Sacred Space

The first time I set up my altar at our new place I cried. It was incredibly liberating to have my own space again; smudged and cleansed and rang my bell and set up my little statues and other bits of precious. The tools I've collected and moved so many times over the years came back out of their chest and into the light and it was fantastic. Kwan Yin was the card I pulled, reminding me to practice compassion for myself and others around me. My bywords were "Kindness costs me nothing" and it's true. Being gentle and speaking well is much more productive than snark and complaining.

When the wheel turned from bright Lughnassad to stately Mabon I changed decorations and theme. Acorns and oak leaves from the park and a few small apples from the nearby trees sat among my tools. Ix Chel heard my prayers for help with healing and guidance with Ryan and I cried some more. Her sacred connection to water and medicine had me keeping the shells in the West wet for a month, first with the sacred blend of water I've collected from Echo Lake, Rose Lake, Lake Superior and the Pacific Ocean, and then with rain, then just regular tap. I was hoping it would snow but it was late this year.

I meant to switch things again at Samhain but left them in stasis until now. It's far past time to welcome Winter but we only just got our first real snow last week. Very odd for this place and time. The Sabbats aren't just dates on a calender, they're tied to very real changes in the environment. Winter was late, damned late, so I'm just pondering changing my altar now. I dont' have much for the Yuletide season, but I suppose if I wanted too, now is the perfect time to pick up some seasonal decorations from Hallmark on the cheap. I wonder what Goddess will pop from my deck to share her wisdom with me over the lightening, but cold, months?

Fear is the Dream Killer

Did the butterfly lie? No. When you're far from your dreams and your talismans it's hard to see the path you're meant to be walking. We got comfortable and I let fear of the unknown, of hardship, of another major move, get the better of me.  It's likely ruined everything; Ryan's career, my mental health, damaged my kid's health, my spirit. Winter was long and difficult. It lasted much longer than it should have, and than I'm used too. We've been here now for nearly three full seasons, much longer than I ever wanted, and it's my fault. As I watch us spin towards Summer and the death of the light I quake at the thought of another fall, another winter, in this place. Instead of the buds on the trees and crocuses giving me hope they only serve to remind me that the clock is ticking. Always and ever I'm reminded that we can't go anywhere, we can't do anything, to change our situation. I'm sitting in a gilded cage watching the storm roll closer and there's nowhere to go. Nothing to do but hope and even that, most days, is out of my reach. Prayer even seems out of my reach as I don't feel I deserve to be heard.

The Times They Are a Changin'

When the Universe speaks, not a whisper or intuition, but directly in your ear, a shout, I listen. I have too. It's a part of my motto "To Thine Own Self Be True." We're all star-stuff, a part of but apart from Creation and the Creator, and when I hear that voice speak, always in my right ear, to not listen would be to betray myself. Case in point: I read tarot. I used to read professionally for a couple of years. Reading tarot is a way to tap directly into the Divine through my own intuition and Self. A lot of times the cards just say what they say, making sense thanks to their own symbology and where they fall in a spread, but sometimes that voice whispers in my ear extra information that I simply couldn't know about a person or situation, or has a message from the beloved dead.

When I read tarot for myself it gets harder as the Ego has a way of getting in the way but I've gotten fairly good at getting it to sit quiet for a bit while I listen to what the cards are trying to tell me. Focusing my mind ahead of time, of outright praying to Hestia and Hera, the goddesses I'm currently being called too, helps as well. Before deciding on this latest move back to our home province, via a long stop in our hometown, I read my cards and prayed for guidance. They spoke clearly and without hedging; this was going to be a Good Thing and we needed to get on it. There would be some complications (and boy have there been) but in the end this was the right path for our family.

Yesterday while we were out at the T'Souke River (Sooke River) and looking at the potholes carved into the stone along the riverbed we were visited by a butterfly; mostly white with black markings - it first settled down on Katherine, then Ryan, then Kat again, then me, and then fluttered aaaall the way over to where Gabe was sitting by the river, and onto him as well. It was kind of amazing. How rare is it for a butterfly to land on one person, nevermind visit a whole family? I'd say pretty rare. After I finished snapping photos of the butterfly sailing off above the river and we marvelled over it, that quiet little voice in my head told me that it was a sign that the caterpillar part of our life was over.There IS light at the end of this tunnel of moves and scraping by and it's close. It's so close I can feel it even if I can't see it yet, like the coolness of night that borders on cold heralding the approach of Autumn. It's there, just around the river bend, waiting for us. We're ready, we're MORE than ready, to settle down into a Home and begin a new life.

New Job, New Mindset

These aren't the droids you're looking for.

I'm starting a new job today; I don't know for how long or what hours or anything but we're desperate for money so I'm taking it even though it's not in my field and I've never done it before. A friend put a good word in for me at her cleaning job so off I go in a bit. I've had very mixed feelings about this but I don't have time to go into it right now. All I have time for is a quick prayer.

Hephaestus! Mighty God of the Hammer and Forge! You who creates all that is bright and beautiful, hear my prayer! May my hands be as diligent as yours, my arms as untiring, my back unbent and my spirit proud. All jobs need doing. Help me to accept this challenge and overcome it with strength and dignity in honour of my family.
Blessed be, Hammering One.

