Blessings!

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Yuletide season. 

I hope that there are winter roses, hot buttered rum 

and many loved ones who are bring much cheer!

Blessings 

Mrs. Oddly

Holy Supper . . . almost here!

Holy Supper is coming up pretty quickly so I want to post about that before I continue with the possession series. I WILL get back to that because I feel it to be a very interesting and important subject.

As most of you know by now Ms. Graveyard Dirt has invited us to participate in Sviata Vechera which simply means Holy Supper. I have been digging into my own roots to figure out how to best invite and celebrate the season with my ancestors. My Grandfather was a Finn born man who later in life immigrated to Russia. From what I can gather, those days the border between Finland and Russia was non existent. It sounds like, from the conversations I have had with my Father, that you could at that time live in Helsinki and work in Kiev. I figured many of the traditions that my Grandfather grew up with were Finnish in nature until I found out that my Grandfather's mother was Ukrainian! So he probably grew up with a mish mash of many things blended into one large snowball.

However for the sake of focus I decided to continue with the Finn side of things. I found myself a nice ham that is sitting in the freezer still ( note to self: take it out of the freezer to thaw.) I found a recipe for glogg, I found a traditional recipe for ginger bread cookies, and got cracking on the sugar plums! Which by the way, are very good. I can see why visions of them would dance in the heads of dreaming children in the depths of a cold night's sleep.

There are loads of things going on in Finnish culture when the nights get long and dark. The emphasis being on gathering of family and friends to bring in the light and warmth.  Being in the way up North of the planet makes for a harsh winter and it's all about keeping up the spirit of things. Of course, gifts were made and exchanged and at least one of those gifts were either new boots or an article of clothing.

The whole season kicks off with Kekri. The last of the harvest is brought in and the hearth and home is literally scrubbed from top to bottom. A Kekri beast is fashioned with the last of the grain harvest and left out as an offering. There is a whole row of chores to complete before Christmas arrives including the care of the animals. They are feasted well and settled into warm barns. Unless you happen to be the sacrificial piglet, whom lives in the smoke house and is treated very well. As the season progresses there are gatherings of glogg parties until the actual day which had been declared a national day of peace. Most of the streets are empty on that day as everyone is quietly celebrating indoors with kith and kin..

So I had to decide how I was going to take these celebrations of my ancestors and weave it together into one celebration. I have been doing things one piece at a time starting with breaking down the house and cleaning it. I have also gone through with my own heath magic and blessing it as I cleaned. I also decided that it would be a good time for ancestor magic. I decided an ancestor mojo was the best way for me to make a good connection with the only Finnish ancestor I know: Grandpa. I took one of my empty decorated match boxes and filled it with my ancestor incense that I had been using all season before. I thought that it would catch his attention. I placed a couple of charms in there to protect the and strengthen the working. I didn't like the way the match box slid opened and knew that it needed an envelope of sorts to keep the contents from spilling out all over the place. I drew circle and invited Grandpa in when the work on the mojo was complete. Interesting things have happened since this working and it has all been very positive.

My ginger bread cookies turned out very yummy, however there was a price to be extracted. As I was placing them in the pantry for later, I literally ran over my toe with the door. I thought at first the damage was far worse, as it turns out I only peeled off the top. Whew! I'm telling you, they had better go well with glogg and a bonfire! Those cookies are now worth a million magic points!!!!!

Of course as I have been baking and making treats to go with the Holy Supper I have been leaving a bit of what I have made out for offering to the faeries. I hope they are happy with the little treats! As far as being able to leave my Holy Supper out all night, that's not doable in this house. It is guaranteed to be disturbed by little furry babies. Instead of leaving it out all night, I plan on opening the invitation for my ancestors to join the celebration and then leaving a meal in a place where it won't be gotten to overnight. I think I really want to make it a time where the living, dead and fae mingle to enjoy the season. As much as I like the eerie feeling and look of a feast sitting in the dead of night, the last time I did something like that the house was a disaster!

In the mean time, before the feast I still have nine linen skeins of work to do. Ok maybe it's closer to three or four left, but there is still work both magic and mundane left. Hopefully come the new year my shop will show for the work.

