Elemental Balancing

I consider myself to be above average in the self-knowledge department.  There may be a lot that I haven't figured out about what I have to offer and where I am going, but I spend enough time naval-gazing that I am well aware of my own tendencies, feelings, and patterns.

Like any self-respecting pagan, I know my astrological chart.  There is a bit of paper with all of my planets and signs scribbled stuck in a binder somewhere, so I know that my profile is chock full of water and air, with no fire or earth.  I know that this is an accurate reflection of myself -- very emotional, but also intellectual; romantic but flighty.  I always joke that it's a good thing I can't get my head and my heart to agree, because if they ever stop pulling me in opposite directions I would be an unstoppable force!

The other day I did a ritual to work on my issues with depression.  I have been pulling cards and getting messages related to fire, so it eventually occurred to me that strengthening that element within myself might be the key.  Lo and behold, there is a ritual for that very thing in The Way of Four!  It was perfect!  Since the ritual is based on emphasizing the aspects of the desired element already in oneself, I just had to come up with some firey qualities of my own.  The book has an elemental profile quiz, so I decided to refer to that.  But as I was already on the page, I decided to answer for all of the elements, just for fun and the result was somewhat surprising, as I came out as predominantly water and.... earth. 

Now, before you start thinking that I'm getting worked up over nothing -- after all, it's just a book! -- let me say that the fact is that the more I thought about it, the more sense it actually made.  I know that I tend to dress and decorate in a rather earthy way -- I've always claimed that it's because I need that grounding energy in my life because I'm so flighty.  But what if that isn't it?  What if I have a lot more earth energy than I thought?  Sure, I don't have the dedication and nose to the grindstone attitude that I associate with earth people, but I am very reliable, loyal, honest, and straight forward

I'm going to try to be more open to who I am, rather than who I think I am.  Perhaps letting go of some of my preconceived notions about myself is one of the things I need to be doing right now!

Oh, and the fire ritual?  It was lovely.  I think I'll be repeating it for some time in order to support my work.

My triumphant return, and a story about a bee

Hi again!  Sorry about the long absence.  I'm back now, but I make no promises about how long I will be here and how often I will post.  I remain an "at will" blogger.

Today's adventure started with an innocent walk.  I figured I'd just take a quick stroll before lunch.... famous last words.  I found a wooded pathway I hadn't seen before, followed it past a hidden grotto (I'm only exagerating slightly), and then looked up and saw what could only be a tower of some sort.  So of course I scampered up the wet leaf covered stepping stones to find that it is is a tower of sorts.  Specifically, it is a look-out tower and monument to George Washington.  I climbed up the 95 steps in the spiral staircase and had a gorgeous view of the surrounding area.  I couldn't quite figure out which direction my house was in, but I could see for miles and miles.  And while I am outside of a major city, there was still more than enough fall foliage to make for striking view.

The feeling of the wind that high up is simply amazing.  If I ever want to do spell work that involves tossing something to the wind, I'll know where to go!  And it would be a fantastic spot to work with the element of air in any capacity, really.

The highlight of this little outing came as I was about to head back down the stairs.  As I was turning away from the railing, a bumblebee flew over and landed on my finger.  And sat there.  And sat there some more.  Honestly, I was starting to worry about the little guy.  But at the same time, I felt very blessed.  Eventually worry (and a vague fear that I could be wrong and bumble bees might have stingers) won out and I very gently turned my hand over, causing him to fly away.... to the railing.  Where he sat again.  I sat down next to him and apologized for having given way to fear instead of sitting with him.  When I saw him seemingly struggling to fly away I concluded that he must be too weak to fight the winds up there, so I encouraged him to climb back onto me (which he did) so I could carry him down to the ground level.  Once I'd gone down a few steps though he launched himself.  He landed on me again very briefly, then flew off.

