The balcony garden continues to flourish and the sunflowers are in full bloom.  On the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (June 24^th), I harvested some herbs and hung them to dry for later use in spiritual work.  There were also several important feast days throughout the month of June and on each of these special days I made offerings of flowers to the saints that were being celebrated on these days and I’ve hung them to dry to be burned as an offering at my annual Halloween spiritual gathering later this year.

The giant marigolds are continuing to grow well and have started to blossom.  They have always been one of my favorite flowers and have a long tradition of being associated with spiritual rituals in Aztec and later Mexican cultures and are an indispensable part of any Day of the Dead ofrenda.  Today there was a huge wind storm that blew some of the window boxes from my balcony but I retrieved them from the ground below and replaced them with the plants entirely unharmed.

On August 1^st, which is Lammas, a day that celebrates the early Harvest, I will cut and hang to dry the majority of my flowers and plants.  Bringing in an abundant harvest has always been one of my favorite ways to kick off the fall season.  I hope you are enjoying the summer and looking forward to the wonders that fall will bring!

As always, I thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and I wish you peace, happiness and abundant blessings!