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The Lady’s Blessings

May 14, 2013 in Guests, Hearth and Home, Uncategorized

On Mother’s Day I was thinking about the women who have influenced my life over the years, of course my own Mom, and also other Mothers, Aunties, Granma’s, friends and mentors along my journey. There are a few who helped bring huge changes to my life, and I would like to share a few stories in honour of the Divine Feminine that touches every person.

My Mom was gracious and married late in life, my parents adopted a toddler and decided to take on another baby boy and went to a different orphanage in Scotland. I was 6 weeks old and had arrived the day before their visit, I’d been 4lbs 2oz at birth and was up to 7lbs by then, though I must have been tiny because my Mom to be thought I was a doll at first. She was horrified that such a “wee babe” was in the children’s home, and felt compelled to see me properly, that was the beginning of our relationship in this life. My parents immigrated to Canada when I was 4, my Dad got work but Mom didn’t even though she had a doctorate degree. She ended up assisting my father who was also a professor, transforming his research notes into papers for scientific journals, meticulously drawing all the strange microscopic creatures, I marvelled at her skill. Mom had been one of the first female Professors at Berkley University in the 1940’s, then returned to Scotland to be with her family and began doing research on animal pathogens at Edinburgh University before she married. My Mother had been financially independent before we immigrated, she never made a cent from the work she did to support my father, and it was something that wasn’t talked about.

I was around 7 when we were in a car accident that left her permanently injured, somehow I fell  into the floor space behind the front seats and the car crumpled around me, Mom wasn’t so lucky. Her life became filled with pain, Dr’s appointments, procedures, physio, endless meds etc. she changed from a social person to a shut in. I took on the house chores and began to resent that I was expected to, Mom and I always seemed to be bickering and arguing, there was more disapproval than support, we didn’t do activities together anymore, and I missed the Mother I had before the accident. As the years passed our conflicts grew more serious, by the time I was 12 the whole family unit was in crisis and falling apart. I left home at the first opportunity that presented itself and dissolved all ties; it took me until my mid 20’s to connect again.

My Mom and I sat down and had a very honest, difficult and painful conversation, we both cried and apologized for our hurtful words and behaviour towards each other in the past. I understood that she had also been hurting, scared and frustrated, and we were able to mend our relationship. My Mom passed when I was 27; we had a lengthy phone call the day before, sharing our life experiences, laughing and appreciating our connection. I love you.

When I was a girl women from our church would show up and whisk me away for an afternoon or weekend, they brought meals and baking for my family. I learned to knit bandages to hymns, a kind of magic in itself, we made old cards into baskets, I discovered the mystery of suspending fruit in gelatine, that washing machines were useful for cleaning baby dills before pickling and how baking soda and lemon juice cleaned just about everything. Daisy, Edna, Beda, Cathy, Granma Taylor thank you!

Kate and I sat outside the office of the women’s transition house one stormy night. Her first words were “Do I look as bad as you?” I replied “I hope it looks better that it feels!” we grinned and became allies. Our friendship grew, we talked about our dreams, how next time we would break the cycle, we knew we didn’t deserve abuse. That was so long ago, we have both learned the difference between love and cruelty, and discovered self love in the reflection of each other. Kate you are precious!

Sheila and I met at a women activists group, and we were tired of marching and holding signs in the sun, wind and rain! We mimicked the parody of politics and transformed it into street theatre; we were fabulous together and even got on the news. Your hug is as big as the Universe my beloved Auntie, Wise One, Mother all wrapped in one. When I am an old woman may I be as spry and have a sense of humor like you, you are the beautiful sound of laughter.

My birth mother Valerie, there was no mistaking I am your child; I saw my face reflected in yours for the first time and knew my beginnings. We walked together for a time, you told me of my ancestors, how they once served the Lady, the gifts of our blood. Your love touched me, thank you for carrying me into this life.

Today I am surrounded with beautiful, strong, creative women, I love my HPS and her family as if they were blood kin, and we are a family of choice. I have bonded with my inner circle and we are only one tree in a grove of many others, and we are all connected. The Goddess touches us through our mothers, grandmas, sisters, aunties, female friends and she is also found within every man and boy, her reflection is found within you and in eyes of others. Did you realize the Lady blesses the world through you? Just something to think about

Abundant Blessings

Dawne

 

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Shake your worries out!

April 2, 2013 in Guests, Hearth and Home, Pagan Family, Pagan Spirituality

I had the privilege of writing and forming my circle’s Ostara ritual this year, I do have to say it wasn’t the standard plant the seeds you have already chosen at Imbolc theme. We see the Lady and Lord as the Bright Maiden of Spring and the Divine Youth of the Sun at this time of year, they celebrate the new life sprouting and budding all around us. I really think of the fun and innocence of childhood at this season, it’s a time of beginnings, of promises we make to ourselves and each other. The world is waking up after a long sleep; the secrets and mysteries we discovered in the shadows of winter can now be looked at and appreciated in daylight. The world is filled with hopefulness and optimism for the future, plans are set in motion, the foundations to root, nurture and grow the seeds, projects, changes we want to make are ready.

