Turning the Wheel

We celebrated Samhain with a bang this year. We always do something, if we're not away, but this year we did a fairly planned ritual, and invited a bunch of good friends to join. We made poppets, and buried ourselves in effigy to "lay to rest" a part of ourselves that no longer served. My coven dressed in robes with eerie face paint to play spectres of death, silently joining us on a winding path into the woods and our spot there. We celebrated afterward with a feast of finger foods and snacks. All in all, it was a lovely night. I feel like my focus was more on "running" the ritual and keeping to my part, more so than participating in the intent of the ritual, but that's OK with me. I think of it as a worthy small sacrifice, that maybe this ritual was more for others than for myself. It was a ton of fun and looked awesome, and went off mostly hitch-free. Can't say fairer than that. 

The clocks went back Sunday morning (we observe DST here). The change is an abrupt and jarring one, going from dusky in the morning when I leave for work, to sunny (for now) and it is now dark when I leave. This means I take the bus in the evening now rather than walk, which sadly robs me of a good chunk of my physical activity every day. (My walk takes me through a less than great neighbourhood. I won't travel it alone after dark.) 

The change is a forced reminder that Samhain is the end of fall, that the darkness we celebrate is not just death, not just the memory of those who have gone before, but the coming months of dark with the turn of the seasons.

I have a love/hate relationship with winter. 

I hate being cold, hate a runny nose and burning cheeks and everything hurting for 20 minutes after I've come inside as blood returns to chilled limbs. I hate dragging under the weight of boots and a heavy coat. I hate getting on the bus the morning to go to work on a day to supposed to storm, knowing I may get stranded, may not get home til 3 hours later than I should, knowing I should be home safe and warm. I hate Christmas, a new development. I hate commercial Christmas. Carols start playing here November 1, all the stores are already waving signs in my face reminding me that my love is quantified by how much I spend on my loved ones. 

But I love the pure silence and dark of a night where snow is falling, glittering on the grass, under the streetlights. I love the crunch of hardened snow under my boots. The clean white clinging to trees like they've been glittered with diamonds. I love seeing new birds, birds from the north seeking refuge where it's warmer, but not too warm. I love feeling drawn in close to home and my chosen family, celebrating with food and drink, honouring our heritage, our ancestors, and our bonds with each other. I love being warm inside and watching the wind howl and snow swirl outside. 

I love hearing the earth stir in her sleep.

When I was younger and my life was run by school time, the seasons seemed to have less meaning than they do now. Summer meant freedom, as did Christmas, winter meant the occasional snow day. Fall was the embodiment of evil, the unwelcome return to drudgery and boredom. I had no appreciation for the season itself and what it meant.

 Maybe it's something I'm growing into with age, or as I get closer to my practice and spirituality. I feel the wheel turn, feel the earth in her cycles and know in my heart that every time has a purpose, snotty mittens and all.

I'm really so bad at this, you guys.

I'm pretty sure all of my updates are "long overdue" by the time they happen. Drat.

I finished Essential Asatru. It had a slower start, and there was a lot of history crammed into the first section of the book that made my head spin a bit. It almost felt perhaps too condensed? Otherwise, a lot of rehashing what I found in the Practical Heathen, but with some new insights which were nice to have. I'll have to apologize, as I've actually had the book done for weeks. ... heh. Which means, since we also did our Lughnasadh ritual last month...

I'M DONE! WOO!

I started on a book I wanted to read purely for the hell of it:

 Enjoying it so far! I started to set up my altar for Rune work, but I'm not terribly happy with it right now. It feels...cluttered and yet empty, and just not laid out the way I want it to be.

Luughnasadh was done very late into August, since we wanted to wait for it to actually feel like "first harvest" (one thing I read and agreed 100% with in A Witch Alone was that the sabbats were once based not on fixed dates but on seasonal changes and would have moved around each year with things like last frost and first harvest.) Here is the garden in it's heyday:

It is starting to peter out pretty badly now, partly due to colder nights, and partly because the plants are all far too big for the containers they are in. In some cases this is my bad--I was more successful than I thought I would be. In some cases, like the tomato from my grandmother, everybody who got one this year says they were painfully slow to fruit (and then to ripen) but got explosively big very fast. So now it's a bit of a struggle, keeping everything alive to ripen fruit as much as possible before things have to be picked regardless of readiness. My pepper plants actually have peppers on them, small and not red yet--I am hoping beyond hope that we get at least a couple before the frost sets in, but it's hard to say. Lesson learned for next year--start everything earlier, and buy bigger pots!

