Yule

Happy Yule!

What do I have planned? I'm afraid that it's not much. This pregnancy is getting to the point where I ache all over and where I'm not aching I'm being pummeled from within or experiencing lovely Braxton Hicks contractions from the time I go to be until roughly 4 each morning. So any ritual or magick that I participate in will be the barest of the minimum. Perhaps a shared cup and a sun shaped cookie to offer the goddess and the god. As for the lunar eclipse tonight, we'll see how things go.

I wish you all a most beautiful celebration tonight.

At the water

after reading some of the posts from some of the other accounts of meeting at the water I'm almost afraid to say that my preparations and work was limited to my bowl of water a jar of full moon water to boost my intentions and a quiet trip into the back yard.

Like a lot of the spell work I do I tend to start out with grand plans that far outreach my means. With unlimited resources, time and space what I could come up with some amazing altars and rituals. As it is, I'm limited and make do with what I have.

While I have plans to set up a permanent altar somewhere in our home I haven't quite yet. I did not set up a working altar on Saturday. What I did was fill a bowl from my cupboard with water and took it out into our yard beneath the Cherry tree. I cast a simple circle and welcomed the elements. I welcomed the Goddess and told her my intent. To my bowl, I added the full moon rain water that I had collected from the last full moon to boost my intentions. Then I placed my hands in the water and sent out my thoughts and prayers for healing of the waters and the ocean floor.

I sat and meditated on the energies I was sending out with my hands still resting on the surface of the water in my bowl. I imagined my energies infusing the water and as I poured the water from my bowl into the earth I pictured all the other waters that had been blessed that night commingling together, the healing energy from all those sources mixed together, become stronger from the mix and our shared intentions. I opened the circle, thanked the Goddess, the elements and went in to go to sleep.

Did you meet us at the water last Saturday?

Healing the Waters

Spell work is all about putting your intentions out there for the universe to pick up and amplify. The thing about the universe is that we are all connected to it and all those things we send out there are felt and put to work in one degree or another through that interconnectedness.

So when a group of people get together with similar intentions it ripples out into the universe a little farther and faster than if the intention was coming from a singular source. This coming Saturday is the New Moon, a time for setting the stage for change. Hanna at Divining Women has an extraordinary idea for a New Moon spell work that will send energy and healing to the waters in the Atlantic where a gaping hole in our ocean's floor is gushing toxic oil and gas into our living waters, killing and damaging so much as it continues.

Like so many others I am sickened, enraged and so much more over this avoidable tragedy. I won't put any energy into finger pointing, there are a lot of other people better equipped to do that, people with knowledge that I don't have and the capacity to put into words what I am feeling and thinking so much better than I can. I want more than anything for the damage to stop and for the waters that have been poisoned and everything that that poison is touching to be cleaned and whole again.

So I will add my energy to the healing with a spell of my own on Saturday. I will send my intentions out into the universe with everyone else who has pledged to do the same on Saturday. As I lay my hands on the waters and pour my thoughts of healing and strength into our Mother I will feel the combined energy of those who are participating and feel the wave of energy as it pours into the water headed out to where the earth needs it the most.

Join us won't you?

Lavendar, Sage, Thyme, Rosemary and Basil

My Mother's Day weekend was full of delightful moments and quality time with the family. My husband and daughter took me to the garden center where I picked out two lovely English Lavender plants to go with my fledgling herb garden.

I've chosen herbs that I can use both for cooking and for spell crafting. I've started some of the plants from seeds and others are from seedlings that I've picked up at the garden centre and the grocery store.

Spending time in the garden is turning out to be enjoyable and an act of meditation and a practice in patience. In short a beautiful way to honour the Goddess and Mother Earth.

Witchcraft as Goddess Religion

One of my re-reads on this path is Starhawk's The Spiral Dance. I bought it when I took the Elemental Workshop that I mentioned in my last post as part of the mandatory reading material.

I love reading, it's a major part of who I am, I often have one or more books on the go at any one time. A lot of the books I read are fiction, every now and then I'll pick up something with more intellectual weight. I'll be completely honest with you though. I sometimes have difficulty absorbing the information. What I mean, is that while I am reading I get what is being discussed, I understand the material. When I am no longer reading, sometimes the information that I have just finished reading seems to melt out of my head. It's a bit frustrating and one of the reasons that I started to take notes when reading so that I could go back and read my thoughts on the text and hopefully have it stick. Sometimes this works and others not so much... often what I'm left with is the gist, which is often enough and not so rarely not enough.

The point of this post then:
I'm re-reading The Spiral Dance and these are my thoughts so far on the chapter that I've been reading today; Witchcraft as Goddess Religion. It's a chapter that speaks to the legend of witchcraft's history being careful not to erroneously call the legend historic fact which would call down the wrath of the intellectual community. It is a full legend, lush with hypothetical assumptions based on what could have been truths if there were any documentation to back them up. Happily, the thing about faith is that it doesn't rely on facts but on belief. Whether the Goddess religion is more than 35,000 years old or new to this century is not relevant, nor should it be. What is important that it makes spiritual sense to those who follow it.

