Jungle Juju

I was going to garden in earnest today and began with the exposed garden bed that did not have the snake in it this morning.  I found to my amazement that this particular garden bed seemed to want to be weeded.  The soil was very soft and fluffy and full of potatoes that I had planted two years ago!  It was as though the garden bed was giving me blessings in homage to my Idaho roots (or Idaho rhizomes if you will).  The work was as minimal as it could be with such neglect as it has been through, and I was thoroughly convinced that I had just had a bad start with the other garden bed. 

When I turned my attentions to the bed in question, I was sorely reminded of just how hard and uncompromising the soil was! Indeed, the bed was infested with firmly rooted blackberries, and swarming with beetles and bugs. A slug clung to the breaking board that formed the bed, and as I dug I came across buried chicken bones that had become brown and spongy. The full moon is almost upon us and I suddenly had the feeling that these two beds were like two Tarot cards. One offered potato-blessings and the other had only snakes and beetles to portend.

I taught myself to read the Tarot when I was in my late teens.  I have an aunt who stylizes herself as a would-be-Voodoo Priestess, and a grandmother who came for the Appalachian Mountains and seems to at least be familiar with the practice of hoodoo and other things.  (Though Gram would be the first to say such things aren’t respectable.)  I can read the signs when they come to me, and I think that these four garden beds are signs.  Two are revealed to be luck and misfortune.  The other two, being still covered with weeds, seem to be as of yet unmasked



I will be planting the two beds today: one soft and receptive and the other hard and mean.  I think I will be turning the other two beds over to reveal the messages they portend as soon as possible.  Until then, I’ll be keeping fingers crossed, out from under ladders, and will consult my black cat Hex to see what he has to say on the matter.