SatSekhem gave this to me, with a very sweet note. I blushed. A lot.
Rules
1. You must thank the person in your blog entry that awarded you the award. (Done!)
2. You have to list seven things that make you happy. (See below.)
3. You then tag seven blogs that you think qualify for this award (friendly, happy, informative) and let them know. (See below.)
Seven Things That Make Me Happy
My mom’s dog, Tyee. He is the sweetest special needs dog in the world. Even if he did eat his leash. Again. (When I say ‘special needs’, I mean in a PTSD kinda way.)
Ogre. That’s my boyfriend. He always makes me happy.
Black nail polish.
Having shaved legs.
Writing.
When I figure things out.
Nutella and Journey.
Seven Blogs that I think deserve this award
Small note: I just have to list the blogs, without a paragraph explaining why. I’m sorry. I have word dysphasia and currently am having a lot of trouble expressing my emotions. (It took me over a week to write this post.) It may have something to do with being off my anti-depressants for over a month now, or maybe I’m just losing my coping mechanisms. I don’t know.
Anyway. The blogs below are lovely in my opinion, and you should go check them out.
For this week’s PBP entry, I’m going to talk about candles.
I’m obsessed with candles.
Seriously. Take me into a store that’s having a sale on candles and just try and stop me from buying them, why don’t you. (You will be injured. Fair warning.)
Actually, I think that’s one of the main reasons I ended up getting into Wicca in the first place. “I can light candles in a religious context OMG AWESOME!” (That, and I wanted to hex the bullies at school who beat me up every day.)
Having an excuse to burn fifty candles at a time sounded like a dream come true to little 11-year-old me. Though I did frequently burn fifty candles at a time, regardless of my parents’ wishes.
I’m not sure where this obsession comes from. It could be my strong relationship to the fire element. It could be a desire to master the candle-flame ever since I was a kid watching the ‘adults’ in the room show me ‘magic’ by passing their fingers through the top part of the flame without injury. (I decided to show them up by putting my finger into what was logically the coldest part of the flame, the blue bottom, and holding it there. This is what cartoons did to me.) It could be that the room I had in our house at the time was FREEZING because I may have accidentally flung a hammer through the window in the middle of winter and a million candles kept me warm.
OMG. HEAVEN. (Image via Wikipedia.)
It may have been the dancing light on the wall. It may have been the treasure candles that had gemstones and crap hidden inside, and each burnt candle was like a mystery unlocked (and more shiny pretties! CAW!). It may have been the subtle scented candles I bought, the ones that actually smelled good as opposed to the heavily perfumed crap you can buy nowadays that tend to try and kill you before you even light them. It may have been the beeswax, which always smells good.
It could have also been a sign I was marked by Brighid early on. Or, and this may be more likely, it could have been that I was a kid in a world that was wildly shifting out of my control, and burning candles and researching paganism were small acts of rebellion that I felt were still mine while I weathered my parents’ divorce. (I wasn’t rebelling against mom, for the record.)
I’m not really sure what it was. But the obsession has never stopped.
Unlit. Unloved. (Candles (Photo credit: njj4))
And now I’ve found myself in a place and time where I cannot burn as many as I did fourteen years ago, when I didn’t have to be the one worried about landlords coming down hard against burning materials like candles or incense. I’ve now lived in so many different places it makes my head spin, and the ones where I could burn as many candles as I wanted, either through a lack of rules or an abundance of safety, I can count on one hand.
I’m lucky at the moment — my landlady is awesome, and I burn candles all the time in my basement suite. (Economical way to heat the place, too.) But in April I’m moving to an apartment on the mainland, and there’s a strata council here. I’m not sure what their rules are exactly regarding candle-burning, but I’m fairly certain they won’t look kindly on candles everywhere. Not to mention, I have to keep the place looking stage-able — that is, ready to show to prospective buyers — at all times. And for some reason, people don’t like seeing a lot of candles around. Especially not black ones in the shape of a pentagram. (They’re so close-minded, honestly.)