In the end, my quick little walk only took me an hour.  :-P

I'm not quite sure how to interpret this encounter.  I generally try to avoid reading messages into events unless they are truly out of the ordinary, but this feels like it fits that description.  In the faery seership tradition, bees are the totem of the Sky Walker, or higher self.  If this was a message from mine, then I don't really know what it was saying.  Perhaps blessing my recent attempts to re-structure my life in order to move out of depression?  Or maybe a warning against acting out of irrational fear.  It could be both.

Wordless Wednesday: unfinished domesticity

(the completed portion of the carboy cover I mentioned yesterday)

The magic of the domestic

As the idea of my impending home ownership becomes more and more real, I find myself becoming increasingly domestic.  It's frustrating that I want to start nesting now, when it is least productive for me!  I can't focus on improving where I am, because I will be leaving it soon, but I can't do anything practical for the new place because I'm not there yet.  I've been spending a ridiculous amount of time combing through interior design blogs and bookmarking ideas on both craftster (for things I can make myself) and etsy (for things I can not). 

But the impracticality of the situation is not stopping me.  I've been embroidering a tea towel to use as a carboy cover for when we make mead.  Since we almost always have something in one of our carboys, it makes sense for it to be wrapped in something pretty!  I selected colors that will be part of the overall decorating scheme which I have planned for my new kitchen.  When I'm done with that I think I will begin on curtains for that same room -- I have them perfectly planned out in my mind, and that's something that won't be too much of a pain to move.  I made sure to measure those windows during the home inspection last week.

I'm also planning for my garden.  One of the many draws of the condo I am purchasing is that we will have a patch of yard that is just ours and not shared with the unit downstairs.  I'm starting mugwort and hyssop from seed and will purchase lavendar plants when the time comes.  I want to be sure that the faeries feel welcome in my space, after all!

It's natural that I find myself now thinking about the magic inherent in creating a home, the alchemy of creating a sanctuary for yourself and a place of welcome for your friends.  It's hard not to reflect on what my decorating choices say about me, and in turn how those choices will impact my life in the new house, not just on a practical level buty on a spiritual one.  We are influenced by our surroundings for better or worse, and our homes are the most intimate of those places, and the ones over which we have the most control.  I want to be careful about what I build into my life in the new house, for myself and for my husand.  I want to build in joy, laughter, passion, and serenity.  So mote it be!

Lancing the wounds of the spirit

I have been the tiniest bit busy these past few weeks, with looking for a new job to replace the one which is ending in June and with my husband and I making an offer on a house.  For reasons that are not important in the grand scheme of things I hit a breaking point earlier today.  One too many stressful demands were made on me, and I could no longer move forward. 

It was in this state -- emotionally ragged and epiritually empty hearted -- that I sat at my dining room table trying to finish an old embroidery project and listening to music (after several false starts I finally settled on Sarah Stockwell's "Dark of the Moon", for those curious).  Singing along with the music was helping me somesomewhat, but it was still just a bandaid over the wound, you know?  Then I reached a particularly beautiful song, and stopped stitching or singing in order to just listen to it, letting the words bathe me like a waterfall.  Something inside me was cracking open, but I didn't fully realize what until it reached what has always been my favorite part of the song: the last line in the last verse -- "I am your annihilation come to make peace."  Something rose up from inside, some deeper understanding that I still can not entirely put into words, and I began to sob.  The crying only lasted for a few moments, but in those moments I realized that I would be ok.  That my annihilation, my shadow, *would* someday come, *would* someday make peace with me.  That it's ok to struggle, ok to still be wandering lost in the woods, and that perhaps that is exactly where I am meant to be, perhaps where I am meant to *always* be.  And that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Wordless Wednesday: Happy spring!

Working with my Ancestors

I find myself working extensively with the ancestors of late.  For many people, this would not be a surprising statement -- many paths of witchcraft and other culturally based practices (Hoodoo, Santeria, even heathenism) place a great amount of emphasis on working with ones ancestors.  But I've never done this before.  Walking an eclectic path of my own making, no one ever pushed me beyond my areas of personal interest, and I have had no interest in my ancestors, no interest in the dead at all, really.   I set up an ancestor altar for Samhain once, but that was the extent of my journeys into that aspect of spirituality.

