So, I've been pondering the idea of doing a re-dedication. I've been floundering for a while, trying to find my Path again. Trying to reconnect. Trying to get back to my Place of Belonging & feel my Power again. I've had moments, some longer than others, where I did feel that. But I always end up searching again.
1 Comment
I love this lady. She's pretty awesome sauce. And very inspirational for me. Yesterday she posted a blog about labels. It's something I've been stewing over for quite a while & she said it much more eloquently than I have been able to.
I wanted to share a picture of the ancestor altar we set up at Sanctuary 7 for Samhain. On it, we placed pictures & personal effects of our loved ones who have passed through the veil. We honored them with offerings of foods they loved in Life & sat around telling stories about them & remembering. It was a beautiful, simple way to be close to them again. This is a tradition in our home. We do it every year, but I think that this year’s altar was my favorite ever.
When I was a young kid, probably 6 or 7 years old, my parents (and thus my sisters & I) started attending an Assemblies of God church. Coming from a large extended family that was predominantly Baptist, the services in the church were starkly different from what I had ever known before. They had loud, upbeat music. The people in attendance played tambourines & clapped along, smiling & singing loudly. Some would dance & run in the aisles. People shouted & waved their arms in the air. They cried & laid hands on each other in prayer. It was a world away from the hushed services I was used to. Not even ‘Have a Little Talk with Jesus’ could compete with the new church’s praise & worship songs. They even had a drummer. I loved it. During my very first Element Walk, which was about 13 years ago now, I was taught that each Element also had a Lesson to teach us in Magic (or Magick, if you would prefer). The Lesson of Air is ‘To Know’. The Lesson of Fire is ‘To Dare’. The Lesson of Water is ‘To Will’. The Lesson of Earth is ‘To Keep Silent’. In the beginning, the application of those Lessons seemed simple & quite literal, but throughout my practice, and the subsequent Element Walks I have gone through, each of those Lessons have taken on deeper levels of meaning. To Know became more than a textbook knowledge of stones, herbs, oils & chants. It has evolved to the understanding that I must know myself and understand my own Divine nature. That I must know & understand the energies with which all things resonate, the very pulse of Magic. To Dare became more than just having the chutzpah to walk the Path & do the Work. It has become the understanding that I must dare to face down my own fears & insecurities. To do the Work within. Often that is the hardest. To Will became more than just desire. It has become one with focus & intent, determination & stamina. To Be Silent became more than shutting your mouth. It has been an ongoing work to cultivate silence within, learning to listen not only with my physical ears, but with my Spirit. These have been important Lessons for me and, although I parted ways with my Teacher & my Grove years ago, I have carried them with me. They have served as cornerstones for my Practice. I’ve been reading a lot lately. Blogs mostly, and little known self-published e-books gleaned from the dusty recesses of the internet. What I’ve read about Chaos magic has titillated me more than anything has in a long time. That and I still harbor a long held fascination with voodoo and pow-wow, but I digress. In all the reading & following of the proverbial bread crumbs through tweets & blogs & links, today I stumbled across a term I’d never heard before, The Powers of the Spinx. Funny enough, it is the name for the very Lessons I have carried with me all these years. Funny, huh? I love coming full circle…. Anyway, a clever blogger wrote his understanding of the levels of these Lessons here if you would like to read his take on it. Also, here is an essay on Eliphas Levi’s writings on them that is quite interesting. He attributed the Elements a little differently that I have been, but it is still the same information. Give it a name, right? I was 26 years old living in Fountain City with my second husband, and then, High Priest of my Grove. It was late, a party had been going on for hours, and I was a little drunk. Ok, more than a little drunk. Some of our friends & I were engaged in a deep spiritual conversation, like ya do, and the subject of conversation was Ritual and what “exactly do you DO in Circle” came up. So, being the diligent High Priestess that I was, I offered to show them our ritual space and give a little overview of what it was exactly that we do in Circle. I’ve always been a fan of hands-on education. It was brief, and I don’t remember a lot of what I said. I do remember stopping, before entering that sacred space, and addressing Bran (not the fiber cereal, pronounced Br-ah-n) who was the Guardian of our Circle, to let him know what we were doing. It went well, I thought. Our friends were receptive. We talked & joked. I answered questions. I felt good about it. The next day, I learned two things that were amazingly pivotal for me. We like to have fun and, for us, holidays are fun. Winter is hard on us. We love warmer weather, fun in the sun, beaches & boat drinks, yo. So, we tend to get depressed this time of year. Especially with the sheer gimme-gimme-gimme madness that consumes the society that we live in. We loathe it. But, being Cancers, we do love the home & hearth & family vibe that underlies the season and try to emphasize that in our own observance. Decorating our tree is at the center of that.
|
CootieHi y’all, my name is Cootie. I like to paint plaster skulls. I also make jewelry & sew. I’m really crafty in general. Categories
All
Archives
June 2014
|