Still alive

So I've been scarce. I still have a lot churning in my brain I have to unpack before I can really tell much about it. 

I've been oddly disconnected lately. My altar sat in a mess for two weeks, I finally got it back in order, and realized (somewhat guiltily) that I haven't made any offerings to my gods in... Awhile. I at least haven't been begging their help either, so I'm not being exploitive or needy, but I need to get on that. 

Some of it is just business. After a few blissful months, work has been hectic because of vacations leaving us perpetually short a body. It's still nowhere near as bad as it was--but still a culture shock, and of course it's coupled with summer being such a busy time in the "real world". A few of my lovely IDGAF brethren pointed out that spiritual energy ebbs and flows like any other--and summer is a season of life and busy activity, so it may be somewhat natural that physical realm matters are keeping me tied and away from the otherworldly ones.

But I can hear voices, feel brushes of fire "out there" and I've slipped into old lazy habits of not making time to go see them. 

A new energy is approaching me as well, and I am 99% certain I know who it is--based on feels and readings and my Familiar's input. It's going to make things... Interesting. I can't even honestly question why he showed up. I know in my heart I called him, in my own way, without wholly meaning to, but simply in the way these things happen. 

I finished my fifth book since my Initiation (of 6 "learning opportunities" needed in a year). A Deed Without a Name by Lee Morgan. 

I enjoyed it quite a bit, though I have...a few issues with it. The author clearly has their own very specific definition of what a witch is--which is fair. I don't quite fit it, but still found s lot of value. That the book lends no real credence or credit to other ways of doing things, of other "types" of witches, may be bias or just "short book". The book seems to imply, for example, that carnal interactions with one's familiar or "fetch mate" are very common, but I don't know many self-described witches who've had encounters like that. The author makes mention of "the Master" but never really explains who that is.  Whether that is meant to mean "the devil" or some other force is never really clear. 

The author also lists several rituals at the back of the book--gives fairly explicit instructions (while stressing for some that this should only be done if you are already skilled in the area) and provides chants for them which she doesn't explain. Some are in English, but she never says anything about where they came from--whether they are made up or historical. There are also chants in some... Non-English language (they don't look like any language I'd be even remotely familiar with.) There is no info given about what language they are in, what they mean or where they came from. They could be made up nonsense words for all you can tell. Given the stress on being experienced before trying these things, giving mysterious chants in full with no context or background seems oddly dangerous a practice. 

This reminds me a lot of A Witch Alone, a book I found a lot of issues with--but still got a lot out of, in the end. I'd recommend it if the subject matter is of interest, but I took a fair bit of it with a grain of salt.

My next book... Since I'm apparently feeling both brave and crazy, will be RitualCraft by Azrael Arynn K and Amber K. It's... Huge and fine print and oh god I might be crazy.

Hope to have more soon.

What is witch?

What is witch?

What is witchcraft?

What is magic? 

 The warmth of the new sun at 7 o'clock on a July morning.

The silence, the din, the stillness, of the birds and the insects rising at dawn.

The smell of newly-thawed earth in spring.

The first bud on the tree. 

The curl of the fiddlehead spiraling open.

The morning fog glimmering on the strands of the spider's web.

-

The pitch and toss of the sea when the wind howls wild. 

The blue-grey and white foam and the smell of salt stirring in the air.

The rumble of distant thunder and the pale yellow glow in the sky as the storm closes in.

The exact moment the gathering shadow breaks open, and it starts to pour rain.

-

The play of moonlight piercing the pitch-black of the forest at night.

The heady smell of dew-damp earth.

The close comfort of the darkness wrapped around you like a shroud.

The sweet tingle of instinctive apprehension, when you hear the rustle-crack of wildlife stirring in the black around you. 

The feel of watchful eyes from the shadow, out of sight.

Soft earth, sharp stone, and cool grass beneath bare feet.

-

The flicker and play of flame licking hungry at the air.

The heat rushing over you like water as you stand in a circle around the bonfire.