Our pumpkin is ripening--we technically have 3, but two are so little they're likely going to be decor rather than pie filling. The one big one though, is a lovely size and is ripening up gloriously. I can't wait to roast this little bugger.

 That's only about 3 days difference in ripening. It'll be ready in no time at this rate!

Tonight I started further work on my staff, did some of the initial woodburning. The "cords" at the top are to set a space for possibly writing runes, not sure yet. The spiral shells were just an idea I had which I liked.

 I have another big update/story to tell, but I want to do that separately, and probably as a video, as my wrists/arms are in a lot of pain typing right now because of work.

We're working now, Renee and Drew and Amy and I, on laying out the framework for the IDGAF Initiation ritual. which Amy and I and Renee will be taking part in at this time. We're also considering doing a coven initiation ritual for the four of us to take part in, since we have never formally done so.

Stay tuned.

Long awaited (maybe) long overdue (very yes) pictures

Woo! I've only been promising to do this for...uh...how long?

Photos!

First is my current progress on my staff:

I have a crystal to set in the "fork", and I want to woodburn designs into it before I oil it.

I reworked my altar, using a cloth I got at Little Mysteries, and a statue of my guide Ayla I just finished painting. I took the fertility phallus down, and replaced it was a vase of wheat stalks, since we're into the early part of harvest season now. I have also reworked my corner altars, but I'll get photos of them next time.

You may notice in that photo that I have a new athame-- and it's pretty sparkle-tastic. I bought it, and then realized the package warned it might contain lead (more than likely in the brass pommel and guard.) So I coated it with a rustguard varnish, paint, glitter, and more varnish, one, to make it feel more unique to me, and two, to protect myself. I know handling lead itself isn't too bad, but I'm super paranoid about that stuff and don't want to be constantly running to wash my hands after handling it.

Plus, I think it looks badass.

I should also share, thanks to a friend who works at a leather/dead-animal-bits store, Renee and I now have a steer horn apiece, to clean and cure to use as drinking horns.

So stoked.

On Wednesday night we had a bit of a misadventure with a friend and a hanger-on she had been dragging about for awhile. It was probably one of the more formal and intense workings I've done...ever, really. The next night, I felt it prudent (since it's that time of year anyway, and because of everything that went down) to refresh, bless, and ward the apartment. All of the sigils have been renewed, and every means into and out of the house, including fan vents, taps, drains...have all been blessed.

I'm also happy to announce I'm almost done my IDGAF reading! I chose Essential Asatru by Diana L Paxson as my final book, and I only have about 30 pages left to go! I'll talk about it in greater detail once I'm done... This was only meant to be a quickie!

Night all, and enjoy the supermoon tonight!

Meat and P'taters

So I said I'd make a more beefy post, and I meant it.

I haven't been keeping on top of things nearly as well as I should be. Work got pretty intense about 3 months ago, and stayed that way for a really long time. I have a body that can't really handle the desk job I have; a lot of RS pain in my hands and wrists, my neck and back get messed up. Between the physical pain (and being unable to avoid it as we were call after call after call) I started getting a lot of spiraling mental health issues including panic attack and severe stress. Not out of the fire yet, but maybe it's cooling off a little...
Not an excuse, but I have at least been keeping my practice in my mind, and keeping up with my "walking meditations" I tend to do when I'm on my morning commute. And...

Guys my reading is caught up.

I've been beyond stressed out, since the very first book (The Norse Mythology monstrosity) took me twice as long as it should have, that I'd be in full blown panic crunch mode by now.

And then I blasted my way through The Practical Heathen's Guide to Asatru like a goddamn space cannon. And now, here we are, the trailing end of month five, and I'm maybe half an hour away from finishing book five, Witch: A Magickal Journey by Fiona Horne.

