the spinner's archive – Page 9 – over 10 years of posts from Morag Spinner

30 Days of Paganism: Patrons

I already talked about one of my patrons on the Patronage and Deeper Relationships post, so this one is just going to be a quick list of the patrons I currently have and what They rule over/why They’re my patron.

Brighid

Brighid is the patron of my writing and my pursuit of writing as a career. As a goddess of creativity and the fires of inspiration, not to mention patron of bards, this is definitely Her purview. I think the reason I was thwapped by Her in the first place was because of my writing. Writing is something She wants me to continue to do, come hell or high water, and She’ll put the fire in my head to do it. (And if I don’t, that fire will become a headache really quick.)

Hecate

Hecate claimed me at SMF. It’s only recently that I’ve realize She wants to be my patron in that She wants to support my endeavors in witchcraft as a secular practice. I’ve only been recently getting back into witchcraft, and it’s been feeling good to do. I was confused about our relationship for the longest time, because She claimed me but then there was…well, nothing. It was only when I wrote the patronage post a few days ago that I realized what She really wants from me: get thee to a witchery!

(Side note, can a witchery be a real thing, where it’s like a nunnery but full of witches? Because that would be awesome.)

Shemhazai

Shemhazai is one of Elua’s blessed Companions, who valued knowledge and gave Terre d’Ange written language. “All knowledge is worth having.” I consider him a patron regarding not only my academic life, but also just my life in general — I’m an autodidact and constantly teaching myself new things. I do truly believe that all knowledge is worth having. Also, I see Shemhazai as a patron regarding my work as a publisher, in some ways — working as a publisher requires me to teach myself new things all the time. I am constantly seeking knowledge in my quest to put out good books. I have no formal training and so must rely on my autodidact nature to learn new publishing things.

(Now I sit here and wait for the general frothing over my choosing a fictional deity as one of my patrons. Pop culture paganism, lions, and tigers, oh my!)

Epiphany*

Epiphany is an Otherfaith spirit of books, inspiration, and chance. I recently made the decision to start honoring her as one of my patrons, so we’ll see where this goes. I see her as a patron for writing and publishing, alongside Shemhazai and Brighid. Publishing, obviously, creates books, and chance is actually a part of the industry. Also, inspiration is a part of making a book, beyond the initial writing phase — how do you think I come up with covers and graphics?

*Yup, I’m officially an Other Person now. I think it was only a matter of time. Now I have FOUR pantheons! Wheeeeeee!

~Morag

Creating my own challenge meme

I appreciate the chance the 30 Days of… memes give me to write posts on things I may not have thought of, and I like having a challenge to write 30 times on a certain topic. You’ve probably noticed my reinvigorated blogging has been mostly 30 Days of Paganism posts.

However, those 30 Days of… challenges have their flaws, in my totally not humble opinion. The witch ones I’ve seen floating around, for example, have been pretty Wiccish in their nature — sometimes half the questions don’t even apply to me. (The 44 Days of Witchery one I did a while ago worked fine for when I did it, but if I did it today that might be different.) The questions on the 30 Days of Paganism one are technically fine, but the label of paganism is perhaps misapplied — paganism is a socio-political movement more than a religious one. All pagans don’t have shared beliefs about religion any more than all members of the Free Love movement did/do. Asking generic questions about religion and faith under the label of paganism sends mixed messages, in my opinion.

I’m still doing it, because I’m taking it as asking about my paganism — but that means my answer to the prompt “The future of paganism” or the questions that necessarily ask I factor in other pagans to the answer are going to be not what’s expected, probably. I think the challenge would be better if it were more clearly asking about a person’s personal expression of paganism — and came at things from more neutral territory.

Anyway. This post isn’t about complaining about those challenges; it’s more about talking about forming my own. I was inspired by reading about Merri-Todd’s challenge to write 31 hymns to Antinous — what if I did something similar for my own gods? Then, inspired by conversation today at the Otherfaith hangout, I took that further — what if I created 30 day hymn challenges with actual prompts, one list for each of the pantheons? Or each of the gods?

Obviously this would be a big job, but I’m willing to undertake it. And I have no idea where to start with writing a hymn, but I can make the attempt. My words don’t have to be perfect to be worthy.

So currently I’m working on thinking up a list of prompts for The Sacred Triad — there are three gods, so each gets 10 prompts. Kind of works out. Not sure how I’ll tackle prompt lists for the other gods/pantheons I worship, as I don’t think They’ll divide as easily — might need to change up the number of hymns written, or just do individual lists for each god.

