Tag: God

Just a minute of your time, please……

Good Afternoon loyal readers! I hope you are all doing fine. I thought this would be a good time to tell you why I have been so scattered brained recently. I know I get so far in the postings and then quit, I am so, so sorry for this.

I believe the first thing to throw me for a loop was having shingles. Also I believe that was the time we had the tornadoes come through. Well let’s start with the shingles (lovely subject, lol!). The original patch of shingles that I had are cured or at least dominant for the time being. Now for the bad news, I have had a new batch crop up. Now you ought to see the doctors’ scratch their heads on this one. I was laying in the floor one night and got this awful pain in the top of my head. I placed my hand up there and gently rubbed and sure enough it was shingles. So they are watching all this mess on the top of my head. They want to make sure they don’t start pushing in on my brain. If that happens they will have to do something. Also the shingles have messed up one of my kidneys. Now this is according to my doctors. I believe it is dues to the harsh antibiotics they put me on was to blame. Ok, enough about me, you know I am still alive and scratching, lol!

Next up, storm damage……everyone was in the process of getting their lives back to some sort of order, then came the water. I honestly don’t know how many roads are closed out here by me. I was coming back from town yesterday and looked off to my right and you could see the Ohio River coming up through the cornfields.  Everywhere is flooded, they are blowing natural levees in the hope this will relief some of the water pressure. I know you probably heard it on the news but one town in Illinois is covered in water. I believe we live about 75 miles away from them. They reported on the news that they were evacuating people from their homes in Cairo.  You know after so much you wonder is it ever going to end? Where we live, I never dreamed I would look out across the fields and see the river coming up so.  But I have no right to complain, my son emailed me a picture of his home today. There is water all around it. You have to come and go in a canoe. He said they had moved everything out, over the past weekend. He was ready for the river to take his home. He lives in the floor plain. He told me this morning there was no need to get upset because they know this was a possibly when they moved there. To me, my children have no value of money. We have busted our butts to get everything we have. If a flood was to take our home I would be sick. But I guess that is where the old generation gap comes into play, lol

This is my son’s home
He has always laughed because he could walk out his back door and go deer hunting. Now today, he is laughing because he can fish off his front porch. I guess it is good he can keep a sense of humor during all of this. He said he had already packed the wife and kids up and they have left. He is staying there at night. I told him he better watch that or else he would be swimming with the fishes. He is a foreman at one of the boat yards around here and he said he makes sure he get a river report before he leaves work every night.
 
My husband and my daughter are different stories. My daughter, I can’t really say that much because she works at a hospital and everything is supposed to be confidential. But a mess did occur and she put in her two weeks notice. My husband is useless. He sits on the couch with his laptop and keeps saying it is great to be retired. He has screwed up my daily schedules so bad. He will stay up all night and then sleep all day. Well if I have to run the vacuum, I am up a creek. He doesn’t get out of the house for nothing. I am always running here and there. I have about did all the running I am going to do. The next stop will be running to the lawyer’s office to sign the divorce papers.
 
So now you know why my life on the internet has been so screwed up. Truthfully I believe there are times I am about to lose my mind.  If it wasn’t for the Goddess and me continually asking for her help, I would have. Before I go there is one thing I would like to ask you, please continue to pray for my family, especially for my son. Pray that the water doesn’t get up in his home and ruin everything he has. Pray for me, that the Goddess will continue to love me, watch over me and most of all keep me sane. I have seen with my own eyes what this group of people can do when they set their mind to it. Please pray for us, all of us. Not just my family either, everyone that is in this horrible mess right now. Trying to make it from day-to-day, just to get up and see the water has raised another foot inside your house. I honestly don’t know how they do that. To go in a place you have loving, sweet memories of and see all the destruction that has took place, Goddess Bless Them. We all need your prayers. Please I am asking you again, pray for all of us.

Starting the Day Off Right, Wishing You A Very Happy & Blessed Saturday!

The Lady’s Prayer
 
Our Mother who art all things,
Our Lady who art the moon, sun, and heavens,
Hallowed be thy name
By thy sovereignty of the sacred land,
Thy divine will be done
On Earth as it is in all realms
Give us this day our daily bread
Bless and guide us, Great Goddess
And protect us from all harm and evil
For thine is the power, beauty, and love
Forever, and a day. Ayea!

Blowing In The Wind

Blowing In The Wind
 
 
In the Wiccan Tradition, Air is the Element of the East and might be represented on an altar by incense, feathers or an athame. It can be as soft as a whispered breath and as violent as a tornado, so it isn’t an Element to be taken lightly. It should come as no surprise that particularly persistent winds have even been given names—the Scirocco winds in the Mediterranean and the Santa Ana winds on the United States West Coast, for example. When these winds blow, they can literally change people’s temperaments and often fan wild fires. When mixed with another power Element, Water, Air can produce a fury we call hurricanes.
 