Now I no longer have an option -- if I want to continue down the path I have chosen (faery seership) I will have to begin working with my ancestors, as it is a central practice.  Strictly speaking we will not be talking about that work until our next intensive, so I could have chosen to postpone it a little while longer, but after the Conjure workshop last month I was inspired to get started.  So far, it's been an interesting ride.

I started by building an ancestor altar: clearing off the top of a bookcase, asking for photographs from my parents, and embroidering an altar cloth with an X to symbolize the crossroads where living and dead may meet.  I found a small chalice suitable for holding libations already in my collection of ritual odds and ends, and put it to use.  So far I have worked with the altar on three or four occasions (it hasn't been set up for that long!) and have given my ancestors peppermint schnapps and a slice of home baked pie.  Even with that little bit of effort, I can sense their presence in my life, and not just when I have the candle on their altar lit.  I'm not sure how to describe their presence...  perhaps it's warmer, more familial than that of my other contacts.

Another interesting aspect of this work is that it is forcing me to begin making peace with parts of my family with whom I never had a particularly good relationship. These aren't people who were abusive or anything.  Some of them were unpleasant and some died before I was old enough to really know them.  But now I am moving towards seeking a relationship with them as ancestors.  I may even visit the cemetery in which they are buried this week-end depending on a) practicality and b) whether I really feel ready for that.

Though I never would have begun this practice if left to my own devices, I'm glad that I am doing it now.

Springtime in the Cemetary

I decided to take advantage of this beautiful early taste of spring by taking a nice walk to a nearby graveyard in order to try out some of the techniques I learned in Orion's conjure workshop. On the way out I saw the first crocuses of spring coming up!

Once I got to the graveyard I knocked three times, as instructed and waited for a response. Since this is a fairly modern graveyard, the knocking was done on the metal pole of a chain link fence, but I quickly felt a sensation of welcoming, and walked in. This is the kind of modern, “dead” graveyard that I find rather uncomfortable. The headstones are just a little too shiny, and something about those graveyards always feels a bit sterile to me. But this particular graveyard is one I've spent a fair amount of time walking in, and it's not as bad as many. I like that there are always a few graves with flowers or other decorations, knowing that the inhabitants have not been forgotten. Since no one in my family ever visits graves, and since my deceased relatives are all scattered in inconvenient locations, I don't take that for granted the way some people might.

After some preliminary wandering to re-acquaint myself with the area I sat down near what I consider the center of the graveyard and did an Opening of the Faery Well, in order to attune myself with the land. I thought it might help me listen better when approaching the graves. Then I started looking for “live graves,” or graves which are still visited by the spirit of the deceased. I wasn't getting nearly as many positive responses as I had during the graveyard field trip during the workshop, but I did get a few solid responses. One was from a man named Mark. He was quite grumpy and more than a little bit bitter, so I moved on from him quickly. I got a response from another grave, but the woman there didn't seem interested in talking – I sat next to her for a few minutes, but didn't hear anything. Then I walked over to the grave of a 55 year old woman named Catherine. I got a really strong response from her! My palm felt like it was over a fountain of warm, tingly energy. And she turned out to be quite chatty! She seemed happy and well adjusted in her death, and quickly figured out what I was doing, though she didn't know “white folk” did that now. And she had a great sense of humor! We talked for a while, and she said she would be happy for me to visit again.

I accidentally walked right out of the graveyard without taking the proper steps to exit, so I darted back in. I took the opportunity to pick up trash for a bit before leaving again, this time walking out backwards and stomping my feet, in order to avoid bringing anything home with me. All in all, I think it was a very successful expedition!