No idea when this will be done, or when I’ll publish my posts on the prompts, but I’m pretty excited to do this. It feels like a good way to explore my relationships with my deities, as well as a way to share things with other pagans. Sometimes it can be hard to find the words to say in worship, and I know I find my copy of the Homeric Hymns very useful for my worship of the Hellenic gods. I don’t really have anything like that for the Sacred Triad, so I should create it — and maybe someone else will find it useful.

Anyway. I just wanted to talk a little bit about this idea that I’m going to be tackling, and hopefully soon. Tomorrow I have a 30 Days of Paganism post going up about my patrons, and then I’ll have another one up sometime in the beginning of the week (the first pantheon post).

~Morag

30 Days of Paganism: Deity Gender

If you’ve spent any length of time here you know I could ramble on about gender for a loooong time (though I’m going to try to keep it short this time)…and that what I say now is totally subject to change a week, a month, or ten years down the road. My ideas regarding gender are fluid and evolving all the time.

Right now my general feeling is that gender as we understand it is a human social construct. That is, we created the idea of binary gender and mapped it onto our bodies in a way that is ill-fitting. (Other cultures might have different ideas of gender that aren’t binary, but I’m speaking from the perspective of the culture I was raised in, and Western culture in general.) Many people are comfortable with their ill-fitting gender assignation because they fit just enough into the category of “male” or “female” that it feels fine. For the rest of us, it’s not so easy.

Binary trans* people are people who do fit into a binary gender system, it’s just someone fucked up when they assigned gender. Non-binary trans* people are people who just don’t have a place in the binary system, period, and we need to forge our own paths.

One of the ways I’ve been forging my own way is to re-think deity gender. Now, I’m not entirely sure if gender is really even a concept that can apply to deities, at base, but I do know that one of the ways I’m able to understand deities and relate to Them is via gender. So in the end, it doesn’t matter if gender is a purely human thing and deities are beyond it or not — what matters is it’s part of the package of perception that allows me to understand the divine. So I’m keeping it.

When I was first starting out in Paganism it was important to me to find a Goddess to work with. I wanted to feel divine feminine energy. I’d been told my entire life that the master and ruler of the universe was male, that divinity was male, that I had to subject myself to male needs and male energy. I hated it. I wanted the divine feminine.

I ended up not finding it until first working with a God. That turned out fine. After tM showed up and Thoth left, I thought I’d found the divine feminine. But it turned out I was wrong.

Over the years of working and interacting with the Big 3, I’ve come to understand Them as each representing a different force of gendered energy. Manannan is deeply masculine to me, even as He fucks around with gender roles gleefully. Brighid is deeply feminine to me, and the Morrigan represents the force of genderqueerness.

Of course, the way I understand Them and Their gendered energies is colored by my own experience. I’m femme genderqueer; I might even be a demigirl (not sure on this yet). I see the Morrigan as presenting femme, but still being undeniably genderqueer. This is why I often switch between She/Her and Ze/Zir pronouns when referring to tM.

Manannan is the divine masculine energy I’ve been looking for my entire life without realizing I needed it. His is not the masculine energy of patriarchy; He represents a reimagined, more feminist masculinity. It’s gentle, and not afraid of emotions, and strong, and you know sometimes He just wants to wear some pretty-ass shoes.

Brighid, the feminine energy in the triad, is so much more than what we’re told makes up “female”. Yes, She rules over the home, and domestic pursuits such as knitting or crochet, but She’ll also teach you how to use that knitting needle as a weapon if you need to, and She’s the strongest blacksmith on the block. She uses powerful arms at Her forge to create life itself, and Her power helps Her protect those She cares about. Her mantle goes over the entire land, claiming it as Her own and gods help you if you dare to hurt that land. She is the power of the sun and the flame — wild, untameable, able to make your crops grow or burn your house to the fucking ground.

She is everything that feminine means to me.

Oh, and She’s queer. Deity sexuality isn’t a prompt on the meme, so I wanted to mention it now: in my headcanon, Brighid is pretty much a lesbian. She comes across to me as having absolutely zero interest in men. Your mileage may vary, but to me Brighid is a lesbian goddess.

The Sacred Triad are the main deities in my life, so They’re the ones about Whom I’ve pondered gender the most. However, I’m also pretty sure that Dionysos leans towards being genderqueer, or at least “not quite cis”.

I think it’s important to look at deities as not just cisgender; to envision trans* deities. Not just the well-known, older deities either — newer deities that we’re only just meeting, too. I think having a pantheon of nothing but cisgendered deities is…well, boring. Humans aren’t all cis. Why shouldn’t the gods represent the variety we have in humanity? Why shouldn’t we trans* folk be able to relate to the deities we worship?

