~ the end of june ~

 june 30th....my mother's birthday...she's 94 today ~ still in hospice....such a strange and sad time in our lives for our family.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

tomorrow is July 1st.
and it is hot.
too hot, in fact for any rational being to even want to be outside.
and if we must be outside, say, to nourish our gardens,
we must look through saddened eyes at the dry, parched and cracked soil
that a month without rain has given us in our part of Virginia.

...because of this, or maybe it's just my 'nature',
I have been pouring myself into my designs for ~Autumn  Fall  Harvest  Halloween
much earlier this year.

I'm so grateful that I have my needlework and folk art as my therapy,
I would be bonkers by now without any of it.

each thread, stitch, loop & brushstrokeholds my deepest thoughts and emotions.

every word and memory fills the pages of my heart and sketchbooks,and I return to them each year to keep them all alive in some way.

I create friendly characters and kind, gentle 'folk' that i bring to life with my hands
and whichever medium I choose.

I'm into my 60's now,
a Crone, some might say, and my soul craves
& wants to create peace.

and my mind, the 'make-believe'
as it did when I was a young child
playing in the woods on the outskirts of my New England hometown
~ Blessed be ~

Levora

~ to be a chicken girl ~

from the very beginning,
she never really understood the whole idea of being coop-ed up inside,
when she could, in turn, be outside
scratching around and soaking up sunshine and catching lightening bugs.

she sewed her own clothes from discarded feedsacks andbake her own bread from millet seed flour...made tiny baskets from pine needles and daffodil leaves and kept glass jars, to which she would add occasional feathers, stones...bits of bone.

~ her neighbors knew her as gentle, but a bit odd.
and one that could, and would, defend her little flock
as readily & fiercely as any rooster,
if need be.
... don't test her, you won't win.

oh to be a chicken-girl!
a humble girl...slightly weird and with a crop of red hair piled atop her head.
one who always wanted to live on a farm, in the woods, near a creek
where she could fetch clear spring water and look for arrowheads.
 she loved to walk through her gardens, with
the hems of her skirts and fresh-mud stained apron picking up the sweetly scented herbs
planted there long ago between dirt the paths.

she relished sunshowers and drank from honeysuckle vines ~while humming quietly to herself the songs of the crickets and cicadas.

she read poetry books and garden books and followed the moon and starsand painted in pigments and wove with wildflowers.

her tiny heart would beat the fastest when she would playfully outrun all of her sisters, each one cackling joyfully as they half ran, half flew;
a ruckus to see, actually
...with feather-y petticoats and gravel flying in the stirred-up breeze.

her life was filled with summers, sunflower seeds and worms.
~ her dreams were made real by clever magic and my pencil.
~ Blessed be ~
Levora

{an original short story & watercolor ©Lori Brechlin 2024}

~ Vernal Equinox ~

    my little farmwitch is wishing you a
happy 1st day of Spring...
 

  ~ Blessed be ~
Levora

~ a few months past ~

 
hello.
time has passed once again and here I am...
life is happening at a faster rate now that I'm in my 60's ~
and the universe is once again calling me in subtle ways to take more time to notice things. the spring season will be upon us shortly, as things are beginning to green outside.my hands need to feel the dirt, and smell the sweet earth that will nourish our old bones and bodies once again.
Garden Time is Near.........

 

 

 

   ~ Blessed be ~
Levora

~ tiny things ~

i'm not one for grandiose projects...
in fact ~ the smaller the better.
i stitch small, i sketch and paint small things.

i prefer minute detail to larger,intentionally pulling folks in for a closer look.

not everything has to be humongous.or crisply executed either...
a bit of blur, some shaded areas - intentional obscurity.
 

   using up scraps of parched paper from previous paintings,
i'm enjoying filling them with small worlds from my imagination.
 ~ Blessed be ~
Levora

~ August Days ~

 ... it is nearing the end of august.quiet afternoons spent foraging through the fields and woods to find berries, nuts & mushroomsto fill our larder and hang and dry herbs harvested from now-almost faded gardens.
 

 sketches and recipes and spells and thoughts
will be written in homemade ink ontohand-parched paper
 in an effort of trying to keep everything together
for future stolen moments on days where i have a sliver of time to visit them again.

breathing in and clearing and cleansing my soul, my mind, my home, my heart.
brewing teas from spices and flowers, leaves and needles of pine which keep me grounded and calmwhen days are not good and could be made better.

soon the pots will bubble, full strewn pine, acorns, nuts and dried fruits and
the fires will be stoked and the house will hug us within her arms of cobwebs, wood, paint
dust and memories.

 the pantry shelves will be stocked with jars-ful of summer, and in winter i will breathe deeply the scent of earth and humid air trapped inside their glass walls, bringing sun drenched memories flooding again to the present.

