(Monday, March 2, 2026)
After spending months preparing to write my little faerie book, I began the actual story today. It feels great to begin. And an email from Tzivia showed up: on March 20–22 she teaches an online writing retreat. I’ll see if it is affordable for me.
(Monday, March 2, 2026) full moon Virgo
I looked up the last name of my great-grandmother Bridget Doyle. Doyle: descendant of Dubhghall, “dark foreigner” or “dark stranger.” The term Dubhghoill referred to Danish Vikings. Fionnghoill (“fair foreigners”) was used to describe light-haired Norwegians. The surname Dubhghall is associated with Viking settlers who integrated into Irish society. Certainly most of my Irish ancestors had jet-black hair, including my mother. Interesting to have this last name when Bridget was born in a territory with many Scandinavian settlers (Minnesota).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doyle
This lovely story also made me think of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of “Sherlock.” Sherlock seemed to show up in one of my recent dreams.
A distant cousin with the last name of Doyle contacted me via Ancestry.com a few years ago.
(Sunday, March 1, 2026) waxing gibbous moon Leo
This morning Cullan and I went grocery shopping at Lakewinds Co-op. He bought some supplements and mentioned he could have gone to Present Moment to have the herbalist make a batch for him. I hadn’t thought of Present Moment for a long time, although in my twenties and thirties I visited very often.
This afternoon I watched one of “Danu’s Irish Herb Garden” videos on YouTube (Danu: Irish Mother Goddess). Celtic herbalist Terry Conroy discussed the healing elements of herbs we use for spicing our recipes. And she mentioned Matthew Wood, the famous herbalist who used to live in Maple Plain (close to my Wayzata house) but now lives in Wisconsin. I looked him up again, as I paid a lot of attention to him when he lived in Minnesota. He began studying herbalism at the age of 13, in 1967, The Summer of Love. Someone gave him Carlos Castaneda’s book “The Teachings of Don Juan,” a huge inspiration for him. Matthew got his master’s degree at the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine and began working as an herbalist at Present Moment in 1981.
OK. I have been writing about Carlos Castaneda. And about my dream guide Edie the Herbalist. I need to pay more attention to herbalism in my summer garden. It seems vital at this stage of my life.
