Sunday, October 18, 2015

Beat, Beads

I've changed my room around, and doing so has changed my head in a way. I sleep right alongside my altar now, and it's easy to sit on the edge of the bed and read the beads or pray before going to sleep. 

Tonight I sat down and adapted one from Dewdrops in the Moonlight:

Fear not the dark
Fear not the silence
Fear not the mystery

My Lord and my Lady, lead me in shadow

...with the latter line said on the dividing beads.

It was quite fulfilling. I picked the mantra to help me with my anxiety, and I feel as though it did. I'd like to really think about other quick, simple mantras I can use, so I have something else other than fear to meditate on.
 
My focus is on meditation at the moment. I'm feeling prods from Odin and Hel, and I feel like They want more from me in that area. There's a lot, too, I have to read, and a few books I have to reread as well. I've been sleeping for years and it's time to wake up.

Friday, July 31, 2015

It's been a long, long time.

So long, I don't even want to look and see how long it's been. Over six months, definitely. 

I confess I just... haven't felt the need to come back here. I have other projects on the go, and my tumblr which I've been more active on lately. And I've been relatively satisfied. 

I've actually felt lately like I have too many blogs. I've been trying to cut down, and to focus on the ones I really want to succeed, and Hagstone has taken a back seat. Which is a shame, you know, because I like this place. I like what I've done here. And I want it to LIVE.

I've been focussing on research more. I had a period of existential wossname not too long ago, followed by a moment of freedom. I still feel like there's something out there I want to get a grip on, but I'm not sure what it is. However I do feel like I'm moving towards it. That I'm doing the right things, and moving in the right direction - albeit slowly.

I have a great new foxydori into which I've put four notebooks and a folder. I'm taking notes in them, and I've made myself a rule: nothing negative. Nothing venting anger, no cross commentary on terrible books. Just interesting things, ritual records, that sort of thing. Later on, I intend to take the choicest pieces to add to a grimoire. I don't know what I'd call this.... a workbook, a companion... If you have ideas for a name for it, let me know. 





I have one book for my religious Witchcraft, one for Heathenry, one for Loki, and a small one for prayers. (My craft's prayers, that is. All my Heathen prayers are going in the Heathen notebook for now.) I'm really enjoying it as a tool and I'm getting more work done which is good and positive. I've also been meditating a few times a week which is important. One thing I am on the lookout for is new meditation ideas: things to focus on or to achieve. 

Tonight is the full moon, and one area of my practice that I still haven't nailed down is what I want to do on particular moon phases. I feel a desire to do something, not a prayer but an action, but I don't know what that is. I've browsed various rituals online, but most of them are "cast circle, say these words, you're done". I don't cast a circle so I'd just be praying, which, again.... not what I'm looking for. I suppose the circle casting raises the ritual aspect of it quite a ways. Maybe I should sing a song? 



Wednesday, March 11, 2015

To Sleep

I've mentioned before the inherent spiritual nature (to me) of dawn and dusk. But the middle of the night has a quiet sacredness to it as well. But you can't be up for everything....

Some people can, though. There's a thing called bimodal sleeping, where people have a first and second period of sleep, with an hour or two of wakefulness in the middle. My dad sleeps this way, as does a friend of mine; they wake up naturally, have a snack, do some yoga, watch a little tv, and back to sleep again.

I do not sleep this way. I lie around until 4am watching YouTube vids until I manage to drift off. Falling asleep actually at night is something I'm not very good at. Which kind of sucks because - and you may know this - viewing dawn from the wrong side makes dawn a far less mystical experience. Dawn is thus something I get to experience only rarely. This is something I consider a shame.

So I read this. And I was intrigued. 

I love the idea of a rhythm to life, sleeping and waking, that changes as the season does. And I love candles. And, fortuitously, I live next to a beekeeper. I might actually be able to make my own wax candles. Saves on money!

I tried it last night. Lights went off at 9pm, about an hour after twilight. Red filters on all my screens (I use Twilight on Android and Flux on PC) and candles lit (right now, I'm going through my supply of scented candles people keep giving me. Apparently they can cause cancer so it is not a long-term plan). 

I ended up lying awake, in the dark, until 5am.

Tempted to give up? I am. But the appeal of waking early, sleeping early, having a special quiet time at night to stretch and read and meditate, is so great that I want to give it a go. To connect in this way with the ancestors. And I love candlelight.

Plus, I have fibromyalgia. Sleep issues and fatigue come with the territory; if this can help me feel more rested I am 100% eager to give it a go.

No screens tonight, if I can help it. Lights only in the bathroom (because I tried it by candlelight last night and it is impossible). Bring on The Night.

Monday, February 2, 2015

Late summer is always a difficult time of year to feel spiritual. Too hot, too bright, and the heat is bad for my health, which doesn't help matters. So things can be tough. But I'm still trying to meditate as often as possible, to pray, to breathe, to stretch. And to read.

A lot of witchy-pagan books are just the author going on about nature this and seasons that. They can be very low on actual content. But sometimes - and right now is one of those times, for me - reading just someone's thoughts can be helpful. Even (or especially) if I disagree with them.

