FINALLY

So I've been a wee bit absentee for the last two weeks. Honestly it has a lot to do with a lot of shit happening. First my mother in law went in for extensive back surgery which took up a fair bit of time. Not the surgery so much but the going back and forth and all since she was in the hospital for a week. She's doing well now! Still in pain but she can move on her own and sit and stand for short periods of time. After that both Laura and myself managed to get ourselves sick as a dog for about a week there and between puking and sleeping there wasn't energy for anything else. And then last week I was just so damn buys with practicum work I didn't have the time or energy to do anything else.

So in other words, I havn't gotten to Beltain yet.

However, seeing as tonight is the full moon I have a great deal planned. At dusk I will start the ceremony commemorating myself into the world of witchcraft. I intend to call upon the Crone, she who found her powers in age and death. I will ask the Old Wild Woman to keep watch over my transition between this life and the next and to guide me with wisdom I do not yet have. I will ask them to test me and make me strong, so that I may know my own capabilities and power.

At midnight I have a dual duty. I will call to the Great Mothers and the Dark Women, those who have found their power in motherhood and sexuality and ambition. I will ask them to mark my movements and show me the meaning of responsibility and purpose. I will also be doing a spell for a friend who is having fertility troubles. I'll be working with Taweret and doing a ceremony to try and aid her womb.

At dawn (yes I will be up all night) I will be working with the Spring Miadens, those who hold power in the new and discovery. I will acknowledge my lack of experience and ask them to help me learn to move through the trecherous beginning times and help manuver me towards paths of creativity and spirituality. I will open myself to the call of the goddess, the unseen and the natural world around me.

Each of these I need to commemorate with song, offerings, libations and such so I have some shopping to do. I will probably be exhausted tomorrow but it will be well worth it.

Lessons from Brother Woodpecker

The woodpecker teaches us an important lesson about determination and stubbornness. We see and admire his ability to move through stubborn tree & labor for his meal. Does he know how thick the bark? Does he know if a juicy grub waits inside his hard worn hole? Or does he simply guess? Ever pushing forward, unrelenting & hope there is a small reward at his labors end. This is his virtue and his flaw. But in the end, for better or worse, he can only push forward, for how else will he eat? It is in his nature, which one cannot be contrary to. Though as humans it is within our ability to move or change how we perceive ourselves, and thus change the course of how we effect the world and ourselves.

Symbolic Meaning:

• Balance
• Progress
• Signaling
• Returning
• Protection
• Initiation
• Attention
• Prophesy
• Listening
• Opportunity
• Discernment
• Communication
• Determination

Imma 26 years old...

...I think I'll stay this age for another ten years or so.

At any rate this year I was allowed to spoil myself somewhat. My girlfriend of course did a grand job of this by buying me not one, not two, not three but FOUR presents plus taking me out on a date. *squeels* My divine mother in law is making me a pig pecking cake (citrus summer cake), and giving me a gift. I also bought myself a new deck of tarot cards from House of Ravenwood in Yellow Springs. I decided to go with The Goddess Tarot by Kris Waldherr. Previously I had a good degree of success with the Shapeshifter deck by D.J. Conway and Lisa Hunt, but in my resurgence I've found myself more and more drawn to the divine feminine and relateable aspects of wicca than the stoicism and clerical aspects of druidry. I decided that working with the goddesses on a daily bases might help me to feel closer to them.

Unlike a lot of people I don't give a whole lot of credence to the traditional meaning of tarot cards. I know the basics of it but to me it seems like one card meaning the same thing (even when inverted) for everyone kind of glosses over why one reads the card in the first place. I tend to look at the card itself and discern meaning from the pictures and what they seem to say about the person I read for. My readings tend to deal more with direct consequence and personality then with future events and indiscernible/potential courses of action. What most people really look for in a reading is validation and confirmation of decisions they've already made. It really only tends to be the spiritually inclined that look for a deeper meaning or seeking out a new path.

Also, I've been having some weird dreams lately. Bar with me here cause this one requires some explanation.