Even now, with my awesome house, I don’t burn as many as I’d like. I’m not home enough to do so — either bed-ridden here in this apartment as my back recovers, or at school and rehearsal once I go home next week — and my room is not finished being cleaned, so accessing my altar and candle space is not easy with my cane.
Imagine if “The Birds” had been done with tealights instead. (Image via Wikipedia.)
So my candle collection grows bigger and bigger as I search for excuses to burn them — even doing more candle magic than I usually do, just so I can make the collection smaller.
Because a smaller collection at home means less chance of a candle apocalypse, where they rise like zombies to destroy their former masters I can actually buy more when I’m out and about.
I think I may have a problem.
When Morrigan first Thwapped me, She told me that She’d chosen me before I was even born, but didn’t reveal Herself until that point.
I got angry. Not only had my childhood been terrible, but the rest of my life hadn’t been a picnic either. Not to mention, I’d been following Pagan paths for a while then — at least 10 years — and I’d felt lost for the past two years. Complete crisis of faith. The least She could have done, I felt, was show up a little earlier and let me know I wasn’t alone.
I confronted Her about it, and She told me that She wanted strong weapons, strong tools — and how could I be strong if I hadn’t been forged, if I hadn’t gone through fire and lived?
While an answer like that would have made me more angry had it come from a mortal, hearing it from Her just made sense, and my anger disappeared.
The gods can manipulate us, and play games with us…and in the case of patrons, I have to accept it’s because They probably know a bit better than we do. How many times have I had to manipulate my Sim in the Sims to get them to do what was actually good for them? (And how hard was it to get them to get to work on time — am I right?)
There’s a lot of analogies between our relationships with the gods and our relationships with other people floating out there, and to some degree that’s valid. When asking questions about the relationship it’s a good idea to ask yourself the same questions about similar relationships with mortals.
However, I think that leads us to forget that the gods are more powerful than we are and They do know more than we do. That doesn’t always mean They’ll use that knowledge for our betterment, but I think if a god has chosen you to be patron to, Zie’s not going to hide information from you or manipulate you for shits and giggles. I have to believe there’s a purpose to what Morrigan, Brighid, and Manannan do or don’t tell me — that They do it to hone me into a better tool, so I can better do Their work.
And this is quite obviously a relationship I couldn’t have with another mortal, because I’m sorry — there’s no way any mortal has the same sort of knowledge about me that the gods I’m devoted to do, and there’s no way another mortal could possibly know what’s better for me and my path the way my gods do.
So at some point, I have to stop treating the gods like other mortals and start treating Them like what they are: gods. The analogy stops working at some point, and I really think the analogy of game player to Sims becomes more accurate. Just like a Sim, I can’t see the gods’ plan for me. Just like a Sim I may get angry or belligerent when I think They’re asking too much of me. Just like a Sim, I’ll end up doing what They want anyway, and usually I’ll end up happier for it — in the long run.
I am a tool for Them, as a Sim is a tool for my entertainment. But I do believe They have something grander than entertainment in mind when They work on me. I don’t know what that is for sure, but I have some ideas — and I’m happy to be working for Their causes.
I got tagged by Erinnightwalker, who is awesome. (Seriously.)
Rules
1. Post these rules.
2. You must post 11 random thoughts about yourself.
3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post.
4. Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
5. Go to their blog and tell them you have tagged them.
6. No stuff in the tagging section about ‘you are tagged if you are reading this.’ blah, blah, blah, you legitimately have to tag 11 people!
Like Erin, I’m only tagging one person who is completely not obligated to do this. If I didn’t tag you and you still want to participate, feel free to consider this a tag.
Random Thoughts
I hate watching the news because the anchors say everything exactly the same way and it drives me crazy.
I hate the idea that love is all you need. Because you need a lot more than just love to survive, especially when the odds are stacked against you. (Don’t get me wrong. Love helps. But it’s fuel — you still need a car and keys and, you know, clothing and shite.)
Speaking of, the person I love most on the planet is my mom, and always will be my mom.
I am more like Annie Edison of Community than I’d like to admit. (Also, it’s rather telling she’s my least favorite character.)
I love maple syrup but I hate Tim Horton’s coffee, so I am only half a real Canadian.
