Laying Foundations: New Moon in Taurus Service (May 7-11 2024)

Work will begin and lights will be set the night of Tuesday, May 7th. There is definitely wiggle room and you can book late if you still see slots open.

This New Moon is in Taurus, and it has a lot of company for the first half of May. The New Moon forms a stellium (a conjunction but with extra guests) with Venus, Jupiter, and Uranus, activating the energy from the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction at a more personal level (especially if we have significant natal chart placements around 22* of Taurus). 

I’ve seen people refer to this as “conflicting energies” since Taurus likes things to be stable, Uranus likes to shake things up, and Venus doesn’t mind some thrills but values personal freedom highly in this mix. But this New Moon is also sextile Saturn in Pisces, and Mercury is conjunct Chiron. So if we step back a bit, we can see that what we’ve got here is a fantastic little celestial window in which we can recalibrate our relationships with ourselves, get some insight into our attitudes towards abundance and prosperity, and align our energies with our fundamental values. We can gain clarity or greater depth of understanding about what we’re doing here, process and integrate the lessons we’ve learned to get where we are, reinvest in ourselves, and start laying strong, lasting foundations for long-term building – because Saturn doesn’t play around with any Tinker Toy daydreaming business. This is for the long haul.

The potential for increased awareness and insight now can be transformative. What we couldn’t quite see clearly before can click. We can pursue our paths while rising above the trap of “busy-ness” or judging ourselves according to ill-fitting external standards. We can respect our own pace and process. 

By the time the full moon in Sagittarius rolls around on the 23rd (ruled by an expansive Jupiter conjunct Venus and sextile Neptune), Mercury will have recovered from its retrograde and Chiron conjunction, Mars conjunct North Node will be showing us possibilities for how to take action towards tangible results, and the Sun conjunct Jupiter will have opened some windows and let some light in. All of this results in a full moon that is excellent for manifestation, inspiration, adventure, and communication with lasting impact. 

What you sow this month you will reap. So even if you can’t participate in formal rituals or ceremonies, even if much of your time is taken up by the requirements of day-to-day living, prioritize taking at least a few minutes every day to get in touch with yourself, remember that you are made of star stuff, and take at least some small action in alignment with your values and in support of your sense of authenticity. And your homework, due by the full moon, is to reach out somehow, in some way, and make a connection with someone or something in alignment with the direction you want to go. Go to a party, network, join a supportive forum, contact a potential mentor, identify a positive role model – at the very least, visit a different grocery store or talk to the gas station attendant. Open doors. Take action that signals your intentions. Participate. Invest in your vision. Send out what you want to get back.

So what’s this service for?

Petitions for the New Moon service might be related to:

  • inviting clarity and being open to fresh inspiration
  • self-acceptance, compassion, and forgiveness
  • new insight into approaching longstanding blockages
  • reconnecting with your passions
  • honoring your authentic self, especially in the face of arbitrary standards or social pressure
  • seeing the opportunities in challenges
  • setting healthy boundaries and washing off the guilt
  • finding ways to align your life more closely with your fundamental values
  • prioritizing time to pursue your passions
  • overcoming limiting mental habits and emotional loops
  • revitalizing your relationships (with a person, a job, a goal, an activity)
  • self-expression
  • spiritual growth
  • independence and autonomy

Learn more or book now at Seraphin Station.

update on progress on the Bayou Hoodoo Herbal

Summary: Yes, it took me a couple of months to write two sentences in an article on smilax. Upside: being a grammar and philology geek who falls down research rabbit holes has paid off with some fascinating info about magical uses of smilax that I seriously doubt has ever appeared in print before, at least not in English. I’m finishing that article this weekend, God willing. More info on my Ko-fi page.

St. Expedite service starts Friday Apr 19

Have a glass-encased vigil light fixed, dressed, blessed, set on my St. Expedite altar, and burned for you in a community altar work service for this famed and beloved patron saint of fast results.

