Falling

I'm falling down.
Back into the arms of a past that I've long forgotten.
Despite spiraling out of control
I cannot help but feel
Safe in the arms of gods
Who hold me close
Despite the imperfections that I cannot help
Spilling out of my very soul.

Night One: Rite of Wind - Choosing my Signature Plant

Daily Affirmation: 

I am always connected to Spirit.  Spirit fills my every need and my every desire.  I know that Spirit lives within me.  - Silver Ravenwolf

The first night of my journey works with the wind.  I have opened all my windows to clean out the stale air and any foulness (smells or energy).  I have had my Nag Champa burning all day as it is my husband and my favorite incense.  I have even been airing out my car.  It is interesting that my journey begins with the element of air as it has never been the element I work best with.  However, I know that it will help push me to work harder with my changes as I need the wind to keep propelling me forward.

Part of my task for today, before my ritual this evening, is to choose a Signature Plant.  It will be one that I grow in my own garden and connect with always.  I had an idea of what the plant should be for, but it took me a few hours today to really come to a final conclusion about which one I should use.  And, in true Willow style, I choose one of the most expensive herbs in the world: Saffron

From the Herb Grimoire:

Saffron: Aphrodisiac, love, healing, happiness, wind raising, lust and strength. Burn, wear, or carry for healing and strengthening psychic awareness. Commonly used in love magick, healing spells, and to control the weather. Wash hands with water and saffron or keep saffron sachets in your home to bring happiness.

I think this is exactly the herb I need to keep around.  Part of my journey is to heal old wounds and close doors on my past, otherwise, it is going to keep disrupting my life and never let me move forward.  I need happiness in my life.  I want to be able to smile and mean it.  So, I ordered bulbs from a local nursery.  Apparently saffron grows during the months of September and October.  I am planting a bit late, but I might be able to get some plants to grow this year.  If not, there is always next year.

I want to move forward.  It always works.  Always a blessing.

Blessed be.

 

 

Well, it took longer than I thought . . .

Ok.  It has been about a year since I really wanted to write in this thing.  I have had numerous ups and downs, but never enough motivation to share any of them on this blog.  This past year has really been a private journey of self-realization and, perhaps, finally forgiveness (I'll get into that portion of the journey at another time).

I suppose what has finally motivated me to want to write for this blog again is a re-shaping of my practice.  It started on Thursday evening by going to a class with the High Priest of the Coven that I hang out with.  I am not an official member as I don't believe I'm fully "there" yet.  Then, yesterday was a low day.  My body ached.  I hurt everywhere - internally and externally.  I did not want to move from my bed or the couch.  Now, part of the reason for this is because I've been on an exercise/diet kick.  I think I over did it this past week.  However, the internal hurting came from the class I took on Thursday.  Some very old wounds opened up that I was finally ready to deal with.  This is where the forgiveness part of my re-directed path will eventually come in.  Like I said, I am not there just yet, which is why I do not feel it is appropriate to ask for membership into the Coven.

So, this morning, I began re-reading Silver Ravenwolf's book Hedgewitch - spells, crafts and rituals for natural magick.  I knew I needed to refocus myself.  I needed a kick start if I am really going to make myself happy, healthy, wealthy (not necessarily monetary), and wise (to borrow phrasing from my class as well as my Grandmother).  I am not "happy."  Content, yes, but I am not overjoyed with the way my life is going nor do I get excited for anything.  I just am.  I would like to get excited about life.  About exercise.  About food.  About reading.  About teaching.  I do not want to be simply "content."  I want to enjoy my experience here.  I think re-reading Silver's book and really taking Thursday night's class in to full context is helping me see a way of getting beyond content.

Thus, tomorrow I begin the fourteen day ritual process or re-directing my path as I would prefer to think of it.  I know I am a witch.  I think I have always known.  I am not changing that.  I just found a fork in the road, and although it is dark and, quite honestly, frightening, I would rather go this way.  I need to tunnel in through the weeds, rip them out and make the garden of me a little more inviting for the people around me.  I think I forgot the most basic principle of gardening: weeds come back.  I let them take over me and drown me.  Tomorrow's ritual is thus quite fitting: Wind.  I will blow in winds of change and let the air clean out, not only my home, but me.  I will use the wind to keep me moving, to keep weeding, because when I forget to do so, I head back down into depression and cannot rise above "content."  The weeds suffocate me.

