Dear Friends,

I bought a couple of different boxes of Sandalwood incense sticks recently.  One of them seems to refuse to burn for more than a few moments and then burns out, leaving an unfinished length of incense there waiting for me to return the fires of my attention and intentions to it.  The other seems to burn itself up and out all too quickly…

The scent of Sandal wood drifts through Greyhaven, strands of smoke dancing to the rythms of Blues music and the tidal rumblings of the dishwasher.  The husbear and I are puttering on our computers.  Candles have been lit and offerings poured for the Holy Powers.

I feel like I am returning to myself, again.

I’ve been musing lately that my journey as a Polytheist and Witch, and as a Unitarian Universalist… hell my entire spiritual process… has been a terribly on-again-off-again affair.  I keep losing track of my path and myself, but then after some wandering I find my way again.  … maybe, given the power and magick of words and naming, that’s the hazard of labeling one spiritual and religious process/progress a ‘journey’?

I sometimes despair of finding my Work and Will in this world.  I feel like I keep losing track of things, keep being pulled under, keep facing the same challenges.  Keep losing what precarious balance I have.  We all struggle with balance.  Balance between our desires and resources, balance between the miraculous/magickal and the everyday, balance between work and life.

Is it all some mental delusion and fools errand?

This post by The Southern Fried Witch helped me put some perspective on the recent dire musings.

The cycles of the Seasons, the rhythms of the tides, day and night.  Nature teaches us that there are cycles and tides and complexities and miracles aplenty in this world of ours.  Action and rest, activity and dormancy, these things intertwine in the Universe around us and in our lives.

Maybe this ongoing search for stability, for balance, just maybe that IS my Work in the world in this lifetime.  Perhaps I am wrestling with the same lesson over and over again until I can learn it and move on in this lifetime, or the next.

In the moment, I really don’t know.  I don’t need to know, I just need to keep journeying on, and trying to pay attention to the signs along the way and not lose myself.  Tonight, The Holy Powers have been said hello too, the dishes are getting done, and some reaching out to dear friends near and far is about to get done.

Blessings on your Journey’s all,

Pax / Geoffrey

Dear Friends,
I was productive this week, no really!

I posted a little something seasonally appropriate over in the Blogject….
…and it suddenly occurs to me that the word blogject could be used as a perjorative…

“You wouldn’t believe what sort of tripe I saw posted in some of the blogjects today…”

…or is that Classist of me?

Well I’ve gotta run to work, I will worry about internalized Classism and wallow in some good old-fashioned White Liberal Angst a little later…

Peace,

Pax

Dear Friends,

So yesterday was the Astronomical Samhain, the cross-quarter day betwixt and between the (Northern Hemisphere’s) Autumnal Equinox and Winter Solstice.  It was a slow night at work, and time and time again my thoughts turned to the song “Memory” from the musical Cats.

I am not normally given to singing, or to musical obsessions.

Now in my youth in the early 1980’s, when I was just becoming aware of things like popular music, this song was one of the inescapable hits on the radio.  The thing is I could only remember a few sentences of the lyrics… I am reminded of my musings about the folk song Tom o’ Bedlam, and how it could be used in ritual… I find myself thinking of how strangely appropriate the song Memory is and will be for observing Samhain and for honoring the Ancestors at other limnal times of year… Walpurgisnacht for example…

Simple heartfelt acts of worship are often the most powerful.  In fact if a Religious or Magickal rite isn’t made up of many small simple sacred moments woven together, then it won’t be either magick or worship.  You have to give yourself over to not just words memorized by rote, but to the meaning of those words and actions; you have to reach into and share the deepest parts of your mind and spirit with not only the other participants but with The Holy Powers, with the wondrous Universe itself.

Pretty words on a page have no power, unless you are willing to give yourself to them and give them voice.

Hello Friends,

So with Tammy Baldwin’s win in Wisconsin, and Marriage Equality winning the popular vote in so many places (and anti-marriage-equality constitutional amendment failing in Minnesota), I’ve got that feeling again.  Change is happening, the moral arc of the universe is being bending towards Justice.

Today is the astronomical day of Samhain… the ~actual~ mid-point between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice.  Winter has arrived.

The thing is, in the subtropical wonderland I now live in… Winter is still a time of life and growth, Winter is a time when the heat and humidity recede and more temperate weather rules the day (generally) and the Citrus and Berry Harvests happen in December and February respectively…

Samhain marks, not a Harvest, rather a turning point in the year.  A time to reconnect with the Ancestors, and their Work, and my own, and with the world around me.

I find myself feeling hopeful again, as I did when New York legalized marriage equality, and appropriately enough on one of the spiritual new years, I am reminded of how I felt on Solstice Day…

Dear Friends,

So I ended up sleeping through both of the 6am alarms.  I woke up on my own around 8am, an hour after the polls had opened.  I lit some incense, offered to the Gods and Guardian Spirits of the household, as one of the first things I did today somewhere before brewing coffee and after turning on NPR.   I drank some coffee, reviewed my sample ballot and notes on various issues, initiatives and candidates, and got cleaned up.

I finally out to the polls until around 9am.  The line took only about an hour, I voted my conscience as influenced by some research and contemplation in the weeks leading up to today.

I decided.  I enacted my will, and possibly my Will.  I took action.

I go back to work later today after a week of vacation.  I had a lot of plans for this last week and didn’t really do much of anything; although as a friend at First Unitarian noted when I mentioned the fact, ‘then that was what you needed to do’.

Samhain was a fairly simple affair, after spending some time over at Rev. W and his husband G’s house, I came home and lit some Sandalwood incense and poured a mix of Water and Blackberry Schnapps for Herne and Hecate and The Ancestors.

Small acts, simple steps.  Facing, yet again, the ingrained habits of a lifetime of allowing myself to be pushed or pulled along… of seeing myself as helpless and not choosing because of fear…. then, remembering Yeats and the Sycamore… remembering to Center and Ground…

I may not have been keeping my journal, but I have remembered to engage in some of the many Spiritual Practices I have set myself as goals.   I have prayed, made offerings, blessed Water, Grounded and Centered and Breathed into my Chakras.  I have gotten some much needed chores done, and am in progress on some more of them. *

Progress on my personal winding road?  I’d certainly like to think so.

Peace,

Pax / Geoffrey

________________________________________________________________________

(I am learning to accept that the whole concept of being ‘finished’ with the laundry is a viscious lie…)