cross posted with A Pagan Tapestry

Reading blogs and reading my own email and sometimes even the comments on my blogs, I realize that it is difficult for us to leave behind the concepts of deity that we are surrounded with in this society. I am talking about the role of the minister, rabbi, imam, priest, preacher.....and unfortunately the perceived role of the high priest or high priestess.

Do you still, sometimes, think of your deities as being 'over there' or 'out there' or 'up there' and they speak to an intermediary who will tell you what they said?
This is one reason I left Christianity.

I speak to my goddess.
I speak to the elements.
I speak to the spirits of the land
I speak to my spirit guides
and
THEY SPEAK TO ME.

If some little voice inside your head is right now going ....yeah-but....please take a deep breath, tell yourself out loud that you do not need anyone to speak to deity for you and say something out loud to the deity or element of your choice.

We are so conditioned to believe that someone else may speak to deity, but we, individually, do not. People with tin foil hats might speak to deity (or aliens) but we do not. Ministers and other clergy who are somehow morally superior may speak to deity but we do not. The high priestess may speak to deity, but we do not. We can grovel and beg and pray, but we do not converse.

Please leave that thinking in the closet where it belongs. If you want to have a personal relationship with deity, spirits, ancestors, elements or anyone else, you can do it. It is not weird, you are not crazy and there are no special requirements.

I found a book that can help you along this path, if you are interested but still skeptical or hesitant. Michelle Skye's book Goddess Alive is primarily a series of guided meditations and rituals to help you connect with deity. She focuses on the Celtic and Norse goddesses and their associations with sabbats and esbats. I recommend that you check this book out, it might be available at your public library. If a different pantheon is calling to you, this might still be helpful in showing you how to research and write your own meditations and rituals to connect to a particular deity. If you are seeking Celtic or Norse goddesses then she has done the hard work for you.
If you decide to use this book, please let me know what you think and whether or not it helped you.

morphing blogs

I have quite a few blogs going on. My pagan blogs are mostly about my spiritual path, although Pagan Tapestry wanders about sometimes. I have blogs connected to business websites that are only about the business.
And I have a couple of blogs about my normal everyday life. One of them is a journal of rehabbing a horse that I rescued. The other is a blog that just sort of wanders around..... like my mind.

It started out as political comment last fall. Then after the elections it morphed into being a participant in Creative Every Day. That was great fun, I had lots of followers, I followed lots of other participants blogs....but when I decided to start up my own business, it fell by the wayside. I still try to visit and catch up occasionally, but it just takes way to much time to really get immersed in that.

I also took a stab at 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women and again, due to lack of time, I didn't keep up. I am still plugging away at it...if anyone else is I would love to know as the official book group ended, oh..eons ago.

I decided that some things were too compartmentalized and needed to spread out between my mundane blogs and my pagan blogs, at least this one, which is about my own experiences.

So this is my long winded way of inviting anyone who is interested to visit my mundane blogs, the everyday life of a modern witch, maybe we have more in common than paganism.

oh, yeah....click here

a little perplexed but mostly just musing...

BAST
I have mentioned that Bast has moved into my life in a big way.
It all started over a horse that I am retraining...a spoiled horse with a lovely soft eye who had learned that 1. people are not to be trusted and 2. if you are a raging ass they will leave you alone.

So, because I try not to bite off more than I can chew, I was approaching this problem with some caution...lots of caution....delaying tactics was more like it.

One day in a meditation Bast appeared and in no uncertain terms told me that the Celtic goddesses that I was consorting with had no intention of helping me with the suck-it-up and get-on-with-it kind of courage I was looking for. Actually that is not what she said but I am assuming that she was borrowing from my very worst vocabulary and lets leave it at that.

On the other hand...SHE would love to help me out with this and if I would just trust her she would help me and things would work out just great.

So I did, and she did and it has.

She is not subtle. Before we started training this horse she sent me to buy this pendant. I told myself I had to make a run to a metaphysical bookstore on my way to the barn. It wasn't on my way, it was across town in the opposite direction and when I got there I searched, not knowing what I was looking for, until I found this. Fortunately it was affordable.

I have several times started to do some research on her on the internet and she has stopped me. Do it later, it will keep, you don't need to do that.

Just recently I asked her about this and got a cryptic, why aren't you happy with what you know?
So I said that I wanted to do some research for the Black Cats and Full Moons blog with has a promised second part on the Egyptian pantheon that is only months overdue.
OH THAT! oh, then go do the research, but don't bother to try to relate that to us. That will come later.

She speaks to me more plainly than any other deity. I have a very clear relationship with the Elements and with the Trickster and I sometimes wonder if he is an Elemental and not a deity.
Anyway, I have never gotten such clear messages from a deity before.
It is sometimes strange, sometimes perplexing and sometimes wonderful.
I have to wonder if when the horse training project is over...she will leave, because she seems more interested in that than anything else. I guess only time will tell.

do I get any say in this?

I am Celtic by blood. I have always felt a deep connection to Celtic history, before I identified as pagan. I follow the Wheel of the Year, the Sabbats and Esbats. I feel at home in Celtic legend and myth and history.
So.......
I love the tales of Epona especially in her connection to the horse, I make offerings to her, I am a professional equestrian, I train horses, coach riders and have named and dedicated a horse related business to Epona.
She does not speak to me. I think she listens, I don't feel shut out, but she does not speak to me in any way that I am aware of.

On the other hand, I have had nothing to do with the Egyptian pantheon, except for some research for the Full Moons and Black Cats blog.
And yet Bast seems to make herself right at home here and has arranged things to have herself figure prominently in my life and in my rituals and meditations.

Half of me wants to laugh because this is so totally out of my control and the other half wants to stand with hands on hips..."hey!! what about me?!?"

festivals...

In that panel discussion in Florida that I posted a link to....there is a brief discussion about pagan festivals. It caught my attention since I had just posted about feeling supremely unmotivated to go to any. The consensus of that panel was that festivals are important to pagan community. We don't go to church on Sundays, many of us are solitaires, and even those who are members of active traditions still do much work on our own. So festivals play an important role. I am afraid I will have to rethink my position.
Especially because .....
This week I caught a killer cold, making me miserable, and I didn't catch it from any Pagan friends. If I was at Dragonfest this week I wouldn't be sick.
This is probably not what any panel member meant....but right now it is motivation for me.

guided meditations for sanity

Life has been crazy lately and not in a good sort of crazy way.
I promised myself that even if the entire world caught fire, I was going to find time to meditate this evening. Enjoy one of Ariel's guided meditations, be open to a visit from spirit guides, leave the mundane world behind for 20 minutes or so.
Pure sanity, quiet, calm, did I mention quiet?
I highly recommend this, often, for everyone...including me.