Samhain blessings

Blessed Samhain and happy new year to all my fellow pagans in the Northern Hemisphere! For those in the south, happy Beltane!

Right now I am drinking tea, watching cheesy Halloween movies like Teen Wolf and Queen of the Damned (later on I will watch Hocus Pocus), and giving out candy to trick-or-treaters. So far, only one kid has come costumeless - as is my policy, I gave her a hard time but gave her a piece of candy anyway.

Ah - I spoke too soon. A whole gaggle of teenage boys just showed up with no costumes. Seriously, is it so difficult to even put on a little spooky make-up? Borrow your sister's eyeliner if you have to. Sheesh.

Jack told me he's never seen Hocus Pocus and has no interest in watching it with me. Say what? It's like, practically a Halloween tradition to watch it. Bette Midler, Sara Jessica Parker ( "Amok! Amok amok amok!"), and Kathy Najimy as 3 sister witches running... well, amok in modern-day Salem - what's not to love?

Later I will raise a toast to my ancestors and departed loved ones, and leave a shot on the mantle for them. Hopefully we have some whiskey to leave for my Celtic ancestors. If not, I get the feeling both my Celtic and Germanic roots would appreciate the glory that is tequila. Hail to the ancestors!

What are your Samhain traditions?

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

I've been too tired and busy over the last week to really sit down and write in here. So instead, in light of my totally geeky Doctor Who reference last week, I thought I should share this video I found showcasing just how bananas about bananas Russel T. Davies is.

It's bananas

This week has seriously blown chunks. I've been realizing (and re-realizing) that there are serious problems with several important things in my life, including my job and my spiritual work. Also, the office has been having serious issues with internet and email connectivity, making it exceedingly difficult to do my work effectively. Suffice it to say, I'm having some serious anxiety and anger management issues because of it. I've been in quite the foul mood all week. Thank you, crazy brain, for making me blow up at my boyfriend just for making silly (and irritating) noises at me.

My cousins pretty much sum up how I feel about this week:

 

I've been trying to be nice to myself to at least balance things out, and possibly cheer myself up. Some of this involved pampering myself, deservedly so. So far this week:

1. Holed up in my room with Hulu and a beer.
2. Went to the salon and got my hair shampooed (the best part!), trimmed, and blow-dried (also quite nice). I seriously had to resist the urge to make happy noises while she was playing with my hair.
3. Convinced my boyfriend to play with my hair while we watched Restaurant Impossible. And made lots of happy noises.
4. Had a really delicious chocolate cupcake. Okay, two.
5. Made myself a really big mug of hot chocolate. Seriously, this mug can hold about 2 normal mugs worth of hot chocolate, and that makes me so happy. I'm thoroughly enjoying that right now.
6. Listened to my friends Peter and SarahKat on their podcast, We Like This Now. (You should go listen too. They're pretty awesome, and taste-test a new beer each week.)

I'm debating whether I should go to Target after work for some retail therapy. It would be kind of fun to have some new clothes to wear to a party I'm going to Saturday night. And it would seriously boost my step count for the 2011 Walk & Ride Challenge.

Alright, you know what? This calls for some serious pick-me-up music. As SarahKat said of this song, "that was bananas!" I like bananas. Bananas are good. Have some bananas.

Visions of the moon

Last year at my tradition's Yule ritual I had one of the most emotional and powerful ritual experiences of my life. Given the coming dark of the winter, I felt it a good time to share my experiences from this ritual.

In this ritual, we are visited by 3 aspecting priests/priestesses - the Raven of the Void, the White Lady, and the Sun King. The Raven compels us to dig deep and keen out all of the negativity from the past year, releasing it into the void. Then the White Lady and the Sun King help us to find our inner light to carry us through the next year.

The keening had me facing many of my demons. I cried and screamed like I never have before. I found myself experiencing, very powerfully, the vision of my depression - a dark, endless, turbulent pool filled with grasping beings pulling me down. Allowing myself to bring all of my pain to the surface for the keening, while cathartic, made it that much more difficult to free myself from it when it came time to find the light.

I don't even remember what the White Lady or Sun King said. I stood there quietly whimpering, trapped in this vision of drowning. Finally I called out on the astral for help. I saw the moon appear, and its reflection shone down on the water. Then the reflection of the moon solidified into a platform, with a ladder. A goddess' hand reached down from the sky and pulled me up onto the platform, and calmed the waters. I rested on the platform, shaken and battered and worn out, but at peace for the moment.

 

Image by peasap via Flickr

It's a good tool for a quick self-assessment of my emotional state. I bring up that vision and feel out where I am in that scenario - am I underwater? holding on to the platform? On the platform? Sitting here at my desk, I took a quick look with my inner eye and realized I'm actually sitting cross-legged on top of the platform, gazing up at the moon.

And when I'm feeling like I'm drowning, I can use the imagery of the moon platform to calm down and gather myself. Sometimes I can only grasp onto the side, or swim closer. It's even helpful just knowing it's there when I need it.

Related articles

• Sacred Moon (lookingglasspoetry.com)
• Would you light my candle? (heartacheintobeauty.wordpress.com)

Use your pain to propel you forward

One year ago at Mabon, Hades (aspected by my high priest) recognized that I was drowning in my own emotional pain. He told me that I needed to use my pain to propel me forward.

At the time I had no idea what this meant. How can the thing that's drowning you also move you forward? So I let it mull for a very long time.

I figured out recently that writing in this blog is how I am doing that. I'm using this blog as a tool to air out all that emotional crap and find new ways to heal and move on with my life. It's like when you're floundering in big waves at the beach - you use the forward movement of the waves to propel you back to shore.