...bittersweet days will turn to moon-drenched evenings where we will sit alone but together st the burn-pit to listen to the owls calling to us from the deep woods...warming our boots by the flames licking the tall branches of the ancient black walnut trees, planted so many moons-ago by the hands of kindred souls.the quiet crackling of embers and floating sparks of ash will
bring us home again within ourselves.

..... and we will once again exhale into a new season.
 ~ Blessed be ~
Levora (*** all photos courtesy of pinterest***)

~ The Spring Woods ~

  
  How I go to the Woods....by Mary Oliver
"Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone....with not a single friend, for theyare all smilers and talkers and therefore,unsuitable.
I don't really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds, or hugging the old black oak tree.
I have my way of praying, as no doubt~ you have yours.
Besides,
when I am alone, I can becomeInvisible.
I can sit on the top of a dune as motionlessas an uprise of weeds,...until the foxes run by unconcerned.I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.
~~~~~~If you have ever gone into the woods with me,I must love you very much."
 

If you love hearing about plants, herbs, nature, and all-sorts of Good Things,then do visit Good Earth Gatherings on Facebook!
~ Blessed be ~
Levora

~ swept away ~

   A new broom sweeps clean,but an olde broom knows the corners....~ Irish proverb 
        

On Halloween, what bothers some
      About these witches, is how come
      In sailing, through the air, like bats
      They never seem, to lose their hats?
Hitchhiking owls, as we have seen,
      Ride nicely on this queer machine...
Another thing: if brooms can fly,
      Do witches keep them handy-by
      To sweep the kitchen floor with, say?
      Or do they have them locked away
      For private passage through the sky?

~David McCord (1897–1997), "Witch's Broom Notes"

 ~ Blessed be ~
Levora

~ Savage Daughter ~

  
   

I am my mother's savage daughter

The one who runs barefoot

Cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter

I will not cut my hair

I will not lower my voice

My mother's child is a savage

She looks for her omens in the colors of stones

In the faces of cats, in the falling of feathers

In the dancing of fire

In the curve of old bones

I am my mother's savage daughter

The one who runs barefoot

Cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter

I will not cut my hair

I will not lower my voice

My mother's child dances in darkness

She sings heathen songs

By the light of the moon

And watches the stars and renames the planets

And dreams she can reach them

With a song and a broom

I am my mother's savage daughter

The one who runs barefoot

Cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter

I will not cut my hair

I will not lower my voice

We are all brought forth out of darkness

Into this world, through blood and through pain

And deep in our bones, the old songs are waking

So sing them with voices if thunder and rain

We are our mother's savage daughters

The ones who run barefoot

Cursing sharp stones

We are our mother's savage daughters

We will not cut our hair

We will not lower our voice

We are our mother's savage daughters

The ones who run barefoot

Cursing sharp stones

We are our mother's savage daughters

We will not cut our hair

We will not lower our voice

We are our mother's savage daughters

The ones who run barefoot

Cursing sharp stones

We are our mother's savage daughters

We will not cut our hair

We will not lower our voice

This song was originally written and performed by Karen Kahan aka Wyndreth Berginsdottir. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiRnVmR6fJQ
 ~ Blessed be ~
Levora

~ a little witch stitching ~

 Today is a goode day to stitch outside....on my porch, or on my patio.    yes. it is April...just a few short weeks into Spring,butmy heart and soul lives in Autumn and Hallowe'en is forever at the front of my mind. ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂

~ some of my favorite designs that I've created have come from stitching outside....quiet, still and contemplative...
     near my herbs and flowers...  
  the wind whispers inspiration ~
always helping to inspire imaginary folk and long-lost friends...
     
  thinking of new color palettes, linens...healing spells and quotes for my 'crafting' ~
    
the simple act of pulling a needle attached to a strand of plain cotton...through a ground-cloth of linen that I have hand-dyed with my own dyes and dried in the sun fills me with such joy!
  wishing you all a day filled with quiet creativity and magical makings!
 ~ Blessed be ~
Levora