I feel I never have enough time to do all the things I want to do. I hope this means I’ll have a full life.
Zoolander is one of my favourite movies.
Because I lived for 10 years (many of them formative years) in the States, my accent is a weird blend of British Columbian and Hawaiian and I find it impossible to be consistent with either Canadian or American spelling, even in a single blog post.
I once saved a person from drowning.
I am an avid reader until a book becomes required. Then I don’t want to touch it.
I am considering continuing to go to school until I die.
Questions Answered!
1. What is your favorite bird? Ooh. Um. Probably ravens and crows — the family corvidae in general — for obvious reasons. I also really like owls, hawks, cardinals, and blue jays (also part of corvidae, but I’m naming them specifically).
2. If you could have any book in the world, what would it be?Earth Begotten by Jacqueline Carey. The text is free to read on her site, but the book itself only ran 50 copies. It’s a collector’s edition and it sounds beautiful. I’m a huge fan of the Kushiel series — by huge fan, I mean those books affected me deeply and spiritually — and I would be ecstatic to have the companion book in my library.
3. Any movie that scarred and/or had a dramatic impact on your early life? I have to choose just one? Jaws made me terrified of swimming and water — even in pools — for months. After Jurassic Park I couldn’t go to the bathroom without my mom for 6 months. Species I just found terrifying in general, especially as I wanted to go to First Knight but dad and my sister decided I was too wussy a ten year old and took me to Species instead. They also did this with The Puppet Masters. Actually, I may have just uncovered why I’ve had nightmares for 20 years.
4. Ever gone surfing? Yes! Once. It was my surfing lesson. I never actually made it to the standing position before a rogue current smashed my board into a rock wall, where I clung to the rocks in a small crescent as each subsequent wave sent the board into my face. I eventually got helped out, rolled onto my board and tugged back to shore, where mom needed to help me to walk to the car. I was on crutches for two weeks with a giant, eggplant bruise on my thigh. It really sucked. (Side note: I’d always sort of planned to take another go at it, even after moving back to Canada. However, my spinal injury means I’ll never be able to surf again. I’m slightly relieved, slightly disappointed.)
5. What is the scent of love for you? Roses.
6. What is your stance on mythical creatures/beings? There has to be some basis for the myths. I maintain an open mind as to their existence. I mean, I know the gods exist, and I know the fae do…so unicorns isn’t much of a stretch.
7. Have you ever read a book you hated so much you tossed it? If so, what and why? Oh, gods. A book? Yeah. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. And I didn’t toss it aside lightly; I threw it with great force. Getting into why I hate it will be a very long blog post, so instead read this and you shall understand.
8. What would your dream home be? A Victorian-style, very large house with little nooks and crannies and idiosyncrasies, a huge kitchen, at least one claw-foot bath tub custom made to swimming pool size, an indoor swimming pool cut into the rock in the basement, and…you know what, I’m pretty much describing the Sudbury school I went to in Haiku, except that wasn’t strictly Victorian style. That house was awesome. Anyway, dream house would also have a massive library with big, comfy leather chairs in which to sit and read, and there would be a huge yard — a few acres at least — where the dogs and kids could run wild, I could have a garden, a fire pit for ritual, and a temple separate from the house for indoor ritual. I’d also want room for an art studio and a yarn room. So I just need to win the lottery, basically.
9. Do dreams mean anything? Yeah. If nothing else, they mean I’m a seriously fucked up individual. But I have had a few dreams with meaning as to my personal, spiritual growth, and I’ve had prescient dreams about 9/11 and natural disasters.
10. Which came first, chicken or egg? I don’t really care because they’re both delicious.
11. Did you do it? And if you did, would you do it again? Yeah. This was fun!
Do you have any imaginary friends? Did you in your early life?
If you could have any animal companion/pet you wanted, what would it be and why?
What animal are you most afraid of?
Do you believe in ghosts?
If you were in a Hogwarts house, which one would it be? Why?
Pens or pencils?
How do you feel about motorcycles?
Do you ever sing along to the theme song for your favourite TV shows?
