Dear Neophyte,
It's been a hot minute since I wrote about Samhain here. I'll fix that once I get done moving all my oversharing from my Facebook to here, where it belongs.
For Samhain this year In consumed 3 glasses of white wine, one of red, drug my hair through candle wax and then cut it off. It all sounds so dramatic till you hear that cutting off 4 inches of hair hardly makes a difference when you have 3 feet of the stuff, and the whine just made me sleep really well ^-^
That's what I did this year. Mostly because my sister is home and I decided I prefer to spend my holydays with the gods as they are meant to be spent. I can't really do that when she's around - not that it's her fault but several years in a row I tried to get her to do holidays my way and she's not having it - so I'll do it when she's not.
This year I spend most of my holy days alone, as she only really comes out for three of the eight and in my opinion, it's half-arsing religion to only celebrate the ones you "like" or "see the point of". Instead of that, I chose to spend some time each year for the last several going over and over and over what each holy day means and year after year after year I get it. More and more, a little at a time, even the ones that didn't make any sense to me several years ago, they feel integral to my spiritual life. They mark important occasions.
If nothing else they help remind you of how close it is to the parts of the year you like the best. Repeated over and over in ritual "The sun is reborn! The days grow longer and warmer. The Darkest Night is over and we the Witches rejoice!" (I just made that up, but it's the gist of my Yule speech said in ritual) help you to keep track of the fact that the best of winter is over and how you get to look forward to dying of heat stroke and being eaten by mosquitos in 70 days.
Kinda like the maturation period of cucumbers.
Salutations,
Sesh
Showing posts with label Sabbat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sabbat. Show all posts
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Old Year's Dissolusions
Dear Neophyte,
I'm not sure what official names exist for the time between Samhain and Yule, where time does not exist. We go into ourselves and become the fetus again, housed in our own wombs. You shed and bleed and go underground to heal. At Yule you become reborn and start the new year with a fresh face and a new outlook.
Some Pagans start this process at Yule and make it last a full 12 nights. For me I start it at Samhain and give myself till Yule to finish it up. I call this time of year the Old Year Dissolutions. All last year we did a LOT of stuff. It's also 2015 so there is no pretending that we don't all keep records of it everywhere. We journal, or we picture or we facebook or something. We do something by which we can look back on and say, 'Oh! That's what I did!:D"
I went through my old diaries, through facebook, through my blogs, my dream journal, books of shadows (yes, more than 3), including the multitude of piled up to-do and to-done lists I have lying in the paper box in my closet. I went through it all, pulling out the old and the new and everything in between and examined it.
What did I accomplish last year? I wrote it down and praised myself.
What did I not accomplish last year? I examined it and if it was still relevant I let go of the grief of not having done it yet and put it on a new to-do-list.
What did I let go of last year? I said good-bye to old goals I no longer want to finish and thus released any guilt left with having not accomplished something I wanted to. If it was something I still wanted to accomplish I put it on a 'to-get-to-at-some-point" list which will probably not see the light of day till next year.
What new thing do I want to accomplish? I made a list of this year's new goals. I researched how to write effective goal statements, followed the formula, and now have a list of what I want to do in the following year.
Where did I progress but not finish? I added these to my new goals and prioritized them. Working on them one at a time is much more energy efficient than trying to tackle them all at once.
For the goals I wish to accomplish I will add magic to the mix (if magic is applicable) and use the full moons and spellcraft to help draw them to me.
Also, I now own a gun.
Yep, you can reread that. How is it relevant in any way, shape, form, or fashion? Well I was writing down my goals from last year that I gave up on and let go of and one of them was owning a gun. I just don't have the money for it and because I know my current financial situation dictates that I'll be tied up monetarily for at least a year it is also not a foreseeable goal either. I was writing this down and looked over at my altar and though at the images of my gods, "You know, unless one of you wants to drop a gun in my lap which in such a way as to make it permanently mine and free." Less than week later my sister's exploded polycule fan whiplash lands a gun in my lap.
All I can really say is, "Thanks guys!"
The Old Year's Dissolutions are about wrapping up your unfinished affairs and carrying over your 'still working on it' projects to this year. It's about finishing what you started. New Year is a time for starting new things so that'll be a whole other post!
Salutations,
Sesh
I'm not sure what official names exist for the time between Samhain and Yule, where time does not exist. We go into ourselves and become the fetus again, housed in our own wombs. You shed and bleed and go underground to heal. At Yule you become reborn and start the new year with a fresh face and a new outlook.
