Burn fornicators of mothers, burn!!!!!

@ShakespeareSong ( thank you for this gem!) :

The ceiling, the ceiling, the ceiling is ablaze. We require no water, allow the fornicator of mothers to burn. 

NO relationship is a perfect one and my relationship with my husband is no exception to that rule. We had a fight, it's the same fight as usual only every time we have it, the heat gets cranked up. I am honestly hoping that time will prove that this last incursion yields positive results and understanding. Admittedly the whole thing was ugly, messy, and brutal. I am physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted, but there was work that HAD to get done.

I cannot allow the energy and stink of the fight to linger in my home. You got it SMUDGE!!!! I pulled out the last of my mugwort smudge and lit it. I passed it over myself and could feel a tingle run through my crown charka and trickle down my spine clearing everything as it went. I started at the hearth of the home and moved around the house in a widdershins manner once I was clear.

The thing that caught my attention was how hot the smudge started burning as I approached the places in the house where the heavy arguing took place. I have seen smudges burn like gangbusters before, however not quite in this manner. I thought my smudge was not only going to combust into full living flames, I thought it might pop and explode everywhere. I'm not surprised, just fascinated.

There was so much smoke being released into my home I thought for sure the smoke alarm was going to protest. Not a beep from the incense zealot was heard! (more surprise) The end result was a decision to let the smudge just burn. . . ALL OF IT. I'm feeling better, the house is feeling better. As it turns out, I think the house itself does not like it when my husband and I fight about as much as the kids don't. I could hear it's protests deep into the dark hours of the morning as I tossed on the couch. It creaked and groaned miserably. I have had a while to listen to my house in the night when all is silent and usually things are not nearly as noisy with house sounds like they are after an argument. Last night, the house was much more vocal than usual and I took it as a sign that She will require some TLC the Kekri season while I clean her up. I have yet to decide/ divine what exactly that is but I am open to suggestions I guess.

I don't have Mugwort growing in my garden, however I have wormwood, not quite the same but it will yield the results I really need: healing and protection. I harvested some that was overgrowing ( a hair cut was needed anyway) and wrapped them up to be hung and dried for later use. It will be interesting to feel the energy variant as the new smudges are used, but that's another day's musing. I just know after last night's verbal incursion with hubby, that I cannot be left with out an artemisa smudge and the current one simply had to burn, baby, burn!

Still breathing

reminds me of what I see when opening the gates

I breathe in; I know breathing in. . .

I breath out; I know breathing out.

These are the words I feel my mind reaching for most this Samhain season. It's been a parade of Spirits and Otherworldly beings traipsing through my home and life since the end of September. It has also been a very busy part for me as well. I started my Solstice Vodkas, filled the bottles to fit the vision I had, made a trip to the graveyard, threaded my way through ancestral traditions in as many layers as possible via baking, reading, dreaming, sewing, ritual, and ancestor contact ( a process I am still rolling in at this point.)

Most interesting dreams and meditations have offered up tangible evidence of their source. I think my lack of faith in humanity has peeked out because the gods and my spirit connections are all like see??? No really, we're more solid than you think. All of these goings on's were even reflected in June when I threw the cards for my solar year reading. I never anticipated the hey it's gonna be ugly in 6 months, but things will lead to better places for you the next 6 as something that would be as jagged as I have been feeling of late. As a reader, I sort of pull away for that aspect and try to prepare the witchery for myself to help navigate what must unfold. There were some witcheries that I planned out ahead of time that actually helped me out and there were a couple of things for which I was caught completely off guard. There's a part of me that thinks well. . . what did you expect??? Then there is another voice that keeps reminding me that not all can and should be seen in foresight. Try to handle it with grace and move forward. Not sure I have managed either of those things very well. Working on it. . . uh. . . I'll get back to you on that.


P.S. Mercury, please allow me to start posting my pics online. . . we've danced until we're dizzy already, time to go back to work now.

Thanks!
 

Sharks are the keepers of secret ocean passages

My Oath Mother sort of made me look at my personal processes closely a few weeks ago while she was visiting. She commented on how swiftly I was physically healing, but emotionally I was a roiling cauldron and it was time to pop off the lid. Those weren't her words, but it was the idea conveyed as she spoke. I realized that what she was saying is that I was not handling my near veil encounter the way we mostly hear about in the stories that get back to us. We hear about how some feel entirely different and jump at life with a new vigor. We hear about the visions and the internal knowing beginning to occur for the first time, we hear about all sort of life altering things. There were things within myself that  I had thought put to rest. They landed on me and curled around like dragons. It was more fascinating than frightening, yes there was fear involved. At first they decided I looked like something mildly interesting to chew upon, something changed their mind and they lay down to rest. I don't know what that was and I am scrambling around inside trying to understand what that something was. I feel frustrated like when I woke after that experience and couldn't remember what that second tool was. I am still unclear medically and spiritually as to what exactly has happened to and within me, but I still remember the look on all my spirit connections faces. I think I looked surprised as well.

