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Wheel of Fortune Ramblings, Mullein and Phenology Journaling

I’ve been staring at this Substack page for ages and finally decided to just use it already. It started out as a writing journal, then switched to an art journal and then… just collected cobwebs. So, welcome to my new brain dump!

My plan is to share card and reading contemplations, what’s going on in my bioregion, a little sprinkle of my praxis as an Atheopagan, plant and garden ramblings, as well as everything else I feel like sharing. I’m very Gemini so you can expect a weird mix of everything, I promise! How often will I post? At least once a week, maybe more… we’ll see!

Wheel of Fortune

For June, I decided to pull a card and out popped the Wheel of Fortune the other day so I decided to take a closer look into this card and pick it apart a bit. Let’s dive in, shall we?

The Wheel of Fortune is a card of chance, risk and “whatever happens, happens” type of feeling. It’s movement but we don’t quite know where we’re headed… could be fantastic or it could be a landfill, you never know when playing chance with this card.

I found this fitting for June since it’s my Birthday month and I’ll be 39 on the Summer Solstice. That’s, June 21st in case you were curious. Dipping my toes into a new age and new year is both exciting and curious, will 39 be amazing or will it be a crap shoot? I’m about to find out, let’s hope for the best!

Fuzzy Wuzzy Mullein

In my bioregion, Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) grows all over our mountains and it’s one of my favorite native plants… at the moment, it changes every time I go out on a trail. You can find Mullein along trail edges and tucked away deep in the forests. I have yet to come across a trail that wasn’t peppered with this gorgeous fuzzy plant.

Plants have a special way of communicating to us, and for me, Mullein has taught me to stop and pay attention. Anytime I spot it while hiking I have to go up to it and say hello, I just can’t help myself from stopping in my tracks to look at its leaves and take yet another photograph of it. It’s like a plant child to me and I love seeing it in all its glorious stages.

Mullein is a biennial, meaning it has a two-year life cycle. The first year it grows leaves and stays fairly close to the ground, but in the second year it blooms big yellow flowered stalks. It’s a self pollinating plant that reseeds itself quite easily. I won’t go into the medicinal benefits as I’m not a professional, but Mullein has many uses.

Phenology Journaling

One of my daily routines is phenology journaling, this has turned into a main focus in my praxis as an Atheopagan. This helps me deeply connect to my bioregion and season here in the mountains, it’s also great for those who don’t have distinct seasons and wish to find their own rhythm. I honestly wish I kept a phenology journal when I lived in the Phoenix area, it felt like summer year round so it was hard for me to tap into the seasons. This journal would have been a huge benefit!

What do I write down? I always start with the high and low temps of the day, I also note down any significant weather that day. We get an insane amount of wind here and recently had gusts that reached 60 mph, our average winds are 30-35 mph.

Aside from weather stuff, I like to note down what plants I’ve spotted that may have caught my eye and new blooms or insects in the garden or on a trail. I also write down things I hear, like new bird sounds or chatty ravens in the trees that morning. If a certain scent is in the air like rain or fire smoke, I’ll write that down to. My phenology journal is also my gardening journal, so I have a lot of garden things sprinkled in the pages like when we planted potatoes or spotted the first pepper fruiting.

Want to start one yourself? Grab a notebook and start paying attention to what you see, hear, smell and feel in your bioregion! Try to make it a habit to sit outside for a few minutes each day and be curious.