I wanted to touch base a bit more in-depth on my feelings about Practical Heathen. I went into it excited, since I was finally going to get the modern pagan/religious/spiritual perspective on the myths I read about in my first book.

First off, I was surprised at the number of little things I found I was reading about that have already been some part of my practice or belief, how many things "clicked". One of the bigger ones was the concept of animism - everything has a spirit, a soul, an energy. She refers to them as "wights", that everything alive or otherwise is a "wight". I've always felt this, and this has been a huge factor in my belief system since I considered myself pagan, and even a bit before I came around to that. Even manmade things and electronics. I tend to personify electronics I use a lot--my computer, my camera, my phone, the xbox--and get pretty attached to them. I honestly feel a lot of these objects absorb the energy of their makers, or their owners--a computer, like any tool, takes on some of the one who uses it. I've always had a stupid amount of luck with (most) of my electronics. I tend to get a lot longer out of them than is logical (says the gal who used to work in computer retail and knows how often things break down.) and usually I will try to fix them myself if me an' google can figure out how.

I really really liked learning about blots, and sumbles. She gave good examples of really simple solo rites, and more involved ones for groups or certain occasions. I'm a pretty firm believer that if your intention is in the right place, the only "wrong" way to do something is "half-assed", but it's nice to have a starting point for communication with the gods.

She was also very open-minded in acknowledging that certain heathens do things differently or that something is how "most" heathens do it, implying "not all". One review I read, and agreed with, is she was very fair in her discussion of Loki, actually devoting a small "annex" to the issue posed by his role in the mythology and whether or not he is worshipped. I knew there were heathens who do not like Loki, and there were "Lokeans" but didn't really understand the nature of the division or what the "norm" was. I feel like I sort of do now.

Overall I was a big fan too of her writing style. It tended towards more relaxed and informal in tone, which I seem to absorb from better than the more "mystical" or stuffy writing style. She threw in a bit of light humor and it was an easy, engaging read. I may look into reading Essential Asatru by Diana Paxson as my last book, to compare, but I haven't decided yet. 

On to Fiona Horne...

This book is pretty awesome. It's lightweight and kind of irreverent in the writing style, which seems to be my preference (see above) as it feels more conversational than academic or fluffy. I've openly giggled a bit more than once.

I'm not necessarily learning a lot about the craft in general that I wasn't already familiar with, though there are a TON of really good ritual and spell ideas in this book which I am absorbing into my mental arsenal of ideas for things. It makes the reading sometimes a bit awkward, as my impatient nature wants me to skip over spells for things I have no interest in (ie. a love spell) but I've been forcing myself to read this cover to cover, since even in a spell I have no specific use for, I may get ideas for something I WILL use.

One thing she seems to refer a lot to is the use of spoken words/phrases during spell work, something I've always had a hard time doing. My most powerful and effective spellwork has always had a spoken component, but I always feel silly saying things out loud. It's something I'm slowly trying to get over, as I think that it helps me focus a lot. She also talks a lot about using an athame. The athame has always been a trouble tool for me. I'm on my third. I'm always super enthused about them when I get it, but my enthusiasm always seems to taper off, like there's something that doesn't quite... fit. We'll see how number 3 does. I did put in a message to a local blacksmith about making a custom blade, which I'd fit my own handle to. I'd have to save up, but it may well be worth it--to have something crafted specifically for me, that I can then "finish" myself might make it more "mine".

I will get some photos soon, of my staff (which really does exist honest) and my altar with its lovely new cloth, and my crazy balcony garden.

Happy soon-to-be-Lughnasadh!

Quick Update

Hey everybody. Just a quickie.

Finished the Practical Heathen's guide to Asatru. Loved it. I don't know if I'd call myself asatru/heathen any time soon, but there were a lot of concepts discussed in the book that were already part of my practice or belief system in some way, under different names. I will write more on it soon, as I have some specifics I'd like to discuss.

My new book I've started is Witch: A Magickal Journey by Fiona Horne. I'm lucky to have a copy of it, which Amy/Jackalope had from back when it was in print.

More meaty update soon, I promise!