I want to dream of riding reindeer some more. . .

I think at this point is it better to just let what must unfold, unfold and in the mean time, dive into the season and all the chore whoring I can take without Old Woman Winter sending me more cooties.  Hopefully the Grinch took last year's Grinch Hunt seriously and sticks with the Christmas crowd. The Sugar Plum Faery Vodka is finished and being blessed, the yeast beast is sitting in my refrigerator and sourdough delicious, graveyard dirt obtained with blessings, and the chore whoring for the season has begun. . . next up scrubbing walls! This Year the Thracians are coming to the Yule Faery Feast and the Celts are looking in much in the same manner I felt my Thracian ancestors do last year.  What is this that's waking up and kicking the sleep from my eyes?

Dear Georgi Mishev. . .

Georgi, it really isn't fair how swiftly your book gets consumed! Okay, sure I am feeling a bit like a dirt nap happened and have been reduced to altering my state of being with heavy drugs such as Robitussin and Nyquil, but really??? About three hundred pages were turned by my heavy and overworked mom eyeballs! I know I read several of those pages twice because I passed out with my book dropped over my chest and the rest of me falling off the couch it seems. The book was, thankfully, safe from any falling harm. Okay, I have to admit to one bibliophile sin: I spilled a couple of drops of hot water with honey and lemon on the part where you are discussing drawing down the moon. I know, horrors!

There were many things about this book that struck personal cords for me. On a very basic human level it revealed that there could be good reason for me to love the taste of basil and sourdough bread. It's much like the ham for Christmas thing from my Grandfather's side of the family. I can see that I am going to have to learn how to make sourdough bread. I can feel parts of my personal practice already shifting a little to make room for personal ancestry. I was always told that this would happen, but I think that I was very discouraged by the fact that much of my family's history is lost to war, hate, and ruin.

Your descriptions of Hecate in certain places confirm some dreams that I have had of Her. Many people see Hecate as the old Crone woman. I have seen her holding and caring for young ones, I have seen her running through the woods with very large wolf like hounds at her heels, I have seen her guarding the gates and guarding the hearth fire and none of these things could I explain and pin point as real images of Hecate until I started digging into where Her stories began: in my Grandmother's childhood home. Seeing your drawings of Her echo some of those dreams.

Obviously there are things that tradition is going to have to ignore, damn me or not. There is no Grandmother who can pass the knowledge of healing and magic that I have long worked to uncover to my daughter, so I am going to have to step up seeing as how she is interested in learning and I am seeing things 'catch.' I can see the wisdom of allowing a 'clean elderly woman' who has seen much of life do the training. However, that luxury has been denied, so I am making my own rules to a certain extent. That one has to go out the window. Sorry tradition.

I think I disagree with the ancients when they are talking about doing certain magics naked for them to be effective. I have done ritual dressed in every day clothing, ritual clothing and sans clothing. They were all effective. Stepping away from the social normal is a mindset for me, not a state of dress. Yes, the lack of clothes in beautiful weather can help establish this mindset, but it is not the end all be all. Besides, there is no way I am going outside next full moon with no clothes on to draw down the moon! And I AM going outside next full moon to draw down the moon.

I appreciated the discussion you had in the book about those of the faerie realm. I found it interesting that red threads were used heavily in this sort of magic as well. I had been using red threads, and fabrics, and yarns on an intuitive level and based upon what I have seen in my visitations to faerie. It is nice to see it in black and white so to speak. I am also getting the impression that I may have spoiled my wee folk with something a might more boozey than wine. * whistles and walks away*

I may have read and finished this book in a hazy stupor of cold medication, but I know this book is not done with me by two vital pieces of information. I still have not put it down. I find myself going back to places of intrigue to me. The songs, the spells, the rites all dance around in my minds eye like I may have witnessed this somewhere in my soul's memory. The other piece of information is that at about four in the morning, while the morning was still dark, I found myself being handed a feather broom and another tool I cannot remember. I didn't see the person handing them to me. It was very real much like a member of my family had come into the room to see how I was only all of those people were asleep and then I found myself awake and moving about. I jumped as I realized I had been given these objects and didn't want to crush them clumsily. Of course the objects were absent. All of this happened in the spaces in between.

Sorry Georgi, this book is doomed to ragged edges and a broken spine. There may also be ribbons of varying color and length hanging from it at some point or another. BTW, you may be interested to know the honey used in previously mentioned spilling blasphemy was local desert wildflower honey.