2022 ~ In Review

I’m sitting here drinking a glass of Witching Hour Red Blend from my “Vampire” wine glass and nibbling on a piece of homemade banana bread, listening to the rain on the roof. The rain will continue through the day with very mild temperatures. (I actually left my bedroom window open a tiny crack last night and didn’t freeze my ass off!) Mother Nature is readying the start of 2023 with a torrent of cleansing rain. I sense the purity of it. She is clearing away the bad juju.

Where was I? Oh, yes. As I sip my wine, I am reliving all the awesomeness experienced in 2022. With Tim having retired earlier this year we were finally able – after almost 20 years of night, day, and weekend shifts – to have some serious fun!

• Took two classes at Total Wine & More: “Wine and Chocolate – A Perfect Pair” and “Pop Open a Party” where we got to sample eight sparkling wines and enjoy some munchies. (The prosecco was my favorite and I found out why I enjoy it more than other sparkling wines: All prosecco is made from Glera grapes.)
• We and our friends drank and prowled both the Sunnyvale Art & Wine festival (June) and the one in Santa Clara later that summer.
• Took a day trip back to Boulder Creek to visit my favorite metaphysical shop and site-see. Discovered a wonderful little restaurant in nearby Felton, Cowboy Bar and Grill, that served the most delicious appetizer: Yam cakes. Came with ranch dressing and jalapeño glaze – which we bought a huge bottle of the on the way out! (Sweet AND hot; one of my favorite combos.) My mouth is salivating and ready to devour more yam cakes.
• After attending my first SJ Giants baseball game I couldn’t wait to go again. So we did. Two more times! Now I’m looking forward to April when the 2023 season begins…
• Our favorite little dive bar and music venue is about 15 minutes away (or if you prefer, 2.5 songs away): The Quarter Note. I finally got to see Lipshok. I had heard nothing but good things about the band and we weren’t disappointed. Killer! (and their singer is a Witch…) Although I didn’t snap pics the night that we caught-up with Death Valley Gypsies, we both were impressed by them – as well as Skeleton Cru who are fronted by Greg Hill (of Dammaj fame). Here are some photos of their Halloween show: Gallerie::Skeleton Cru

Bad Boy Boogie. Both the singer (Howard) and bassist (Clint) used to be in a local band called Black Mast.

– and how ’bout this: Bass player from Mojo Missing playing the coolest bass I’ve ever seen. It lit up!

• Celebrated Ramses’ 3rd birthday. Speaking of The Prince, he proved to be one adept little hunter when it came to critters in the Concrete Jungle: My Little Predator
• SUNBATHING! Oh, how I missed the luxuriousness of the sun’s warmth on my skin while listening to the birds and the wind rustling the leaves in the trees. Sigh. I still have my tan lines, too. Warm weather is only a few months away…
• I began working with the energy of pyramid power this year after receiving my first Pyramid Resonator (More on this next year). I activated the pyramid in June which is the same time I started sunbathing. I’m not sure if it was my increased intake of Vitamin D OR the effects of the pyramid – or BOTH – but my psoriasis has become a non-issue. Even now, when we are well into Winter I am having no problems. I find this fascinating.
• While I’m on the subject of the metaphysical, January kicked off 2022 with the first of three consecutive BLACK MOONS. A very rare occurrence: Lune Noire
• Thanks to the tearing-down of the old fence and the construction of a new one, the Concrete Jungle got an overhaul and complete re-design: Concrete Jungle: New Fence & Display. August saw a warm Summer squall come through which made for one magickal evening for both Ramses and myself.
  

  I cannot speak of “the Jungle” and all the wondrous life that visited us without giving a shout-out to Spike. What a tough little cookie he/she was.

2022 Renaissance Faire

Of course, I found the most exquisitely dressed couple of the day…

Tim HAD to share his new mew tattoo with them:

We had a MEOW-vellous day.

• In November I participated in my first-ever Catmosphere Catwalk. Yep, I cat-biked to raise awareness of the plight of cheetahs in the wild: Catmosphere’s Catwalk 2022
• ‘Kayso, let me wrap-up 2022 by sharing with you, Dear Readers, how we celebrate Christmas here at Chez Rock Vixen.