Progress

Oh gods guys, it's scary to think there's like, a month and a half left of this. I am so behind on reading, like, I can't even.

But I did finish A Witch Alone. Final thoughts? Really good ideas for meditations, rites, etc. Super fluffy, somewhat preachy, and maddeningly contradictory otherwise. Still perma creeped by her very love n' light approach to deities. But I did take some things from the book, to be sure.

My next book is The Practical Heathen's Guide to Asatru by Patricia M. Lafayllve. Despite starting it less than a week ago, I'm over halfway through it. After reading that other Norse Mythology book at the start of my IDGAF process, I've been wanting to get into a more modern pagan aspect of looking at Norse mythology, deities, and associated practice. I'm not necessary looking to get into Asatru specifically, but I am finding a lot of what I'm reading already meshes pretty closely with my worldview, beliefs, and things I've been doing as part of my practice for quite awhile. I think the fact that I've been specifically looking forward to reading about this is part of why I'm burning through the book so quickly. It also made me go buy a bottle of mead, because mead is mentioned in the sense of use in ritual a lot and I haven't had mead in quite awhile. There is only one kind buyable here, and it used to be awesome but the last few times we had it, it sucked pretty bad. Bum batch, I guess. Ours wont be ready for awhile, but I thought I'd give theirs another shot...this bottle seems better. Maybe just because I really wanted it?

Our local pagan book/goodie shop is closing at the end of next month, after nearly 20 years of business. Our good friend Renee will be out of a fulltime job, and my wife will be out the occasional weekend of part-time casual work. She and I met in that store, and most of my tools which can't be handmade, my crystals, and incense, and candles, are from that store. There is nothing that compares with it in our city, so I'm pretty... sad, and bummed. I went last week with Amy, Visa in hand, and dropped an amount of money I would normally never spend all at once. But I figure, they were things I will not be able to easily get once the store is gone--and since I had the means to get them, I'd rather have them now than pick through leavings once they start selling out of things. I was too late to get a little cast-iron cauldron, which is something I'll have to source elsewhere since I've wanted one for awhile.

I'm going to be updating my altar tonight, and we're doing a full moon consecration ritual. I haven't forgotten I said I'd post a photo of my staff--it's coming along well, I have the sanding done. Now for woodburning, and then oiling, and then affixing my crystal I picked out to go in it. It'll be awhile yet, since I'd kinda like to woodburn some runes into it, but haven't the knowledge to make a sound choice on which to use. I have a book to read called Taking Up The Runes by Diana Paxson, but it'll have to wait until I'm more secure in being able to finish my IDGAF reading.

Cheers for now.

Idgaf Update - A Witch Alone, and a Staff

Video should be fairly self explanatory.

I will get a photo up soon of the staff-I have almost the entire part I'm sanding down, sanded down.

I also need to mention I did go back the next night and clean up all that garbage. I don't outright mind people hanging out in the woods to smoke their weed (I'd rather that than the smell coming into our apartment if they're neighbors) but I wish they'd clean up after themselves.

I should point out I feel always slightly awkward discussing rituals in great detail unless it is something I was planning. Weird like that, I guess. If I'm sparse on details, it's not that it wasn't interesting, it's that I sometimes feel oddly exposed sharing them.

IDGAF Update (Long overdue)

Fair warning: This is basically 13 minutes of me talking, while the video sits there staring at my pots of paint. You've been warned.








Also if anybody is interested, here is the finished product of the dragon I was painting in the "video":

The Way of the Hedge Witch

So I've been pretty bloody awful at writing lately.

My current book that I am working on now is "The Way of the Hedge Witch" by Arin Murphy-Hiscock. I'm enjoying it so far. I had previously read The Way of the Green Witch by the same author, and had enjoyed that as well.

The book is good, though some of the information is very general and touched on very lightly, it takes a nice angle of recognizing spirituality in every thing you do, and devoting time to recognize the significance of daily tasks. I'm enjoying some of the ritual suggestions for create a symbolic "hearth" in your home.

It is a very light read, and I would probably cross-reference the author's information on deities and household spirits, as it's too general to perhaps be overly trustworthy. But y'know, deities terrify me and aren't something I'd consider invoking lightly, so...