Spring is a wonderful time, all the drabness of winter transforms into fresh green, bird songs fill the air again, insects return, the creatures of the forest are busy finding or making dens, even the eagles where I live are rebuilding or creating new nests. Every creature is preparing for the growing season, the sun entices us to be outdoors, subtle scents travel on the wind, breezes scatter blossoms, a feeling of excitement and potential just saturates the air.  It was this feeling I wanted to capture in our ritual, it is a good thing to have goals and plans, yet sometimes the work involved to create the future harvest feels and sometimes literally is a daunting task. I decided to focus on mirth and stress relief for our ritual, so we played the laughing game, basically the leader starts laughing and the next person has to laugh better than the previous one all the way round the circle. The second round involves laughing about a problem you are experiencing, the leader starts again, it goes something like this… “Ha! Ha! Ha!  It’s going to be another financially challenging month! He He He!”  The next person goes and so on, all are encouraged to laugh with each other, and it’s a fun way to release stress. During the third round people lie on the floor with heads together and create a laughing wave, it’s almost like chanting with a new laugh picking up while another is fading out. We were all literally rolling on the floor laughing! If you want to learn more about these techniques check out laughter yoga.

For our activity and working we made Bleggs, and we shook our worries out. A Bliss Egg is a fun version of a worry stone, it’s used to shake your worries away, and it just happens to be made with those plastic eggs that surround us at this time of year and a few magical ingredients that fit inside. My eggs had jingle bells for mirth, seeds to grow beyond your worries, googly eyes to see things from a different perspective, various words, stickers, small paper flowers for spring and foam happy faces inside. Our bleggs were empowered with a song and we literally shook our eggs and ourselves to shake our worries out. The idea is to shake the bliss egg whenever life feels more like a challenge than an adventure and to think of the qualities it holds.

I know some “fundamental” Pagans would be horrified at this ritual though there was the usual structure to it. I see the 8 Sabbats as times to celebrate, moon rituals are the time I do “serious” work, and our holy days are family friendly, that means I need to accommodate everyone from our youngest 7yr old to our beautiful grandmother crone.  I’m always delighted when our young participants offer to pass out the cakes and drink after they are blessed, it makes it a double blessing in my eyes, though some say it’s because they want to see how much is left over for later. (chuckle) Could be, it doesn’t matter, I just think its way cool that they want to be involved! You know how they say witches are born, some of us discover our truth, and some don’t. I think there be young witches among us!

If you are having challenges, remember to laugh and just blegg it!

My Blegg!

My Blegg!

Abundant Blessings

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The Busiest Time of the Year

December 3, 2012 in Sage & Scourge

The holiday season is once again upon us. For most of us Americans, Thanksgiving kicks us into full holiday mode (Here in Saints land it’s actually the kick-off that kicks us into holiday mode, but that’s a New Orleans thing: you wouldn’t understand). For me, Thanksgiving is the beginning of a very long season of eating, gatherings and non-stop merriment. And unlike the rest of the country, my holiday season does not stop with New Year’s. In New Orleans, New Year’s is the prequel to the true holiday season, Mardi Gras. Down here, the winter holidays are simply the warm-up to the important stuff.

And I will be doing Mardi Gras in style this year: geek style! As part of a bona fide krewe. For those of you who don’t know, krewes are the social clubs that create and run the Mardi Gras parades. This is a tradition that reaches back hundreds of years. For the price of the dues that you pay to belong to a krewe, you get to help create the floats for the parade, walk or ride in the parade, go to events throughout the year, assist with the charities that your particular krewe is involved in, and go to the official krewe balls that are the highlight of the New Orleans social season. This year I will be flying my Geek colors high as I roll with the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus (one of New Orleans’ newest krewes, composed entirely of SciFi and Fantasy Geeks).

Krewe of Chewbacchus at NOLA Comic Con 2012

Krewe of Chewbacchus at NOLA Comic Con 2012

And of course, this year is a special year, because the Mayan Prophecies say the world is supposedly going to end on the 21st. (While I don’t necessarily believe any of it, I will be doing one Hel of a Yule ritual this year…you never do know what might happen, and every little bit can help…)

In the midst of all of this frenzied holiday activity, it’s good to remember that this can be a very hard time of the year for those of us who are not out of the broom closet. For those who have families that don’t approve/don’t get our Paganism. I will be celebrating Yule here at home, then going to my parent’s house in Ohio to celebrate their Christmas with them. While I don’t go to church with them on Christmas Eve, I do still have obligations to show up like the rest of the family. And I know that I’m not the only Pagan that deals with these sorts of expectations. While my family usually ignores my Paganism, I know many others who go home to ridicule, shame and other unpleasant family moments during this particular holiday season.

Some of us are luckier than others. Some of us simply have supportive families who don’t care one way or the other. Many of us do not.

As a community, we need to be especially aware during this particular time of the year to make sure our Pagan families know that we’re there if they need us. This is an easy time of year to get busily involved in our own small personal spheres and to forget people that aren’t in our immediate thoughts. We run from one gathering to the next and forget that for some of us, the joy of the season is absent.

Go out and enjoy the season, eat lots of delicious food and drink the Wassail. But most of all, make sure to share your holiday spirit with those who actually need it. I’m sure we’ve all had one or two bad winter holidays, and we know what it feels like. Help ensure that others don’t have that experience this season, in any way that you can. A simple online missive to a friend from a Pagan chat room can make the Yuletide bright.

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A Male Celtic View

October 29, 2012 in The Celtic Male

So for my first article in The Celtic Male I had planned on writing about Samhain. But considering there will be many others writing on the same topic I decided a different direction. I hope it is not to controversial but it needs to be said in hopes at least a few people will be touched by it and rethink their actions.

I have noticed while getting more and more involved with online covens/groups that many people in our faith, be it Wiccan or any other Pagan group, are nasty to one another. People do and will disagree and will often argue about a point to the extent that they end friendships/relationships. This is part of our nature as humans. But when this happens in a group and it effects the whole group to the point where people choose sides the rhetoric begins to go south.