Representation matters in more areas than pop culture, after all.

~Morag

PS: Hey, under 900 words! Awesome. I kept it short.

30 Days of Paganism: Holidays

This post is written from the perspective of someone who has lived in the Northern Hemisphere their entire life, and as such refers to the holidays accordingly.

Building my religious calendar is an ongoing, neverending process. When I started out in NeoPaganism it was the 8 sabbats of the Wheel of the Year and all the full moons (theoretically; I was a very lazy neo-Wiccan). It was easy for me to adopt those 8 days as official holidays because I’d been observing solstices and equinoxes since I was a kid; Halloween was already my favourite holiday and my mom and I were known to leave food out for the dead on November 2nd; May Day, Groundhog Day, and BC Day (August 1st) were days I already knew intimately. The Wheel mapped perfectly onto my calendar already; these were already days I was celebrating or observing, but now there would be a religious element to them.

As it turns out it’s sort of hard to add a religious element from the wrong religion for you. NeoWicca is emphatically not for me, and the myth cycles around the Wheel I’d learned never worked for me. However, I still consider the 8 sabbats as part of my religious calendar — not because they make up the Wheel of the Year and I can’t fully shed Wiccan practice, but because they’ve always been a part of my calendar in some form or another. It’s just that now I’m changing the religious associations with them from what my Wicca 101 books said to what makes sense to me — and yes, sometimes there’s overlap.

Actually, in a way shedding NeoWicca helped me a great deal in actually being able to see the holidays as religious. I never really understood Imbolc until Brighid came into my life, and She wouldn’t show up while I was still in the NeoWiccan phase of my life. Halloween continued to be my favourite holiday, but I had trouble with Samhain, or the idea that it was the New Year. And the idea behind Beltane possibly intrigued me the most, as I was a horny teenager when I was involved in NeoWicca — but I never really understood that day, either. And Lughnasadh went right over my head.

My understanding of these days has changed and evolved, and for the better. I see the time between Samhain and the solstice as the quiet time before the end of the year, the start of the new one — the time to reflect, gather my energies, prepare. As a holiday associated with death and the thinning of the veil, it’s also clearly a time for me to honor my Father — He who takes those who have passed on to the next world. It’s also a time for me to cut away things that don’t belong, which makes it associated with tM as well.

Beltane, being the direct opposite of Samhain, is also associated with the thinning of the veil, but this time I don’t see it as leading to the land of the dead. Instead I see Beltane as a fairy holiday, and Who best to honor but the Fairy Queen, the Morrigan? Yes, there’s a lot of sexual energy tied up with Beltane for me, but that’s not all there is to it. Some Beltanes aren’t sexual at all for me; some are. It depends. Beltane is also May Day, which is a day of revolution against oppression, so those themes are important too.

Those two are the easiest — sex and death, death and sex. Those are forces I’ve never had trouble connecting to, understanding, or seeing how they intertwine.

Imbolc I have trouble putting into words, but I see it as the waking time after the reflection period between Samhain and the new year. January I prepare for waking — planning my year, slowly getting back into the groove, but February is when it’s time to go to work. Imbolc is a time of new beginnings; it’s the true start of my year in a way January 1 (or Hangover Day as I like to call it) isn’t. The end of the year comes for me between December 21st and 31st — ten days that I don’t consider as really being part of the year. The time before and after those days are important for me to draw within, and then go without.

Imbolc is also, locally, the time when there might possibly be the hint of spring at some point in the future, who knows, maybe, oh look a crocus! Oh wait the frost killed it. It is the beginning of spring in that it is when we really can start to see a life that’s not endless winter, which is hard to imagine in November, December, and January.

Beltaine, thus, remains the beginning of summer for me — which fits because of late, we’ve had some pretty hot Mays. May is also the start of the long weekend season here in BC (excepting Easter, which is all over the map), with our first chance to do some camping, barbecuing, or binge-drinking coming on Victoria Day weekend (which falls on the last Monday before May 25th).

June 21st is Midsummer, and another day for Manannan — but I haven’t quite figured all that out yet.

The next holiday is August 1st or 2nd, and it’s no longer Lughnasadh for me. I don’t work with Lugh; I’ve met Him in 2 different rituals, one at Witchcamp and one that I led at a pagan camp out. He’s a pretty cool guy, but He doesn’t get along with tM at ALL. Which, fine, not all my gods have to like each other, but there’s a level of deity-bickering and glaring I don’t want to deal with in my head.