St. Expedite’s feast day is April 19th, and while you can petition him any day of the year, you might be able to get a little extra bang for your buck on his feast day. 

But beyond that, his feast day would be an excellent time to thank him for previous services rendered if you already work with him but don’t have the time/space to do anything very elaborate with altars or offerings. Or if you are thinking about working with him and haven’t established a relationship yet, this would be a great opportunity to “introduce yourself.”

In addition to being the saint one petitions for fast results and luck in a hurry, St. Expedite is also the patron saint invoked against procrastination. He’s called on to help break through blockages and end delays, so his help is often sought for matters needing Road Opening and Blockbuster-type work. He’s also the patron of computer programmers. 

In some regions and traditions, he is also known as an ally for sending away annoying people or things in a hurry.

Lights will be set and offerings will be made beginning the night of Friday, April 19th. There is some wiggle room and you can join up after the work starts as long as you see that there are still spots left and it doesn’t say “sold out.” The service fee covers the cost of your candle and appropriate food, beverage, and flower offerings.

Read more or book your spot now at Seraphin Station.

St. Joseph service starts tonight

Have a glass-encased vigil light fixed, dressed, blessed, set on my St. Joseph altar, and burned for you in a community light setting and prayer service beginning on St. Joseph’s feast day. My daily hands-on altar work for this service includes the recitation of the Chaplet of St. Joseph, during which I include the specific names and petitions you submit for the service.

Service begins the night of Tuesday, March 19th. There is some wiggle room and you can join up after the work starts as long as you see that there are still spots left and it doesn’t say “sold out.” 

St. Joseph’s intercession is sought to help with all kinds of matters relating to home, family, and jobs/business. He can be called upon to help you sell your house, help you remodel, and to help carpenters and others who work with their hands.

He’s particularly known for going to bat for fathers, though he absolutely is an ally for mothers as well (and speaking as someone who was a single mother with sole custody for 18 years who never received a cent of child support, if you’re wearing all the parenting hats at once, St. Joseph is definitely your friend – he will help any parent, foster parent, or caregiver who is working to provide for children).

He’s also the patron saint of travelers, immigrants, workers, and families, and he’s called on to ensure a happy death.

Learn more or book your spot now at Seraphin Station.

Site’s Back Up + Sale Info

Site Status

SeraphinStation.com, is back up and running. Sorry for the mess.

Flash Sale

And folks, it’s that time again – time for me to deny jackasses any more of my mental real estate.

It used to really mess up my day when people would fail to read item listings and shipping/handling info before ordering and then fail to follow directions and then file a dispute or leave crappy feedback because they were oblivious to what they signed up for by ordering something from me.

But sadly, there are lots of folks like that, and I eventually decided that life was too short to have a messed up day because of them.

So now when I’m forced to deal with one, I have a tiny little party for my customers that *don’t* suck instead.

Somebody1 decided to take a page out of Glenn the Frizzled Bantam’s handbook and get their tetchy asses disinvited from the party… but only after making me drop everything else when they basically decided to force-jump the queue and make me jump through hoops they created due to their inability to read shop policies, follow directions, and/or calm the everlovin’ hell down.

Void where prohibited and in the presence of jackasses. Except Doc. Doc is cool. He can stay.

Well, my strategy for this these days is to instead celebrate and thank the customers and clients I have who aren’t jackasses and who understand that I’m a human being and not a spiritual vending machine – and that all kinds of things — between wars and pandemics and supply chains and gas prices and lord, have you read the news lately?! — are a good bit more complicated, and often a good bit slower, than they were just a few years ago. (That includes me.)2

So if you’re a customer or potential customer who reads listings and policies and isn’t going to pester me with questions you were already provided the answer to – in short, if you’re not a jackass – then you can use coupon code NOTANASS0324 at checkout to get 15% off your order.

Shop the Sale

Sale runs through the 18th.