I'm reading Poppy Palin's Craft of the Wild Witch at the moment. I started it ages ago, became annoyed with her, and put it down. I've picked it up again, and started over. And yes, she uses a lot of genuinely ridiculous terms, but before I was reading searching for information. I was craving something new, something solid. Real, actual information I could get my teeth into. Now I'm just looking for something to make me feel. 

I do disagree with her, though. Palin talks about how humans make straight lines through everything, and how straight lines lead to people climbing over one another to get to the top. But the pansy, she says, has no such thoughts; it, and nature, live in circular lives where everything is interconnected.

And, yes, sure - but nature is all about competition. It's how things survive, and adapt, change, evolve. The pansy is colourful to attract pollinators. It reaches up to the sun to best obtain its energy. Grow too slow and another plant might block out your sun. It's everyone for themselves in nature, and it's far from peaceful and pretty. And humans are a part of that.

But that's fine. Another day I might get cross and write a diatribe, but today I am content to disagree quietly and let it go. Her perspective and mine differ. There's still things she says that provoke me to thought. 

I realised for example how much my focus on "property lines" - on barriers and fences - can hinder as well as help. That need to have personal space and keep everything else out is a facet of my personality, and not necessarily always a healthy one. I can acknowledge that and still cling to it. But the world doesn't always think that way. Home ranges overlap. The earth stretches on and on. The wind blows in many directions. I've let myself become to fixated on Mine vs Yours. Yes, this is my home, and no, I don't want every damn entity invading it, and that's fine and sensible. But I can't let that concept control all my thinking. I've become far too rigid.

I suspect that's the anxiety's fault. It's made me stiff and stretched me taught. I have to remember to dance, to go with the flow and follow the breeze, and notice again how things intersect and overlap and how the world stretches on. 

Reading various spiritual, magical, or religious books more regularly is part of my spiritual plan for this year, and this sort of thing is a big reason why. A lot of people move past reading books like this, and that's fine. I like to go back and remind myself of bits and pieces - though admittedly, these ideas might not be what the author intended to communicate. Potentially the opposite! The value's still there, for me. Quite possibly things would be different if I was a part of a Pagan group or coven, as I'd have other people bouncing ideas off me more often. That's not the case, though, and for me, I like the written medium for communicating ideas. I can absorb them at my own pace, take notes, scribble in the margins, and write blog posts about them. I can invite people to discuss those ideas (feel free to chime in in the comments!).

I bought some prayer beads from Etsy in January, part of my renewed focus on prayer and meditation. They're set out in sets of 3, 7, 9 and 21 and are a beautiful green-blue colour. I'd like to add a little brass stag to one end, to complement the little spiral goddess, but I haven't found one yet. They make a pleasant jingling noise and I enjoy running them through my fingers.



I also bought John Michael Greer's Pagan Prayer Beads which makes me itch to make some, but I think I'll stick with accumulating beads for a while. And since I'm not really inclined towards buying any at the moment, it may take a while. In the meantime, I'll see what's floating around on etsy if I ever feel a yen.

Friday, January 2, 2015

Spiritual Goals

A new year, and this time I'm not filled with the desire to start a new blog or something. This year I have a beautiful new planner, a desire for peace, and a few easy goals to keep to.

Greet the day, by going outside, breathing the air.

Stretch. Be physically mindful.

Meditate - every day if possible.

Pray.

They're small and they're aimed at bringing the spiritual more into my everyday life. My planner has a section for spiritual matters, where I've written out the Sabbat dates and a few chants and prayers I've composed. What I'd like to do is make sort of collage shrines, as well, but I'm not sure at this point how that's going to work out. I suppose I could go through my mother's old gardening magazines, or something. I want them to be peaceful, and uncluttered. 

I'm going to exercise more often too, as I've fallen out of exercise lately. I'm a bit uncomfortable in my skin and keen to gain some muscle back. I have a few of the "30 days challenges" I've printed out.

And I've started work on my staff, finally.

I found it last year, early in the year, and had a mind to get it done by May and Old Year's Night, but that never happened. I've collected some bits and pieces I'd like to hang from it, but no more than that, and some sort of moth seems to have eaten all my feathers. So I'll need to find more feathers. An old key, preferably one I find naturally, but you know how some things are difficult to find. Hagstones. Shells. Things that are symbols of my craft, basically - things that hold significance to me. 

I sat down and sanded it today. The knobs where some twigs had broken away won't disappear, but they'll be good to hang things from. The wood is a bit more smooth now I've sanded back a little of the bark, and I think I'll leave it as it is, as it has a lovely grain to it with a bit of the bark still on, and even a hint of green. The stick is dry and dead, of course; it's been sitting next to my bookshelf for a year and was dry when I found it. It looks nice, though. 

My Path in the Woods is dark and overgrown, and I have paused, to sit in peace and wait for the way forward to become clear.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Midsummer musings

Hi everyone and Happy Solstice!

I'm about to sit down to my Summer Solstice ritual. Things are all over the place this year, possibly because I've been meditating way less than I should be. I feel scattered. Although, maybe that's just the fibro-brain.

