A New Year

So much has happened. Perhaps that story is for another day. Suffice it to say, this evening, I find myself quite... solitary.

I am thusly by my own choices... mostly. But regardless, this evening seems to be the perfect time to have a clean slate.

There is a practice amongst some pagans whereby they study for a year and a day before they are rightly initiated into certain traditions. As I have not found a group, I am a solitary practitioner. I have been a solitary practitioner of sorts since August 2010. I still have the note I made to myself the year I committed to giving myself a year and a day to sort through my former practices. I found them mostly easy to discard as they had become burdensome and toxic. The year was more a time of unravelling and deconstructing.

In the following years, I found small ways to begin following my pagan leanings. Mostly, my practices involved watching the moon and being aware of her phases. I would cast my wishes into a fire, set intentions, pray and sing and dance beneath her light. I became free to stand in my own intuitive beliefs.

This evening of new moon and thinning veil, I wish to dig deeper. I am reading through two books to assist me in my study. A year and a day to study more deeply, more earnestly. To find my weekly and monthly practices.

One of the lessons is to consider a list of words:
wicca
witchcraft
power
ritual
occult
pagan
spell
earth religion

I confess, I find myself comfortable reading about them and writing about them behind the privacy of my laptop. But I don't engage in daily conversations where these words are part of my normal vernacular. Why? Fear of negative reactions of others? Oh yeah!!

As I have studied, I come more and more to believe in a kind of magic. Not in some hocus pocus way. I find magic to be more of the change in me. It is as if I am more energetically connected to the Universe. Unfortunately, I don't always trust my intuition. Or maybe I just don't listen to it. The magic is when I do pay attention. Things happen. Are they coincidences?? I don't think so. I think it is more like Jung says... synchronicity. It is like being tuned in. When the Universe sends the message, it is important to be aware of it. Then when things come into our paths that we were already aware of, we are ready. It seems coincidental, but really, we were just tuned in.

I mention synchronicity because all the things that are coming together right now in my life seem heavy. But perhaps it is the right time for a clean slate. How appropriate is it that I find myself at this eve of a new year (according to pagan calendars) relationally free? And even more so that I took the initiative in each situation. Some, I may have dwelled in too long. Emotionally, I may have a harder time disconnecting from others. But I did not leave the ideas hanging... waiting... open ended. I closed the doors. And how interesting is it, as I think upon it, that there were three endings within a week? A trifecta. That is my sign. It is the smallest of nudges in my spirit that helps me to know this is the right path. A breadcrumb. A reminder. A cairn in my spiral path reminding me that this is the way.

As I sign off, this hallowed evening, I offer this prayer:

Summer Reading

I've been challenged to do a blog post on my summer reading list. Do you have your summer reading list yet?

I have a few books that have been on my shelf waiting for my attention and a few new (to me) books that I want to tackle this summer. Here is my list:

• "The Tao of Turning Fifty" by Jennifer Boire
• "Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner" by Scott Cunningham
• "Drawing Down the Moon" by Margot Adler
• "The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty" by Anne Rice
• "The Mermaid Chair" by Sue Monk Kidd

"Tao" was a gift I received several years ago. I have notes, tabs and glued in images all throughout dating back to 2011. I have not read it all the way through yet, so this is the first book I want to finish. I have loved interacting with it. I am on the eve of my 50th birthday, so I can think of no better time to get this one read!

The others are from a few different used book stores. I LOVE used books stores! Especially the dusty, books-stacked-to-the-ceiling, get-lost-in-the-maze type of book stores! I usually browse and sneeze my way through... but you never know what kind of treasures you will find in that type of place.

So... what's on YOUR summer reading list??

Ode to the Full Moon and Summer Time

Stonehenge: wikipedia

On Tuesday evening (6/21), I carved out a little time for my full moon ritual. It was also Litha or summer solstice. Even more reason for me to acknowledge the calendar.

The thing I love about mish-mashing my way through these times is that I can make them as elaborate or as simple as I like. Tuesday was simple, but meaningful. And powerful. I would have loved doing this outside, but it wasn't going to happen... heat, humidity, haze... not a great view of the beautiful moon. And I live underneath a bunch of 100 year old trees so it is late in the evening before I see her rise. This evening, I held my ritual inside.

I gathered my tools first...

matches

candle 

(I recently purchased a small while pillar candle for this evening)

white sage

incense

(my favorites are dragon's blood and nag champa)

slips of paper

pen

fireproof bowl

I settled in front of my altar. I smudged the area and all the tools I would be using. I started off by thinking about what things I needed to release or what behaviors needed changing. These full moon rituals are like a small New Year's resolutions. Each month, I get to purge energy that is dragging me down. I wrote the things that came to mind on my slips of paper.

