from Hecate's blog

why why why why why ?

On Ostara I did a very simple ritual. I got up at before dawn and laid out all the parts for my wreath and smudged them and left the incense burning. At dawn I lit a candle for spring, cast a circle, welcomed the Elementals, said hello to a goddess or three, told Eostre that I was making the wreath and dedicating it to her as a thanks for the coming spring. The wreath practically strung itself together, I dropped the circle, thanked everyone for coming and hung the wreath on the wall.
I was so full of energy I was humming all day.
It feels SO good to do that.

So WHY have I not done another ritual all week? Why do I tell myself every evening that I am too tired and will do one in the morning and in the morning why do I tell myself that I am too rushed and will do one in the evening?

Why do we avoid doing things that make us feel good and are good for us???
I say "we" because I know darn good and well that I am not the only one.

pagan clergy

I have been sitting on the fence on the subject of pagan 'clergy.'
I have been swayed in both directions. To me paganism is all about finding your own personal path to divinity, whatever that is.
You can't tell me how to connect to the goddess, I can't tell you. All the research and education in the world is only one small tool along that path. A good tool, a necessary tool, but still just a tool.

OTOH, the arguments for presenting a public face that doesn't speak of Buffy or teenage Goths has great pull. We all want to be respected in our beliefs, in our lives. We all get tired of saying "I'm-pagan,-no-it-is-not-satanism" as if it were all one word.
Having someone ELSE front and center to make explanations and create good will is very very tempting these days.

My mind was made up this week in a gigantic leap, a vivid light bulb moment. I sincerely wish that I could credit the person who caused this, but I have been unable to. Instead I will relate how this happened.

Driving to work, listening to an NPR story about the Pope in Africa. Someone from one of the many health organizations trying desperately to stop the relentless advance of disease in Africa was being interviewed. I started listening at the very end of the interview, which is why I don't know who this was.
The questions and answers turned to the Pope's remarks against the use of condoms and the interviewee said:

"...he cares more for his dogma than for his people's lives."

Raised Catholic, I think I had always known this, but never said it outloud. Yes, he does.
And I realized that we must NEVER EVER fall into the trap of believing that my way or your way or anyone's way of approaching the gods must look a certain way or feel a certain way or contain certain words. The moment that we anoint people to step forward and say that they represent Pagans, we are heading for the slippery slope of caring more for dogma (and for appearances) than for connection and knowledge.

Most of us are so indoctrinated, more honestly we are brainwashed, into thinking that 'religion' must look a certain way and act a certain way. Even when we think we have thrown off the shackles and started down a path of freedom and knowledge, those old beliefs start to tug at us.
Clergy, temples, sacred texts tipping into dogma. We are conditioned to it, we must resist it or this path can just become another way to control other people.

double posted, here and A Pagan Tapestry

Ostara

Long before I called myself Pagan, long before I knew the names to call the Goddesses, long before I saw a drawing of the wheel of the year, long before I knew that there were other people like me and that they did not consider themselves crazy....I celebrated the turning of the Wheel.

I have always observed the Solstices and Equinoxes. Sometimes I felt silly, sometimes I felt childish, but I still felt compelled to somehow mark these days.

I didn't have formal ritual; no lighted candles, no chanting, no circle. I was always aware of the presence of the Elements.

On the spring Equinox I nearly always found a few moments to be by myself at noon. I would give a silent thank you to the Spirit of Spring. I always felt that somehow this was appreciated.

My Spirit of Spring I now call Eostre, but I add Spirit of Spring. I had never, that I recalled, read anything about Eostre. I had no way of knowing that she embodies spring, childhood and celebration. I had no way to know that pastel colors, spring winds, the hare and easter eggs all belong to her. But somehow I knew all this. Not consciously, because I didn't analyze or really think about these things.

I just knew it was important to say hello to the Spirit of Spring.

Astrology

I am going to take an astrology course.
The circle that I have been invited to has a regular astrology course. It will start in a couple of weeks and run once a week until we 'don't have any questions.'
I'm thinking I could die of old age in this class.