So I had to come up with something different for that date. BC Day is the first Monday in August, which means very often the BC Day long weekend includes August 1st or 2nd, or close enough to make no-nevermind — hey, modern pagans sometimes gotta stretch things, right? This is the third time we get time off in summer, and it is at the beginning of August — a time when things start to get harvested. Mid to late August the blackberries ripen, and the Blackberry Festival is held on the main drag of Powell River.

I decided to call the August holiday Loafmass, and it is when I honor all of the Big 3. They each have Their own holiday (with tM horning in on Manannan’s a little, but He doesn’t seem to mind that much); now is the time to honor all 3 of Them. Now, I have yet to properly celebrate this day — there always seems to be a lot of time between my deciding a day is important, religiously, and actually attempting to do something on that day. However, I know it will involve bread, in some form (hence Loafmass).

The next holiday I celebrate is a secular one — Labour Day Weekend, ie Last Long Weekend before School. During my time in Hawai’i this weekend didn’t matter to me; we started school in the last week of August, so it no longer held the meaning it did when I lived in BC. When I moved back, however, and started university up here, it became important again: a time to recharge, rest, celebrate the last of summer, and prepare myself for a grueling semester. Now that I’m out of school, it just becomes an excuse to party, and is also the anniversary of my meeting the Ogre.

September 10 is Oma’s birthday, so that is an ancestor day for me. Her death has been too fresh for the past 5 years to do anything specific on that day for her, but that changes this year.

The fall equinox marks the beginning of my favourite time of year — True Fall. True Fall happens in BC from around mid-September to a few days into November. It is short, and it is beautiful. It is the time of pumpkin spice lattes and chilly days and scarves and tights and red/orange/yellow leaves everywhere and fire and that smell in the air and October, the best month, and horror movies on TV all month long and Halloween and all the ramping up to it. I look forward to True Fall all year, and it always passes way too quickly.

December marks a few main holidays for me. December 5th is Sinterklaas, or “Dutch Christmas”, which I celebrated with my mom and Oma in my childhood and now acknowledge with the Heilig Avondmaal, if I can do so. (My first Heilig Avondmaal I held on Solstice.) Solstice, or Longest Night, I hold a vigil for the sun to return. In past years I’ve done with with folks over at TC for the TC Up All Night celebration, but as I’m not on the forum anymore I’ll be doing it alone this year. Which is okay, because it gives me a chance to explore D’Angeline Recon, which I haven’t yet had. I think likely I will be going more Cassiline this year, but maybe someday I can hold a Midwinter Masque.

Winter Solstice used to include my mom and I attending a giant festival of fire and light on Granville Island, where we used to live. We’d make paper lanterns in the weeks leading up to the holiday, and then we’d all light our lanterns and watch the performance of fire dancers on the hill. It was amazing, and definitely helped guide me down the pagan path.

I also celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday, enjoying time with family and drinking myself sick on egg nog. For me, Christmas doesn’t truly end until January 6th, or Epiphany, and often I leave the tree up until late in the new year. Something I do around Christmas time if I’m feeling down, which happens, is I lie on my back on the floor with my head under the tree, letting the lights wash over me. Izzy, Meredith, and George are right — it really does make you feel better.

Up here Boxing Day is also a holiday, though it’s really Canadian Black Friday at this point. I like retail therapy sometimes, but I hate shopping on the 26th; I’ve already got anxiety issues with crowds of people and going to the mall on a huge sale day is my idea of hell. So often Ogre will go with his sister and brother-in-law and I’ll stay at home and chill. Eventually, I want to get more into the spirit of Boxing Day — the original spirit, that is — and take it as an opportunity to serve. I want to spend the 26th volunteering at a soup kitchen or delivering knitted goods to the homeless, or helping the less fortunate of Vancouver in some other way. I’ve had this nebulous idea for a bit, but no spoons to implement it. Hoping for a shipment of spoons soon.

The one holiday I continually have issues with is Vernal Equinox. This might have something to do with it usually falling on the birthday of my half-sister, with whom I have a strained relationship (as she remains the only of our bio-sire’s three daughters to remain in contact with him and have a father-daughter relationship with him, and can’t fathom why I’ve been so horrible to him and often tries to convince me to patch things up with him). I’m trying to find ways to celebrate it that make sense to me, if only to keep my calendar more or less even (celebrating all 4 fire festivals and 3 out of the 4 solstices/equinoxes feels super off to me, even if they’re not my only holidays).

