Growing pains?

There is an amazing thing about growth and the process of learning. It doesn't have to hurt or be uncomfortable. How often are we given advice by our elders, our loved ones, or even ourselves that we just don't know how to integrate and put into practice until we are ready? It seems so often that we are not ready for this act of integration until we have been exposed to the concept in several ways, hundreds of times, or over the years. I may never know what the catalyst is that finally precipitates into a new realization, but I have found that, thank the Gods I am learning faster and easier as time goes on.

I have not been suffering from SADD yet this year. I am not sure it is even luck. I have not had to sleep more often, change my diet into something that is ascetic, tasteless, and boring. I have not had to cancel activities. In fact, I'm enjoying the ramp up to Yule this year for the first time since I was a small child. It is not warmer, sunnier, nor do I have less stress in my life. I have found that lately, as I feel hopeless, alone, uncared-for, or down, that I have for the most part, been able to name that feeling "tired". Its okay to be sleepy or tired! Its okay to be emotionally weary for sure. When I have been able to pinpoint the nature of my feelings, it has been much easier to give myself a break and move through it. I accept and honor my feeling but not necessarily become servant to it not drop everything to cater to it.

Last night, after a very full day of meetings, socializing, planning, kids, and a completed sewing project, I found myself not hungry, nor lonely, nor bored, but just weepy and generally hormonal. My partner and I had a good time, watching a movie, but mainly talking and spending time together doing nothing. We talked about my feelings a bit, and I had the space to just exist in the feeling without having fear of it taking over, nor really needing to do anything about it. As I let the feeling expand, I realized that the discomfort was from only allowing myself to feel within my physical flesh boundaries. I expanded the feeling a couple of layers out. It started to feel better. I opened up a channel of my chakras and ran the feeling through me and out. I wasn't dispelling or dismissing the feeling, but letting it flow. My hormone level increased, my awareness increased, I felt weepy, but then I also felt tapped in. Much of my problems lately had been from squeezing too much into too small of a space. I am more than my physical form.

This may seem obvious to metaphyical minded folks, but to know it in my head, but then transferr it into energetic practice were two different things. Much like I have allowed myself to be in ritual, I began, in a mundane space, to exist as my magickal self; integrated, connected, flowing, larger, more powerful.

This idea connected to something bothering me in my work life. People who know me personally see me as driven, assertive, and sometimes as a dominate personality or a hot head, and yet at work, I am seen as submissive, eager to please, easy going, and laid back. I feel shy often at work and in personal settings have felt less and less shy or inhibited. Like an insect that has to break open its skin to grow, I have been wearing armor that has been too tight, unyeilding, and unflexible. Impervious yes, but not dynamic nor adaptive.

Today, at first I still felt melancholy, but as I woke up and began to act in my world, I realized that indeed more of me was active and flowing. I remembered my experience in Binah, and recalled holding the Pearl of my dreams for this lifetime. I had more time in the morning to acomplish things. I felt empowered to do what was needed in my day and less concerned with the inequities of my job environment or the world.

Grace. Ah, yes. I drove past a bald eagle and felt as if it was aknowledging me eye to eye. I felt no fear today, nor pain. The frustration of the year of challenges was finally starting to settle in. I was starting to master within myself new ways to approach and use my own energetic fields.

The Empress, Strength, and Temperance.

Carry on.

SADD and turning inward

I have tried light therapy as well as taking a lot of vitamin D. Nothing seemsto help. Studies show that light therapy is supposed to do wonders.

What does help is letting myself sleep as much as possible, and taking it reallyeasy, almost like you would when your emotions are raw from PMS. The more Ialign myself with introspection, creativity and rest during the dark part of theyear, the easier it is for me. I gain a little bit of weight every winter anddon't worry about it. I am starting to think that it is not something wrongwith me, but my body screaming at me to slow down, WAY down in the winter. Idon't feel bad about pushing harder in the summer months that way either.I'm also lucky that my current job is very busy in the summer (May throughSeptember) and really slow November through April. I felt bad last year for notwanting to work in the winter months, this year I feel like I earn my due in thesummer and now can spend more mental time on me at work. I feel like this setup was a syncronistic personal blessing!

