Yule

Lover and I spent Yule at Temple of Witchcraft. A lovely night spent with a group of people was exactly what he and I needed. Our individual flames were starting to dim like Father Sun. The infusion of light and love from fellow Templeites helped our flames burn brighter for the coming months.

This is the time of rebirth so Lover and I took the opportunity to become official members of Temple. The Priestess traced pentacles on our hands in anointing oil and announced our names to the greater community. Reborn we were, into the arms of a community we have grown to love.

May our flames burn bright!

Snowy Samhain

Lover and I were supposed to go to the Samhain event at the Temple of Witchcraft on Saturday but we got snow. Enough snow that we didn’t want to travel over an hour (and that’s in good weather) to go. Instead, we lit a candle and put it in the window. Lover made ginger cookies. We left some out for our beloved ancestors.

This Saturday is the Samhain party for New England Pagans and Witches. That we hope not to miss. I will post about our evening.

Candle Flame

Over the last few years I’ve been teaching myself to knit. Like most new knitters I often bite off more than I can chew when picking out patterns. That is, I salivate over patterns that require more skill than I possess.

This particular pattern, Candle Flame Shawl by Dean Crane, is no different. At the time I picked it out, sometime last year, I knew it was beyond my skill. But I was determined to learn how to knit it. It took me a year and many, many re-tries. I cannot tell you how many times I pulled it out just to start over. I’d hazard a guess of at least 25.

I chose this pattern because I like the symbolism of fire. Over the year I worked on this pattern (and increasing my skill so I could work on this pattern) I came to the conclusion I would make a shawl representing each of the directions plus two. That is, I picked out patterns for Earth in the North, Water in the East*, Fire in the South, and Air in the West. Also, I picked out a Sun Shawl and a Moon Shawl.

When I finished the Candle Flame Shawl, I finished one aspect of my big project. And now I will be working on Water.

The purpose of all these shawls is to wear them at rituals. Since most rituals are based on an element I will have a shawl to wear. Having “appropriate” clothing is important to me. Right now all I wear is a black shirt and jeans. I am not one of those Pagans who wears Renaissance garb (I am not a Ren person at all) but I do feel a little out of place wearing jeans and a shirt. I didn’t want to go and buy something, I wanted to make something so it would have my energy in it.

*I celebrate Water in the East because the largest body of water TO ME is the Atlantic Ocean which lays about 100 miles to my east. West is where our weather patterns come so for me that is where Air resides.

Primordial Ocean

Each year Lover and I spend a week in Maine. The vacation serves many purposes: much needed down time, communing with Ocean, and seeing extended family members.

Vacationing in York is something I’ve been doing since I was wee. It was the first place where I met Ocean. While still suckling at my mother’s breast, I was taken into the water by my mother. And ever since then, summer after summer, I have spent time on Long Sands.

Long Sands is such a special place for me. It is where I go to center myself when I’m in deep emotional trouble. It’s where I go to reconnect with myself. It’s where I go when I want to play Water and get burnt by Sun. It is where I chose to marry.

Over the years I have not spent too much time IN the ocean. I’d walk along the edge but getting in wasn’t on my agenda. The reason is because I don’t like to swim alone and Lover doesn’t swim at all. This year, though, I put myself in the water on a few occasions. And it was blissful.

As I walked into Ocean, I walked slowly. First, if was COLD (as usual for Maine’s ocean water) and because I had a twisted ankle. I took my time. I made my way in all the while thanking Mother Earth, Father Water, Grandfather Sun, Grandmother Moon and Omnipresent Air. I mantraed as I went in “thank you for your abundance Primordial Ocean. Thank you for the intricate dance you do with Grandmother Moon. Thank you for allowing her to tide you across Mother Earth.”

I came out of Ocean refreshed and not just physically. Spiritually I was renewed. I came out more committed to Paganism than I thought possible.

Greenman and Gaia

This weekend was one of connection. Connection to Mother Earth, connection to other Pagans, connection to Lover.

On Saturday I spent the day with the White Mountain Pagan Alliance. As a member of the group, I was (vaguely) helpful in planning the event. I didn’t commit too much because when we started planning I didn’t know if we’d be in New Hampshire or Massachusetts. I didn’t want to promise myself only to bail so I kept my involvement to a minimum. The day of the event I asked Stormi to put me to work where ever she needed help. I’m always happy to work as I am a hard worker.

The day was lovely. We could not have asked for better weather for Lammas. About 50ish people came which was a wonderful turnout for a first time event.

I was honored to be asked to pour the wine (apple cider actually) during ritual and as I did so I said “may you never thirst. Blessed be!” to which most responded in kind.

