With permission, I’d like to start sharing the links to your articles with my local pagan group – there’s a good number on there who would find your information as interesting as I do.

And part of me wishes, quite strongly, that this was a ‘public’ tradition – Therianism is such a large part of who I am, and Shamanism *IS* my trad – even if I’m ‘making it up as I go along’ (in so much as my ideas are my own, not necessarily taught to me).

now if I could just find a good name for being a crystal using therian shaman, I’d be all set

raven_albion–Oooh, I should look into a digester. That would help remove even more trash, and it would be more honorable for the bones and remains. I’ve thought about just burying them, but then the raccoons in the neighborhood would just dig them up. And I think a lot of people forget the breakdown part of the cycle. I didn’t even really think about it til I read Starhawk’s “The Earth Path”, where she spent some time talking about that aspect of the cycle, and made it very clear how we’re hurting the soil by taking away the nutrients.

stormwolfen–I’ll probably be doing container gardening next year–the manure would be a good supplement, though, in case the compost isn’t ready or there isn’t enough of it. And yes, I throw everything in there, including orange peels. Haven’t had a problem so far, though again I’m only going on two months with this particular pile/bin.

Horse manure (from horses/mules that have been fed right) can be used for edible plants as well as others. It makes them all very happy.

Out of curiousity, do you put citrus stuff in your compost?

Until recently, I thought of my gardening as spiritual practice, and the composting is part of that, but I hadn’t paid much conscious attention to the decomposition/rebirth-as-compost part of the whole process. I really appreciate your perspective and the attention you pay to the *whole* of a thing. <3

I’ve been reading the LJ feed for a few months now.

I completely agree with what you have written. My partner and I have moved into our first house away from our parents and have spent the last nine months turning our grassy backyard into an edible forest. I know it’s winter because the vines and the mint start to die back, I know it’s spring time because our pumpkins and peas and rocket and spinach (and roses!) are flowering, and I currently know it’s summer because the spiders are too hot inside the hidey holes in our washing line, and are hanging out in the shade along the fence… oh, and we’re having to hang up old sheets to protect some of the new seedlings from the sun.

We have a worm farm and it’s been a wonderful experience to fertilise the garden with the castings and the “worm juice”, and then to harvest the (huge) plants we have grown, and then to put the wastes from them back into the worm farm, and back into the cycle. I have never felt so connected with the turning of the year before, or have had such a strong understanding of the life-death-life cycle. We don’t use any pesticides, but we don’t have many bugs eating our plants because we have spiders that eat them, and then the birds come and eat the spiders.

Sorry for my rambles, the practical and spiritual lessons I have learnt from my garden are endless and I get a bit excited about sharing!

Keep up the good work Lupa, I love to read your blog!

- Theokleia
(watersusurrus on LJ)