Category: Blame Sannion

Perservering

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, Cross-roads5 Comments

Dear, dear friends,

This morning, a God journeyed through Osceola County.

I was working on the Motel’s Night Audit, getting it printed and getting some additional chores taken care of… changes in some of the paperwork procedures related to having a new GM made me want to mix up the morning routine a bit in order to give myself some extra time to take care of everything.

The sound of rolling thunder interrupted my everyday office early 21st Century routine.  I started printing the let’s-hope-we-don’t-have-to-use-this-in-an-emergency-or-blackout-report (not it’s formal name), un-locked the Lobby door and stepped outside for a moment or two…

The pre-dawn sky was dark, but I could tell it was overcast and cloudy, and the humid air was zephyring about.  The winds was shaking the palm fronds with a silken rustling sound.  It was near to rain, but not quite there yet, although the clouds coming in from the South West hinted that there was already rain fall on the Peninsula somewhere.  Flashes of lightening, like old-fashioned camera flash-bulbs, lit some of the clouds from the inside.  These alternated with streaks of cloud-bound lightening spider-webbing across the sky. All strangely silent, accompanied only by the petticoat rustlings of the leaves and tree limbs, then long moments later the thunder would roll across the landscape.  The lightest splatters of rain falling from the sky, seeming almost indecisive as the elements dances.

I spoke some greetings to the Powers of Air and Water and Fire, although I wasn’t entirely certain if Lightening belonged to the realm of Fire or Air… then too in my relations with the Natural world I am feeling increasingly drawn to the 3 elements model in some respects.

I also spoke a greeting to Zeus.  The Thunderer, who was storming through the skies and raining down upon the land of the local earth-mother Our Lady of The Feast of Flowers, Holy Florida.

I had to go inside and return to my reports for a while, my work as a Hospitality worker and my calling as a Witch having to dance and wrestle with one another for a while…

I returned to the doorway after the quick pre-dawn rainstorm had moved on,  The many layers of cloud-cover were doing a Brownian dance in the dawn-lit skies above me.  The early morning light, dancing and bouncing between land and cloud-covered sky and sea lit everything with a gentle yet revealing quality of light that seemed almost cinematic.  The rain quenched plants and grasses and leaves seemed a vibrant green even in the dim light.  The air was cool, for the moment, as the spent humidity rested on the ground before it began its inevitable creep back up into the air.  The day seemed clean and new, the air clear and cool, life full of possibilities.

The last month or so has been a tough time.  My Friends Sandi’s Death, by ex-beloved Eugene’s death, the ups and downs of matters at work, moving in with my now-beloved fabulous Jonathan…  busy, hectic, a true roller-coaster of emotions and experiences… and through all but a few days I have held to prayer and practice and the counsel of dear friends and wise words from many sources, and prayed and turned my heart over to the Holy Powers for their care.

Sometimes that is all we can do.

Sometimes there is grief and pain and pressure, sometimes there is joy and calm and beauty, accept them both, bless them both, and keep moving forward.

Sometimes, if we are lucky, patience and perseverance are rewarded with limnal numinous moments that feel like a cross-roads that allows us to set out in a new direction or that helps us to get back on the path we were on before.

Peace, and Perserverance,

Pax / Geoffrey

We must stand up for the future

On By PaxIn An Important Message..., Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods2 Comments

Dear Friends,

Jason Pitzl-Waters recently shared one of the previously mentioned Symphony of Science videos on his Facebook.  I was deeply moved by it and shared it here.

The ideas and images and words of these pieces have played themselves out and over, again and again in my mind and heart.  I can remember watching some of the episodes of  Cosmos with my family as a child back in the nearly forgotten days when there were 3  networks and television stations would go off the air.  I listen to the musical pieces inspired, in part, by that series and by the scientific wonders and vast possibilities of the world around us; I find myself wondering how and when the once widely popular veneer of hip cynicism became a bone deep cynical nihilism?

Why do so many people choose rage and fear and bitterness and fanaticism?

It seems sometimes that folks think that joy and hope and happiness are either simple minded pursuits; or that people have the idea that these things are achieved only by venting their anger and running away from their fears.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In my experience, happiness and joy and hope are complicated and difficult.  More often than not they seem to come from doing the hard work of facing our fears and working through them, from harvesting the energy of our anger and using it for something more productive to make a positive difference in our lives and the lives of others.

So much of what we hear from popular culture and society is weighted down with despair and predictions of doom and collapse…  Do the authors of such things not realize that the future of humanity is a self-fulfilling prophecy?

We must stand up for the future.

Not only for ourselves and our future generations, but to honor our ancestors and thank them for the gift of our lives and the precious gifts they have given or passed down to us, to honor and be in right relationship with the spirits of the world around us – whatever we concieve them to be, to serve and honor our loving relationships with The Holy Powers ~ whatever our experience or understanding of them; for all of these reasons I believe we have a holy duty to stand up for the future.

We must not be afraid to discuss the values and virtues and ethics we have discovered in our contemporary Pagan faiths.  There are enough books on rituals and spells and prayers to last us a few generations… lets start writing works on confronting poverty and hunger from Pagan perspectives.   Let us set aside the fear of prejudice, and the once glamorous but now tattered and worn mantle of the outsider and the rebel, and take pride in ourselves and our faiths, in our works and lives and worship and in our Pagan communities and our larger communities.

This I believe, is the challenge and the duty the Gods have set before us.

Peace,

Pax

Altar & Offerings,… & a birthday wrap up…

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, everyday, The Gifts of GivingLeave a comment

Dear Friends,

So the March Equinox passed with only a few brief prayers from yours truly, work and the mad rush of days conspired against anything deeper for Ostara… I was also a little moody and distracted this week, for a number of reasons, and distracted by some up-in-the-air things at work, and then too Sunday the 27th was my birthday.

Saturday night I was lured out of my lair by The Fabulous Jonathan to watch the Universal Studios Mardi Gras Parade at the park, after a brief but spectacular fit of moody-bastardy on yours truly’s part, need to work on those control issues of mine some more it seems.  I eventually went out and had a very nice time with Jonathan and his mom Kathleeen.  TFJ and I rode The Mummy, a requirement of any park pilgrimage, and then went back to where his mom had parked herself in the handicapped parade watching spot and enjoyed the imitation spectacle of it all.  I didn’t actually catch any beads, although I did get slapped in the face by a set… that counts doesn’t it?  (I kept trying to get Jonathan to show them his tits in an effort to get more beads, but he balked and alleged shyness.)  The Krewe of Dionysus float was especially festive this year as was King Gator.  Jonathan and I have promised one another that someday we will journey to someplace that does a genuine Mardi Gras parade and see a real one.