Canadian or American spelling — which do you prefer?
What do you think of when you see the colors blue and white together?
Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night with a really awesome ideaTM, write it down, and find out in the morning that it makes no sense whatsoever?
As I mentioned earlier today, I’m out with a spine injury right now. This means I’m not even at home, where all my things are, and am stuck convalescing (I have no idea if I spelled that right) in an apartment building that constantly smells of soup. (Ah, mature living. I cannot wait for that fate to be mine. Also, hello, Snarky Morag today.)
Now. Not that I had a consistent practice, or anything, but it also was just the start of the new year when my back went out and I was in the process of maybe, well, you know, fucking doing something.
I’d even managed to get one of my altars re-done and all pretty and didn’t even get a chance to take a picture of it before ow, bulging discs. (Which, bee tea dubs, hurts like crazy. Like “I want to die right now” crazy.) It’s my altar to Aphrodite and it’s gorgeous, I mean really special. I gave Her the entire top of my antique dresser, because She didn’t have much room in my previous arrangement and that was bugging me.
IRONY BEING I CANNOT HAVE SEX WITH MY INJURED BACK.
Ok, no, that’s not the WHOLE deal with Aphrodite, I know that. It’s just a big part of my deal with Her because She and I became acquainted at Her temple at the pagan gathering where I met my boyfriend — I prayed to Her and gave Her an offering and asked for Her blessing, because I was in need of love and solace. Voila: love of my life, best sex ever for four hours, no sleep, it was awesome. He gave me his bacon at breakfast. I should have realized then it was love.
Anyway, She delivers, all I’m saying, and I’ve been trying to set aside Fridays to give Her offerings. Hence the nice fancy altar.
FUCK I’M GETTING OFF TRACK.
So, the point I’m trying to make here in my convoluted rambling of no import is that I have set aside days that I see as sort of connected to my various deities. Wednesday is Manannan mac Lir’s day; Thursday is Morrigan’s; Friday is Aphrodite’s; and Sunday is Brighid’s. This gives me Monday/Tuesday/Saturday off and thank Them for that, because it’s honestly almost impossible for me to even remember Fridays for Aphrodite and my Cill shift schedule for Brighid.
And I’m trying to change that. I’m trying to be better about worshiping — even in a small way — every week.
So I had this epiphany (finally she gets to the fucking point, you loudly think): blogging. I don’t mean a simple blog post; I mean an entire blog, dedicated to each deity, where every week or every other week I write something as a dedication. It’s something I can do — within my vocation, my job, is writing. It has the option for multimedia. I will be not only offering to Them in a semi-permanent place, but I will be sharing those offerings with other devotees of Them — which is in itself an offering (in my not-so-humble opinion). And, best of all, it’s portable. I can do a blog post whenever I can get to a computer, and I never leave my laptop for any length of time. (Going to school, only, and only because I have a back injury.)
I’m going to try it, at least. I’m going to see how well it works. I have no idea what to call each blog, but expect links to them to show up in the next week or so. I’ll be doing them via blogspot, where I already have my Dedicant Path Notebook for my work on the ADF Dedicant’s Path. (And boy, can you see how much my cunctatitis affects me there! Holy fuck. It doesn’t help that I’m now having another crisis over hearth culture. Arg. But that’s another blog post. And one for over there.)
I had a real struggle with this week’s Pagan Blog Project. I could not, for the life of me, think of anything that started with a C. All I could think about was procrastination, my constant companion throughout my spiritual life.
Enter my super-nerdy boyfriend, informing me there IS a word that starts with C and means procrastination — I just had to look up the procrastination giant at the KOL Wiki.
Sure enough, you get an effect called cunctatitis from fighting said giant, related to the word cunctation.
So. Cunctatitis. A disease with no apparent cure.
I am terrible at doing things when I say I’ll do them. This isn’t always my fault — currently my entire life is on hiatus while I heal from a spine injury, which rendered my Imbolc celebrations down to light a candle maybe at sundown hopefully. And finding matches in my grandparents’ place was nigh impossible, so even that almost didn’t happen.