Witchcraft takes it's teachings from nature and reads inspiration in the movements of the sun, moon and stars, the flight of birds, the slow growth of trees and the cycles of the seasons-Starhawk, The Spiral Dance

Ultimately; for me, the Divine springs from a universal place. The Christian God is just a different aspect of that ultimate force. Ditto for Hindu, Islam, Buddhism and any other Deity out there.

With this reading, the idea that poetry and not theology is what Witchcraft is built on is sticking in my thoughts as I consider what I've read. And it makes sense, I've called on the Elements breathing in the scent of fresh earth, blowing soap bubbles, dancing like a flame in a campfire and imaging ocean waves crashing into the sand. I've welcomed the Goddess and the God into my circle with a simple song, there is not one single way to practice a Pagan religion...

Things happen for a reason

One of the great things about going to the library or a book store is that I always end up finding something that ends up being what I need to find, as opposed to what I went there to find in the first place. I took some time yesterday and went to the book store to look for a book I've seen online that I thought would fit right in with what I am hoping to accomplish.

Heading out, I knew that there was a possibility that the book I wanted would not be in stock. It wasn't.

Instead; as is the case when you open yourself up to the universe, the right book was. It is important to me that my spirituality is combined with creativity simply because I feel closer to the divine when I am being creative. The Divine Feminine Fire by Teri Degler was sitting on the where the book I was looking for wasn't. It's all about making creativity an integral part of the creative path and learning how to connect to the divine feminine through creativity; which is, as I've mentioned before, exactly the book I needed to find.

I have always felt that the the one element that I relate to best is the water element. eight years ago I took part in a series of classes held by the local Reclaiming Tradition on the elements of magic. I went into the class feeling that the element I would feel most at home with was going to be Water. And I didn't expect that the evening would be a simple one, just one that I would feel most at home with.

I was amazed that the class that focused on Fire left such a lasting impression on me. In hindsight, this shouldn't have been so surprising to me considering that fire is associated so closely with creation and artistry. It was in fact one of the most powerful workings I have ever done.

So in honour of the marriage of creation and the Divine I worked on the cover page of the Book of Shadows that will be the focus of this journey for me.

Beltane: observance of each spoke in the wheel of the year are and have been low key in our house. I try to do one or two things that have some significance to the holiday with an eye to expanding our family rituals as time, money and the Peanut's attention span allows. This year for Beltane the Peanut and I went into the back yard and washed our faces with the morning dew (which if we are going to be honest was probably 50% rain).

We also dressed in our finest dresses, tiptoed with tinkling bells into the back yard with an offering of bread and honey for the fairies in our garden. The offering was happily accepted and now we'll be on the look out for the fey when we cloud glaze in the back yard.

Still the stars they sparkle and shine

As I approach the gate that opens onto the path I will be walking; I'm gathering those things around me that I think I'll need on my journey. The books in my library, the few tools I've acquired over the years (tarot cards, pendulum, the apple twig from my Grandmother's tree, hand thrown chalice, my art supplies and paper) my intentions. I have selected my start date to be Beltane which is just around the corner, in a few days so I am preparing for the first step across the threshold.

I've been thinking about what I want this journey to entail and how I want it to take form. I'm a creative person and I am constantly trying to integrate that into my lifestyle as opposed to fitting it in when I have extra time. Making the choice to study for a year and a day to dedicate myself to the pagan path feels the same to me. I want to make it a part of my daily life just as I want to make being creative a part. It's all intertwined and I hope to make the weave stronger in the coming year and a day.

In keeping with these ideas I will be posting here on my progress and also keeping a journal of sorts with an eye to binding it into a Book of Shadows.

As I mentioned above I have books in my library that I have picked up here and there over the years. Some I have read and reread others I have skimmed and still others have sat collecting dust. I have my eye on a book that is specific to this process:

Wicca: A Year & a Day: 366 Days of Spiritual Practice in the Craft of the Wise by Timothy Roderick

Has anyone read this book? Did you find it useful?

And then there's you

In case you are following me from So Anyway... and even if you aren't Welcome. The blog title comes from a song that has been on constant replay in my playlist lately. The post title is from the same song. You can hear the song here.

I've been playing around with starting a second blog that I could use as a journal of my journey of a year and a day towards my dedication to the Goddess. I've mentioned in So Anyway... that my spiritual path is Pagan but although I've been a practicing Pagan for many years I have never actually taken steps towards dedication. I guess it's my penchant for being non-committal and stand-offish.

It's time that I get off the sidelines and jump in and this is where I'm going to share that ever so scary and bold diving. I'm not sure how to get started other than to devote a part of each of my days for a year and a day towards a study of the Goddess, the God; in their many forms; the elements, the Earth and her cycles and to share what I'm doing, thinking, practicing and reading here.

Are you following the same path? Where did you start? What prompted that first step?