Sacred Garden Journal :: my practical and spiritual preparation for spring

Happy start of the month and full moon to all! The first days of August mark the halfway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox and is when I start doing a bit of "pre-spring" cleaning. Though I am not Wiccan, I find this tradition of celebrating the equinoxes, solstices, and the four days in between to be a wonderful way to live in harmony with the seasons and plan out my gardening schedule.

Over the years I have experimented with different paths and ultimately found that celebrating the wheel of the year is my favorite way to connect my spirituality with proper timing for an abundant garden and life in general. This changing of seasons brought a beautifully sunny day that I spent doing little, practical rituals and chores in my garden.

Lammas or Imbolc, depending on where you are on Earth, is either a festival of harvesting in fall, or setting intentions and/or the garden in order for upcoming spring. I now live in Argentina, in the southern hemisphere, and we are just experiencing the first signs that winter is waning. New shoots of grass and herbs are sprouting up (which, side note, is actually the meaning of my name, Chloe). Butterflies are migrating and breaking out of their overwinter form. I was over joyed to see southern monarchs and gulf fritilaries sharing a drink on the lavender bush.

And, as you will see throughout the posts, the animals we share this land with (our cats and horse) are basking in the sun and joining in my gardening tasks in their own way.

During the days before and after August 1st I have been doing a little bit of cleansing rituals. First by burning a incense and visualizing the abundance that I hope to cultivate over the coming months. As the herbs burn, imagine the crops that I plan to grow surviving and thriving. All worries and past failures fall away, those were just practice tries and aren't relevant anymore.

Once that prayer and cleansing is done I move on to the practical parts like weeding which is an essential part of this late winter cleanse. From late fall until now I let many of the garden beds grow wildly and as a result a ground cover plant, called oaxalis, has taken over and must be taken out to make space for the fava beans, swiss chard, and calendula plants that overwintered here too.

If you allow it to be, weeding is a great form of meditation. Pulling up weeds can be a form of sympathetic magic. Some plants stay, those symbolize the positive things in my life that I love and hope to cultivate. Others, such as negative thought patterns, are discarded and go into the compost heap.

According to the lunar gardening calendar, the waxing moon (the time between the new moon and full moon) the best time to plant seeds of above ground plants. The waning moon (from full moon to new moon) is the best time to transplant. There is a lot more to the gardening with the moon phases, and many folks even use the constellations to plan out their tasks. But, I think that will be the subject of a future sacred gardening post!

During the past few weeks I have planted the cold weather tolerant greens that do well here and now, post full moon, and just starting to transplant them into bigger pots. Kale, lettuce, and cilantro are all favorites in my household and I want to fill up the first few garden beds with their myriad of green leaves.

During my chores I will often listen to a podcast about herbalism, green magic, mythology or something of the sort. But more often than not I will just be listening to the birds, the sounds of my or neighboring farm animals, and my cats getting into play fights. Drinking tea is a necessity, sometimes I sip on an herb from the garden or maybe a spicy chai with milk if the weather is cold.

For the first time ever I am learning to enjoy the winter and now wish for spring to hurry up and arrive. Spring is on its way, but for now I am happy to be in this moment in the cycle of the seasons.