Well, ok, I muddle on — but I know that once I get back to school and into my life, it’ll be one thing after another. It takes me so much energy just to keep myself together that I find it very difficult to keep up a daily religious practice — even when keeping up said practice gives me the energy needed to keep myself together. Usually. It’s a complicated thing.
My energy seems to come in spurts. Every once in a while I’ll get REALLY EXCITEDTM about my practice, my gods, spells, new ideas for worship or divination, and I’ll do a bunch of stuff and feel really amped up about it. The next day I can’t get out of bed.
It seems my cunctatitis is generated from my depression, so perhaps I should have left this entry to the D’s…except, well, you’ll notice I’m posting this on Saturday. So cunctatitis really does apply here.
This is one of the many issues I face with my mental health problems…this, and bouts of fetal-position crying-fits wherein I feel completely unworthy to even breathe. Part of my work with my deities is re-learning that I am worthy and awesome — the thing about Celtic deities is, generally speaking, if you genuflect and cry out “I’m not worthy!” to Them, They’ll say “Well, come back when you are and stop wasting my time.” Which is exactly the attitude I need. Tough love. (In varying degrees, depending on the deity. I need a kick in the arse? I go to Morrigan. I need a strong, inspiring speech reminding me of my own fire? Brighid. I need a hug? Manannan.)
This post is becoming a jumbled mess, undoubtedly because the very strong painkillers I’m on for my spine are now kicking in, and I should sign off before I fall asleep on my keyboard.
Anyway, point being…I got an inflammation. And the only prescription is…well, that I haven’t figured out just yet.
Just doing it?
Maybe I should make a shrine to Nike.
-Morag
…who apparently gets very tongue-in-cheek while under the effects of painkillers.
A while ago I was at the farmer’s market in Powell River and I decided to buy something from the bee man. There were many awesome things, but eventually I decided on a block of beeswax. I had no idea what I’d use it for, though I was vaguely thinking of it as a sewing aid — much more effective to swipe your thread across beeswax to defray and stiffen it prior to threading your needle.
Instead, however, I put it on my altar. And it continues to stay on my altar to this day, though I do also use it for sewing occasionally. It smells strongly — and if you’ve ever smelled beeswax you know the amazing, delicious scent of which I speak. And as I puzzled out why I’d put it on my altar, a small epiphany came to me: Brighid is associated with bees.
I had no idea if my UPG was academically sound, or if we would ever know truly if Brighid were historically associated with bees. I did some research, and found one reference to the nuns of Kildare — who were sworn to St. Brighid — keeping bees. Good enough for me. (I currently can’t find the source back, but if I do I’ll add in a link to this post.)
Regardless the lack of scholarly sources, Brighid hasn’t vetoed the bee association; in fact, She seems to agree with my estimation. As I’m not recon, academic research does not take precedence over divine inspiration (though the two are closer to equal than unbalanced), and Her approval is also good enough for me.
Bees are immensely important to earth’s ecosystem, pollinating as much as they do. The sweet tooth in me also says they’re important because OMG HONEY. They’re also featured in novels about witches (Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett and The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk, and probably more that I haven’t read yet) and I’m sure that’s not a coincidence. Witches’ covens are often said to ‘hive’ off.
Bees are also negatively associated with feminists by misogynistic MRAs and the like, accusing us of ‘hivemind’ — ie, that we can’t think for ourselves (and they’re just so frackin’ enlightened, clinging to the ideals of patriarchy and never forging any new paths).
Thing is, I don’t see anything wrong with hivemind: what a true sense of community. And I believe that we humans do have a hivemind, deep within our consciousnesses, connecting us all.
This doesn’t mean hearts and rainbows and lollipops because tra la, we’re all the same and covered in glitter. No. It means we’re all connected. And that means that we’re equally capable of all the beauty the human race has to offer as well as all the misery.
The lesson of bees to to learn to work together to create beautiful sweetness. Or the hive will die.