Then it was work on the overnight at the motel, then a brief nap and off to 1U, my local U.U. Church, for my regular Ushering shift, and some socialization with folks there and then I was taken out by my dear friend Sandi for the new and delightful experience of Vietnamese food.  Sandi is a retiree who became my first friend at Church and occasional pew-buddy, has unofficially adopted a number of us at Church and we are all very blessed for it.  Sandi and I have been working together on the food/catering committee for the upcoming U.U. Florida Disctrict Assembly coming up in April and as a consequence a number of us on the foods committee have ended up lunching together each Friday and discovered a shared delight in culinary arts and exploration… thanks to them I have discovered some fabulous local restaurants I might not have known about otherwise… including a nice Middle Eastern Deli and a fantabulous Thai Restaurant… and now a Vietnamese place.

I’d never had Vietnamese food before, and Sandi was my guide as I tried a fantastic Beef Noodle Soup… “Pho” something-something…. (here’s where being bad with names is a big hindrance) … and some Summer Roll (which are the uncooked, wrapped in rice-dough, rolls I knew as Spring Rolls in Anchorage…)  … and dish which featured a very yummy sauce and vegies and shrimp and chicken with some wedges of fried noodle cakes.  I find Vietnamese food hard to describe but insidiously delicious!

Jonathan, however is a strictly “Chinese” Buffet man… despite this deep flaw in his character I love him still.

So after Lunch I came home, passed out for a while, woke up and responded to numerous Facebook birthday greetings and called some of my family and friends.  Then more sleep.

Today, I woke up to thunder in the distance and the sounds of rain.  There is a much welcomed and blessed and needed rain falling intermittently today, and projected to continue throughout the week.  Florida has had intermittent but ongoing drought issues for the last few years, so any extended period of rain is to be welcomed…

I have been contemplating the sporadic nature of my devotions and spiritual practices of late, partly as the seasons change and partly as I have recently filled my journal and am starting on a new one.  I have reserved the first 9 pages or so of the new journal (gifted to me Christmas of ’09 by TFJ’s mom) for notes for myself about my goals and needs and desires and hopes moving forward… and that plus  the review of the previous journal has given me some food for thought and a nudge about practice and devotion…

So I have lit the candles on my altar, and poured an offering or water to the Gods and Guardian Spirits of my home.  The Money Candle has been cleaned and lit so the flame shines through the silver and gold lines of ink script on the glass, the Bridhid Candle from Imbolc has been lit, my Chalice is lit (it’s a U.U. thing my dear Pagans….), and a trio of black votives are lit before Hecate’s altar-shelf.

A cup of water,  a dish of rice, and some Lavendar mixed with Frankincense and Myrrh and Copal,  have been placed by the open windows, offered to the cleansing and healing and nourishing rains and winds and weather.

Rest and contemplation before game tonight, and then some much needed paperwork and maybe some professional development or some work on the some of my writing projects.

Peace,

Pax

The Internet is a Magickal Tool…So why are so many people stabbing themselves, or others, with it?

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion8 Comments

Dear Friends,

Sannion posted recently about the evils of Social Networking and to a lesser degree the Internet… and on the one hand I can truly appreciate and understand where he’s coming from.   I find myself bouncing inwardly off of his words…

“Every day I look out on a world grown stupider, crasser, less concerned with others, less aware of the higher imaginative realms.” ~Sannion in the above mentioned article

There is SO much anger and fear and hatred and division in the world… and it sometimes feels like wherever I turn they are infecting every aspect of life and discourse.  It sometimes seems that the places where people interact online have become pits of anger and despair.  It’s like Facebook, and the comments sections of blogs and pod-shows, and so many online places of potential connection and communication have become the 21st Century equivalent of shouting and throwing things at the television…

Or a virtual needle allowing us to escape the pains of our shared world for some inner illusory landscape.

Holy Powers how I do hear and feel those words, Sannion.

They echo many of my own thoughts and feelings lately.  I have been wrestling with some dark nights of the soul, doubting my place and my worth and whether all of my journey hasn’t been just a fools dance.  It can be easy to give in to the tides of anger and self-absorption and fear and crash against us all like tidal waves in this overculture of ours.  So many tides and so many people caught up in them, and thrashing about looking to tear others down and apart rather than work to create.

It is hard not to be eroded by them both, sometimes.

And yet.

There  are also the podcasts, and the blogs, and the sense of sharing and community that can arise.  Through the blogosphere and the Podkin and, yes, even through Facebook…. I have been blessed to make friends and connections with likeminded souls.  Some of them have wandered off to parts unknown or suffered a sea change into things rich and strange; others are still out there and here in my life sharing and listening and giving spiritual fellowship to one another.

I was priveledged recently to be invited into a private, members only, blog; a spiritual fellowship group of sorts of like minded souls who are all far flung friends of a particular blogger and FB citizen who decided to gather together some of her dearest friends for a place of Listening and Care and Community.

We are the ones who chose how the Internet can be used, how are we using it?  How are you Using it?  How can we use it in our communities of faith and inter-faith and choice?

Some choose to use it as a tool to spread a message of Spiritual Practice and Liberation.  Some give freely of their own time to  try to share their hard won wisdom and a love of using information technology and library science as an offering to their community.  Some work hard to  share News and information that may be of interest to their larger communities.  Some, burning with inspiration, seek to weave the tapestry of community of folks of similar experience and interests.  Some folks gather together to try to share the words of wisdom and inspiration that nourish our minds and souls.  Some stand up and use the Internet as a tool of caring and social action.  Some use their wit and hard won wisdom to dive into scholarship and writings in honor of their Gods.

Some of us simply try to share our own journeys, rant and rave occasionally,  and provide potentially useful resources to others.

Whom would you spotlight in a list like that above?  What sort of examples would you add?

What sort of example will you be?