At this point, that basically makes up my calendar and holidays. There are theoretically other holidays I haven’t mentioned here, of course, and I try to remember to mark Ancestor Days, but I admit I’m terrible at remembering them. I need to put up a piece of paper on the wall that just has all the days of the year that I need to remember, or something. OR TATTOO IT TO MY FACE

-Morag

30 Days of Paganism: Beliefs – Patronage and other deeper relationships

A lit pillar candle sits in a make-up case that has lights on either side of the mirror. There is another smaller candle, a Brighid's cross, some sage, a Buddhist mala, a few crystals, and a wand resting on the altar. — My travel altar/shrine.

I suppose I’m odd in that I don’t consider patronage a particularly “deep” relationship.

I mean, I did used to, when I first started out in paganism/polytheism and everyone else kept calling the Main Attraction in your pantheon your “patron” (or “matron”, which is even more wrong). Which, ok, whatever floats your boat, I guess, but the fact is that “patron” is a very inaccurate term for many of the deity-mortal relationships it’s used to describe. And “matron” should only really refer to goddesses who don’t mind being seen as matronly — because, you know, that’s what the word means.

As I came to understand the meaning of patronage, and saw that it wasn’t a very accurate term, I stopped using it for the Morrigan.

I sometimes use it for Brighid, as one of Her purviews is the fire of inspiration/creativity, and I’m a writer. She’s a patron of my art, in the specific, correct sense of the word. But She and I also have a relationship between patron/artist, so I only sometimes use patron to refer to Her.

When referring to a deity, the definition of patron is closer to the definition of patron saint: “a saint regarded as the special guardian of a person, group, trade, country, etc.” [1]. Deities have certain things — people, countries, trades, areas of influences — that They watch over. Often we don’t talk about more than the well-known associations — Morrigan’s a bloodthirsty warrior; Thor’s got dat hammer and dat thunder; Aphrodite is hella hot and super into you getting your groove on in the bedroom or wherever you wanna screw. Etc. But there’s more to all of Them, and often Their patronage extends to more than just one area.

And the thing is, you don’t need a personal relationship to call upon a deity who is patron of your area; you don’t need a personal relationship for a deity to be your special guardian or the guardian of your family. They’re still your patron — or another deity with the same purview is. There are many deities in charge of love, or of being warriors, of natural forces…the list goes on. You can choose the patron you feel most comfortable with.

Now, you could argue that because I’m an activist that tM is my patron — indeed, I’ve spoken many times on how activism is the Work She has me do. But that doesn’t mean She’s my patron. Activism is something I do for Her, yes, just as picking up trash at the beach is something I do for my Father. Neither of Them are my patrons because I do something for Them, even if it was something I was doing before I knew of Them.

Writing is my career. Writing and publishing. Brighid is my patron there, yes, but not the only one possible. She’s about the fires of inspiration — not so much the wrangling InDesign and Scrivener to produce readable paperbacks and ebooks. I’ve yet to explore patronage from another deity whose area would be more suited to publishing, but I do plan on doing so.

If I get a job outside the house, Brighid won’t be my patron for that — unless it somehow falls under Her purviews, but I don’t see myself working as a blacksmith or a nurse anytime soon. She’s not the patron of my family, either, or my homeland. If I started a group for polytheist pagan writers, though, and everyone agreed, She could totally be the patron of our group.

The practical application of realizing that tM isn’t my patron just because She took a personal interest in me, just because we have a close relationship, is that I don’t call on Her for something in my life if it’s not in Her purview. I see this sort of attitude in NeoPaganism, that your patron is there to call upon for everything. That may be true in some relationships, with some deities. I know there are plenty out there who are cool with that sort of thing, and I’m totally not judging if that’s the sort of relationship you have with your deity. tM’s not, though, and that’s not the sort of relationship I have with Her.

She’s not the sort to spend Her energy on every little thing that I ask for help with. She conserves Her energy, She maintains Her boundaries, She utilizes the power of no — something She’s been trying to teach me to do for a while now. This doesn’t mean She doesn’t love me — it is because of Her love for me that She demands I learn to stand on my own two, or three if assisted with my cane, feet.

Standing on my own feet doesn’t mean never asking for help; it means learning discernment — who should I turn to with this issue? Is it actually more a mortal issue? Should I be turning to my mother, or my fiancé, or my support network, slim as it is? Or does this require divine attention? And if so, from Whom?