And there, I think, is the association with Brighid. She rules the hearth fire, where the family gathers for warmth and food. She rules the smith, where broken metal is forged back together, made stronger. She rules the fires of healing, mending those who have been hurt — much as beeswax ointments heal minor wounds, and raw local honey helps keep allergies at bay. She gives cattle to those in need, making Her a goddess of social justice as well. And She rules the fire in the head, the great font of creativity we humans have. The place from which our art and beauty — our own form of honey — comes.
ETA: Other participants in the Pagan Blog Project have also written about bees this week. Check out the links below to read their posts.
Note: this post was originally posted at my old pagan-tumblr. I moved it here in the interest of keeping all my things together, and also because the links to a lot of the pictures on the original post broke. At the bottom of the post I added a bunch of extra pictures I didn’t share in the original post.
This year I brought the dead home. (As put by the lovely Ms. Dirty herself in our email correspondence.)
As the sun set on the 21st, I prepared for Heilig Avondmaal. I stressed. I started cooking some dishes too early (pork chops) and others too late (fry bread). I counted my blessings that I was the only one physically present for this – me and the ancestors – because anyone else in the house would have sent me over the deep end for stress.
Hutspot.
Applesauce.
Tatws Pum Munud.
Pork chops.
Fry bread, pre-cooking.
Fryin’ the fry bread.
Burnin’ the fry bread.
Sparklin’ non-alcohol!
I cooked food for my Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Cherokee/Choctaw, and Dutch bloodlines, to soothe my hunger as well as the hunger of my ancestors. We were all lost and hungry, and so I invited them into a warm home to dine with me, cementing my place in my own home as well.
Plate of dinner + ancestor altar and their plates.
The food was frackin’ delicious. I’m an awesome cook when I put my mind to it. (The dessert was store-bought, because I have a limit of energy and ability. Also I forgot to take a picture of it.) I burned myself pretty badly with the fry bread, but it was worth it. So good.
And I made a lot of food. There are leftovers still. (Mind you, after Heilig Avondmaal I was in Vancouver for a while and just got home a few days ago, but still.)
It was a strange thing, because I made this meal to reconnect with my Oma, specifically. I miss her a lot, and this supper helped me reconnect with her spirit. The applesauce cooking made the house smell like memories, and I felt like she was there with me. Then I went to Van and on Christmas Day Opa, her second husband, had a heart attack and died two days later. So we spent a few days going through estate things.
I’m not very sad about Opa – I mean, I’m sad. I don’t mean to sound callous here. But he was my step-Opa, and since Oma died he really hadn’t been himself. It was almost as if we mourned him when we mourned her, and we were just waiting for his body to catch up. I’m honestly surprised he made it for a year and four months (to the day) after she went; they were very much in love. I thought he would go quickly after.
They’re together now, and that’s a good thing. And next year I’ll be sharing my Heilig Avondmaal with him too.
(And this is also why this post is so late coming. I started it earlier, and then Christmas + Opa’s death sort of took over all my time.)
Extra pictures of the altar:
Oma on the left; Grandma and Grampa on the right. The yellow necklace belonged to my aunt Ariel; my mom’s sister.The full altar, before the food was served.Close-up of some of the things on the altar.My skeleton candle.More of the yellow beads, plus a necklace that belongs to Manannan’s shrine, and a ring with a yin-yang symbol on it that belonged to my aunt.Close up picture of my paternal grandparents.Close-up picture of my Oma.
My Oma, Egbertine, was the eldest of seven children. She was born during The Great War, in 1917. By 1924, her mother Jantje (I’m named after her) relied heavily on Tine to take care of her siblings. She was seven years old when she had to assume the role of secondary mother. They lived in the bottom floor of their house, which was very small, with no running water and an outhouse. They had a small backyard and tiny garden. Eventually they moved upstairs, where they had much more room — still, it was nine people in the equivalent of a two-bedroom. Maybe 900 square feet, tops.
My mom’s Pake (grandfather in Friesan), Rintje, had his own business. He made barrels. Day in and out he wore wooden shoes of the type we Dutchies are famous for, with woolen socks made by Tine, my Oma.
Tine was a tailor. She made all the clothing for the family, and she did all the cooking from scratch – over and over again. There was no processed food, maybe some in tins, and no fridge or freezer either. Market every day. They may have had a root cellar, but I’m not sure.
