Thinking

Ok, so I keep moving forward, my eyes always on what i really want, what truly makes me happy, even though it seems I have so little time for it right now. What makes me happy? With my druid training and just life, I think about this a lot these days. What do I want with my life. Where do I want to be in a year, five years, ten years? 


Well, it's really quite simple. I want to have my store and know it's doing well. I do not want to be rich or anything, I just want to know that I am self sufficient and not have to go to bed each night wondering how the bills will get paid next month, whether I will be able to make rent, etc. 

I want to be on my own property, or at least property that i will own as soon as I finish paying the bank for it. With my little hobbit house. A place where I can grow my gardens, hold my rituals, solitary, or with others if I so desire. I have met some really great people these past few months and would love a place where I could invite them over for a BBQ or a party, a ritual like the one we are going to at a friend house next weekend for Beltane. It won't be fancy but it will be mine, a place where I can do what I want, be me, without listening to the neighbors party through the wall or the vacuum cleaner at midnight up stairs. A place where I can come home from my store and be peaceful and happy. A place where my kids can visit, my family can visit, and it will be mine... Like I said once I pay the bank for it.... But still mine. 

I would love to have someone... Someone who knows when to hug me when I'm having a bad day. Someone to say he loves me without wanting something. Someone who is there when I need him. Will i get married again?d Oh no! Did that twice, done with that. But I also don't want to be alone. 

I have worked hard my whole life. I raised my two beautiful kids and they have turned out quite well if I do say so myself. They are fabulous wonderful people. I went to school and worked hard to become a teacher, turning out at a bad time to be a teacher. I am currently working on my second master's degree. All in an attempt to just make it... To be self sufficient. To be able to support myself. My credit is bad, in fact I had to file bankruptcy last year. I have no money, I sub, no real job because no one will hire me - I am either over qualified or I require to much money. I deserve a little bit of ease in my life. 43 years, to me, seems like it should be long enough living this way. 

I try hard to give this all over to the Goddess. May days I succeed quite well, others not so much. I have learned from life that if you don't work hard, you get no where. I have also learned in life that often no matter how hard you work, you still get no where. 

Goddess... My Morrigan, please, if you would, tell me when is my turn. What do I need to do to get where I need to be. I want to help people. I want to give people like me a place, a safe place to learn, study, and congregate. I want to give them a place to be free. Can you please give me a sign, tell me how to find the mystery that hides what I need to know to reach my goals in life, these simple goals. 

As Saturday night closes, I sit here in my bed, computer in my lap, thinking about where I am and where I want to be. I can see me sitting there in my shop. I can see people coming and going. Talking, smiling, being happy Friends and customers. Potlucks, festivals, ceremonies  rituals, divinations  all being held in my shop. I try to manifest what I desire, what I need to move forward with what I feel I need to do, moving forward to where I know I belong. I just need to know how to get there. 

To Stir a Magic Cauldron ~ Ch. 4

Ok, jumping right on in on this one.... 

Josephine Wall: Spirit of the Elements

Calling the quarters, the elements, the elementals. What do you want the quarters to do? Witness, protect, add power? Silver noted the importance of telling them, whoever you call, what you need or want them to do. When I go back through my own written rituals, I found I do this anyway, that just came naturally to me when opening my circle, performing my rituals or spells. It's not something I would have thought of having to mention. Maybe it's the teacher in me, make sure everyone knows what they are doing, why they are here. Hmmmm. She gives some great, very imaginative ways to call quarters.... I was I intrigued as I read through them. Enjoyed them. Complicated, I am more for simple but loved them. Some great ideas and visualizations.

The differences between elements and elements was interesting. I did not realize that they were different, always saw one as part of the other, an element is the manifestation of the elemental. Have to think about this one a bit. She compares the elemental to a spirit and the elemental to the actual thing such as Tue element earth a dirt. She does not see the dirt as living thinking being which it's very different then my own druidic way of thinking - everything has spirit, life.

Watchtowers was also a be idea to me. she calls Watchtowers in addition to laments, to guard her circle, again, making sure they know what they are there to do. So read her information, I picture something like gargoyles standing at the corners (yes I realize circles are round, so does she) standing guard protect the rites as they happen.

She tasks some about faeries but I will leave that for you to check out, I had never heard of the Airts so I would rather touch upon this. What's an airt? Well, I learned that an airt is a word that means the point off the wind, at least as far as I can tell. She makes a lot of a sense here, we here in the USA read so much information that comes from elsewhere that we forget to take into account our own environment, what is on out area. Remember, our areas are very different then Europe and other places around the world. When talking about using the winds, we need to study what we each have in our own areas. What does the north wind bring, the south. How often and when do the different winds happen? How do the animals respond to the winds when they come ? How do/should you respond? These are all questions we need to study when working with any elements in our respective worlds. She hours on and I highly recommend this section of reading.

I have always loved this painting.... 

She talks about Angels... How different people from different traditions might view them if they do at all. The differences between the various beliefs in angels is huge depending on who you talk to. Do I believe in angels? Yes I do. Do you?

She then goes on to talk about totems, and them archetypes. The ancient ones is another area she covered briefly before moving on to chapter 5. And I am moving right along.

Ok, so this has been sitting in my drafts box for a while now. Want to get this one posted. Don't think I have it done yet but will come back and add more to it. But, you all can't read it if it's sitting in my drafts box so watch for more... It'll get added hopefully this weekend...

Ok. So something else I felt needed a word or two. Have you ever heard of Airts? I hadn't until now. Webster's defines airt as a "new direction. channel into a new direction." Silver talks of Airts noting that it is a Gaelic term used to describe compass points and the directions of the winds. She makes a great point about using the "airts" from our own areas. As a rule, we tend to study magic and ritual from Europe so when we start to use the winds and directionals  we use them as we seen them in books. Now I had not thought about it before but duh! If course the winds and such would be different here in Seattle then they would be is say, Glastonbury. Makes total sense. She recommends taking time, spending time out side. Making notes in our journals about wind directions at different times year. Noticing what is happening around you at different times of year. This is how you determine what elemental to use, to know what is coming "on the wind" at any given time in the year. To know what the wind bring in the spring when it blows in from the North, or what it brings in July when the slight breeze blows in off the Pacific ocean. It all makes sense, doesn't it? Hmmmm. Truly got me thinking....

I kinda gleamed over it when writing this a few weeks ago but decided today to come back to it. Totems. Do you have a totem? I would love to hear about other people's totems if they would like to leave comments. Things like how do you know. What brought these totems to you or you to them. I find this topic fascinating. My own totems consist of the horse, whom often guides me through the dream world and takes me to areas away from my sacred grove when I'm in mediation (which I am having difficulty making time for lately ~ can't wait until summer).

Silver talks about using totems animals when calling quarters. This is not something I do. In fact, usually my totems are something completely not associated with my circle casting. Not that they do not appear when I cast, but usually that is on their own accord, not because I call them. My totem animals usually come to me when they feel there is something I need to know or do, or when they feel I am in need. Where I live, there are several old oak trees outside of my apartment, both off my front door and off my patio. At any given moment, there are at least 100 crows in these trees. Early in the mornings when you leave my house, the sound is hypnotizing and they chatter above. It's amazing. the amazing thing is, from what I understand, they were not here before I came. How fun is that? To interesting. They follow me. When I am out and about, i see them everywhere. They stay outside the windows that I am close to when I am inside. When I send healing to others, they start seeing them outside their windows too. Even family members who do not know about my crows have reported seeing them when they know I have done a healing on them. And people insist on not believing.