I'm excited about this. I have shrugged off opportunities in the past to take a class and everyone assumes that I don't believe in it. That is not the reason at all. I know that the very little I know is just barely scratching the surface and it can be incredibly complex...it has intimidated me.

So I am going to do this. I guess I should trot over to the DCW and tell Ariel. He is one of the ones that I have made excuses to.

Wish me luck.

Raven Woman portraits

You know I love the work of Susan Seddon Boulet. I just found two of her portraits of Raven Woman. This one is titled Ancestor of the North. The one I just dropped into my profile is simply called Raven Woman. This one is on the March page of my new calendar. Either I have never seen these two before or I just hadn't noticed. Like I hadn't noticed the Raven that keeps popping up in my dreams and my meditations.

full moon

artemis, hel. eve, white shell woman, bast, eagle woman, morgan le fay, rhiannon, epona, diana, spider woman, lady of the lake, ishtar, changing woman, valkyrie, arianrhod, etain, isis, osiris, flora, hathor, sedna, amphitrite, fortuna, hina, demeter, athena, aphrodite, tlazolteotl, thetis, lilith, mary, medusa, minerva, pele, persephone, hera, inanna, ix chel, kaltes, themis, selene, kuan yin, goddess, gaia.......who do you speak with?

wonderous

I am working at my desk and look out the window to see...

a nearly full moon hanging in a dusky blue grey sky, sitting on the ends of the branches of an evergreen tree.

Tomorrow night I will join a circle of women and pay honor to the Goddess. Not to ask for anything, not to follow the examples of my childhood and beg for forgiveness, not to grovel before a scary deity.

Just to hold hands and be part of an ancient tradition of connection to the Goddess. to the earth and to the universe.

apropo of nothing...

I hate daylight savings time. I hate it, my animals hate it, it disrupts feeding schedules at home, at the barn, everywhere. It disrupts everyone's sleeping patterns, it means long hot summer evenings when the clock says it is time for bed (since I get up at 4am) and the sun says it is still afternoon. It's not like it is actually another hour of daylight....
I hate daylight savings time.

Just in case you were wondering.

The Mystic's Dream

After I saw The Life of a Witch (posted on A Pagan Tapestry) I looked around YouTube and found this. The Mystic's Dream by Loreena McKennitt is one of my all time favorite pieces of music and this collage is well done with some lovely images. Enjoy!

a different kind of visualization

I always have a difficult time with doing the 'visualize how you want it to be and not how it is. '
It is hard for me to focus on this and not let the change creep in or even the present with what I WANT to creep in. I can do it, but it is very hard and never seems to get easier.

I have been trying to do some magick related to a new business that I am starting and getting stuck in my visualizations with the process of starting it and not on a successful business. This week I tried a different way of doing this. If anybody tells me, oh yes, this is how you are SUPPOSED to do this, didn't you know? I think I will hunt you down for not telling me!

So here is what I did. I started off with the winter meditation (listed at A Borrowed Book of Charms) where you go down into the earth and watch the activity there. I did that until I felt very calm and centered. Then I visualized myself as just a spirit or an energy form and I went flying over to where I will be living in the future. I skipped past exactly where that was and how it looked and focused on inside the house, where I watched myself go about the day in my new work-at-home job. Details about phone calls and messages and return calls and my office, all the little stuff in a work day. Then I went back to where I was grounded, came back into my meditating self and was done.

For the first time not a hint of the present or the process slipped in to distract me, it was only about how I want it to be. It was quite enjoyable and seemed quite real. I hope that I have hit on a method that will reliably work for me because this has been a major stumbling block for me and I feel that it has sometimes rendered my magick ineffective. This has been frustrating because I knew what the missing piece was but seemed unable to fix it.

Forgetting my smartass comments above about hunting you down, I am curious if anyone else takes this sort of round about approach to seeing what you want, or perhaps another even more round about. How DO you make sure your visualizations are only what you want them to be?