G Is For Green and Growing Things

Okay, so I'm a bit late, again; I was having a block on the letter G. Alphabetical groupings don't necessarily make real sense; they aren't after all proper categories, just grouped together by more or less luck. So I've been finding I want to write about lots of things, but was having a hard time fitting it into the rules of the Pagan Blog Project.

Not that I'm giving up on it; I like that it is getting me to write here on this blog in a more consistent fashion. So I'm keeping it for now.

I've been working my way through Christopher Penczak's The Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft: Shadows, Spirits, and the Healing Journey. And though it's not one of the 'official' assignments in it, I'm finding I really want to learn more about herbs and plants. This is a big gap in my knowledge, one that really ought to be remedied if I am to call myself a Witch.

Now I've done plenty of gardening, and so I do know a few things about plants here and there; but this is a little different. This is about the history, the symbolism, the old connections and correspondences, not just the planting zone and does it want sun or shade. This is a more Witchy approach.

But it's a huge subject. And so I haven't known where to start.

But then it came to me: start where I am. I mean, that's where any of us have to start, anyway. And where I am is living on this little patch of land in New England, this yard. So I'll start there, with the plants that I've been looking at all my life, and then, maybe, branch out to the exotic stuff like mandrake (which I think is a couple planting zones out of my range, as I'm pretty sure it's native to the Mediterranean). So I'll start here, with my own yard.

To that end, then, this G is for Green and Growing Things is not going to be one article, but a series, as I find writing proper articles, for an audience, to be a very good way for me to make sense of information; in presenting it to others I have to make it make sense to myself, first. I'll give them all their own tag, too ("Herb Series"); I may even give them a listing of their own on the sidebar, just to make it easier for folks to find.

So I'm going to start with one of the most familiar plants in my yard, a plant that's always been there yet whose name I only figured out recently: greater celandine. Off to write!