Peace and Curiosity,

Pax

~Post Script~

Then too there are the countless lists and e-groups out their languishing for constructive discussion because of the worst behaviors and fanaticism of some of us… and yet, there too we have the power to choose….

Freewriting and Notes on the Journey 3/02/11

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, Brigid, Imbolc, Notes on the Journey, The Fabulous Jonathan, witcheryLeave a comment
Image found here thanks to Google Images search...

Dear Friends,

So there have been a LOT of little nudges from the Cosmos, Kledon’s found in random discussions and comments from friends, and outright urgings from friends and acquaintances.  Keep Writing.  You should write a book.  Look at how successful online writers/E-book authors are…  So the Altar’s lit with the various candles and Brighid’s Candle from Imbolc is lit atop my Computer tower as I sit here writing freely and from the heart.

I feel like a fraud sometimes.  I write here about my practices and journey and yet my Practice is a sometimes fragile thing in the face of rapid changes in schedule or routine… yet still I try to keep my log book of Practices, and at least Ground and Center each day… the prayers and Chakra exercises and Meditation ebb and flow… but at least I ground and Center each day.

I sometimes wonder if one of the most difficult things we can do on our journeys of Spirit on our many Religious paths isn’t just going back to them each day?  Letting go of the distractions and the doubts and just trusting in the journey….

Today I stayed home from work, overwhelmed by allergies and a sky-high pollen count in Orlan0do in the wake of this Winter’s freezes; overwhelmed too by Benadryl… which always hits me like a trippy tidal wave when I first take it each year.  I slept for several hours this afternoon and have been up for a few hours this evening and am getting ready to pass out as my modern day flying ointment (aka benedryl) takes affect.

Sometimes you just have to slow down and let things happen in their own time… been getting that message too lately.  From the Spirits and from my own magickal work..

As I may have mentioned here I have been doing some prosperity related work lately.  Made myself a money candle and used some oils and herbs and added them to a 7day candle and used some silver and gold metalic craft ink to write things on the outside of the glass.  Been burning that a bit each day… had to re-make it once when the first ink I chose rubbed off quickly…

Made myself a money powder with a popular chamomile tea blend, which happened to have a lot of lucky and prosperity herbs in it for flavor balance – handy that, and some rice and ground them together in the coffee grinder.  (I lack a mortar and pestle as the mortar was re-purposed to an incense burning bowl a couple of years ago whilst the pestle was misplaced, and lets be honest, for a lot of uses a grinder makes more sense you can charge the herbs without inducing early onset carpel tunnel)  Sometimes though, it would be nice to have that mortar and pestle, to grind the herbs as best I could by hand and feel them breaking down, to smell their scents, to feel the energy of my action and will flowing into them as I break them down… sometimes.  Sometimes its nice to simply have some things on hand that I can say a quick prayer over and toss a pinch of powder into my pocket as I get ready to leave the house.

I Also started in on some Crown of Success oil.  Found all SORTS of recipes, but I started out by using the one in Judika Isles 500,000 Spells book.  Started by steeping fresh and dried bay leaves in Olive and Jojoba oil.  Blended that with some Sandalwood essential oil in Jojoba (because I need more success until I can afford retail Sandalwood essential oil), some Frankincense (because I was in a hurry and didn’t realize that the Frankincense was nearly twice the cost of the other until I got home and read the reciept) and Vetivert essential oils, and gifted the results to The Fabulous Jonathan.

That was the quick Crown of Success Oil, now I’m working on the slow long-term success so all that left-over Bay leaves and Olive/Jojoba Oil will come in handy!  I bought some Frankincense tears and ground them up and added them to the oil and leaves that remained, gonna try an old school home-made batch of Crown of Success.   May not have the “pow” of an essential oil batch, at least not for a long time and multiple herbal additions and steeping cycles, but I think a longer term steeping might be instructive and useful…. at lest thats the urgings/leadings/impression I’ve been getting.  Slow down, relax, do what you need to do but don’t be afraid to let things develop naturally you don’t have to be doing it all to have everything you need to have happen, happen.

So I will trust in the Gods and the Spirits and the Ancestors and light Brighids Candle and write something somewhere each day, and breathe, and Center, and do what I need to do.

What will you do?  What do you need to do?

Peace, and Curiosity, always the Curiosity,

Pax

PS- Technically speaking I shouldn’t be surprised at the changes and upheavals and jumping around going on in my life since I ASKED for it….  I need to remember to bless and remember that fact when the universe forces me to think and breathe and dance between the lines of the spiritual tides on the shores of my life.

The Lady

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, My life with (some of) The Holy Powers and The Spirits, remembering, The Goddess, witchery3 Comments

I Call upon and Invoke Thee

Oh Triple Goddess of the Witches

Mighty Mother Celestial

Black Robed and Silver Clad Queen of the Mysteries

Lady of Spirit and Inspiration and Magick

Ever-changing Goddess of the moon

Lady of the Groves and Gardens

Bride of the Sun

You who is at once, The Maiden of Creativity,

The Mother of Possibilities, and The Secret Wielding Crone,

I Invoke Thee by Perfect Love and Perfect Trust

Please be present in this rite in Thy Honor and Praise

Share with me Your Love and Lore and Law

That Thy Servant and Friend may be Fulfilled

Hail & Well Met

~Invocation, (c) 2010 Pax/Geoffrey Stewart

Dear Friends,

This, which I was determined would be the first entry in this little series, has been a tough post to write for all its brevity.  It is strange to note that I don’t have many dramatic or deep encounters with The Witches Goddess, the Three-fold Lady who is Maiden and Mother and Crone… a couple stand out… but Her presence in my life is a largely subtle one compared to some of my other encounters with Divinities.

The Charge

The Charge, or rather, Valiente’s Charge of The Goddess is the first time I can specifically remember encountering Her.  After all these years I can’t recall which version in which book or where I was when I first read it…. I want to say it was in the back of either Complete Art of White Witchcraft or Diary of A Witch, both by Sybil Leek.

I remember it was an older book.   Anchorage is blessed with some world class used bookstores because it can be ridiculously expensive to move to and from Alaska thus a lot of folks jettison stuff on their way out, I remember the worn pages of a paperback in my hand,the sensation of that light almost feathery quality of the page edges that old paperback books have.  I remember the old paperback/used book scent overlaying that slightest hint of Metaphysical/Occult bookstore.  I remember the slightly old fashioned type against the sepia kissed creme of the page.