Sweat on your brow and a chill at your spine. 

The fluttering sashay of robe and gown in the dance of candlelight. 

The silhouette of a figure outlined against the firelight, surrounded by velvet night.

Life force tingling in your fingertips and toes.

-

The thud of footfalls against the ground in steadily quickening rhythm.

The bite of exhaustion in your muscles as you swing your arms over your head with the dance.

Letting your wild soul take form around you, feathers and fur and claws. 

Howling at the moon as her light casts pale silver light amidst the murky blue-black.

-

The quiet thrill of old, forbidden knowledge and long-forgotten secrets.

The small spark of mischief in you, the quirk of your lips in a small grin. 

-

Feeling the pulse of blood, thick and dark and sacred in your veins.

Feeling it change. Feeling it slow to match the cadence of the drums.

Beat.

Beat.

Beat.

-

Tarot

I used to have a temperamental relationship with tarot decks. My first was a hand-me-down from my mother, who was into tarot cards back in the early 2000s but never did much with hers. They were decidedly hideous, I could never get them to "work" and they turned me off to tarot for quite awhile. I still have a hard time with traditional tarot decks, or decks with the traditional art style. I sometimes wonder if that first horridly ugly deck turned me off to them forevermore.

My second deck was a (in retrospect, no less hideous) "dragon tarot" I found for $15 at a local Chapters. I found I had ultimately the same difficulty with it - I seemed to have no connection to the deck, and trying to do readings was an excercise in futility.

I tried again with the more well-known Dragon Tarot, which is still pretty damn ugly. (Noticing a trend?) and had only moderately more luck.

The first deck I had that I spent a goodly amount of money on, and finally felt that connection with, is the Shadowscapes tarot. I love the art style, and I find the artist sneaky - a lot of the traditional symbolism of tarot is there, but she's hidden it in metaphor and used different ways of including it. It seems finding a deck "pretty" in some way, connecting to it artistically, is important to me. The symbolism and "traditional" measure of a deck is no good if I don't enjoy looking at it.

I have a second deck I was gifted from The Honey Badger, which is the Pagan Cats Tarot. I adore it, though I don't use it as often.

Through an interesting twist of fate, my friend ordered a deck called The Wild Unknown Tarot and ended up having a second one sent due to a shipping kerfuffle. Rather than have them pay to send the other back, she sent the money for the second deck (from me) so I could keep it.

So now I have another new deck I can't wait to use. It's almost the opposite in a lot of ways, to the Shadowscapes deck. Shadowscapes has a lot going on -  bright colours, complex images with tons of hidden bits and pieces to find. This deck is black and white with pops of colour, and very simple by comparison. I can't wait to get a feel for it.

Do you use tarot decks? Do you prefer traditional ones, or nontraditional? Bright and wild or simple?

For the Birds

Spring has finally sprung, perhaps a little bit.

I belong to a birdwatching group/organization on facebook. A few weeks past, a large number of people started commenting on a funny little bird everybody was seeing that is normally a rare sight in the province.

It's called the American Woodcock.

Woodcocks are native to Nova Scotia but normally shy, nocturnal, and live in deeper wooded areas away from common sight. They use their long bills to probe for worms in the ground.

When they got back this year, the ground was still frozen solid and snow-covered. They were showing up in unlikely places, desperate for food, starving, dying.

Somehow, the tale of their plight became a widely known thing, and the plight of all the other migratory birds arriving back after a long journey to find the landscape looking nothing like spring.

The response was amazing.

I've never heard local and national news talk about the plight of migratory birds. I've never heard so many mass calls for people to put out a little something, anything, to help.

My walk to work in the morning takes me through a pretty sketchy, very urban neighborhood. I saw piles of cracked corn and bird seed out in piles on the lawns of apartment buildings. Someone was back in our spot in the woods leaving piles of seed and chopped fruit. (We did as well.) People bought up nightcrawlers and fishing worms at stores to put out in dishes in their lawns. A local store owner bought massive bags of bird feed--and gave them away for free.