Have a Blessed New Year!

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Ringing in 2023 – Rock-Vixen style (with a bit of witchery thrown in)

January 1, 2023, just so happens to be National Bloody Mary Day. So guess what we’ll be drinking on Sunday?

But enough of that, today is all about clearing the old to welcome in the new. Dusting, vacuuming, doing the laundry…but I’m saving “sweeping” until tomorrow. Why? So glad you asked…

The act of “sweeping out the door” banishes all bad luck that may reside in the home. This should be done on New Year’s Eve.

I purchased a special broom this year to be used to clear negative energies and will employ it for the first time tomorrow night.

I will also do a cleansing purge tomorrow. Since I’m not overly fond of white sage (Smells like body odor to me.) I will burn copal.

Of particular note: Nothing – and I mean NOTHING – should be taken out of the home on January 1st! Nor should one do any type of cleaning. This is to ensure that the good luck that the New Year ushers in will not be flushed away.

This includes (but is not limited to): Cleaning cat boxes (Sorry, Ramses.), doing the laundry, washing/rinsing dishes/cutlery – if you have a dishwasher leave them soaking in the sink, taking out the trash. I don’t even use the garbage disposal!

Look at January 1st as a “day of rest”. Don’t do shite except hang-out. Be lazy. Drink Bloody Marys (see above) and watch the Rose Parade!

Other New Year’s Eve customs celebrated to bring good luck and fortune:

• Romanians tuck a few bills under an area rug.
• The Spanish eat 12 grapes – one for each stroke of midnight. This sounds yummy, especially when paired with some cheese and wine!
• In Italy, at the stroke of midnight, they throw something out the window. This not only symbolizes letting go of the past but makes room for good fortune to enter.
• At the stroke of midnight, the people of Argentinia take one step forward with their right foot.
• The making of noise at midnight on NYE dispels evil spirits. SO MAKE SOME NOISE!!!!

What to eat on January 1st: black-eyed peas (No, not the group.) and any ring-shaped foods such as bagels or donuts. (Did someone say Stan’s Donuts?)

And absolutely NO CRYING on the first day of the new year!!!! BUT petting a black cat is an exceptional sign of good luck for the coming year…

Happy New Year!!!

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Yuletide Blessings

December 21, 2020. The Winter Solstice. Jupiter and Saturn journeyed so close to one another that they became a visible “double planet”. The last time that happened was 800 years ago. It was christened a “Christmas Star”.

I wrote about this once-in-a-lifetime magickal occurrence: Winter Solstice, the Great Conjunction and a Christmas Star. At the end of the Post I included a message.

2020 sees the end of a 200-year era of Jupiter and Saturn uniting in Earth signs, with the focus being on material security and a resistance to change. This could explain society’s “obsession with material things, conquering land, and money“. We may be entering the Age of Aquarius where we will shift our focus to the collective and humanitarianism, creating new forms of group consciousness, cultural change, innovation, and reform. This Great Conjunction also marks changes within ourselves, for this is where true change in the world begins.

Set intentions. Focus on the positive. AIM HIGH and fly like an Eagle. Act honorably. What we do as we enter this new era – individually and collectively – will set in motion that which will be actualized over the next 20 years.

Indeed. That night I felt a shift in the Earth’s collective consciousness. Tonight, I feel no less magick in the air. It crackles with it. The energy of the Winter Solstice supports turning points, changes, new beginnings, home and hearth, family relationships, world peace, and personal renewal. The first 12 days of Yule celebrate the return of light and usher in longer days. Although Winter has yet to leave us, we have turned the corner. Climbed the peak. Spring is coming. This is a celebration. A rebirth of awakening energy for us all.