Blessed Holidays to you and yours. I hope that it is warm and bright!

Short note from the land of Odd

I know I have been MIA. My little one has been ill and when he gets ill all hex breaks out and so do the breathing treatments, all nighters and fever checks. I have been pretty much living on caffeine the last few days.

I'll get caught up one of these days. lol

I hope that everyone is happy and healthy and hopefully I can get back on track very soon.

Blessings

Possession, Demons and Exorcism part 1

This subject cannot be discussed in full in one post. So, I will be breaking it up into several posts. I promise you I will discuss this thoughtfully in full. It is fearful subject here on this page. I may even get frowns from certain quarters. Possessions, exorcisms, demons and the reasons they squat within. I guarantee you that it's not Harry Potter's fault. The reason for possession lies within the individual. It is something that most spiritual people will tell you that only you can hunt down and command.

I am not going to say that demons do not exist or that they are a figment of your imagination. However, I will say that not all demons have their origin from the outside world. Some of them are created by the possessed. In fact, a majority of them are. These internal beasts are generally created during a time when there is no real command of your own life as a self defense mechanism. Childhood issues are generally the dominant sector in this phenomenon.

These demons created out of self defense as a child do not leave you when you grow up. You must go within, hunt them down, and face them or they can and will manipulate your life in a manner that suits them. You must in a sense become your own exorcist. This is something that my tradition teaches. We must learn to recognize our demons and dispatch them properly before anything else larger can happen. Before we can commune with our Gods fully, our skills as an "exorcist" must be strong. A skilled exorcist has one sole requirement: confidence in their faith.

In my tradition, we don't call it exorcism. It's actually closer to shamanism. We don't just purge the internally born demon. We find out why it came about and why it is currently acting up. We thank it for it's original intent, heal it and ultimately, reintegrate it back into our personality. That is all it is after all, a splintered off piece of our personality and being. Shamans most frequently call this soul loss.

As far as possession as defined by the Catholic Church is concerned, these outside demons come in because they were invited by the residing demon. Demons are like people in the manner that they like to have friends over to party. These demons find a vacancy light on and they are attracted by it. They sit within and gain power over time. Most don't even recognize that this event has occurred until a crisis point has been reached. This is the point when people cry out to the Catholic Church for help because they feel as though they have been stripped of power to deal with the situation and they are overwhelmed with fear.

I think this is where the Church has does humanity a great disservice. They had made people to bow and turn their Gods given power over to an outside entity. People have been saddled with the belief that their relationship to the divine must be facilitated by a qualified priest and that they have no direct contact with God. Therefore, any demon that may attack them must be handled by a qualified person.

Demons are not necessarily evil. They just are. Demons do what demons do because it is in their nature to do so, sort of like ticks and leeches. Demons are not invited by the reading of Harry Potter or any other thing that the Church feels to be objectionable. They ride on our beings because we have made it easy for them to do so. The reason for the outbreak in possessions in this modern time is because we as a people are under immense amount of stress coupled by the fact that most of us have not dealt with our own personal demons that have haunted us since childhood. It is a truth of the situation. The whole Satanic Panic of the late 70's and 80's was based upon the fact that we were under a whole bunch of economic and personal pressure and the dominant religion of the time swore up and down  that we were under attack by the devil and his legion of demons. Well they were sort of right. . . but for the wrong reasons.

I feel that if you are going to train exorcists, you should at least have the understanding of why these things REALLY happen and not spout some dogmatic mumbo jumbo designed to retain power for the elite.

So I ask you: how are you going to command and master yourself?

Articles of interest:

Bob Larson: Wikipedia
A Wolf Preying on the Victims of Economic Recession
Something's Gotten into Johnny
Meet the Exorcist School Girls

A bit of a churchy rant. . .

I don't consider myself an activist. I am just one witchy mom with a blog. However, there are things that I just feel have to be discussed, for example this and that. I don't agree necessarily with the headline that reads Children have rights too! I grew up in a household where my parents would tell me I have only the rights they grant and guard for me until I am of age, but I digress.