As I said I have seen this happen. What bothers me about it is the name calling, back stabbing and character assaults that take place. The groups separate and continue to on and on in their verbal assaults on each other. Feelings get hurt, people cry and feel sick to their stomachs. So here I pose my question, is this not breaking the Rede? Hurting others is a violation of the Wiccan Rede and the Pagan Commandments. Yet, it continues as if those doing it feel they are doing nothing wrong. It saddens me to see it and,quite frankly, Makes me ashamed those doing it are part of the same spiritual belief as I.

In light of all of it I have seen and the verbal assaults I have witnessed I have come to a few conclusions. To begin with, and most importantly, these people can not be true followers of our spiritual path. Why do I say this? Because you can NOT preach love and light and wish peace and happiness on others while intentionally hurting others. The negative energy alone they are transmitting begs for karma to to walk up and say hello, time to pay the piper. Many of these people are leaders in their Groups. That sets a bad precedent for new people to follow. It helps breed hate and anger and gives the rest of us a bad name in the face of the “dominate” religions that run our society. If we wish them to accept us, we need to show that we follow and practice what we preach as it were.

When this happens and tempers flare, speak your peace, get it off your chest and let it die. Better yet, take it private so to avoid hurting each other in public. It is not hard to do and keeps the hate from spreading like the disease it is.

I personally try to watch what I say and not do or say things to hurt others. I am not perfect and do sometimes “snap” but I end it as soon as I can and do not linger on it. I have been blessed in regards to my appearance when it comes to this. I am a big guy with an intimidating look so I’m not attacked often verbally in person and seldom in type. When I see others being “bullied” I try to help in anyway I can as I feel it is a sort of mission given to me to try to comfort and help people. Hence, this article.

I will end this now as I do not wish to sound as if I am being to preachy but it has bothered me of late and I wanted to share. I look forward to any comments,positive or negative, and will do my best to answer any and all questions posed to me.

I hope all of the paths you walk will be Green and Golden, Blessed Be.

~Killian~

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Pagan Festivals: Or the Drumming Never Stops!

July 16, 2012 in Sage & Scourge

Every year, my Wiccan goes off into the greater Pagan community to play music, do workshops, and promote his books for three or four months in the summer. While this is great for his career and helps our household financially, it’s pretty depressing for both of us to be away from each other for so long. For all that we occasionally drive each other up the wall with our eclectic/Wiccan ideals, we don’t seem to do very well without each other.

So what do Owls do when Wiccans are away on their summer touring? We mope. We sigh. We wander aimlessly around the house. We rearrange the altar tools and alphabetize the craft books. We dust off shrines and do upkeep on household magic. We try to remember to water the garden (this year, the caterpillars are at fault, really!). We work longer hours at our day jobs and eat pretty badly. And after a while we start to get wiley and try to subtly subvert the other Wiccans with piratey ideals…

But finally! My Wiccan and I have been reunited! For the first time in over a month, I’m actually getting to see my Significant Other. I’m taking a week of vacation so that I can head up to Sirius Rising at Brushwood in upstate New York for a Pagan festival. As I type this, I’m lying in bed at my parent’s house in central Ohio after having driven sixteen hours from New Orleans so that he and I can meet up and go to New York tomorrow.

A Pagan family that goes to festival together, stays together…or, well, at least something along those lines.

As Pagans, one of the few things that I think that the entire community can actually agree on, is that the Earth is important. We’re an earth-based spirituality, and no matter what Gods and Goddess and Entities that you might actually worship (if any at all), the earth is important to us. The rhythms of life and the cycle of the moon plays into many of our practices and rituals. Festivals are a time where you can really immerse yourself in the Earth and the spirits of the world around you and really remember why you got into this in the first place. (Well, at least for those of us who found Paganism later on in life…)

To me, festivals are extraordinarily important. And this is another area where the Wiccan and I agree completely. They allow you to meet people. Yes, that’s right, real live people! You can go to workshops and see different rituals. You can drum till your hands and ears hurt. You can frolic in meadows and buy fascinating Pagan things. You can find some of the dearest friends that you’ll ever have and even, possibly, a significant other.

The Wiccan and I met at a festival (I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before) and it certainly changed my life. Not just meeting the Wiccan, but the festival itself. Every festival I go to ends up bringing something new into my life that manages to have a major impact on it, both spiritually and mentally. The things you learn and take away from a festival are usually very long-lasting and rewarding (whether you realize it at the time or not).

Festivals can expose you to new practices and approaches that you have never heard of or even thought of before. They are places to find teachers and others who think like you, or even people who don’t think anything like you do!  They can introduce you to things and situations that you never would have found otherwise, which will enrich your spiritual practices and help expand your Pagan horizons.

I think that festivals are one of the Pagan community’s greatest resources and sadly, I don’t know that a lot of people go to them anymore. While festivals were huge in the eighties and nineties, (Pan Pagan being the first in 1976), it seems like these last few years have seen a decline in numbers at Pagan gatherings. My Wiccan was just at a festival that used to draw over two thousand people. This year, they only had somewhere around six hundred.

I’ve heard that both time and finances are an issue for a lot of people. I’ve also been told that a lot of people have a huge fear of being drawn inadvertantly out of the broom closet.

But I also think that a lot of people these days just don’t know that they exist. And this is really sad.

