Are you involved in practicing conjure or hoodoo, or serve the lwa? Would you like to help support practitioners of these traditions in making their dreams come true?
Good Luck is a planned shop for Kansas City, Missouri, the brainchild of a rootworker and a Mambo and a Houngan of Vodou. With a little over two weeks left in the campaign, they have only raised about a quarter of the $8,000 they need to get the store going. Give them a hand!
You remain elusive to me, skald among skalds.
Preserver of history, knowledge, wisdom, myth.
Son of Odin and Gunnlod.
Get of Odhroerir.
I still remember how you came into my life. One night when I climbed into the branches of Yggdrasil to speak with Your Father. Whether you were waiting there or just popped up at the right moment I do not know. But the Old Man was insistent that I get to know you.
On that I have failed. It has taken me almost six years even to think about You long enough to write a post about You. And yet the influence is there. I write more. I’ve been published. I contribute regularly to a shared blog. My love for the past has grown.
I’ve even started to understand why You, Who helps to keep the past alive, are married to Idunna, Who helps the Gods to stay young.
Maybe one day soon I will even get a scan of the portrait of You and Your Lady which I had commissioned… and need to frame.
In some way You are with me every day. Let me remember and realize enough so that I may reach out to You more and we can finally build that relationship the Old Man seemed intent on us having.
This post is part of the Pagan Blog Project.
It is also my 200th post. Hail and nekhtet!
Oh blog, oh writing, I miss you. What I would give to have the spoons to see through all the ideas whirling through my head take a more tangible form. Somehow today I have energy, and it may just be from the large cafe au lait I got after work. Whatever it is, I am going to take advantage of it.
Too often I feel frustrated that there is not enough magic in my life. And at the same time I can also marvel at all the magic which IS in my life. Therefore I am going to try to do posts like this at the full and dark moons. May they remind me, focus me, and inspire me.
*Witnessing a light show by the gods against a pitch black sky and standing in the first drops of the first spring rainstorm of the year. Dua Set and hail Thor!
*Getting a load of laundry washed and putting away clothing.
*Changing the bed sheets and performing an over ten year long ritual to help me get restful sleep. I change my sheets on the full and dark moon.
*Lighting up candles for the Nago spirits I serve.
*After I finish this post I will take the time to do my taxes and have one less thing hanging over my head.
*Bringing down the needed tools to once again honor Hekate on Her moon phase. There may also be some banishing happening during that meditation.
(Another bright flash of light and a loud thunderclap!)
If anyone wants to keep on me to do these kind of posts you have my permission and encouragement!
I am guessing a lot of my readers are already familiar with Walking the Hedge, but I still wanted to highlight this post that Juniper did last month.
To answer a question: shaman covers a lot of what currently gets discussed in personal labels and titles used among magical workers of various stripes. The end of the post is the gold mine though, filled with various terminology for European magical workers of the past. Some of what is in the post sums up why I claimed hedge witch and hedge rider for myself a few years ago. (Well, aside from the unseen pushing that I HAD to use the term witch for myself in a public way.) It sums up a lot of how I work, because while I have had training in various trance and shamanic techniques in the past, I did not have the backing to call myself a shaman and I didn’t like spirit worker for myself.
Plus, a more specific title for oneself can be a big help in shaping one’s practice and workings. If you can pin down words for yourself which more succinctly sum up what you’re doing with your woo it can help you both focus and broaden your practice.
So just out of curiosity, readers, how many of you use one of these more rarefied titles for yourself?
I mentioned the Kickstarter project for Tamara Siuda’s Ancient Egyptian Daybook the day after it launched. Within two hours of that launch, it had made the goal of $3000. Siuda never expected that. Soon after stretch goals went up, for $10,000, $20,000, and $40,000.
Last night the project hit the first stretch goal. Ten thousand dollars. This is incredible. I’m still hoping for the other goals to be reached. $20,000 results in donations of the book to libraries, which appeals to my professional life. And with $40,000, we can get an app. Imagine being able to look up feast days for Min (today is one) by just touching your phone.
Keep talking about this project. Keep supporting it.
Readers, do any of you actively work with or honor Hermes in your practice? Or do you know (of) anyone who does? I’m getting Bugged again and feel like it’s time to do something about it.
Let me set the scene I have before me this morning. It’s the last morning of Pantheacon. I have slept for, maybe, five hours. Springs (formerly the Coffee Garden), the general in-hotel restaurant, is more full than you might expect for 8.40am on the last day of the con. It’s not too loud, but not at all quiet. Utensils scrape across plates and people are starting to talk about going home. I have also just spied one of the people I have met for the first time sitting down not far from me.
It ha been a good weekend for me. I have not attended nearly everything I wanted, but more than I have been able to in the last few years. I have had a glut of time with many people in my Vodou house and several opportunities for meeting new people and connecting further with some I have known for years. And so far, I have not heard of any major dust-ups. We will see what comes after the con is over.
Last night I went to my first seidh session since 2007. At first I was just going to observe with my Mami and some brothers in my house, since the males had never seen one before. Never that easy. I sat, witnessed the beginning of the ritual, sang songs (andd felt glad I remembered the words as much as I did), and felt my head opening up. It happens. Seidh will do that to you. What I did not expect was how right it felt to be there.
In the last few years I have been distancing myself from the Heathen community and Heathen practice, focusing my European “stuff” more on witchcraft done with the Aesir. And you all have seen or heard my talk about feeling like there is something missing. In fact, I had a reading yesterday in which I got to ask about that. It said that there was not anything I was actively doing in my practice right now which would forge that bridge.
Last night I figured out that the bridge I need is a rainbow. Not specifically with Heimdall, but remembering that Heathen connection. And I asked questions of Odin. It’s been a long time since I had that Eye so focused on me, and I told Him that as He looked at me from the high seat.
You get used to it.
And he gave me advice I have been trying to tell myself, as well as advice I give to anyone whose practice is not exclusive to one tradition.
Take it one thing at a time. To breathe. To find that place of calm. Do it just that one day. Then worryfigure out the next day when it becomes today.
He also said that anything I learn, He learns. And that does make a lot of sense on many levels.
I guess I am calling myself a Heathen again, along with everything else.
Hail Odin! Thank you!