These particular subjects hit a couple of sour notes for me. 1.) No child should go to school and be told that the faith that they hold is either not a real faith or the wrong one. 2.) I find it absolutely ridiculous that the adults in these cases are nothing short of bullies.

In the First case with Christopher Turner, as far as I can see this particular child does nothing in particular to bring attention to himself except celebrate Samhain. He even attends church. In fact, it is his teacher who brought the whole thing to light with her lecturing about paganism being a false religion. She went as far as to corner the child and humiliate him in front of his peers, actually she persecuted him and then demanded that homework be centralized around her religious convictions. She drilled him about paganism, and as friend brought up, it is a federal law that School Officials can not ask anyone about their religion in this manner. Things from there went down hill for this child for crazy little things that have absolutely no meaning. I mean, really, since when is it a schools business to punish a child for speaking Spanish on a bus with other Spanish speaking children? Really? He got in school suspension for that? What about the other children who were speaking Spanish on the bus? Were they suspended as well? Or was this just all about bringing as much suffering to someone who was different as possible?

As far as things stand with this particular case right now, I find to be completely out of line. A parent who has a child in school who is being bullied like this should not have to do anything other than call the school principle to get the situation resolved in a timely and fair manner. It should not take an entire spiritual community to flood officials with phone calls and emails for the right thing to happen. The right thing for the right reason should not have to be pressured into manifestation like this. Last I heard there is going  to be a meeting about this situation between school officials and this family. I hope that this situations resolves well without lawyers.

On a personal note, when my eldest was in first grade, we experienced this sort of persecution. It came about innocently enough. They were having a discussion on Harry Potter and the teacher made a point to tell the kids that witches were not real. Well my little one stood up and said: " that's not true! My mom is a witch!" Yup my little one outed me. From that point in time he was picked on by other students  over my beliefs and it was blatantly ignored by the adults. I didn't know about this until my son started crying in the back of the car on the way home and by that point in time it had been going on for weeks! When I asked the school principal and his teachers about this, they became hostile and suddenly ignorant of the situation. The thing you have to understand is that this was a small charter school. Literally, a one room class environment. How can five adults not hear forty children taunting one child about his mother's faith in a small building? I can't believe that nearly ten years later, this sort of thing is STILL going on and being ignored.

As far as Church being brought into the school. . . that's a big no no in my book. In my mind, school should be a place where we teach our children how to think. School should not be a recruiting ground, not for religions, not for the military and heck not even for Boy/ Girls Scouts. NO one should be placed in to an environment of learning and made to be a second class citizen because their faith is different or for any other reason.

In the second case, are we to stand by and accept the hypocrisy of this whole anti bullying campaign??? When my daughter was in elementary school, there were anti bullying posters all over the place, yet some of the biggest bullies in that place were the teachers and staff themselves! How are we to teach that bullying is unacceptable if the adults themselves can't lead by example? Do these adults even realize that they themselves are engaging in bullying? Are they really that truly fearful of that which is different that they forget that they are supposed to be setting a good example? Or are they counting on us being a meek little minority faith that we won't stand up and fight back?

On a personal note: Dear Gods, please help us save ourselves from the fanatics and fundamentalists. Give us strong spines that we may stand up and do the right thing for the right reason without becoming bitter or jaded. Let us be strong willed and even tempered.
Thanks and Love you muchly.

And the Winner is. . . .

Kestrel! Congratulations sweets! Email me your address so that I may send to you your Yule incense! Thank you to everyone who played along and wrote a grinch haiku!

Blessings
Mrs. Oddly

Making friends with backward

Yesterday felt like a silent magic day from the moment I cracked my eyes open to the dark room. Normally, I would have settled into the ritual of blogging, hearth chores, then magic chore whoring, but I kept feeling a tug to do other things.

While setting up to bless the harvest that I have finally called over ( it has officially hit freezing temperatures at night ), my mind kept turning inward to the last few weeks. Every odd thing that happened, movies, music and imagery that I had witnessed wove a telling tale about what I am doing right now with my ancestor research. Everything in those silent moments fell into synch and I began to realize that this is the right thing to be doing for me and I am indeed on the right track. I even received a phone call from my Oath Mother who reminded me that I do indeed have someone out there who could help me with things should I get stuck on something or need help filling in the pieces with my ancestry, their mythology, and fairy tales. I may drop him a line later and ask pretty please.