It was inspiring to see so many people doing what they could.

Spring is coming slowly now--weeks later--there is a lot more bare ground, green growth, but still so much snow. Things are not as dire, but they are still not great for mid April.

I had placed a handful of peanuts out on the deck one morning, just after (yet another) several inches of snow. I thought perhaps some crows would find them. They went uneaten, until several days later, when the snow had melted away. A pair of Blue Jays came and grabbed them up. I gave them more, they came back.

They're starting to trust me now, and they have me trained--in the morning, I hear a scream or a squawk, around 8am, of a blue jay on the deck wanting his breakfast.

We also keep a feeder out in our spot in the woods. We were there yesterday and saw it was empty. This afternoon I went out with my wife, and my dedicant (who was visiting) and filled the feeder. It took five minutes at most for the woods to come alive around us. Goldfinches, chickadees, juncos, song sparrows, fox sparrows. They were obviously needing the food. It made me beyond happy to see them all, so suddenly, and know that this is helping them even a little. If one more bird survives a miserable winter and this slow awful spring, it's worth all the money on birdseed and the wet feet and traipsing through melting slushy deep snow in April to fill that feeder even once in awhile.

And now it feels and smells and looks like spring is coming.

We'll be all right.

Spring has not sprung at all really.

I changed the name/URL of this blog. I wish it felt less like hiding.I'll be doing something a little more colorful and productive with it shortly.

Ostara took place as a very informal ritual, an indoor picnic and we painted eggs.

The whole foul mess with the nasty email sent me into a sneaky hate spiral more than I care to admit.

I am a person very heavily centered in logic, and also in self doubt, so it's hard not to take attacks of that nature to heart. It's also hard for me to acknowledge that whatever hope we ever had of returning to the community, ever, is squashed now. We're clearly not welcome. We had a small number of people support us--some in private, who then denounced us in public to save their own ass, which is ridiculous. We never called out the person responsible openly--they must have owned up to it, and spun it in such a way as to make them come out on top.

Lesson learned. Next time no prisoners are taken.

I've been trying, largely unsuccessfully, to get out of this winter funk. While the rest of the country seems to be creeping into spring, we're mired in snow, endless snow and more snow and more freezing temperatures. Birds and wildlife are starving to death. Returning songbirds are starving. No trees have even begun to bud. The other day we had a warm flash of 11 degrees, and I only then managed to get most of the 6-inch thick ice off the deck. My plant pots are still stuck in it. Snow banks in places are still over my head.

My dedicant (who initiates in a month!) keeps saying not to suffer the weather, but my god this just drags on me.

But I redid my altar for spring, covered it in silly glitter from my mother-in-law's easter card, sparkling butterflies and ladybugs and bees - and made orgami cherry blossoms to decorate it with, too. I kind've like having things scattered haphazardly on my altar, like they fluttered there.

It is, at least, colourful, to counteract outside still being varying shades of white and grey.

The blue/striped square of cloth behing my keyring on the "Norse" altar was an offering I made for Frigga. It was woven on my little board loom--she wanted one done in blue, and I was to use the striping yarn when the blue ran out, so I did as instructed. I think it suits quite nicely.

A little chat about a thing.

So, someone decided today to shove their nose into something that's none of their business.

I have mentioned (only briefly) that I started tentatively working with Odin since he approached me in October 2013. Honey Badger now works with him as well.

Someone in our local community thought hey were the authority on Odin and who he does and doesn't work with, and thought they ought to run their mouth on the subject to a mutual friend who at no point asked to be involved.

We are not friends or acquaintances with the person who wrote this email.  We aren't (or weren't) enemies with them either. This is not a new step in a long and drawn out war with this individual. They are a member of the local community but really not on our radar whatsoever.

I'm not sure what possesses people to make them think that judging and attacking the paths of others is OK. It's not. Ever. This is an "inside voice" moment--you can have opinions and thoughts about what others are up to, but it's none of your business, so keep your effing mouth shut.