Just as I wouldn’t go to my fiancé for Latin translations, or to my Mom for video game discussions, I shouldn’t be putting all my eggs in one divine basket. (Unless I am actually offering eggs to one of Them, that is — and even then I wouldn’t be giving all my eggs.)

This is the same with Brighid. I light a candle to Her when writing; I call upon Her when my services are required in the healing arts (which doesn’t happen as often as it used to these days). Sometimes, She drops in with an assignment for me, and I do it, feeling filled up with Her love, Her trust. I don’t trouble Her with things that don’t relate to Her.

And my Father…yes, I tell Him about things that aren’t His bag. That’s not me asking for help; that’s me calling my Dad and letting Him know about my life. I do things for Him — I pick up the garbage at the beach, I write about the dead at His shrine, I offer Him apple crisp at Samhain. I theoretically offer Him things at the Summer Solstice. (I have been falling down on the job lately, but I have plans to make it up to Him.) Someday, He’ll be getting my left arm, just as Brighid is getting my back. I don’t know what the ink will look like yet, but I do know that my left arm is His, from shoulder to wrist. I don’t do these things for a reward. I do these things because He is my Father, and I love Him.

These relationships go farther than patronage, they go deeper than transactions. I am utterly devoted to the Big 3 in my life, even if Brighid is also my sometimes-patron. The basis of all my devotion is love — love so complex, so deep, so queer, I cannot possibly put it into words except to say I love Them and hope it makes sense.

-Morag

To Keep Silent

Over the past several weeks I’ve been pondering on that side of the witches’ pyramid: silence. Not just as it applies to spells, but as it applies to other areas in my life. What does it mean to keep silent, and why should I?

A few days ago I kind of got a kick in the teeth that told me I should have kept silent about one thing, at least.

You recall I said I was going to open a witchcraft shop. Well, I was planning on doing so via Etsy — who has now decided to ban spellwork. Any of the products I was hoping to eventually sell would not be allowed under their new rules.

When I read this news, I reflected on the folly of announcing my plans before they’d come to fruition. There is evidence that talking out loud about our goals can mean we never fulfill them. It’s like asking the universe to punch you in the dick.

I’ve always had trouble with this because I’ve always been the sort of person who needs other people to be zir sounding boards. Hells, it’s why I started blogging in the first place. I don’t necessarily always need feedback — I just need to talk about things to people, and in the talking I eventually figure out what it is I want or need to do.

This is true with my writing and generally with all other aspects of my life. I genuinely wish it weren’t. I wish I were the type of person who could keep their own, silent counsel, not revealing things in the works until they’re done — but I’m not. I’m a talker, a sounder-outer. Always have been, always will be.

Especially when I get excited about something. And man, was I excited about my shop. Having a shop of my own that caters to at least one of my passions — witchcraft, books, video games, whatever — has been a dream of mine for a long time. Obviously, having a brick and mortar store is out of the question, at least unless I win the lottery or become a bestselling author who actually makes a living from their books. (Each equally likely.) But in this age of the internet and being able to sell your wares, your art, online? That didn’t matter. I could still live my dream, at least partially.

So I talked about it, and continued to make my plans, hoping I’d be starting work soon so I could actually put things into motion. (It takes money to open a shop, after all, even an online one.)

Well. I’m not working yet, and am worried about things on that front. And Etsy has banned the very things I wanted to sell.

I am not quite ready to accept defeat.

Right now I am searching for viable alternatives to Etsy. Yes, there is a petition to get them to reverse their decision, which I have signed, but even if they do listen — I don’t want to sell there anymore. It no longer feels like the right place for my goods or my energy. Why go where I am obviously not wanted? I am hopeful I can find another marketplace that meets my needs.

So yes, I am continuing silently with my plans, searching for alternatives, not lying down and accepting that I’ve lost quite yet.

I won’t be talking about the shop again until…well, until something is final — either it’s ready to open, or dead in the water. Whatever the case, I’ll announce it.

Until that point…mum’s the word.

-M

PS: I will still be posting here on other things, of course.

30 Days of Paganism: Beliefs – The power of prayer/reciprocity

Prayer has always been a tricky thing for me but lately it seems to be getting easier. I’m getting over the blocks in my head that had prevented me from really praying to the gods.

Prayer is not a coin you put into a god to get the result you want. It’s a form of communication. Sometimes that does mean asking for something, yes. When I say to someone they’ll be in my prayers, that means I’m asking my gods to watch out for them. Often this isn’t a formal thing; sometimes it’s just a few seconds of me sending up the wish to the god in question. And then I move on, “letting go and letting god” as the saying went in my old church.