I could feel the lines being drawn between the scattered dots into the crooked path I know it to be. . . sometimes that path even circles on itself, but not this time. I got a very clear picture of what I need to do and accomplish in the near future. I could even feel my Grandfather standing by my side with his silent, observing eyes focused forward and his head nodding the entire time.

I was glad that I took Mercury's cue and held my silence at the end of the day. I stared out into the night sky and let everything wash over me. I had learned so much in that time and spent most of the day with the journal open making random scribbling about what had happened and what I thought about it. Actually, I think it was more of all the little lessons coming together from the last few weeks coming together to make a larger point.

Maybe, just maybe, I am learning to make friends with Mercury's backward dance.

Ms Graveyard Dirt's fault. . .

Cranes that have gathered at one of the
artificial lakes.  Yup taken the same day
as the gauntlet was thrown!

OK maybe not really. . . but it is fun to poke at her on occasion.  . . be aware she pokes back! Ms. Graveyard Dirt has thrown down the emotional blackmail gauntlet. She has made a vow that all of her friends will be joining her in ancestral Yule revelries and loads of work your behind off research. Ok I'm in! I love her blog and love the work she has put forth to share her experience in the craft. Besides. . . it's not like she had to twist my arm too hard.

Psychic Buffer charms.
Yes, I am keeping one for me!

Not sure if I am catching up or not is one of those things that has me jumping all over the place inside my skin. I hate being late, I hate being behind and I hate how both of those things make me feel. I can't say that I haven't done any work. I have photos and other pieces of evidence that testify otherwise. So what is this feeling that I have that drives me to distraction??? It may just be the season. You know the one. Everything has to be cleaned from head to stern and top to bottom. There are gifts to finish making, there are gifts to get still, and then we are not even addressing the wrapping of said gifts,

Pomegranate leaves to be dried

I am still gathering magic plants before the winter has it's final say in the landscape here for the season. So, my desk and altars look like drying racks on top of varying projects ( yes the ones I am behind in) still laying out as a constant reminder. . .ooo  ooo  oo  me, do me! Then there is the research I am digging up about my Finnish ancestry Yule traditions. A few of those things look rather familiar to me, most of them are news to me.

My Kekri buck!

The first festival in the Winter season is actually a final harvest celebration called Kekri. One tradition involved dressing  up as kekritär or as a kekri buck and go door to door asking for food and drink.From what I can see, a Kekri seems to be a wooly looking reindeer. A modern version of this seems to be performance based to dance in the new year. I tried opening the video for this performance only to have my computer tell me there was an error. . . I'll show you error. Another tradition was indeed remembering your ancestors by leaving them food. Seems to be a central theme in many cultures that keep their pagan roots a little exposed.


The ham dinner for Christmas was the thing that really called me out. I remember ham dinners, in fact it was a family joke to call it salmon. Fish is also on the menu, but good luck getting me or anyone else in my family to eat it! So salmon ham it is. There are some other things that interest me on the Finnish menu.  Drinks!!!! There are a couple of recipes for something called Glog! It's a mulled wine either white or red wine can be use. They also drink and toast with schnopps of vodka. It has even been suggested in the glog recipes I ran into that you can spike your glog with vodka. . . heheheeh!

Sugar Plum Faery altar

Being Feri, all of this feasting and drinking and honoring of the ancestors is great. . . but it will not be a complete festivity without the faeries! Gotta have them included! So with that in mind out comes my favorite seasonal ballet theme Sugar Plum Faery! She will have her own steeped vodka present for sharing and everything! Yes, she even has a spot in the house all for herself!

My skeins look more like
oil bottles

Before any of this glorious fun and feasting can be done, there is a whole list of things to be done! The house is scrubbed from top to bottom, the last of the harvest is brought in and properly stored, a piglet was purchased, blessed, and fed VERY well, (ladies)  nine skeins of linen were to be woven if the ladies wanted a sleigh ride to Christmas church, the men had to make wooden toys and weave baskets before Christmas, then came the saunas.