1) I have a baseless fear just like most people. For my girlfriend it's zombies (which are somewhat more likely), for me it's werewolves. Let me specify, not shapeshifters but werewolves, those bestial mindless killing machines of popular horror. Typically in my dreams their stalking me, chasing me, or have me cornered and I wake up just before they loom in for the attack. I'm usually running like hell or trying to be quiet and not get caught. I'm always scared out of my mind as I watch the glowing eyes and teeth in the dark come for me. I've noticed that these dreams tend to crop up when I'm at a high stress point and I feel like everything is baring down on me from all sides. However a few nights ago, this dream took a different turn. I was in a large corn field going towards a village at the center. I was dressed all in black with a black cloak. I knew the werewolves were in the field, watching me from just out of my sight and when I lifted up my hand the corn balked and pushed away and the wolves receded further from me. I made it to the village where for some reason Laura (my wife) was being held captive. I had to bargain and coerce to get them to let her go, but when we started to leave the werewolves began to chase us. I managed to hide her in a hollow tree and told her not to leave until I came back for her. Then I ran. I ran down a pathway bordered on either side by large stone walls. The wolves came after me and when once reached out to take me (this is usually the point where I wake up sweating and checking the room for big looming animal figures), I turned around and started WAILING on him! I mean I was just taking my fists and punching and roaring and kicking as hard as I could till it's ears went flat on it's skull and it ran away from me. More were still coming, but then I woke up.

2) This dream I had last night. In it there was a tall, beautiful woman with hair that changed color. She was wearing a thin red cloth across her body and she was wreathed in fire. She glowed with light and whens he came down to me, she pushed me under water and held me there. When i opened my eyes I could see her above me and when i looked around it was all green and blue and bubbles.

Soooooo yeah. Interpret that.

Taking Risks

forestgrovebotanica.com/

The person who runs this shop is someone who have quickly garnered a lot of interest from me. I won't say I agree with everything she has to say, but it is undoubtedly intense and a fantastic read. Her level of ability and knowledge is astounding to say the least and even while taking it with a grain of salt I can't help but be a little impressed with her amassed knowledge.

That being said, I decided to take a chance.

I bought one of her salves. Her Medea's Salve to be specific. Well...it includes mandrake. Yes you heard me, mandrake. Yes I know it's poisonous. Believe me I don't intend to slather it allover myself. I intend to follow all instructions as well as to use the salve in a ritual context only. I intend for my first use to be during the next full moon in April. I'm talking with her right now just to get some more information and make sure I'm fully aware of how this stuff is meant to be used.

I'm...nervous. Maybe even frightened. My intention here is to seek out that spiritual experience. I know there are other ways of doing it and probably ones that work too. This is merely one of several I intend to try. I want to be perfectly clear on this point. I accept full responsibility for the choice I am making here. If goddess forbid something were to go wrong I have no intention of blaming anyone. I intend to follow all instructions and advise to the letter. Laura, even though she thinks I'm insane, will be at home and watching me when I use it with a fully charged cell phone beside her. Just in case.

Maybe it's all for not. Maybe it won't work or even won't have any effect. maybe I'm being overly cautious. But better safe than sorry.

New Alter+Margot Adler Review

Okay so not a NEW alter, basically I found a decent cabinet at Goodwill so I could finally move my alter stuff from the bedside table to an actual space just for my pagan stuff. It's not much bigger than my original alter but just enough to make a few minor design alterations. It also has enough room for me to put my wicca books and all underneath.

BTW, finally finished Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Alder. Took me a little over a week to get through and I'll say that was at about 4 hours of reading a day. (Goddess bless 3 hr toddler nap times!) But what I really liked about the book was it's dedication to it's subject matter. Where as most pagan, wicca and witchcraft books these days are composed of spells, rituals and what you need to buy to consider yourself authentically pagan, this book was written almost like a doctoral thesis. It went in depth and admitted the inherent 'flaws' and accidental fallacies of the invention of our faith. It also pointed out the obvious to which all religions are man made to at least some extent, so is it really taking that big a liberty to largely manufacture one based on the premise of ancient gods, feminism and ecological reform? I don't think so.

I also like how she pointed out that most pagans don't agree on exactly what being pagan constitutes. Some feel it's an act of spiritual enlightenment, others enjoy the aspects of self awareness it promotes, some people see it as reclaiming themselves from a gender standpoint, and still more see it is a vehicle for social, ecological and religious reform. But it does this in a way that still gives all opinions a light of validity and reason. The same can not be said of many other books attempting to explain the vast and complex world of witchcraft.