As within so without, as above so below but in a different manner. The worlddoes reflect how we should live in harmony with its cycles. Sleeping extrameans that you allow your younger self and higher self more time in control. Insuch states you actually are letting your other parts of self shine through andcommunicate with you. If its all go go go all the time, we subvert the shadowand subvert the child self and cut ourselves off from our power as whole,healthy beings. Winter is a convenient time for me to tap into that, just likethe core of sap of a tree, down and within is wisdom as well, waiting to betapped, so that like a maple tree, we can taste the sweet syrup in the spring.

Samhain Harvesting

I start looking at the year's work at Lammas and Mabon. At that point I am taking an accounting of what was accomplished and what I was happy with. I'm also looking at what isn't finished or not quite good enough. My goal is to complete that year's work cycle by Samhain. In forlkore tradition, it is customary to leave anything that had not been harvested in the fields to the spirits and to rot. The idea was that it was no longer yours to have after Samhain and the veils thinned. What was left was for the Landvaettir, the Ancestors, and the creatures of the Wild Hunt. You wouldn't want to eat food that had had the energy taken from it by another being. The food itself would not nourish you or could make you sick. Folklore aside, I deal with SADD every year so its helpful for me to wind things down and focus on myself inwardly and my family for the winter months.

Between Samhain and Yule, I follow the Celtic idea that there is a space of time between Samhain and Yule that is not of the year and is an underworld and othertime space. December really is culturally for the US a crazy time of overboard feasting, but also a time of family and joy so between Samhain and Yule, I do a lot of cooking, journaling, review how things went, give thanks for what was a success and for all the blessings in my life, then dream, rest, and plan for the new cycle to come. I also work with the Morrigan during the winter months to help cull away and clean house per say in order to make room for new things to grow. Brigid looks over my kitchen, keeping my family nourished and comforted and safe. The Morrigan help my internal struggles with the season and both temper and form the sword within me so that I can be a more effective tool of the Divine in the year to come. Finally I look to Freyja to oversee my relationship with my partner that we can be a healthy, loving team.

Mark, author of http://clearandobscure.blogspot.com/, mentioned that he just found out that leaves don't fall off trees, the trees push the leaves off this time of year. What do you want to push out or set free? What can be a joyous outward sharing to the world in brillant color so that you can peacefully turn inward in the months to come?

Wassail!

The 23rd Path

Last night I had a dream that I, as Hod was having a debate, or trying to have a debate, with Geburah. I was walking back and forth the 23rd path, pontificating on the aspects and qualities of both spheres and the relationship between the two. This was somehow mediated by Tiphereth or else I mentioned that it should be mediated.

So, this morning I looked up which card relates to the 23rd path. The Hanged Man.

Oh....

----> which means I need to insert here that the Rune study group met at the house last night, I chatted with them a bit. Listened in a bit. I also helped someone fix a couple of the runes in their rune set with a bit of corrective paint.

Why does He (he meaning Odin) have to be such a pain in the neck? So much for a break, and I guess I know what I'll be doing tonight.

Listening.

It also occured to me that I have almost nothing to do all of November. I plan on reading, painting, journaling and doing personal ritual. Emphasis on the painting. It will be neat to see what comes of it.

*Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule as the Hanged Man and Bird-Masks of Maat on the Tree of Life in Pentagrammaton (photo by Ben Last)

Admist the activity is a heart and soul of art

I live in one of the most stressful regions of the country, and yet it is also the Art Capital of the world. Here I am, artist by name, insurance agent by profession, and by practice a witch. I'm the busiest I've ever been. Yesterday in the mail I got a copy of the Pratt Institute's catalog. I am afraid to look within at the amazing layouts of art in process.