 I think I'll not be doing the sauna, but a long soak in the bath. I don't think I'll be buying a piglet either. . . and nine skeins of linen??? Hrm. . . I have other things that have to get done. . . can't that count?? ;) Besides there are no sleigh rides here and I most certainly do not want a ride to church. . . and I don't think the church really wants to see me either.


So where does that leave me with my Ms Graveyard Dirt challenge? Doing something familiar like food wise with a faery twist. Yup, leave it to me to take a perfectly good tradition and completely do something different, except the food and drink. Ugh!

Kids making decorations for
the house

Ok well maybe that's not entirely true. I am pulling in the harvest. I am cleaning the house from top to bottom, completing seasonal hearth chores as valid to the world I live in, and I am having a feast at the end of all the work done! So maybe, just maybe, my Finnish Grandfather recognizes the actions as a modern take of what his family was doing at this time of the year. . . add the faeries and it will be a great time!

Strung up and bagged

The weather is cold and close to rain. I can tell by the way the kids, cat and dog are all acting up. Everyone seems to be in agreement that in the next 24-48 we will be seeing rain, a couple days earlier than the app on my phone says it will be here. I suppose we are about to find out which is right: the app or the kids, cats, dogs.

With that being said and the air being decidedly cooler, I have been trying to get in the last of this years magic flowers, leaves and herb harvest in quickly and drying them before the plants decide it's too cold. This last batch was a bunch of lemon leaves and Mum blossoms. I decided to compare drying processes on the mums to see which would work best. I strung up about half of the harvest and placed the rest in a paper bag that I shook up a few times a day to make sure things all got air.

The thing that I noticed it that really they both took a bit of effort and both worked very well. With stringing up the blossoms there was a lot of work in the beginning and then you could just let them hang on the rack with no worries. If you use the paper bag method, you will be saving work in the beginning, but you will have to be vigilant about the bag shaking through out the whole process.

When stringing up the blossoms it is important to make sure the blossoms are firm so they won't fall apart as you do so. You will also want to be using 2 threads of cotton embroidery floss on a thin needle for the same reasons. If you have many blossoms to string up, it is recommended that you work in small batches while the rest of the blossoms remain in the fridge.

It took about two weeks on a hanging rack for the blossoms to be completely dry and ready to store but as  extra caution I will leave them in a paper bag to breathe for a couple days before I put them in plastic. There is nothing more disappointing than to botch a batch! Mold is NOT your friend here. You will have to toss the whole batch if mold begins to grow.

My hibiscus is still putting out blossoms like crazy so that seems to be an endless chain of drying process with them. I put them on the clean altar to dry sort of in order of which I gathered them: newest to driest and leave out a bag for them to go into as they dry completely. I wonder how long I will be doing that in a season? I suppose I am about to find out.

Eeeeek!!! My behind is behind!

So I thought it was bad to just be behind, but it seems as though right now my behind stuff is behind and the pile keeps falling on my head! I wish I had a lame excuse to offer you other than life seems to have it's own agenda and kids, cats, dogs. . . but ugh! Mrs. Oddly's life is literally run around the hearth, home and family needs and wants and distractions. . . ugh!

I'd offer you cookies fresh from the oven, but we haven't figured out the Star Trek beaming thing ( that and the kids have horked them all down). I have put up a give away offering with a smashing prize!

I did however update the craft page with something special coming up in the shop! Harmony powder and the witch vessel itself will soon be listed! I still need to get on the Mudra page and the sacred bath page, I'll get there. . . really.

I want to say thank you to all of you for your patience with my crazy self. I hope you continue to bear with me as I get my behind behind up to speed!

Blessings
Mrs. Oddly!

Happiest of Thanks Givings

A very happy day to all of you and yours! I hope that even if you do not celebrate the occasion you have more blessings than you can count!

A few thousand words!

Dear Pumpkin. . . look out for Peter!

A Samhain card from my sis!

Nike taking up residence on my craft desk

AHHHH! Curse you Peter!