(And for the love of all that’s holy, don’t use this coupon code and then put in a freakin’ chargeback on the order you used the coupon code for. That is just extra fuckery and I will have no choice but to put your ass in a jar. FFS.)

Clearance/Bargain Bin

I’m also putting some individual items on sale separately as I come across them/have time – discovered quite a few while unpacking things from Louisiana, and I’m overstocked on a few herbs (largely because my available space to store herbs is shrinking yet again). Also there are some shrines and jewelry that I’ve been fussing over for way too long or that I just can’t seem to get my crap together to write a product description or edit the photos for. And with the way everything is right now, that is enough reason for something to go on sale. I need to ship packages. I don’t need to dither about whether or not I love this shade of green for that necklace or if some gold lace would be the perfect finishing touch for the shrine or tip it over into gaudy territory. I’ve got so much stuff that’s “almost finished” it’s ridiculous.

If things work properly, this stuff will appear in its normal category but also in the Bargain Bin section on the main shop site. This clearance sort of thing will run “while supplies last” but I’ll basically be adding to it as I go. (I have to get everything I own into 420 square feet. I’ve downsized a whole lot since I moved out of the three-bedroom apartment in Atlanta, but I still have a ways to go before I can slide into 420 square feet, heh…)

I’ll post periodically to social media as I get stuff listed at the shop.

Thanks for your patronage, interest, and/or patience, and may all your works be crowned with success.

Browse Bargains

Yes, My Blog Posts Have Footnotes

  1. Several somebodies, actually, plural, that I’ve been dealing with over the last 6 or so weeks. If you have never had to deal with a payment processor before, let me explain how fucked up this is.

    – These cause total chaos. Depending on the financial institution and payment processor, this can result in funds being frozen or outright returned to the buyer, *even in cases where I have supplied proof of shipping, and in some cases, even where I have supplied proof that the thing purchased was delivered to the buyer.* And just for extra fun, there’s often a fee/fine deducted in addition to the reversal of the original order amount.

    – So when a customer puts in a dispute or chargeback, they effectively force-jump the queue. I have to drop everything else to deal with these little fires on a deadline, and even then it might not matter. I might just be screwed. But I have to reply and jump through the hoops and fill in the little forms and shit. Customers who were patiently waiting for their turn in the queue get screwed over too because somebody elbowed their way in front of them in line. It’s extra fun when they then get upset and put in their own chargebacks. There’s a limit to how much of this I can just absorb.

    – Sometimes it means I can’t buy materials I need in order to make the shit to fill an order. Sometimes it means I can’t ship any more packages until I get my hands on some more cash. So like right now, I am sitting here with a bin full of packages I’m just waiting to be able to buy labels for. Yes, you keep money in reserve to be able to roll with things like this, ideally. But it’s like dominoes once this Catch-22 shit gets rolling. It really freakin’ sucks, esp. because the website says in plain English that handling times for some custom and international orders can conceivably be 50+ business days, e.g, etc.
    ↩︎
  2. If I’m shipping slowly, there’s a reason for it. It might not be what anybody would consider a *good* reason – odds are pretty good there are at least a couple of meltdowns in the timeline somewhere, and I can practically guarantee that some chargeback bullshit that forced me to drop everything and go into EVERYTHING’S ON FIRE mode played a part. There’s a decent chance I encountered some tech thing that was way beyond my ability to resolve by myself that I had to get somebody to help me with. But I’m not just ignoring things or not intending to ship or sitting on my ass for fun. The biggest issue for me overall these days is just the freakin’ chaos of “let’s move to Louisiana” and “ok, let’s move back from Louisiana” and “here I am, now where did i put that folder?” and then “well, here I am, and I can’t keep living here, and I have to move again, and oh shit, did the refrigerator just bite the dust?”