I remember the words, as I read them, seeming to flow off the page, up my arms deep into my head and heart.  I remember how filled to bursting I was with Spirit and Love and Hope and Power as I first experienced a sense of Her deep and abiding love.

I remember the sense of the rest of the world receding and the sense of the words speaking directly to the deepest part of my soul.  Drinking down the words of the Charge, I can remember feeling changed.  Touched and Transformed by Her words, sent through Doreen, so many years before I was born.  She was there, and although Her presence in my life has been an often subtle one, She has been with me ever since.

A Voice in The Rec Room

This was one of the few, dramatic, moments in my experiences of the Triple Goddess.  An acquaintance of mine who was claiming to suffer from Multiple Personalities (Dissociative Identity Disorder) had had, or decided to have (which I say looking back on the episode with the perspective of many years experience of the ways people seek to suck up attention and specialness in dysfunctional ways) an episode.

I wasn’t entirely sold on the MPD, had some inkling it might just be attention seeking, but also felt that it was possible that there WAS some mental illness going on or at least some emotional troubles… so I did what any self-respecting Witch would do; I decided to turn it over to the Gods… or in this case The Witches Goddess.  This was early enough in my journey and practice as a Solitary Witch that She was in the spotlight of my practice at the time.

I had decided to try something different, and instead of putting the tools on an altar table or cloth, I arrayed them and the various notions and lotions and potions that inhabited my early altars around me in a circle, and Cast Circle through and upon them.  I did the usual Cirlce rites and then after The Rite, in symbol, I began praying to Her.  I asked Her what I could do for my friend and lay the situation out before here as I understood it at the time and prayed for Her guidance.

“Love him.” She said.

I.  Heard.  The.  Words. Aloud.  Not in the conversation-in-my-head-but-not-my-words style, which is the usual way I get impressions from The Holy Powers, but aloud.  Out, friggin’, Loud!

I spun around, startled, and knocked over the lit Candle for Fire… which luckily went out and did NOT ignite the synthetic orange shag of  daylight basement rec-room.  After a moment of processing this, one of my earliest this-shit-is-real experiences, I uprighted and relit the Candle for Fire and continued to pray for a time.  She, of course, was maddeningly silent after this, but I tried to remain content knowing She was and is there and will put a hand or word in if needed.

Reflection

Mostly I am aware of her on Full Moon nights, or nearly full nights.  The familiar embracing Presence.  The sense of settling in as I begin Invoking Her in Circle, the passionate thread that runs through me as the Blade and Chalice meet.  While I haven’t had a lot of woo-woo experiences involving Her, I have almost never really doubted She is there.

I’d love to be able to say that I have NEVER doubted Them or The Craft, but I am as human as anyone else and sometimes I wrestle with fear and doubt and confusion.  Always though, I return.  I return to Them and to Her.

Lately my relationship with Her has taken a bit of a turn as I encountered the Feri Trad way of addressing Her as “Holy Mother in Whom we live move and have our being”… this has resonated strongly for me and for my practice and I have incorporated that phrase into some of my own Craft.

Peace,

Pax

…

Intro

Libertas (whilst written before this series was conceived of, it fits a little too perfectly into the theme to be ignored…)

The Witches Goddess (this post)

The WitchFather

The Morrigan

Hecate

Dionysus

The Honored and Beloved Dead

Spirits of the World Around Us

Automotive Misadventures, The Fabulous Jonathan, and Spiritual Practice, Oh My!

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Carry Water, Chop Wood, everyday, Notes on the Journey, spiritual practice, The Fabulous Jonathan4 Comments

Dear Friends,

So as you may remember I have been working at building my array and regularity of Spiritual Practices in my Pagan journey for a while now…. Meditation, both silent and focused, and Conscious Breathing and Grounding and Centering and work with my Chakra’s and (for those of us on the New Aquarian Frontier who are of the Witchy persuasion) of course Magick…. and loging them all daily along with my daily diet and writing I’ve done that day and any Professional development and physical excercise…

And my practice has been growing and becoming a regular part of my life.  So of course as I grew it eventually became time for a test.

My old car, the Late Great Volvo, had already had 170,000 miles on it when I bought it used for $1,700 a few years ago.  I had already spent more on it in repairs than I bought it for, almost double.  I have been reading and researching replacement vehicles and pulling together money and otherwise talking about getting a newer car.  However my A.D.D. blessed brain kept getting distracted by more immediate things… duties and commitments and exhaustion from a wildly varying schedule and all sorts of other life stuff… or so I told myself.

So when I stopped at a fast food place for some breakfast this last Sunday, and the car didn’t want to start, I shouldn’t have been so surprised.

Turn the key, nothing.  The lights came on but the engine did not turn over.   I figured it was the battery, and after some harsh lessons in the road readiness and charitable nature of many of my fellow human beings…. I called my boyfriend The Fabulous Jonathan.  He made the 45-minute to hour drive to where I was and we tried jumping the battery.  Repeatedly.   No go.   After a while the ugly truth dawned that it wasn’t the battery, it was the transmission.

For those who are even more automotive repair/maintenance challenged than myself (and I hope you live somewhere either blessed with fabulous public transit or which is very pedestrian friendly) that is both ridiculously expensive and the automotive kiss of death.

The Fabulous Jonathan set aside his own duties and chores for the Week-end and helped ferry me around town for a few days and look at cars and figure out how to invest my modest nest egg into a new vehicle.  I am now the proud debtor of a slightly used 2010 Kia Rio!!!

(brief pause whilst Pax does some calming breathing about his very first Car financing experience, which is really different from a Student Loan because you can’t really defer payments…. banks are a LOT less accomodating or flexible on Car Loans than Student Loans as I understand it)

So we exchanged Valentine cards on the 13th, and spent most of the next 3 days together.  He helped me get to work on Monday night, after I switched shifts around to have Tuesday off to go Car hunting.   We talked, a lot and laughed and shared stories from our pasts and he made a scary crazy making experience a lot less painful!  He is wonderful, and smart and cute and funny, although I am admittedly biased on the matter.  It was nice to know that we are capable of weathering storms together.

I am truly blessed to have found you Jonathan!