While festivals are not for everyone, they are one of the few places where our entire community can gather and learn from each other in a much more relaxed and open atmosphere than in our smaller, much more limited, communities. I’m very lucky to get to live in a place like New Orleans, where not only is my Pagansim accepted by the community as a whole, there are many resources available to me. Many people do not get to live in a community like I do. I grew up in a very small, insular and Christian place and unfortunately I think that that is probably more of the norm for most Pagans. Going to festivals was one way that I was able to branch out and learn from actual people.

Festivals are places where you can take the whole family and spend a week doing and seeing amazing things. Some festivals that I reccommend: Wisteria Summer Solstice, Sirius Rising at Brushwood, Panthaecon (more of an indoor convention in San Francisco, but it still counts) and Pagan Spirit Gathering. There are many others out there as well. Most are family friendly and provide things like childcare (aways make sure ahead of time though!) and a barter system for work around the festival to help people financially afford entry to the festival.

If you didn’t know that these gatherings exist…well, now you do. Take advantage of these amazing opportunities and have a lot of fun while you’re doing so. We Pagans are a fun loving bunch and festival is also a great place to simply have a great time with really neat people. We should use the resources available to us and not let them slip away with time. And if more Pagans don’t start going, a lot of these events will eventually disapear: it would be a shame if we let this happen.

 

If you want another perspective on Pagan Festivals, go and read my Wiccans account here. Or, if you just want to know more about the festivals themselves, go and google the term “Pagan Festival” and you’ll automatically be taken to a bunch of different websites and discussions about the festivals themselves.

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Living Daily In Perfect Love and Perfect Trust

June 19, 2012 in A Community Without Walls, Pagan Spirituality

Perfect Love and Perfect Trust, what exactly does that phrase mean? We see it casually and not-so-casually tossed around in the Pagan Community by more than just Wiccans, but by Pagans of myriad denominations of Traditions and cultures, yet often times it is thrown out there only in certain circumstances. Today we are going to delve into the mysteries of Perfect Love and Perfect Trust to take a look at where it comes from, what meaning it may hold for you, and what it has to teach us.

Perusing through the community across the globe, I have noticed that many people have attempted to hold open discussions on this topic, yet many people were unwilling to participate because they were afraid of being caught up in semantics, so I’d like to clear the air about a few things before we go much farther into this. For the purposes of this article, “perfection” is a very loose term that is entirely based upon your own unique perception. Perfection has been defined as “flawless” but we know that nothing in life is ever flawless. Amongst Pagans it is often the flaws in things that make them the most beautiful in our eyes. So, solely for the purposes of this article to avoid any confusion, perfection is relative and means here, “perfect enough.” Or more specifically, something that is perfect enough for you, the reader.

A short while ago, somebody asked what it means to live in Perfect Love and Perfect Trust, and when I responded, I was met with a reply from an individual who stated that those particular concepts were solely Wiccan tenants and do not apply anywhere else. Do all Pagans follow the concept of Perfect Love or Perfect Trust? So I took a look at history and came to find that most everyone, Pagan and Non-Pagan alike have followed some version of this in one form or fashion. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” the Golden Rule of Life. “An it harm none, do as thou will” the Wiccan Rede. We have known the concept of “In perfect love and perfect trust” under many different guises, the only thing that truly changed was the degree of love and trust shared amongst individuals in any given situation, and each individual’s own perceived notion of “perfection”, “love”, and “trust” which all vary from person to person.

Many people in the community believe that “in perfect love and perfect trust” is actually two different tenants which are very different, and of the two, trust is the hardest to accommodate in modern society. I have heard people claim that without this tenant, they could not accomplish as much magickally within circle. Some believe that it is the practice and belief that in order to effectively function within a circle, you must be able to trust and love your coven members implicitly. However a common faction I have seen in many an explanation of this phrase is that nobody ever notices the depth behind the words.

When I research topics, I look to even the less-than-credible sites to see what people of varying beliefs and traditions, from cultures all over the world, have to say, not just the “authorities” on Paganism. According to Yahoo! Answers, the popularly accepted answer is to love and trust without reservation because everyone within the Craft and without are here for help and guidance, though trust is still a hard commodity these days.  

“The notion of perfect love and perfect trust is a simple one: that you are safe within the circle of your coven’s practices. To stand in a circle with someone is to share an intimate — and often vulnerable — space with them, and it can only be done effectively with someone whom you trust implicitly. By that same token, if we are able to love our coven brothers or sisters, we are able to trust them with our safety and our lives.” (Patti Wingington, Paganwiccanabout.com)

There are limitless versions of explanations on this topic available to the world, however our goal today is to get beyond just the understanding of the literal meanings behind the phraseology and to delve deeper. I’m talking about living “In perfect love and perfect trust,” the daily practical and spiritual applications to incorporate the concept into your everyday life. It has been my experience that it is important to acknowledge that the concept of “perfect love” and “perfect trust” are essential to life, and do not strictly apply only to your life within a sacred circle, but rather to all aspects of your life, especially in love, lust, and romance when developing any type of relationship with anyone, be it platonic friends, family, professional or otherwise.

For a practitioner of the Craft, the word “love” is an imprecise term. Many cultures all over the world have many different terms for different kinds of love. Most people in modern society today don’t take the time to think about all of the forms of love that actually exist, or about what we really mean when we mention the word “love.”  Generally, we tend to think of love as an intense emotion portraying romantic affection or tenderness for someone or something. We often tend to fail to understand that the quality of the love, or the “flavor” as Christopher Penczak put it, is dependent upon the type of relationship you have developed. The type of relationship generally tends to dictate the level of affection, more directly the kind of love we are feeling. There is a very large and very specific difference between the types of love and relationships out there.