I need to buckle down and read though, because we're almost at month 3 and I'm done 1 and 3/4 books..eep!

Work and life and everything in general has been a bit crazy these last few weeks.

Honey Badger posted a blog post prompt:

In the busy world we live in, how do you find time for your spiritual self? How do you maintain your spiritual growth and nurture your inner connection to deity in between meetings, phone calls, traffic jams, family, friends and everything else you do?

One of my favorite times of each day has become my morning walk to work from the bus stop. I could bus closer-I intentionally get off where I do and walk, about 2km, to work. I like the exercise, the fresh air, and I usually put my tunes in and just let my mind go. It isn't always a spiritual place it ends up in, but a lot of the time I do end up having deeply philosophical thoughts, almost meditative experiences--as much as one can have, when there are streets to be crossed and you're walking in a less than stellar part of town. The music is the key; during my workday, as well, if I'm having "a day", I will often pop in my earbuds on my break or lunch and listen to a few songs. When I can't find a specific, set-aside time to be "spiritual", I find those little moments of almost-meditation do wonders for helping me reconnect.

Beltaine

This is a big picture dump upcoming, since photos are worth a thousand words and I really think I am too sleepy for that many words right now. Like man.

Our coven had our Beltaine ritual tonight, which was "my" ritual to host/run, and part of our monthly ritual for IDGAF. We used Gods Be Praised's dad's yard, with a firepit, so we had a decent fire going. Before the ritual we roasted hot dogs, and afterward made S'mores.

Since none of us have a "hearth" to relight from our Beltaine fire, we each took a lantern with a tealight, and lit it in the fire, after tossing in pieces of parchment on which we had written things that sparked our creativity, passion, inspiration, or excitement. The candles can be relit, and used to light other candles and thus share that energy around our homes.

(These lanterns were $5 at a local grocery chain and are metal. The little silver one is Jackalope's, and was from walmart since she didn't have one. Mine is the red. Hee.)

Good times.

One thing I've definitely had to coax myself into has been altar remodeling. I used to leave my altar largely stagnant unless I got something new. I've been having a LOT of fun changing it around for the sabbats, even if there's only been Beltaine and Ostara so far that I've really changed it up for.

For my altar for Beltaine, I really had planned on sticking more with "fire" than "fertility, so I added a dragon statue, and a wooden piece I painted to look like a salamander. I did end up adding a small "lucky frog" figure for fertility.

Then, yesterday, I ended up at a local store called the Black Market, which sells a ton of stuff...including carved wooden penises. Honey Badger had already bought one, and wanted another. I thought perhaps this could be my more "traditional" fertility symbol for my altar. But I gotta admit. Not a big fan of penises. Even wooden ones. Mixture of being really gay, and also maybe a bit immature at times. So I thought, how can I make this dick less awkward to have on my altar?

Glitter.

This ended up turning into a pretty hilarious kitchen-party-for-three, my wife watching Honey Badger and I paint and bedazzle our wooden phalli. In the end, I decided to make mine a mushroom.

 I am so stupidly happy with how it turned out. It is glittery as fuck in person and the spots on the top glow in the dark. Mission fucking accomplished.

So I reworked the altar again to include it:

And replaced some stones in my leaf bowl with some acorns.

I definitely have some post-rit exhaustion, but it was an awesome night, and finally the first real day of sun and good temperatures. Maybe, hope to the gods, spring is finally here?

Final Review-Norse Mythology by John Lindow

Woo, what a ride. Finally finished this unholy monstrosity of a book last night, and what a feeling of accomplishment!

I already touched on this quite a bit when I wrote about my reading before, but I'll recap-if you are looking for asatru-related info, or instructions on rituals or rites for working with the Norse pantheon, look elsewhere. This is academic mythology. It is dry, dry, dry. Not even really much in the way of pictures, though there are a few. So it's a lot of hard slog buckle-down reading.

But coming at the pantheon as a total noob, I learned a ton and don't regret reading it. I think now I would feel more prepared looking at a book about asatru or working with the norse deities. I have a better idea of who they all are now, what myths they're associated with, their lineages and exploits. So that was good.