So sometime on day 2, even though I wasn’t doing my usual Journal / Log-booking of my practices, I noticed I was still breathing consciously, I was grounding and centering, and otherwise trying to engage the practices that help keep me on an even keel; even in the midst of maddening times.  That is why we do them, they help us to grow and be stronger and better people; being stronger and better people we are more aware and engaged in our lives and our relationships with ourselves, our friends and families, our Gods, and our Sweet Sacred Universe.

Jonathan was even patient with me as I got very snarly and with him at the Dealership as I sat with him waiting for some of the paperwork to go through as I wrestled with this tremendous wave of doubt and fear that washed over me.  He kept trying to reassure me and I kept getting mad at him… which I knew was bs and driven by the fearful and hateful parts of my self that have been hurt so often over the years – and sometimes allowed myself to be hurt rather than risk failing at not being a failure or a screw-up-… finally I just told him that this was my fear and I needed to face it.

Although I was more than a little bastardly about it, sorry my dear.

Sometimes you have to face your fears instead of running from them, which is of course one of the big reasons I had waited to buy the car or seriously scope out my financing options.   But I found a good finance rate and payments I can afford and even as I go scared further into the world or being a Real Adult ™, I am blessed by good friends and good fortune and the love of a wonderful guy!

I also find myself contemplating how small and limited I’ve let my life get in the last year or so as I faced the impending death of the Volvo and of how I avoided dealing with the situation.  I have many friends whom I could be sharing my journey with in a more personal face to face manner, and even with the hovering cloud of automotive doom I have been trying to do just that lately… spending time with Tracie the Red this last week-end…. and making it to various 1U events.

I have had a lot of “Once I have a newer car and a better job I can ______ and _____ and ____.”  Conversations/prayers/whatever’s with the Gods and the Universe in general lately….  Projects I could be involved in, events I could attend, activities I could take up…. not a new thing these conversations, but my sense of being actually able to tackle the various projects and promises is newer to me.   Its grown with my dive into Practice and Study in the last couple of years.

I can also see, based on that not-quite crushing wave of fear and doubt at the Dealership, that I have more work and Practice to do…

Now it’s back to the daily routine of work at the motel, and on my writing, and on my Practices, and in another couple of days it will be time to Circle again.   Then there are events at Church to volunteer on…   Opportunities to spend times with Tracie the Red, and my gaming buddy and proto-Heathen friend Aarnvast, and others….  More work to do polishing the resume and getting my ducks in a row to try for promotions at work….  More work to do around the apartment getting things in order there…

The adventure continues…

Peace,

Pax

My life with (some of) The Holy Powers and The Spirits

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, Gospel Pagan, My life with (some of) The Holy Powers and The Spirits, Pagan Evangelical, remembering12 Comments

(Intro to a series…)

Hello Dear Friends,

This series of posts has its origins in reading Dver’s marvelous post A light in the darkness, which was in turn inspired by Sarah Lawless’ post They’re Watching You.  Most especially it’s been sparked by reading and re-reading Dver’s other post, Committing.  There are other posts that are inspiring and re-inspiring me (including They Hold Our Hands,  from Aquila ka Hecate, and It’s not about us also from Dver, and Gods, Goods and shadows… from CredenceDawg) as I seek to write of my encounters with some of The Holy Powers, and why I believe THEY are important….

That Paganism and Witchcraft and Spirituality and Religion and Devotion are about THEM at least as much as, if not more than, they are about US.  Increasingly I am seeing that this is something of a scandalous or shocking, or perhaps I should say unfashionable, idea amongst a number of my fellow Pagans.  So let me clarify my own personal position.

The. Gods. Are. Real.

So I am going to engage in some commitment with this series of posts.  I am going to write about my personal experiences of some of the Holy Powers and Spirits as I remember experiencing them.  Some of these I have written about before or in part, but I am going to share them here again.  Because they really happened.

For the skeptical or non-theistic out there, especially the ones I know and socialize with in my off-line worlds, some of whom might become concerned or made uncomfortable by this series; I am willing to allow you all the polite escape clause that on some level that its possible that what I describe is all in my head and some psychological peak experience or whatever psychological make-it-some-how-safe-and-rational-excuses you prefer

HOWEVER

The experiences I will write about are such that they have  pushed (or pulled, or perhaps danced) me past the point of Agnosticism, over the borderlands of Belief  and deep into the complex terrain of Experience.

I am not a Polytheist or a Witch because I think that The Gods or Magick are nifty ideas, I am not a Pagan because it helps me to be a better person, I am not a Witch because its some nifty magickal lifestyle choice; I am a Witch and Polytheist because I have experienced Magick and encountered some of the Gods and Spirits and felt the phantom touch of the Ancestors in my life.

Peace,

Pax / Geoffrey

(tip of the hat to Lon Milo Duquette for inspiring the title of the present series of posts)

Intro (this post)

Libertas (whilst written before this series was conceived of, it fits a little too perfectly into the theme to be ignored…)

The Witches Goddess

The WitchFather

The Morrigan

Hecate

Dionysus

The Honored and Beloved Dead

Spirits of the World Around Us

Libertas, Tiananmen Square, and Me

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, Community Building, Cross-roads, My life with (some of) The Holy Powers and The Spirits, Religio-Americana, remembering, The Goddess, The Numinous Divine1 Comment

Dear Friends,

So this years Nobel Peace Prize winner has dedicated his award to the memory of those who died in the June Fourth Incident, as the  Tiananmen Square massacre is known inside China.  It took me a while to decipher the reasons why this news stirred my heart.  Since that time, the Chinese government has done what they can to block the incident or otherwise discredit the ceremony.   When this news broke in early November, though, I was transported back in time….

21 years ago, 1989, the Summer between my Junior and Senior year of High School.  Technically speaking I wasn’t really a Pagan or a Witch yet…  and yet… from early childhood I had had a fascination with stories of magic and the occult and E.S.P. and folklore and mythology.  From the time I got a couple of fill-in-the-blanks word/spelling workbooks with the stories of the Greek and Roman gods started  my fascination with Ancient Greece, which was later aided and abetted by my passionate love of Wonder Woman tv show; I had immersed myself in mythology and folk-lore and stories of the unexplained and such, and if there had been a book in any of my school libraries on such topics I had read it.

