Psychopomps, or "I've Got a Hot Date Tonight"

Blessings Darlings!

A couple of weeks back I blogged about how the air in my land base is full of bats, moths, and butterflies, normal for this time of year.  That said - all these critters are well-known to be  psychopomps, magical critters that help you travel between the worlds.  Clearly, not every moth and butterfly in your area isn't there for your personal spiritual/magical service.  99.9% of them are NOT 'all about you'.  That's true even if your astrological sun sign is Leo.  IJS.

That said - one in 1000 probably IS 'all about you'.  So today as I was sitting outside, having a cigarette and thinking about the post I was planning on creating about psychopomps - getting some serious attention from a gorgeous red spotted blue swallowtail was the equivalent of being asked out on a date to do some traveling with ker tonight.  We chatted so I know what I'm supposed to do to prepare, I left ker an offering (mashed ripe peaches, heavy with juice - I know this species.  Actually if I was giving the offering to a 'normal' member of the species, it would be even better had the fruit been a tad ... uh ... fermented.  They REALLY like that.  But in the case of psychopomps the extra 'spirit' is redundant.)

In many minds, psychopomps are associated only with leading spirits after death.  That's certainly a psychopomp role, but it is far from the only role they take.  They are there at births (often with the Ancestors riding them, as in the case of dragonflies in Japan.)  They are there at soul retrievals.  They can be sent as transportation for your spirit by another spirit that is summoning YOU (which can be a scary thing.)  And they can (as in this case) be a spirit helper to a Practitioner heading to the Otherworlds.

At any rate - I've a date tonight to go soaring off with a Psychopomp.  See you later!

Frondly, Fern

What's Up In YOUR Land Base?

Blessings Darlings!

 

Here in my land base, the fireflies are long gone. Night are LOUD now, with cicadas and crickets having meet and greets. I can count on seeing some shooting stars every night that is clear enough ... but I can also count on late day thunderstorms often enough that at least half the nights aren't clear enough.

And it is so very much butterfly and moth season! Monarch and swallowtail, lovely moths I don't know the name of, and the ubiquitous cabbage moths are everywhere.   Night features other moths, plus visiting bats (I'm guessing that they share barn space with the barn swallows).

The local peaches are ripe - and a local church is having their Peach Festival tomorrow.  My tomatoes are nowhere near ripe since I planted them late, but the cucs and peppers and occasional zucchini (I only started one plant) are producing.

The rivers are high due to all the rain over the past month.  Water practically pours out of cracks in the cliffs of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The humidity is high.  Every day the forecast is "Today will be much cooler than yesterday was," but that's just wishful thinking.  The temperature has been pretty constant.  

This is when county fairs should be.  Before school starts, in the gap between when farmers harvest stuff.  Everyone should be eating funnel cakes with diced fresh peaches and powdered sugar.

Frondly, Fern