The Goddess Within

Halloween and Samhain are here -- how did the end of the year come so quick?  So much to reflect on, the day already feels like it's simply whizzing by.  Thankfully Samhain isn't simply celebrated on today, the 31st.  Each tradition is different; when I was in BFC we observed Samhain on November 7th; many traditional Pagans celebrate on October 31st, others continuing through to November 2nd, as well as getting the opportunity to celebrate once more when Lunar Samhain rolls around.  This many days of celebrations?  Jai Ma!! I was going to go to my old covenmates tonight for ritual, but she has informed me that she was just exposed to H1N1.  She works as a nurse so I imagine being exposed to a variety of illnesses is fairly common, I trust she will be well but sending her light none the less.  So, tonight I plan to stay in and enjoy the evening after taking Nimue trick-or-treating. Our town is one of the few in NH that actually has trick-or-treating...

I don't know why, but in general I tend to get a little surprised by people who don't know what EPC is, more particularly spiritual people.  Really?  Most people have practiced this and have no idea, and in fact I would say that's true about 98% of the students I teach.  I suppose it's just the label of which we define it that might not make sense to people, I know I'm certainly one of them at times. If you don't know what EPC is, it's Etheric Plane Communication.  The basic way I like to start discussing this with my students is that it's communicating with another being on the etheric plane.  Some will go as far as to describe the etheric plane as the dream plane, though I don't equate the two as being the same, but that's a discussion for another day.  In this communication, you are able to speak with another being and begin the process of healing.  You are in a safe space of being able to vocalize what you want to say to another without p...

I've been waking up late the past several mornings, mostly due to the cloudy haze and darkness that it still feels like 4 or 5am, so needless to say I go back to sleep. Today I was up early, awoken from strange dreams, the rain has me wanting to curl up with several good books.  Or to study.  Or knit.  Clearly I can't make up my mind this week. Christopher emailed this morning to say that Ted Andrews had crossed the veil on Saturday.  So sad.  I was just thinking of his work last week, how "Animal Speak" is quite essential in any Pagan/Witch library.  Such a year of loss, so terrible to lose people who have created some amazing and powerful works this year, such as Andrews, as well as Marion Weinstein, watching more and more of these authors cross to the other side.  It's inevitable in the cycle of life, still, quite sad to see them go, hoping that what gets left behind is not just the memory of their work, but inspiration in younger authors who will...

At  ADC we've begun our book study with Z's HBWM, and upon reading through the intros and first chapter I felt that we needed to begin with sharing what brought us to the Goddess.  Z shares in the few first pages about coming to the Goddess, saying "falling in love seems to be the biggest recruiter for the Goddess."  It's not the same as our coming out of the broom closet stories, the identification of coming to the Goddess is a huge thing to vocalize, and it felt important for us to begin there.  My own story has many parts.  Here is what I shared with the systers there: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ What brought me to the Goddess? As I child I longed for some kind of spiritual direction.  My parents are non-practicing Catholics, I was baptized in the Catholic church and my religious education in that tradition ended there.  Years later my brother made attempts to teach me on his own, from his religious books from CCD, but even then I couldn't ident...

It's Monday.  Somehow I'm not in October and the month isn't drawing to an end and Samhain isn't just right around the corner... I had so much planned for this month, however the energy of this month had other plans for me, which has proven to be necessary, but the return to commitments is more prominent than ever. Friday my brother-in-law and his girlfriend took us out to Witch's Woods since she wanted to go on a haunted hayride, which I admit to have never experienced, and by the next day my throat was completely soar and stripped of any dignity from all the screaming I did.  Serious wimp!  But it was quite a blast and I think we all needed that.  We needed a day to laugh and be silly and ridiculous, and I'm pretty sure my general reaction to the haunted happenings surrounding me provided much comic relief more than the actual event itself. I have this thing, this strange thing where if I go to something haunted like this (which hasn't been in a few ye...

I feel like a week has gone by, disconnected from the cyber world and anything else outside of my immediate bubble, I have held space for those who needed me to share my strength while finding my own renewal in the process of release. The wake was yesterday, and I hadn't anticipated actually getting to physically see Joe there.  I was told he would be cremated.  And he will be, today, but I thought it was happening the day before, so I had images of seeing his urn and his picture there, not him, himself.  That took me back.  As I've said before, this is a new process for me, I have only been to 2 other wakes.  One was my stepfather's mother who, out of the 3 kids, I was the only one who met her a couple of times, so he asked me to go, and I did, to support him.  He asked me to go to the casket, and again I did, but I didn't stand too close, it was a strange notion being there.  The second wake was for my husband's friend, essentially like a brother...

"The bright light is lying down The earth and the sea and the sky Is at rest with the ocean And the days go by They go into the seas that have no shores Haunted by that same closed door Looking up at skies on fire Leaving nothing left of us To discover" I have this song in my head at the moment, singing over and over the line "and the days go by".  The days certainly have felt like they have gone by, quite fast, like months have been processed through in mere days.  Days.  Just days.  It's a strange place to be, but it's the moment, this moment.  It's now. The wake is tomorrow.  While death itself isn't easy, and I'm certainly no authority on it since I haven't experienced it much around me (thankfully), it's a completely different field of energy than I can speak on. Saturday night when I got the news I was tremendously sad.  Sad for all of us, this carried through to Sunday, where it began to shift to confusion.  I'm ...