Sunday was spent with New England Pagans & Witches in Manchester. It was the first time Lover and I spent any time with the group though we have met many of the core members before. Another lovely ceremony was had* along the shores of the water.

When Lover and I got home we did what Pagans do on Lammas. While intertwined, I envisioned him as Greenman and myself as Gaia. The intensity of the vision made the intertwinning all the more intense. Generally I avoid these kinds of visions because, to me anyway, to do so means creating life and that is not something Lover and I want. Sure, we create life in our garden but not the creation of human life. What I realized the other night was to “create life”, to envision him as Greenman and me as Gaia doesn’t mean we are seeking pregnancy, it means we are seeking to bring life and love to Mother Earth as Greenman and Gaia.

*White Mountain Pagan Alliance and New England Pagans & Witches events were held outside. This is the way Paganism is supposed to be practiced in my opinion.

Witchy Hair

Yesterday Lover and I took our mothers, and my grandmother, out for lunch. It was a belated mothers day gift for the three of them. I felt a little like I was being grilled by the Matriarchal Council because all three sat across from Lover and me.

We talked about how I found my first gray hairs and how excited I was. All seemed a little taken aback by my excitement but I explained I liked the idea of being a crone and have been waiting to be one for a long, long time. Then one of them, I forget whom, suggested I cut my hair.

My hair is very long and very straight. It reaches the top of my butt. My grandmother thinks it’s too long and “wild” and wants me to cut it. My mother in law and mother both love my hair but they too think it’s time I cut it since I’m almost 40. I explained the reason I keep it long is because it’s cheap to do so. Both my mother in law and grandmother color their hair and all three keep theirs short. I asked how often they go in for the cut and color and the cost behind it. Each of the matriarchs understood where I was coming from after that part of the conversation but I could see they all want me to cut my hair.

At one point my mother in law said “if you have long gray hair it’ll be too witchy!” She said it with disdain. Once she said those words though, it cemented in my mind to keep my hair long and let it go gray without any intervention. After all, I’m a witch in training. And I love the idea of having witchy hair!

Signs from the Animals and Weather

Outside my door the animals of the New England woods have been visiting me quite frequently. I don’t know how to interpret all these visits and what message one or all carry to me.

A bear broke into the chicken coop two nights in a row about two weeks ago. It left the chickens alone though it did knock over the feed. It didn’t seem to eat any.

A fox ran up the driveway the other day at dusk. It had something in its mouth, something small. One chicken started squawking up a storm so I went outside to do some hollering. I didn’t hear anything in the yard so I went back in.

That night something crawled under the fence and went into the coop at 1:16a. Lover went out and found two chickens missing their heads and necks. A third chicken was in the driveway having escaped the fence.

Along with all this the black flies were awful this year. They finally died out and not the mosquitoes are unbearable. They are abundant and hungry, their stingers really biting into the skin.

The weather has been off. Winter lasted a lifetime it seemed. The snows just piled up and then it just kept snowing well into April. Then it got overcast for 12 days or so keeping temps cool and everything damp.

The rivers were all up because of the snow melt and rain. Then the water just disappeared. Now it’s raining again, after a few days of nice hot weather.

But somewhere the water has gone. The rivers all seem low again and the soil in my garden cracking.

All of this seems to be signs of something larger, something I cannot see but I can feel. I understand they are messages and messengers but I do not know how to receive and interpret this language. Something I can spend a lifetime learning!

Lessons from Osama bin Laden

The last person I expected to learn a powerful lesson from was Osama bin Laden. After all, he was the world’s undisputed global enemy. But he taught me something very, very important: rejoicing in the death of your enemy is not really helpful.

When I heard bin Laden had been killed I was pretty nonchalant about it. When I heard he was shot in the eye then in the heart by US troops I was horrified. Then I realized it’s what I’ve come to expect from the US. After all, the US is not an honorable place. The US takes what it want from less powerful countries, invades sovereign nations, and outsources its jobs and waste amoungst other things.

But when I heard about people rejoicing in the streets, I was disgusted. And that’s when the shame of being born in the US washed over me.

Will Hopkins of New Hampshire Peace Action had this to say

“Justice has been done.” That is what President Obama had to say about the death of Osama Bin Laden. One man was assassinated after a man hunt that began in 1998, along the way, his actions contributed to the justification of two wars, which left countless thousands of people on both sides dead, wounded, limbless, traumatized, blind, and deprived of friends and family. I wonder, is it the one corpse that our president thinks is justice, or the thousands that are justice?

I won’t mourn the loss of Osama Bin Laden, he was a very bad man, and who knows how many innocents he helped kill; but the reaction of my country, celebrating in the streets, makes me a bit ill. Trillions spent, hundreds of thousands dead, three countries in shambles (I include ours here, for certainly our war spending has destroyed us almost as if the war was here on our own soil); so that is what justice looks like?

