plants you may grow in your kitchen garden or keep dried in your pantry:

 Aries, ruled by Mars: carnation, cedar, clove, cumin, fennel, juniper, peppermint and pine.