Other times, prayer can be more formal. I’m working on doing more of this in my life. I’ve had issues with formalized prayer that I’m trying to get past, because they’re silly issues. I’m also going to try my hand at writing prayers, so I can feel less weird about doing them.

Another form of prayer I engage in is the “Calling Dad and talking to Him about my life” type. This is when I light a candle for Manannan on my Big 3 shrine and talk His ear off about my life. It’s highly informal. Actually it’s more like a phone call, except He doesn’t say much.

I believe there’s power in each of these. I believe that a quick note to one of my gods that I’d like some extra oomph of healing or whatever the issue is for a mortal friend at the very least alerts Them to the issue. They can choose whether to spend time on it or not, and I believe that there are times They do, and it helps.

I believe that formal prayer helps deepen my devotion and my relationship with the gods, as well as reminding both of us that it’s not just me being a slob all the time. It’s like…going out on an actual formal date with my fiancé. Most of the time we hang out half-naked, at home, playing video games separately-but-together or watching movies or whatever, and that’s our “date night”. But every once in a while we go out to a movie or dinner or both, and that’s when we make an effort to (in his case) put on clothing with the least amount of holes in it and (in my case) wear something nice and maybe put on make up. We’re not dressing up for anyone else; we’re doing it for each other, to remind each other that while we’re comfortable enough in our relationship to not need to stand on ceremony all the time, sometimes it’s a nice gesture to the other person. That’s what formal prayer is to me — standing on ceremony for the gods because I care about Them enough to do so.

That said, there are gods where I would only do formal prayer, and that’s because I don’t have as relaxed a relationship with Them. And that’s fine. There are mortals with whom I have more formal relationships, too.

My Phone Calls to Dad prayers have power in that they reaffirm our father-child relationship, especially for me. I still have a lot of issues surrounding my bio-sire, and the various father-focused things in the mortal world (this time of year is tough on me). Phone Calls to Manannan reaffirm my choice, help me find strength in it, and help me stay strong when I start feeling the guilt rush in from my decision to cut my bio-sire out of my life. I know, logically, that that guilt is put there by years of abuse and grooming for said abuse, but it’s sometimes hard to remain logical in face of that sort of emotional damage.

Finally, I believe in the power of prayer to change me. I might not always feel as if I’ve gotten through to the gods. I might feel there’s a bad connection. But continuing to pray even when I feel this changes me in small ways. It makes me feel more grounded, more connected. It makes it easier to hear when They are speaking to me.

Whether prayer actually convinces the gods to intervene on my behalf or the behalf of my loved ones, whether They’re listening, or whether it actually makes a difference to Them if I pray or not — it makes a difference to and in me. That’s reason enough, and proof enough of prayer’s power.

Keep Moving, Keep Singing

Sometimes music puts me in a semi trance state. This only works if I’m moving; stillness fucks it up.

Yesterday I tried to enter a stillness+music trance. It worked, for a second. And then my stomach muscles convulsed; I twitched, jerked forward like someone had hit me.

This happens when I sit still for too long.

I’m a leg-jiggler, a fidgeter, a mover. I can’t stop. Moving keeps the itching, the crawling at bay. In retrospect I realize that all the times I thought I was sitting still I couldn’t have been; I must have been moving in some small way so I wouldn’t jerk or spasm. It’s recently, when I’ve been hyper-vigilant to my stillness, when I’ve tried to force my body to become a statue, that the spasms have been more noticeable.

I don’t have an official diagnosis for this, but I’ve done my research. It’s likely Willis-Ekbom Disease, more commonly known as Restless Leg Syndrome.

I have always been a leg-jiggler. In a way it’s calming to me, which is why it drives me nuts when my mother puts her hand on my leg to get me to stop. Once I showed her the spasms that happen if I’m not fidgeting she stopped. Thank the gods.

Why am I saying all this? Why should you care about my possible-but-not-yet-diagnosed Willis-Ekbom Disease?

Because I want to let you know that if sitting in stillness doesn’t work for you, you’re not alone.

There is a huge, master-level narrative in neoPaganism about sitting still being necessary for meditation, or trance work, or any of those things so many of us want to do. “Learn to meditate,” the 101 books state, giving you the same way every time: sit comfortably and quiet your body and mind.

I’ve never been able to quiet my mind and my body, less so. Meditation gets a rude awakening when you spasm so hard it’s like you’ve been punched.

And quieting my mind? Sitting in silence soon drives me mad. The tinnitus sees to that. The constant ringing in my ears that, if it’s all I can concentrate on, soon becomes like someone screaming in my head. Noise is my friend, my comforter; noise keeps the screaming at bay.