Some Pagans start this process at Yule and make it last a full 12 nights. For me I start it at Samhain and give myself till Yule to finish it up. I call this time of year the Old Year Dissolutions. All last year we did a LOT of stuff. It's also 2015 so there is no pretending that we don't all keep records of it everywhere. We journal, or we picture or we facebook or something. We do something by which we can look back on and say, 'Oh! That's what I did!:D"
I went through my old diaries, through facebook, through my blogs, my dream journal, books of shadows (yes, more than 3), including the multitude of piled up to-do and to-done lists I have lying in the paper box in my closet. I went through it all, pulling out the old and the new and everything in between and examined it.
What did I accomplish last year? I wrote it down and praised myself.
What did I not accomplish last year? I examined it and if it was still relevant I let go of the grief of not having done it yet and put it on a new to-do-list.
What did I let go of last year? I said good-bye to old goals I no longer want to finish and thus released any guilt left with having not accomplished something I wanted to. If it was something I still wanted to accomplish I put it on a 'to-get-to-at-some-point" list which will probably not see the light of day till next year.
What new thing do I want to accomplish? I made a list of this year's new goals. I researched how to write effective goal statements, followed the formula, and now have a list of what I want to do in the following year.
Where did I progress but not finish? I added these to my new goals and prioritized them. Working on them one at a time is much more energy efficient than trying to tackle them all at once.
For the goals I wish to accomplish I will add magic to the mix (if magic is applicable) and use the full moons and spellcraft to help draw them to me.
Also, I now own a gun.
Yep, you can reread that. How is it relevant in any way, shape, form, or fashion? Well I was writing down my goals from last year that I gave up on and let go of and one of them was owning a gun. I just don't have the money for it and because I know my current financial situation dictates that I'll be tied up monetarily for at least a year it is also not a foreseeable goal either. I was writing this down and looked over at my altar and though at the images of my gods, "You know, unless one of you wants to drop a gun in my lap which in such a way as to make it permanently mine and free." Less than week later my sister's exploded polycule fan whiplash lands a gun in my lap.
All I can really say is, "Thanks guys!"
The Old Year's Dissolutions are about wrapping up your unfinished affairs and carrying over your 'still working on it' projects to this year. It's about finishing what you started. New Year is a time for starting new things so that'll be a whole other post!
Salutations,
Sesh
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Samhain 2015 - Take 1
Dear Neophyte,
This post is a long time coming. 5 days from a month after Samhain. I'm almost done going over my Self-Reflections list and wrapping up the old things. I've started some new projects already, but I suppose I need to prioritize. I think I have five more days to wrap it up completely before I really need to start focusing on Yule.
My Samhain this year was tense. My sister's boyfriend was messing it up as he has done every holy day since they started dating and she started inviting him over. He's not Pagan, he doesn't celebrate our holy days and he hardly participates. This time he held up dinner plans for three hours while he hemmed-and-hawed about whether he was even going to be there. As someone who made it a point of offering to make the main dish for the feast I was irritated beyond anything. I point blank told my sister that if they wound up staying together after Samhain that no one else who isn't Pagan and not respectful of HOLY DAYS is invited over on the holy days. They can come after the day before or the day after but not the day of.
He wound up playing nice long enough to do the dish he said he'd do but the damage was done. The whole emotional flow of the holy day was thrown off almost completely. Even building a fire didn't dissipate my irritation that he was there. What annoyed me even more was that because he was there and had been fighting with my sister all day her energy was off as well. I spent hours picking out music to play while we cooked and ate to get the mood focused. Days were spent on research, activities, crafts and thoughtful discussion topics to go along with the holy day. This has been our tradition each time; there is is always discussions and themes.
This time it was different. He stayed the whole time, played his own music out loud in the living room and completely ignored the two of us. It was rude because he knew I spent hours picking out good mood music that fit the theme and set a mood. I surmise he did it on purpose, though the little angel in me wants to say he thought he was helping? My sister kept herself focused on him and not the theme of the holy day, which ruined any chance of salvaging the evening. There were no thoughts, no discussions, no crafts or even one divination activity. As soon as we were done eating she wanted me to clear out of the living room so she could do her ritual and go to bed. They (together) succeeded in ruining the entire evening.
I went ahead and went to bed early, thoroughly irritated at not getting to do anything Samhain related but eat food. That is not Samhain. That is not the theme of the holy day. Food is just a part of a harvest festival; honoring the ancestors is the focus. Some part of me needs to finish what I started. To make a feast, set it out with the ancestors and truly honor the divine. I didn't even give my offerings to the Gods; I couldn't help but feel it would have been show since no real emotion was behind it. It would have been tainted.
It's like I'm stuck in backward motion because everything is moving forward without me. There hasn't been any spiritual progress. I would really like some spiritual progress I would really like Samhain... so I think I'm going to make my own. When I get done with this list I'm going to write my ritual, perform it on the next day I have off which she doesn't have off and then do the accompanying spells.