My family didn’t go to Church or anything…. we prayed at the Holidays but I wasn’t Churched growing up except for a couple of Christian Summer School experiments that I think Mom and Dad tried out because they felt I should get some species of religious education.  While I am sure that the Baptist Afternoon Bible Summer School must have spoken of God’s Love, all my A.D.D. blessed brain caught a hold of was the whole tow-the-line-or-go-directly-to-Hellfire-and-Brimstone-do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200 part of the theology…; this left young Geoffrey with some issues with Christianity and organized Religion!  I had begun skirting the barest edges of metaphysical and magickal practices from readings in the folklore and Mysteries of the Unexplained Woo Woo readings I had done over the years.  It hadn’t really yet occurred to me that there were other games in town OTHER than Christianity/Judaism (which, since I didn’t know one could convert to, I considered myself wholly ineligible for)/Islam;  I had yet to start reading any Daoist or Buddhist books, that would come later….

Like many people of my generation I found great hope and inspiration in the early days of the coverage of Tienanmen Square, people finding their voice and demanding redress of their grievances from their government…. as a young man born in 1972 and raised with all the patriotic fervor of the U.S. Bicentennial floating about and the (admittedly rose-colored and simplistic) emphasis on U.S. History and Americana and Democracy etc. etc…  how could I not feel moved by the happenings across the Pacific from my homeland of Alaska U.S.A.?

Then, then I saw Her.  It was not simply that they had raised a statue resembling Lady Liberty, although that did stir my soul, but that they outright named Her as Goddess… The Goddess of Democracy… I did not know then that Lady Liberty who stands beside the golden door is meant to represent Libertas…  Yet, something about the fact that people all over the world were being enthralled and inspired by the struggle for freedom and inspired by the image of The Goddess of Democracy, stirred within my mind the idea that the ancient Gods and Godesses were still abroad in the world, stirred my senses and struck chord in my heart and soul and knocked upon the doors of my perception.  It was a deep and abiding and everlasting and celestially symphonic chorus of…

“Yes!  Yes, yes, oh Sweet, oh Divine, oh Glorious; Yes!!!”

…that rang forth from and within my every dancing atom and singing cell.   The swift winged winds of change blowing through my soul, inspiring me and stirring a sea change deep within me.  Even though I didn’t have the language for it at the time, and even though I did not formally start my studies or formally separate myself from the mainstream or from the presumed Judeo-Christian matrix of my late 20th Century U.S. upbringing until a few years later, I can honestly say THAT was the exact moment I truly became a Pagan.

What about you?  When did you say YES?

Peace, and Curiosity,

Pax

PS- after this post was written and posted, a series of posts entitled “My life with (some of) The Holy Powers and The Spirits” started trickling out of me, and this post was too obviously a part of that NOT to be included… for ease of cross referencing Links to the other articles discussing the characters in my life’s Divine and semi-Divine Dramatis Personae will be included below as the posts are written…

Intro

Libertas (this post)

The Witches Goddess

The WitchFather

The Morrigan

Hecate

Dionysus

The Honored and Beloved Dead

Spirits of the World Around Us

Solsticetide Eclipse and learning to respect the moments momentous and mundane…

On By PaxIn An Important Message..., Blame Sannion, everyday, Food for Thought, Gospel Pagan, Meditation, My Florida Sabbats, SolsticeLeave a comment

Dear Friends,

Tonight I have had the privilege of seeing the Waning and Waxing Crescent within hours of each other.  The chill night air and the Moon in the sky dancing with the shadow of the Earth.  Strange to watch this celestial dance and think of how they and we are all, somehow, the stuff of stars.

Thou art God, Thou art Goddess, we and They are all one and many and interconnected and miraculous.

There is wonder in this old Universe yet!  Once more the Child of Promise is stirring, as the Crone and Maiden and Mother dance in the jewel bedecked halls of Night.  The Miracles of the Solstice are nigh, my friends, and we will welcome Him back into life and light soon.  Solstice Eve tonight (21st) and Solstice Day in the morning (22nd), and we shall welcome a New Year round soon.

I have always related to the Solstices and Equinoxes as major occasions, a natural result of an Alaskan upbringing when the Winter Solstice shall see 4 hours of daylight if the sky is not blanketed with thick gray clouds.  The Winter Solstice is the turning of my spiritual New Year, followed shortly by the Calendarical…

Drink deeply of mystery and wonder and poetry and promise my friends, drink deeply of mulled wine or sweet Sangria and Breathe deep the Breath of Life and sing and hope and dream and smile and laugh and feast with friends.  Whether you huddle round a bonfire in a chill night or spend the night bbq-ing with friends, or savoring stew cooked on the stove of by the fireside.  Light Candles and kindle fires and stare deep into flames listening to the wisdom from the flickering tongues that whispered to our ancestors oh so ever so long ago.

There is wonder and power in any Winter Solstice, and this one is more precious still for the overlapping of the Eclipse…  and yet one of the lessons of my own journey that I am filled to overflowing with this year as I feel the strange alchemy of the Solstice tide turn what had been a sense of stillness turned to stagnation and a spiritual bleakness cracking open to the wonder and possibilities and hope of this time of year; one of the lessons I have learned and should like to share is this, there is wonder and magick and Mysteries and power and possibility in our simplest acts if we open to it.

I am reminded of this, especially this time of year as I watch so many people get caught up in the mad rush of days, indeed a dear friend, who lives in the North East U.S., expressed exhaustion at everything that needed doing this Holiday Season… and some part of me began to flow with the first stirrings of the Solstice miracles…. I wrote to her…

Breathe the breath of life, Inspire, draw in life giving air, life force, and Spirit, take a step and feel air and blood and magick flow. 

Know the simple blessing of breath and movement and magick. Feel the blessed benediction of the bloo…d in your veins. Where there is soreness then stop for a moment, stand and breathe into the pain… sending air and energy to whatever needs strengthening and balancing loosening the pain and repositioning your body until it moves from “ow” to “ah, that’s alright”, then stride forward once more with grace and ease.

Movement is more purposeful now, more the prowl of a panther than the leap of a gazelle, but every movement and every breath and every conscious action is a blessing and benediction unto ourselves and the world.

