Spring has not sprung at all really.

I changed the name/URL of this blog. I wish it felt less like hiding.I'll be doing something a little more colorful and productive with it shortly.

Ostara took place as a very informal ritual, an indoor picnic and we painted eggs.

The whole foul mess with the nasty email sent me into a sneaky hate spiral more than I care to admit.

I am a person very heavily centered in logic, and also in self doubt, so it's hard not to take attacks of that nature to heart. It's also hard for me to acknowledge that whatever hope we ever had of returning to the community, ever, is squashed now. We're clearly not welcome. We had a small number of people support us--some in private, who then denounced us in public to save their own ass, which is ridiculous. We never called out the person responsible openly--they must have owned up to it, and spun it in such a way as to make them come out on top.

Lesson learned. Next time no prisoners are taken.

I've been trying, largely unsuccessfully, to get out of this winter funk. While the rest of the country seems to be creeping into spring, we're mired in snow, endless snow and more snow and more freezing temperatures. Birds and wildlife are starving to death. Returning songbirds are starving. No trees have even begun to bud. The other day we had a warm flash of 11 degrees, and I only then managed to get most of the 6-inch thick ice off the deck. My plant pots are still stuck in it. Snow banks in places are still over my head.

My dedicant (who initiates in a month!) keeps saying not to suffer the weather, but my god this just drags on me.

But I redid my altar for spring, covered it in silly glitter from my mother-in-law's easter card, sparkling butterflies and ladybugs and bees - and made orgami cherry blossoms to decorate it with, too. I kind've like having things scattered haphazardly on my altar, like they fluttered there.

It is, at least, colourful, to counteract outside still being varying shades of white and grey.

The blue/striped square of cloth behing my keyring on the "Norse" altar was an offering I made for Frigga. It was woven on my little board loom--she wanted one done in blue, and I was to use the striping yarn when the blue ran out, so I did as instructed. I think it suits quite nicely.