Today was the day I somehow knew it was time to go get the bees. The alive ones are still safe and happy - even thriving - in their new home. But the 30 or so that died when the hive got fried by lightning and were still sitting dead and cooked, stingers out, in the struck maple log out in the graveyard... it just felt like time. Stinging insects are supposed to make good protection jars, and honeybees especially. Lightning-touched elements are supposed to be especially, wildly potent in spell craft. When I asked a witch community about it, they said it was a once in a lifetime kind of spell chance.  

I do feel comfortable working in Thornrose - balanced, at home, at peace. A tradition when harvesting anything out of a cemetery, or even passing through one, is to leave offerings of food, coin, flowers, or drink and cleanse yourself. When I read that, I panicked initially, thinking of how often I had taken things from there: a handful of yellow meadowlark feathers, a flush of edible mushrooms, violets to flavor and color a batch of mead, countless armfuls of deadfall firewood and cedar starter, a big weird green caterpillar, a perfectly blue eggshell - up until I remembered that I go there literally every day and offer 15-30 crows equivalent sized portions of meat, nuts, egg, and cheese. I bet I'm actually pretty covered in terms of offerings. Even so, I brought rose wine and black sunflowers from my garden and whispered "thank you" foolishly into the rain while I used tweezers to carefully place scorched honeybees into vials. I got two vials: more than I could use to make the most scorching, potent spell I've ever cast for a lifetime, so I'm going to give the second vial away to my local witch community. I know it's stupid, but when I was sawing off some of the wood, my saw got so, so, so hot. Logically, I understand it was the friction, but it still burned my fingers, and made me think of the remembered lightning the wood still held onto. The whole while I walked home, the patch of them at my waist seemed to smolder against me. 

I bet it's fine if I don't cleanse myself in any ritual way after coming out of the cemetery. I don't mind the way the ghosts cling to me, anymore than I mind my curses trailing along behind my steps, slowing my run. 

I gave myself permission not to go running today and instead enjoy the moody, cool rain after so much dry heat. (But wait, you say? I have an injury and shouldn't be running anyway, especially because I made incremental progress yesterday and shouldn't push it? Ahh, bad, bad. I'm always so bad.) I did collect my first harvest from the garden that could be considered an armload. Cherokee purple and pink Brandywines. Could anyone ask for anything better?

Gosh, it got so late, but I still have so much I want to say and write in here. Okay, tomorrow probably, because I still want to talk about the snake hole.