Hestia, Hera and Harvest Time

Yesterday Ryan recieved word that a manager position has opened up back in our home province of Ontario; in Kitchener-Waterloo to be exact, a mere 6 hour drive from Home. It's a long, wandering track that's led us this far and the road is still stretching out uncertainly ahead. We don't know yet if we'll take it, we don't know yet what will happen if we do, how our family will sort itself out, who will live where and for how long, and all the rest. When I asked him today via text "Weeeell?!" he said "Ask your cards." So I did.

As I walked down the hall to the wooden chest where I keep my tarot cards, companions now for over a decade and my hotline to the divine, I was saying a prayer to Hestia and Hera, two heavenly sisters I've suddenly grown quite close too. I feel almost as if they're with me as my family and friends are not. Or maybe I'm just reaching out more thanks to the near crushing loneliness. Whichever. I asked them for guidance and honesty as I shuffled, to help us make the right choices for our family. I prayed for their help, for stability, for a Home most of all. It's very rare I ever ask anything for myself; I'm used to using my cards as a way to help others and this is very much like that. Everything we've been doing the last six months has been on the path of What Is Best For Our Family and like I said, it's been a windy road.

So I asked, and did they answer! From the moment I flipped the first card onto my purple, black and white celtic patterned cloth I felt buzzing with energy. I asked and flipped and wrote insights down and kept going until my mind felt both empty and full at the same time. They were powerfully clear and helpful. Everything we've done so far has been in preparation for what's coming. The two cards I pulled and placed on the altar last week during the full moon were the rune for Movement and the Morrigan, more hints of what's to come. The move from Nanaimo to Victoria, the uncertainty, even my job loss from Alpine, has just been more preparation. If I still had my cushy job with them I wouldn't be so strongly considering a move to Ontario. If we hadn't left Nanaimo to come here for the assistant manager job, Ryan wouldn't even be considered for manager job in Kitchener. If we hadn't come to the Island in the first place, well, who knows where we'd be?

After some much needed lunch we went to the library grocery store, then on the way back stopped to pick blackberries growing along the fence by our building. They're big, juicy and sweet right now, perfect for the First Harvest coming up tomorrow. As we picked I talked to Gabe about how important harvest time was to our ancestors, and for him to imagine what it would be like if the only food we had was the food we could grow and pick ourselves. Harvest time would be really important, he said. He said if we didn't work hard we'd starve in the winter. He's right. You have to work hard, and sometimes even then your best isn't good enough. Locusts or drought or flood can wipe out your harvest. Shit happens but being resilient and having a good support structure around you makes all the difference. We picked and I told him I was making sure some of the really good on the altar as an offering to the Creator, as a way of showing that I was thankful for what we had. I ended up baking cookies this afternoon too, chocolate chip ones that are soft and goey inside with extra chocolate, and I made sure to put one of those there for the Goddesses I've been working with as well.

I was struck while baking that if Hestia had a modern persona, she'd probably be a home-schooling mom, one of those 'I grow it, bake it, preseve it, sew it and craft it' myself kind of women, busy on Pintrest and Facebook and with the kid's Parent/Teacher Association, and of the two Goddesses probably appreciated the cookies most. Hera, on the other hand, would be a high powered business woman. She drives a nice car, wears Pepper Pots style outfits, carries a cellphone and is equally at home in the board room or working hard in her own office space on her own projects. She sips a pricey latte and smiles at me over the top of her PDA but the rich chocolate in the cookie rivals that of a dried out Starbucks offering, and she's pleased.

Sorry for the rambling, but I had a lot to get out there.

Blood on the Wind

Yesterday while out on my run I saw two birds fly into the path of a car. Only one survived. In a puff of feathers one bird's life was over and as I jogged the warm smell of blood was pushed into my open mouth by the breeze. Nearby the other bird sat in a tree warbling. It bothered me, the taste of blood in my mouth, a weaker, less coppery taste than that of my own, but the scent and taste was still that of life. Pausing in my run I turned back and, using a small set of sticks, removed the bird's body from the road. It was crushed and there was gore smeared on the pavement, the once bright brown eyes completely disappeared. Placing the body gently in the greenery I told it to rejoin the earth and someday they would fly again. Resuming my run I spat out the lingering flavour into the dust.

On My Knees

I'm not really a prayerful person. I rarely feel moved to pray earnestly or at length. More often an exclaimation or simple thanks passes my lips to a deity or just Creation itself. Following the rescued-from-kidnapping case in Cleveland, Ohio, however, has me praying to Artemis in a way I haven't in years. I pray to Her that the women and the little girl who have lived in such brutal circumstances for so long find healing and justice, that She will protect them from the brunt of the media circus that would, without thought or feeling, hurl itself upon them for a quick buck. I pray deeply and completely that the littlest of them, the one baby who lived of Goddess only knows for sure how many didn't, is able to grow from this undamaged, unscarred. She's only six and so far not a single word or image from her I've seen anywhere-this is as it should be. I pray she is allowed to be anonymous until she is ready to tell her story (if she ever chooses too) and not one moment before. Artemis is the protector of young women and children and surely She has been with these four from the beginning of their ordeal and I pray for many months from now. I pray that She sees justice done against the man accused of these crimes and that he disappears into a lonely cell for a very very long time, bereft of the things he loves the most. I pray that someday he too finds healing, though right now in my heart I admit that there is little for him but hate. Gracious Lady of the Silver Bow, so mote it be.