The love between parents and children is different from the love between siblings. One might even argue that the love between mothers and sons, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and fathers and daughters is very different. No one type of love is greater or better than the other, they are just different in terms of how they feel and their role in our society. The love between family members is different from the love between to passionate sexual partners. We often use the term “make love” to denote sexual intercourse, yet sex and love can be two entirely separate things. As Penczak suggests, you could have sex with someone and not really love them, or have an emotional connection, and you can love someone and never have sex with them. Romantic love can be unrequited and never consummated through sexual union, but it is still romantic love. You also have the love between friends who are not sexually involved nor related by family.

Honestly we use the term “love” for when we really enjoy something or someone, or feel we really need or want something. I personally love chocolate, I love hiking, I love healthy debates and moonlit strolls along the beach, but my love for hiking is different from my love for debates, and it sure as hell is different from my love for chocolate (we kind of have an on-again-off-again affair going on, even when I’m happily taken.) All of those types of love are still very different from my love of my parents or the love of a significant other. Yet we use the same word to describe all of these many different and very complex relationships, which makes it very difficult to truly understand the depth of different loves.

So what exactly is “perfect love?” It has often been considered one of the highest spiritual achievements beyond the personal sphere. This kind of love is called unconditional love, which is a love for, of, and by the Divine. Divine love has nothing to do with the physical world of material needs (the personal world) but rather of the impersonal world. Many mystics call this Perfect Love, the love that the Divine has for us, for we are divine. What we call “imperfect” love is a personal and attached love. This latter is also very divine, yet fully human, and it is in the experience of any love in the human world that we get a glimpse of the perfect divine love. Nothing can be done or said to take away this divine love. No matter what kind of love we discover and explore, all forms of love can lead us to the Divine. The most important key to understanding all forms of love and relationships is self-love.  You must love yourself and have self-esteem before you can really experience true love for anyone or anything else.

There are several cultures around the world that have a much deeper understanding of the word love, such as the ancient Greeks. Their culture had very specific names for different types of love: eros, phileo, agape, and stergo.

Eros—Sexual or romantic love. Eros was a divine force for life, usually paired with Thanatos, the death force, and personified into the son of Aphrodite, giving us the first image that would later develop into our popular notion of Valentine’s Cupid, taking its name from Eros’s Roman counterpart and portrayed as a beautiful youth with winds and a bow and arrows, “shooting” others to inspire love. In modern Freudian psychology, it is used as a term for the libido, the urge for sexual pleasure and self-preservation.

Phileo—To have affection, not necessarily in a sexual sense. IT can refer to the love that comes with a sense of brotherhood.

Agape—A word rarely used in ancient manuscripts, but when it was, it denoted family or spousal love or the love of a particular activity. Sometimes it was used in reference to divinity, as it was used in a Greek title for the goddess Isis, Agape Theon—“beloved of the gods”—and later adopted by Christians to denote Christ’s divine, unconditional, voluntary, self-sacrificing love. It is also references in forms of modern ceremonial magick.

Stergo—A parental love, used for the love of a parent for children or the love a ruler has for his people. Stergo is how some people see religious or divine love from a parental divinity. Today this is typified by the image of the biblical Father God of Judeo-Christianity. To the mystic and Witch, however, divine love, Perfect Love, is beyond stergo.

(Penczak, Witch’s Heart)

Love is used as a term for developing relationships of any number of types, as well as a term used for divinity, a force flowing through us all. It has even been said that love is the ultimate form of energy, the best way to fuel your magick. In order to accept all of these forms of Love in order to create your own version of Perfect Love, you must be willing to keep yourself open to possibilities, open to the opportunity of love. So what exactly is “Perfect” love? That depends entirely upon you. What is perfect enough for you? How could you love something (or multiple somethings) in your life unconditionally? Just remember that when looking for love, you should be very careful what you ask for.

Now that you have explored a bit more deeply into what it means to love, does trust seem to be the most difficult objective to accomplish? Some argue that you couldn’t truly love someone if you didn’t develop some form of trust with them. I can’t say that I entirely agree. While both love and trust come naturally, they don’t always come hand-in-hand. Sometimes you have to work on developing one more than the other. Love will almost always come in some form or fashion, even if it isn’t in the form you were hoping for. Trust, on the other hand, is something you generally have to actively work on.

It is ideal to be able to trust everyone unconditionally within a circle with whom you are working magick and raising energy, but what about showing some of that unconditional and unreserved love outside of circle? I got my start in a traditional denomination of Witchcraft, so I do understand the concept of creating your own sacred space, however as a Shaman I also believe that everywhere I am is sacred space, within myself and in the world around me. The key to learning how to trust others is to acknowledge and practice trust in yourself. We are all human, we all make mistakes. It is inevitable that we will be disappointed or let down, possibly even betrayed by someone close to us, but that shouldn’t keep us from learning to trust others. We ourselves fall victim to disappointing others. I believe that unconditional trust can be shown by trusting others without expecting anything or commanding anything in return from them. Forgiveness and personal growth are what allow us to continue trusting and believing in people, they are what create the sacred spiral to life which permits us to not only recognize our interconnectivity with one another and for the Divine within us all, but also to learn from our mistakes and our successes so that we may move forward and share this unconditional trust with others.

