Spring seems intimately connected with the green world in pagans' minds. When I imagine spring, I see new grass, daffodils, tulips, cherry blossoms, buds on the trees; I smell the fragrance of flowers and fresh-turned loam. As Oestara comes by with the spring goddess and her wild hare, like many pagans I plan and plant my latest garden. I strategize detente with my unruly mugwort; I cheer my bulbs; I contemplate the bare or weedy patches where annuals left me space to dream. My local witch-boy plots tomatoes and garlic, which to him are food for the soul as well as the body.
To whet that planting urge, Catherine tells us in this issue how to choose herbs for a beginner's garden, including hints on magickal affinities and uses. For those who want to wildcraft, Sylvana discusses gathering sage and creating smudge sticks and dream pillows. You'll have already seen Lisa's tales of her fey garden. As befits the equinox's balance between night and day, John discusses the importance of including dark as well as light in your magickal practice. Thea gives us spring astrology, and Genevieve spins us platters of spring music.
George graces us with two articles this issue, one about how to raise more power in your magick circles and another about the care and feeding of your magickal aspect. March gives us a story of the useful lunacy of shamanism. Dianus reviews a fire performance burned into his memory. And Kara tells us poetically of her relationship with our goddess the Moon.
Traditional Northern pagans put a hare on the Moon, the same hare said to trail (maybe tread?) the Goddess. Deity or bunny, may the waxing Moon of Oestara fill your dreams with silver -- the silver-green of artemisia.