Oma with her two daughters, Christina (my mom) and Yvonne (Ariel).
Tine worked harder than her younger siblings, who were favoured and got more education than she did, which led to much bitterness on Oma’s part. Especially as she was, no doubt, the most brilliant member of the family, and yet her younger sister Jeannette was considered the family genius. (Much later on in her life she got a chance to compare their childhood report cards, and found out that her grades were better than Jeannette’s every time. This story she then proceeded to tell my mom, Opa, and Tante Ariel about four hundred times.)
Oma made a lot of socks. She sewed and knit extensively, and she knit woolen socks for everyone in the family. Nine people. 18 feet. Working hard 365 days a year. That’s a lot of fucking socks.
When I was a kid, Oma taught me the basics of knitting. However, it never stuck (crochet did) and I ended up forgetting it for a good number of years. A few years ago I took it up again, but never asked her for any lessons.
I regret that now.
A not so good picture of my first heel, on a sock that will never be worn by anyone. (I made it just to see if I could do the heel.)
I’ve been teaching myself how to do socks. Oma was the sock mistress and could have whipped my sock knitting into marvelous shape, but hindsight is always 20/20. Mom’s been helping me — namely, she’s been helping me decipher the instructions in the pattern, which is another godsdamned language to me.
The night before last I turned my first heel.
It’s a rite of passage. I’ve stepped through the doors of…I don’t know. Something. I feel like I’ve gone from beginning knitter to intermediate knitter. I’m following in Oma’s footsteps, definitely. I know she was happy with my enjoyment and skill in fiber arts. Knitting, then, has become ancestor veneration as well as something I do for Brighid.
Last night I worked on another pair — one out of chunky yarn, that I can actually wear. I worked most of the night on them for my shift. And soon, I will have a pair of my own hand-knit socks, and they will be bloody amazing.
So, things: yes, Reclaiming and Feri are going to give me help in my path of Primal Witchcraft, but that’s not where it begins for me. It begins with spider bites and snake trails, or needed animal medicine. For a while now I’ve felt Spider trying to get my attention; a week or so ago I had a very, very vivid dream about a huge gash in my leg that was a spider bite. The flesh was angry and streaming pus. The dream was so real I spent the rest of the day checking my leg for the injury.
I’ve talked about this in the PW group I’m part of, and come to some conclusions: my fear* of spiders has not been a forever thing; it started sometime in childhood. So there’s an event there that I need to deal with. I’m not sure what it is, but I know that Spider is about deep healing, the web of life, and patience. So I have to delve deep into my past and find that event, that bite — then I can work on expelling the venom from my soul.
*By fear I mean, like, deathly phobia. They give me the wiggins so fucking much. I can take most of ’em outside if need be without panicking right away, but there’s usually lots of tears afterwards.
Snakes came up in this conversation, including the fact that my father was bit by a rattlesnake when he was ten years old. I believe I have snake venom in my veins — mystically, if not scientifically. (Though with epigenetics I do wonder if there are genetic markers that get changed — and subsequently passed on to your offspring — when your body encounters venom from the animal or plant kingdoms.) I have never, ever feared snakes — perhaps because they have been part of me since birth. So snakes are important, too.
No, this is not ooky-spooky goth stuff, though I am a goth. It’s just what it is.
(Downside to posting about this and using zemanta: tons of spider pictures on the bottom right-hand corner of my browser window. Not sleeping tonight.)
This is all mystic crap and not stuff I’ll be blogging about very often over here. It’s far too rambly, and it doesn’t fit the feel of Innocence and Immanence. I’ve a tumblr blog that I’ve renamed Spider Bites for this stuff. We’ll see where it takes me. I still plan on talking about other things here — probably ADF, Reclaiming, Feri, godslavery, those blogging challenges I have half-done, the Lady of the Stars, and various other things.
Sometimes it’s hard to keep so many threads straight in my spiritual tapestry and that frustrates me, but then I remember that blending colors can be really beautiful. That’s enough.
SatSekhem gave this to me, with a very sweet note. I blushed. A lot.