Nothing we have done is "disrespectful". Nothing is harming anyone. And I don't need to justify my experiences to anyone, but in case you're curious: I never asked for this. I did not go seeking a deity to work with. I never wanted to work with any. The Alfather chose to insert himself into my spiritual life in a very unexpected way, sans warning or preamble (which I have read is not uncommon for him...) and I decided it was a call to something new, and not to ignore it. I have done a lot of reading, books on Heathenry, books on Norse Mythology, the Eddas. I don't call myself Heathen because I'm not, but I want to learn and grow and if Odin sees something worthy in me, who the fuck is anyone else to say "No!"? That is between me and Him, not you. You may choose to think I have rushed into this blindly--but there have been many steps along this path and I choose not to share most of them.

This person is a semi prominent member of a prominent local group that hosts events and rituals and claims to be open to anyone's path or truth and to exist to foster the growth of others.

Right.

Maybe they ought to know the true opinions of some of the company they keep? Certainly means I wont be promoting the group to anyone any longer as long as I know this person is involved.

Edit: I removed my rather acerbic video, as funny as I found it, it didn't really say anything new and was just angry spewing.

My friend the Honey Badger (to whom this email was primarily directed) has since received three more attempts at direct correspondence from this person. They're basically trolling now for a reaction, I suppose. They seem to think they have the moral high ground here--that because (in their opinion) we are "doing it wrong" we are "pissing on her ancestors" and everything she said is justified. She's missing the point alarmingly -- no matter how right she thinks she is, attacking the beliefs of another is wrong. We all walk our own path - she has no right, nor does anyone, to dictate that one path over another is delusional or untrue or "wrong". Unless there is actual abuse or harm taking place, you keep your nose out because it's none of your business.

The more you talk, the more your stupid shows. Keep it up.

Riptide

One of the things I read early into By Land Sky and Sea was Parma's mention of dance as a means to raise energy and celebrate the body.

I will confess, I love dancing, but my dancing skills are on par with Mass Effect's Commander Shepard - laughably bad. So I generally don't dance in public any more. (I had a brief spell in my early twenties, of acting "my age", going downtown to bars and getting mildly drunk on a semiregular basis. Amazing what a few shots of tequila will do with "I can't dance.")

This week has been a particularly hard one.  I had some depression issues weaning off the steroid, and a reaction to my migraine pills which had me at the ER unsure of what was happening to me. I spent most of today being gloriously lazy, doing a bit of homesteading, cooking, and playing videogames, trying to recover from the week. 

A song popped into my head.

A silly pop song.  With a fun rhythm.

I put it on youtube and tapped my toes.

I bought it from iTunes and put it on my phone, and put my phone in this cardboard tube that makes a great makeshift speaker.

And I started to dance.

I think I played it a good 20 times, resetting each time it came near the end. I danced like a little crazy person, arms flailing, feet kicking, no real rhythm or method or choreography and not a single sweet blessed fuck given. This was not my living room, I was not in pajamas on carpet, I was under a bright full moon in a summer sky, in a swirly dress and bare feet, stamping out splashes in the shallows of a pool. Partway through, I felt the weird exhaustion in my limbs, the realization that this is some sweet exercise, damnit, this strange buzzing feeling that was part breathlessness, and part...something else. And I thought back to Gede Parma and the mention that dancing can be used to raise energy for ritual and spellwork.

I'm usually a pretty methodical person when it comes to a lot of things, especially witchcraft, so it's significant to say I threw down a circle right there in the middle of the most random bit of floor, just enough room to dance, to get at my phone to keep the music going. I just went with it, grabbing the energy flowing through my body, through the air, through that half-imagined moonlit summer sky.

What I chose to cast, to release, is for me to know alone. But the experience is something new I had never thought I'd embrace. If nothing comes of my impromptu spellwork, I got a good workout and blew off some much needed steam doing it.

Interesting how these things come to you.