On this longest night of the year you can change your fate and alter your destiny…

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Concrete Jungle: 12.19.2022

I’m sitting here marveling at the fact that I’ve not been bitching about the cold. The last two weeks have barely reached 50 degrees and the nights have been in the mid-30’s. That’s cold enough for me to frost-cover a few tender plants in the Concrete Jungle: The grown-from-seed borage (It’s not only still with us, it has stubbornly bloomed and shows no sign of stopping. Yay!), pepper plant – complete with unripened fruit, and the delicate summer impatiens. Mid-morning I remove the “ghosts”, what I call the sheets of frost cloth, so the plants can breathe. Today I climbed-up to uncover the borage and pepper plant when I heard a familiar sound: The high-pitched tsk-tsk of a hummingbird. Gently lifting the ghostly sheet I found one male Anna’s Hummingbird caught underneath. He must’ve been going for the bacopa or borage flowers and got caught. What a pleasant surprise on such a wintry day here in Silicon Valley! The little guy was nonplussed and fairly patient (I’ve no idea how long he’d been trapped.) and let me peel back the cloth so he could buzz off. Smile.

Except for the African Blue basil which took quite a hit from the recent summer storm, all are weathering the colder temps quite well. I’m pleasantly surprised that the tarragon is still green because it usually dies back by now – as both the Bee Balm and Green Dragon (Pinellia tripartita) have done. I’ve only one distressing fatality and it has nothing to do with the weather. The pieris japonica has died. It bloomed back in July. Two months later it began to go downhill.

“Nature is a never-ending conga line of bold moves and corrections.”
– Diane Ackerman, The Human Age

You plan with purpose and plant with intent, yet still (sometimes) your heart gets broken. But you learn from your mistakes and from the lessons Nature teaches. Next Spring I will plant something else in its place. R.I.P. Pieris japonica.

I’ve also lost a small upright fuchsia. I had it for two years and it’s death was sudden. Like the Pieris, the cause of death is still a mystery. On the other hand, two other fuchsias are healthy and green, all the bacopa are blooming their hearts out, the hellebores are growing like weeds, and my Arabian jasmine has new buds (In winter? Who knew?). On the front porch I’ve been waiting for Elvira, the Plectranthus, to stop blooming so I can repot her. I’ve literally been waiting MONTHS but she shows no sign of cooperating…

The birds still visit the feeders many times a day. We keep both well-stocked. But the bees and lizards are gone. Perhaps hibernating. (I wonder how Spike fared?) Next year I will put up a bug house for the solitary bees that come around.

We’re in for a “warm spell” the next two weeks, with nightime temps in the upper 40s. No frost coverings! The plants should be happy. Me too. ‘Kayso, I’m bitching just a little about the cold. But Spring is just around the corner…

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Page of Cups, The Fool, and the 5 of Wands

Question: Tell me a story of the next 5 days (Mon-Fri).
Note: All 3 cards were drawn reversed,
so I will place greater emphasis on their message.

Daughter of Grails (Page of Cups). Note that Pages conceive ideas.
The first part of the week you will be feeling imaginative, creative, sensitive, artistic, psychic, and perhaps moody. The suit of grails (cups) represents emotions, feelings, the unconscious, intuition, and psychic awareness. This card symbolizes the emergence of beauty and wonder as seen through the emotional realm. Artistic talents should be nurtured. There’s a need to daydream and to let the mind wander where it will. Reclaim your imaginative spirit.

The Fool – Major Arcana (Trump cards) represent life lessons, karmic influences, and archetypal energies that are affecting you right now; and set the scene in a spread – with the other cards relating back to that core Major Arcana meaning.
Creativity, spiritual intuition, freedom, independence, new beginnings, joy, inspiration, faith. A breath of fresh air comes mid-week. The Fool is “the dreamer who dreams up all the other dreamers” and is the bearer of our deepest creative powers. This card epitomizes the spontaneity of being in the moment. Something wonderful is about to happen.

5 of Scepters (Wands)
Rebellion, revolution, and defiance is the order of the day. 5 is the number that breaks the stability and structure of the Four. The need to believe in yourself could not be greater. Great strength of Will is needed to overcome any challenges that arise. (Don’t worry, you’ve got this!) This may come in the form of a creative block.

Threads of meaning and truth are present in everyone,
but may only become visible when something creative is attempted.
– Michael Meade

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