Yule is almost half over and it has been a truly wonderful season of rest and rejuvenation! To begin with, I woke up covered in a pile of cats which is truly the best way to start your day. After that, most of my day was taken up with hiking and it was well worth it! I did 9.5 miles in the back country areas. The ground was super unstable and I almost wiped out a few times, but it was amazingly relaxing. I was the only one out in those woods for the first 4 hours and it was great! I also found an abandoned house in the woods!
Along the way, I found a whole bunch of shells for my altar! Hekate has never had so many offerings before! I would like to make a Yule sachet before the holiday is over and use a few of the shells in it. Not only did I find some shells, I found a family member to the holly plant! It is called Agarita and apparently, people here open an umbrella under the shrub and shake it to collect the berries which they then ferment into tequila.
I also saw a wild boar that was about 3ft long and looking agitated. I didn’t hang around for any pictures as that is not a safe situation. The place I normally hike has dinosaur tracks along the trail but they have been under water for a few months now. The park ranger told me about some cool Cretaceous period fossils on another trail I can try looking for so I plan to search for those next time I go hiking!
The final hiking surprise I received was that I found not 1, not 2, but 3 hagstones! I am super excited as in all of the previous areas I have lived, I have never been able to find one. I also found a few extremely large hagstones but I had no plans on hauling a huge rock home with 6 miles left on the trail. I will do a post about hagstones later as they represent a very interesting take on magic.
I am extremely close to hitting my goal of 100 books for the year (I aim for this goal every year and so far, for the last 3 years I have made it) and so I spent the rest of the evening reading and being cuddled by my sweet boys. And of course, I lit the 5th candle of my wreath!
From our altar to yours, with love from the sea,