But Air is a necessary and benevolent Element, too. Without even thinking about it, we use our breath to blow out candles, sing songs of celebration and whisper secrets. How often have you “stepped out for a breath of fresh air”? Used during meditation and to alleviate the pains of childbirth, the Element of Air is healing and vital.

MAKING AN ATHAME

MAKING AN ATHAME

An athame is traditionally a double-bladed knife with a black handle. Very few
people make their own, although it is possible to do so. Most people obtain one
and personalize it in some way. This is most commonly done by inscribing
symbols or runes on it. In some traditions specific symbols are required and
have been handed down through their lineage. In others and among eclectic Wicca
groups, these can be personal.

How do you do this? You cover the blade with Paraffin. (WAX) Then you let it
cool. Next you take a LONG sharp NAIL and inscribe the symbols in the wax.
Then you use dilute Hydrochloric acid – careful, this stuff is dangerous, and
drop by drop place on the blade where it shows through due to your inscriptions.
When the acid has worked – usually fairly quickly – you rinse the blade under
running water THOROUGHLY and then you use VERY hot water and a lot of elbow
grease to remove the wax.

If ANY ACID FALLS ON THE SKIN RINSE THOROUGHLY UNDER COLD WATER IMMEDIATELY and
if there is a burn of any type, seek immediate medical help. IF it gets in the
eyes, again rinse immediately and completely and CALL THE EMT/PARAMEDIC UNITS.
It is best when doing this if you wear either some type of glasses or goggles
and rubber gloves.

DO NOT INGEST THE ACID OR LEAVE IT WHERE IT COULD BE INGESTED BY A CHILD OR
ANIMAL. Also be careful of how you dispose of the rest of it – do so in an
environmentally SAFE way.

This sounded like a little too much for me, so I tried another method. Koren
made a beautiful athame for me and I personalized it by putting herbs of my
choice in the handle and sealing this with a favorite crystal of mine – again
with his help.

Oh, if you absolutely can’t get a double-bladed knife – in Massachusetts, for
example, possession of such a weapon is a CRIME – get a single-bladed knife and
grind down the other edge as much as you can.

As I said, the Athame is USUALLY black-handled, but there are exceptions – I saw
one Lady use a knife with a deer’s hoof for the handle. She was oriented toward
her Native American heritage as much as her Craft, so it had deep significance
for her. I also saw – in fact a friend of mine was selling it – a BEAUTIFUL
homemade athame with copper tubing forming a cross hilt and crystals in each of
the three tips for the handle. (this was almost a small sword) AS ALWAYS USE
WHAT SPEAKS TO YOUR OWN SOUL!!!!!

The athame is usually NOT used in circle for anything other than ritual and
ceremonial purposed. If you need to inscribe a candle for Magick or slice the
bread for the cakes and wine part of the rite, you usually use a BOLINE or white
– handled knife, often a small dagger or even a pen-knife, set aside for these
purposes.

The Censer

The Censer
 

The censer is one of the basical elements in arranging the altar for ritual. Whether we use our incense in sticks, cones or grain, we must have a vessel to hold the ashes and isolates the altar from the heat of the burning incense.

If we’re using sticks, the best will be to have a shallow, wide mouth recipient (like a soup bowl), full of sand, where we’ll nail the sticks to consume. The same if we’re using cones. If we want to use grains, the censer must be heat-proof, for the burning coals will release extreme heat. This last type is the most advisable, since it gives us the freedom of making our own mixes from scratch, using a few basic elements and adding herbs or even flowers if wanting to.

In every case, it’s better if the recipient has some kind of handle, or chains like the old Church censers, to handle it without getting nasty burns. We must keep in mind that in some cases we’ll have to walk around with it, for instance, if we’re doing a house cleansing. The better materials are clay, ceramic or bronce, being the former the cheaper but more fragile, and the later the most expensive.

The censer and the coals slowly consuming, represent the elements of Fire and Air in the rituals, both masculine. Generally, the censer will be placed on the right of the altar, needing a case similar to the one we ought to have with lit candles.

The Broom

The Broom
 

The broom might be, along with the cauldron, the most famous tool connected popularly with witches. Traditionally an element symbolising the union of the masculine and feminin principles, was used not for flying, but for the ritual cleaning of the working space, and protection and fertility rites. Some authors suggest the broom was the perfect place to hide the wand during the Witch Hunt, disguising it as an element of daily use.

