Pagan Problems: Flowing With The Seasons When You Don’t Have Them

 

It’s Lughnasadh. The corn (wheat) is being picked as people celebrate the first harvest of bounty. The Sun is hot over head but a cool breeze grazes and soothes hot skin.

It’s Samhain. The air is chilly and the roads echo with the scraping sound of dead leaves as they swirl in the cold winds. The scent of smoke and damp leaves remind you that the dead will soon be walking the very roads you walk.

It’s Yule. The snow falls heavy and blankets the land, reminding you to keep to your fires, your friends, and your kin close. To celebrate the light that will be returning, to celebrate the winter that let’s you take ease to replenish your energy.

Following the seasons, living with the ebb and flow of nature….that’s what we all dream of when we read pagan books about the sabbats and why we celebrate them, even down to what we eat and serve at rituals. We flow our life and our bodies to the rhythm of nature’s cycle.

Or so we’re told.

But for a lot of pagans, this following of the seasons isn’t possible. For people like me, there are no seasons. Not really.

Imagine that for a moment. No spring, no winter, no fall. Just perpetual heat scattered with a few weeks a year where it might turn cold, it might rain for a day, it might get a cool breeze.

I don’t have to eat seasonally because I live in a place where produce grows happily year round. I live in a place where it’s too hot–even in the winter–to eat heavy, wintry fair unless you’ve got a craving.

It can be very hard to ‘follow the seasons’ and ‘eat seasonally’ when you live with even temperatures and never ending food. It’s easy to get lost in what you should grow when, because it almost doesn’t matter.

I can grow tomatoes in December you guys.

And thanks to global warming, the temperatures here have only gotten warmer–have extended our growing seasons (which creates a whole other set of problem) –and makes our winters, falls, and springs even shorter than they already were.

So feeling the magical flow of the seasons is incredibly hard, and can make you feel (at least for me) disassociated from all those lovely prose in pagan books about changing leaves and quiet blankets of snow, and all the magical spells that come with that season.

How do you add snow to the ritual you’re trying to copy if you don’t live with/near snow?

I feel this is a problem pagan authors don’t always address. Perhaps because they’re lucky enough to live in regions where they have seasons!

But for us luckless souls who don’t really have them, here are my tips for dealing with rituals and holidays when your climate doesn’t fit the season:

1. Forgive yourself if you just don’t ‘feel’ it. The world won’t end and you won’t have eternal bad luck, and the gods won’t hate you for missing a holiday. If they did, you’d have been a lot worse off early in life don’t you think?

2. If you really do want to feel the season and be in tune with the cycles of the earth, then I strongly recommend gardening, or at least making a journal observing the weather every day. Boring? Maybe. But as you write it down you may also notice subtle changes happening that mark the turning of the seasons, and helps you connect with nature and feel the pull more. Regardless of the fact that I can grow things year round, during winter there are definitely plants of mine that slow down or stop producing for a bit around winter. Which is a fun reminder for me to slow down!

3. If you really want to east seasonally, you can. No one is saying you can’t eat lamb stew in December even if it’s 90 degrees outside. If you want to eat winter food during winter where it’s hot outside because it makes you feel closer to the season and the holiday you’re celebrating–go for it! Just don’t hate yourself for eating ‘spring time’ food in it’s place. It’s okay. You’re not gonna get smited by the gods.

4. If you’re blessed to live near nature that has seasons, go visit it. For instance, I live 2 hours away from snow. If I really wanted to, I could go up during Yule to celebrate with the season. I could also go to another state in the fall to see leaves change and camp out in nature for a few days and hold a ritual. It all depends on what you’re willing to do–and how far. If the farthest you want to go is a picture of snow that’s okay too! 

5. Meditate. No, seriously. Meditate on the season. Imagine the air and the smells and tastes that you associate with it. Visualize it. By doing so, you might be able to kick your body’s gear into syncing up to the seasons again!

I hope these tips have helped! I personally listen to my body. Some days I can really feel the seasons changing deep in me and other times I don’t. I’ve literally felt the wind blow on my face and I was slammed with the thought “Fall is here.” I didn’t know what day it was and I looked at my BOS. Low and behold, it was September 21st. Mabon. I hadn’t even realized! I’ve also completely not done rituals because I felt NOTHING (like this year with Lughnasadh/Lammas).