    But to get more granular: I left a bunch of stuff in Louisiana and haven’t had any way to go get it. In some cases, I’ve just had to buy things again for here even though I had the stuff in Louisiana. That has def. added to longer processing times and unplanned expenses. The good news on that end is that we just had a great converging of the kinfolk from across the region for my grandmother’s 106th birthday, and a lot of my supplies got brought to me. It took me the better part of the workweek last week to consolidate, count, rearrange, find a place for, and/or put away all that stuff, so last week was a *horrible* standstill on order processing. But I’ve got everything but one box of herbs, a few oils, and a few piles of paper sorted/put away now, so things on that end are improving as of now.

    And then, of course, part of the issue is that I still live with my ex, and while we have some days where we get along fine, we have… others… as well. I’m not trying to burden anybody with my dirty laundry, but let’s just say that living under the same roof since we broke up consumes an enormous amount of my energy and frequently involves emotions/experiences that hijack my executive function.

    Both the stove and the fridge/freezer have had to be replaced within the last two months. So I haven’t been able to fix my car, and packages still often do not get to the post office as quickly as they could. Living without a fridge for two weeks didn’t do a lot for my productivity either, I can tell you that.

    I have a hen with a broken leg who has suffered *two* predator attacks in the last 3 months, being seriously wounded both times. I can’t even believe she’s alive. But she is. To say she’s a fighter is an understatement. But she requires pretty regular attention, and I’m out the door at the slightest sound every day to check on the other chickens (all four of them that we have left) because you would not believe the audacity of these hawks this year. She was attacked inside the coop area. The entire area is covered in chicken wire/hardware cloth, four “walls” and a “ceiling,” just a door that is opened in the morning. The other chickens come 0ut in the morning into a fenced area (the free-ranging had to stop after the *last* predator attack), but Gwen didn’t because she still couldn’t walk that well from the last attack. So she’d hang out in the shade under the coop. And that damned thing flew in through the door and went after her. I mean, it’s always an adventure out here, but these hawks this year are just *extra.*

    And I’m leaving out some interpersonal stuff that has been incredibly unpleasant. Pro tip: if you’re reaching out to the mother of the child you have shown zero interest in and provided zero support for over the past 25 years, and the first words out of your mouth don’t involve some flavor of “I suck and/or I’m sorry,” pause that shit and back up, ’cause you’re doing it wrong. Casual is a bad choice for tone at this juncture.

    Damn, did you really read all this? lol… Extra party favors for you! Grab yourself an Avid Reader Reward, I won’t promise exactly what it will be – that will depend on a few factors – but I can promise that it will be worth at least 10 times what you’ll pay for it, which is just a token amount, and possibly a hell of a lot more than that. You can choose between an item customized just for you according to your personal natal astrology, or an item chosen to be helpful for a certain condition or situation. For astrology, provide your date, time, and place of birth in the info box. For a certain condition or situation, let me know generally what you’re after (e.g. road opening, winning over a manager or boss at work, improving your relationship with your ancestors, etc.)

    So yeah – I am still here. I’m still working. I’m still fighting my way out of this chaos and I will not let any of this other shit keep me down. Progress is gradual rather than dramatic, but it’s happening. ↩︎

Status update: site hiccups, should be back up soon

Seraphin Station has been down due to a combo of factors that required multiple help center sessions with some helpful folks whose first language isn’t English. (My low frustration threshold for being on calls like that is admittedly part of that combo of factors.)

Now I’m waiting on one server thingamajig to talk to the other server thingamajig, which hopefully will not take another two days, and things should be working again.

An Important Win

https://www.nature.org/en-us/newsroom/mobile-tensaw-delta-acquisition/

It’s nice to be reminded that it’s not all despair and microplastics. Yes, the situation is dire. We have gotten ourselves into quite a pickle and many people still don’t grasp, or want to believe, how much damage we’ve done out of ignorance, greed, and/or SEP syndrome (“that litter/those laws/the future is Somebody Else’s Problem”).

The upside of a dire situation is that even small actions can have a huge impact.