There are limitless ways for us to show others and ourselves how to incorporate “Perfect” love and “Perfect” trust into our lives. For each of us the path to doing so will be different, as we all have our own perceptions on perfection and we each have different levels and degrees of trust and love that we connect with. So long as we learn to recognize it within ourselves we have the ability to live it daily. I believe that this is a key to our own happiness and a higher spirituality. These concepts are a part of what helps to bring the differing branches of our world-wide Pagan community together, and help us to develop a community without walls. These are some of the core concepts upon which many of my events are built. As a community Shaman, I help provide neutral grounds where we may all come together to celebrate our diversity, we rejoice in our differences and share in our similarities. There is no room for judgment when you are living In Perfect Love and Perfect Trust.

 

 

In love and light,

By Rev. Jonathon S. Lowe; HP
(a.k.a; Sacred Flame)
House of Sacred Mother and Child
The Spirit Mountain Project – cofounder
The Community Grimoire Project – Founder
Midnight Star School of Witchcraft – cofounder/Owner/Instructor

[A special thanks to PaganWiccanAbout.com and Yahoo! Questions, and a very special thanks to Christopher Penczak and his book “A Witch’s Heart: The Magick of Perfect Love and Perfect Trust.” For more information on how to develop a healthy relationship of any sort, especially romantically, please check out his book.]

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To (Wicca) or Not To (Wicca)

June 18, 2012 in Sage & Scourge

I have just come back from a lovely weekend in Greenville, North Carolina, where I had a wonderful weekend with a large part of the Pagan community in that neck of the woods. (And if you ever swing through there, make sure to stop at The Sojourner Whole Earth Provisions shop. This shop is owned and run by the lovely Michelle Puckett Jenkins, who was one of my amazing hostesses. Its a great little Pagan/New Agey shop that will help you with any of your Pagan needs! Check it out, it is definitely worth it!) I was able to see my grumpy Wiccan Significant Other for the first time in several weeks. In the summer he leaves me to go on tour. He is usually gone for four months or more. I try to go to the festivals that he is at as often as I can, but unfortunately, as someone with a nine to five job, this isn’t as often as I would like.

During my time in Greenville, we had some lovely discussions. And while there were many different “flavors” of Pagans about and everyone didn’t agree with everyone else, we had some really lovely and respectful conversations about Paganism and community and so on and so forth. This little jaunt for me definitely reminded me of why I love being in the Pagan community so much. I was nearly a thousand miles away from home, with people that I had never met before and I still felt like I was right at home. Yay, community! (Also, I got to play with goats, that just makes everything EVEN better!)

But my time in Greenville reminded me about why I’ve chosen the community that I have. As a serious eclectic, I knew that moving in with someone that had their whole life wrapped up in Wicca was going to challenge me in many ways. I knew immediately that a huge issue was going to be whether or not I too would become Wiccan. When I moved in with my Significant Other, I knew that this was a hurdle that we would come too and I decided early on that I wouldn’t let him influence my decision any more than he had too. If this was going to be a serious, life long commitment, eventually we were going to have to line up our religious and magical lives and there was going to have to be compromise on both sides. (Compromise does seem to be the theme here, doesn’t it?)

Growing up, my father was fundamentally Christian. When my parents were married, my mother converted for my father’s sake. I don’t think that she ever really actually believed in what she converted to and it was something that she did because he wanted it so much. Now that I’m an adult and in a serious relationship, I understand the impetuous for this decision much more than I did as a child. It’s hard to live with someone whose religion is so much a part of their lives, and to not want, as their partner, to be a part of that.

But this decision, on my mother’s part, always really bothered me. I can’t imagine converting to a religion that I don’t believe in and basically playing make believe with that side of my life just to make my partner happy. I don’t see that as being very healthy. So in an ironic twist (and oh, doesn’t Lady Fate have a twisted sense of humor sometimes?) I realized that I was essentially walking into the same sort of situation that I’ve decried all of these years. (Is Someone making a point? Probably, *sigh*. I should know better by now…) Not that our beliefs differed all that much when it came right down to it, but Wicca was certainly a far jump from my eclecticism in its form and function in life.

When we first moved in together, I started attending his Wiccan rituals with his students at his invitation. I thought that even if I didn’t follow the path of Wicca, I could still at least have a solid presence within it. I didn’t want to have to separate our religious lives completely just because I was skittish of the whole Wiccan thing in general. I was both shocked and relieved to find that I loved being in Circle with him and the people that he had gathered together, and that even though the form was different than what I was used too, it was still something that I both agreed with and loved. He was happy to have me in ritual with him and has always said that if I didn’t become Wiccan, he was fine with that as well.

I think it comes down to the fact that we decided to make it work. We can both compromise and put this side of our lives together and not worry overly much about the fact that he is as staunch a Wiccan as has ever been and I’m just a pirate owl who lives in the inbetween places.

So it was finally, and with much trepidation, that over a year later, I decided to start the path towards initiation in a Wiccan tradition. Don’t worry dear readers! My eclectic shennanigans will still ensue! (And right now, sadly enough for me, my SO is currently sitting at the Wisteria Summer Solstice festival with MY pirates, WITHOUT ME! How is this fair? *Grumble, grumble, grumble…*)

So far, it has been the right decision. Is it the right decision for others? Definitely not. I think the only reason this has gone so smoothly so far was that my SO and I set some very firm boundaries between my path towards initiation and his role within that path right away. One of my biggest concerns was the fact that he is my partner. He cannot be my teacher in this sense, otherwise there is a lack of balance between us which I also see as being very unhealthy. He has a wealth of knowledge, that I certainly want to learn from, but at the same time he can’t hold that teacher relationship with me. It would be inappropriate. But for as much as I grumble over living with a Wiccan, he has done a lot of compromise for me as well. I think its only fair that I compromise a little bit for him too. Wicca is a huge part of his life and he is ridiculously old school about it. There is no reason that I can’t bend for him, just a little, as well.

