Freewriting and Notes on the Journey 3/02/11

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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.

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

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