Sir James Frazer in “The Golden Bough” gathers multiple examples of rituals that involved the use of a broom, generally as a symbol of fertility or fecunding energy. According to one of those, to assest the fertility of the fields a young woman had to circle them once they were sown, naked and riding a broomstick. In these rituals might be seen the remains of the primal fertility rituals, where the High Priest and the High Priestess symbolised the marriage of Earth and Sky, the Goddess and the God, renewing the fertility of the land.

Another version suggests that if we want a cleansing broom, it should be made of willow wands, which was believed of old to cast off evil spirits. This was believed to the point of considering the whipping with willow wands a sure method of exorcism.

The truth is, our ritual broom must be of the old style, made of wigs or straw, and it must be reserved to a symbolic pass to cleanse the place of any type of energies before starting any ritual, and as every tool named so far, must be kept for this purpose only. The best results will be achieved if we make it ourselves, but due to the difficulty of this task, we can safely leave it in someone else’s hands, if we’re careful enough to do the energetical cleansing before using it.

It’s use is not strictly necesary, so let us not despair if we can’t find a broom maker where we are: we can easily go on with our celebrations without the broom, as long as we replace the cleansing action with a similar one.

The Chalice

The Chalice
 

The chalice is a smaller version of the cauldron as a representation of the eternal feminin and the element of water. We’re talking about a goblet, usually of the round type, in which we’ll have water represented during rituals, even though on ocassions it might contain some other liquid, for example wine during the simple feast.

The selection of the apropriate chalice is a delicate task. We could use a glass one, even though the traditional is made of metal: gold, brass, silver or the like. We must be very careful when choosing, preffering the ones with their inside covered in glass, silver or stainless steel, because metals like copper and brass can be poisonous when in contact with alcohol. We must also consider the size, preffering the middle-sized, to make it easier to handle. It’s not necesary to get a very ornated one; it’s perfectly valid to use, if wanting to, one of grannie’s crystal glasses, if we perform the appropriate ritual cleansing.

Shops specialising in wedding gifts are bound to have sets of two metal gobblets perfectly capable of handling alcoholic beverages (the ones that have problems when reacting chemically with the metal), and so can be a good place to find our chalice. Having an extra one can be useful if we want to perform rituals where we need both water and wine (or similar), and we won’t have the cauldron available or we’ll be using it for other purposes. Personally, I’d rather have two chalices: a brass one for solar celebrations, and a silver one for the lunar ones.

The ritual uses of the chalice centre mainly in being the holder of the chosen liquid, whether it’s water to purify the circle, or the chosen drink for the simple feast or ritual libation. Usually it’s use will be the first, and even if we can replace it with any glass, due to the ease of getting hold of one, I think it’s better to chose once and for all, and use the chalice regularly, not ocassionally.

Walk Your Own Walk

Walk Your Own Walk

You have to walk your own walk in this life. And as you are traveling down your road, don’t look down at your feet. Keep your head up and your eyes focused on what you know to be true. Be neither a follower nor a leader. You are not forsaken; you are forgiven, and when shadows exist simply find higher ground to tread upon. If you come across an obstacle or an impasse, pay mind to it but don’t focus on it for too long or your feet may sink into the quicksand that surrounds it. Find the courage to surmount it and continue on your journey.

Offer your hand to those you come across who are stuck in their own personal sand traps, but do not point them in the direction you feel they must go, that has to be their decision. Only imply to them that they are never alone, and they will eventually find their way. When you get to where you are going and you look back, it is your own footprints you are going to want to see, not someone else’s. The importance of your trials and tribulations is a gift to be beholden, for that is how you will learn whom you truly are.

— Copyright © 2005 Diane Gresham

Rose Dye

Rose Dye

The Native Americans removed the spine by rubbing the cactus in the sand.

Plant: Prickly pear cactus

Harvest time:  September

 Material:  Fruit, fresh

Vessel:  Earthenware or enamel kettle

Squeeze the juice from 2 pounds of cactus and strain into 3 gallons of water. Add 1 pound of yarn and soak for 1 week in a warm location. Rub the yarn daily. Rinse several times. To deepen the color, repeat the process a second time.

Your Daily Influences for April 24

Your Daily Influences
April 24, 2011 
 

Tarot Influence

Rune Influence
Charm Influence
Knight of Cups
Grace mixed with laziness. Preoccupation with sensual fantasies. Look for a message, opportunity or invitation.
Isa
The Ice Rune, represents stagnation and a passionless existence. Your life’s course may seem blurry at the moment, but if you persevere you will move onto better days.
The Ankh
You may need help from a higher law to balance this aspect. This law could be a supervisor, a mediator or even a judgement through a legal venue.
Your Daily Influences represent events and challenges the current day will present for you. They may represent opportunities you should be ready to seize. Or they may forewarn you of problems you may be able to avoid or lessen. Generally it is best to use them as tips to help you manage your day and nothing more.