If you'd like to read this book for your initiation (or in general really) here is my advice:

-be prepared to spend 2 months on the one book. I am normally a voracious reader and burn through books almost as fast as literal fire, but I could only handle this in short sessions, with lots of time in between. Info overload, and not exactly gripping reading. (Unless you're a university student and read dry academic shit all the time. Then maybe you'll fare better.)
-pick up an actual "storybook" of the norse myths. In segments on some of the more important figures, this book does expand on the actual stories/myths a bit more than I initially thought, but it's not done in a storytelling fashion, more encyclopaedic.
-if you are already familiar with the norse pantheon and mythology, and are looking for info on spiritual working, skip this and head to a book more geared towards asatru/heathenry in practice. This book doesn't even mention modern paganism that I took note of. But maybe still ideal for a practitioner to read this if you have an interest in a more in-depth academic approach to things.

Glad to have it done. My brain is super loaded with info, but also super exhausted from cramming all that info into it. I've already chosen my next book and dived in, and it's going much easier. Will update again once I have a bit more on that to talk about.

My Altar--April 2014.

Filler

So this is way overdue. I was going to blog, but I feel like I haven't been home for days. So I thought last night that I would do a vid instead, but ended up feeling horrible. Lack of sleep and barometric pressure were giving me the headache from hell and I was feeling kinda sicky. I'm better today, so fingers crossed that I dodged whatever it was.

So, BOOK. Still plugging away at the Norse Mythology monster. I only have about 100 pages left, which means I'll be done still behind schedule but sooner than I was hoping for, which is good. I grabbed a copy of The Way of the Hedge Witch, which isn't on the initiation list, but The Way of the Green Witch is, and they're from the same author. I will read it as a treat since one thing I did get done last night was a mother load of reading. I started it at work earlier, and am about 15 pages in. Interesting so far.

My plan was to rearrange my altar again, since I had acquired some new bobbles, but headache killed that plan. Later in the week I'll be getting some goodies I painted at the clay cafe, (you buy and paint bisque pieces and they fire it for you) which will be good altar pieces. There is a small leaf bowl, a small oak leaf, and a little cup/bowl in the shape of a drawstring bag. So I'll pretty it up once I have my new goodies, and hopefully by then my head will stop being a dbag. 

We went back to the clay cafe tonight to finish up some shot glasses Amy didn't have time to finish on Sunday. The plan was to pick up a small leaf, to go with the others, to give me something to do while Amy finished her stuff. Somehow that turned into a leaf, a small disk, and Amy and I split a pair of ceramic antlers, which I painted to reflect the four seasons: (oops...$30 later)

If you've never painted bisque before, it will look quite different once it is fired, so consider this the "before" shot. The stuff from Sunday will be ready tomorrow; we'll probably get it Friday. The stuff from tonight sadly won't be ready until next week. Can't wait to set it up on my altar!

Book learnin'

Two posts in one day. Had some catching up to do!

My first book of 6 for my IDGAF initiation is Norse Mythology by John Lindow.

I'm not quite halfway through. It's slow going. It's a very dry, scholarly book. After a 45 page introductory section, everything is in alphabetical order: deities and figures from the mythology, events, places, etc. There is a fair bit of overlap, and some sections with overlapping info seem to be verbatim repeated from multiple places.

I am enjoying how much I am learning; Norse mythology was probably one for the "least versed in" category for me. Before I was approached by one of the Norse gods and started learning in earnest, I more or less knew that Thor had a hammer, Odin had a horse with too many legs, and Loki caused shit to go down. There was something about a giant serpent, and a big tree, and Ragnarok is the end of the world.  For a mythology/archaeology nerd, pretty sad really.

I should mention though, if you're looking for pagan-specific information, this is not a good book to grab. The book states directly, in the introduction, that this is a book of myths, not religion. Everything is in a historical context. There's a lot of focus on the historical side of the mythology, the skalds and poets who left most of it behind, the various scholarly interpretations of translations and references and kennings; and a lot of the information contradicts--because it does. There is no reference to modern pagan practice or Asatru that I've come across yet. If you're looking for information on working with the Norse gods, and not so much on the mythology itself,  again, probably not a book for you. It is good for a newbie to the mythology however, because I am starting to understand things now, and can recognize various deities and the stories associated with them. Reading reviews, a lot of people sum up my thoughts pretty well: this is more of an encyclopedia or textbook, than a collection of narratives.