I feel like my co-dependence is bugging out here. I don't need someone else to celebrate my holy days. Not if they keep insisting on ruining it. This is why journaling is fun: you finally realize things you sort of knew all along because you can finally process things out.
Anyway, here are some pictures of the good parts that I actually managed to celebrate. Some of these pictures suck, but that's why I never got a cellphone for the amazing video quality:
This post is a long time coming. 5 days from a month after Samhain. I'm almost done going over my Self-Reflections list and wrapping up the old things. I've started some new projects already, but I suppose I need to prioritize. I think I have five more days to wrap it up completely before I really need to start focusing on Yule.
My Samhain this year was tense. My sister's boyfriend was messing it up as he has done every holy day since they started dating and she started inviting him over. He's not Pagan, he doesn't celebrate our holy days and he hardly participates. This time he held up dinner plans for three hours while he hemmed-and-hawed about whether he was even going to be there. As someone who made it a point of offering to make the main dish for the feast I was irritated beyond anything. I point blank told my sister that if they wound up staying together after Samhain that no one else who isn't Pagan and not respectful of HOLY DAYS is invited over on the holy days. They can come after the day before or the day after but not the day of.
He wound up playing nice long enough to do the dish he said he'd do but the damage was done. The whole emotional flow of the holy day was thrown off almost completely. Even building a fire didn't dissipate my irritation that he was there. What annoyed me even more was that because he was there and had been fighting with my sister all day her energy was off as well. I spent hours picking out music to play while we cooked and ate to get the mood focused. Days were spent on research, activities, crafts and thoughtful discussion topics to go along with the holy day. This has been our tradition each time; there is is always discussions and themes.
This time it was different. He stayed the whole time, played his own music out loud in the living room and completely ignored the two of us. It was rude because he knew I spent hours picking out good mood music that fit the theme and set a mood. I surmise he did it on purpose, though the little angel in me wants to say he thought he was helping? My sister kept herself focused on him and not the theme of the holy day, which ruined any chance of salvaging the evening. There were no thoughts, no discussions, no crafts or even one divination activity. As soon as we were done eating she wanted me to clear out of the living room so she could do her ritual and go to bed. They (together) succeeded in ruining the entire evening.
I went ahead and went to bed early, thoroughly irritated at not getting to do anything Samhain related but eat food. That is not Samhain. That is not the theme of the holy day. Food is just a part of a harvest festival; honoring the ancestors is the focus. Some part of me needs to finish what I started. To make a feast, set it out with the ancestors and truly honor the divine. I didn't even give my offerings to the Gods; I couldn't help but feel it would have been show since no real emotion was behind it. It would have been tainted.
It's like I'm stuck in backward motion because everything is moving forward without me. There hasn't been any spiritual progress. I would really like some spiritual progress I would really like Samhain... so I think I'm going to make my own. When I get done with this list I'm going to write my ritual, perform it on the next day I have off which she doesn't have off and then do the accompanying spells.
I feel like my co-dependence is bugging out here. I don't need someone else to celebrate my holy days. Not if they keep insisting on ruining it. This is why journaling is fun: you finally realize things you sort of knew all along because you can finally process things out.
Anyway, here are some pictures of the good parts that I actually managed to celebrate. Some of these pictures suck, but that's why I never got a cellphone for the amazing video quality:
First off, I grew the peppers from scratch. I've featured these peppers in a couple of recipes. For this one I stuffed them with a mixture of chorizo sausage and rice.
I also hand made the french bread. Here is a picture of it rising in the bowl. Whole wheat bread doesn't make fluffy anything. It makes dense, nutritionally packed, satisfying bread.
The crock pot took care of mulled apple juice. There was no cider to be had on Samhain since I waited till the last minute to do shopping, erroneously thinking it would be helpful to have two people carry things back with me. The truth was that it rained and my sister paid for a cab home. Whatever, lol
If you wanted an example of how my sister uses her religion to muscle in on celebration, this apple juice is one. I bought good quality apple juice, spiced it, added fruit and mulled it. It was for the harvest celebration since apples are the harvest food for this area and this time of year. It was for everyone to share. Instead of drinking it my sister uses the holy days as an excuse to buy over $40 worth of alcohol and drinks that exclusive to drinking any of this apple cider. It hurt my feelings. I was the only one who drank it while they both had exclusive alcohol.