It was only for a brief moment I saw people dancing in the streets and that’s when it hit me: I have been planning on doing the same when my mother’s husband dies. You see, for 30 years my mother’s husband has held her captive in a bad marriage. He destroyed her relationship with both her children and has barely any relationship with his own kids.

Since I was a kid I’ve been praying for my mother’s husband to die. Every birthday that’s what I wished for when I blew out the candles. Every first star in the sky I made the same wish. And all this time I’ve been planning on dancing a jig on the day of his funeral. When I was younger and more angry I visualized myself stabbing his corpse with a screwdriver thousands of times then pouring urine all over it.

My mother’s husband is still alive. We do not speak. We do not have any sort of relationship. When I see him, which is rare, I still give him dirty looks, death glares if you will. But the anger is dissipating. Sure, he’s still the abusive fuck he always was but now he’s old and decrepit. Now he’s weak and I could easily choke him like he choked me or scream at him and call him stupid like he did to me. But I’m better than that. I will not stoop to his level and become like him.

Osama taught me that rejoicing on the death of your enemy doesn’t do any good. Osama is dead and soon my mother’s husband will be. But I will not party and jig and stab and pour like I once planned. Instead I will bury the pain of a lost childhood when my mother buries him. And I will thank Osama bin Laden for teaching me such an important lesson.

Ascending the Belly

Last night at Temple of Witchcraft’s Women’s Circle, we ascended through birth. It was a very powerful and lovely ceremony. So many women sharing their fears and allowing the love of near strangers to heal their wounds. I cannot express how wonderful it was.

Ostracized and isolated are my primary emotions. And I don’t just mean mentally and emotionally. I also mean physically. I do not live near any members of my family and rarely have contact with them. My mother and I are distant on every level, and the same with my only sibling. Cousins, aunts, and uncles have close relationships with each other but not with me. It’s rare I get invited to parties, weddings, showers. I am starved for their love and attention, for physical closeness. When it was my time I focused on ascending into a family who WANTS me. Who respects me. I lack these things for many reasons but the root stems from the lack of respect, confidence, and esteem from myself and my family.

I’m not one who likes it when people touch me so to have all these women touch me, hug me, kiss me, was strange. I know I gave a vibe like “Uh, what are you doing?” while another part of me gave the vibe of “please give me more!” I could get used to the affection these women freely shared with me, many whom I met a few hours earlier.

As I drove home I realized I need to keep some Pagan music in the car for the way home because nothing on the radio, not even Jazz (my favorite) or classical fit my need. I ended up shutting off the radio and listening to my own thoughts. I kept self-sabotaging the good feelings I had after the ritual. As I realized I did this, each time I tried to focus on good things, on positive things, so the warm feelings I had wouldn’t disappear.

The woman who ran the ritual said some of us may get home and be very tired or be very hungry. For me it was the latter. It was the most intense hunger, one I have not felt before. I was so hungry I felt nauseous, extremely nauseous. I ate a couple slices of homemade pizza (spinach, tomato, and goat cheese) heated up in the toaster oven because it was 10p and I couldn’t focus on making myself anything else. I ate the pizza slowly. I didn’t want to wolf it down because I was afraid it would come back up. I found it was the goat cheese I wanted more than anything. Milk, I wanted milk. Warm milk. I don’t keep milk in my home so goat cheese was the closest I could come.

—

The feelings of love and acceptance, of respect, confidence, and esteem I had last night have been replaced by cold fear, rejection, and isolation. It took less than 24* for me to go from elation to despondent.

When I went through my ascension last night my cousin was one face I envisioned in my home with lots of friends and relatives. There is a conflict between us which I want to resolve. Her dropping and blocking me on Facebook is such a painful rejection and (to me anyway) a juvenile way of responding to conflict in general. I would rather speak to her face to face but we live several hours from one another so I’m content to talk to her on the phone but that has not occurred. I asked my mother to become involved which she has agreed to.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve envisioned the two of us living close together in our old age, of being close like sisters (neither of us has a sister), and caring for each other. I wonder now if that is possible.

I desire a close relationship with this woman and our other cousin, another woman. The two are about the same age and both have children. I am ten years their junior sans children. I wonder if the three of us, or any combination there of, can come together and be the sisters I’d like us to be. Right now it seems so impossible, so unattainable.

Building Physical Pagan Space

I don’t normally read PNC Minnesota because, well, it’s news based on Minnesota, but when I found this series posted on my favorite subject I couldn’t help but watch the interviews with Drew Jacob of Temple of the River.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3