But at the end of the day, how you celebrate and what you chose to celebrate is up to you. Our world is a different world than the one our ancestors had–the weather is warmer, the seasons are out of wack. So give yourself some breathing room–It’s okay if you’re not perfectly in sync with the weather!

Blessed Be, Witchlings!

Updates, Magic, And More

 

Hello my witchlings! It’s been…Oh my gods it’s been practically a year since the last post! Well then! Um. I suppose I should update you all right? You care about that stuff right?

…….

I’m going to pretend you all nodded your heads excitedly.

This past year has been more crazy and busy than the year before it! My book that got picked up? That wasn’t the only one. Early this year another book of mine got picked up, and I’m in the process of being a writer for a comic, finishing another book, and preparing to deal with edits for my second book that got picked up!

I suppose now is a good time to mention that the most recent book that got picked up is also going to be pitched to studios for TV.

So perhaps you can see why I’ve been so busy and well, absent here on this blog.

Like I said last year, sometimes your religion has to take a back seat to life.

But not entirely.

Starting in January I finally started getting back into the swing of my craft. I started feeling magical again. Ready. I started it off with a tarot reading here, a candle magic spell there. And then came the Double Blue Moons and an extra strong New Moon. I knew I had to do a spell, something urged me to–and when your intuition knocks, you have to answer the door.

I found a website with a little but (as it turned out) powerful New Moon spell that was to be completed on the last double Full Moon. To say the spell worked would be an understatement. That spell is the reason so many good things are happening in my life.

Well, that and my hard work. But the gods heard my call, saw my focus and commitment and seriousness in which I was asking for their aid, and accepted it. They helped make the road easier for me. Suddenly things were happening–big things. Book deals, comic deals, all the deals!

But I had to learn to say yes–to not be afraid of my future or the work it would require.

Am I still afraid? Kinda.

But I know the gods wouldn’t have taken my commitment and helped remove roadblocks if they didn’t have confidence in me–and if I didn’t have it in myself.

My hardcore magical life has had to take a back seat thanks my normal one, but when I do spells and rituals now I do it with a confidence and assurance I hadn’t had before. I do them less, but they’re more powerful.

I’ve also felt the need to be in a pagan community–not just by myself anymore. Finding a good community can be hard even in the best of times, but here’s to hoping that I’ll be finding myself in the company lovely people again soon!

I hope you’ve all been well and are having as much luck as I have! I’ve been more active on my tumblr (oops) than I have here, but I’m going to try to remedy that! I’ll be posting things about Litha once a week leading up to the day that I do the ritual! I hope you all enjoy it, and thank you for being patient with me, I truly from the bottom of my heart, appreciate it!

Blessed Be!

Samhain and Sabbat Box

 

T’was the night before Samhain
and all through the house
The spirits were rising
ready to pounce…

      Samhain. All Souls Day. Dia de los muertos. Halloween. No matter which country you go to, this time of year has always been for the dead. A time to reap and thank the last of the crops and those you’ve stored, and a time to honor the ancestors as the veil drops and their voices are easier to be heard.

        It’s one of my favorite holidays–right up there with Beltane and Yule! There’s something to be said about honoring and remembering the past. About remembering where your blood, talents, and  even habits come from. For a brief time, if you’re lucky enough, you can have a chance to speak or see (in any capacity) a relative you never met but wanted to–or never even knew existed!

This Halloween (2017) falls the day after a New Moon. Some books may tell you not to do anything magical on a new moon as there’s no energy. Some will say you should sacrifice fresh blood. And others say you should just kick back with a martini and do whatever the hell you want because energy is energy and doesn’t need to follow no moon cycle thank-you-very-much!

Personally I find New Moons to be a perfect time for banishing. Banishing old energy, emptying the trash, organizing things and using your besom to sweep up annoying energies trying to collect in the corners of your house. Throw it all out to the void of the moon. This worked perfectly for me since I tend to lean to the Celtic side of tradition and Samhain is the New Year in Celtic days. So starting fresh is perfect! Plus, and I won’t lie, it means one less ritual like thing to do ON Samhain (I’m lazy, what can I say!?). And it’s perfect timing as well because it means I have a fresh slate to use my Sabbat Box order!