Another thing that really impressed me was that the book was realistic without being judgmental. There are a fair amount of things about paganism I disagree with, but it's sort of on the same level as my disagreements with Christianity. Basically more to do with it's mainstream perceptions of the religions as oppose to the perception of the individuals involved which can range from fanatical to practical to attempting to achieve the self image of the perfect witch/Christian.

Spiritual Ink

Like many people both pagan and non I feel that tattooing is a spiritual experience. They have many meanings to many different people and usually a lot of symbolism and metaphors are involved. I feel that ink is spiritual to the person and that it's relevance is equally individual. I remember ladyoceanstar  had a particularily beautiful, colorful flower on her shoulder. I admired it for a very long time and originally incorporated the flower into a design that my girlfriend was kind enough to draw out for me many years ago. Since then, my desire for a tattoo has changed many times over. Usually between picking something typical (at least in the imagry involved) to using my limited drawing skills to try and create something of my own. Not a lot of luck there, and after my unspecific requests my girlfriend finally threw up her hands at it. *chuckle*

Mostly, what has prevented me from getting a tattoo in the past was money. Whenever I had the desire and idea we were broke. Whenever we weren't broke the money automatically had somewhere more important it really needed to go. However recently we've been doing alright. What's needed to be paid is paid with a little bit left over for fun. So I've finally laid it down. I have an idea, something that to me is both asthetically pleasing and spiritually meaningful. It is of my own design, though not my own ethnic background. (Which I was surprised to find is equally important and unimportant when it comes to spiritual ink on others) I don't claim to have hand draw this in ANY way shape or form. All I can really say is goddess bless google and goddess bless photoshop.

But I thought I'd show off the design here. The design is comprised of traditional mehndi symbols which I found beautiful and worked together in a way that for me is remminiscent of an passionate emotional state. This is both an expression of how I feel now that I'm returning to paganism and how what I am seeking in my rituals and communications with the divine. I would like the mehndi to be a burnt crimson color (or as my graphic designer girlfriend would say RGB #330002). I have seen black mehndi and though it is pretty I do like a little more color. The typically maroon color is lovely but a little too bright for my skin tone. I intend on getting them done on each hip, so that when I dance I can feel more beautiful knowning their moving with my skin and muscles.

I was debating including more color, but I think it's going to look better if I keep it to a clean design. I can always decide to add color later but looking at this thing x2 (one on each hip) I'm guessing 2-3 hrs minimum in the chair for each side. So likely two sessions. Someone with more tat experience can feel free to correct me on that. I've contacted a few places to ask about pricing information. I'm hoping to do it within a week or so of my birthday (April 8th). Pricing...IDK maybe $200 a side? Probably more.

Ostara Rituals

Like I said, today involved a lot of work. I wanted to include some of the pictures from it so here we go!

These are the Kami Braids. In Shinto practice, these are hung from the trees in the spring to please the spirits of the tree and bring the people luck and good fortune. Typically they are made of rice paper but seeing as how I neither have it or know how to make it I used simple white yarn.I decided on this ritual weeks ago, but now that the Earthquake, Tsunami and resulting impending nuclear disaster has happened, I feel it appropriate to dedicate these to the Japanese survivors and especially the Fukushima 50.

This is how the look as they swing in the tree. Like cute little spirit tails whipping about happily!

These are the seeds I planted in my garden. There really is just a huge collection here including Foxglove, Morning Glory, Poppy, Black Eyed Susan. Columbine...just a massive amount. They will grow up in a few weeks time and my fairy garden will be well on it's way. i also planted Sage, Catnip, Rosemary and Basil in my side garden. There is lavender around my tree and in the pot beside the porch. I want to plant more but it's still early in the season so some plants aren't available yet.

This is the Ostara cake I made for the goddess. It is the sour cream cake with honey drizzled over top. I'll be making little bundt versions of this for my work tomorrow.

And this is my new firepit! *squeels* I am so happy! I have been wanting one of these forever! I will be placing stones under it so as to make it look more formal and this will be my outdoor ritual space. Right out in the front yard. *chuckles* Next door neighbor saw me the other night doing a full moon ritual and he seemed confused and yet curious.