Rosie's Journey

[RosieMoonflower]

Oh, last night was awful. Thus is the way for a witch in the closet. Even though my husband knows about my beliefs and practices, he still doesn't get them. And, I tend to try to hide them if I can. So I have been working on collecting items for my Winter Solstice altar and it was going quite well. I already have a table there in the dining room and figured I could find an item out and about combined with a few things I already have. I wanted to put it all together organically and let each piece call to me. As I was taking my son on a walk in our neighborhood I really tried to connect with the elements around me. I felt the wind blowing on my skin. I heard the running water moving its way through the street and into the open drains. I felt the warm sun's rays and had to remove my jacket. I listened to the bird's chirp and sing their songs.

I looked for items I could collect to represent my experience and the elements around me. In an area where the grass grows wild for longer until it gets cut, I found some tall hay pieces still mostly whole and that had curly ripped pieces of their skin spiraling out at the top. I'm probably not describing that well but they had artistic appeal, trust me. So then I found this Y-shaped stick that had gotten into the street and crushed by a few cars. I inspected it and loved the Y shape. The cars had not ruined it but merely opened its tree skin and exposed the wood beneath. I thought it was perfect for my altar. Lastly, right on the sidewalk, there was a wide stick broken down into one remaining small piece. It reminded me of a wand of some sort and it had some rough bark in places that gave it some character. This could become an excellent piece for my altar. I collected them and placed them in the garage and worried that my husband might throw them away if I left them there too long.

What I did not do was ask my husband NOT to throw them away. I just assumed it would take him a day or two to notice them and I would have moved them by then. I went to the store to buy a vase or jar to hold them and arrange them in. I found a nice vase that was ceramic black at the bottom and cream-colored clay at the top. It was a great shape, tall and slender. Perfect for the sticks I collected. I thought I would arrange the sticks and hay in the vase and I imagined tying it off with a red bow of some sort. But, the next day when I went to retrieve my nature finds I realized that my husband had disposed of them already. It may sound silly but I was completely heartbroken. I had not told him how important those were to me but they were important! And, when I realized that I could have saved them if I had just said something I completely broke down into tears. Why didn't I just say something to him and prevent this? Because I did not want him to look at me like I'm crazy because I think dead sticks are important. And there it is. The shame and embarrassment that I live with as a closet witch. My husband would not judge me further than that, but I still avoid it.

I salvaged the sticks. They were stuffed into the "lawn clippings" trash bag. Husband had folded them to fit them in. The tears just poured down my face as I unbent them and repositioned the limbs to see what could be salvaged. Surprisingly, only a few parts were completely destroyed. The Y-shaped branch was so thick it was bent but not broken. It moved back into its upright position and it was already distressed so you cannot really tell it got bent. Most of the hay was lost but one good curly piece remained. On thin branch I found in my own yard I hadn't mentioned yet was bent and I could never get it as upright as it originally was, but once placed in the vase it doesn't look too bad, the vas holds it up. It's different than I originally imagined, but it does still looks good. It's somewhat tainted by my negative experience of losing the original pieces and having to put it together while sobbing though. Not sure how to recover here. I'll have to meditate on it.

[Firebird]

Gosh Rosie, I'm so sorry this happened. Only some of us get that something like a stick would be important, and we are a breed of those who see beauty in everything. It sounds like you made a great recovery. Maybe you can add things to the vase as you find them?
Blessings, Firebird