Monthly Archives: September 2014

2014 Projects: Blurb Book: Our Honeymoon

Several years ago, J. gave me a lovely new camera — a real one, one that adults might use – as a gift. It’s a bit intimidating, because while I love to take photographs, and I am proud of the work I do, this is a camera that requires a bit of effort to master.

I haven’t really,

But I have picked up a few tricks and I think you’ll see that in the next book I gave him for the holidays — one that documented our honeymoon.

This link will open a PDF of the book. (The .pdf is nearly 30mb, so it may take awhile.)

A Mabon Meditation (Probably Not What You Think)

Today’s meditation is about balance.

No surprise, really, given that Mabon is a celebration of the Equinox a time of equal night and day and many ritual texts work with this symbolism. But ‘balance’ has come to mean ‘duality’, which is such a Western frame of reference, with its inherent opposition and underlying sense of fragility. Even threat. Or hopelessness.

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2014 Projects: Blurb Book, London 2007

One of the main holiday gifts I gave my husband, J. last year was a couple of books through a company called Blurb. The first was from one from our trip to London back in 2007. What I learned more than anything? I needed a better camera (see an upcoming post). But I had a lot of fun culling through the 1000+ pictures we took (yay for digital pictures) and choosing the ones that meant something special to us, as well as being particularly interesting.

I thought you might enjoy it as well.

This link — London 2007 — will open a pdf of the book.

Spirituality & Activism

Every since I read T. Thorn Coyle’s profoundly beautiful post, “Opposition is a Prayer,” I have been contemplating whether my spiritual practice needs to be politically charged. Are the two linked?

In discussions I’ve had people tell me that they equate politics with control, and that much of their of spiritual journey has been about giving up control, so for them they need to keep politics out of it. My own HP wisely pointed out that it was a personal choice, not a requirement.

For me, politics was always a dirty word and something to be avoided at all costs, other than voting. But as I grow older and see the same old crap coming around again and again, I’m starting to get irritated, and then (finally) angry.

And maybe because my spiritual life is an intrinsic part of my life, its all wrapped together. I’ve done spell work and magic for political outcomes, and will do so again. I’ve put my money and resources into causes that catch my immediate attention, and the ones that I feel are fundamentally in need of ongoing support.

Mostly, though, I see the AoR class as my longest magickal political act, as I am aiming to create subversives and rebels, free thinkers and radicals. Critical thinking people who will go into the world with just a little more awareness, a tad more questioning, and less acceptance of the status quo. . . and in turn raise the ‘vibration’ of people around them . . . until the influence of the class has spread much further than just I, or us.

That’s my kind of radicalism.

setting roots

“I have a hypothesis that everyone is born with the same amount of luck,” says cartoonist Scott Adams. “But luck doesn’t appear to be spread evenly across a person’s life. Some people use up all of their luck early in life. Others start out in bad circumstances and finish strong.” How would you assess your own distribution of luck, Virgo? According to my projections, you are in a phase when luck is flowing stronger and deeper than usual. And I bet it will intensify in the coming weeks. I suggest you use it wisely — which is to say, with flair and aplomb and generosity.

All of creation loves you very much. Even now, people you know and people you don’t know are collaborating to make sure you have all you need to make your next smart move. But are you willing to start loving life back with an equal intensity? The adoration it offers you has not exactly been unrequited, but there is room for you to be more demonstrative.

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“The seed cannot sprout upwards without simultaneously sending roots into the ground,” says an Egyptian proverb. Keep that thought in mind as you head into your next phase of growth. What part of you needs to deepen as you rise up? What growth needs to unfold in the hidden places as you gravitate toward the light? How can you go about balancing and stabilizing your ascension with a downward penetration?

Again, I don’t often look at Brezny’s Free Will, but for my birthday last week, I did, and took the two horoscopes before and after as divinations.

My heart chakra has been bruised, its injury decades old and born from successive events. Broken, even. For a long time I wasn’t sure I could love and learning differently was a difficult task. Yet I have loved life with intensity, knowing I am blessed in many ways, surrounded by fortune. RB’s words do not strike me as unexpected. I have been feeling disconnected and ungrounded, lacking my usual zest. How to overcome the ennui, which I suspect arises from tiredness, I do not know.

At the same time, because I am tired, the idea of deepening and growing is not at all what I want to do … all the more reason for the Universe to be pushing me into it. I’m a seed lying shallow in the dirt. Time to do the necessary work of setting in before the frost so that winter’s dreamtime can be its most productive.

2014 Accomplishments/ 2015 Goals

Each year I like to look back over the previous year, and then set goals for the coming year. Many people do this on Jan 1st; I prefer to do it on my birthday. I often refine the accomplishments and goals until my new year, Samhain, but the bulk of the work is done on or around my birthday. I also like to do a tarot reading.

(I apparently didn’t blog for 2013, another indication of the deep introspection I was feeling at the time. I’ll have to see what I did on paper (I keep a journal, sporadically). One reason for doing this, btw, is that time seems to be speeding up, and things I thought I did last month actually happened a year ago – I’m beginning to lose my perspective. Or gain it, depending.)

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Another year has passed, and I find myself beginning to emerge from a bit of a turning inward.

I’m reluctant to ascribe it to (yet another) after-effect of having cancer, but I won’t deny the possibility: I stopped doing anything public except a bare minimum of writing, and got pretty shallow with my offerings in that arena. My coven has suffered from my inattention, and I’m trying to not beat myself up for having failed my mythical public. I turned inward, but I wasn’t particularly introspective. At least, not energetically or with purpose.

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