The Maroon Diaries

1. Suffer miserably through another record-breaking heatwave. Climate change? - well isn't is obvious ? 2. Wake up after the cool change has come through and have a meltdown, because it's so much easier to have a breakdown about something after the fact, rather than while you're busy coping with it. 3. Try to take it easy but end up feeling sick with over-exhaustion by evening. Become driven to distraction by a powerful craving for something , only you don't know what it is. Something to do with nutrients that the heat sucks out of you. 4. Go through every item in the kitchen, looking for whatever it is that you don't know what it is yet. Find a bag of frozen blueberries in the freezer. Oh, that's it. Or close enough. 5. Wonder what goes with blueberries while they are defrosting. Go through the kitchen again and come up with yoghurt, honey and linseed-sunflower-almond meal. Mix them together in a bowl. 6. Hmm. We're getting there, but it's not...

Long, long, ago, when the world was young and humans were just getting themselves together as a species, people paid a lot of attention to changes in the natural world. It was necessary for survival. So they noticed that the days grew shorter each day. They watched the point at which the sun rose on the horizon, and noticed that it was a little further along each day. Then came a time when the night was terribly long and cold, and when the sun rose in the morning, it did so at the same point on the horizon as yesterday. Some people probably even worried that it was never going to come back. Maybe this was the end of the sun's life? There was no way of knowing back then. So they watched, and maybe they prayed and chanted, and on the third day, the point of sunrise was a little further out again, and the day was a little longer. The sun was on its way back, and the people rejoiced. There was no way of reckoning such back then, but by today's calendar, that day would have been Dec...

"Take three seeds, and put them in the bitterest place." I had been praying deeply, asking for guidance. There's been Stuff going on, people, major Stuff. And when I wonder, 'what will I do?", this is what I do. I turn to the Goddess and ask her to show me the way. And this what what she had to say. "Take three seeds..." It soon became clear that She wasn't going to talk to me anymore until I had taken on this message. It's not so common for me to receive such concrete, deliberate instructions in my spiritual guidance. I was intrigued, piqued and puzzled. Um, what does that mean? So I pondered. It sounded like I had been presented with a Quest of sorts, a mission to carry out just for the sake of following Her wherever She may guide me. I thought of a book I had read a little while ago, a beautiful children's story published in 1872, The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. In the story, the little princess meets her Grand...

I didn't wake up so well this morning. As soon as I was conscious I felt irritated, disconnected and anxious. My mind was running over in circles of negative thought. I felt the shadows of the night's dreams - quite a string of disconnected anxieties - still present in the morning light. This is something I'm used to. It's a common feature of a depressive illness - to wake up in the midst of the hardest emotions, and to struggle to rise out of them somehow to reach the realities of the day that is unfolding. Taking care of how I wake up is an important part of my mental health management. The discovery of the blogosphere was a remarkable boost to my morning experience, possibly the best one since I discovered tea-drinking in my late teens. First thing, when I wake up in the morning, I make a cup of tea. I often dream of having someone to make a cup of tea for me and bring it to me in bed - oh, surely, the very definition of luxury - but in the meantime, the thirst f...

One of the more profound honours in my life is to be goddessmother to a certain little lady who happens to be one of the most extraordinary people I have ever met, and she's only nine years old. I remember the moment back in the summer of '02-03 when I read in an email from Majikfaerie  that she was going to have a baby. A physical presence landed in my belly and in my heart. I knew from that instant that we were part of each other's lives, that I had a charge and a responsibility come into the world. I had to wait a bit to get to meet her and to find out what an amazing person she would become. Oh wow, did I luck out in the goddessdaughter department. Littletree is sweet-natured, funny, thoughtful, kind, caring, and so bloody smart that the whole world had better join me in hoping that she continues, as she grows up, to use her powers for Good and not Evil. And that's not even to mention her incredible sense of fashion and style. I can't imagine what will ha...

So, tonight is Halloween. Yes, really. I realise there is some confusion about this here in the southern hemisphere. Remember, the seasons are the other way around, so that makes it Halloween tonight here in the Antipodes. This festival is also known to pagans by its ancient Celtic name, Samhain. As a seasonal festival, it marks the descent of the wheel of the year toward the darkness of winter and the lengthening of the nights. According to tradition, the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest on this night, and the dead are free to roam the earthly world and claim the offerings we leave out for them. As a solitary, practising Witch, I've developed my own way of creating rituals that is pretty simple, low-key, spontaneous, and, like my cooking, made up mostly of whatever happens to be around at the time. This is my Samhain. A plate of food is prepared to feed the dead on their big night out. Apples cut across the middle to reveal the Star at the heart, fruit and nu...

This post here  by Kirsty, an Australian woman living in France, at  You had me at bonjour  really touched and moved me this morning. I considered typing a post consisting of my thoughts on this occasion, and it would have been a fabulous post, but my brain just wasn't up for wrapping itself around an essay today. I felt the need to make a more tactile, physical, domestic gesture. And so, to the kitchen, and to the baking of Anzac biscuits. My recipe comes from the P.W.M.U. Cookery Book, first published 1904. My copy, pictured here, is a 1971 reprint passed down to me from a great-aunt. This was the cookbook in my home when I was growing up. I have doubled all the quantities given, because one batch is just not enough. 4 cups rolled oats 2 cups flour 1 cup sugar 1 cup melted butter 2 tbsp golden syrup 2 tsp bicarb soda 4 tbsp boiling water Mix oats, flour, sugar and melted butter, then the syrup, and lastly the soda dissolved in water. Drop by spo...

Today is my birthday. 34 today. In celebration, my tribute to Einstein's famous birthday photo . So often I've read or heard stories of people getting older, and feeling it badly on their birthday, suddenly realising their life is not what they expected. I thought I would not be so susceptible to such an experience, as I'm not so attached to age numbers, or expectations, or regrets, generally. But today, it's my turn for 'one of those' birthdays. In my plan for my life, I was going to be living in Europe by now. I'm sad that I'm not, and that I'm still living in a town I do not like at all. It snowballed from there. When I was young, everyone was so sure that I was going to have a special life, a big life. I was sure that great things were in my destiny. Usually I do think of my life as pretty special and great. But today, suddenly the days when the world was my oyster and my whole life was ahead of me have dissolved - and what do I have to ...