Monday Music Break: Dar Williams

So the world didn't end on Friday like so many people were predicting.  Was anyone else just a little bit disappointed?  I mean, all that hype and hoopla leading up to the 21st, and then nothing happened except the sun rose and set.  What a let down! ;-)

Since today is Christmas Eve and we've just celebrated the Winter Solstice, I decided that today's MMB should be Dar Williams' "The Christians and the Pagans."  It's about family Christmas dinner where both the Christians and the witches learned to get along. 

I'm off to spend a few days with my family for the holiday.  There's going to be the annual Christmas Eve party with my Dad's lifelong friends, and Christmas dinner with my Mom's side of the family.  Then I'll be back home and have the rest of the week off to do as I please.  Bliss!

Sing of the Light

Blessed Yule!  If you're reading this then that means the world hasn't ended ;)

I wanted to share my Winter Solstice chant with you all.  I wrote this chant several years ago as part of a Sabbat series.  While I wrote this chant, I was strongly channeling the Goddess of Reflections, who I also sometimes call the Veiled Goddess.  I had worked with her for my then-coven's Yule ritual, and ended up drawing her down unintentionally during the ritual, so by the time I wrote this chant a week or so later we were on quite familiar terms.

My altar candle for the Veiled Goddess.  It smells like honeysuckle :)

I still don't know her name, and she hasn't been showing up much lately.  Perhaps it was just one of those things where a god or goddess shows up for a while to help fill a void or give you a prod in the right direction.




Sing of the Light

In the darkness hold out your hand
Receive the light, and fan the flame 
Pass it on to your brothers and sisters 
Open your heart and listen to it sing!

It sings of the light in all of it forms 
It sings of the sun, and the moon, and stars 
It sings of their light reflecting 
And it sings with joy of love - the most beautiful light of them all.

Please let me know what you think!

You are free to share my post and use my chants in ritual - and I would love to know that you do!  But please do not record or otherwise reproduce my chants in any other way without permission. 

Stars

Source: poster-street.com

I was really shocked and saddened to hear about what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary.  I watched the news unfold over the course of the day, and just couldn't believe that someone would open fire on innocent little kids and their teachers.  Just wow.  I send my prayers to the gods that they find peace in the afterlife and that their families find healing.

On a more musical note, I'll be posting the chant I wrote for Yule later this week.  Keep an eye out :)

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

Sorry for the dearth of Monday Music Break posts lately, folks.  November and December have turned out to be pretty rough on me, both at home and at work.  Hopefully January will be less stressful and I'll have the energy to work more on this blog.

I did just learn that I will be taking on some new and exciting responsibilities at my job, which should hopefully make work less stressful and more interesting.  It will give me the chance to flex my writing and editing skills some more and work on social media stuff.  I'm pretty stoked about it.

In the meantime, please check out what some of these other awesome pagan bloggers are posting about:

* Jason Pitzl-Waters just posted the Best of 2012 Show for his podcast, A Darker Shade of Pagan.  If you don't subscribe to that podcast, by the way, you should - the music he plays is kick-ass.

* My dear friend Awenydd has been writing some lovely poetry over on Stories from the Cauldron

* Teo wrote a really powerful post about cleaning up ritual space as a way to find stillness and renewal.

* Lonely Coyote wrote a neat post about working with rosemary.

* This post is few months old, but I wanted to draw attention to it: Finally the hurdles were overcome, and Literata (one of the local pagan leaders in the DC metro region) was recognized by the Arlington County Court as a clergy member, and thus able to perform marriages.  Awesome victory for the local pagan community!


Also, I have had this song stuck in my head for the last couple of days.  HALP.

Birthday Music Break!

Today is my birthday!  Two of my good friends treated me to Thai food and chocolate decadence cake last night, which was so much fun and soooo yummy.  I didn't really do much today, as it's the middle of the week and no one is available.  So I'm enjoying a quiet night in, drinking a winter ale and catching up on my DVR.

I just wanted to pop in before I go to bed to share a little music that I've been digging lately.  I've been listening to a lot of Bonnie Raitt over the last week or so.  She's one of my favorite artists, and while she's not pagan, DAMN does her music have soul!

Here is one of her songs that has a real roadhouse blues feel, "Love Me Like a Man."  Enjoy!