We still argue over many things. I’m definitely not someone who accepts something at face value, and if it’s contrary to what Ive always thought, I need to have a good explanation for why I need to change my way of thinking. If I think that you’re wrong, I’m definitely going to let you know about it. I have never been a passive individual in that way and that is one of the reasons that I have always avoided coven situations. I’m a pirate. I will always be a pirate. Deciding to become Wiccan won’t change that. I like to think that by bringing my pirate flare to the rest of the coven, the coven will only be enhanced by the entire situation. Again it all comes back down to that idea of compromise. While I have decided to seek initiation as a Wiccan, I don’t think that I’m ever going to lose my eclectic flare and he and I will always argue many different things. Don’t worry! I still firmly believe in the use of sage and he definitely still believes in the use of the scourge…

 

Up Next: What sort of trouble can an Owl get into in the home when a Curmudgeonly Wiccan is away…?

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And Now For Something Completely Different…

May 22, 2012 in Tales from the Silverwolf's Den

Well, I’m not too sure how to go about this whole “introduction” process really without sounding like I’m repeating myself or seemingly making myself sound crazy (which believe me, will eventually happen), so let’s dive in… Shall we?

I’m a young person of big dreams and goals, some of which get lost in my daily routine of juggling too many tasks. But, somehow in the midst of all of this, I found a husband that loves me for all that I am (and yes, this includes the crazy), adopted 6 (yes, 6) animals which consist of 2 dogs and 4 cats, buying a house, becoming more involved with my faith, becoming a High Priestess, starting a local coven, starting a photography business, and just doing about a crap ton of other things that can get to much to list. I can’t explain it really. I’ve always had my hands in about everything I could get to. Though my husband would say that it’s because of the crazy. “You can’t keep it all contained and sit still… That’s just not how crazy works.” <- Yes, that’s my husband for you. Consider me the jack of all trades, master of none. There are few things that I can’t do, and if I don’t know how to do them, there’s a good chance that I haven’t at least tried to learn it or found it on YouTube somewhere (lol).

Well, any who, back to the point of this whole shebang. My obvious goal (besides rationalizing my chaotic behaviors and torturing you) is to try to find a way to incorporate magic into my everyday life, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to reach out to others. Maybe I’ll talk about the husband, or the fur babies, or my coven and what we’re learning, or what I recently have learned, who knows! The world is full of endless possibilities and we cannot even begin to fathom what entertaining things will come to focus when I start pecking away at the keys. I’m always finding random trivia or experiencing the most interestingly epic of days, and as my husband puts it (quite frequently at times) is that there never seems to be a dull moment around me. Most people consider me the comedic relief and find that I’m always there to listen and find a way to make them smile. So, don’t be surprised if most of these come out in a comedic way because that’s how I typically rationalize things.

So, ladies and gentle-hoofs, I leave you with these parting words of wisdom… Wait… Huh, maybe not so much wisdom, but more so of shiggles (do I need to explain that one? lol). My girl friend and I have this weird silly connection when it comes to The Emperor’s New Groove. Let me explain… When one of us starts a line from the movie, we then proceed to spend the next 3-5 minutes quoting random lines from it till we are laughing  our asses off. We can both be pissed off and upset, but when we start this one line… It’s game over and the ‘Van Damme’-esque face quickly fades to the giggly stupidity of laughter and geekiness. Our typical go to line is…”I’ll turn him into a flee….” and if you’ve seen the movie as much as we have (we’re pretty sure we can quote the movie entirely, if not at least 75% of it), you’re probably continuing on with the sentence. It’s OK, I completely understand. Once the train of thought is in motion, you can’t derail it.

The point is, sometimes we all just need to laugh once in a while. Being serious all of the time is mind numbingly boring and depressing. It’s like sitting in high school listening to history teachers (not to offend any teachers out there). So… with that.. Here’s some funny thoughts or questions that I will try to end off with after each blog.  Hope you like it so far and I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.. You stay Classy there readers ;) .

Lady Noisiu V. Silverwolf

“We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.”

PS…. Here’s an additional Foamy video to make you smile. If you like off the wall topics and rants, you will love him and his squirrely goodness. – Enjoy… Spell-A-Casters- Foamy The Squirrel- Ill Will Press

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Scorpions Get A Bad Rap – Time For a Makeover: A Brief Look Into the Scorpion Medicine Totem

April 30, 2012 in A Community Without Walls, Pagan Spirituality

The image of a scorpion is generally enough to strike fear, awe, and a very healthy dose of respect into the heart of anyone who meets one, however scorpions tend to get an undeservedly bad rapport, at the very least in terms of how lethal they can be to humans. Presently, out of 1,500 known species of scorpions world-wide, only approximately twenty-five of them are able to deliver fatal stings to humans. Even among those twenty-five, they can’t typically kill healthy adults, although their venom (neurotoxins) can cause symptoms such as convulsions and shortness of breath. The ones most at risk of dying due to a sting from a scorpion are infants and the elderly, and even then that only applies to stings by the deadliest species. There are only a few species of scorpion, such as the Death Stalker (Leiurus quinquestriatus) of North and Southwest Africa, which are potent enough to fell even the most physically fit humans—this is entirely dependent upon the victim’s innate tolerance for the venom.

There are approximately eighty species of scorpion in the United States, and of them only one—the inadequately named Arizona Bark Scorpion—is considered lethal. The name is a slight misnomer due to the species being found also in the deserts of California and Utah. However even for this deadly critter, there is an antivenin available for the treatment of scorpion stings.