Part of this fourteen day journey is keeping a journal.  I have my personal pen and paper journal but I also want to share aspects of it on the blog as a means of re-directing myself back to writing.  Part of the past year's problem was that I never once wrote a single thing for myself and I really missed doing that. If I forget that part of me, then I become unfocused and frazzled.  That is how I let the weeds start rooting again.

This is a new path that I wish to take whilst I wander.  The Green Witch is back.  This is not a new me.  This is merely a re-discovered me or a forgotten me.  Help me clear the weeds.

I want to keep writing this blog.  It always works.  Always a blessing.

Thank you and blessed be.

Tomorrow's my 28th Birthday

And I really don't give a flying fuck.  I turned off the comment function on Facebook.  I'm turning off my phone.  I'd rather not acknowledge that I'm that much closer to 30 tomorrow and I really want the world to leave me alone.

August 30th

That is the date I meet with my OBGyn to discuss the risks of me having children should I ever decide to have them.  I've read too much online and in Medical Journals and I feel that I've just frightened myself.  I need to also make an appointment with my Hematologist to hear his considerations as well.  However, if I do hear one more comment from friend or family about reproducing, I'm just going to print this:

Thrombophilia is a condition whereby a person experiences abnormal clotting of the blood. Complications can include stroke, heart attack, deep venous thrombosis, and pulmonary embolism. For a pregnant woman, thrombophilia can result in miscarriage, preeclampsia, and eclampsia 

Then, I'll just hold up my middle finger and walk away.

 

Am I a bad woman?

Many friends have recently posted on Facebook or shared with me in person that they are with child.  I'm happy for them but each time this announcement is made, I'm harassed with questions about when my husband and I plan to have children.  I've been on the fence about children for a long time.  I have a genetic blood clotting disorder (Factor V) that makes things complicated for me.  Plus, I'm 27 years old and don't really see myself as a mother.  Pregnancy grosses me out and frightens me because of the blood clotting problem (miscarriages and death are risk factors).  Am I a horrible woman for becoming bitchier and bitchier each time I'm asked this question?  I know I have the right to be a bitch to the people at work who barely know me but I'm growing increasingly angry with close friends and family who are asking the question.  I feel guilty.  My best friends don't ask but they insist that I'll change my mind.  They are all excited for it to happen and quite frankly, I'm not.  I want nothing to do with it.  Does it make me a bad hedge witch and woman for not wanting motherhood?  There is so much of the craft that is "motherly."  How can I hold myself to such qualities when they are ones I don't possess or want?

I know many of my readers are mothers.  Please know that I hold nothing against any of you for being mothers.  Many people have perceived me in the past as a basher of motherhood.  I just don't want it for myself.  I guess I just feel like I'm wrong to not want it.

A Crossroads

So, I've been on a bit of a mental break for the past few months.  I've debated if I want to start the blog back up again.  While reading a new Pagan book this morning, I decided it would be a good idea.  This year has been a blur of constant stress.  Between co-workers who treat me as an outcast because of my Pagan faith and "green" values and parents who constantly harass me because I dare to challenge their students with hard work and accountability, I've been nothing but a bundle of nerves.  So, I abandoned my blog.  I honestly don't know why I did it in the first place.  Writing here gave me hope and understanding.  I connected with many of my readers on Facebook and speak with them privately about Pagan issues.  Why did I throw away my connection to what I've been looking for?  I guess I couldn't balance it all.  My faith doesn't bring me paycheck, teaching does.  So the world of stress took over my life.

Thankfully summer has finally arrived.  Today work crept in to provide me with some stress: One of the parents who gave me more grey hairs than I can count is still complaining.  Her son slept through my first period class all year and how *dare* I hold him accountable for doing nothing with a failing grade.  I must have some nerve.  But it's done.  It's over.  I took care of her bitching.  She got what she wanted.  Hopefully my cell phone and house phone will stay quiet for the rest of the summer except for when friends come calling.  I want to see pleasant people's names come across my caller ID for the remainder of the summer.  School can ring me in September.