If we remember the powers of Air and the benediction of breath.

~~~

Light a candle, or pour a hot toddy, take a moment to warm yourself by the wood-stove or the fire or simply with hands clasped around a cup of strong black tea with cinnamon and citrus rind…. take a moment to breath in the fragrant steam, take a moment to lose yourself in the candles flame.

Look inside yourself and seek your spiritual fire and inner light. Take a breath and send air and energy to your personal fires, take a breath and open yourself to the Light of Lady and Lord, to His Light, to The Light of which we and They are a part.

Remember the blessings and benedictions of Fire.

~~~

Bundle up and take your freshly poured tea outside a moment. Look at the snow and ice around you and realize that one of Mysteries of Water is that it can be so many things…. It can be hard enough to scour the mountains to fine fertile dust, in can fall and fly crystalline and wind borne, it can flow along the earth, it can fall warm or cold from the sky… We are also capable of many things and forms in our emotions and our ways of acting and reacting…

Make a snowball and throw it at a wall, how does it react on impact? How are you reacting to the impacts from the mad rush of days?

Take a likely icicle and stir your tea with it, cooling the overheated liquid until it is drinkable, turning a burning liquid into nourishment, Transformation…

Go inside and mix salt and water and draw stars and snowflakes on your window panes… leave them a while and then when the patterns shine through later remember to yourself that you can transform you can choose how to react and what form your spirit and emotions shall take..

Take time for a hot hot bath, or a shower and a lustral bath, with soothing herbs…

Luxuriate in the Mysteries of the Waters…

~~~

Breathe in the fragrant scent of the pines, stir up a pot of stew on the stove, light a few scented candles in the rooms of the house and just take some time reveling in your home. It is a place of wonder and blessings and nourishment and nurturance. Determine to take 10 minutes to do nothing but sit in Your Spot and sip something and eat something and silently enjoy Your home and hearth and what health you have.

Bake something for your beloveds, go through the pantry and see what supplies you need to stock up on so that on the next expedition you can fill the pantry and plan something special for those you love and for yourself…

Savor the mysteries of Earth….
~~~

We are all magickal, we are all miraculous, there is wonder and power aplenty if we open ourselves to them.  Whatever your climate, wherever you are dear friends, you too can take time, MUST make and take the time to savor the moments and the Mysteries.
Bright Blessings and Much Love to you all,
Pax

Ribbon chic, Facebook Profile Pics, and actually DOING something.

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, everyday2 Comments

Hello Dear Friends,

So those of you who, like myself, have been sucked into the time vortex that is FaceBook may have noticed the effort abroad to change your profile pic to a favored childhood cartoon character as some sort of statement against child abuse.

I have very mixed feelings about these sort of things.  Not that I particularly support child abuse, mind you.  As Opus said when he called in to Phil Donahue in support of Penguin Lust, only to find out that the days topic was Nun Beating,

“Good Lord man I can’t support that!”

Anyhow, on the one hand it is good that these efforts try and raise awareness.  Yet only a few of the actual status updates mentioned WHY we were supposed to be changing our profile pics to a favorite cartoon character from our childhoods.  Strange how the childhood game of “telephone” was training for 21st Century social networking?

Then too I think that sometime these little symbolic gestures dilute energy from the causes they are meant to highlight and encourage support and effort towards.

Most of the campaigns like this are designed specifically to raise awareness and try to encourage people to do more… yet there are plenty of folks out there who are simply going to change their profile pic and feel good and self congratulatory and then move on with their week and forget.  I mean, hell folks, if half the people who buy a pink ribbon or red ribbon item to show support or donate 15 cents on the dollar to the cause were to write their congress person and donate directly and marched in a protest on the issues for a couple of years we might very well have a cure for either Breast Cancer or Aids by now!

All of which may seem a strange opinion for a Magickal Practitioner… but there is a different between Magickal Practice and magical thinking.   The invocation of symbolic language should be intentional and moving and powerful.  When an act is done to affect change, to have a genuine effect in the world, whether it is an act of protest or a religious rite or in the spiritual practices of individuals and groups it must be done with knowledge, it must be done with intent, it must be done with the willingness to act and speak in accord, and it must be done with Will.

Otherwise it is just a simple and quickly forgotten fashion choice or fad.

My Pagan friend, and Friend, Cat would be quick to ask me here why I think that action and effort and Will are not an accompaniment to the changing of the profile pics; she is pretty fabulously talented at asking the key questions and providing some of us with discernment….

Some of this disgruntlement comes from the previously mentioned game-of-“telephone” aspect of Facebook, I have seen dozens of reminders to change your profile pic to a cartoon character that in no way mention the idea that this relates to speaking up against child abuse.

Some comes from the fact of my own history.  I have bought the red frosted  cookie-where-an-unspecified-tiny-amount-of-the-cost-actually-goes-to-HIV/AIDS-research and felt all rosy and warm (although that may have also been the onset of Diabetes or the wildly unorganic and probably carcinogenic dyes that make it red) and slacked with the giving money or marching or speaking out in the past.   Although some of THAT is also the overall lack of money in my life, but my fingers and feet are not broken so I could have still written my Congressperson and marched and protested and stuff… but I didn’t.

I think my big objection, is a lot of these little symbolic acts can, if we are not conscious in our efforts, buy into the mantra’s of the overculture….

“That you have done your part by doing the simple profile pic change or buying the trinket and you don’t need to worry your self about it beyond that, your busy, there’s a lot going on and how can one person really make that much difference?”

~ the insidious sort of bs that our culture tells us all the damn time….

I feel like all to often we are not encouraging ourselves and one another to do MORE than the symbolic little act.

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go off and try to figure out what that MORE is exactly…

Peace,

Pax

Notes from the Journey: Daily Practices and forgiveness

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, everyday, Love Unto All Beings, Notes on the Journey, spiritual practice2 Comments

Hello Dear Friends,

So the scent of Lavender incense wafts through the apartment as the Laundry machine rumbles and I sort some laundry into appropriate places and piles…  I sip my coffee and breathe into my Center and contemplate my journey and journal…

I have started listing a whole bunch of things in my, until recently, on-again off-again journal/diary; the categories are based on things I desire to do with my time and life…

I note when I wake up, what work hours if any I have, the date (or when I work the overnight the dates), and the moon phase.

Then it’s on to the categories of activity I am increasing my awareness of and working on including in my life..