Now, if you haven’t heard of it, there’s a wonderful site called Sabbat Box. It’s a box that you can sign up for and they have different plans and prices (I would also like to note, they aren’t paying me for this, I’m writing about it of my own free will!). They’re a small company and so popular that I had to be a waiting list for 2 months before I got in! And I’ve loved EVERY BOX I’VE GOTTEN. I actually ended up using the incense in the box a day early to send up a protection ward on my house. The rest I’ll be using tomorrow when I do my Solitary Samhain Ritual.

I actually really look forward to opening the box because they include a phamplet with lots of info and ideas for the Sabbat of the month AND it smells nice!

And when you open it, it looks like this!

       Now they give you a lot of things, and in it they give you a lot of ideas on how to use the products they give you. If you’re a seasoned witch like me, you kind of have your own ideas. But they included something I never thought I’d see–let alone knew how to use–graveyard dust! Turns out you can use it to either a) call on the ancestors to be present or b)use it for protection. Lord knows this new house I moved into needs protection, I have an active portal in it! (Why am I constantly cursed with flipping portals?! WHY!?)

This package included not only graveyard dust, but Four Thieves Vinegar to put incredibly strong protective boundaries around the house (which I’m going to do, believe you me!), oil to call on your higher self to better hear those spirits and gods, incense, a protection poppet, and two skull candles which I’m going to light at my ancestor alter tomorrow! I’m SO excited!

      

      

     If you’re like me (and maybe you are) you might find yourself ‘alone’ for Samhain. No fun circle to go to, no coven that you’re a part of….and if you’re also like me and super extroverted–it sucks! But rather than roll over in my grave (get it? Get it!? ’cause it’s Halloween? Haha?) I’m determined to use it as a time of self reflection and to take time to really really focus on my intentions and the voices of the ancestors, spirits, gods, or whoever decides to pay me a visit!

I’ll be writing up a follow up of the ritual (and recipes!) and posting it up Wednesday. In the mean time I’ll leave you with a few ideas of what you can do Halloween night if you find yourself alone like me.

For Solitary witches who can freely practice:

-turn a tabletop into an altar for your ancestors by covering it with a black cloth and place their pictures (or pictures of beloved pets that crossed the veil) there. Light a tea light candle in front of each one to welcome them in.

-Do a ritual acknowledge the passing and death of the year

-Give yourself a tarot reading for the year to come

-Cleanse your house and put up new protective boundaries

For Solitary witches who have to hide their practice (If it has a * symbol, it means you can also do this as a witch who doesn’t have to hide):

-Clear a space on a table and put pictures up of your relatives you wish to join you (your family wont think you’re weird I promise!). If you CAN, light a tealight to welcome them.

-Carve a pumpkin*!

-When parents are asleep and if you have tarot cards (or runes, or ogahm), give yourself a reading for the coming year!

The Universe Is Calling

San Clemente Pier, one of the many beaches of my youth!

Yesterday was the day before the Summer Solstice and since all of my friends were busy on the actual day, I celebrated it on the 20th with them by going to one of the beautiful local beaches in Southern California (born and raised!). It was an interesting time, a fun time–and not as magical as I’d hoped it would be. Though it was pleasant and nice!

         After giving an offering to the sea (see above!) my friends and I fired up the BBQ and enjoyed the oh so traditional food of our people: Hotdogs. If you’re not eating a burger on the beach, it’s always a hot dog. Always. That’s how we can tell the natives from the tourists. And it always tastes better for some reason!

It was then the sun began to set, and one of my friends and I left our married friends to have a nice quiet moment together, as we went off to do some magic.

The Summer Solstice is about celebrating the warmth of the sun, of new beginnings and the changing of the seasons. And to cast aside the shadows that try to hold you down. Or perhaps to rejoice in the light that has shown so much in your life this year. Both my friend and I had felt tied down. Stuck. So we stood with our feet in the now warm waters and breathed in deeply the salty, humid air.

We let in the good and exhaled the un-needed. And then, on our and in our own time, we asked our own deities to take away from us the things that blocked us from acheveing our goals or holdings us back. Things that we were doing to ourselves and things that we couldn’t see. We asked the ocean, in all its infinite depth and kindness to take away those blocks with each wave that swept around our feet and dug them further into the sand.

Afterwards we compared notes. What did you see? What did you feel? We both saw and felt different things. I actually didn’t feel much when it came to my blocks being ‘swept away’. At least not at first. I heard a voice say in my head with a brisk business like tone, “this will take time.” After that I didn’t feel even an inkling of anything being lifted.