I arranged my altar with things that are meaningful for me. Shells, ocean water, selenite, a large shell that holds the sage, sage, candles. 

One by one, I read my slips of paper out loud... "I release this... Be gone!" One by one, I placed the strips into my bowl and set them on fire. 

When each slip of paper had been reduced to ashes, I thanked the Moon and the power and energy that surrounds this kind of evening and welcomed the summer. This was my ritual.

Each one of us can find a meaningful way to mark the sabbats and esbats. The rules, for me, are meaningless. I try to create a template and then fill it in, depending on the time and setting. It takes the stress out of the planning and makes if feel free rather than restrictive.  

If someone tries to tell you... "You need to do it precisely this way or else"... just smile and walk away. 

If you are mish-mashing your way through this journey, creating a new path, I hope you will share your thoughts with me. 

Bleeding Words

I'm not really a poet. But sometimes, my emotions are too big to give words. I can write and write and still never feel like I've fully expressed myself.

That's where haiku comes in. The rule of haiku is the structure. 5-7-5. Line one. 5 syllables. Line two. 7 syllables. Line three. 5 syllables. If you add two more lines of 7 syllables each it becomes tanka. These are Japanese forms of poetic structure. And while I don't know the history behind either, I know that the forces structure makes me choose only the most necessary words. It's a discipline of sorts.

Usually, my haiku/tanka/free verse are about the brokenness and loneliness I'm experiencing. Here are a few I've written over the past several months.

Zen #atozblogchallenge

Morgan Mistretta
@thatncphotographer

I've done it. I've gotten to the end of this blog challenge. I managed to get every letter, even though I was late with some posts. But I finished it out. 

I'm ending with "zen" and some quotes to help find that place, that space, the quiet, the altar where we meet ourselves.

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.” 

― Thich Nhat Hanh 

“Letting go is the lesson. Letting go is always the lesson. Have you ever noticed how much of our agony is all tied up with craving and loss?” 

― Susan Gordon Lydon 

“Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.” 

― Bodhidharma 

“Who we are now is all that really matters.” 

― Amy Joy 

“You don't think your way back to joy; you open to it.” 

― Donna Quesada

Yoni #atozblogchallenge

Our sexuality has been relegated procreating and serving men. 

But Yoni is our sacred space, our mystery, the gateway to feminine energy.

It is ours to give and to control. 

But it is also for our joy and pleasure.

Men have been allowed to explore their sexuality since the beginning of time.

Women have been shamed when they act accordingly.

I believe it is time for women to get in touch with their sacred sexuality.

Yoni

Goddess

Shiva

Womb

Vagina

Sacred

Xenophobia #atozblogchallenge

We are so afraid.

Of the one who is not the same.

Of the one who is the nonconformist.

Of the one who will not adhere to social norms.

We are so afraid of the one who will speak up and speak out and look different and be different and sound different and worship differently and love differently.

Wars are started because we will not be tolerant of others differences.

Riots break out because we are not happy when someone wants the same rights as us… 

When they do it, it looks odd.

The Baptist are afraid of the Pentecostals.

Christians are afraid of Muslims.

Whites and blacks… and browns.

They have a funny accent.

Can’t they just speak English?

It makes me uncomfortable to see public displays of affection in public.

And my children are watching for gods sake!

The truth is that we all come in the same place.

We all die and go into the ground.

We all bleed the same blood!  

We cry the same salty bitter tears.

We are the same… in so many more ways than we are different.

I have a friend… No really an acquaintance. I like to think of her is my nemesis, even though I'm told I'm too old to have a nemesis!! 

Never!

At one time we thought similarly.

But as I've aged and my children have pushed me beyond boundaries I never thought I'd see and after I faced ostracization and shunning from a community that was supposed to be loving… I have changed the way I see people.

I don't have a lot of patience with narrow minded views. I see them as bigots. As homophobic and as racist.

Those are harsh accusations. And I standby them because of the actions I've seen. But in reality I have tried to become more tolerant towards them, because I see them as ignorant.

Ignorant

[ig-ner-uh nt]

adjective

1.lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned:

an ignorant man.

2.lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact:

ignorant of quantum physics.

3.uninformed; unaware.

4.due to or showing lack of knowledge or training:

an ignorant statement.

Ignorance can be fixed.

With education and communication.

And patience.

No, I don't claim to be enlightened. Life experiences have changed me.

Hard questions that could no longer be answered from my belief system.

Doubt which led to personal research.

History that became tradition and mythology rather than fact.

Falling in love with people who were … different.

I'm still ignorant. But my mind and heart are open to people.

Not their religion.

Not there gender identification.

Not there sexual orientation.

Not their differences.

But our similarities.