As Brendan Koerner of Slate suggests, scorpions need not always be an anathema to mankind. Recently an Alabama-based biotech company called TransMolecular, Inc. found a way to work on a tumor-killing drug made from scorpion venom. This drug is meant to treat a variety of brain tumors called gliomas, which affect about 16,500 Americans per year.

For the Pagan Community however, the scorpion isn’t just a future means of cancer treatment, it is a very old and powerful teacher. Fierce and potentially lethal, they have been known to live for as long as twenty-five years (significantly longer than most any other arachnid). They are masters of patience as they do not hunt their prey, but rather wait until something suitable comes their way. Scorpion totem medicine is definitely not for the faint of heart, it isn’t called the Lion of the Desert for nothing. If Lions are the kings of the jungle, then Scorpions would be the kings of the Desert. Traditionally associated with Shamanism for healing, the scorpion confers the powers of charisma (masterful presence), rejuvenation, transformation, death and rebirth, mystery, sales, self-protection, magnetic personality, the power of passion, intensity, determination, boldness, willpower, forcefulness, tranquility, dignity, and healing on a cellular level. They also teach us endurance and tenacity, as they can survive up to a year without food or water making them one of the most enduring creatures on the planet.

Oftentimes the appearance of a scorpion in your life (whether it is someone whose totem or zodiac sign is a scorpion, or if it is the actual animal itself) denotes a powerful change and sometimes even a complete metamorphosis about to occur within your life soon. Much of this I was not aware of until recently when I was stung for the second time by a Southern Devil. Since this was not the first time I was stung, I thought that it was worth looking into. When I was first stung I was about ten years old and the scorpion was not native to my state. It was medium-sized and solid black. It crawled into my bed and stung me on the bend of my right arm—my whole arm was swollen for almost a month! Back then I didn’t think too much about it, I chalked it up to bad luck even though I had been walking the Pagan Path for nearly two and a half years at that time. Just a few days ago another little critter, the Southern Devil, crawled into my bed with me yet again, and stung me about six times in two different places on my right leg. Not being one to believe in coincidences and having had several very strong shamanic callings in my life (which I only recently began to answer), I decided to do some research.

It turns out that the scorpion was indeed another shamanic calling, and a very powerful one at that. This occurrence just so happened to have arrived at a most auspicious time in my life when I am beginning to step into the mantle of Shaman for my community, and I have been working on my personal growth at a rather impressive rate since last December. Around Ostara I held a community ritual, which focused around the theme of “spring cleaning” within oneself. The idea is to remove the emotional, mental, and spiritual clutter in order to make room for personal growth. As it so happens, one of the greatest powers that the scorpion medicine totem possesses is the ability to remove and effectively cut out those things that act as a hindrance to your personal growth. In one respect, you can think of it as the scorpion tail stinging and removing things that are causing dead weight, obstruction, pain or illness in your life. In this way, the scorpion medicine can be used to clear, heal, and remove obstacles to promote a positive, healthy well-being for yourself or for others.

Ever since then, my random fevers and ear aches have ceased, some of the old pains from my knee injuries during my years in martial arts has subsided, and I have felt more strongly now than ever that I am on the correct path—though due to being stung, with all of the irritating itch and burn action going on with my right leg, I get the distinct feeling that there is more I could—or should—be doing. I am positive I will figure it out given time.

The scorpion animal totem is a strong spirit indeed and its magickal properties are one of the most influential of all the animal totems. Strength in leadership, long-lasting endurance, the wisdom to wait, higher self-esteem, and so much more can be integrated into the spirit of one who has this beautiful creature as their totem.

I figured I would share my scorpion story with the readers of The Pagan Household to give you an introduction on what it is exactly that I do. As a community leader, I promote the ideal of a community without walls, so I often tend to tackle some very controversial and difficult situations—such as successfully providing neutral grounds for people of various traditions, beliefs, practices, and ways of life to come together and share their experiences and beliefs so that we may learn from one another without fear of judgment. One of the most influential public speakers I have ever known once said, “When there is an elephant in the room, introduce it.” The scorpion was my elephant, and though it did literally happen to me, the significance of the representation of the scorpion as the spirit of the world in both positive and negative aspects is also something to ponder upon deeply. In life we are faced with much adversity, but if we do not balk in the face of something that seems so terrifying (say as something such as a scorpion) we will often find that, as Kimberly Kirberger (Chicken Soup for the Teenage Girls Soul) says, “The fear is always greater than the reality.” My scorpion ordeal has re-affirmed this belief for me.

Now I welcome all of you readers to share your stories of conquering adversity in your life, or even of an adversity you would like to conquer. Brightest Blessings, everyone!

 

By Rev. Jonathon S. Lowe; HP

(a.k.a; Sacred Flame)

House of Sacred Mother and Child

The Spirit Mountain Project – cofounder

The Community Grimoire Project – Founder

Midnight Star School of Witchcraft – cofounder/Owner/Instructor

 

To read up more in the Scorpion Medicine Totem, visit these sources:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2004/09/how_deadly_are_scorpions.html

http://www.manizone.co.uk/scorpion-animal-totem-a-34.html

http://www.askaura.com/animal-totems/scorpion-totem-scorpion-medicine/

http://www.linsdomain.com/totems-s.htm

http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usnh&c=words&id=12519

http://healing.about.com/od/animaltotems/ig/Animal-Totems-Photo-Gallery/Scorpions.htm

 

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