And then.

Quite suddenly when I was standing in my apartment doing nothing, I felt a pull. I literally felt water rushing around my feet and pulling. It was the weirdest sensation. But then I realized. The ocean was still working. It was still pulling blocks away from my path. And then another thought hit me. I had blocks in my home and it was removing them. I don’t question how the gods do what they do, or how energy does what it does. It just does.

Now, every time I stand on my feet I feel the water rushing around them and then pull away, and slowly, bit by bit, I’m feeling calmer. Lighter. And at one point I felt compelled to stare at the clock. The time read 2:22. Wondering why I felt compelled to look at the time, I went and looked up what it meant when you saw three 2’s. And this is what I found (sourced several places, and they all pretty much said the same thing)

“It signals a time of change on your path. It means a new beginning, a breath of fresh air. If you are seeing repeating numbers, consider yourself fortunate to have realized that you do. (…) if you have thought about quitting your job and are daydreaming about what you would really prefer to do instead, you will receive 222 as confirmation of the ideas you have align with your soul’s purpose in this lifetime.”

It’s a Mara caught in one of her natural habitats!

So I wish to thank the Powers That Be. Thank you for helping me, thank you for guiding me, and thank you for encouraging me time and again even when I want to give up on myself. Your patience astounds and humbles me. I only hope I can live up to my soul’s purpose, because it’s a doozy.

Happy Litha/Summer Solstice every one!

Thursday Meditation: Action!

Today I wasn’t able to do a real meditation as life took over! I didn’t even have time to recall what influences were today, so busy was I! But when I got home late this evening and looked it up in my BOS, low and behold, one of the influences of today was ‘desire’. And you know what? Without even trying I had actual put that in action–I even wore one of the colors associated with today! How’s that for magical!?

So today is about action. Have the intents you’ve put forth this week made an impact in your every day life? I know they have for me! For the first time in months I had the desire and the focus (oh universe, you’re so funny!) to sit down and start fixing and finishing the novel I’m working on. I didn’t even need to mediate apparently! Tomorrow I’ll definitely mediate–and send a little thank you and love to the powers that be upstairs!

Since I still had time, I burned some cinnamon on some charcoal and continued to write! Because I have to keep this desire up! Blessed be everyone!

Day: Thursday

Planet: Jupiter

Colors: blue, indigo, purple

Herbs/Oils: cinnamon, cinquefoil, musk, nutmeg, sage

Influences: health, honor, luck, riches, clothing, money, legal maters, desires

Meditation: None!

Wednesday Intent: Self Improvement

This morning as I was making tea I was thinking about what Intent to focus (ha!) on today. Skimming through my daily influences in my BOS the words that jumped out to me were ‘Self-Improvement’. As pagans–as people–we are always trying to better ourselves. But rather than looking yourself in the mirror and saying “there’s so much I need to improve though!” pick one thing. One thing today that you should work on. One thing you’d like to embrace about yourself.

Slight as it may be, the moon is in Waxing mode (meaning it’s getting bigger), so bringing in energy rather than banishing things, is the way to go! And changing something isn’t banishing! Today’s meditation isn’t exactly a ‘shut your eyes and be the next guru’ one. A Wednesday is also a good day for divination! So without further adieu, here is Wednesday Intent! Feel free to do this as well, or pick whatever you need in your life today!

Day: Wednesday

Planet: Mercury

Colors: Gray, iridescent, opal, violet, yellow

Herbs/Oils: Jasmine, Lavender

Influences: communication, teaching, reason, divination, skill, debt, fear, self improvement, loss

Intent: Self-Improvement.

After lighting a yellow candle and lavender incense I did my breathing exercise (you can find it the previous post), stared into the candle for a minute to get myself focused and the picked up my tarot cards. I put my Intent into asking the cards this simple question and doing a 1 card draw:

What do I need to improve about myself today?

Don’t go all crazy and try to do a 12 card spread about all the changes you need to make about yourself followed by an in depth analysis of past issues as to why you have them in the first place. That isn’t the point. Small changes every day equal to big changes later on, just like everything in life!

Litha is this weekend, so remember to laugh! Remember to embrace the sun and warmth and summer! Enjoy yourself, because gods know we’re gloomy about ourselves half the year anyway!