Psychic Self Care

While in the midst of absorbing the wonderful knowledge gleaned from the conjure workshop, planning a very personal piece of spellwork, inching forward with faery seership, and (oh yeah!) taking care of the six thousand little things that make up daily life, I have been thinking about good psychic self care. Unless you're a hermit, you spend every day surrounded by people. Many of these are wonderful, delightful individuals who enrich your life, but many of them are not. Maybe they're rude, or maybe they are just radiating so much stress that some of it sticks to you -- it doesn't matter. You end up accumulating psychic junk. Plus, unless you are far more enlightened being than I, you produce plenty of your own. Over time that accumulation of gook is bound to drag anyone down. Some sort of regular cleansing routine should be part of everyone's life, especially if you are a witch/pagan/psychic of any sort.

I know all of that. And I also know that my depression means that I produce more psychic gook of my own than most. I am perfectly well aware of the fact that a regular -- perhaps even daily -- psychic cleansing would do me a world of good, especially considering how fantastic I feel whenever I do manage one! So why don't I do them more often?

I've spent the last two weeks intermittently pondering that question and trying to think of something I could do regularly. Do I want to use Florida Water? That has a pleasing and subtle aroma. A friend suggested carrying jet with me to repel some of that energy, but I'm having trouble finding any in my local shop. After encountering Garden of One's energy peels I began to consider whether I needed a purifying scrub for the shower. Since I prefer to make things myself when possible, I began extensive research.

After spending almost an hour researching different recipes for salt scrubs and the metaphysical properties of essential oils I had an epiphany: I was being an idiot. I have a perfectly good cleansing recipe, which I've been using for years -- equal parts eucalyptus and lavender essential oil in a base of salt and oil. The base has no shelf life to speak of and needs to be mixed in single doses, which is a big part of why I don't use it more often, but all I need to do is find a slightly more lasting salt scrub recipe, pop in the essential oil mix, and I have a dandy little psychic cleanser for the shower. And if that's not enough, I have my beloved bottle of White Light from Twilight Alchemy Lab! I use that sparingly because the aroma, while quite lovely, is also extremely strong. It will overpower any perfume I wear, and I like to wear perfume. That means that I tend to reserve it for emergency situations, and not for over day use. I've bemoaned that fact for years, but the simple solution finally dawned on me. I found a tiny decorative bottle and blended one dropper full of White Light with 4 dropper fulls of jojoba oil. It's just as effective as the pure stuff, but the aroma fades much more quickly! This is something I could use every day if I wanted to. And because it's diluted, my bottle will last that much longer.

The morale of the story: don't reinvent the wheel. Look to see if you already have something that can be modified to suit your purposes!

Fighting the mid-winter blahs

Having returned The Red Book to the library, I have fallen back into my mid-winter February lull. I'm doing much better than in past years (thank you light box!), but I'm wouldn't describe myself as terribly motivated just now. Of course, that is probably one of the lessons of the season -- we are meant to turn inward during the cold season in New England.

That said, I think it is important for me at least to resist the temptation to turn too far inward for too long. I am a champion navel gazer, and with my history of depression I shouldn't spend more time in that state than is productive (Yes, I just said that there is such a thing as productive naval gazing. And there is! But if you spend too much time in that practice you risk being sucked into a bottomless morass. Or at least I do). To that end, I am striving to combat that tendency towards winter moodiness, while also forgiving myself for sometimes falling into unproductive naval gazing.

The most exciting way in which I am working towards this goal is the two day workshop on conjure magic I'll be taking this week-end! Since I am usually much more focused on the spiritual end of the pagan spectrum, this should be an interesting experience for me. I think it will do me a lot of good to look into a system of practical magic to make concrete changes in the outer world. It seems healthy to have a balance between inner and outer work. I'm a bit concerned about the cultural appropriate aspect of a white middle class chick from New England learning a form of magic indigenous to the southern slaves, but I will be learning from someone who was raised in this tradition. It's hard to think of a more reputable source than that. I'm very excited about this opportunity, and hope to have a fascinating blog post describing it next week.