Latter I was told that since I don't buy alcohol she was going to stop sharing with me, and I said that was fine. I never ask if any of it is for me; I assume she buys it for her Gods and shares if she's feeling froggy. She retorts with, "Well *godname* says I have to share with family!" I said ok, and waited for her to respond. She just says, "So it's just for Them now." I said ok again, and waited for her to respond. She couldn't say anything else since I have never once asked her to share her God offering alcohol with me, but I got the feeling I was being given an ultimatum: either buy alcohol for to share with her in the future or she'll stop sharing with me. I don't crave alcohol; I actually don't like most of the stuff she buys. I drink it to be nice because *godname* says share and she's required to and to turn a God down is rude. Especially if They have a habit of getting together with yours and wiping out power for 4000 people in downtown Portland because you and your sister got drunk and introduced them to each other. Yeesh...
Moving on.
A glass of the apple juice with rings of lemons floating in it. That's me in the background, in a dress I made, and wore special for this occasion.
I cooked this entir emeal from scratch, except the chicken. The boyfriend (not mine) grudgingly made that. The stuffed peppers were from my garden, the bread was hand made, the carrots carefully glazed. It took three hours to make all of this and it's hardly any food at all. It was a feast! Delicious!
Latter my sister pointed out what she didn't like about everything I cooked. She has never done this before since she's from the South,and in the South we only glow over someone else's cooking or manage to keep the subject so far away from food that the cook never has a chance to ask if we liked it. And if it's a feast we either eat it or don't, but we don't complain! Like I said, she and her boyfriend were in a mood, and I got a brunt of it the entire day.
This is what our plates looked like. I had also bought corn on the cob and potatoes, but with bread AND chicken cooking in the oven at the same time that was a no-go. My original menu, which did not call for Boyfriend to use the oven to make chicken, used the toaster oven to make the main dish. As it was the stuffed peppers had to be cooked in the toaster oven.
The boyfriend decorated the fireplace with the Mabon decorations my sister's other boyfriend liberated from the garage just the day before Samhain. Normally my sister and I decorate for fall on Mabon since that is the official beginning. These decorations usually go everywhere around the house to bring fall to the entire indoors. As it is it's concentrated over the fireplace and we skipped most of the Halloween decorations altogether. (Thank the Gods, because my sister has some truly, spectacularly tacky taste in decorations. Were talking strings of plastic skeleton lights. Eeeeks!) As it was the boyfriend did a good job and I like it, even if that means the rest of the house is sparse.
The picture hanging over the fireplace is one my sister did for Mabon and it'll stay up till our Yule decorations go up.
The fireplace when I lit it. We were suppose to do divination and end-of-year releasing spells with the fire, but it didn't stay lit long. I got tired of babysitting it and then I got asked to leave the room so my sister could do her dancing in private... A video she then uploaded to facebook.
That's me blurrily attending the fire!
This post is heavy on the whining. I just don't (for today) feel like lying about what kind of day I had on Samhain. It was not magica. It was not fun. I didn't want someone there who inserted himself into the situation. I didn't get to listen to my music. I didn't get to share cider with my sister. I didn't get to do magic, divination games, or talk about our families like your'e suppose to do on Samhain.
I didn't get Samhain. I got to spend three hours cooking while listening to my sister placate her boyfriend while he ignored the both of us and played on his computer and played strange music. I don't feel like there was a celebration. My ancestors didn't get honored properly because a cowan was there staring at me like national geographic while I was dropping food into the bowl, and with that atmosphere I certainly wasn't going to call in my Gods to partake in the misery!
Salutations,
Sesh
P.S. What do you want to bet come Yule she suddenly recants her agreement that non-Pagans are banned from our holy day celebrations.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Yule, 2013
Dear Neophyte,
I don't remember what I did on Yule. I'm not being lazy here, it's just 2015 and I'm updating this for two years ago :P I have pictures galore somewhere and the ritual and everything is written down. Until I find it just be happy with the little blurb I put on facebook :)
"Best Yule ever! Pictures forthcoming as soon as I feel like uploading them on the old laptop. Apparently my new computer doesn't have a slot for plugging in my datacard to upload pictures o_0. Anyway, had a BLAST with my sister opening gifts, chowing down on roast and stuffing myself with candy :) "
Salutations,
Sesh
I don't remember what I did on Yule. I'm not being lazy here, it's just 2015 and I'm updating this for two years ago :P I have pictures galore somewhere and the ritual and everything is written down. Until I find it just be happy with the little blurb I put on facebook :)
"Best Yule ever! Pictures forthcoming as soon as I feel like uploading them on the old laptop. Apparently my new computer doesn't have a slot for plugging in my datacard to upload pictures o_0. Anyway, had a BLAST with my sister opening gifts, chowing down on roast and stuffing myself with candy :) "
Salutations,
Sesh
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