Cottonwood Flowers

Yes, it’s that time of year again, isn’t it? You may have noticed that the picture of my Cottonwood friend that I posted just a little bit ago featured a sleepy cottonwood, not quite stirring with the spring. Well, I went to visit my parents this past Sunday for Easter (most of my family is christian or at least christian-leaning-theist so easter is kind of a big deal for them. I find it a nice opportunity to eat yummy food), and it seems like my Cottonwood friend is starting to stir. This photo (it’s a cellphone shot, so sorry for the not-great quality) has flowers!*

In spring, the ‘female’ cottonwood lets loose lots and lots of cotton-puffs that get blown every which way  by the wind, and the ‘male’ tree produces all of these lovely red flowers that produce pollen that gets blown away to find the seeds that are embedded in the cottony-fluff.

It’s a lovely time of year, albeit one that, for me, is filled with lots of allergies. I just want to be outside all day long sitting in trees and getting my hands dirty in the garden. But there’s still a good few weeks left to put in to school before summer vacation officially arrives.

In other words, I still haven’t decided how I’m going to celebrate Beltane here at school. It’ll probably be something Very Simple – that’s how I tend to roll while here at school. Partly because I’m sort of a Pagan On The Downlow (in the broomcloset, however you want to say it), and partly because there isn’t a lot of opportunity for doing elaborate ceremonies or rituals here at University.

There’s another idea – I ought to start posting candle-less/incense-less spells/charms/etc that can be worked on a student budget. This seems as good a place as any to start compiling such things.
Something to keep in mind, I suppose….

*EDIT: for some reason, the photo I took of my Cottonwood friend is not uploading properly. Hopefully I’ll post that pic at a later date, but as of now, the photo in this post is courtesy of this site and is not mine, was not taken by me, etc.
*EDIT EDIT: I'm still unable to get the photo of my beloved Cottonwood to upload, but I took some photos of a cottonwood on campus that's also in flower, so I'll put one of those up here rather than borrowing from another site. I'll leave that link up here though, in gratitude. Basically - the photo in this post is now a photo of my own, but not a photo of the Cottonwood in question.