Prayer: any and all formal prayers like my 8 virtues prayer and the ‘Who is this Flower above me’ prayer are listed, as well as some notation if I engaged in any other prayer that day…

Energy: any basic energy work or magickal exercises are listed here… splatter vision, dropped attention, grounding, basic centering, sheilding, …. sometimes Soul Alignment work although that usually flows into

Chakra & CLF: Any work with my Chakras and the Cleansing Life Force exercise variations that I practice, my variation on the CLF seems to also work to align my Soul… although I occasionally experiment…

Meditation: here I list the type and how long I meditated… if I did, still exploring why I have such trouble stilling myself… perhaps its the lack of,

Physical Excercise: At this stage anything beyond my all too sedentary routine counts… went shopping and walked through the grocery store?  Counts.  Walked around the block for a cup of coffee or whatever?  Counts…

Nutrition: Everything I eat or drink in a day… whatever it is… no judgements just recording…  food and beverages; I have also been studying up on proper nutrition and trying to change my diet, but even when I am off the wagon at least I am maintaining my awareness of what I am consuming so I can go back and go…”Wow, ok last week was a carb-a-palooza… why?!”

Writing: I have identified writing as an activity the nourishes and nurtures my spirit, so even if I just am able to shoot off an e-mail I include it here although I am trying to make space in my day where I sit and write… even if it’s just jotting down lines or ideas or making a list…

Professional Development: This is where discussions with my manager about training or the company, or work on my L:inkedIn profile or Resume or other professional life related work goes…

Journaling: Separate from writing because this is recording observations on any of the above that strikes my fancy or writing down ideas.

~~~~~~

Now I rarely get everything done each day.  I am happy that, with the exception of one day I slacked after having a very busy 22 hour day, I have been journalling almost everything I’ve eaten in the last couple of weeks and that I have been writing keeping track of all of the above daily.

This is where the forgiveness comes in.  See in years past when I have tried to change or improve things I would tend to despair and give up at the first mis-step or the first few times I failed to follow through on my wishes for more exercise or healthier eating… or to establish regular spiritual practices.

One of the lessons I have learned is that it is not about succeeding in the 1st or 2nd or even the 32nd try… it is about returning, again and again, to those things that nurture and nourish us in body and soul and help us along the path to where we want (or need) to be.  Instead of despairing or giving up or telling myself that I am a fuck-up or a failure or that I can’t do it… instead of all that doom filled negative self-fulfilling prophesying; I write, I smile, I breath and I remind myself that the fear and the doubt are honest reactions but that they do not define me… I look at the entries and I ask myself the why’s and wherefore’s of my actions and reactions.

I see for example that I am rather good at finding ways to include energy work, prayers, and chakra work in my day; physical exercise is another matter.  This leads to questions and contemplation of my motivations, my living situation, and the many many influences affecting my life right now.

I feel like I have finally flipped the bird to the overculture and am begining to live in a way that will help lead me to a healthier and more authentic and prosperous future.

So that is what is working for me right now.

What in your life and practice and journey is working for you?

Peace,

Pax

This little light of mine…

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Community Building, everyday, Gay Pride, remembering, Samhain, Unitarian Universalism, witchery3 Comments

Dear Friends,

So in the last couple of weeks I had seen multiple announcements for the LGBT Youth Candlelight Vigils here in Orlando on the 20th and 21st… for LGBT Teen Suicide Awareness Day on the 20th.   I committed to going to the Lake Eola vigil.  There was also one the next night at UCF…

As a part of these vigils, and apparently as a general part of the LGBT Youth Suicide Awareness day on the 20th folks were encouraged to wear Purple.  Now a lot of times when something like this happens you hear all sorts of encouragement to wear a color and show your support… and folks will change the color of their blog or post a new profile pic… but you don’t hear as much about getting off your butt and marching or sending in your money… and as an aging queer and Witch… well, I can get a bit ornry…

No, I am not going to wear purple, nor am I going to put purple on my facebook profile, what I am doing is going to a candle-lit vigil for glbt youth suicide awareness and I am going to re-commit to voting against homophobia…

~ Pax’s rather ornry Facebook profile from a few days ago…

I was there as a Gay man who had been bullied in High School over his orientation, or rather perceived orientation since I was only partially out to even myself at that point.  I was also there as a Witch, who has finally set aside some of his why-not-to-do-stuff for his why-the-hell-not, and is working on his will and Will.  I was also there to support my friends from the 1st Unitarian Church Orlando, including my friend Sister Ambrosia Discordia of the Orlando Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (Ambrosia happens to be a member of the 1st U, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have no formal relationship with the U.U.A) and our new settled Minister Reverend Kathy Schmitz.

There was a long time where people were simply mingling and talking.   Reverend Kathy spent some time networking with some of the other religious leaders in attendance.  I was kind of odd man out for a while, although my bright pink “Tough Guys Wear Pink” T-shirt did bring some nice compliments!

What!?  I had to wear something.  If for no other reason, because most folks would NOT appreciate me in my altogether/ Bear-on-the-half-shell glory.  Besides you don’t have to wave a rainbow flag to, well, wave the rainbow flag!

As darkness fell and the crowd began to grow as people found parking near Lake Eola Park, or got to the park from wherever they had found parking, some folks began lighting candles they had brought with them and some of the Come Out Orlando vollunteer’s (the group that had put the event together) distributed their candles for the vigil.  It was at this point that it was a pleasant surprise to see members of the Downtown Orlando Circle of the Sublime Elm, and the Orlando G.L.B.T. Pagan’s and Witcbes Meet-up groups in attendance.  I said hello and introduced them to some of the folks from 1st U and to the Sister’s.

Then there was an all too quiet speech, must look for an microphone/bull-horn for the kids at Come Out Orlando… then a lovely and very interfaith prayer from a young lady wearing a clerical color against a lovely lavender shirt.  Then we marched…

Oddly enough, it was the first time I marched in something other than a Pride parade.  Gay Pride, we Pagans don’t have our own parades yet… at least not public ones that I am aware of.  ANYHOW, I had been in protests before but I don’t think I have ever marched before… and since this was a candle-lit vigil it had more of a spiritual/processional feel to it.

It was quite lovely, and a good renewal of my inner activist and my will and possibly my Will.

Peace,

Pax / Geoffrey