Happy Ostara everyone! In order to celebrate, I’ve created this FREE April 2025 Printable Calendar just for you! Did any of you get to see the Lunar Eclipse this month? I was able to see my FIRST EVER eclipse through a telescope! It was such a beautiful night here in Illinois and that reminds me… I’ve been meaning to talk more about Midwestern Magic. I grew up in the midwest and left as soon as I could high tail it to the city (never to return again), except, I did return again. Despite all my efforts to become the business woman of my dreams, I got married and returned home to a quiet place where my step-daughter could run free without all the hustle and bustle, where she could learn to grow a garden, where she could experience seasons and a deep connection to the land.

And I will say this, because I feel it needs to be said, I wasn’t expecting the level of decay that I returned to. The parks that were once thriving when I was a kid are now overgrown and dangerous. The festivals that I looked forward to every year are glorified flea markets or worse, full on junk yards. In the fifteen years I was gone, some things hadn’t changed; the minimum wage, the political beliefs, the broken promises of a state that failed to see any of its inhabitants outside of Chicago as anything other than slave labor (just to name a few). But, some things had changed; new solar farms and wind farms turned our once thriving farmland into what now looks like the back of a prison complex. No one in our small communities benefit from this energy, but we pay the visual price every day when we wake up; a reminder that this land is changing again after over a hundred years of being farmed. Other things changed too, none of our small town restaurants survived the pandemic. Now the only places to get food within ten to fifteen miles are a gas station and a dollar general. There are no more book stores, no more florists, no more metaphysical shops. For lack of a better way to put it, things out here are bleak.

I’m back, but it’s clear that this isn’t the same place I’d left all those years ago. Everything that made my small town great as a child is now defunct. I’m not smart enough to know all the reasons why, but where I used to see a thriving community, I now see decay and immeasurable poverty. For a long time, I kept my head down, stayed to myself and tried to make the best of summers with my family, but my overwhelm and subsequent inaction to remedy some of these atrocities, blocked my ability to see that the needle is moving once again.

Someone in my town has created a community garden across the street, there are native prairie grass events where students are trying to restore the ecosystem, and there are new festivals that are taking place which are trying desperately to recapture those old festivals despite the immense loss of wealth in the area. It isn’t perfect, it actually isn’t even really safe or functional, but after an initial state of shock and a subsequent time of mourning and hiding, I am feeling called this Ostara to try to help restore what once was; for my step-daughter, for my nephews and for the aging population who desperately need fresh food that is easily accessible to them.

Volunteering at the community garden is one small step I can take, but I feel a stronger urge that’s been brewing since I came back here. I want to create something that brings people closer to our conservation areas, closer to the healthy food they need and further away from giving their hard earned money to the billionaires that got us into this mess. It’s recently come to my attention that while the budgets out here may be small, the people in this community aren’t giving up, they just haven’t been given a fair shot. Living in a state fully owned by billionaires isn’t working for (surprise, surprise) ANYONE EXCEPT THE BILLIONAIRES. They don’t care about this land, the animals or those in the community who are in need. They’ve built their private pond estates behind fences and lavender paint (if you know, you know) and they visit once a year to fire a few hundred people or so to increase their bottom lines and they aren’t going to hold themselves accountable, that much I do know.

So what can be done? What is this big plan to help the community? Well, to be honest I don’t know yet. I know it involves art, local festivals, the farmer’s markets, grassroots movement, getting food to the people who need it most and it may even involve designing a fair booth or two along the way. I know it involves an online presence, a group of likeminded, level headed rebels and I know it involves a lot of late night nights and informative Substack posts. The truth is, my journey to help solve some of these is issues is long overdue and it’s not still not quite fully formed. I left here thinking I would be one of those successful people one day. I thought I was going to be able to build a house for my grandmother who sacrificed her entire life for my siblings and I, I thought I was going to be able to “prove them all wrong”, and more than anything else, I thought everything was going well here while I was gone. A good midwestern woman never complains after all. But I was wrong. In every way. I never made decent money, I always struggled to get by, no one cared about me proving anything and things around here were not okay when I was gone. Now I’m back and in the midst of picking up the pieces of a life only partially realized, of an American dream stomped out by a crazed, sick and sadistic billionaires and a reality that is more grim than I could have ever prepared myself for, I find myself being called to help others who may have similar stories and to seek the advise of those that are paving the way for these changes. Maybe you can relate.

This long winded rant was NOT what I was expecting to post for Ostara, but I’ll close with this: When I went out to look at the moon through my telescope, I saw something amazing and no, it wasn’t in the sky. After over an hour of trying to get things perfectly lined up and still having no luck, I turned around, exasperated with myself, and saw a little red tailed fox staring right back at me. She sat there so quietly and tipped her head from side to side as if she was trying to figure out what I was doing. We locked eyes for a brief moment and she bounded around my yard simply frolicking in the moonlight. Free. I could see how free she was and she called me to frolic too. She reminded me that she never once cared about a billionaire, a solar farm or the “broligarchy” and she was free to frolic and play and enjoy the moon just like me. We danced under the red moon, me and the red tailed fox and I bumped the telescope. To my surprise, when I looked through the telescope I was able to see the exact moment of the full eclipse.

This is a magical time and a difficult time. Have you ever abandoned something for far too long, only to come back to realize things are seemingly beyond repair? Have you ever fallen short of own expectations of yourself and let that defeat stop you from chasing your dream? What can you do pump the brakes on your own self imposed shame spiral? Are there steps you can take in your community to help move the needle towards sovereignty and restoration? Are there any billionaires that you can stop supporting? Maybe cancelling a membership, an unused credit card, or even changing where you shop?

I hope you have an amazing Ostara. Without further ado, the magic; here are the calendar resources this month! As always, color and black and white printable pdfs, a desktop background and a phone background so you can stay coordinated! Love you all so much, enjoy!