I read this after reading a very short book with a lot of the actual stories in it: Norse Mythology: Great Stories from the Eddas and I would recommend doing the same--pair this book up with another book with the actual stories, laid out as stories rather than an encyclopaedia. I think I'm following it better for at least having had a brief intro to the "characters" I'm now reading about.

I'm pretty confident I will not be done this book by next week, because reading it isn't as easy as I'd like, but if I go a bit late on finishing, I'll just pick a somewhat lighter book for next month to give my brain a rest.

Ostara

A little late, I know.

We held our Ostara ritual on Sunday afternoon. We wanted to plant herbs, with the intention that they would represent things we wanted to see "grow" in the new season. We bought seeds, pots and soil.

We went out to the woods, to our spot there. We started a fire in the cauldron, and took turns writing on pieces of parchment paper our "wish" for the new season to come; then burning them.

While we were out in the woods, we noticed a LOT of tree branches were knocked down from the crazy amount of wind and heavy snow we've had this year. A whole tree trunk by our altar was downed, and there was a long branch from another tree laying on the ground. I was reminded that I want to make a staff, and that I was "instructed"--not sure by whom--that the bough I used for the staff should have enough extra wood at the end to make a set of runes. This had that and more. I got permission from the woods to take it, and we broke some of it off (because it was every bit of 10-12 feet long probably) and I carried it back.

We kept the ashes from our ritual fire, and I ground them in our mortal and pestle, to add to the soil we were going to plant the herbs in.

Grindin'

My pot with the ashes at the bottom.

I am growing peppermint, Amy lavender, Drew thyme and Renee is growing anise. It's too early to see signs of life yet I think, but I hope they all grow. (And only partly because I want fresh peppermint leaves for tea.)

Here's to spring, and new growth. I have empty places to fill.

(We are currently getting a severe blizzard. I was sent home early from work, and only avoided being stranded because someone gave me a drive. They pulled the buses. Irony.)

My Altar

Wooo, first post! As part of a project involving some friends of ours, I started this blog. It's going to basically be a journaling of my witchcraft/pagan learnings,  and a record of my growth.

I thought a nice first post would be to show off my current altar. It's tucked neatly in the corner of the bedroom, and above and to the right are two corner shelves, one of which is another altar of mine (That's currently mostly empty) and the one below it belongs to my wife.

As of yesterday, my altar looked like this:

I moved things around a bit. I also (tried) to redye my altar cloth. It's literally just a piece of cut broadcloth which I dyed once already with old tea bags to make it more of an off-white colour with a mottled pattern. I was trying to dye it blue, using dark blue food colouring...

And now it's pink. (It's much more vibrant in person.) Urk. Not terribly pleased. Not sure how blue dye turned something pink, but I guess it's at least a nice colour for spring. I'm not finished; it's "missing" something. But what I have on there right now:

-my athame
-my bell rattle. The wooden handle used to be the end of my old wand. I use it as a "smokeless smudge" when burning sage is either unavailable, or I want something more physical. (I can shake the rattle harder for emphasis.)
-shells, moon snails, and sand dollars in a big mussel shell (to represent water)
-a wooden sculpture of three birds, and
-a tiny wooden owl (to represent air, and also birds in general)
-a teeny little dragon (fire, and dragons)
-The pale green up with the red ribbon, to the left of the black bowl, is full of forest things-it has an acorn, several chestnuts, and a piece of bark.  (earth and forest)
-the black and red bowl is used for offerings, or placing stones, or anything where I need a shallow container
-the wooden plaque is painted with a pentacle in the centre, and with representations of all four seasons around it.
-the blue and white candle holder is handmade, and is supposed to be a wave (I guess...)
-there's a little owl shaker, sitting in an owl candle holder. He serves the same purpose as my bell rattle.

It's still a work in progress. But it's a start!