Grim the Torch!

The Hanged Basil

Ancestor's Altar on the Spirit Rack

Self explanatory

Halloween Night's Moon out my front door

The After Party

Another Harvest from the world  of the Viridarium

Hekate's pomegranate wine for Her night

Yule incense ( private reserve) giveaway
a special blend of resins, evergreens,
and essential oils.

read this:

 Write a haiku about the Grinch to enter this give away.
Submit them to comments on this page.
Your name will then go into a hat.
I will pick a name from the hat on
12/07/11

Blessings and good luck!

Origami bird devotion.

A friend of mine came over this morning for the usual coffee, chat while the little ones take command of the living room and build train sets together. Although we were minus the other child, as she was at home and not with grandpa today. Which works for me right now, because poor little man has caught his sister's cold ( read as: here we go).

Today was let's do some reiki magic today with cranes. . . oh hey, let me teach you how to do cranes. If I wasn't going to do Hecate's night last night I can at least do it tonight, if little man let's me ( read as: I am going to be up all night anyway.) So he was actually pretty good at building origami . . . cranes not so much. This is where the project got interesting. The first crane actually looked like a crane, the others looked clearly like other birds, including a bird of prey! They seemed to be directly applicable to his situation. I will be watching to see what happens with this. I will also be pulling out my Language of the Birds book out here very soon to review anything I may have missed earlier.

I have my craney looking cranes ( I'm soooo boring, I guess) and put them aside for a small devotion tonight. I'll pull out my cast iron cauldron and commit them to flame.

I developed this short devotional ritual a long time ago when I began to realize that as a Mother some of my devotion acts must be short and sweet. Life happens. . . it is quite that simple and I don't always have the time to do exactly what I want to do and I'm pretty fine with that. As far as I can tell, I have had no complaints about being human and alive yet.

Before you start to fold your crane on a square piece of paper or nice origami paper, take a little time to roll a wish around in your head. Make it clear and concise. I also like to make sure that it matches the phase of the moon ( yes I know, crazy right??) When I have a clear statement, I write it down quickly as a rough draft somewhere because there are going to be about fifty million interruptions as I go about my day, especially if some one is not feeling well. I just go with it. As the house quiets down, I get out the paper I will be working with and take my time with the process of building an origami crane.

Artwork by Prince-Zaire on deviantArt.

I usually let a period of time pass before I actually set circle quickly and do any energy work. I am waiting to see who is going to come shuffling out of bedrooms in a sleep walked daze requesting that the freezer be filled with ice cream then settling for water. ( I keep waiting for the part where one says there's a monster under the bed so I can pull my Hog's Father routine out.)

Artwork by Prince-Zaire on deviantArt.

There is a feel to the house when everything has finally settled into night. You can hear the clock pendulum in the library tick and the whole room feels like it's lines with silk instead of child litter. The kitchen smells clean and the air hums. I'll be waiting for this moment tonight.

The X

There are moments when you have to trust an event in a trance or meditation as true instruction from the Gods. I had been doing some heavy trance work with the Crone of my tradition in preparation for Samhain. Feri has its own rituals that require certain types of roles to be facilitated and they require a good deal of preparation.

During one of those trances, the Crone asked me several pointed questions as to why I was not taking on a specific role. She let out a gravely cackle and asked me if it was fear that stopped me. I told her in all honesty no, it was not fear. It was caution. She let out another cackle that raised the hairs on the back of my neck, but it was a sensation I had gotten used to with Her. Her long, boney finger with a pointed nail slowly came up slowly and shakily to my forehead and scratched an X over my third eye. As you wish, not host. I could feel that X for hours after the trance.

The last week before the ritual went by with one foot in the other world and the other here. It was like they both intersected and blended much like the center almond shape of the vesica pisces. I literally had a running commentary of my life from the both the fae and the sage and crone of our tradition. It was actually pretty fun and funny to hear what they thought about the world I live in. I received a perspective that I would have never thought about without their point of view.