This is even true when I sleep, when I like most noises to be quiet so I can rest. My brain concentrates on the little bits of white noise in and around my house: the fan, the trains that go by, the chirps of insects outside our window, my fiance’s snoring, my breathing, the beating of my heart….

Anything to avoid the screaming.

Avoid the screaming, avoid the spasming. Keep moving, keep listening. Keep busy, keep the stillness at bay. It’s only when I’m still that it hurts.

Leave the narrative that stillness is necessary for meaningful religious, spiritual, or magical practice. It’s not. Leave the narrative that says you’re broken if you can’t do stillness and quiet. None of us are broken.

We just need something a little different from the spirit within.

We need it to move us, to sing to us.

Break through the stillness. Speak through the quiet. Find the beat that resonates.

Stick to your own truth, and screw what the master narrative says.

Master narratives are usually dead wrong, anyway.

Everyday Magic and Old School Witchcraft

So you may have noticed a change on this site. Not only to the theme (again, I know), but to the title and tagline.

Let me talk a little about that.

First, the change has been coming for a while. I just didn’t know how it was going to happen. I’ve been dissatisfied with the title “The Mundane Mystic” for a while now, and felt it was cramping my blogging style. (My blog titles have a direct impact on how often I write.) I didn’t feel like anything I wrote here was “mundane mystic” enough for the site. So my writing suffered.

I mentioned that I am planning on opening up a witchcraft store. I am working on that currently, and recently came up with the name for my (online) shop: Everyday Magic: Old School Witchcraft for Modern Life.

Well, once I decided on the name, I realized that that was what I want this blog to be about: the witchcraft I do (old school) and how it impacts my life (modern). So the title of this blog became the same title of my future shop, with one minor tweak.

What does this mean for the blog? Well, don’t worry, I’m not going to quit writing about mystic things, or ranting about things, or being political or radical. I’m just shifting focus a bit. I want to talk more about witchcraft; the witchcraft I’m doing, learning, attempting. The old school stuff I want to get back to. I’m focusing less on religion in my life right now and more on craft and practice, and the blog is going to reflect that.

What about the shop? Patience! Everyday Magic the shop is not ready to be launched yet. I have a lot more work to do before I can open up my online store — like reading and researching things like legalities and how to make an online shop succeed, for example. Or pricing out my supplies so I know how much to charge for items so I can make a profit but still be fair to my customer base. Deciding what products I’m going to start out selling and what I might include later, as my shop expands. Figuring out efficient shipping (I think to start I’m going to have to limit myself to shipping within Canada, because shipping from this country is an awful experience). Clearing a working space in my home (that one’s tough). Finding good-priced containers in which to package my products. Testing products to make sure they work.

What I do know is that I will definitely be selling magic powders, which are mostly-herbal blends designed for specific purposes. I’ve written a few recipes and so far have tested out one of the powders, which definitely works. This bodes well for the other recipes I’ve created.

Other plans include (and hopefully I’ll be able to do these things): alternative altar cloths (ie, not just pentacles). Sigils in various formats. Amulets. Salves (vague possibility; might not happen for quite some time). Tarot or oracle readings. Having a vendor table at local pagan events.

Accomplishing a lot of these things depends on my having time and money, which will only really come after I start working at my job and making enough to pay rent (and thus look towards putting extra money towards other things). Also I need time to really learn how to be a businessperson. So it’s likely I won’t be launching the store until the end of this year; possibly the beginning of or even mid-2016. There’s a lot of groundwork that I have to set down first.

Still, I wanted to let my blog readers know what was going on with me and the blog, so consider this an unofficial announcement, with many things subject to change.

I really want this venture to succeed. I’ve wanted to open up a witch shop for ages now, and I think people could really benefit from what I have to offer.

Crossing my fingers!

-Morag

Signal Boost: Indiegogo for Greek Alphabet Oracle Set

Someone I follow is running an Indiegogo campaign for a copper-stamped Greek Alphabet Oracle set. They don’t need much, only $100 (IG requires a minimum of $500, so that’s the amount on the campaign, but only $100 is really needed), and it’d be a cool thing to have, right?

If I had any funds currently I’d totally be contributing but my job hasn’t started yet so until it does I’m in serious lean times. But if you’re interested in a Greek alphabet oracle set stamped on copper, you should think about contributing. Perks include not only oracle sets but also jewelry.

-Morag

PS: You may have noticed a change to the site title and theme. More about that later.