A friend of mine and her band wrote a song about Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere - listen here. It's basically how I feel about this time of year. It's summer, and that's fine.... why have we adopted all these winter-based decorations? Can't we just celebrate the season we have? It's a great time of year to have Christmas. You can put strawberries in your champagne. You can play cricket on the beach. You can sit up until the sun sets around 9pm drinking gin and tonic on the deck. It's a great time to get together with family and exchange gifts and celebrate. And it's not like Midsummer wasn't a big celebration and time of gathering for the Heathens. Though they may have held it later in the year. No matter; the summer holidays basically last through until February. No one is expected to be productive from mid-December right through January. We even have two days off for New Years, presumably because everyone is expected to have a two-day hangover.

It's sort of odd, having been a Heathen and of a specific form of Hedgecraft for so long at this point. I saw a post on tumblr that used the phrase "Celtic Yule blessing" and my brain turned inside out in an attempt to wrap itself around that concept. Celtic. Yule. I went through "The Celtic religions don't celebrate the solstices!" and then "Why would a Celtic Pagan use the word Yule? That's a Norse holiday!" to a point where I tried to work out how a Celtic Pagan would even adapt a Heathen holiday for their own use, and why they would want to. 

It was hours later that I realised they didn't mean Yule, they meant eclectic-NeoPagan-Sabbat-at-the-winter-Solstice. Literally hours later that occurred to me. And then I got very slightly sniffy about it. Not of the "THEY NICKED OFF WITH OUR HOLIDAY NAME" variety, but of the "WHY WOULD THEY CALL THEIR HOLIDAY YULE IT JUST FUCKING CONFUSES PEOPLE" variety.

My brain still refuses to parse "Celtic Yule" as a concept. I just revert to "YOU CAN'T HAVE CELTIC YULE, THAT IS NOT A THING THAT HAPPENS". Then I throw up my hands and mutter to myself. Not a jab at OP, either; the person who posted the post was being helpful and is just repeating the basic ENP stuff that's been floating around for decades. It's not really vexing, it's just one of those things I find really odd and confusing. It probably annoys Celtic polytheists more than it does me. 

I've been seeing quite a few hedgehogs recently. Mostly squashed on the road. Last week I saw a little one rolled up in a sleepy ball under a hedge, and tonight, while I was walking my dog, I saw a little dark shape waddling across the footpath. It was a snuffly little hedgehog and he disappeared into the grass. My dog did not know what to think. Are they naturally more active in summer, or is it hedgehog breeding time, or what? I like seeing them around. Sweet little things. Plus they eat slugs, which is a godly duty.

Anyway. Time to take out the candles and set up the altar. It's ritual time.


Thursday, December 4, 2014

Pagan Insights #13

I like to do these on the full moon, which is still a few days away, but now I've had the thought to post if I don't do it now then I'll forget and it'll be another three months before I get around to it again. But I wanted to do one, because there were some things I wanted to post. Although now I'm here I probably won't be able to remember what they were.



In your own words
Man, what to say. I feel... good. I mean, health-wise, I'm always up and down. Yesterday was really hard with fatigue and sore tender points on my hips, but I have a lot more energy today. I'm learning to take the bad days as they come, and recognise them and take the time to rest.  You can't always do all things all the time. I'm getting really into the "planning" community, filofaxy stuff and that, and I've put a kikki.k planner on my Hexmas list (thanks Evil Supply Co. for that one!). I'm all into paper-crafty stuff, and papers and stamps and pens at the moment.... I mean I've always loved stationery and this gives me another out to go MAD with buying bits and pieces. If I could ever work out what exactly I wanted to go in it, I could put all this stuff to work in my Book of Shadows!




Post a pic
Here are a couple from my area. The first is a kererū, or NZ wood pigeon, sitting on the kowhai tree in my back garden. They love those things and fight with the tuis over them in spring and early summer. The second is one of the local beaches. The island on the right is the volcano Rangitoto.



Musical musings
Why is the thing I post here never really all that Pagan? 
My song of the moment is Lorde's Yellow Flicker Beat. I love this girl's groove. Did you see her at the AMAs? Daaamn though. Fuck it I'm just gonna post that video, because that lipstick smudge is PERF.




I love the way she dances. There's an ecstatic element to it.




Action, Action!
All my rituals seem to be late lately. I bought some framboise liqueur for Hel, Freyja and Freyr. I love that flavour, associate it so much with Hel. It's really more of an autumn thing, but my choices were limited. I've been slacking on my studies, which is bad of me. I tend to remember on Sunday night and think "welp too late now". I have to learn to plan my time better and then stick to that plan (which is the hard part). My head's always in the clouds.




Eureka!
I'm learning so much about history from Our Troth I. I assume it's accurate enough, though I'm not putting huge amounts of trust in it, as you never know when the author is not an established historian. So much of the stuff about the "Steppe Peoples" or early Indo-Europeans, pre-migration, is so fascinating. There's a long section describing ideas of who their gods were, and that they honoured "the sky gods on rectangular altars facing east, and the terrestrial gods on round altars facing west".  The idea of Tyr and Odin as descended from a one-handed "Bright Father" and a one-eyed "Seer" respectively is fascinating. Recommended reading for Heathens, definitely.