I just read a blog post from Lauren Raine. A goddess woman and artist whom I look up to. http://threadsofspiderwoman.blogspot.com/2009/09/reflections.htmlHer art is fabulous and her commentary suddenly slammed me back into my artist self.

Art was a part of my magick, part of my magickal process and journey. It was tied to it all and how I communed with my Muses and Gods. Something happened in undergrad as art became critiqued asignments and one more way to excell. I became cut off from my artist and depressed. Since college I have struggled with the practice and the "whys" of art.

I had a beautiful dream last night of looking into a stone surrounded well or pool of purple water with white lotuses floating in it. It would make a perfect painting. It would be good to go into the regions of my younger self, the below, the underworld to commune in that place. What right to I have not to share that?

Art can create beauty, evoke inspiration, peace, hope. One of my favorite paintings is one in the National Museum called hope. There is a woman in a voluminous gown and the dawn in bright pink hues behind her. She is my Dawn Messenger of Hope.

If I connect with God it is not about approval, critiquing, or what society has to say about it. There is nothing too personal, to private, to magickal or sacred to share. It is my duty to share these images.

There is the yellow brick road gleaming ahead of me. The sun has arisen and I will never turn away from it. There is as much change as I will allow.

To be continued...

from out of nothing, comes something new.

In the past couple of months I've been going through major change. My psychic vision and awareness is expanding. My understanding of topics I have been reading about for 15 years is shifting and changing. My concept of self, other people, communication, and my emotional reactions to interpersonal dynamics are all shifting, morphing, redefining.

The other day I made a connection between the singular lifeforce of astrological signs in connection with some of the same ways one might work with an angel or archangel. When the thought occurred to me, I heard a noise like medium sized brass instruments, colors around me got wonky, and the floor felt like it was tilting out from under me. The air got heavy and static charged and I felt as if I had phased out a bit.

I integrated another idea the other day that one can tap into the energetic fields of a person through electronic media and written text. I like the idea and had been testing it for several weeks. When I finally integrated it though, reading the book I was looking at was like listening to a hologram of the person. I was also able to tap into the images in their head that inspired them to describe the situation they way they did. I was using the text as a gateway into learning directly from the author. The shift of color, sound, light, and the floor happened again. My transpersonal chakra was wide open. HOLY CRAP!

Right now I'm playing around with the idea that this experience is similar to opening a zip file and dowloading a much larger set of data from the initial click on an icon. I'm not sure why or how, but I it is very interesting.

As another aside, City Fae beings are much different from the ones that live in the country and green areas. Without contact with healthy land spirits, I'm not sure what they live off of. That's not a fun train of thought if you take it very far....

Hecate sends me to the Harvest

I worry for some of my friends, the self-flaggelating, doubtful, the place of fear from which they start every day. I know its my duty to help them pass through this fear. In ritual recently the Goddess Hecate gave me an athame and a bolene. I gave myself a new athame to work with Hecate. My small antlered handled knapped stone athame just wasn't feeling appropriate. This new athame though is a real weapon. The moment I put it in my hand, I recognized that I could easily kill with it. Something in my head shifted, I was warrior and witch and this was a magickal weapon that I knew how do use on several levels. Oh, I get it. . . Oooooh!

I think back on the women's self-defense classes I assisted with and remember how changed the women were after that class. I think back on new witches learning new skills and feeling for the first time their magick affecting other people and the space around them.

I think about discoveries and new definitions found within women's sacred spaces. I cannot be too busy for this work. It is my path and my responsibility for having those skills. With Hecate's torch, hounds, and sharp dagger by my side, I look into the darkness. I feel the rolling, worried clouds, the wet blankets of autumn, and the bonefires yet to come in the darkness. There is a cauldron waiting for me in that darkness. I do not fear this step for it is not death, but transformation waiting on the other side of the threshold. Eyes and teeth gleam in the darkness, reflecting that torch. I am full of life and am looking forward to this grand harvest. Blessed be.