So, what does all of this mean?  Is the Green Witch back?


Yes.


I'm not sure where I'll begin in my writings again.  I suppose talking about my house and the Pagan elements I've added around it would be a good place to start.  It's the only positive I've had since I last wrote in March.  I know I'll share about the Mets/Yankees game I'm going to tonight.  I'll be the lone Yankees fan in a group of Mets fans.

Until tomorrow.
Blessed Be.

PS - I guess my internal witch clock knows best when to start over.  I just realized today is a New Moon.

I have internets!

So, after owning my home for over a month, I finally have internet, cable and phone! I can finally begin blogging again. I am so sorry that I've neglected my readers and I plan on getting back on track. Things have finally settled down at the new house and we're almost "done" setting up our things. I know we'll never truly be "done" but at least it finally feels like our home and looks like people actually live here. I have to take some more recent pictures to show all of you as there are many changes since I posted pictures last.

Since I've been gone from blogging almost three months, I honestly have no idea where I should focus my posts! So I ask you, my followers, what do you want me to blog about?

I can share one new photo. My nothiddeninacabnetbecauseiliveatmyparent'shouse altar!

Thoughts

I think I'm too critical.  I sit around the English Office table listening to my co-workers' conversations and I have nothing to say.  It's because I'm too busy thinking how self absorbed these people are.  Maybe it's because they don't want to bring their opinions on social matters into the workplace, but these people have nothing better to talk about than shopping, shitty television shows and the "oh, so wonderful nonsense their kids did."  I don't get it.

Then, if a social/political topic comes up, they have the most asinine opinions of it.  For instance, someone brought up "going green" the other day.  I was elated.  Finally, something I could actually talk about rather than sit and eat my lunch in silence and have them look at me as if I were a mongloid.  I mentioned that Sean and I will be growing our own garden and using our own compost for it.  They looked at me as if I had 9,000 heads.  Compost?  Ew.  That's nasty.  They were also dismissive of organic products, especially organic cleaning.  I brought up the effects of things like bleach on the environment and people and they still thought I was a loon.

It's people like this that are killing our planet and keep me up at night.  I'm the looney tooney hippie of the English Department.  Sue me for wanted to not harm the planet I live on by growing my veggies, create less waste by having a compost pile (in a compost container so it doesn't stick too!), and making my own cleaning products.  Wow.  I must be a moron.

Blessed Yule to One and All

Blessed Yule to all of my readers and their families. May the light of the full moon shine upon you and bring you the forgiveness and love of the season. 

I shared my family's two Yule trees with you at the end of November but I have not shared my favorite decoration in the house.  My Yule altar.  

Yes, it's a fireplace.  The mantel, however, acts as my altar.  As I do currently live with my parents, I have to tolerate their gas fireplace.  My new house has a wood-burning fireplace.  I won't be able to perform my ritual until my parents fall asleep.  Despite being "out of the broom closet" with my mother, my father isn't too keen on my partaking in the craft.  It will be brief and quiet and will most likely end outside under the light of the full moon.  I hope to get some great pictures to post on the blog either tonight or tomorrow.

I've always felt that the winter months brought a time of deep reflection and forgiveness, especially since most of our time is spent indoors, sheltered from the cold.  The fireplace/altar in my parent's home is a place where my family gathers together.  It is a place where we can sit and read or watch television together.  We may not utter a word to one another, but our physical being of sitting together brings us closer.  It's especially a place that I can feel some closeness with my father as he and I, although both very alike, constantly butt heads.  We're both very stubborn individuals and we are both strong in our beliefs.  Neither of us can agree to disagree.  However, in front of the fire, we can be at peace. 

 I hope wherever your place of comfort is in your home, you can find some peace, forgiveness, and relaxation.   Enjoy the light of the full moon and embrace this rare occasion.  Use her light to wash yourself of the negative energy in your life.  I know I need to.

Blessed Yule.  Blessed Solstice.  Blessed be.