Hours before the ritual I began to wonder and worry if I was ready for my role. I thought about what I was wearing and laid it out on the bed. After I was already dressed and thought I was ready to walk out the door, She had some critique . . . as in: WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE WEARING????? OH NO YOU DON'T. CHANGE INTO THIS! Well I did what any sane person would do, said yes ma'am and did as I was told! Including painting that X on my forehead where she had placed it earlier.

You would be happy to know that ritual went well. And yes, She did give me the once over to make sure I had done as I was told.

The week of the screaming woman!!!

So Holly dog bolted the gate this morning and then led us on a merry chase toward the main road. She tried to cross it and was lucky not to be hit by cars, seeing as how it was rush hour and all. Needless to say, I just about had a heart attack! For the now she is tied up in the back. I am not amused. It just seems to me that kids, cats, and dogs are on their worst behavior when I have tons of work to get done and time is running out!

I finally got the perfect vessels for the Serpent bone powder I wanted to make and wouldn't you know it I ran out of silver chain to finish the rest of them, but at least the powder got made and charmed for use. I filled the vessels I have and put the ones I couldn't make into jewelry away. They will be showing up in my store one at a time I suppose. I am still gathering ingredients for my psychic buffer powder, including finding proper vessels for them.

Oh speaking of my freshly made powder. . . they fae had a bit of fun with me. As soon as I had all the vessels filled, the bag with the remains of my precious powder disappeared for over an hour. I hunted high and low for the thing to no avail. Finally, I asked for a bit of help finding it because obviously there is something wrong with my vision and can't see it. I left some chocolate out for them and sure as Hades. . . there it was in a place I had only looked about 100 times! I'm sure they meant no harm and were curious as to what the heck I was up to, but I just about had a coronary!

I am learning that ebay is my friend. I found bottles for my incense and another vessel for a witching bottle I want to make. I decided that I need to shift the way I package my incense. I don't like the whole plastic bag thing. The incense always gets all caught up in the zipper part and is a pain in the behind to get to when you want it. A small vial just seems to be perfect. It will also preserve the shelf life of it longer, so bottles it is. I never knew that finding the right bottles could be so time consuming!

The last few weeks have been filled with various Samhain goings on including preparing for ritual, which has had to be postponed due to an illness ( not mine) but it's not like the gate slams shut so no worries. . . we will get this thing going I swear! Like I said earlier, The Gods of Samhain keep dumping work on my back. . . I hope they remember I am only mortal.

In all of this, I did actually remember to put on the brakes and take a break. I went out side the other night and looked up into the sky toward the moon. I was originally drawn outside because of the silver blue light that flooded my back yard. When I was living in an apartment, it was a rare treat to witness, because we always had these sidewalk lamps on as soon as dusk was setting in. I only saw a small patch of this light when the light bulbs burned out and only if it happened close to full moon. The other night I had an entire backyard full of silver blue moonlight and I was absolutely enchanted by it! I will get to have about another week of this light as the moon passes into waning, but I will be sure to enjoy it! I can't say I miss the apartments at all.

I also took time to watch some Netflix, in which I discovered the Vampire Diaries and watched both season one and two! Season three should be fun to watch unfold!

It's finally cold here. . . ok, Arizona cold. When you live in a place that heats up to 120 degrees and stays in triple figure heat for over six months of the year, anything below seventy degrees is cold. I know the snow birds get a good chuckle out of us as they are still wearing bermuda shorts and sandals, but we Arizonans, we break out with the parkas and scarves!

My basil is finally good and dry enough to pull off the drying rack and store, and I have a bunch of seed pods that need handling as well before the cat decides they taste good. Alot of my other work that I want to get done is all about the patience game. . . yup. . . here's me hopping up and down in my chair   waiting for the postal service to deliver my stuff. . . AAHHHKKK! Not my favorite game. I suppose it gives me more time to harvest and dry some more alyssum and look deeper into the recipe for the powder I want to make. I'm sure by now I am driving hubby crazy with the loose herbs in my pockets. . . hrm. . .  does this combo work better???? For the kids they think this is pretty normal. Yup there's Mom stuffing stuff into her pockets again. . .  Keep calm, carry on. At least she's not dashing into the street after fallen branches. . . right?